Thus driven to predatory acts in
order to sustain life, the advantages offered by Romescos'
swamp-generally well sprinkled with swine-were readily appropriated
to a very good use.
Under covert of Romescos' absence, Mr. M'Fadden had no very
scrupulous objection to his negroes foraging the amply provided
swamp,--provided, however, they did the thing on the sly, were
careful whose porker they dispatched, and said nothing to him about
the eating. In fact, it was simply a matter of economy with Mr.
M'Fadden; and as Romescos had a great number of the obstinate
brutes, it saved the trouble of raising such undignified stock.
Finding, however, that neighbour M'Fadden, or his predatory
negroes-such they were called-were laying claim to more than a
generous share of their porkships, Romescos thought it high time to
put the thing down by a summary process. But what particularly
"riled" Romescos in this affair of the hogs was, that M'Fadden's
negroes were not content with catching them in an honourable way,
but would do it through the agency of nasty cur-dogs, which he
always had despised, and held as unfit even to hunt niggers with.
Several times had he expressed his willingness to permit a small
number of his grunters to be captured for the benefit of his
neighbour's half-starved negroes, provided, always, they were hunted
with honourable hound-dogs. He held such animals in high esteem,
while curs he looked upon with utter contempt; he likened the one to
the chivalrous old rice-planter, the other to a pettifogging
schoolmaster fit for nothing but to be despised and shot.
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