"By the whiskers of the Grand Turk, I have got the four points on you, bully Buff! High, low, jack and the game!" exclaimed Peppercorn.
"You have luck enough to worry out the nine lives of a cat. That's an end to Backbiter, the best horse 'twixt Pedee and the Savannah. So, blast me, if I play any more with you! There, send the cards to hell!" roared out Hugh Habershaw, rising and throwing the pack into the fire.
It was just at the closing in of night, when a party of ruffianly-looking men were assembled beneath a spreading chestnut, that threw forth its aged arms over a small gravelly hillock, in the depths of the forest that skirted the northern bank of the Pacolet, within a short distance of Grindall's ford. The spot had all the qualities of a secret fastness. It was guarded on one side by the small river, and on the other by a complicated screen of underwood, consisting principally of those luxuriantly plaited vines which give so distinct a character to the southern woodland. The shrubbery, immediately along the bank of the river, was sufficiently open to enable a horseman to ride through it down to the road which, at about two hundred paces off, led into the ford.
The group who now occupied this spot consisted of some ten or twelve men under the command of Hugh Habershaw. Their appearance was half rustic and half military; some efforts at soldierly costume were visible in the decoration of an occasional buck-tail set in the caps of several of the party, and, here and there, a piece of yellow cloth forming a band for the hat. Some wore long and ungainly deer-skin pantaloons and moccasins of the same material; and two or three were indued with coats of coarse homespun, awkwardly garnished with the trimmings of a British uniform. All were armed, but in the same irregular fashion. There were rifles to be seen stacked against the trunk of the tree; most of the men wore swords, which were of different lengths and sizes; and some of the gang had a horseman's pistol bestowed conspicuously about their persons. Their horses were attached to the drooping ends of the boughs of the several trees that hemmed in the circle, and were ready for service at the first call. A small fire of brushwood had been kindled near the foot of the chestnut, and its blaze was sufficiently strong to throw a bright glare over the motley and ill-looking crew who were assembled near it. They might well have been taken for a bivouac of banditti of the most undisciplined and savage class. A small party were broiling venison at the fire: the greater number, however, were stretched out upon the ground in idleness, waiting for some expected summons to action. The two I have first noticed, were seated on the butt-end of a fallen trunk, immediately within the light of the fire, and were engaged with a pack of dirty cards, at the then popular game of "all fours."
These two personages were altogether different in exterior from each other. The first of them, known only by the sobriquet of Peppercorn, was a tall, well-proportioned and active man, neatly dressed in the uniform of a British dragoon. His countenance indicated more intelligence than belonged to his companions, and his manners had the flexible, bold, and careless port that generally distinguishes a man who has served much in the army, and become familiar with the varieties of character afforded by such a career. The second was Hugh Habershaw, the captain of the gang. He was a bluff, red-visaged, corpulent man, with a face of gross, unmitigated sensuality. A pale blood-shot eye, which was expressionless, except in a sinister glance, occasioned by a partial squint, a small upturned nose, a mouth with thin and compressed lips inclining downwards at the corners, a double chin, bristling with a wiry and almost white beard, a low forehead, a bald crown, and meagre, reddish whiskers, were the ill-favored traits of his physiognomy. The figure of this person was as uncouth as his countenance. He was rather below the middle height, and appeared still shorter by the stoop of his massive round shoulders, by the ample bulk of his chest, and by the rotundity of his corporation. In consideration of his rank, as the leader of this vagabond squadron, he aimed at more military ornament in his dress than his comrades. A greasy cocked hat, decorated after the fashion described by Grumio, "with the humor of forty fancies pricked in it for a feather," was perched somewhat superciliously upon his poll, and his body was invested in an old and much abused cloth coat of London brown, as it was then called, to the ample shoulders of which had been attached two long, narrow, and threadbare epaulets of tarnished silver lace. A broad buckskin belt was girded, by the help of a large brass buckle, around his middle, on the outside of his coat, and it served as well to suspend a rusty sabre, as to furnish support to a hunting knife, which was thrust into it in front. His nether person was rendered conspicuous by a pair of dingy small-clothes, and long black boots. Close at the feet of this redoubtable commander lay a fat, surly bull-dog, whose snarlish temper seemed to have been fostered and promoted by the peremptory perverseness with which his master claimed for him all the privileges and indulgencies of a pampered favorite.
Such were the unattractive exterior and circumstances of the man who assumed control over the band of ruffians now assembled.
"I wish you and the cards had been broiled on the devil's gridiron before I ever saw you!" continued Habershaw, after he had consigned the pack to the flames. "That such a noble beast as Backbiter should be whipped out of my hand by the turn of a rascally card! Hark'ee, you imp of Satan, you have the knack of winning! your luck, or something else—you understand me—something else, would win the shirt off my back if I was such a fool as to play longer with you. I suspect you are a light-fingered Jack—a light-fingered Jack—d'ye hear that, Master Peppercorn?"
"How now, Bully!" cried Peppercorn; "are you turning boy in your old days, that you must fall to whining because you have lost a turn at play? Is every man a rogue since you have set up the trade? For shame! If I were as hot a fool as you, I would give you steel in your guts. But come, noble Captain, there's my hand. This is no time for us to be catching quarrels; we have other business cut out. As to Backbiter, the rat-tailed and spavined bone-setter, curse me if I would have him as a gift: a noble beast! ha, ha, ha! Take him back, man, take him back! he wasn't worth the cards that won him."
"Silence, you tailor's bastard! Would you breed a mutiny in the camp? Look around you: do you expect me to preserve discipline amongst these wild wood-scourers, with your loud haw-haws to my very teeth? You make too free, Peppercorn; you make too free! It wouldn't take much to make me strike; damn me, there's fighting blood in me, and you know it. When I am at the head of my men, you must know your distance, sir. Suffice it, I don't approve of this familiarity to the commander of a squad. But it is no matter: I let it pass this time. And, hark in your ear, as you underrate Backbiter, you are a fool, Peppercorn, and know no more of the points of a good horse than you do of the ten commandments. Why, blast you, just to punish you, I'll hold you to the word of a gentleman, and take him back. Now there's an end of it, and let's have no more talking."