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Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789-1851

"The Spy"

"But hurry in for
the life of you, darling; the fences hereabouts are not so strong as in
the Highlands, and there's that within will warm both sowl and body."
"So you have been laying the rails under contribution, I see. Well, that
may do for the body," said the captain coolly; "but I have had a pull at
a bottle of cut glass with a silver stand, and I doubt my relish for
your whisky for a month to come."
"If it's silver or goold that ye're thinking of, it's but little I have,
though I've a trifling bit of the continental," said Betty, with a look
of humor; "but there's that within that's fit to be put in vissils of
di'monds."
"What can she mean, Archibald?" asked Lawton. "The animal looks as if it
meant more than it says!"
"'Tis probably a wandering of the reasoning powers, created by the
frequency of intoxicating drafts," observed the surgeon, as he
deliberately threw his left leg over the pommel of the saddle, and slid
down on the right side of his horse.
"Faith, my dear jewel of a doctor, but it was this side I was expicting
you; the whole corps come down on this side but yeerself," said Betty,
winking at the trooper; "but I've been feeding the wounded, in yeer
absence, with the fat of the land."
"Barbarous stupidity!" cried the panic-stricken physician, "to feed men
laboring under the excitement of fever with powerful nutriment.


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