Before I entered the tavern, out burst Parson Downs, and caught hold of me, with a great shout of welcome.  Half-drunk he was, and yet with a marvellous steadiness on his legs, and a command of his voice which would have done him credit in the pulpit.  It was said that this great parson could drink more fiery liquor and not betray it than any other man in the colony, and Nick Barry, who was something of a wag, said that the parson’s wrestlings with spirits of another sort had rendered him powerful in his encounters with these also.  Be that as it may, though I doubt not Parson Downs had drunk more than any man there, no sign of it was in his appearance, except that his boisterousness was something enhanced, and his hand on my shoulder fevered.  “Good day, good day, Master Harry Wingfield,” he shouted.  “How goes the time with ye, sir?  And, I say, Master Wingfield, what will you take for thy horse there?  One I have which can beat him on any course you will pick, with all the creeks in the country to jump, and the devil himself to have a shy at, and even will I trade and give thee twenty pounds of tobacco to boot.  ’Tis a higher horse than thine, Harry, and can take two strides to one of his; and mine hath four white feet, and thine but one, which, as every one knoweth well, is not enough.  What say you, Harry?”

“Your reverence,” I said, laughing, “the horse is not mine, as you know.”

“Nay, Harry,” he burst forth, “that we all know, and you know that we all know, is but a fable.  Doth not Madam Cavendish treat you as a son, and are you not a convict in name only, so far as she is concerned?  I say, Harry, you can ride my horse to the winning on Royal Oak Day, at the races.  What think you, Harry?”

“Your reverence,” I said, “I pray you to give me time,” for well I knew there was no use in reasoning with the persistency to which frequent potations had given rise.

Up to my horse he went with that oversteadiness of the man in his cups, who moves with the stiffness of a tree walking, as if every lift of a heavy foot was the uplifting of a root fast in the ground, and went to stroking his head; when straightway, my horse either not liking his touch or the smell of his liquored breath, and judging as was his wont that the fault must by some means lie with his own race, straightway lashed out a vicious hind leg like a hammer, and came within an ace of the parson’s own valuable horse—­not the one which he proposed trading for mine—­and the wind of the lash frighted the parson’s horse, and he in his turn lashed out, and another horse at his side sprang aside; and straightway there was such a commotion in the tavern yard as never was, and slaves and white servants shouting, and forcing rearing horses to their regular standing, and I stroking my beast, and striving as best I could to bring his pure horse wits to comprehend the strong pressure and responsibility of humanity for the situation; and the Barry brothers