"Ay, old Brown is dead," continued the man, "and Betsy has married young Cox. Ain't it him you mean?" "That we know nothing about," replied I; "but what we wish to learn is, whether we are far from the ferry, and if this is the right road to it." "Ah! the way to the ferry--that's the rub, man! You're a good five miles off, and might just as well turn your horse's head another way. I guess you're strangers in these parts?" "Heaven preserve us!" whispered my friend Richards, "we are in the hands of a Yankee; he is guessing already."{A} Meantime the horseman had drawn nearer to us, in spite of the thorns and of the wet boughs, that each moment slapped and slashed him across his face; and he was now close to our horse. As far as we could distinguish through the rapidly-increasing gloom, he was a middle-aged man, bony and long-legged, with a sallow unprepossessing physiognomy surmounting his long ungainly carcass, and metal buttons upon his coat. "And so you've lost your way?" said the stranger after a long pause, during which the thick fog had had the kindness to convert itself into a close penetrating rain. "That's queer too, seein' that the ferry ain't fifteen paces from the road, which runs right along the side of the river. A very queer mistake to be goin' up the stream, instead of followin' yer nose and the run of the water." "What do you mean?" cried Richards and I in a breath. "That you're goin' up the Tennessee instead of down it, and are on the road to Bainbridge. That's all!" replied the supposed Yankee. "On the road to Bainbridge!" repeated we, in voices in which astonishment and vexation were tolerably evident. "You hadn't a mind to go to Bainbridge, then?" "How far is the infernal place from here?" asked I. "How far, how far?" repeated the man with the metal buttons. "It's not to say very far, nor yet so very near, as I may guess. Perhaps you know Squire Dimple?" "I wish you and Squire Dimple were at the devil!" muttered I. But Richards, who took things more quietly, replied-- "No, we have not the honour of his acquaintance." "Humph! And whereaway may you be goin'?" enquired our tormentor, who was apparently waterproof. "To Florence in Alabama," answered Richards, "and thence down the Mississippi." "Ah, fine city, Florence! such as one only finds in this country. Ain't it now? And a good market, too. Talkin' of that, what's the price of flour in the north? You're come from thereaway, I guess. I did hear it was six and four levies, and Injun corn five and a fip--butter three fips." "Are you mad?" cried I, losing all patience, and unconsciously raising my whip as I spoke--"are you stark staring mad, to keep us talking here about flour and butter, and fips and levies, while the rain is falling by bucketsfull?"