"Yes, massa, be sure!"
Then turning to Macdonald, he went on: "Well, Mr. Sergeant, you have made me confounded glad this morning, you may depend. And now suppose you take a glass of peach; of good old peach, Mr. Sergeant? do you think it would do you any harm?"
"Why, they say it is good of a rainy morning, sir," replied Macdonald.
"O yes, famous of a rainy morning, Mr. Sergeant! a mighty antifogmatic. It prevents you the ague, Mr. Sergeant; and clears a man's throat of the cobwebs, sir."
"God bless your honor!" said Macdonald, as he turned off a bumper of the high-beaded cordial.
But scarcely had he smacked his lips, before Dick paraded Selim; a proud, full-blooded, stately steed, that stepped as though he disdained the earth he walked upon.
Here the old fellow brightening up, broke out again: "Aye! there,
Mr. Sergeant, there is a horse for you! isn't he, my boy?"
"Faith, a noble animal, sir," replied Macdonald.
"Yes, egad! a noble animal indeed! — a charger for a king, Mr. Sergeant! — Well, my compliments to colonel Tarleton: tell him I've sent him a horse, my young Selim, my grand Turk, do you hear, my son of thunder? And say to the colonel that I don't grudge him neither, for egad! he's too noble for me, Mr. Sergeant. I've no work that's fit for him, sir; no! damme, sir, if there's any work in all this country that's good enough for him, but just that which he is now going on; the driving the d——d rebels out of the land."
And in order to send Selim off in high style, he ordered Dick to bring down his elegant new saddle and holsters, with his silver-mounted pistols. Then giving Macdonald a hot breakfast, and lending him his great coat, as it was raining, he let him go, with a promise that he would come next morning and see how colonel Tarleton liked young Selim.