CHAPTER XVI
And let me the canakin clink, clink,
And let me the canakin clink.
A soldier's a man;
A life's but a span;
Why, then, let a soldier drink.
--_Othello_.
The position held by the corps of dragoons, we have already said, was a
favorite place of halting with their commander. A cluster of some half
dozen small and dilapidated buildings formed what, from the circumstance
of two roads intersecting each other at right angles, was called the
village of the Four Corners. As usual, one of the most imposing of these
edifices had been termed, in the language of the day, "a house of
entertainment for man and beast." On a rough board suspended from the
gallows-looking post that had supported the ancient sign, was, however,
written in red chalk, "Elizabeth Flanagan, her hotel," an ebullition of
the wit of some of the idle wags of the corps. The matron, whose name
had thus been exalted to an office of such unexpected dignity,
ordinarily discharged the duties of a female sutler, washerwoman, and,
to use the language of Katy Haynes, petticoat doctor to the troops. She
was the widow of a soldier who had been killed in the service, and who,
like herself, was a native of a distant island, and had early tried his
fortune in the colonies of North America.
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