"You had good spirits, though, sergeant."
"If you mean rum or brandy, major, we hadn't much of that;—but if you mean jokes and laughs, it must be hard times that will stop them in camp.—I'll tell you one of them, that made a great hurra on both sides, where we got the better of a Scotch regiment that was plaguing us from outside the town. They thought they would make themselves merry with our starvation—so, they throwed a bomb shell into our lines, that, as it came along through the air, we saw had some devilment in it, from the streak it made in daylight; and, sure enough, when we come to look at it on the ground, we found it filled with rice and molasses—just to show that these Scotchmen were laughing at us for having nothing to eat. Well, what do we do but fill another shell with brimstone and hogslard, and just drop it handsomely amongst the lads from the land o'cakes? Gad, sir, it soon got to the hearing of the English regiment, and such a shouting as they sot up from their lines against the Scotchmen! That's what I call giving as good as they saunt, major—ha ha ha!"
"It wasn't a bad repartee, Galbraith," said Butler, joining in the laugh. "But go on with your siege."
"We got taken, at last," proceeded Horse Shoe, "and surrendered on the 12th of May. Do you know that they condescended to let us go through the motions of marching outside the lines? Still it was a sorry day to see our colors tied as fast to their sticks as if a stocking had been drawn over them. After that, we were marched to the barracks and put into close confinement."
"Yes, I have heard that; and with heavy hearts—and a dreary prospect before you, sergeant."
"I shouldn't have minded it much, Major Butler, it was the fortune of war. But they insulted us as soon as they got our arms from us. It was a blasted cowardly trick in them to endeavor to wean us from our cause, which they tried every day; it was seduction, I may say. First, they told us that Colonel Pinckney and some other officers had gone over; but that was too onprobable a piece of rascality,—we didn't believe one word on't. So, one morning Colonel Pinckney axed that we mought be drawed up in a line in front of the barracks; and there he made us a speech. We were as silent as so many men on a surprise party. The colonel said—yes, sir, and right in their very teeth—that it was an infamious, audacious calamy: that whenever he desarted the cause of liberty, he hoped they would take him, as they had done some Roman officer or other—I think one Officious, as I understood the colonel—you've hearn of him, may be—and tie his limbs to wild horses, and set them adrift, at full speed, taking all his joints apart, so that not one traitorious limb should be left to keep company with another. It was a mighty severe punishment, whoever he mought'a been. The British officers began to frown—and I saw one chap put his hand upon his sword. It would have done you good to witness the look the colonel gave him, as he put his own hand to his thigh to feel if his sword was there—he so naturally forgot he was a prisoner. They made him stop speaking howsever, because they gave out that it was perditious language; and so, they dismissed us—but we let them have three cheers to show that we were in heart."
"It was like Pinckney," said Butler; "I'll warrant him a true man, Galbraith."
"I'll thribble that warrant," replied Galbraith, "and afterwards make it nine. I wish you could have hearn him. I always thought a bugle horn the best music in the world, till that day. But that day Colonel Charles Cotesworth Pinckney's voice was sweeter than shawns and trumpets, as the preacher says, and bugles to boot. I have hearn people tell of speeches working like a fiddle on a man's nerves, major: but, for my part, I think they sometimes work like a battery of field-pieces, or a whole regimental band on a parade day. Howsever, I was going on to tell you, Colonel Pinckney put a stop to all this parleying with our poor fellows; and knowing, major, that you was likely to be coming this way, he axed me if I thought I could give the guard the slip, and make off with a letter to meet you. Well, I studied over the thing for a while, and then told him a neck was but a neck any how, and that I could try; and so, when his letter was ready, he gave it to me, telling me to hide it so that, if I was sarched, it couldn't be found on my person. Do you see that foot?" added Horse Shoe, smiling, "it isn't so small but that I could put a letter between the inside sole and the out, longways, or even crossways, for the matter of that, and that, without so much as turning down a corner. Correspondent and accordingly I stitched it in. The colonel then told me to watch my chance and make off to you in the Jarseys, as fast as I could. He told me, besides, that I was to stay with you, because you was likely to have business for me to do."
"That's true, good sergeant."
"There came on a darkish, drizzly evening; and a little before roll call, at sun set, I borrowed an old forage cloak from Corporal Green—you mought have remembered him—and out I went towards the lines, and sauntered along the edge of the town, till I came to one of your pipe-smoking, gin-drinking Hessians, keeping sentry near the road that leads out towards Ashley ferry:—a fellow that had no more watch in him—bless your soul!—as these Dutchmen hav'n't—than a duck on a rainy day. So, said I, coming up boldly to him, 'Hans, wie gehet es'—'Geh zum Teufel,' says he, laughing—for he knowed me. That was all the Dutch I could speak, except I was able to say it was going to rain, so I told him—'Es will regnen'—which he knowed as well as I did, for it was raining all the time. I had a little more palaver with Hans, and, at last, he got up on his feet and set to walking up and down. By this time the drums beat for evening quarters, and I bid Hans good night; but, instead of going away, I squatted behind the Dutchman's sentry box;—and, presently, the rain came down by the bucket full; it got very dark and Hans was snug under cover. The grand rounds was coming; I could hear the tramp of feet, and as no time was to be lost, I made a long step and a short story of it, by just slipping over the lines and setting out to seek my fortune."