They had come up with the chief favourite of his barnyard, a fine deep-coloured Devon bull.
"I don't know what one might see in Devonshire," he remarked, presently, "but I know this county can't show the like of him?"
A discussion followed of the various beauties and excellencies of the animal; a discussion in which Mr. Carleton certainly took little part, while Mr. Ringgan descanted enthusiastically upon "hide" and "brisket" and "bone," and Rossitur stood in an abstraction it might be scornful, it might be mazed. Little Fleda quietly listening and looking at the beautiful creature, which from being such a treasure to her grandfather was in a sort one to her, more than half understood them all; but Mr. Ringgan was too well satisfied with the attention of one of his guests to miss that of the other.
"That fellow don't look as if he had ever known short commons," was Rossitur's single remark as they turned away.
"You did not give us the result of your foraging expedition,
Sir," said Mr. Carleton, in a different manner.
"Do, grandpa," said Fleda, softly.
"Ha! Oh, it is not worth telling," said the old gentleman, looking gratified; "Fleda has heard my stories till she knows them by heart she could tell it as well herself. What was it? about the pig? We had been out, several of us, one afternoon, to try to get up a supper or a dinner, for we had had none and we had caught a pig. It happened that I was the only one of the party that had a cloak, and so the pig was given to me to carry home, because I could hide it the best. Well, Sir! we were coming home, and had set our mouths for a prime supper, when just as we were within a few rods of our shanty, who should come along but our captain! My heart sank as it never has done at the thought of a supper before or since, I believe! I held my cloak together as well as I could, and kept myself back a little, so that if the pig showed a cloven foot behind me, the captain might not see it. But I almost gave up all for lost when I saw the captain going into the hut with us. There was a kind of a rude bedstead standing there; and I set myself down upon the side of it, and gently worked and eased my pig off under my cloak till I got him to roll down behind the bed. I knew," said Mr. Ringgan, laughing, "I knew by the captain's eye, as well as I knew anything, that he smelt a rat; but he kept our counsel, as well as his own; and when he was gone we took the pig out into the woods behind the shanty and roasted him finely, and we sent and asked Capt. Sears to supper; and he came and helped us eat the pig with a great deal of appetite, and never asked no questions how we came by him!"
"I wonder your stout-heartedness did not fail, in the course of so long a time," said Mr. Carleton
"Never, Sir!'" said the old gentleman. "I never doubted for a moment what the end would be. My father never doubted for a moment. We trusted in God and in Washington!"
"Did you see actual service yourself?"