"Captain," she said, "how many people I see out yonder in the fields!
Maybe thar's to be a fox-chase."
"Sit, Patty! Let me drink, in my last days of life, the wine lees of
your memory. You are so dear to me! Turn in the golden sun, that I may
linger on that face which autumn's ashes fall upon, though through the
dead leaves I see the russet colors smoulder yet! How daring was your
girlhood: the poor blacksmith farmer, whose name you will transmit
forever, fretted you with his sickness and his scruples, and, _he aqui!_
you stilled him with the same cup you mixed for Betty's husband. His
daughter you gave to wife to his apprentice, a strong, stolid man,
capable of heroism, Patty, for he died for you, his dear misleader, on
the shameful scaffold, though all the crowd knew who his instigator was;
but, like a man, he died and never told."
"Van Dorn, you hurt me," Patty broke out; "I cannot laugh to-day, and
these tales depress me, honey. Where shall we go when you are well?"
"_La gente pone, y Dios dispone!_ Stay yet, and chat awhile. I would
not, for the world, see you discouraged,--you, unfathomable angel! who,
in this mangy corner of the globe, looked abroad over the land like
Catherine, from her sterile throne, over the mighty steppes, and levied
war upon the hopes of man. How you did trouble Uncle Sam, great Patty,
robbing his mails for years between Baltimore and the Brandywine! Young
Nichols still serves his term for that shrewd trick you taught him, of
cutting the mail-bags open as he sat, with the corrupted drivers, on the
crowded stage, stealthily throwing the valuable letters in the road, to
be gathered by a following horseman.
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