"Ha, you are at that! Now, my lubberly booby, I understand you," returned the other, springing to his feet. "Do you know to whom you are speaking?"
"Better than you think for," replied the sergeant, placing himself in an erect position to receive what he had a right to expect, the threatened assault of his adversary, "I know you, and guess your arrand here."
"You do?" returned the other sharply. "You have been juggling with me, sir. You are not the gudgeon I took you for. It has suited your purpose to play the clown, eh? Well, sir, and pray, what do you guess?"
"Nothing good of you, considering how things go here. Suppose I was to say you was, at this self-same identical time, a sodger of the king's? I have you there!"
The stranger turned on his heel and retreated a few paces, evidently perplexed at the new view in which the sergeant suddenly rose to his apprehension. His curiosity and his interest were both excited to gain a more distinct insight into a man whom he had mistaken for a mere simpleton, but whose hints showed him to be shrewdly conversant with the personal concerns of one, whom, apparently, he had seen to-night for the first time in his life. With this anxiety upon his mind, he again approached the sergeant, as he replied to the last question.
"Well, and if I were? It is a character of which I should have no reason to be ashamed."
"That's well said!" exclaimed Horse Shoe. "Up and speak out, and never be above owning the truth; that's the best sign that can be of a man. Although it mought be somewhat dangerous, just hereabouts, to confess yourself a sodger of King George—let me tell you, that, being against you, I am not the person to mislest you on that head, by spreading the news abroad, or setting a few dozen of whigs upon your scent, which is a thing easily done. If your business here is peaceable and lawful, and you don't let your tongue brawl against quiet and orderly people, you are free to come and go for me."
"Thank you, sir: but look you; it isn't my way to answer questions about my own business, and I scorn to ask any man's leave to come and go where and when my occasions call me."
"If it isn't your way to answer questions about your own business," replied Horse Shoe, "it oughtn't to be your way to ax them about other people's; but that don't disturb me; it is the rule of the war to question all comers and goers that we happen to fall in with, specially now, when there's a set of your devils scampering and raging about in Carolina, hardly a summer day's ride off this province, burning houses and killing cattle, and turning everything topsy-turvy, with a pack of rascally tories to back them. In such times all sorts of tricks are played, such as putting on coats that don't belong to a man, and deceiving honest people by lies, and what not."
"You are a stranger to me," said the other; "but let me tell you, without circumlocution or periphrase, I am a free born subject of the king, and I see no reason why, because some of his people have turned rebels a true man, who travels his highway, should be obliged to give an account of himself to every inquisitive fellow who chooses to challenge it. Suppose I tell you that you meddle with matters that don't concern you?"