"
"Ah, d'ye hear that, b'ys? Faith, it's a kurnel it is ye've been
a shtoppin' here upon the highway! Shure it may be he's a goin' to
the Gineral wid a flag of thruce, belike."
"I do wish to treat with the General," said Desmit, thinking he
saw a chance to put in a favorable word.
"An' d'ye hear that, b'ys? Shure the gintleman wants to thrate the
Gineral. Faith it'll be right glad the auld b'y'll be of a dhrap
of somethin' good down here in the pine woods."
"Can I see the General, gentlemen?" asked Desmit, with a growing
feeling that he had taken the wrong course to accomplish his end.
The crowd of "bummers" constantly grew larger. They were mounted
upon horses and mules, jacks and jennets, and one of them had put
a "McClellan saddle" and a gag-bit upon one of the black polled cattle
which abound in that region, and which ambled easily and briskly
along with his rider's feet just brushing the low "poverty-pines"
which grew by the roadside. They wore all sorts of clothing. The
blue and the gray were already peacefully intermixed in the garments
of most of them. The most grotesque variety prevailed especially
in their head-gear, which culminated in the case of one who wore a
long, barrel-shaped, slatted sun-bonnet made out of spotted calico.
They were boisterous and even amusing, had they not been well
armed and apparently without fear or reverence for any authority or
individual.
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