"The sooner we get out of it the better. You're bound straight for home, I suppose?"
"Straight."
The emphasis on the "you're," with a look cast toward me, was evidently meant to draw out a different answer; while in the glance, quick and furtive as it was, I could read in Nat Bradley's mind a sentiment hostile to myself.
"Well!" he exclaimed, turning to conceal his dissatisfaction, "I'm off, Woodley. Hope to see you some day in Mississippi. Good-by!"
And with another sullen side-look at me, which I did not fail to return, Nat Bradley struck the spur into his sweating horse, and went clattering off along the turnpike toward Nashville.
CHAPTER IV.
A QUEER CHARACTER.
The impression produced upon me by this encounter was far from agreeable. It was, in truth, of the very opposite character. There was something in the style of the man we had met—both in his speech and demeanor—that provoked a feeling of indignation, as almost necessary to self-respect; and I had felt this from the moment of meeting him. Though neither word nor nod had passed between us, there was that in his regard which told me of an instinctive antagonism in our natures, and that he also felt it as I. I could see that he was what, in the Southern States, is termed a "bully." Its broad arrow was upon him—unmistakably impressed on his countenance, as well as in the way in which he carried himself. There was a swagger that seemed intended to conceal the award. For all that, there was something in the rounded stoop of his shoulders, and the short, thick neck, that bespoke a courage sufficient for crime, and it did not require the butt of a pistol, protruding from his breast pocket, nor the hilt of a bowie-knife, shining among his shirt-ruffles, to tell that he was ready to use either weapon upon slight provocation, or perhaps without any at all.
It was the sight of these ugly insignia, carried so ostentatiously, that had produced my first feeling of aversion—soon strengthened, however, by the bantering tone in which he talked to my young companion, who appeared to treat him with more civility than he deserved.