"Twelve shillings and nine pence," were the first words which became audible to Butler in the depth of his revery. "That, major," said the sergeant, who had been rummaging his pocket, and counting over a handful of coin, "is exactly the amount I have spent since this time last night. I paid it to the old lady of the Swan at Charlottesville, taking a sixpence for mending your bridle rein. Since you must make me paymaster for our march, I am obliged to square accounts every night. My noddle wont hold two days reckoning. It gets scrimped and flustered with so many numberings, that I lose the count clean out."
"It is of little consequence, Galbraith," replied Butler, seeking to avoid his companion's interruption.
"Squaring up, and smoothing off, and bringing out this and that shilling straight to a penny, don't come natural to me," continued Robinson, too intent upon his reckoning to observe the disinclination of Butler to a parley, "money matters are not in my line. I take to them as disunderstandingly as Gill Bentley did to the company's books, when they made him Orderly on the Waccamaw picquet. For Gill, in the first place, couldn't write, and, in the next place, if he could'a done that, he never larnt to read, so you may suppose what a beautiful puzzleification he had of it to keep the guard roster straight."
"Sergeant, look if yonder boat is loose; I shall want it presently," said Butler, still giving no ear to his comrade's gossip.
"It is tied by an easy knot to the root of the tree," said Robinson, as he returned from the examination.
"Thank you," added Butler with more than usual abstractedness.
"Something, major, seems to press upon your spirits to-night," said the sergeant, in the kindest tones of inquiry. "If I could lend a hand to put any thing, that mought happen to have got crooked, into its right place again, you know, Major Butler, I wouldn't be slow to do it, when you say the word."
"I would trust my life to you, Galbraith, sooner than to any man living," replied the other, with an affectionate emphasis:—"But you mistake me, I am not heavy at heart, though a little anxious, sergeant, at what has brought me here, comrade," he added as he approached the sergeant, upon whose broad shoulder he familiarly laid his hand, with a smile; "you will keep a fellow soldier's counsel?"
"As I keep my heart in my body," interrupted Galbraith.
"I am sure of it; even as you keep your faith to your country my true and worthy brother," added Butler with animation, "and that is with no less honesty than a good man serves his God. Then, Galbraith, bear it in mind, I have come here for the sake of a short meeting with one that I love, as you would have a good soldier love the lady of his soul. You will hereafter speak of nothing that may fall within your notice. It concerns me deeply that this meeting should be secret."