“Well, have you bitted the poor fellow within,” said Mason, “that he can take his last ride under the curb of divinity, old gentleman?”
“There is evil in thy conversation, profane man,” cried the priest, raising his hands and casting his eyes upwards in holy horror; “so I will depart from thee unhurt, as Daniel was liberated from the lions’ den.”
“Off with you, for a hypocritical, psalm-singing, canting rogue in disguise,” said Mason scornfully. “By the life of Washington! it worries an honest fellow to see such voracious beasts of prey ravaging a country for which he sheds his blood. If I had you on a Virginia plantation for a quarter of an hour, I’d teach you to worm the tobacco with the turkeys.”
“I leave you, and shake the dust off my shoes, that no remnant of this wicked hole may tarnish the vestments of the godly.”
“Start, or I will shake the dust from your jacket, designing knave! A fellow to be preaching to my men! There’s Hollister put the devil in them by his exhorting; the rascals were getting too conscientious to strike a blow that would raze the skin. But hold! Whither do you travel, Master Blackey, in such godly company?”
“He goes,” said the minister, hastily speaking for his companion, “to return with a book of much condolence and virtue to the sinful youth above, whose soul will speedily become white, even as his outwards are black and unseemly. Would you deprive a dying man of the consolation of religion?”
“No, no, poor fellow, his fate is bad enough; a famous good breakfast his prim body of an aunt gave us. But harkee, Mr. Revelation, if the youth must die secundum arlem, let it be under a gentleman’s directions, and my advice is, that you never trust that skeleton of yours among us again, or I will take the skin off and leave you naked.”
“Out upon thee for a reviler and scoffer of goodness!” said Birch, moving slowly, and with a due observance of clerical dignity, down the road, followed by the imaginary Caesar. “But I leave thee, and that behind me that will prove thy condemnation, and take from thee a hearty and joyful deliverance.”
“Damn him,” muttered the trooper. “The fellow rides like a stake, and his legs stick out like the cocks of his hat. I wish I had him below these hills, where the law is not over-particular, I’d——”
“Corporal of the guard!—corporal of the guard!” shouted the sentinel in the passage to the chambers, “corporal of the guard!—corporal of the guard!”