t forth, "that we all know, and you know that
we all know, is but a fable. Doth not Madam Cavendish treat you as a
son, and are you not a convict in name only, so far as she is
concerned? I say, Harry, you can ride my horse to the winning on
Royal Oak Day, at the races. What think you, Harry?"

"Your reverence," I said, "I pray you to give me time," for well I
knew there was no use in reasoning with the persistency to which
frequent potations had given rise.

Up to my horse he went with that oversteadiness of the man in his
cups, who moves with the stiffness of a tree walking, as if every
lift of a heavy foot was the uplifting of a root fast in the ground,
and went to stroking his head; when straightway, my horse either not
liking his touch or the smell of his liquored breath, and judging as
was his wont that the fault must by some means lie with his own
race, straightway lashed out a vicious hind leg like a hammer, and
came within an ace of the parson's own valuable horse--not the
one which he proposed trading for mine--and the wind of the lash
frighted the parson's horse, and he in his turn lashed out, and
another horse at his side sprang aside; and straightway there was
such a commotion in the tavern yard as never was, and slaves and
white servants shouting, and forcing rearing horses to their regular
standing, and I stroking my beast, and striving as best I could to
bring his pure horse wits to comprehend the strong pressure and
responsibility of humanity for the situation; and the Barry brothers
and Captain Jaynes came running forth, Captain Jaynes swearing in
such wise that it was beyond the understanding of any man unversed
in that language of the high seas; and Nick Barry, laughing wildly,
and Dick, glooming, as was the difference with the two brothers when
in liquor. And the landlord, one John Halpin, stood in his tavern
doorway with his eyebrows raised, but no other sign of consternation,
knowing well enough that all this could not affect his custom, and
being one of the most toughly leather-dried little men whom I
have ever seen, and his face so hardened into its final lines of
experience, that it had no power of changing under new ones. And
behind him stood peering, some with wide eyes of terror, and some
with ready laughs at nothing, the few other roisters in the tavern
at that hour. 'Twas not the best time of day for the meeting of
those choice spirits for the discussion of the other spirits which
be ra