"We don't want to know whar you war yesterday; we want to know whar you belong," he said, with a little impatience.
"Oh! that's it. Well, sir, I belong here just at present, or rather I shall, when I have paid the landlady for my dinner."
Annoyed by my coolness, and getting somewhat excited, he replied quickly: "You mustn't trifle with us, sir. We know you. You're from the North. We've seen it on your valise, and we can't allow a man who carries the New York Independent to travel in South Carolina."
The scoundrels had either broken into my portmanteau, or else a copy of that paper had dropped from it on to the floor of the wagon when I gave the book to Scipio. At any rate, they had seen it, and it was evident "Brother Beecher" was getting me into a scrape. I felt indignant at the impudence of the fellow, but determined to keep cool, and, a little sarcastically, replied to the latter part of his remark:
"That's a pity, sir. South Carolina will lose by it."
"This game wont work, sir. We don't want such people as you har, and the sooner you make tracks the better."
"I intend to leave, sir, as soon as the rain is over, and shall travel thirty miles on your sandy roads to-day, if you don't coax me to stay here by your hospitality," I quietly replied.
The last remark was just the one drop needed to make his wrath "bile over," and he savagely exclaimed: "I tell you, sir, we will not be trifled with. You must be off to Georgetown at once. You can have just half an hour to leave the Boro', not a second more."
His tone and manner aroused what little combativeness there is in me. Rising from my chair, and taking up my outside-coat, in which was one of Colt's six-shooters, I said to him: "Sir, I am here, a peaceable man, on peaceable, private business. I have started to go up the country, and go there I shall; and I shall leave this place at my convenience—not before. I have endured your impertinence long enough, and shall have no more of it. If you attempt to interfere with my movements, you will do so at your peril."
My blood was up, and I was fast losing that better part of valor called discretion; and he evidently understood my movement, and did not dislike the turn affairs were taking. There is no telling what might have followed had not Scip just at that instant inserted his woolly head between us, excitedly exclaiming: "Lord bless you, Massa B——ll; what am you 'bout? Why, dis gemman am a 'ticlar friend of Cunnel A——. He'm a reg'lar sesherner. He hates de ablisherners worser dan de debble. I hard him swar a clar, blue streak 'bout dem only yesterday."