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It was a relief to him, therefore, when their narrow track opened out upon a larger road, and they saw some little way down it a square white house with a great bunch of holly hung out at the end of a stick from one of the upper windows. "By St. Paul!" said he, "I am right glad; for I had feared that we might have neither provant nor herbergage.
But, to confess the truth, the gallant Captain, who had eaten nothing since daybreak, was chiefly interested by the smoke which ascended from the castle chimneys, and the expectations which this seemed to warrant of his encountering an abundant stock of provant, as he was wont to call supplies of this nature.
Could not I buy a boat for seven, my provant for a week for three more, and so arrive in Springfield in ten days' time, go up to the Hardings' and spend the night, and go down to Boston, on a free pass I had, the next day? Had I been as young as I am now, I should have done that thing. I wanted to do it then, but there were difficulties. First, whatever was to be done must be done at once.
After this interchange of greeting, the steed began to his provender with an eager dispatch, which showed old military habits; and the master, after looking on the animal with great complacency for about five minutes, said, "Much good may it do your honest heart, Gustavus; now must I go and lay in provant myself for the campaign."
"In good sooth," answered the Ritt-master, "I had but little to complain of. The pay was somewhat regular, being furnished by the rich Flemings and Waloons of the Low Country. The quarters were excellent; the good wheaten loaves of the Flemings were better than the Provant rye-bread of the Swede, and Rhenish wine was more plenty with us than ever I saw the black-beer of Rostock in Gustavus's camp.
Having secured the provant, my mind was now perfectly at ease, and I leisurely set about completing my arrangements for the voyage. These consisted mainly in locking my only box, and tying up in a cotton quilt a blanket and the thick sheet of goat's-hair-felt that served me for a bed.
The prospect of booty having at once driven out of his head both Gustavus and the provant, he set spurs to Loyalty's Reward, and rode off through the field of battle. "There goes the hound," said Menteith, "breaking the face, and trampling on the body, of many a better man than himself; and as eager on his sordid spoil as a vulture that stoops upon carrion.
Nor, could I do so, do I know another place, wherein I may abide. Quoth the hedgehog, 'Thou canst shake down of the fruit of the palm what shall suffice thee and thy wife for a year's victual; then do ye take up your abode in a nest under the tree, that ye may seek to be guided in the right way, and do ye turn to what ye have shaken down and store it up against the time of need; and when the fruits are spent and the time is long upon you, address yourselves to abstinence from food. 'May God requite thee with good, exclaimed the pigeon, 'for the fair intent with which thou hast reminded me of the world to come and hast directed me into the right way! Then he and his wife busied themselves in knocking down the dates, till nothing was left on the palm-tree, whilst the hedgehog, finding whereof to eat, rejoiced and filled his den with the dates, storing them up for his subsistence and saying in himself, 'When the pigeon and his wife have need of their provant, they will seek it of me, trusting in my devoutness and abstinence; and from what they have heard of my pious counsels and admonitions, they will draw near unto me.
I knew I was forgetting something but how could that be, when, in the most restricted sense of the word, I had nothing to forget? Thus musing, I had gone through half my provant; now I turned round to give the rest to Ah! where was Pup? I knew he had followed me on my first journey up the drain, but I had n't seen him since, and had been too busy to notice his absence.
Once more, in dumb show, I pledged mine honest host of the White Grounds, while he responded in a stealthy duc-an-dhurras; then, having furnished my mate with such provant as was available, I wished him, too, sincerely good-speed. I cannot say that I was sorry, at first, to find myself quite alone.
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