otherwise, to the view, a plain yeoman, endowed with those gifts of mind
only which were necessary to his station, but with the virtues which are
alike common to forest and city. Courage and hospitality, however, were
then hardly accounted virtues, being too universal to be distinguished as
such; and courtesy was equally native to the independent borderer.

[Footnote 1: Gen. Andrew Lewis.]

He shook the young officer heartily by the hand, a ceremony which he
instantly repeated with the fair Edith; and giving them to understand
that he claimed them as his own especial guests, insisted with much
honest warmth, that old companionship in arms with one of their late
nearest and dearest kinsmen had given him a double right to do so:--

"You must know," said he, "the good old Major your uncle, the brave
old Major Roly, as we called him, Major Roland Forrester: well,
K'-yaptin,--well, young lady,--my first battle war fought under his
command; and an excellent commander he war; it war on the bloody
Monongahela, whar the Frenchmen and Injuns trounced us so promiskous.
Perhaps you've h'ard him tell of big Tom Bruce,--for so they called me
then? I war a copporal in the first company of Rangers that crossed the
river. Lord! how the world is turning upside down! I war a copporal
then, and now I'm a k'-yunnel; a greater man in commission than war ever
my old Major; and the Lord, he nows, I thought my old Major Forrester
war the greatest man in all Virginnee, next to the G'-yovernor and
K'-yunnel George Washington! Well, you must know, we marched up the
g'yully that runs from the river; and bang went the savages' g'-yuns,
and smash went their hatchets; and it came to close quarters, a regular
rough-and-tumble, hard scratch! And so I war a-head of the Major, and the
Major war behind, and the fight had made him as vicious as a wild cat,