And at last, splashing through the stiff red clay that was up
to the mare's fetlocks, we came to a place called Charlotte Town. What a
day that was for me! And how I gaped at the houses there, finer than any
I had ever dreamed of! That was my first sight of a town. And how I
listened open-mouthed to the gentlemen at the tavern! One I recall had
a fighting head with a lock awry, and a negro servant to wait on him, and
was the principal spokesman. He, too, was talking of war. The Cherokees
had risen on the western border. He was telling of the massacre of a
settlement, in no mild language.
"Sirs," he cried, "the British have stirred the redskins to this. Will
you sit here while women and children are scalped, and those devils" (he
called them worse names) "Stuart and Cameron go unpunished?"
My father got up from the corner where he sat, and stood beside the man.
"I ken Alec Cameron," said he.
The man looked at him with amazement.
"Ay?" said he, "I shouldn't think you'd own it. Damn him," he cried, "if
we catch him we'll skin him alive."
"I ken Cameron," my father repeated, "and I'll gang with you to skin him
alive."
The man seized his hand and wrung it.
"But first I must be in Charlestown," said my father.
The next morning we sold our pelts. And though the mare was tired, we
pushed southward, I behind the saddle.
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