He settled himself in his chair, mumbling in a rumbling voice, and all I could make out was here and there a curse or two distributed impartially 'twixt Tory and rebel and other asses now untethered in the world.
"Well, sir," I said, "from all I can gather, Burgoyne is marching southward through the lakes, and Clinton is gathering an army in New York to march north and meet Burgoyne, and now comes this Barry St. Leger on the flank, aiming to join the others at Albany after taking Stanwix and Johnstown on the march--three spears to pierce a common centre, three torches to fire three valleys, and you neutral Tryon men in the centre, calm, undismayed, smoking your pipes and singing songs of peace and good-will for all on earth."
"And why not, sir!" he snapped.
"Did you ever hear of Juggernaut?"
"I've heard the name--a Frenchman, was he not? I think he burned Schenectady."
"No, sir; he is a heathen god."
"And what the devil, sir, has Tryon County to do with heathen gods!" he bawled.
"You shall see--when the wheels pass," I said, gloomily.
He folded his fat hands over his stomach and smoked in obstinate silence. I, too, was silent; again a faint disgust for this man seized me. How noble and unselfish now appeared the conduct of those poor tenants of his who had abandoned their little farms to answer Schuyler's call!--trudging northward with wives and babes, trusting to God for bread to fall like manna in this wilderness to save the frail lives of their loved ones, while they faced the trained troops of Great Britain, and perhaps the Iroquois.
And here he sat, the patroon, sucking his pipe, nursing his stomach; too cautious, too thrifty to stand like a man, even for the honor of his own roof-tree! Lord! how mean, how sordid did he look to me, sulking there, his mottled double-chin crowded out upon his stock, his bow-legs wide to cradle the huge belly, his small eyes obstinately a-squint and partly shut, which lent a gross shrewdness to the expanse of fat, almost baleful, like the eye of a squid in its shapeless, jellied body!