In writing a biography, the relative value of days and years should hold.  There are days which count in space for years, and years for days.  I spent the time on the whole happily with this Dutchman, whose name was Hans Koppel.  He talked merrily save when he spoke of the war against England, and then contemptuously, for he was a bitter English partisan.  And in contrast to this he would dwell for hours on a king he called Friedrich der Grosse, and a war he waged that was a war; and how this mighty king had fought a mighty queen at Rossbach and Leuthen in his own country,—­battles that were battles.

“And you were there, Hans?” I asked him once.

“Ja,” he said, “but I did not stay.”

“You ran away?”

“Ja,” Hans would answer, laughing, “run avay.  I love peace, Tavid.  Dot is vy I come here, and now,” bitterly, “and now ve haf var again once.”

I would say nothing; but I must have looked my disapproval, for he went on to explain that in Saxe-Gotha, where he was born, men were made to fight whether they would or no; and they were stolen from their wives at night by soldiers of the great king, or lured away by fair promises.

Travelling with incredible slowness, in due time we came to a county called Orangeburg, where all were Dutchmen like Hans, and very few spoke English.  And they all thought like Hans, and loved peace, and hated the Congress.  On Sundays, as we lay over at the taverns, these would be filled with a rollicking crowd of fiddlers and dancers, quaintly dressed, the women bringing their children and babies.  At such times Hans would be drunk, and I would have to feed the tired horses and mount watch over the cargo.  I had many adventures, but none worth the telling here.  And at length we came to Hans’s farm, in a prettily rolling country on the Broad River.  Hans’s wife spoke no English at all, nor did the brood of children running about the house.  I had small fancy for staying in such a place, and so Hans paid me two crowns for my three weeks’ service; I think, with real regret, for labor was scarce in those parts, and though I was young, I knew how to work.  And I could at least have guided his plough in the furrow and cared for his cattle.

It was the first money I had earned in my life, and a prouder day than many I have had since.

For the convenience of travellers passing that way, Hans kept a tavern,—­if it could have been dignified by such a name.  It was in truth merely a log house with shakedowns, and stood across the rude road from his log farmhouse.  And he gave me leave to sleep there and to work for my board until I cared to leave.  It so chanced that on the second day after my arrival a pack-train came along, guided by a nettlesome old man and a strong, black-haired lass of sixteen or thereabouts.  The old man, whose name was Ripley, wore a nut-brown hunting shirt trimmed with red cotton; and he had no sooner slipped the packs from his horses than he began to rail at Hans, who stood looking on.