Chapter 16

"Away! away! the covey's fled the cover;
Put forth the dogs, and let the falcon fly--
I'll spend some leisure in the keen pursuit,
Nor longer waste my hours in sluggish quiet."

The soldier passed the remainder of the night in the heavy sleep of a
bacchanalian, and awoke late on the following morning, only when aroused
by the entrance of his servant. When the customary summons had induced
the captain to unclose his eyelids, he arose in his bed, and after
performing the usual operation of a diligent friction on his organs of
vision, he turned sternly to his man, and remarked with an ill-humor
that seemed to implicate the innocent servant in the fault which his
master condemned:

"I thought, sirrah, that I ordered Sergeant Drill not to let a drumstick
touch a sheepskin while we quartered in the dwelling of this hospitable
old colonel! Does the fellow despise my commands? or does he think the
roll of a drum, echoing through the crooked passages of St. Ruth, a
melody that is fit to disturb the slumbers of its inmates?"

"I believe, sir," returned the man, "it was the wish of Colonel Howard
himself, that on this occasion the sergeant should turn out the guard by
the roll of the drum."

"The devil it was!--I see the old fellow loves to tickle the drum of his
own ear now and then with familiar sounds; but have you had a muster of
the cattle from the farmyard too, as well as a parade of the guard? I
hear the trampling of feet, as if the old abbey were a second ark, and
all the beasts of the field were coming aboard of us!"

"'Tis nothing but the party of dragoons from----, who are wheeling into
the courtyard, sir, where the colonel has gone out to receive them."

"Courtyard! light dragoons!" repeated Borroughcliffe, in amazement; "and
has it come to this, that twenty stout fellows of the ----th are not
enough to guard such a rookery as this old abbey, against the ghosts and
northeast storms, but we must have horse to reinforce us? Hum! I suppose
some of these booted gentlemen have heard of this South Carolina
Madeira."

"Oh, no, sir!" cried his man; "it is only the party that Mr. Dillon went
to seek last evening, after you saw fit, sir, to put the three pirates
in irons."

"Pirates in irons," said Borroughcliffe, again passing his hands over
his eyes, though in a more reflecting manner than before: "ha! oh! I
remember to have put three suspicious looking rascals in the black-hole,
or some such place; but what can Mr. Dillon, or the light dragoons, have
to do with these fellows?"

"That we do not know, sir; but it is said below, sir, as some suspicions