CHAPTER XXI.
"Now if you ask who gave the stroke
I cannot tell, so mote I thrive;
It was not given by man alive."—Lay of the last Minstrel.
It was a little before daybreak on Sunday morning, the fifteenth of August (a day rendered memorable by the exploit of Sumpter, who captured, in the vicinity of Rocky Mount, a large quantity of military stores, and a numerous escort, then on their way from Ninety-Six to Camden), that James Curry was travelling in the neighborhood of the Ennoree, some four miles distant from Musgrove's mill. He had a few hours before left the garrison of Ninety-Six, and was now hieing with all haste to Blackstock's on a mission of importance. The night had been sultry, but the approach of the dawn had brought with it that refreshing coolness which is always to be remarked in the half hour that precedes the first blush of morning. The dragoon had had a weary night-ride, but the recent change of temperature had invigorated his system and given buoyancy to his spirits. This effect was exhibited in his first whistling a tune, then humming the words of a ditty, and, finally, in breaking forth into a loud full song, which, as he had a good voice and practised skill, increased in loudness as he became better pleased with the trial of his powers. The song was occasionally intermitted to give room to certain self-communings which the pastime suggested.
"You may take it for sooth, that wit without gold,"
he sang in the loudest strain, trying the words on different keys, and introducing some variations in the tune—
"Will make a bad market whenever 'tis sold."
"That's true; your poor moneyless devil, how should his wit pass current? He was a shrewd fellow that wrote it down. Your rich man for wit, all the world over, and so the song runs:—
"'But all over the world it is well understood
That the joke of a rich man is sure to be good.'
"True, true as gospel! Give the knaves dinners, plenty of Burgundy and Port, and what signifies an empty head? Go to college, and how is it there? What is a sizer's joke? If the fellow have the wit of Diogenes, it is sheer impertinence. But let my young lord Crœsus come out with his flatulent nonsense, oh, that's the true ware for the market! James Curry, James Curry, what ought you to have been, if the supple jade fortune had done your deserts justice! Instead of a d——d dodging dragoon, obedient to the beck of every puppy who wears his majesty's epaulets; but it's no matter, that's past; the wheel has made its turn, and here I am, doing the work of the scullion, that ought to sit above the salt-cellar. Vogue la galére! We will play out the play. Meantime, I'll be merry in spite of the horoscope: come then, I like these words and the jolly knave, whoever he was, that penned them.