There's wild devils among them, and your friend
looked as if he had given the slip to the hounds in the marshes. There
was little left of his breeches.... Drink, man, or you'll get fever
from your wet duds."
I drank, and the strong stuff mounted to my unaccustomed brain; my
tongue was loosened, my ill-temper mellowed, and I found myself telling
this grim fellow much that was in my heart.
"So you're a merchant," he said. "It's not for me to call down an
honest trade, but we could be doing with fewer merchants in these
parts. They're so many leeches that suck our blood. Are you here to
make siller?"
I said I was, and he laughed. "I never heard of your uncle's business,
Mr. Garvald, but you'll find it a stiff task to compete with the lads
from Bristol and London. They've got the whole dominion by the scruff
of the neck."
I replied that I was not in awe of them, and that I could hold my own
with anybody in a fair trade.
"Fair trade!" he cried scornfully. "That's just what you won't get.
That's a thing unkenned in Virginia. Look you here, my lad. The
Parliament in London treats us Virginians like so many puling bairns.
We cannot sell our tobacco except to English merchants, and we cannot
buy a horn spoon except it comes in an English ship.
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