isit was to the
stables, where I hoped to find Falcon. Imagine my disgust on hearing
that, through an accident on the line, the unlucky horse had been shut
up for forty-six hours in his box, with provender just enough for one
day. He had been well tended, however, and judiciously fed in small
quantities at frequent intervals, and, barring that he looked rather
"tucked up," did not seem much the worse for his enforced fast.

I found Shipley's letter, too, where I had been told to expect it; he
had got so far without let or hindrance; the meeting-place was set about
forty miles northwest of Cumberland. I spent the evening, not
unpleasantly, partly at the house of a "sympathizing" resident to whom I
had been recommended; partly in the society of the most miraculous
Milesian I ever encountered--off the stage or out of a book. He was
stationed in Cumberland on some sort of recruiting service, and from
dawn to midnight never ceased to oil his already lissom tongue with
"caulkers" of every imaginable liquor. I was told that at no hour of
the twenty-four had any man seen him thoroughly drunk or decently sober.
When we first met, his cups had brought him nearly to the end of the
belligerent or irascible stage; he was then inveighing against the
dwellers in the Shenandoah Valley, where he had lately been quartered,
for their want of patriotism in declining to furnish their defenders
with gratuitous whisky and tobacco; threatening the most dreadful
reprisals when he should visit "thim desateful Copperhids" again.
Suddenly, without any warning, he slid into the maudlin phase, taking
his parable of lamentation against "this crule warr."

"I weep, sirr," said he, "over the rrupture of mee adhopted
counthree--the counthree that resaved mee with opin arrums, when I was
floying from the feece of toirants," &c., &c.

When he informed me that he belonged to Mulligan's division, the words,
"I suppose so," escaped me, involuntary. Truly, if the rest of the
brigade resembled the specimen before me, only the mighty Celt, whom
Thackeray had made immortal, could command it. I shall never again look
on the "stock" freshman as an exaggeration or caricature.

I waited, the next morning, till a heavy snowstorm had resolved itself
into a thin, driving sleet; then my saddle-bags were strapped on Falcon,
and I set forth alone, the good horse striding away, as strong under me
as if he had never heard of short commons. We baited at Frostburgh, a
sma