“Yes,” quoth the Captain, sighing, “I’m about to be tuk up and made a martyr of on account of the Union; but I’ll die true to my prinsipples, see if I don’t.”
“They shan’t take you,” said Dennis, his long, lank form stiffening with energy as he spoke; “as long as they put it on that hook, hanged ef they shall. Give us the mortgage and slope!”
“You ain’t got no rights to that land; I jist know it, or you wouldn’t want to mortgage it for a tavern bill,” shouted Mrs. Dennis; “and I tell you and Summeval both, that Old Bill don’t go out of that stable till the money’s paid—mind, I say money—into my hand,” and here the good lady turned off and called Bob, the stable-boy, to bring her the stable key.
The Captain and Summeval looked at each other like two children school-boys. It was clear that no terms short of payment in money would satisfy Mrs. Dennis. Suggs saw that Dennis had become interested in his behalf; so acting upon the idea, he suggested:
“Dennis, suppose you loan me the money?”
“Egad, Suggs, I’ve been thinkin’ of that; but as I have only a fifty dollar bill, and my wife’s key bein’ turned on that, there’s no chance. Drott it, I’m sorry for you.”
“Well the Lord’ll purvide,” said Suggs.
As Captain Suggs could not get away that day, evidently, he arranged, through his friend Summeval, with the Clerk, not to issue a capias until the next afternoon. Having done this, he cast around for some way of raising the wind; but the fates were against him, and at eleven o’clock that night, he went to bed in a fit of the blues, that three pints of whiskey had failed to dissipate. An hour or two after the Captain had got between the sheets, and after every one else was asleep, he heard some one walk unsteadily, but still softly, up stairs. An occasional hiccup told that it was some fellow drunk; and this was confirmed by a heavy fall, which the unfortunate took as soon as, leaving the railing, he attempted to travel suis pedibus.
“Oh! good Lord!” groaned the fallen man; “who’d a thought it. Me, John P. Pullum, drunk and fallen down! I never was so before. This world’s a turnin’ over and over. Oh, Lord! Charley Stone got me into it. What will Sally say if she hears it? Oh, Lord!”
“That thar feller,” said the Captain to himself, “is the victim of vice. I wonder ef he’s got any money?” and the Captain continued his soliloquy inaudibly.