If, on the other hand, the stranger was in reality the ruffian he
represented himself, he knew not how to account for his delay in the
assault--a delay, to the youth's mind, without an object--unless
attributable to a temper of mind like that of Robin Hood, and coupled in
the person before him, as in that of the renowned king of the outlaws,
with a peculiar freedom and generosity of habit, and a gallantry and
adroitness which, in a different field, had made him a knight worthy to
follow and fight for Baldwin and the Holy Cross. Our young traveller was
a _romanticist_, and all of these notions came severally into his
thoughts. Whatever might have been the motives of conduct in the robber,
who thus audaciously announced himself the member of a club notorious on
the frontiers of Georgia and among the Cherokees for its daring
outlawries, the youth determined to keep up the game so long as it
continued such. After a brief pause, he replied to the above
politely-expressed demand in the following language:--
"Your request, most unequivocal sir, would seem but reasonable; and so
considering it, I have bestowed due reflection upon it.
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