“That is bad; but I think we can supply you. Ten Eyck bragged to-day, in the council, that he had the best horse in the colony. It ought to be, if he paid the price he says he did, which is a hundred and fifty guilders. You ought to have seen Paul Swedlepipe’s face while Ten Eyck told about that horse.”
“What? Do they keep up the old feud yet?”
“Stronger than ever, my dear Joseph. But, what puzzled me most was, that Paul seemed to work hard to refrain from laughing, when he ought to have felt more like crying. It looked suspicious to me.”
“Has any one else seen the horse?”
“Yes—several of the council. And they all agree that it is a good beast. Most wonderful of all, he was sold by a Yankee. Swedlepipe bid as high as a hundred and forty guilders before he would give up. But that a Yankee should sell a good horse! Who ever heard of such a thing?”
Joseph laughed at this, but he was not so far from Good Hope as not to know that Yankees did not sell good wares.
“We will see this wonderful beast to-morrow, and if he is any thing like what he is reported, I shall want him. Whom think you I met in the forest?”
“I could not guess.”
“You will hardly believe it. A man whom I never saw but once in my life, and whom I hate, for all that, with all my soul.”