Major, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, preparatory to filling it anew;
an employment that gave him an opportunity to give vent to his feelings,
without pausing to puff.--"Ay, Master Hodge, praying and plundering; so
they go on. Now, do you remember old Watson, who was in the Massachusetts
Levies, in the year '12?--old Tom Watson; he that was a sub under Barnwell,
in our Tuscarora expedition?"

My grandfather nodded his head in assent, that being the only reply the
avocation of smoking rendered convenient, just at that moment, unless a
sort of affirmatory grunt could be construed into an auxiliary.

"Well, he has a son going in this affair; and old Tom, or Colonel Watson,
as he is now very particular to be called, is down here with his wife and
two daughters, to see the ensign off. I went to pay the old fellow a visit,
Hodge; and found him, and the mother and sisters, all as busy as bees
in getting young Tom's baggage ready for a march. There lay his whole
equipment before my eyes, and I had a favourable occasion to examine it at
my leisure."

"Which you did with all your might, or you're not the Joe Hight of the
year '10," said my grandfather, taking his turn with the ashes and the
tobacco-box.

Old Hight was now puffing away like a blacksmith who is striving to obtain
a white heat, and it was some time before he could get out the proper reply
to this half-assertion, half-interrogatory sort of remark.

"You may be sure of that," he at length ejaculated; when, certain of his
light, he proceeded to tell the whole story, stopping occasionally to puff,
lest he should lose the "vantage ground" he had just obtained. "What d'ye