“‘I say, my man,’ said M’Clure, ‘you had better keep a civil tongue in your head.’
“‘Ask me no questions, then,’ said the countryman, ‘and I’ll tell you no lies; but if you think to run a rig on me, you have made a mistake in the child, and barked up the wrong tree, that’s all. P’raps I ain’t so old as you be, but I warn’t born yesterday. So slope, if you please, for I want to sneeze, and if I do, it will blow your cap over the market-house, and you’ll be lucky if your head don’t go along with it.”
“‘Come away,’ said I, ‘Mac, that fellow has no more manners than a heathen.’
“‘He’s an hignorant beast,’ said he, ‘he is beneath notice.’
“The man eard that, and called after him, ‘Hofficer, hofficer,’ said he.
“That made M’Clure stop, for he was expectin’ to be one every day, and the word sounded good, and Scotchmen, Sir, ain’t like other people, pride is as natural as oatmeal to them. The man came up to us limpin’.
“‘Hofficer,’ said he, ‘I ax your pardon if I offended you, I thought you was a pokin’ fun at me, for I am nothing but a poor hignorant farmer, from the country, and these townspeople are always making game of us. I’ll tell you all about that are moose and how I killed him. He urt my feelins, Sir, or I never would have mislested him, for Zack Wilcox is as good-natured a chap, it’s generally allowed, as ever lived. Yes, he trod on my toes, I don’t feel right yet, and when any fellow does that to me, why there ain’t no mistake about it, his time is out and the sentence is come to pass. He begged for his life, oh, it was piteous to see him. I don’t mean to say the dumb beast spoke, but his looks were so beseeching just the way if you was tied up to the halbert to be whipped, you’d look at the general.’
“‘Me?’ said M’Clure.
“‘Yes, you or anybody else,’ said the man. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘I told him I wouldn’t shoot him, I’de give him one chance for his life, but if he escaped he’d be deaf for ever afterwards. Poor feller, I didn’t intend to come it quite so strong, but he couldn’t stand the shock I gave him, and it killed him—frightened him to death.’
“‘How?’ said M’Clure.