(From Horse-Shoe Robinson, a Tale of the Tory Ascendancy in S. C.[11])
[Mistress Ramsay speaking to Horse-Shoe Robinson:]
“Who should come in this morning, just after my husband had cleverly got away on his horse, but a young cock-a-whoop ensign, that belongs to Ninety-Six, and four great Scotchmen with him, all in red coats; they had been out thieving, I warrant, and were now going home again. And who but they! Here they were, swaggering all about my house—and calling for this—and calling for that—as if they owned the fee-simple of every thing on the plantation. And it made my blood rise, Mr. Horse-Shoe, to see them run out in the yard, and catch up my chickens and ducks, and kill as many as they could string about them—and I not daring to say a word: though I did give them a piece of my mind, too.”
“Who is at home with you?” inquired the sergeant eagerly.
“Nobody but my youngest boy, Andrew,” answered the dame. “And then, the filthy, toping rioters—” she continued, exalting her voice.
“What arms have you in the house?” asked Robinson, without heeding the dame’s rising anger.
“We have a rifle, and a horseman’s pistol that belongs to John.—They must call for drink, too, and turn my house, of a Sunday morning, into a tavern.”
State House, Columbia, S. C.