Hills, who sits quietly in his wagon dispensing apples and turnips
without so much as giving a glance at the procession. Probably there is
not one of them who would hesitate to divide his last tobacco-quid with
his worst enemy. Social, kind-hearted, psalm-singing, sermon-hearing,
Sabhath-keeping Christians; and yet, if we look at the fact of the
matter, these very men have been out the whole afternoon of this
beautiful day, under God's holy sunshine, as busily at work as Satan
himself could wish in learning how to butcher their fellow-creatures and
acquire the true scientific method of impaling a forlorn Mexican on a
bayonet, or of sinking a leaden missile in the brain of some unfortunate
Briton, urged within its range by the double incentive of sixpence per
day in his pocket and the cat-o'-nine-tails on his back!

Without intending any disparagement of my peaceable ancestry for many
generations, I have still strong suspicions that somewhat of the old
Norman blood, something of the grins Berserker spirit, has been
bequeathed to me. How else can I account for the intense childish
eagerness with which I listened to the stories of old campaigners who
sometimes fought their battles over again in my hearing? Why did I,
in my young fancy, go up with Jonathan, the son of Saul, to smite the
garrisoned Philistines of Michmash, or with the fierce son of Nun
against the cities of Canaan? Why was Mr. Greatheart, in Pilgrim's
Progress, my favorite character? What gave such fascination to the
narrative of the grand Homeric encounter between Christian and Apollyon
in the valley? Why did I follow Ossian over Morven's battle-fields,
exulting in the vulture-screams of the blind scald over his fallen
enemies? Still later, why did the newspapers furnish me with subjects
for hero-worship in the half-demented Sir Gregor McGregor, and Ypsilanti
at the head of his knavish Greeks? I can account for it only in the
supposition that the mischief was inhered,--an heirloom from the old