The most you'll get
will be the scraps that fall from their table, my poor Lazarus, and for
these you'll have to go hat in hand to Dives."
His face grew suddenly earnest, and he leaned on the table and looked
me straight in the eyes.
"You're a young lad and a new-comer, and the accursed scales of
Virginia are not yet on your eyes. Forbye, I think you've spirit,
though it's maybe mixed with a deal of folly. You've your choice before
you, Mr. Garvald. You can become a lickspittle like the rest of them,
and no doubt you'll gather a wheen bawbees, but it will be a poor
shivering soul will meet its Maker in the hinder end. Or you can play
the man and be a good Virginian. I'll not say it's an easy part. You'll
find plenty to cry you down, and there will be hard knocks going; but
by your face I judge you're not afraid of that. Let me tell you this
land is on the edge of hell, and there's sore need for stout men.
They'll declare in this town that there's no Indians on this side the
mountains that would dare to lift a tomahawk. Little they ken!"
In his eagerness he had gripped my arm, and his dark, lean face was
thrust close to mine.
"I was with Bacon in '76, in the fray with the Susquehannocks. I speak
the Indian tongues, and there's few alive that ken the tribes like me.
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