Knowing
the relationship between us so fully, you can have no reasonable
objection to conform quietly to all my requisitions, and yield the
toll-keeper his dues."
Our traveller had been long aware, in some degree, of the kind of
relationship between himself and his companion; but, relying on his
defences, and perhaps somewhat too much on his own personal capacities
of defence, and, possibly, something curious to see how far the love of
speech in his assailant might carry him in a dialogue of so artificial a
character, he forbore as yet a resort to violence. He found it
excessively difficult, however, to account for the strange nature of the
transaction so far as it had gone; and the language of the robber seemed
so inconsistent with his pursuit, that, at intervals, he was almost led
to doubt whether the whole was not the clever jest of some country
sportsman, who, in the guise of a levyer of contributions upon the
traveller, would make an acquaintance, such as is frequent in the South,
terminating usually in a ride to a neighboring plantation, and pleasant
accommodations so long as the stranger might think proper to avail
himself of them.
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