; but I gad, our disadvantage wouldn't be as great as his. Nobody
would be willing to swap places with a man that's hanged."

"That's all very well, but we would be the aggressors, and distant eyes
would look upon him as a martyr."

"Yes, I know; but isn't it better to have one man looked on as a martyr
than to have a whole community bathed in blood?"

"It might be better for us, but not for our children. A blood-bath may
be forgotten, but martyrdom lives in the minds of succeeding
generations."

"John, there spoke the man of business. You are always looking out for
the future. I have agreed with myself to make the most of the present,
and so far as the future is concerned, it will have to look out for
itself--it always has. Was there ever a future that was not prepared to
take care of itself? And is there a past that can be helped? Then let us
fasten our minds to the present. Let me see. I wonder if we couldn't
train a steer to gore that fellow to death. And I gad, that would do
away with all possibility of martyrdom. What do you say?"

"Nothing more on that subject; but I can say something concerning
another matter, and it will interest you more than the martyrdom of all
history."

"Then out with it. I demand to be interested. But don't trifle with me,
John. Remember that an old man's hide is thin."

"I'll not trifle with you; I'll startle you. Sixty years ago, the
grandfather of Admiral Semmes made whisky in the Tennessee Mountains."

"But, John, that was a long time ago, and the old man is dead, and here
we are alive. But he made whisky sixty years ago. What about it?"

"The brother of the admiral lives in Memphis," the Major continued,
"and the other day he sent me a bottle of that whisky, run through a log
before you were born."

Gid's mouth flew open and his eyes stuck out. "John," he said, and the
restraint he put upon his voice rippled it, "John, don't tamper with the
affections of an old and infirm man. Drive me off the bayou plantation,
compel me to acknowledge and to feel that I am a hypercrite and a liar,
but don't whet a sentiment and then cut my throat with it. Be merciful
unto a sinner who worships the past."

He sat there looking upward, a figure of distress, fearing the arrival
of despair. The Major laughed at him. "Don't knock me down with a stick
of spice-wood, John."

The Major went to a sideboard, took therefrom a quaint bottle and two
thin glasses, and placing them upon a round table