"See now, that's the good you get for saving him from punishment. He doesn't thank you at all for what you've done."
"No, that I don't!" cried the incorrigible Davis: "I owe her as little thanks as I owe you kindness,—and I'll pay off both some day. I can hold my own without her help; and as for her begging, I don't want it—I won't have it—and I despise it."
"What's that?" cried Hastings, with a show of returning choler.
"Nothing, sergeant, nothing; don't mind what he says; he's only foolish, and don't mean any harm. Now take your hand away from the sword, I beg you."
The girl looked so prettily, as she prayed him to be quiet, that the soldier relented. Her deferential solicitude was all-influential, and softened much of the harsh feeling that might have existed in his bosom. Taking her arm into his own, with a consequential strut, and throwing a look of contempt upon his rival as he passed, the conqueror moved away into the adjoining apartment, to which, as his business seems private at present, we shall not presume to follow him.
His departure was the signal for renovated life in several of those persons who, in the previous scene, seemed quiescent enough. They generously came forward to Davis with advice and friendly counsel to keep himself out of harm's way, and submit, most civilly, like a good Christian, to the gratuitous blow and buffet. The most eloquent among them was the landlord.
"Now, bless me," said he, "John, my dear boy, why will you be after striving with the sergeant? You know you can't stand against him, and where's the use? He's quite too tough a colt for you to manage, now, I tell you."
"So you think, Master Humphries—so you think. But I'm not so sure of it, now, by half. I can stand a thump as well as any man—and I haint lived so long in Goose Creek not to know how to give one too. But how you stand it—you, I say, Dick Humphries—I don't altogether see."
"Eh, John—how I stand it? Bless us, what do you mean, boy? He don't trouble me—he don't threaten me—I'm a good subject to his majesty."
