"Yes," exclaimed Rosie, "I perfectly detest and abhor that brutal Tarleton! No Indian was ever more heartless and cruel than he!"
"I think that is true," the Captain said. "He treated American prisoners so unfortunate as to fall into his hands, with most inhuman cruelty; also he was so vain, conceited, and untruthful that in a 'History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781 in the Southern Provinces of North America,' which he wrote after his return to England, he distorts events for his self-glorification to such a degree as has seldom been paralleled. Yes, take him all together he was, I think, one of the most despicable characters of the Revolution."
"I have always been so glad over his defeat by Morgan at the battle of the Cowpens," said Eva, "and have always admired the reminders of it given him by some of the Southern ladies, particularly of the wound on his hand that Colonel Washington gave him in chasing him from that battle-field."
"Yes, I remember," said Rosie. "The ladies were great admirers of Colonel Washington, talked a great deal about him, and at least two or three times gave that vain, boastful, cruel Tarleton a rub about that wound."
"Yes," said the Captain, "those sallies of wit were expended on him by two sisters,--daughters of Colonel Montfort, of Halifax County, North Carolina. When Cornwallis was there on his way to Virginia, Colonel Washington was the subject of conversation one evening; and Tarleton, nettled doubtless by the admiration freely expressed by the ladies, began talking against him, saying that he was an illiterate fellow, hardly able to write his own name.
"The remark was made in the presence of Mrs. Willie Jones, one of the sisters I have spoken of, and she replied, 'Ah, Colonel, you ought to know better, for you bear on your person proof that he knows very well _how to make his mark_.'"
"I shouldn't have liked to be in his place," remarked Max. "I dare say he felt like shooting Mrs. Jones for her compliment."
"That is not at all unlikely," said his father. "It is said that when her sister, Mrs. Ashe, twitted him in like manner, he showed his temper plainly. He had been talking again, sarcastically of Colonel Washington, in her presence, and finally said with a sneer, 'I would be happy to see Colonel Washington.' To which she instantly replied, 'If you had looked behind you, Colonel Tarleton, at the battle of the Cowpens, you would have enjoyed that pleasure.'"