"Kilt them just accidental,—they was witless folk that never knowed enough to keep out of his way when he was out after Mohuns. Asher he'd feel terrible about such as that."
To-night as I related more Trojan War, there were frequent interruptions from Nucky (who, during the stories, holds the place at my right hand always) such as, "I can beat that with Asher Hardwick!", "Blant wouldn't have took no such sass from Agamemnon or nobody!", and then would follow stories which did indeed sometimes beat Greeks and Trojans.
Later, he remarked, "If Hector and Achilles and them had a-lived now-a-days, they'd have got song-ballads made up about 'em, same as Asher and Blant. There's four or five about Asher—"
"I know one," interrupted Absalom.
"And there's one about Blant's revengement on the Cheevers when they laywayed him in April,—Basil Beaumont, over on Powderhorn, he made it."
"I know that, too," said Absalom.
"Achilles and Hector," I said, "did have song ballads made up about them, the very tales I am relating to you now; and a great blind poet, named Homer, went about singing them from palace to palace."
"Same as Basil Beaumont," said Nucky; "he don't never do a lick of work,—folks gives him his bed and vittles just to set in the chimley-corner and pick and sing song-ballads."
Geordie had left the room when Absalom spoke; he now returned with a small, homemade banjo—produced, I suppose, from the mysterious locked box he keeps there—and Absalom, tuning it, began to pick and sing an indescribably bloody and doleful song, "The Doom of the Mohuns," which fairly made my blood run cold. This finished, "Blant's Revengement" was demanded and sung, the words of it being as follows:
Blant Marrs he was a fighting boy,
Most handy with his gun.
On Trigger Branch of Powderhorn
His famous deeds were done.