"Why, at Snicker's Gap (heard o' Snicker's Gap, Mr. Townsend?) that lad, who was commandin' Stuart's horse-artillery, charged on a squadron of cavalry that had been botherin' him with its sharp-shooters, and, with a gun that they'd dragged by hand through the undergrowth, fired a double charge of canister into their reserves. Then, suh, he charged agin,—a reg'lar thunderbolt that sally was,—picked up sev'ral prisoners an' horses, an', limberin' up his gun like wild-fire, hurried back to his first position, his men shoutin' for him all the while."
"Those were stirring days for you, Claggett," said Townsend, whose blood began to answer to the man's enthusiasm.
"Yes, Mr. Townsend, they were so; but you mustn't let me impose on you with my war stories. My present wife, suh,—a young lady I courted in King William, about the age of my oldest daughter,—she won't have me open my mouth 'bout war stories at our house. Says I tire everybody out with my old chestnuts, suh; an' perhaps I do. The ladies like to do a good deal of the talkin' themselves, I've noticed, Mr. Townsend."
With a subdued sigh, Claggett subsided into silence, but not for long. The names of Stuart and Mosby and their officers were ever upon his lips, interspersed with anecdote and gossip concerning the country people whose dwellings were only occasionally seen from the road. Here and there, in the distance, chimneys behind clumps of trees were pointed out as belonging to old inhabitants who had held on to their homes through storm and stress of ill-fortune since the war.
"Since you are from the Nawth, I would like to tell you, suh, that nobody who is anybody among our gentry ever lived in a village. They lived to themselves, suh, an' the further away from each other the better. If you had the time, suh, an' were acquainted with the families, I could show you some places that would surprise you. An' the ladies an' gentlemen, Mr. Townsend, of our best old stock are as fine people as any on God's earth, I reckon. Pity you ain't acquainted, as I said. It would give me pleasure to take you inside some of the gates of our foremost residents."
Vance noted with amusement that Claggett did not assume to be on a social plane with the people he extolled, but had accepted the tradition of their superiority as part of the Virginian creed. Laughing, he joined in the honest fellow's regret at his ineligibility to take rank as a guest in the neighborhood.
"Though it seems to me, Claggett, now that I think of it, I have a kinsman somewhere hereabout. Do you know anything of a family of Carlyles—Colonel Carlyle, I believe they call him?"
Claggett's manner underwent instant transformation.
"Colonel Guy Carlyle, of the Hall, suh?" he exclaimed, eagerly. "That's in the next county, a matter of twenty or thirty miles from here. I had the luck to serve under the Colonel, Mr. Townsend, and he'd know me if you spoke my name. You'll be goin' that way, suh? We'll strike north from Glenwood, and get there by supper-time."
"Hold on, Claggett, you'll be pouring out my coffee and asking me to take more of the Colonel's waffles, presently. Colonel Carlyle married my mother's cousin, but I fancy would not recognize my name as quickly as yours. I have certainly no grounds for venturing to offer myself as an inmate of his house."