CHAPTER L
CAPTAIN BOLD
I have mentioned that Slap-Jack, too, while he rode perforce
so rapidly homewards, was pursued by a black Care of
his own, waiting for a momentary halt to leap up behind.
Even with a foretopman, though, perhaps, no swain ought
to have a better chance, the course of true love does not
always run smooth. There was a pebble now ruffling Slap-Jack's
amatory stream, and that pebble was known at the
"Hamilton Arms" as Captain Bold.
He might have had a score of other designations in a score of other places; in fact, he was just the sort of gentleman whom one name would suffice less than one shirt; but here, at least, he was welcomed, and, to a certain extent, trusted under that title.
Now Captain Bold, if he ever disguised himself for the many expeditions in which he boasted to have been engaged, must have done considerable violence to his feelings by suppressing the three peculiarities for which he was most conspicuous, and in which he seemed to take the greatest pride. These specialities were the Captain's red nose, his falsetto voice, and his bay mare. The first he warmed and comforted with generous potations at all hours, for though not a deep, he was a frequent drinker; the second, he exercised continually in warbling lyrics tending to the subversion of morals—in shrieking out oaths denoting a fertile imagination, with a cultivated talent for cursing—and in narrating interminable stories over his cups, of which his own triumphs in love and war formed the groundwork; the third—he was never tired of riding to
