Then turning to the sergeant he went on:
"Well, Mr. Sergeant, you have made me confounded glad this morning, you may depend. And now suppose you take a glass of peach; of good old peach, Mr. Sergeant? do you think it would do you any harm?"
"Why, they say it is good of a rainy morning, sir," replied the sergeant.
"O yes, famous of a rainy morning, Mr. Sergeant! a mighty antifogmatic. It prevents you the ague, Mr. Sergeant; and clears a man's throat of the cobwebs, sir."
"God bless your honor!" said the sergeant as he turned off a bumper.
Scarcely had this conversation passed when Dick paraded Selim; a proud, full-blooded, stately steed, that stepped as though he were too lofty to walk upon the earth. Here the old man brightening up, broke out again:
"Aye! there, Mr. Sergeant, there is a horse for you! isn't he, my boy?"
"Faith, a noble animal, sir," replied the sergeant.
"Yes, egad! a noble animal indeed; a charger for a king, Mr. Sergeant! Well, my compliments to Colonel Tarleton; tell him I've sent him a horse, my young Selim, my grand Turk, do you hear, my son of thunder? And say to the colonel that I don't grudge him either, for egad! he's too noble for me, Mr. Sergeant. I've no work that's fit for him, sir; no sir, if there's any work in all this country that's good enough for him but just that which he is now going on; the driving the rebels out of the land."
He had Selim caparisoned with his elegant new saddle and holsters, with his silver-mounted pistols. Then giving Sergeant Macdonald a warm breakfast, and loaning him his great coat, he sent him off, with the promise that he would, the next morning, come and see how Colonel Tarleton was pleased with Selim. Accordingly he waited on the English colonel, told him his name with a smiling countenance; but, to his mortification received no special notice. After partially recovering from his embarrassment he asked Colonel Tarleton how he liked his charger.