"
"Pooh! pooh!" cried Betty; "if you tag after a troop of horse, a small
bit of a joke must be borne. What would become of the states and
liberty, if the boys had never a clane shirt, or a drop to comfort them?
Ask Captain Jack, there, if they'd fight, Mrs. Beelzeboob, and they no
clane linen to keep the victory in."
"I'm a single woman, and my name is Haynes," said Katy, "and I'd thank
you to use no disparaging terms when speaking to me."
"You must tolerate a little license in the tongue of Mrs. Flanagan,
madam," said the trooper. "The drop she speaks of is often of an
extraordinary size, and then she has acquired the freedom of a
soldier's manner."
"Pooh! captain, darling," cried Betty, "why do you bother the woman?
Talk like yeerself, dear, and it's no fool of a tongue that ye've got in
yeer own head. But jist here-away that sargeant made a halt, thinking
there might be more divils than one stirring, the night. The clouds are
as black as Arnold's heart, and deuce the star is there twinkling among
them. Well, the mare is used to a march after nightfall, and is smelling
out the road like a pointer slut."
"It wants but little to the rising moon," observed the trooper. He
called a dragoon, who was riding in advance, issued a few orders and
cautions relative to the comfort and safety of Singleton, and speaking a
consoling word to his friend himself, gave Roanoke the spur, and dashed
by the car, at a rate that again put to flight all the philosophy of
Katharine Haynes.
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