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, and he war hungry for a shot; and so says he to me, for I war right afore him, ’Git out of my way, you damned big rascal, till I git a crack at ‘em!’ And so I got out of his way, for I war mad at being called a damned big rascal, especially as I war doing my best, and covering him from mischief besides.  Well! as soon as I jumped out of his way, bang went his piece, and bang went another, let fly by an Injun;—­down went the Major, shot right through the hips, slam-bang.  And so said I, ’Major,’—­for I warn’t well over my passion,—­’if you’d ‘a’ taken things easy, I’d ‘a’ a stopped that slug for you.’  And so says he, ’Bang away you big fool, and don’t stand talking.’  And so he swounded away; and that made me vicious, too, and I killed two of the red niggurs, before you could say Jack Robinson, just by way of satisfaction for the Major; and then I helped to carry him off to the tumbrels.  I never see’d my old Major from that day to this; and it war only a month ago that I h’ard of his death.  I honour his memory; and so, K’-yaptin, you see, thar’s a sort of claim to old friendship between us.”

To this characteristic speech, which was delivered with great earnestness, Captain Forrester made a suitable response; and intimating his willingness to accept the proffered hospitality of his uncle’s companion in arms, he rode forward with his host and kinswoman towards the Station, of which, when once fairly relieved of the forest, he had a clear view.

It seemed unusually populous, as indeed it was; but Roland, as he rode by, remarked, on the skirts of the village, a dozen or more shooting-targets set up on the green, and perceived it was a gala-day which had drawn the young men from a distance to the fort.  This, in fact, he was speedily told by a youth, whom the worthy Bruce introduced to him as his eldest son and namesake, “big Tom Bruce,—­the third of that name; the other two Toms,—­for two others he had had,—­having been killed by the Injuns, and he having changed the boy’s name, that he might have a Tom in the family.”  The youth was worthy of his father, being full six feet high, though scarcely yet out of his teens, and presented a visage of such serene gravity and good-humoured simplicity as won the affections of the soldier in a moment.