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It was said at Blue Lick Station that he had fled from his own country, the north of England, on account of an affair of honor,–a duel in early life,–and that however distasteful the hardships and comparative poverty of this new home, it was far safer for him than the land of his birth. His worldly position there gave him sundry claims of superiority, for all of which his hardy pioneer son had had scant sympathy; and Ralph Emsden, in the difficult crisis of the disclosure of the state of his affections, heaved many a sigh for this simple manly soul’s untimely fate.

The elder Mivane, with his head bent forward, his hand behind his ear, sat in his arm-chair while he hearkened blandly to the sentimental statements which Emsden was obliged to shout forth twice. Then Richard Mivane cleared his throat with a sort of preliminary gentlemanly embarrassment, and went fluently on with that suave low voice so common to the very deaf. “Command me, sir, command me! It will give me much pleasure to use my influence on your behalf to obtain an ensigncy. I will myself write at the first opportunity, the first express, to Lieutenant-Governor Bull, who is acquainted with my family connections in England. It is very praiseworthy, very laudable indeed, that you should aspire to a commission in the military service,–the provincial forces. I honor you for your readiness to fight–although, to be sure, being Irish, you can’t help it. Still, it is to your credit that you are Irish. I am very partial to the Irish traits of character–was once in Ireland myself–visited an uncle there”–and so forth and so forth.

And thus poor Ralph Emsden, who was only Irish by descent, and could not have found Ireland on the map were he to hang for his ignorance, and had been born and bred in the Royal province of South Carolina,–which country he considered the crown and glory of the world,–was constrained to listen to all the doings and sayings of Richard Mivane in Ireland from the time that he embarked on the wild Irish Sea, which scrupled not to take unprecedented liberties with so untried a sailor, till the entrance of other pioneers cut short a beguiling account of his first meeting with potheen in its native haunts, and the bewildering pranks that he and that tricksy sprite played together in those the irresponsible days of his youth.

Emsden told no one, not even Peninnah Penelope Anne, of his discomfiture; but alack, there were youngsters in the family of unaffected minds and unimpaired hearing. This was made amply manifest a day or so afterward, when he chanced to pause at the door of the log cabin and glance in, hoping that, perhaps, the queen of his dreams might materialize in this humble domicile.

The old gentleman slept in his chair, with dreams of his own, perchance, for his early life might have furnished a myriad gay fancies for his later years. The glare of noonday lay on the unshaded spaces of the quadrangle without; for all trees had been felled, even far around the inclosure, lest thence they might afford vantage and ambush for musketry fire or a flight of arrows into the stockade. Through rifts in the foliage at considerable distance one could see the dark mountain looming high above, and catch glimpses of the further reaches of the Great Smoky Range, blue and shimmering far away, and even distinguish the crest of “Big Injun Mountain” on the skyline. The several cabins, all connected by that row of protective palisades from one to another like a visible expression of the chord of sympathy and mutual helpful neighborliness, were quiet, their denizens dining within. At the blockhouse a guard was mounted–doubtless a watchful and stanch lookout, but unconforming to military methods, for he sang, to speed the time, a metrical psalm of David’s; the awkward collocation of the words of this version would forever distort the royal poet’s meaning if he had no other vehicle of his inspiration. There were long waits between the drowsy lines, and in the intervals certain callow voices, with the penetrating timbre of youth, came to Emsden’s ear. His eyes followed the sound quickly.