with difficulty through the leaves of a bush growing upon the edge of the ditch in which his head had found concealment; and in this perilous situation his savage spirit actually prompted him to thrust his knife into the belly of the animal. He had drawn it for this purpose from his belt, while his hands and body were under water. Its point was already turned upward, when Singleton moved away from the dangerous proximity. Here he listened to the dialogue which the two carried on concerning him; and, even in that predicament of dirt and danger in which he lay, his mind brooded over a thousand modes by which he should enjoy his malignant appetite, that craved for revenge upon them both. When they were fairly gone, he rose from the mire and ascended cautiously to the bank; shook himself like a water-dog, while he almost shivered in the saturated garments which he wore; then rubbed and grumbled over the rifle which he had taken with him into the mire, and which came out as full of its ooze and water as himself.
"So ho!" said he, as he shook himself free from the mud—"So ho! they are gone to old Moll's to look after me, eh! Now would I like to put this bullet into that Dorchester skunk, Humphries, d—n him. I am of bad blood, am I!—my father a horse-thief and a mulatto, and I only fit for hanging! The words must be paid for; and Moll must answer for some of them. She is my mother, that's clear—she shall tell me this night who my father is; for, Blonay, or Goggle, or the devil, I will know. She shall put me off no longer. No! though she tells me the worst—though she tells me that I am the spawn of Jack Drayton's driver, as once before I've heard it."
Thus muttering, he looked to his flint and inspected the priming of his rifle. With much chagrin he found the powder saturated with water, and the charge useless. He searched his pockets, but his flask was gone. He had purposed the murder of Humphries or Singleton had this not been the case. He now without hesitation took the track after them, and it was not long before he came in sight of the miserable clay and log hovel in which his mother, odious and dreaded as she was, passed fitly her existence. This spot was dreary in the extreme: an old field; a few cheerless pines rose around it, and the thick broom straw waved its equally bald, though more crowded forms in uncurbed vegetation among them. The
