“No, sir, my memory is more tenacious than that of any man I meet with. He, Colonel Clayton Nowell, sir, upon that fatal morning, was remonstrated with by the two—ah, yes, the two executors of his will—upon his rashness in riding forth to face those carnal, I mean to say, those incarnate devils, sir. ‘Are you fools enough,’ he replied, ‘to think that my fellows would hurt me? Give me a riding–whip, and be ready with plasters, for I shall thrash them before I let them come back.’ Now isnʼt every word of that true?”
“Yes, almost every word of it,” replied Rufus, now growing excited.
“Well, sir, he took his favourite half–bred—for he understood cross–breeding thoroughly—and he rode out at the side–gate, where the heap of sand was; ‘Coming back,’ he cried to the English sentry, ‘coming back in half an hour, with all my scamps along of me. Keep the coppers ready.’ And with that he spurred his brown and black mare; and no man saw him alive thereafter, except the fellows who shot him. Haw!”
“Yes,” said Rufus Hutton, “one man saw him alive, after they shot him in the throat, and one man saved his life; and he is the man before you.”
“What you, Dr. Hutton! What you! Oh, how grateful we ought to be to you.”
“Thank you. Well, I donʼt quite see that,” Rufus replied, most dryly. Then he corrected himself: “You know I only did my duty.”
“And his son?” inquired Georgie, timidly, and with sympathy, but the greatest presence of mind. She had stood with her hands clasped, and every emotion (except the impossible one of selfishness) quivering on her sweet countenance; and now she was so glad, oh, so glad, she could never tell you. “His poor illegitimate son, Dr. Hutton? Will he bring the poor child home with him? How glad we shall be to receive him!”
“The child he brings with him is Eoa, dear natural odd Eoa, his legitimate daughter.”
“Then you know her, Dr. Hutton; you could depose to her identity?”
A very odd question; but some women have almost the gift of prophecy.