Again the mistress made a vain appeal:
"Do American soldiers abuse women?"
"A nigger's not a woman!" hiccoughed the corporal, and his words were applauded by a general guffaw.
"Think of your own sisters and mothers and wives!"
"Wives! That's good! How many wives do you s'pose I've got? I wish to hell I had a bloomin' wife like yerself. Yer man's run away, how will I do for a substitute?"
"Shouldn't wonder," interrupted the captain, "if the damned Irish traitor was lynched by this time."
Madam Blennerhassett looked around imploringly and supplicated:
"I am alone here with my poor children. Will no one take our part? Is there not one man here who will defend me?"
A drawling voice responded:
"By ginger-root, there is sich a man. Blast you, you forward skunks, git out of this! Say, you woods-colt with the humps on your shoulders and a stalk-knife by your side, help drive these hogs into the Ohio River. They've got more devils in 'em than what's-his-name, in the Holy Scripture, cast into all the swine of Jerusalem. Git out, I say, you knock-kneed jackasses!"