“Had he a pack and an axe?”
“No, sir, only he rifle.”
“Rifle!” exclaimed Richard, observing the confusion of the negro, which now amounted to terror. “By Jove, he killed the deer! I knew that Marmaduke couldn't kill a buck on the jump—how was it, Aggy? Tell me all about it, and I'll roast 'Duke quicker than he can roast his saddle—how was it, Aggy? the lad shot the buck, and the Judge bought it, ha! and he is taking the youth down to get the pay?”
The pleasure of this discovery had put Richard in such a good humor, that the negro's fears in some measure vanished, and he remembered the stocking of Santa Claus. After a gulp or two, he made out to reply;
“You forgit a two shot, sir?”
“Don't lie, you black rascal!” cried Richard, stepping on the snow-bank to measure the distance from his lash to the negro's back; “speak truth, or I trounce you.” While speaking, the stock was slowly rising in Richard's right hand, and the lash drawing through his left, in the scientific manner with which drummers apply the cat; and Agamemnon, after turning each side of himself toward his master, and finding both equally unwilling to remain there, fairly gave in. In a very few words he made his master acquainted with the truth, at the same time earnestly conjuring Richard to protect him from the displeasure of the lodge “I'll do it, boy, I'll do it,” cried the other, rubbing his hands with delight; “say nothing, but leave me to manage Duke. I have a great mind to leave the deer on the hill, and to make the fellow send for his own carcass; but no, I will let Marmaduke tell a few bounces about it before I come out upon him. Come, hurry in, Aggy, I must help to dress the lad's wound; this Yankee* doctor knows nothing of surgery—I had to hold out Milligan's leg for him, while he cut it off.”
* In America the term Yankee is of local meaning. It is thought to be
derived from the manner in which the Indians of New England pronounced
the word “English,” or “Yengeese.” New York being originally a Dutch
province, the term of course was not known there, and Farther south
different dialects among the natives themselves probably produced a
different pronunciation Marmaduke and his cousin, being Pennsylvanians
by birth, were not Yankees in the American sense of the word.
Richard was now seated on the stool again, and, the black taking the hind seat, the steeds were put in motion toward home, As they dashed down the hill on a fast trot, the driver occasionally turned his face to Aggy, and continued speaking; for, notwithstanding their recent rupture, the most perfect cordiality was again existing between them, “This goes to prove that I turned the horses with the reins, for no man who is shot in the right shoulder can have strength enough to bring round such obstinate devils. I knew I did it from the first; but I did not want to multiply words with Marmaduke about it.—Will you bite, you villain?—hip, boys, hip! Old Natty, too, that is the best of it!—Well, well—'Duke will say no more about my deer—and the Judge fired both barrels, and hit nothing but a poor lad who was behind a pine-tree. I must help that quack to take out the buckshot for the poor fellow.” In this manner Richard descended the mountain; the bells ringing, and his tongue going, until they entered the village, when the whole attention of the driver was devoted to a display of his horsemanship, to the admiration of all the gaping women and children who thronged the windows to witness the arrival of their landlord and his daughter.