They did so, gradually slackening their pace, and allowing the stream of fugitives to roll past them, till at last being, so far as they could see, alone, they sat down under a tree to take breath.
For a moment they looked at one another in silence. Then Ephraim said with a good deal of emotion in his voice: ‘I am the most or’nery fool in a town whar there’s a good few er the sort. I thort ter let ye hev a piece er funnin’, and now I’ve nearly been the death er ye twice, and gracious knows what’ll happen yit before we git through with this one-horse adventure.’
‘I don’t call it a one-horse adventure,’ replied Lucius. ‘A whole team would be more like it. I imagine this is what you might call a pretty crowded day. Eh, Grizzly?’
‘Waal, I ’low it is so fur,’ admitted Ephraim with the ghost of a smile. ‘Same time, I dunno what I’d hev done ter myself ef ennythin’ had gone wrong with ye in thet rumpus jest now. I’d never hev got over it or fergiv myself. By time! ter see them two pore men go down like thet alongside us all in a moment. It might jest ez well hev been you.’ He blew his nose loudly, and furtively knuckled his eyes.
‘But it wasn’t, you see,’ returned Lucius cheerfully. ‘A miss is as good as a mile, Grizzly. And I wish you wouldn’t blame yourself, for I came with you of my own free will.’
‘Ye didn’t bargain fer all this, though,’ said Ephraim mournfully. ‘Ye didn’t ’magine ye were ter be stuck up ez a target fer our own boys.—By gracious!’ he added with animation, forgetting his troubles in the glorious recollection, ‘didn’t they give the Yanks howdy in fine style? See ’em comin’ across thet bridge! Didn’t they jest nat’ally tear along?’
‘They did,’ answered Lucius with glistening eyes. ‘It was splendid.—So we’ve seen a battle after all,’ he went on, with a low laugh of satisfaction.
‘Ah!’ replied Ephraim. ‘And ye warn’t sittin’ on the ring fence nuther.’
‘No,’ chuckled Lucius, ‘and thet bull er Holmes’s is powerful servigerous.’ He laughed out again.
‘Garn away! What air ye givin’ me?’ said Ephraim. ‘But I ’low, Luce, ter see ye standin’ thar in the ranks like a bit er rock, it war marvellious.’