Beside the swift Borysthenes.
Such in appearance, and so mounted, were the horsemen who now approached. Their mode of accost was characteristic. Dick rode up straight till within a few paces of his employer, when he briskly dismounted, and stood erect, making the ordinary salute.
The effects of the week’s dissipation were plainly visible in the veteran’s countenance, gallant as were his efforts to combine intrepidity with the respectful demeanour of discipline. A bruise under one eye, with other discolorations, somewhat marred the effect of his steady gaze, while a tremulous muscular motion could not be concealed.
‘How is this, Evans?’ said his commander; ‘you have broken your leave, and put us to much inconvenience; what have you been doing with yourself all this time?’
‘Got drunk, Captain!’ replied the veteran, with military brevity, and another salute of regulation correctness.
‘I am sorry to hear it, Richard,’ said Mr. Effingham. ‘You appear to have had a skirmish also, and to have suffered in engagement. I daresay it will act as a caution to you for the future.’
‘Did me a deal of good—begging your honour’s pardon—though I didn’t ought to have promised to come back next day. I was that narvous at breakfast afore I went that I couldn’t scarce abear to hear the old woman’s voice. I’ll be as right as a Cheshire recruit till Christmas now. But I’ve done the outpost duty I was told off for, and brought Tom Glendinning. He’s willin’ to engage for ten shillin’ a week and his keep, and his milkin’s worth that any day.’
The individual addressed moved up his elderly steed, and touching his hat with a faint flavour of the gentleman’s servant habitude long past, fixed upon the group the gleaming eyes which surmounted his hollow cheek. The face itself was bronzed, well-nigh blackened out of all resemblance to that of a white man. Trousers of a kind of fustian, buttressed with leather under the knees and other places (apparently for resisting the friction involved by a life in the saddle), protected his attenuated limbs. The frame of the man was lean and shrunken. He had a worn and haggard look, as if labour, privation, and the indulgence of evil passions had wrecked the frail tenement of a soul. Yet was there a wiry look about the figure—a dauntless glitter in the keen eyes which told that their possessor could yet play a man’s part on earth before he went to his allotted place. A footsore dog with a rough coat and no particular tail had by this time limped up to the party and lay down under the horses’ feet.
‘Are you willing to engage with me on the terms mentioned by Richard Evans?’ asked Mr. Effingham. ‘You are acquainted with this place, I believe?’
‘I was here,’ answered the ancient stock-rider, ‘when the Colonel first got a grant of Warbrok from the Crown. A lot of us Government men was sent up with the overseer, Ben Grindham, to clear a paddock for corn, where all that horehound grows now. We had a row over the rations—he drove us like niggers, and starved us to boot (more by token, it’s little we had to ate)—and big Jim Baker knocked his head in with an axe, blast him! He was always a fool. I seen him carried to the old hut where you see them big stones—part of the chimney, they wor.’