t gave him the better opportunity to interchange
ideas with his fair kinswoman.

His only concern arose from the conduct of his guide, a rough,
dark-visaged man, who had betrayed, from the first moment of starting, a
sullen countenance, indicative of his disinclination to the duty assigned
him; which feeling evidently grew stronger the further he advanced,
nowithstanding sundry efforts Forrester made to bring him to a better
humour. He displayed no desire to enter into conversation with the
soldier, replying to such questions as were directed at him with a
brevity little short of rudeness; and his smothered exclamations of
impatience, whenever his delicate followers slackened their pace at a bog
or gully, which he had himself dashed through with a manly contempt of
mud and mire, somewhat stirred the choler of the young captain.

They had, perhaps, followed him a distance of four miles into the forest,
when the occurrence of a wider and deeper pool than ordinary producing a
corresponding delay on the part of Roland, who was somewhat averse to
plunging with Edith up to the saddle-girths in mire, drew from him a very
unmannerly, though not the less hearty execration on the delicacy of
"them thar persons who," as he expressed it, "stumped at a mud-hole as
skearily as if every tadpole in it war a screeching Injun."

Of this explosion of ill-temper Roland took no notice, until he had, with
the assistance of Emperor, the negro, effected a safe passage for Edith
over the puddle; in the course of which he had leisure to observe that
the path now struck into a wide buffalo-street, that swept away through a
wilderness of wood and cane-brake, in nearly a straight line, for a
considerable distance. He observed, also, that the road looked drier and
less broken than usual; his satisfaction at which had the good effect of
materially abating the rage into which he had been thrown by the uncivil
bearing of the guide. Nevertheless, he had no sooner brought his
kinswoman safely to land, than, leaving her in the charge of Emperor, he
galloped up to the side of his conductor, and gave vent to his
indignation in the following pithy query:--

"My friend," said he, "will you have the goodness to inform me whether
you have ever lived in a land where courtesy to strangers and kindness
and respect to women are ranked among the virtues of manhood?"

The man replied only by a fierce and angry stare; and plying the ribs of
his horse with his heel