CHAPTER II. A genuine Tuckahoe.
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Cuthbert Dangerfield, or, as he was commonly
called (for every second man you meet
with in this country has a title to a certainty),
Colonel Dangerfield, was a Virginia gentleman—
a regular Tuckahoe—whose family originally
came over with Captain John Smith “the conqueror,”
and had resided for several generations
on James River, in the neighbourhood of Turkey
Island, below the beautiful city of Richmond.
His plantation was large enough to have entitled
him in Germany to at least half a vote in the diet;
the number of his subjects, alias slaves, equal to
those of a Russian boyar; and his spirit was that
of a prince; taking it for granted that, agreeably
to the old mode of comparison, the spirit of a prince
is much more liberal than that of a gentleman.
At the period of which we speak, Turkey Island
and the shores of James River, on either side, as
far down as James Town, the cradle of our New
World, were embellished by the seats of a great
number of the ancient gentry of Old Virginia. It
was here that the Randolphs, the Byrds, the Pages,
the Carters, the Harrisons of Berkeley and Brandon,
together with divers others equally hospitable,
kept open house to all comers, rich and poor; and
no stranger of any pretensions to good breeding
ever declined a visit without manifest danger of
undergoing a defiance, or laying himself open to
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a suspicion of being a horse-stealer, or a fugitive
from justice. Never were they so happy as when
their houses were filled with visiters, and it is on
record that strangers sometimes forgot themselves
while enjoying their hospitality, and fancied themselves
at home. Such was their horror of formal
visits and formal invitations, that to this day there
is a coolness between two families of these parts,
which arose from an ancestor of one of the houses
having once left his card at the mansion of the
other. It was held a mortal offence to good neighbourhood
to send notice of a visit, and no man
considered himself welcome if he went on an invitation.
If Randolph of Turkey Island thought
his neighbour Dangerfield on the opposite shore
delayed his visit too long, he caused the old black
herald to sound his horn to summon him to the
field or the table; and the consequence of neglect
or disobedience in answering it would have been
a mortal feud, enduring even unto the fourth
generation.
Never were there people so rich with so little
money. Plenty, nay, profusion, reigned all around
them; yet many lived, as it were, by anticipation.
They were almost always beforehand with their
means, and the crops of the ensuing year were
for the most part mortgaged to supply the demand
of the present. They feared nothing but a
bad season for tobacco, a deed of trust, and a
Scotch merchant. They were a high-spirited
race, among the best specimens of aristocracy in
modern times; but they have almost all disappeared
from their ancient possessions. Industry
and economy, when not counteracted by laws and
institutions to prevent their otherwise inevitable
result, will always, sooner or later, effect a
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transfer of property from the rich to the poor. Here
and there, however, one of these ancient lords of
the soil still maintains his state along the shores
of James River; and we have yet on our palates
the relish of some of the sacred relics of the old
Madeira which is still dispensed with open hand
at their hospitable boards.
Colonel Dangerfield was rich in lands and
slaves; but what products of lands or human labour
can supply the demands of careless prodigality,
whose perpetual drains will at length convert
the richest soil into the sands of the desert?
Your tobacco is a sore devourer of the juices of
the earth, and too many crops in succession will
exhaust it, so that it will be incapable of producing
any thing but weeds and sumack for years.
The colonel kept open house, and his necessities
ran him so hard, that he ran in debt to the Scotch
merchant two years in anticipation. To meet
these new difficulties, he ran his land still harder,
extended his tobacco-fields, repeated his crops on
the same soil, until at length it gave up the ghost,
and, like an over-cultivated intellect, became incurably
barren.
The Scotch merchant was reasonably patient
for two, or rather three, special reasons. He was
on the whole a good-natured and liberal man except
in small matters; he knew that to press
a planter too zealously for the payment of his
debts would be to lose the business of all the
others, who would rise up and make common
cause against such ungentlemanly avidity; and,
moreover, he was aware that, according to the
ancient law of the Old Dominion, there was no
way of getting hold of real estate except by a deed
of trust given voluntarily by the possessor. For
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these reasons, his patience lasted rather longer
than might otherwise have been expected.
But the patience of a creditor is nothing compared
with that of a debtor. The one is a mere
hack-horse, that breaks down at the first heat;
the other a full-blooded racer—an Eclipse, a Henry,
or a Bonnets of Blue—which, like Old Virginia
herself, “never tires.” The merchant at length
got out of patience, and began to hint at a deed
of trust—infamous words and outrageous to the
ear of a planter! The colonel challenged the
Scotch merchant for insulting him with such a
proposal; but the latter answered, like a reasonable
man, that if he would only pay him his
money, he would fight him afterwards with great
pleasure. But it was rather more agreeable to a
debtor to liquidate his debts with a bullet than for
a creditor to be paid after that fashion. From
that time forward he dunned the colonel by every
post, which, however, in justice to the merchant,
ran only once a week.
Some men don't mind being dunned every day;
they become accustomed to it in time, and attain
to an extraordinary dexterity in the invention of
excuses. But Colonel Dangerfield was not one
of these; he could not invent a falsehood for the
life of him, and, if he could, he would never have
condescended to utter one. The situation of his
affairs, which gradually grew worse and worse,
and the importunities of his creditor, which daily
became more pressing, worried him to the soul.
He lost his spirits, and, with them, all relish for
social enjoyment; he became moody, testy, abstracted,
and abstained from all his usual amusements
within doors and without. All at once,
however, he seemed to rally again. A notice
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appeared in the public papers, under the signature
of a noted gentleman sportsman, offering to run
his imported gray mare Lady Molly Magpie, four
mile heats, at the next fall meeting, against all
Virginia, for any sum from one to twenty thousand
pounds, old currency. Colonel Dangerfield
pricked up his ears; he had a famous horse yclept
Barebones, who had long reigned lord of the Virginia
course, and won him so much money, that
he might have paid the Scotch merchant if he
had not lost it all in betting on bay fillies, bright
sorrels, and three year olds of his own breeding,
all of whom had the misfortune to bolt, break
down, or be distanced, to his great astonishment
and mortification. He determined to accept the
challenge, after which, as is usual with all wise
men when they have made up their minds, he
went to consult his wife on the matter.
Mrs. Dangerfield was one of the choicest ornaments
of the sex; a saint in her closet, a matron
in the nursery, a lady in her kitchen as well as in
her parlour; delicate, sensible, accomplished in
all that becomes a woman; a watchful mistress,
a careful, mild, yet firm mother; a wife who,
without attempting to govern, aimed only to control
the imprudence or overrule the foibles of her
husband by modest firmness, in urging arguments
better than he could oppose. Nine times in ten
the colonel fell into a passion at being thwarted
in his wishes or whims, and flounced away in disgust;
but he seldom failed to return in due season,
and, as Mrs. Dangerfield had the good sense
and forbearance to refrain from renewing the subject,
would come over to her opinion with something
like the following salvo:—
“My dear, upon reflection, I think I did not
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quite understand you this morning; you meant
so and so.”
“To be sure I did, my dear; how could you
think otherwise? I agreed with you perfectly.”
“O, well, if that is the case, I shall certainly
not oppose you. Do just as you please, my dear.”
“No, just as you please, my dear.”
“Very well, I leave it to you entirely;” and the
affair was amicably adjusted. The colonel was
satisfied, or rather he chose to be satisfied, that he
had his own way; and Mrs. Dangerfield was too
considerate to undeceive him.
Having, as we premised, made up his mind to
accept the challenge of Lady Molly Magpie, he
sought his wife, and apprized her of his resolution.
Being a sensible, discreet lady, she of course
attempted to dissuade him from carrying it into
effect.
“You know, colonel, that Barebones is getting
old; he is now eight years of age.”
“Seven,—only seven, my dear,—last grass.”
“Well, that comes to almost the same thing;
it is now the beginning of autumn. But besides
this, you remember he faltered and almost broke
down in his last contest with Betsey Richards.
Everybody said if Betsey had not flown the
course he would have been beaten.”
“Then everybody talked like fools,” replied the
colonel, not a little nettled.
Mrs. Dangerfield smiled.
“What everybody says must be true, my dear,
according to the old proverb.”
“D—n old proverbs! but the short and the
long of the matter is, that I am determined to
accept this defiance. It shall never be said I
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flinched from a challenge of old Allen of Claremont.”
“But Allen of Claremont has not challenged
you, my dear.”
“But he has challenged my horse, and that is
just the same thing.”
“The challenge is general.”
“Yes, but I know he meant me. He can't get
over being distanced the first heat at the last fall
meeting at Tree Hill, by my three-year-old.” And
the colonel chuckled mightily at the recollection
of his triumph over his old neighbour and rival
Allen of Claremont.
“Well, colonel, if you are determined—”
“I am determined—but—but yet—I want to
consult you a little about it.”
“What, when you are determined?” said Mrs.
Dangerfield, a little archly.
“I—I—I want your opinion, Cornelia,” said
Colonel Dangerfield, drawing his chair confidentially
towards his wife.
“My opinion is always at your service, my
husband, such as it is; and be assured that whatever
it may want in discretion, is supplied by a
desire which is never absent from my heart,—
that of contributing to your honour and happiness.”
“I know it, I know it,” cried he, and the dotard
kissed her tenderly, though they had been married
almost nine years!
“Listen to me,” and here his proud spirit hesitated
for a moment; “I am in debt more than I
have the means of paying.”
“I know it, my dear.”
“You know it!—in the name of heaven how
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came you to know what I have tried all I could
to keep secret?”
“Affection is both prying and sagacious. I
have seen you every week of late receiving letters
the handwriting of which I know, and the contents
of which I know; for I know that you, my
husband, never did any act in your life, save one,
that could cause you to shrink from communications
from any man living, and exhibit such
melancholy feelings on reading them.”
“And yet you never inquired about them!
wonderful woman!”
“I wished to convince you that a woman can
keep her tongue, if she cannot keep a secret,”
replied the lady, good-humouredly.
“Well, my dear, I am in debt, deeply in debt;
my crops are mortgaged for three years at least;
the merchant, when I call for farther advances,
duns me for those already made. My only chance
is upon Barebones,—I intend to risk twenty thousand
at least, and if I win, as no doubt I shall, it
will make me a man again.”
“But if you lose?”
“No danger of that; Barebones may defy all
Virginia. But if I should lose by any unlucky
accident,—I shall be no worse off than before. I
am already indebted more than I can pay without
a miracle.”
“Not so, my husband,—I think I can put you
in a way of retrieving your affairs without a
miracle.”
“Ah! as how, Cornelia?”
“By saving your next three years' crops to pay
the Scotch merchant.”
“Save! impossible!” cried the colonel, in utter
astonishment; “I never heard of such a thing
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in the whole course of my life. How the deuse
shall I go about it?”
“In the first place dispose of your race horses.”
“Impossible! what will Allen of Claremont
say to it?”
“Never mind what he says; he'll think you
wiser than he ever did before. In the next place
we must omit our winter's visit to Richmond.”
“Impossible! what will Mrs. Grundy and all
the rest of your old friends say?”
“Let them say what they please. I believe
one half the miseries of this life originate in our
foolish fears of what people will say of us. Let
us do right, and let others wonder if they will.”
“Well, well,” said Colonel Dangerfield, shaking
his head; “what next?”
“We must leave off keeping open house, and
treating all comers.”
“I'll be hanged if I do!” cried he, in a rage;
“what, shut up my doors, like a miserable hunks,
and turn my back and pretend not to see strangers
as they pass? no, no, that won't do,—what will
Randolph of Turkey Island say to that?”
“Why, what can he say, but that you have
changed from an imprudent to a prudent man?”
“Prudence! prudence is a beggarly virtue, and
I hate the very name of it. Randolph of Turkey
Island swears it is a very aldermanly virtue, and
I am of his opinion.”
“It is a cardinal virtue.”
“Yes, but not the virtue of a cardinal;” and
the colonel laughed himself almost into good-humour
at this happy turn; “well, what else?”
“We can turn the four carriage horses to the
labours of the field, and use them on Sundays to
go to church.”
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Now the colonel valued his carriage horses next
unto his prime favourite Barebones. They were
full brothers and full blooded, and their ancestors,
we believe, came over with William the Conqueror.
In short, they had a pedigree that might
have figured in Ragman's roll, or that of Battle
Abbey. The idea of degrading them to the
plough overturned all the complacency of spirit
engendered by the lucky joke about the cardinal,
and the colonel waxed wroth.
“Yes,” exclaimed he, “yes, turn the blood of
the Godolphin Arabian to the plough tail, work
them to skin and bone, till their sleek glossy coats
become like the hair of a Narragansett pacer, and
then hitch them to the carriage on Sunday, go to
church on a snail's gallop, and have old Allen of
Claremont laugh in his sleeve at us,—curse me
if I ever heard of such an unreasonable woman.
No, madam,” continued he, with an air and tone
of lofty sublimity, “no, madam, never shall it be
said that Cuthbert Dangerfield turned a blood
horse to a plough's tail, and disgraced his ancestors,
himself, and his posterity. Hear me, Mistress
Dangerfield!—Barebones shall enter against
Molly Magpie, as sure as he has legs to run, and
ground to run upon. Old Allen of Claremont
shall never have it to say I refused his challenge.”
And the colonel, according to custom, went to
consult with his prime confidant and counsellor,
Mr. Ulysses Littlejohn, whom it may be proper
to introduce to our readers.
This worthy wight was of an unknown relationship
to Colonel Dangerfield, a sixteenth cousin removed,
who on the score of his near connexion with
the family was considered fully entitled to claim
bed and board and maintenance at his hands. He
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had inherited a pretty good estate which he spent
like a gentleman,—that is to say, by paying no
attention to his affairs, and wasting every year
more than his income. This is an infallible
method; but it was too slow for Mr. Littlejohn.
Finding he was going down hill, he determined
to relieve himself by a speculation. Accordingly
he borrowed money, and built a mill on a fine
stream of water which ran through his estate.
This lucky hit would undoubtedly have retrieved
his affairs, had not the stream soon after dried up
in consequence of the draining of a great marsh
about twenty miles off. Ulysses was advised to
prosecute the owner of the marsh for this unneighbourly
act. Accordingly he went to law,
and everybody prophesied that he was a ruined
man. The law, as all know who have had experience
in the matter, is as it were a snail without
legs. They say it actually does move, but it
is not always that people can see it without spectacles.
It is therefore little to be wondered at,
that rogues should complain, as we are credibly
informed they do, that the law is so slow they
sometimes lose all patience before they are brought
to the gallows. Be this as it may, Mr. Littlejohn
waited patiently five years, and was rewarded at
last by a decision against him. He was obliged
to give a deed of trust on the remainder of his
estate to pay a bill, which, if it had been cut into
slices, would have made five dozen tailor's measures;
and he was indebted for a mill that had
no water to set it going. But he was predestined
to happiness in this world in despite of fortune;
everybody pitied him, yet he was the merriest
rogue in all the country round, and did more
laughing than any ten men in Virginia,—we
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mean white men; for, notwithstanding the negroes
are so unutterably miserable, it somehow
or other happens that they are a hundred times
merrier than their masters.
When the time came to pay the money he had
borrowed, he offered his creditor the mill he had
built with it. The creditor refused, and Mr. Littlejohn
thought him a very unreasonable person.
To make an end of the matter, in due time he
was obliged to sell his estate, the proceeds of
which were just sufficient to pay his debts; and
at the age of eight-and-twenty, was left, as the
phrase is, high and dry ashore, the most helpless,
the most careless, and the most gentlemanly pauper,
that ever broke bread in the house of a sixteenth
cousin removed. In proportion as Ulysses
grew poor, he multiplied his visits to Colonel
Dangerfield, whose kindness increased with his
poverty. At first he came only to dine, and it
was amazing to see the relish with which he
drank the colonel's wine, and cracked his jokes as
if he had ten thousand a year. By degrees his
visits became more frequent, and longer; he
sometimes staid all night; from this he got to
two or three days, and finally, when his estate
departed from him, and he had nothing left but a
blood horse descended from Flying Childers by
the mother's side, he rode over to Powhatan,—
gave his horse to one blackey, his saddle-bags to
another, and quietly took possession of his accustomed
room. No questions were asked, not a
word said,—every thing was understood; he was
perfectly welcome, and the matter was settled.
He had now remained upwards of six years an
inmate of the family, and during all that time
had never once talked of going away, that he
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might be pressed to stay. Nay, what is still more
remarkable, he had never been reminded by a
look, a hint, a word of unkindness, a neglect
of the servants, or an omission of the colonel to
ask him to take wine, that he was a beggar and
dependant. The blackeys loved Massa Leetlejohn,
or Massa Lysses, as he was indifferently
called, for he made them laugh at his odd jokes;
the children of the house followed him about like
pet lambs, for he had a pleasure in levelling himself
to their capacity, shared in their amusements,
made them whistles, told them stories, and gained
their little hearts, by repressing all pretensions to
superior wisdom. Mrs. Dangerfield was always
particularly careful to have his room kept in
order, his shoes well cleaned, his apparel whole
and decent; and in the season of flowers, you
never failed to see a bouquet placed on his table,
and a bunch of evergreens in his fireplace.
As to the colonel, he had become so accustomed
to Mr. Littlejohn, that he could not live without
him. His easiness of temper, his pleasing disposition,
his cheerful habit of mind, and, above all,
his unparalleled knack at killing time, were
invaluable qualities in a companion to a country
gentleman, who read little, worked less, and was
out of the sphere of those city amusements which
in a great degree disarm idleness of its leaden
sting. Never man was so expert at getting
through a morning as Mr. Ulysses Littlejohn,
without doing any earthly thing either for “posterity
or the immortal gods.” Many a time did
he and the colonel set forth on horseback for a
morning ride, and get no farther than the gateway,
where they stopped peradventure to discuss
the propriety of a new gate-post or some such
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matter. The colonel loved conversation, but was
not very fruitful in suggesting topics, or bringing
ideas to bear upon them. When, therefore, he
was lucky enough to get hold of a subject, he did
not like to part with it in a hurry, any more than
a dog does to resign his only bone, let it be ever
so bare. He soon tired of a person who never
contradicted him, for without something of this
sort conversation is apt to fall dead to the ground.
To do Ulysses justice, though a dependant, he
felt his situation so lightly, or rather forgot it so
entirely, that he never had the least hesitation in
opposing the opinions of the colonel on all occasions
where he really differed with him. Thus
they lived together in perpetual collision, the best
friends in the world, for they helped each other
to kill time, and Mr. Littlejohn, in addition to
his excellence at making indifferent jokes, had a
still more invaluable faculty of laughing heartily
at a dull one, after the manner of the members
of the English parliament.
The colonel, who, as we premised, departed in
wrath from the presence of Mrs. Dangerfield in
search of Mr. Littlejohn, found that worthy, lounging
as was his custom, about the stable; for there
is a singular affinity between an idle man and a
horse,—at least there was between Ulysses and
honest Barebones, who never failed to twinkle his
nostrils and utter a most significant chuckle whenever
he received a visit from his friend.
“How is Barebones to-day, cousin Littlejohn?”
said the colonel.
“Prime, colonel.”
“Do you know that Mrs. Dangerfield says he
would have been beaten at Tree Hill course last
year if Betsey Richards had not bolted?”
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If Mr. Littlejohn had not loved and respected
Mrs. Dangerfield above all created beings, he
would certainly have spoken, as it were, slightingly
of her knowledge in horseflesh, for this gross
slander of his friend; as it was, he only said,
“Pooh, colonel! what can a woman know about
these matters?”
“Come, come, Ulysses; no reflections on my
wife. I wish I may be shot if she isn't the cleverest
woman in Virginia.”
“Well, I know she is. Heaven forbid that I,
who look up to her as an angel down here below,
should say any thing in her disparagement. But
it's no reflection on a woman to say she knows
nothing about horseflesh.”
“I tell you, Lyssy, she knows but every thing.
I sometimes think the deuce is in her, for she
seems to know more than I do—hey!”
“Why, I've sometimes thought so myself, colonel.”
“Then you thought like a goose, Lyssy,” rejoined
the other, who did not like to have anybody
agree with him in this surmise. “But,
Lyssy,—here, Lyssy,”—and, beckoning him close,
he half-whispered in his ear,
“I've a great mind to accept old Allen of Claremont's
challenge, and run Barebones against
Molly Magpie,—hey, boy?”
“Have you?” quoth Littlejohn, in the same
tone, rubbing his hands.
“I'm determined on it.”
“Are you, by gum!” exclaimed the other, in a
suppressed voice of delight.
“Yes; but—but—do you think there is any
truth in what Mrs. Dangerfield said about Barebones?”
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“Not a word; he never was in better condition;
and, to show you I am sincere in my opinion,
damme, colonel, if I don't go your halves in the
bet.”
“Humph!” said the colonel; but he did not display
as much gratitude at this generous offer as
might be expected.
The result of this conference was a sudden journey
of Mr. Littlejohn up to Richmond, and the
subsequent appearance in the newspaper of an
acceptance of the challenge of Allen of Claremont
by Dangerfield of Powhatan, to run Barebones
against Molly Magpie at the next October meeting
for twenty thousand pounds, play or pay.
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CHAPTER III. Showing how the Gray Mare proved the better Horse in more ways than one.
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All the opposition of Mrs. Dangerfield to the
whims and freaks of the colonel was preventive.
When the thing was past recall, she ceased to
allude to it, unless it happened to turn out well,
when she never failed to give him due credit and
compliment him on his sagacity. When, therefore,
she saw in the public papers the acceptance
of the challenge of Allen of Claremont recorded in
our last chapter, she knew the matter was decided,
and kept her forebodings to herself. She even
affected a cheerful confidence in the result, far
different from her real anticipations. Should any
of our bachelor readers wish to know where to
find such a wonder of a woman, we will go so far
to allay their curiosity as to assure them that
there is actually such a one in the land of the living,
and that she resides—the Lord knows where!
Time rolled on—the decisive hour approached—
the worthy Mr. Littlejohn for once gathered
himself together, cast aside the vis inertiœ with a
mighty effort, and became a most indefatigable
attendant on his illustrious friend Barebones, who
was petted as never quadruped was petted before,
except it might peradventure be a prize ox, a
Teeswater bull, or a royal ram from the Rambouillet
flock during the raging of the merino mania.
It was now the charming month of October, when
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the earth and its foliage, the sky, its sun and stars
are so often shaded with a thin misty veil, that
while it obscures the face of nature, at the same
time renders it more touchingly beautiful. All
Virginia was in motion, from the alluvial to the
primitive formation, from Chesapeake Bay to the
Blue Ridge. The high-mettled cavaliers of the
“Ancient Dominion” mounted their high-mettled
teeds, anticipated the next year's crop of tobacco,
and came with pockets richly lined; and many an
ample estate long after rued the racing of that day.
Nor must we omit to record that Mrs. Dangerfield
took occasion to remind the colonel, that as it was
possible he might lose his bet of twenty thousand
pounds, his honour required that he should be prepared
to pay on the spot. He accordingly once
more wrote to his old friend the Scotch merchant,
offering to give him a deed of trust for his whole estate
if he would advance the sum of forty thouand
pounds. The proposal was accepted, the deed
executed, and the inheritance of six generations
became subject to the disposition of a stranger.
At length the day arrived big with the fate of
Lady Molly Magpie and Barebones, of Allen of
Claremont and Dangerfield of Powhatan,—and a
glorious day it was. Previous to its arrival, Barebones
had been escorted, with a dignity becoming
the high destinies connected with his speed and
bottom, to the neighbourhood of the racecourse.
The colonel and Mr. Littlejohn rode on either
side, while Barebones, richly caparisoned with a
gorgeous blanket, and looking through a pair of
holes, like an old gentleman through his spectacles,
was led by uncle Pompey, or Pompey Ducklegs,
as he was most irreverently nicknamed by
the young ebonies, on the score of a pair of little
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bandy drumsticks, by the aid of which he waddled
along after the fashion of that amphibious
bird. Pompey claimed and received this post of
honour by virtue of having once had the felicity
of belonging to Lord Dunmore, the last royal governor
of Old Virginia. He considered himself as
a branch of the aristocracy, often boasted that he
was one of the few gentlemen left in the Ancient
Dominion, and never failed to lay all the blame of
bad crops on the revolution. When he recollected
that Molly Magpie was an “imported” horse, and
a lady besides, his mind misgave him sorely, for
he could scarcely bring himself to believe it possible
that any animal foaled on this side the Atlantic
had a chance of success against one so high
bred and highly descended. “Dem rebel horse
no bottom,” thought Pompey. Close behind Pompey
the Great rode Pompey the Little, his grandson,
to whom the conduct of Barebones was to be
intrusted in the coming contest between the houses
of Claremont and Powhatan. He was dressed in
a sky-blue jacket, red cap, and pantaloons of the
same colour; and his black face presented a beautiful
contrast to the ivory teeth which he ever and
anon displayed in rows the brightest beauty in
the land might have envied, as he recalled to
mind the promise of his master, that if he won
the race, he would give him his freedom and a
hundred a year for life. As thus they walked
their horses slowly and majestically along, Pompey
the Great would ever and anon turn round,
shake his fist at Pompey the Little, and exclaim,
“You young racksal, you no win dis here race,
you disgrace you family—mind, I say so.”
The race was to take place precisely at one
o'clock, but long before the hour arrived the
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course was thronged with thousands of people in
carriages, on horseback, and on foot, of all grades,
sizes, ages, and colours. The day was charming,
the air inspiring, and the scene beautiful and animated
beyond description. The racecourse was
on an elevated table-land, which commanded a
view of the city of Richmond, its imposing capitol
(perhaps the finest situated building in the
United States), the turbulent rapids of the majestic
river foaming and pelting its way among the
rocks and islands fast anchored in the waves, and
afterwards winding its quiet course at a distance
among the round full-bosomed hills, presented a
scene which of itself might occupy the attention
for hours. But the animation of the course rendered
a long abstraction quite impossible. Gallant
equipages every moment arriving, in which
the pride of Virginia, her wives and daughters,
displayed their fair and delicate countenances,—
full-blooded horses champing the bit impatiently,
and pawing the ground as if anxious to contest
the prize of the day, or scouring the plain in all
directions, like the winged Arabs of the desert,
communicated indescribable gayety and interest
to the scene. But the gayest of the gay, the happiest
of the happy, the noisiest of the noisy, were
the gentlemen of colour, young and old, to whom
this was a holyday sanctioned by long prescription.
Such a mortal display of ivory and crooked
legs, such ecstatic gambols, such triumphant buffoonery,
such inspiring shouts, such inimitable
bursts of laughter never were seen or heard among
the grave, reflecting progeny of freedom; and the
spectator might have been tempted to ask himself,
“If these are not happy, at least at the present
moment, where is happiness to be found?”
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At twelve the champions appeared, and all was
hushed. The knowing ones followed Barebones
and Molly Magpie around the course, scanning
them with a keen and critical eye, and making up
their minds to bet on one or the other. The coloured
rout thronged along the way, looking as
wise as their betters, and giving their opinions in
prophetic whispers, or climbed the trees and fences
to witness the coming trial. Allen of Claremont
and Dangerfield of Powhatan met and saluted
each other with the dignified courtesy of two
knights of chivalry on the eve of a joust in honour
of their respective ladies; and it was singular to
observe with what a degree of interest and almost
sublimity the ownership of two such famous
horses and the large sums at stake invested these
two gallant cavaliers. The crowd followed them
whithersoever they went, and where they were
was the centre of attraction.
Tap—tap—tap! went the drum for the second
time,—the judges ascended the stand of judgment,—
the horses were brought to the starting
pole champing and foaming, as if partaking
in the feelings of their masters, and equally anxious
for the event of the struggle. For our part
we have no doubt that race horses are perfectly
aware of the object for which they are contesting,
and share in the triumph of victory. The judges
were now standing with stop watches counting
the minutes, and a breathless silence preceded the
last tap of the drum. It was a scene of almost
unequalled excitement, and in spite of all that
may be said in disparagement of the sport, we
neither blame those that encourage, nor those
who partake in its enjoyment, with due moderation.
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Tap—tap—tap! went the drum for the third
time. The riders were mounted, and the yellow
cap and green vest of Allen of Claremont appeared
side by side with the red cap and blue
vest of Dangerfield of Powhatan. As Pompey
the Great lifted Pompey the Little to the saddle, he
repeated for the last time,
“Now you dem racksal, you no win dis race,
you disgrace to you family.”
The signal was given, and the two noble
animals went off with a bound, as if they had
suddenly been gifted with the wings of the wind.
Now Molly Magpie, being the lighter and weaker
of the two, gained upon Barebones, as they came
to a little descending ground; and anon Barebones
shot ahead, as they rose upon the ascent.
The first two rounds continued thus alternately
in favour of one or the other, the little red cap
and the yellow appeared perched in the air, and
the riders seemed hardly to touch the horses they
rode. A dead and breathless silence held captive
the crowd, and Allen and Dangerfield might be
seen, each on a little eminence in the centre of
the field, watching the struggle with a steady
countenance, and calm determined eye. The
third round Barebones decidedly took the lead:
first a head, then a neck, then a whole body appeared
in advance, and by the time they arrived
at the goal, Barebones was computed to be ten
lengths ahead of Molly Magpie. The assembled
multitude shouted “Victory! Hurrah for Barebones!”
and as for old Pompey, he scarcely waited
for little red cap to be weighed after the heat,
when he hugged him in his arms, and pronounced
him an honour to his family.
The second heat was contested with equal
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obstinacy, but not with the like result; Molly Magpie
came in ahead of Barebones, and the knowing
ones began to hedge. Just at the moment of
starting for the third and last heat, Allen of Claremont
exclaimed, in a loud voice,
“Twenty thousand more on the gray mare!”
The temptation was irresistible.
“Done!” cried Dangerfield.
“Done!” cried Allen; and at that instant the
horses started to decide the fortunes of the house
of Powhatan. For the whole of the three rounds
you might have covered them both with a blanket,
and nobody knew which had won, until the
judges, after some consultation, decided in favour
of Molly Magpie, by half a head. The same
voices that had shouted and huzzaed for Barebones
now shouted and huzzaed for Molly Magpie,
such is the instability of popular applause;
and it is recorded that Pompey the Great fought
that day six pitched battles with certain gentlemen
of colour, who belonged to the faction of
the gray mare. Yet for all this he could not help
saying to himself, “Eh! dem I spect so; dem
rumpublican horse he no hold candle to tudder.”
Dangerfield dined with the sporting club;
toasted the winning horse, laughed his laugh, joked
his joke, and received the compliments of many
a sympathizing cavalier on the speed and bottom
of Barebones, the conqueror of a hundred fields,
with an air of careless self possession, that might
have aspired to the honours of philosophy had
the occasion been more worthy. He felt that he
was a ruined man, but he was determined no one
should penetrate his feelings, most especially
Allen of Claremont.
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“If it is inconvenient to you, colonel,” said
Allen.
“O, not in the least,” said Dangerfield; and the
debt was paid on the spot.
“Will you sell Barebones?”
“No, sir,” replied the other, and abruptly turned
away.
The next morning the procession which set
out with such exulting anticipations, returned
home downcast and dejected, with the exception
of the colonel, who was determined to present a
dignified front to Mrs. Dangerfield. Mr. Littlejohn,
who had not uttered a single word since
the loss of the race, rode carelessly on, scarcely
holding his bridle, which hung loosely on his
horse's mane, and now and then casting his eye
with a look of commiseration on his benefactor;
old Pompey did nothing but shake his fist at little
Pompey; and even Barebones seemed conscious
of his defeat, for he slouched along with his head
depressed, and had hardly spirit to brush away
the flies with his tail.
-- 035 --
CHAPTER IV. A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband.
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If we do not mistake it was Cardinal Richelieu
who once boasted that he could make treason or
heresy out of any three words in any language;
such is the uncertainty of speech, and the ingenuity
of man in misinterpreting it! One might
suppose that the simple line placed at the head of
this chapter could not possibly have afforded any
sport to the commentators; and yet it is not so.
Some of these have interpreted it as having allusion
to a kingly crown, which in these troubled
days is in truth little else than a crown of thorns.
Others, who doubtless belonged to the ancient, if
not very honourable order of old bachelors, have
ignorantly presumed that the crown here meant
is that piece of silver coin bearing on its face the
hooked nose of Louis of France, and formerly
passing current in these States at eight and tenpence,
and thus attempted to degrade the dignity
of the sex down to that ignoble standard. But
beshrew their hearts, we say,—meaning thereby,
may they marry a shrew, and repent this atrocious
blasphemy, in smoky chimneys, and curtain
lectures. Who that hath ever known the blessing
of a modest, tender, cheerful, sensible helpmate
and companion, amid the flowers of youth, the
fruits of manhood, and the yellow leaves of declining
age, but will recognise that the crown
alluded to by the inspired writer is the crown of
happiness, and not the thorny bauble for which
-- 036 --
[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]
men wade through oceans of blood, nor the shining
temptation which is so often the price of
honour, integrity, and a quiet conscience.
The rumour of the defeat and discomfiture of
Barebones reached Mrs. Dangerfield the evening
of the day on which it happened. Nobody
knew how it came, or who brought the news, for
it may be said of Rumour, that, like the pestilence,
she walketh in darkness with the speed of
thought or anticipation, outstrips the swiftest locomotive,
and leaves all human conveyances behind.
We have sometimes been almost tempted
to believe she possessed the spirit of prophecy,
and foretold the future, rather than recorded the
past.
Be this as it may, when Colonel Dangerfield,
with all the coolness of desperation, apprized his
wife of the loss of the race and the ruin of his
fortune, she received the information without surprise
or emotion. The preceding night she had
given to her two children the tears and sorrows
of a tender mother; this morning she gave her
husband the advice and consolation of a faithful
wife. She neither complained nor reproached,
but looking the present calmly in the face, asked
of the colonel a full and fair statement of his
affairs.
“I am a ruined man,” said he, firmly, “it is
utterly impossible to keep up the establishment
any longer.”
“Well, then we must retrench, my dear.”
“Retrenchment will not do; it is too late now.
I would I had taken your advice in time.”
“Well, never mind that now. If we cannot
live in our accustomed home, we must find one
elsewhere. There is plenty of room in this new
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[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]
world of ours, and wherever we are together there
will be our home.”
“For God's sake, Cornelia, scold me a little,
can't you?” exclaimed Dangerfield, quite overcome.
“I have beggared you and the children,
and yet you forgive me! Call me fool, idiot,
madman, any thing but villain, and I shall feel
somewhat relieved. Come, scold, scold, I say;
curse me for destroying your happiness and that
of our children.”
“You have not destroyed our happiness,” replied
Mrs. Dangerfield; “this is the talk of custom,
the folly of inexperience, which thinks it cannot
exist except in one round of the same modes and
enjoyments. I, sir, as you well know, passed the
early part of my life in poverty, with a parent
whose estate was confiscated and name dishonoured
for his attachment to a worthless master.
From this situation you chose me, and placed me
in the lap of affluence, where every wish has been
gratified. Yet I cannot but confess that, saving
the enjoyments of a wife and a mother, I am not,
I never was, happier than in the midst of poverty.
My dear Cuthbert, this change of fortune
will soon teach you how little, how very little,
the blessings of life depend on mere situation.
Guilt and remorse are the only lasting sources of
misery.”
“And am I not guilty? and will not my future
life be one of bitter compunction?”
“No, not guilty, only imprudent—the imprudence
of inexperience and want of thought. Do
not quarrel with the lessons of experience,” added
she, with a smile; “you will be wiser in future.”
“Yes, I shall shut the door when the steed is
stolen.”
-- 038 --
[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]
“I wish, my dear, Barebones had been stolen
six months ago.”
“Nay, now, Cornelia, don't blame poor Barebones,—
now, don't, I beg of you. Damme if he
isn't the finest creature in Virginia, and I have a
great mind to match him against Allen of Claremont
for the next spring meeting.”
“O, colonel! colonel! what's bred in the bone—
but I don't abuse Barebones, and I am sure he
is the best horse in Virginia; but I hope you
won't match him against Molly Magpie again.”
“What a fool I am!—what an egregious ass!”
cried the colonel, smiting his forehead, and striding
about the room.
By degrees Mrs. Dangerfield drew her husband
into a detail of the state of his affairs, at least so
far as he understood them. The truth is, however,
he knew no more about the matter than
that paragon of ignorance, “the man in the moon.”
He made himself out to be over head and ears in
debt, and that if he turned his plantation and
slaves into gold, they would not pay half of what
he owed. Mrs. Dangerfield was astonished, and
almost lost her self-possession. She maintained
it to be impossible; the colonel insisted it was
possible; and the result of the argument was a
determination to send for the Scotch merchant to
elucidate the matter.
The conference had scarcely ended when a horrible
outcry and commotion was heard in the direction
of the stables, which were at the distance of
about a furlong from the house, and Mrs. Dangerfield
begged the colonel to go and see what was the
matter. Some husbands would have declined,
merely because they consider obliging their wives
as a proof of being henpecked; but the colonel was
-- 039 --
[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]
a little crestfallen at the catastrophe of Barebones
and the state of his affairs, and obeyed like a discreet
person. Arriving on the premises, he beheld
Pompey the Little tied incontinently to a beam,
and Pompey the Great (otherwise called Pompey
Ducklegs) belabouring him with a cowskin so lustily,
that if ever man or boy had a good excuse
for roaring like ten thousand bulls of Bashan, it
was that luckless composition of ebony. Between
every stroke, which was followed by a roar, the
indignant Ducklegs would exclaim:—
“You young racksal—you lose he race, eh!—
(whack!)—You no beat Molly Magpie, eh!—
(whack!)—You no be free nigger, eh!—(whack!)—
You no get hundred a year, eh!—(whack!)—
You disgrace you family, you young racksal, eh!—
(whack! whack! whack!)”
“Pomp,” cried the colonel, “how dare you
strike any of my slaves without my permission?”
“He disgrace he family, massa.”
“Pshaw! untie the poor fellow; he did his
best—it was not his fault that Barebones lost.
Untie him, I say, and never take such a liberty
again, sir.”
“Huh!—libbety!” grumbled Pompey Ducklegs,
as he obeyed his master, “debbil! an't he old nigger's
own flesh and blood, dough he be a disgrace
to he family?”
-- 040 --
CHAPTER V. Showing that a Gentleman will understand his affairs the better for a little Arithmetic.
[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]
Honour and praise to the illustrious Thomas
Dilworth, who whilom, in the days of our flagellation,
used to figure in front of Spelling Book
and “Schoolmaster's Assistant” dire, with quill
behind his ear, in powdered wig, and most redundant
chitterling. True it is, that the march of
improvement in this stupendous age of self-sharpening
pencils, silver forks, antibilious pills, Franklin
gridirons, artificial teeth, artificial flowers, artificial
women, and other stupendous improvements,—
true it is, that this illustrious man hath been elbowed
from the hallowed precincts of practical and
impracticableschools—we beg pardon, institutes—
wherein A, B, C is taught classically, and pothooks
and hangers perpetrated according to the true
principles of trigonometry,—true it is, that his
Spelling Book hath been superseded by millions
of new and improved systems invented by ambitious
pedagogues for the purpose of picking the
pockets of inexperienced parents, and thus benefiting
the rising generation,—that his Schoolmaster's
Assistant hath given place to the same
thing with a different, yea, a more high-sounding
name, and that the titlepage consecrated by his
powdered pate and sagacious phiz, wherein shone
the might of birch, hath been usurped by the effigies
of other pretenders who learned figures and
-- 041 --
[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]
spelling of the immortal gods. “True it is, and
pity 'tis 'tis true;” yet if we desert thee for these
modern upstarts, O most illustrious Thomas! may
we forget our multiplication table, lose the faculty
of calculating compound interest on the money
we lend to our dear friends, and all our practical
knowledge of subtraction be preserved by the necessity
of estimating the diminution of our bank
stock. Those only whose knowledge of arithmetic
will enable them to count the innumerable
flagellations we received under the auspices of the
illustrious Dilworth ere we could be brought to
comprehend the virtue of a common denominator,
can estimate the value of this disinterested tribute
to his memory.
The summons despatched to the Scotch merchant
was in due time followed by the appearance
of that exceedingly methodical person, who was
animated, governed, and impelled, as it were, by
the five rules of arithmetic. He reasoned like
a member of congress, in figures, and drew his
conclusions from profit and loss. It was equally
against his conscience to make a losing bargain
as to take an undue advantage for the
purposes of gain. Dangerfield, who had no
great good-will towards him (for no man loves
his creditor), used to tell a story of Mr. Mactabb,
which, whether true or not, was somewhat
in character. A friend, it seems, proposed to him
a shipment of tobacco to Ireland, where its introduction
was either prohibited or burdened with
enormous duties, observing, at the same time, he
doubted whether it would be quite right. Mactabb
took out his pencil, and entered upon a long
calculation, at the end of which he exclaimed,
“Right, sir, right, by a balance of five thousand
-- 042 --
[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]
pounds.” He was, in short, a lover of money;
yet, such are the strange inconsistencies of even
the most consummate misers, that though they
will starve themselves, they sometimes exhibit
the most extraordinary traits of generosity. Like
pent-up waters, it would seem, when the barrier
is once broken through, they flow in a torrent.
It was thus with Mactabb, who on more than one
occasion had conducted himself with a delicate
liberality which seemed little in accord with his
general character.
“Can you tell me how much I owe you, Mr.
Mactabb?” asked Colonel Dangerfield, almost
afraid to hear the answer.
Mactabb took out his memorandum-book, where
he had calculated the amount to a fraction. It
was somewhat more than seventy-five thousand
pounds, Virginia currency.
“No more?” asked the colonel, drawing his
breath freely, and rubbing his hands.
Mactabb lifted his specs from before his eyes.
and stared at him in astonishment.
“No more, Colonel Dangerfield! why, how
much did you think it was?”
“Why, the truth is, sir, I am not good at calculations;
and besides, I don't know how it is, but
I either kept no account of your advances, or I
have mislaid it. I thought I owed you almost
twice that sum.”
“Here is a phenomenon!” thought Mactabb;
“the first man I ever met with who overrated his
debts.” After a little hesitation, the colonel addressed
him again,—
“Mr. Mactabb, you have told me how much I
owe you; I wish you would go a little farther,
and tell me the amount of my debts to other
people.”
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[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]
Mactabb was more astonished than ever;
though he had been accustomed to dealing with
Virginia planters, he never met with exactly such
a one before.
“That, colonel, is out of my power unless you
will show me your accounts, your day-book, journal,
leger, statement of bills, notes, bonds, acceptances,
purchases, &c. &c. &c.”
“My what?” exclaimed the colonel, utterly confounded;
“I never kept an account in my life.”
“No!” exclaimed Mactabb, more astonished
than the colonel; “I don't wonder—” and here he
checked himself.
“Mr. Mactabb,” said Colonel Dangerfield, in a
husky tone, “it is useless to look back except with
a view to the future. What is done, is done. I
sent for you to learn the amount of your claims
upon me, and to say that you are at perfect liberty
to act on the deed of trust as soon as you
please. I can never repay you, and the estate
must be sold.”
“Sold!”
“Yes—sold.”
“Colonel Dangerfield,” said the Scotsman, “indulge
me a few moments. Is there no way of
avoiding this painful sacrifice? I am a man of
family myself, sir; my father has an estate in the
highlands of Scotland, which, barren as it is,
would break his old heart to part with. Will you—
to bring the matter to a close—will you place
your affairs in my hands, and await the result of
my inquiries and arrangements?”
“It is the very thing I wish; for I will acknowledge
myself utterly incapacitated for the task.”
After gaining all the information possible from
Colonel Dangerfield concerning the state of his
affairs which was very little, Mactabb departed on
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his errand. There is not much difficulty in finding
out creditors, and in less than a month he returned
with the requisite information. There
were a number of considerable demands, but Mactabb
was the principal creditor. Again the colonel
was surprised at the result, and again was the
honest Scot astonished at finding a man who did
not owe half as much as he expected.
“Let us see,” said Mactabb; “your estate contains—
how many acres?”
“I don't know exactly, but I believe about fourteen
thousand.”
“And the amount of your income is—”
“I can't say how much.”
“And the number of slaves—”
“Don't know—my overseer can tell.”
“Perhaps we had better call him in;” and the
overseer was accordingly summoned. After receiving
the necessary information, and the two
gentlemen being left alone, Mactabb resumed the
conversation.
“Well, Colonel Dangerfield, after all, I don't see
that your affairs are so desperate. A few years
of saving will set all right again.”
“But I don't know how to save.”
“O, you will soon learn; necessity is—” and
here he checked himself.
“No, I will be sincere with you, Mr. Mactabb;
if I continue here I must live as I have been accustomed
to live. I must accept invitations, and
give them; I must have my equipages, my pack
of hounds, my blood horses, and I must keep open
house. No, if I cannot hold up my head as I was
wont, I am determined to quit this part of the
country for ever. Besides, I shall be pestered for
debts I cannot pay.”
-- 045 --
[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]
“Let me be your sole creditor, and I will wait
your time.”
“You? why, I thought you—” and the colonel
stammered and stopped.
“I know what you thought me,—a miserly old
hunks, and, the Lord forgive me! so I am, I believe,
sometimes: the instinct of money-getting
frequently overpowers the inward man; but I assure
you, colonel, I am at this moment inclined
to do you a service.”
“I thank you, Mactabb,” replied Dangerfield,
somewhat suspicious of a design; “but I fear it
is out of your power. The estate must and shall
be sold publicly, if no private purchaser can be
found.”
“It will then be sacrificed.”
“I cannot help it. Perhaps you will take it off
my hands, and pay yourself, with the other creditors?”
Mactabb felt the old money-getting devil tugging
at his elbow, and whispering in his ear to
accept the offer. For a few moments he listened
to the tempter, and felt himself sorely beset by his
insinuations. But he said to himself, “Get thee
behind me, Satan;” and the cowardly imp obeyed.
“What say you, sir,” resumed Dangerfield, with
a desperate vivacity, “will you take all and pay
all?”
“No, I'll be d—d if I do!” Mactabb never
swore except when he was going to do a generous
action.
“I thought so,” observed the colonel, indignantly;
“you expect to make a better bargain at
a public sale.”
“There you thought wrong, Colonel Dangerfield.
I expect to make a better bargain in
-- 046 --
[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]
private for you; please to attend to me. I still think
that the better way would be to keep your estate,
and by an inflexible course of economy—[the
colonel shook his head]—well, then, to the other
point; you must make the best sale you can—”
“I know nothing about bargains.”
“More is the pity, Colonel Dangerfield; a man
ignorant of bargaining is always at the mercy of
rogues.”
“And a man acquainted with it is very often a
rogue himself.”
“Amen—tit for tat is all fair. But to the point
once more. In few words, and in all sincerity, I
will take your estate.”
“Hum!” quoth the colonel, dryly.
“I will pay your debts.”
“Hum!” still more dryly.
“I will give you a discharge in full.”
“Hum!” as dry as tinder; “and so the matter
is settled at last.”
“Not quite; there is one condition yet to be
complied with; you must—”
“What a cursed old skinflint!” thought the
colonel.
“You must bind yourself, your heirs, executors,
and assigns to receive from me the just and
full sum of five thousand pounds, Virginia currency,
as a balance due you in the settlement
of this business.”
“The devil!” exclaimed the colonel, astonished.
“Do you consent, Colonel Dangerfield?”
“Are you in earnest, Mr. Mactabb?”
“I am always in earnest when I make a bargain.”
“Well, then, give me your hand, sir; and
damme if you are not the prince of tobacco
-- 047 --
[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]
merchants. You are a right generous fellow; and
I'll make you a present of Barebones.”
“O, no, no, colonel, don't tempt me to lose my
money on a broken-down horse.”
“A broken-down horse, sir! Do you mean to
insult me by insinuating that Barebones is broke
down, or that I would give him to you if he was
not at this moment able to beat any horse, mare,
or gelding in Virginia?”
“Except Molly Magpie.
“No, sir,” cried the colonel, in a rage, “not excepting
Molly Magpie. I'll tell you what, Mr.
Mactabb, you may be a judge of tobacco, but
you know no more of a horse than old Allen of
Claremont; and more than that, sir, please to understand
I'm off with my agreement. You shan't
have my estate; you shan't pay my debts; and
damme if I accept your five thousand pounds.—
Barebones broke down, indeed!”
It was with some difficulty Mactabb allayed the
wrath of the colonel. “A sailor is all one as a
piece of his ship,” as the old song says, and a Virginian
is all one as a piece of his horse. He realizes
the fable of the centaurs—he will have a
horse if he has nothing else; and if he cannot
procure a pair of spurs, he will fasten a single one
to his right heel, justly considering that if you
prick one side of a horse along, the other will follow
of course. Mactabb finally pacified the colonel
by some adroit allusions to the exploits of
Barebones, and the matter was amicably settled.
The colonel consented to have his debts paid, and
to receive the five thousand pounds.
“After all I have got a great bargain,” said
Mactabb, “if I only knew as much about the
cultivation of tobacco as of its quality and
value.”
-- 048 --
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“And I have made a good bargain too,” said
the colonel, with a sigh, “if I only knew as well
how to make, as I do about making away with
money.”
As the winter was now at hand, it was settled
that Colonel Dangerfield should remain where he
was until spring; and after discussing a bottle of
Madeira from a vintage which I believe preceded
the discovery of that island, Mactabb departed for
his residence in the city of Richmond, the abode
of hospitable men and bonny lasses. Here he set
about arranging the affairs of Colonel Dangerfield
with that indefatigable zeal which marked his
character. Next to making money it was his
greatest pleasure to pay it where it was honestly
due, though we are obliged to confess that, on
this occasion, tradition says he squeezed some of
the colonel's creditors at such a horrible rate, that
they did not recover their breath for a week afterwards.
Among the greatest sufferers was an honest
painstaking cobbler, who whilom was wont
to officiate for the dingy vassals of Powhatan,
from whose bill he victoriously deducted sixpence
in the matter of a pair of heeltaps.
-- 049 --
CHAPTER VI. Westward Ho!
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Colonel Dangerfield felt happier than he
had been for many a day, after concluding the
arrangement with Mactabb. He was relieved
from the load of debt,—the heaviest load, except
that of sin, that ever fell on the shoulders of mankind.
Besides this, the thing was settled; and
when that is the case noen but the weaker minded
shrink from the crisis, be it what it may. In the
true spirit of conjugal confidence, the colonel
sought his wife to communicate with her about
the best mode of settling the affair—after it was
all settled. Mrs. Dangerfield could not help smiling
at this complimentary appeal: “better late
than never,” she thought; and kindly expressed
her satisfaction that the thing was no worse.
“But we must leave this next spring, and whither
shall we go?” said she.
“O, there is time enough to think of that—no
use in troubling ourselves before it is necessary.
The spring will soon come, Cornelia.”
“Too soon,” thought Mrs. Dangerfield, and her
naturally sweet voice softened into the most
touching pathos. “The spring will soon come,
the birds in our copses will soon begin to sing,
the flowers in our garden soon begin to bloom, the
meadows will be green before we are aware, and—
and—we must be getting ready to go somewhere.”
-- 050 --
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“Well, well, don't think of it, Cornelia,”—and
he came and took her hand, and squeezed it affectionately,
as we are living souls!—“don't think
of it, and forget what a brute I have been.”
Mrs. Dangerfield—we are almost afraid to record
it; it is so incredible that we are sure the
reader, if he or she hath the least experience in
the world, will refuse to credit the whole of this
veritable history, on the score of such an outrage
on probability—Mrs. Dangerfield threw her arms
about his neck, kissed him, and, though she did
not swear he was no brute, thought so from the
bottom of her heart; and yet the man was her
husband!
February now came, in this mellow clime the
herald of brighter days and warmer sunshine. The
little birds, that come from heaven knows where,
all at once appeared, and twittered among the
alders that skirted the silent rivulets, which, unseen
as they were unheard, were only betrayed in their
quiet course by the fresh green grass that marked
their meanderings; the frogs, whose music, harsh
as it is, is welcome at such a time, as the sure precursor
of the genial season, piped in the ponds
the violets just began to peer above the ground in
pale-blue clusters; the dark-brown of the woods
gradually changed to an almost imperceptible
purple; the wild geese were heard gabbling their
course invisible in the air, from the south to the
north; and all nature, animate and inanimate,
began to partake in the joyous influence of the
season;—all except the family of Colonel Dangerfield,
to whom the approach of spring was the
signal of exile.
“What can have become of Mactabb, I wonder?”
observed the colonel to his wife one mild
-- 051 --
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evening, as they sat at the window watching the
quiet course of the river that flowed at a little distance;
“he ought to be here before this.”
“From what you have told me of Mr. Mactabb,
I am inclined to think he won't come till you
send for him. His visit would look as if he came
to hurry us away.”
“True; I had forgot that. I must write to
him.”
Accordingly he wrote to Mactabb to prepare all
the necessary documents, and bring them as early
as possible. He came in a few days, produced
his own discharge and those of all the creditors,
and the estate of Powhatan was consigned to him
for ever. The hand of Colonel Dangerfield trembled
a little as he signed his name; but that of
his wife, though white and delicate as a snowdrop,
was steady as the oak that defies the storm.
A dead silence succeeded this painful ceremony.
It was at length broken by Mactabb, who, after
fumbling in his pocket some time, produced a
paper which he handed to the colonel, saying,
“Here is the balance due on—plague take it,
what a cough I've got—somehow I always catch
cold in this confounded month of February.
Here is a draft for five thousand pounds, and—
and may heaven prosper you with it.”
The colonel received it with a silent bow, and
then another pause ensued. Again it was broken
by Mactabb.
“D—n it, I will—yes, I will—I have a right,
and I will,” mumbled he, as it were to himself;
“Colonel Dangerfield—hem—will you permit—
will you forgive me if I ask what are your plans
for the future?”
-- 052 --
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“Good God! that's true; we have settled nothing
as yet.”
“Understand me, colonel, I do not wish to
hurry you, this house and this estate are yours,
to remain as long as you please, the longer the
better. But possibly I may aid you with my advice;
I am a man of business, you know, and
my experience is heartily at your service.”
“There is no occasion, sir,” replied Dangerfield,
coldly, and rather haughtily, for this was the first
time of being reminded that he was no longer in
his own house.
“But there is occasion, my dear,” said Mrs.
Dangerfield, good-humouredly, “and we shall be
thankful for Mr. Mactabb's advice.”
“Well, then, there are two ways of retrieving
our fortunes, one by industry and economy, the
other by enterprise and daring; which do you
prefer, Colonel Dangerfield?”
“The latter, undoubtedly. Long habits have
incapacitated me for the first, but I believe, I
trust, sir, I am still able to venture, to dare, and
to suffer, if necessary. That course, however, I
confess would be most agreeable to me, which led
to a distant sphere of action. I cannot live as I
and my fathers have been accustomed to live
here, and my intention is to go where I am not
known.”
“Would you like to go to Kentucky?” asked
Mactabb.
Mrs. Dangerfield started.
“What! the dark and bloody ground, as I have
heard it called?”
Colonel Dangerfield considered a few moments,
and seemed pleased with the suggestion of Mactabb.
The Scot then informed him that he had
-- 053 --
[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]
lately come into the possession of a large tract of
what was represented to be the richest land on
Kentucky River, which he had accepted in lieu
of a debt. That a company, with which he had
associated himself, was going to form a settlement
immediately, a number of emigrants having entered
into an agreement to “start” in the month
of March, and rendezvous at Pittsburg, whence
they were to descend the Ohio to the mouth of
the Kentucky; and finally, that if he would take
the direction of the adventure, the choice of as
much land as he wished was at his service.
During this detail, Colonel Dangerfield exchanged
glances with his wife, whose countenance,
like the limpid waters of Lake George,
reflected every thing that passed over it. She
was thinking of the tales of murder and massacre
which constitute the early history of the dark
and bloody ground; the dangers, the loneliness, the
privations, her husband, her offspring, and herself
must suffer and endure; the toils that must be
encountered ere they could reach their destined
home, and the exposures that would follow before
they could expect to dwell in safety under their
own vine and their own fig-tree. She shuddered
as she thought of the future destinies of her
children, who had been bred in all the luxurious
indulgence of southern habits, and whose every
want, and wish, and caprice had been gratified by
the willing assidnity of slaves, who never contradicted
or opposed their most unreasonable desires.
But in a few moments the cloud passed away.
Women, even the most delicately nurtured, and
the most apprehensive in their dispositions, love
adventure and excitement in their very hearts.
Distant journeys enchant them, and the
-- 054 --
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anticipation of novelty is irresistible. Even danger has
its charms, and we have more than once seen
females whose vivacity was always quickened by
its approach. Travelling is much more delightful
to them than to the other sex, and the prospect
of change a thousand times more seductive, from
its contrast with their domestic habits, and the
uniformity of their occupations. The name of
the Ohio, La Belle Riviere, sounded so charmingly,
and the prospect of gliding down its smooth
and glassy stream, amid endless forests, and vast
solitudes of nature, came with a romantic seduction
across her imagination, and lighted up her
face with a willing smile of acquiescence in the
proposed plan. We have been sometimes led to
believe that the natives of this land of emigration
inherited from their ancestors that fearless wandering
disposition, which brought them to the
western world, and which, operating in a region
of boundless space, is, however it may be the
subject of ridicule or censure, the habit, or the
quality, which has made this country what it is,
and will make it what it is destined to become.
It is founded in the love of independence, associated
with, and supported by courage and enterprise.
Like the young partridge, the American
is scarcely hatched, ere he sets out, with the shell
still clinging to his downy wing, in search of a
new region where he will no longer be a burthen
to himself or others.
Assuredly the attachment to home, the ties of
kindred, the chains of custom, and the habits of
youth exercise a wholesome influence in softening
and humanizing mankind. Yet still they ought
never to be indulged at the sacrifice of the higher
qualities, and more inflexible duties, of the human
-- 055 --
[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]
race. To be a useless idler at the parental fireside,
a burthen on the shoulders of kindred, or a
dependant on the kindness or bounty of friends,
rather than burst these ties and attachments, however
amiable it may be, sinks us below, far below
the level of the generous manly spirit, which
scorns the indulgence of such a weakness at such
a price, and dashes forth into the stormy ocean of
life, trusting to himself and his Maker whether
he shall sink or swim.
“What say you, Cornelia?” asked the colonel,
who saw her answer in her speaking eye; “shall
we accept the offer, and become the founders of a
new empire?”
Mrs. Dangerfield replied in something like the
choice language of a Scripture matron.
“Wheresoever thou goest, there will I go;
wherever thou abidest, there will I also abide;
whatever thou endurest, I will bear my portion
of the chastening; thy hope shall be my hope,
thy disappointment my disappointment. I am
ready to go with thee, my husband, be it whither
it will.”
Mactabb, who had a physiognomy as rough as
the outside of an oystershell, took occasion to
wipe his spectacles, which had become rather dim
from their proximity to his eyes. And now they
proceeded to settle those little details, which however
indispensable both in the ordinary and extraordinary
affairs of life, are utterly unworthy the
dignity of romance, which we maintain, in the
very teeth of the musty bookworm critics, is the
most dignified, as well as useful of all kinds of
writing, if not to the reader, at least to the author.
What did Dan Homer get for his immortal
poems? Did he get a place at court, a pension,
-- 056 --
[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]
or a title? or did he get his pockets filled with
ready money? Verily, no,—he attained to the
honour of keeping a school on a rock, and afterwards,
when old and blind, was chosen king of
the beggars, the only dignity he ever arrived at
during his life. What did Will Shakspeare get
for Othello, Macbeth, Richard, and the Midsummer
Night's Dream? A benefit at the “Red
Bull,” or some such queer place. What did
Otway get for his Venice Preserved? A crust of
bread which choked him. What Milton, for one
of the very noblest efforts of human genius?
The price of a new suit, and liberty to stay in
England without being hanged. What did Locke
get for the only analysis of the human understanding
which the human understanding was
ever able to comprehend? Not a vice-chancellorship,
mastership, or wardenship, but a sentence
of expulsion from a most reverend rookery.
But to return from this digression into which
we have been incontinently allured, by the glo
rious vision of a mighty purse of golden eagles
(a species of bird now almost extinct in this
hemisphere) flitting before us, and making a
music to which that of Pasta and Paganini is a
horrible discord.
-- 057 --
CHAPTER VII. Colonel Dangerfield prepares to found a new Empire.
[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]
Knowing how egregiously the gentle and enlightened
reader is an hungered after stirring adventures,
bloody feats, and such like delectable
ingredients, which, like Cayenne and spices, give
a triumphant zest to literary entertainments, and
how justly he abhorreth that dull and diabolical
fiend called Common Sense, we shall not detain
him from the marvellous wonders in store for him
a moment longer than is necessary to record a
few indispensable preliminaries.
When it was known that the estate of Powhatan,
with all its live stock, two-legged and fourlegged,
saving and excepting Barebones, Pompey
Ducklegs, Pompey the Little, and the rest of the
Pompey family, young and old, amounting to
some five-and-forty, had passed away from their
ancient owner, there was weeping and gnashing
of teeth among the inhabitants of the little village
of cabins, where dwelt the slaves of Colonel Dangerfield,
in the possession of all those enjoyments
of which their state is susceptible. They thronged
about their master and mistress, begging to be
taken with them to “Old Kentuck,” where they
would cut down the big trees, plant corn, and kill
the Indians. The colonel was affected, and Mrs.
Dangerfield could not restrain her tears; but, it
being now evening, she directed the inspiring
banjo to be twanged by the minstrel of Powhatan,
-- 058 --
[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]
who, strange to say, was prophetically christened
by the name of Orpheus, or Apollo, for, beshrew
our memory, we have forgotten which. At that
irresistible signal, the light-hearted slaves, the very
prototypes of children in their joys, their sorrows,
their forgetfulness of the past, their indifference
to the future, listened, dried their tears, and soon
they were dancing “double trouble” and light Virginia
reels, with a triumphant, grotesque gesticulation,
a zest, an hilarity seasoned by such shouts
of laughter as only the echoes of the south repeat
to the listening landscapes far and wide. They
seemed to be happy, and we hope they were; for
it is little consolation to know, or to believe, that a
mode of existence of which millions of beings partake
is inevitably a state of wretchedness.
To the honour of Colonel Dangerfield it must
be recorded, that though Pompey the Little did
not win the race, he offered him his freedom on
this occasion.
“I cannot afford to give you money,” said he,
“but I can give you freedom.”
To the still greater honour of Pompey, he declined
the offer.
“Ony don't leave me behind, massa; dat all
nigger want.”
When the great Ducklegs heard this, he forgave
him the loss of the race, and pronounced
him decidedly “an honour to he family.”
“But what has become of Mr. Littlejohn all this
while?” the reader may peradventure inquire.
When the colonel apprized him of the transfer
of his property to Mactabb, and the intended emigration
to Kentucky, he exclaimed, with uncontrollable
emotion, “My G—d!” and burst into a
passion of tears.
-- 059 --
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His benefactor, who had never suspected him
of so much feeling before, endeavoured to comfort
him, by suggesting a variety of topics of consolation.
But it was all in vain; he continued to
weep with a degree of convulsive agitation exceedingly
painful. The long winter, which had frozen
his feelings into ice, seemed to have broken up on
a sudden, and the pent-up waters flowed forth
scorning all restraint.
“Don't take on so, Ulysses,” said the colonel;
“I am not so poor but I can allow you something
to live on when I am gone. Mactabb will receive
you for a small allowance, and that I can spare
without difficulty.”
“May the thunder and lightning strike Mactabb
and all his race!” cried Littlejohn, suddenly
checking his emotion, or rather turning it into
another channel.
“Shame, Littlejohn, shame!—what has Mr.
Mactabb done that you should set the thunder and
lightning at him?”
“He's got Powhatan, d—n him!”
“Well, what of that? he came by it honestly.”
“I don't believe it. I don't believe it possible
for one man to get the estate of another honestly.
It stands to reason the Old Boy must help him,
more or less!”
The colonel could not forbear a smile at this theory
of Mr. Littlejohn.
“The Old Boy sometimes helps people to get rid
of an estate, I believe, as well as to get one. But
I'll tell you what, Ulysses, I intend to give you
Barebones. I can't bear to sell him.”
“Barebones, colonel!—I wouldn't have him if
he carried a packsaddle of guineas; he's just fit
to take a bag of corn to mill, and be hanged to
him! Blame me if I believe in his pedigree.”
-- 060 --
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“You don't, Mr. Littlejohn? Let me tell you,
sir—confound me, sir!—let me tell you, Mr. Littlejohn,”—
and the colonel spoke between his shut
teeth,—“that if your pedigree were as undoubted
as that of Barebones, you might hold up your
head a little higher than you do. Look here, sir,”—
jerking out his pocket-book,—“look here, sir,”—
taking out a piece of smokedried paper,—“look
here, sir,”—unfolding it,—“dam, Kitty Fisher, sir;
grandam, Slow and Easy, sir; great-grandam,
Singed Cat; sir; great-great-grandam, Pettitoes,
sir; great-great-great-grandam—'sblood! Mr. Littlejohn,
I expect the next thing you do will be to
call me the son of a tinker!”
A moment after the hand of Mr. Littlejohn was
clasped in his own, for he remembered that Ulysses
was a dependant, and himself his benefactor.
“Well, well, colonel, I'm sure I didn't mean to
affront you; but that tobacco merchant has put
me so out that I hardly know what I say. I beg
your pardon for undervaluing poor Barebones.”
This was the first time he had ever begged the
colonel's pardon, and he did it now in compliment
to his misfortunes.
“Then you will take the horse?”
“No, you had better sell him; Allen of Claremont
told me the other day he would give a thousand
pounds for him.”
“I'd rather shoot him than sell him to Allen of
Claremont.”
“Well, then, colonel, do what you please with
him, but don't part with me. Take me with you,
and I'll work for you, fight for you, die for you,
or my name's not Littlejohn.”
“If I thought you would be comfortable in the
wilderness I should like to have you with me.”
-- 061 --
[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]
“Comfortable! I shall be happy, colonel;
and I can make myself useful too. You know I
am a capital shot—a true sportsman.”
“Yes, I know you sometimes wander about all
day, and come home half-starved, mud up to the
middle, with a bag as empty as when you went
forth.”
If his patron had not just parted with his estate,
Mr. Littlejohn would have taken this matter up
warmly; but as it was, he replied, with no little
appearance of mortification,
“Ah! colonel, you will have your joke. But
for all this, I'll bet you I shoot the first bear—”
“Done!” said the colonel; “what is your wager?”
“Nothing,” said the other; “I have nothing to
lose, now I think of it, but your good-will, and that
I would not willingly risk. But take me with
you. I never asked any thing of you before, for
you never waited for that; but now I do beg of
you to take me with you, because I know I can
be of use some way or other.”
“You will be tired of the woods.”
“No, I won't.”
“You will be miserable.”
“And if I am, may I be obliged to work for my
bread all my days if you or any other living mortal
shall know it. I will take care of the horses;
if they stray into the woods I'll be bound I find
them. I will watch over the children; and blame
me, if a copper-coloured creature shows his face,
if I don't spoil it for him in less than no time. Do
let me go.”
“On one condition I will. Promise me, Littlejohn,
that if you get tired, you will tell me so, that
I may send you back again.”
-- 062 --
[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]
“There is no use in it, colonel; but I do promise.
If I should be such a rascal, I'll tell you honestly;
and then—I hope the first bear I meet will
hug me to death.”
It was settled accordingly that he should accompany
the party; and Littlejohn forthwith sought
his old friend Barebones, to whom he communicated
the matter, and who received the news with
one of his usual significant chuckles, being doubtless
ignorant that this arrangement would for ever
separate them in this world.
-- 063 --
CHAPTER VIII. “Over the hills and far away. ”
[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]
The arrangements of the company contemplated
a meeting of the little band of emigrants at Philadelphia,
as a portion of them were to come from the
eastward; and Colonel Dangerfield accordingly
took up his line of march for that beautiful city,
unmindful of the dangers he was about to encounter
from the non-combatant inhabitants. We pass
over the farewell scene; the sincere though shortlived
griefs of the vassals of Powhatan at parting
with their good “massa” and kind “missee;” the
thoughtless wonder of the two children; the long,
last, lingering, farewell look of the parents, as they
stopped the carriage for a moment on the summit
of a hill, and gazed their eyes dim at the home
they were destined never to visit again. It was a
lovely, peaceful scene; but what is beauty, what
is peace, what is every earthly enjoyment but gall
and bitterness when we know that we see, and
feel, and taste them for the last time!
We would willingly linger a little while to describe
the abode of Colonel Dangerfield; but we
have a long journey and a long story before us.
Description must in future give place to action,
and sentiment to adventure. We must be busy,
and if we occasionally stop a moment to utter a
thought or describe a scene in the course of our
wayfaring, it must be brief, for the time is precious.
Life is short and romances long. Happy, thrice
-- 064 --
[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]
happy is he, and thrice three times wise, who hath
time and patience to read them all!
The party gave one day to Richmond and their
friends. Everybody pitied Mrs. Dangerfield, and
yet, perhaps, she was quite as happy as themselves;
for nothing is more common than such
mistakes. Mactabb was with them all day; and
that he gave them his time, which he considered
the most precious of all things, was a greater
proof of his friendship than even the many necessary
little articles his foresight had provided for
their comfort, and which he insisted on their accepting.
Honest Scot! perhaps thou and I are
about to part for ever; yet in this age of blustering
pretence, empty affectation, commonplace cant,
and unprincipled prodigality, I will not miss this
opportunity of bearing my testimony to thy unpretending
homely virtues, although, in honest truth,
thou hadst of all men I ever saw the most unpromising
face for a philanthropist. The colonel
presented him with the renowned Barebones, and
Mactabb promised on his word that he should
never be degraded to any useful occupation.
Nothing worthy of record occurred in the journey
to Philadelphia; but scarcely had Dangerfield
established himself in a hotel ere Pompey
Ducklegs was beleaguered by a well-meaning gentleman,
who assured him that, if so pleased,
he and all the Pompey family were free from
that moment. The name of freedom is dear to
the heart of man, most especially of the man of
colour; and Pompey was sorely tempted to abandon
his old master. Just then, however, a miserable,
debased, poverty-stricken black man came
by, and, stopping opposite the gentleman, begged
his charity.
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[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]
“Art thou not ashamed, being a freeman, friend,
to beg in the streets? Canst thou get no work?”
“I have been a long time sick, and am too
weak to work,” was the reply.
“Well, then, come to my house this afternoon,
friend, and I will give thee an order to the hospital.”
The pauper passed on without thanking him,
and he had scarcely departed when a black woman,
displaying in her face and clothing all the
indications of profligacy and misery, staggered
past them, uttering the most disgusting and blasphemous
imprecations. She was followed by a
child of the same colour, crying and calling after
her in a language as depraved as her own. Close
in their rear marched a ferocious bewhiskered
caitiff, dark as ebony, gallanted by two peace-officers;
he had been guilty of robbing and almost
murdering a white woman.
“Who all dese here people?” asked Pompey,
in a tone of dignified disgust.
“They are free people of colour, friend; and
thou canst be free likewise if thou wilt.”
“No, tank you,” quoth Ducklegs, and departed
without ceremony to solicit his master to buy
these miserable people and take them to Kentucky.
A few days sufficed to bring together and to
complete the preparations of the little band of adventurers;
and now they were on their way to
Pittsburg, whence they were to descend the
Ohio to the place of their final destination. At
that time, the region beyond the great Alleghany
range of mountains, the whole of the
valley of the Mississippi (which centres within its
vast tide the tributary waters of a thousand
-- 066 --
[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]
streams, coming, as it were, from the opposite ends
of the earth) was denominated the Back Woods.
The inhabitant of the Atlantic states looked at
the blue outline of these majestic hills, which are
aptly called the back-bone of North America, as
the extremest verge of the civilized world of the
West. Beyond was all forests, wild beasts, and
wild Indians, in their estimation. It was the region
of danger, of adventure, and romance, and, to the
timid, apprehensive mind, it loomed “that bourne
from whence no traveller returns.” Indeed, no
one at this late period can realize the romantic, the
appalling interest which accompanied the emigrants
to this wild and dangerous solitude, or
estimate the heroism of those who first dared to
encounter its tremendous vicissitudes.
It was towards the middle of the month of
March that they began to ascend the Alleghany
Mountains by a slow and painful pace. They
had seen them at a great distance for some days,
rearing their blue heads, and carrying their waving
lines from south to north, as far as the eye
could reach, and it seemed to them that they
formed the barriers of the world in that direction.
Occasionally they encountered one of those “land
carracks” called Pittsburg wagons, conducted by
a strange original, who lived on the road all his
life, and whom we are almost tempted to describe
as a new and rare species, which in this age of
canals, railroads, and steamboats, will, like the Mississippi
boatmen and the mammoth, soon become
extinct, and be classed among the fabulous creations
of monsters. Sometimes they met a drove
of swine, more numerous than the wool-clad warriors
of Trapoban, so disastrous to him of the rueful
countenance, and of such an original air of
-- 067 --
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wildness, such rugged coats, and such a savage
grunt, that they seemed to be the representatives
of the wild region from which they were emigrating.
Here and there along the road were
seen the relics of many a wayfaring catastrophe,—
broken axletrees, wheels reft of their tire, and
other mementoes of disasters dire. Nay, the very
signs of the taverns savoured of an approach to
new scenes and associations. The Wild Turkey,
the Bald Eagle, the Wolf, and the Bear, portrayed
in all the horrors of rustic ingenuity, and coloured
with an utter disregard of nature and probability,
gave shrewd indications that here was to be found
entertainment for man and horse.
At length, descending the last ridge of the Alleghany,
they were greeted with the first view of
the valley of the Ohio. We would attempt to describe
the vast yet beautiful features of this striking
and magnificent display; but we are not on
a picturesque tour, and though we delight to linger
in the delicious solitudes of nature, and love
to recall their recollection more vividly by describing
them, yet time presses, and we must pass on
to other scenes.
On arriving at Pittsburg, Colonel Dangerfield
assumed the task of superintending the preparations
for embarking on the Ohio. Mr. Littlejohn
proffered his assistance with great alacrity, and it
was highly amusing to see that professional idler
all at once metamorphosed into a most provoking
and inveterate busybody, with the happiest faculty
in the world of delaying every thing he undertook
to advance, and standing in the way of everybody
he affected to assist. The colonel too was deplorably
deficient in experience of the best means
and modes of conducting these modern argonauts;
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but, as it happened, fortune had sent him a most
efficient coadjutor in the person of one of the
party, who had been in Kentucky before, and, as
he said, was as much at home there as a prairiedog
in his hole.
His name was Ambrose Bushfield, born in North
Carolina, and one of those singular examples of
native energy, inborn sagacity, and daring enterprise
with which the early history of every part
of the west abounds. Nurtured among the mountains
of his native state, free as the air he breathed,
he grew up tall and straight, and hardy as the
trees of the primeval forests, where he passed most
of his time in hunting and rural sports of danger
and enterprise. He could neither read nor write,
yet he was not ignorant or vulgar; and his feelings,
by some strange freak of nature or combination
of circumstances, partook of the character of
gentleman in more ways than one. It was said
that an early disappointment in love, or, as others
affirmed, the discovery that the region he inhabited
was becoming so populous that he could hear
his neighbour's dog bark, drove him some years
before to join his fortunes with Boone, who was
then laying the foundation of what will probably
some day be one of the richest and most populous
empires of the world.
After encountering a series of dangers and sufferings
such as nothing but reality can make credible,
he was captured by the Indians, who painted
him black, and devoted him to the torture. Their
intention was to carry him to their village before
they proceeded to the last acts of barbarity. In
the mean time they amused themselves with
placing him bound hand and foot on a half-wild
horse they had stolen on the borders of Virginia,
-- 069 --
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and setting him adrift, like Mazeppa,[1] to scamper
through the woods full speed, while the savages
followed, yelling in horrible triumph. At every
Indian village they visited he ran the gauntlet
after their fashion, where hundreds of savages
placed themselves in parallel rows, armed with
clubs and whips, with which each one did his best
to beat him to the earth before he reached the
goal, where, if he arrived, he was entitled by inflexible
custom to exemption from the stake.
There is scarcely a possibility that this should
ever happen, except by a miracle; and accordingly
Bushfield, though he had the strength of a
giant and the nerves of a lion, was invariably
knocked down before he could gain the sanctuary
of the council-house.
Arriving at their village, preparations were
made for burning him; and the ceremony was
about to commence, by marching the wretched
victim round the village with shouts and savage
yells, with a view to wear down his strength and
spirit, so that they might enjoy his fears and banquet
on his groans. In the course of this circuit
they passed the hut of one of those renegade
white men whose crimes had banished him from
the society of his fellows, and who had taken
refuge among the Indians. His hatred of the
whites was that of a fiend; and among all the
cruel enemies, whether man or beast, whom the
early emigrants had to encounter, this wretched
outcast was the most to be dreaded. On hearing
what was going forward, he rushed out of his
cabin, like a tiger from his lair, seized the victim
round the waist, threw him to the ground with all
-- 070 --
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the force of malignant fury, and, placing his knee
upon his breast, flourished his knife in triumph.
Bushfield recognised in this ruthless recreant
one of the early companions of his youth. He
called him by name, told him his, and besought
his good offices. The appeal was not in vain.
Wretch as he was, the renegade remembered and
yielded to the claims of his boyish associate. He
lifted him from the ground, and the recollections
of his youthful home, his early attachments; of
what he had been, and what he was, so wrought
upon his iron heart, that he embraced Bushfield,
and wept while he promised his interposition in
his favour. Such was his influence, that he
finally obtained the pardon of the captive, who
was permitted to accompany him to his hut. But
the renegade, who knew too well the unsteady nature
of the savages, and the difficulty with which
they were brought to relinquish the gratification of
torturing a prisoner, advised and assisted Bushfield
to make his escape that very night. Accordingly
he fled, and though obliged to thread a pathless
forest of some hundreds of miles without
compass or direction except his own sagacity, he
finally reached the settlement of his old friend
Boone time enough to enjoy the pleasure of avenging
his sufferings, by assisting in beating a party
of Indians that soon after besieged the little fort
of the patriarch of Kentucky. Many years having
elapsed since he left the place of his birth, he
determined to pay it a visit; but finding, as he
said, the country become so effeminate and corrupt
that the men preferred featherbeds to dry
leaves, and woollen coverlids to a sky blanket, he
was now on his return to spend the remainder of
his days in “Old Kentuck,” which after all was
-- 071 --
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the only place for a gentleman, though to be sure
it was becoming rather too thickly settled. In his
person Bushfield was one of those rare specimens
of men, the united product of pure air,
wholesome exercise, warlike habits, and perfect
freedom of body and mind. He was upwards of
six feet high, perfectly straight, and without an
ounce of superfluous flesh in his whole composition.
There was a singular ease, one might
almost call it gracefulness, in his carriage; and
his dress, which consisted of a buckskin hunting-shirt,
a rackoon-skin cap and leggings, was highly
picturesque. There was nothing vulgar or dowdy
in his appearance or address, which was that of a
man who believed himself equal to his fellow-men
in any circumstances or situation that called for
the exercise of manly vigour or daring enterprise.
Divers were the consultations of the colonel
with his trusty and efficient counsellor Bushfield
on the selection of barks to float them down the
Ohio, for verily there was a sufficient variety to
puzzle one in the choice. Here was the Alleghany
skiff, the dug-out, formed from a single tree, the
piroque, the covered sled, the keel-boat, the flatboat,
and every other boat that the genius of man,
left to its unlimited caprices, or inspired by the
fruitful mother of invention, could contrive or
bring to maturity. Among these the capacious
broad-horn appeared eminently conspicuous, resembling
a floating house, nearly as broad as it is
long, and containing a suite of apartments for
almost every animal, from sovereign man to subject
cattle, sheep, horses, dogs, and ignoble swine.
In its primitive simplicity it hath neither bow nor
stern, larboard nor starboard; and in high spring
froshets, as they are called, it is the most
-- 072 --
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convenient boat in the world, since if it strikes the shore
with one horn, it directly wheels round with the
current, and away it goes the other end foremost.
The colonel and his prime minister decided at
length in favour of the broad-horn, and accordingly
some of prodigious dimensions were hired,
almost large enough to accommodate the manifold
freight of old Noah's ark. In these were embarked
most of the necessaries for forming a new
settlement far in the wilderness, certain domestic
animals equally indispensable, and the company
of emigrants, with the exception of Colonel Dangerfield
and his family, who had a smaller broad-horn
provided for their especial accommodation.
The colonel had purchased a quantity of plain and
substantial furniture and a small collection of
books, among which was a volume of laws, to aid
him in the government of his woodland empire.
The river being now rising, and sufficiently high
for their purpose, they all embarked one fine sunshiny
morning, and, launching their broad-horns
on the ample tide, bade a long adieu to the haunts
of civilized man, the enjoyments of civilized life.
eaf311v1.n1[1] See “Recollections,” of the Reverend Timothy Flint.
-- 073 --
CHAPTER IX.
“Now fare thee well, dear haunts of social men!
Long may it be ere we shall meet again.
Farewell the village church and tolling bell,
Sounding to prayers or rustic fun'ral knell;
The lively fields, where men and herds are seen
Sporting or labouring morn and eve between;
The smoke of rural hamlet curling high
Above the trees, in peaceful summer sky;
The ploughman's whistle, and the lambkin's bleat,
The tinkling music of the herd so sweet,
All, all farewell!”
[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]
The broad-horn in which Colonel Dangerfield
and his family embarked on their voyage down
the Ohio formed an oblong square, on which was
erected a rather rude cabin, containing two rooms
sufficiently tight to protect them against the ordinary
vicissitudes of the weather. The captain and
owner of this primitive vessel was a long-sided,
weather-beaten oddity, by name Sam Hugg,
who was all the way from Mad River, and
always, according to his own account, “wide
awake and duly sober.” His assistants were two
men and a lad, whose real or whose nickname
was Cherub Spooney, “a smart chance of a boy
any how.” A large portion of the banks of the
Ohio was at that time in a state of nature, yet
still of nature in the prime of her beauty.
The morning was mild and fair, and the young
spring had now put on her robe of whispering
leaves. Gigantic sycamores, the growth of ages,
and the children of an unexhausted soil, lined the
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way on either hand, except occasionally in some
receding cove, a little prairie covered with wild
flowers varied the scene. Not a living soul except
themselvesseemed to breathe, and move, and
have a being in this region of repose; which, notwithstanding,
teemed with danger and death.
Within the bosom of these eternal forests roamed
herds of savage beasts and savage men, who, indeed,
at this moment professed to be at peace with
the white man, but whose friendship could not be
depended on from one hour to another. They
glided along without noise and without toil, and,
to judge from the listless inactivity of the boatmen,
one would have set them down as the most
indolent of mankind, and their occupation the
least laborious and dangerous.
But perhaps no people on the face of the earth
or the waters endured more hardships, encountered
more severe toils, or displayed more energy
and perseverence in the hour of vicissitude. Many
a rude memorial along the banks of the Ohio and
Mississippi to this day marks the last resting-place
of some worn-out boatman, and attests that here
as well as elsewhere life resembles the stream of
which the descent is smooth and easy, the ascent
a perpetual struggle, ending in disappointment
and death.
As thus they slipped along, the colonel and Mrs.
Dangerfield sat watching the ever-changing, melancholy,
yet delightful scene, opening at every
turn of this the most beautifully serpentine
of all the rivers of the west, some new vista
of little wild meadows, round forest hills, or
abrupt cliffs frowning over the waters. There
was something in the scene before them, the
anticipation of that which was to come, and
-- 075 --
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the memory of those which were past, that
called up feelings of melancholy neither altogether
painful, nor yet devoid of painful associations.
We will not so far undervalue our readers as to
suppose them incapable of realizing what these
were; for who is there that has not at some time
or other, in youth or manhood, been cut adrift
from some long-cherished tie, some favourite spot,
some dear enjoyment? and who is there that has
not been reminded bitterly of the past by the
very enjoyments of the present moment?
No one relished the scene and the occasion so
much as Mr. Littlejohn. The quiet, the repose,
the freedom from all labour and exertion came
over him with a delicious enchantment, and, as
he was wont afterwards to say in his old age, laid
his soul upon a feather-bed. he scraped acquaintance
with Captain Hugg, who charmed him with
the story of the Indian who found a flint, and
travelled three hundred miles to buy a gun for it;
of the attack and discomfiture of the band of robbers
which once occupied Mason's Cave, and plundered
the boats as they passed up and down
the stream; and various famous legends of this
land of romance and adventure. In the evening
he played the fiddle for him delightfully, while
the boatman danced Virginia reels on the roof of
the broad-horn, and made little Cherub Spooney
sing him the song of “The Owl that died of the
Whooping-cough,” together with divers other harmonious
ditties, which, in the quiet of the scene,
and when replied to by the echoes of the frowning
bluffs, were exquisitely toothsome to the ear
of Mr. Littlejohn, as well as Pompey Ducklegs,
who listened with his mouth wide open, after the
-- 076 --
[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]
manner of gentlemen of colour. One of these
was so congenial to his taste that he learned it by
heart, and long time after used to sing it for Miss
Virginia Dangerfield. It ran as follows, and we
believe hath never before been stereotyped.
“Our wives we kiss'd, we journeyed west,
Over the mountains blue,
For there we were told there was land to be sold,
The like you never knew.
Over the Alleghany, over the Alleghany,
Our horses are good, we've an excellent road
Over the Alleghany.
And we bought us a boat, and set her afloat,
And down the river we glided,
And on every hand we saw excellent land,
Where none but the Ingens resided.
All on the Ohio, boys,
When the wind is ahead there's no more to be said,
All on the Ohio, boys.
Our neat little bark beats every ark
That lives on the Ohio, boys;
And along as you float you may shoot from the boat
Just what kind of game you please, boys;
For there it's no treat to have plenty to eat,
There's food on every tree, boys.
All on the Ohio, boys,
All on the Ohio, boys,
When the wind's ahead there's no more to be said,
We must off with our coats and row, boys.”
It is affirmed that this ditty is in its primitive
exuberance nearly as long as the Ohio, and that
the boatmen, instead of measuring distances by
their pipes, like the ancient Dutchmen of the Manhadoes,
as fame reports; or as the Mussulmans do
by hours, did always calculate the number of
miles by the number of its verses. But the foregoing
were all that the chanting Cherub Spooney
could be prevailed upon to sing, or perhaps all he
knew, notwithstanding Captain Sam Hugg
-- 077 --
[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]
threatened to “drive him like a flash of lightning
through a gooseberry-bush” for his refusal.
“I'll be choked with a saw-log if I do,” replied
Spooney; and Captain Hugg justly considering
that
The man who sings against his will
Had better keep his whistle still,—
refrained from putting his threat into execution,
observing,
“Very well, old fellow; see if I don't row you
up Salt River before you are many days older.”
Late in the still, starry night, as the captain and
one Zephi Teal, his first officer, sat watching the
course of the broad-horn while she glided along,
by the bright beams of a full-moon, the former
observed that the river was rising rapidly, and the
force of the current increasing.
“There has been a mighty grist of rain lately
up above, and the snows on the mountains must
have all melted in a hurry. I reckon we shall
have a powerful freshet, Zephi.”
“Yes,” said Zephi; “it's above high-water mark
already, and rises like the water in a boiling pot.
I never seen it so high but once afore, and that
was when Orson Upson's broad-horn was carried
clean over the tops of the Button Woods, and Divine
Goodyear's house floated all the way down to
the Big Bend, with the family in it.”
“Whew—w—w!” whistled Captain Hugg; “in
what year of our Lord was that, Zeph?”
“Why, the year you got such a licking from
the Yankee pedlar at Pittsburg, I calculate.”
“I'll be shot,” exclaimed Hugg, “if any Yankee
pedlar that ever stepped 'twixt here and the other
side of the end of the yearth ever treed Sam Hugg.
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It's a lie, whoever said it. But did you, in good
earnest, see Divine Goodyear's house floating
down stream, with the family in it?”
“If I didn't may I be rowed up Salt River.”
“I should like to have seen the old sinner; I
dare say he prayed like a horse.”
“Yes, that he did. I heard him snortin `Now
I lay me down to sleep,' as he went past the cove
where I had tied my boat to the top of a big tree
a hundred foot high.”
Thus they communed together till the first
blush of the morning appeared in the east, and
the gradual opening of the scene showed the
swelling stream rolling down in boiling eddies,
and its dark-brown surface strewed with the
spoils of the earth. The gigantic trees on the
bottoms, as they are called in the language of the
west, stood midway quivering in the waters, with
nothing but the branches visible. The first and
second banks of the river had disappeared, and
wherever the hills receded from the shore the
waters rolled over the earth, sweeping along with
them every loose thing on its surface. The picture
of the deluge was renewed; for the solid
ground was no longer a place of safety, and the
scene was as solitary as that which the world exhibited
when all that remained of its living myriads
was sheltered in Noah's ark, floating about at
the mercy of a shoreless ocean that tumbled round
the ball.
The accelerated course of the current, and the
eddies and whirlpools occasioned by the force of
the pent-up or embarrassed waters, rendered the
broad-horns somewhat unmanageable; and then
was exhibited the hardy character, the indomitable
energy, the reckless courage of that singular
-- 079 --
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race, which the introduction of the steamboat on
the western waters has almost rendered, like the
mammoth, traditionary. The labour and the skill
required in the management of these unwieldy
masses, the ever-watchful and intense attention
necessary to keep them from driving out of the
strait current of the river into the drowned woods,
and suffering shipwreck, cannot be conceived by
any person who has not witnessed such a crisis
as that we are attempting to sketch with feeble
effort. It made Mr. Littlejohn perspire to look at
them, and for ever quelled a latent inclination he
had recently cherished to become the redoubtable
owner and commander of a broad-horn on the
beautiful Ohio.
There is something excitingly sublime in the
exhibition of the great phenomena of nature; the
littleness of man derives a self-importance from
the consciousness of some remote affinity to the
great Being who wields the waters in the palms
of his hands, whose nod makes the solid earth to
tremble like the aspen-leaf, whose voice is heard
in the silent sublimity of speechless nature, and
whose will is the soul of the universe. Colonel
Dangerfield and his wife sat silently contemplating
the scene, with the hands of little Virginia and
her brother Leonard locked in their own. There
was not room for such a selfish thing as fear,
though the turbulent force of the waters and the
critical situation of the boats might seem to warrant
the most piercing apprehension. But the
sentiment was awe, not fear; and the deportment
of the elder was marked by a sublime self-possession,
while that of the young pair exhibited silent
wonder. They looked up in the faces of their
parents, and there saw nothing to excite their apprehensions.
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It was while hurrying down the river in this
manner that they passed the first village they had
seen since leaving Pittsburg. It was situated at
the junction of another large river with the Ohio,
and on a plain about forty feet above the level of
the ordinary tide. It was now standing in the
midst of a waste of waters, the upper stories and
chimneys of the houses alone visible. Boats appeared
passing and repassing from the higher
grounds, which as yet had escaped the inundation,
to the drowned village, rescuing women and children
from their perilous situation, whose cries were
lost in the uproar of the mighty waters, or bearing
away some of the most valuable or accessible of
their furniture. Sometimes, by taking advantage
of the eddying whirlpools, they succeeded in the
attempt, and returned in safety; but, at others,
the sweeping current would take and whirl them
away down the river with irresistible force.
“Cannot we assist them, captain?” asked Colonel
Dangerfield.
`No, colonel; no stopping now for trifles. We
must make a straight wake behind us; for if the
horn gets broadside to the current, I wouldn't risk
a huckleberry to a persimmon that we don't every
soul get treed, and sink to the bottom like gone
suckers.”
A large portion of this metaphorical speech was
incomprehensible to the colonel, as it will be probably
to a majority of our readers. But we trust
our work will not be the worse for a little mystification
of language, seeing we deal in no other
obscurities.
On the evening of the sixth day the voyagers
found a harbour in a deep indenture of the river,
where they came to, under the brow of a hill which
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in common times was some distance inland. Here
they met a number of boats from various parts of
the great Valley of the Mississippi, which had
taken shelter from the increasing fury of the inundation,
and were waiting till it subsided a little.
A merrier set of rogues never congregated together,
nor is it possible to describe the medley of
characters and amusements exhibited in this out-of-the-way
corner of the earth. Fiddling and
dancing, gambling and tippling, contests of wit
and contests of activity, strength, and bottom;
trials of skill in shooting at a mark, and every
wild and wayward eccentricity which animal
spirits, freed from all restraint of fashion, custom,
or prescription, could devise, were all displayed
here with a degree of rank primitive luxuriance,
such as the same race of man never exhibits but
once in the course of its progress from the infancy
of society to the period of final corruption and decay.
They seemed to think that custom was
often little better than a reverend error, or, at all
events, that new situations authorized new modes
of enjoyment.
In some boats were pigs, sheep, bacon, flour,
&c., for New Orleans; in others cargoes of
two legged live stock, going to settle at Bois
Brulé, or Bob Ruly as they called it; in others
boards and plank; in others cider and whiskey;
in others Yankee notions of all kinds. Each
had a pole sticking up, on which, instead of a
sign, he had suspended a sample of his wares,
provided they were amenable to such a display,
and a complete fair was carried on for the time
they remained together. Most of the boats had
a fiddle on board, for these people delight in dancing
and music; and in one of them was the
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Reverend Lazarus Snortgrace, whose voice, as he exhorted
these frolicksome sinners to repentance,
towered above the uproar of obstreperous merriment
which echoed through these vast solitudes.
He called himself one of the ram's horns which
blew down the walls of Jericho, and not without
special reason, for his lungs were of leather, and
his breath inexhaustible. But the greatest curiosity
of this miscellaneous assemblage was a
wight from New-England, whose boat contained
a complete establishment for the shoeing of horses
in all its branches. He was on a trading voyage
as far down as New Orleans, and good luck befriend
him say we, for the originality of his enterprise
merits not only fortune but immortality.
After waiting here a few days, the waters having
sufficiently spent their force to render the
navigation safe, the cavalcade of boats prepared
to depart on their several ways. Some for the
east, some for the west, some for the north, and
some for the south. They belonged many of
them to places thousands of miles apart; they
had met here by accident, and the chances were a
hundred to one that they would never meet again.
At the signal of the blowing of the trumpets,
which echoed among the recesses of the hills,
they set forth, and soon were floating down towards
the junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi.
These trumpets at the time we speak of were of
wood, and the tones might be mistaken for those
of a French horn, so soft, so mellow in the distance,
that we have sometimes been wrought
almost to shed tears, at hearing them vibrating of
a summer evening among the hills. They are
used not only as signals, but for the purpose of
ascertaining the position of the boats in those
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dense fogs, which at certain seasons are so impenetrable,
that Captain Sam Hugg swore a most
original and humorous oath, that he had turned
the edge of a razor in attempting to cut through
one of them. True it is, as he affirmed “It was
a bloody Yankee razor, and not to be wondered
at.” The sound is echoed from the bank of the
river, and the time which elapses indicates to
these shrewd observers the distance from shore.
Thus Echo, in addition to her other attributes,
may justly claim the appellation of the Goddess
of the Mississippi Navigators.
At the point of junction between the Ohio and
Kentucky rivers, the fleet of boats separated; the
colonel and his party proceeding up the latter to
their destined home, and the others down the
former stream, the Lord knows where. And now
began the severe toils of the boatmen. The
stream was rapid, and the difficulties of ascent insurmountable
to all human skill and perseverance
save that of a Kentucky boatman, who everybody
knows is amphibious, “half horse, half alligator.”
They placed their shoulders against the long
poles, one end of which was loaded with iron, and
making what was called a “reverend set,” walked
steadily to the stern of the broad-horn, propelling
her forward at the same time. Sometimes this
course was impracticable from the depth or rapidity
of the current, and then came the tug of war. A
rope was taken ashore, and fastened to a rock, or
stump, or sapling, and by this the boat was
dragged along. This process is called cordelleing,
and it is inexpressibly slow, tedious, and laborious.
More than once they came to a place, where,
owing to a sudden angle of the river, or the projecting
of some obstacle from the shore, they met
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a current of such irresistible force as to wheel
them entirely round, and send them down the
stream several hundred yards.
Nothing could surpass the sad solitude of
their voyage. The river pursued its course for
the most part through a channel worn out of the
limestone rock, perpendicular on either side, and
so deep that except at midday the sun never shone
on the dark waters. The gloom was increased
by vast trees growing on the summit of the
rocks, and whose branches overshadowed the
abyss. Emerging at length from this twilight
cavern, they came to a spot where the strata
of rocks disappeared, and a paradise of nature
opened to their view. It was an open
forest of gigantic trees, occupying a rich level
which extended a considerable distance on the
river. No underwood grew upon these shady
meadows, and the whole was one carpet of blossoms
opening to the spring air.
“Here is the spot,” said Bushfield, and so it
was, as the colonel found on looking at his map
and survey.
“I'm glad on't,” quoth Captain Hugg, “for I'll
be shot by an Ingen, if this isn't worse than cordelleing
round the old sycamore.”
The turn of the river had made a harbour
for boats, and here they came to, landed their cargoes,
and without delaying a moment, proceeded
under the direction of Bushfield to erect tents and
other temporary shelters for the party. The day
was spent at these occupations, in which the boatmen
willingly assisted, and in which Mr. Littlejohn
distinguished himself by being particularly
in the way, or, as Captain Sam said, “By always
rowing up stream instead of down.”
-- 085 --
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“Well, colonel,” said that worthy, the next
morning, “you're all comfortably settled now,
and I think I'll let go the willows, and make
tracks for Bob Ruly, where I belong; so good-by
to you, and may you never want plenty of deer,
wild turkeys, and whiskey.”
The colonel paid his fare, and gave him a
liberal present besides, whereat the captain was so
exalted, that he swore there was no backing out
in him, “he was a real screamer of a feller.”
The amphibious men now departed, and floating
down the stream to the music of Cherub
Spooney's favourite air of “The Owl that died of
the Whooping-cough,” disappeared in a turn of
the river. As the echoes of their wooden trumpet
gradually died away, our travellers felt that the
last link which bound them to the distant world
was severed.
-- 086 --
CHAPTER X.
“Now the log hut, erst haunt of sturdy men,
Degenerate lot! becomes the porker's pen;
While stately houses rise on every side,
The good man's comfort, and the good dame's pride;
To cultivated fields the forest chang'd,
And where the wild beasts, now the tame ones rang'd;
The curling smoke amid the woods was seen;
The village church now whiten'd on the green,
And by its side arose the little school,
Where rod and reason lusty urchins rule,
Whose loud-repeated lessons might be heard,
Whene'er along the road a wight appear'd.”
[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]
Our intention is not to detail the particulars of
that struggle which, in these rugged regions of
nature's empire, ever takes place between the patient
industry of man and her wild luxuriance;
nor to trace the progress of a new settlement, from
the first wound given to the primeval forest, to the
golden harvest-field; from the rude log-cabin, to
the stately double house, and all its ambitious accompaniments;
which change, in the figurative
style of the west, is yclept “throwing off the moccasins.”
Suffice it to say, that the traveller who
some ten years after the sound of the first axe was
heard in these woods chanced to visit it, would
have been charmed with the little settlement of
Colonel Dangerfield, its rural beauties, and its air
of rustic opulence. The smoke rising above the
tall trees, the barking of dogs, the crowing of
cocks, the tinkling of bells, the strokes of the
woodman's axe, the crash of the falling tree, and
-- 087 --
[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]
the long echoes of the hunter's gun would announce
to him that he was coming to the abodes
of civilized men. He would behold a village rising
in the midst of crystal springs, bursting from
the sides of little knolls, or from under hoary
rocks; fields of grain springing up with a luxuriance
that returned to the labourer a hundredfold,
enclosed by log fences, and bristling with girdled
trees towering to the skies. Orchards loaded with
fruits, gradens full of vegetables and flowers, would
next greet him on the spot which a few years before
was the abode of the buffalo and wild deer,
the hunting-ground of the Indian; and he might
say to himself, “What are all the temporary privations
and sufferings of a few short years in the
wilderness, ending in rural happiness like this,
compared to debts and poverty, degradation and
dependence? The enterprising emigrant who
comes hither with a few hundred dollars, or perhaps
with nothing but a strong arm and a strong
heart, soon gains independence for himself and
his children. In the crowded haunts of men his
genius has no room to exert itself; he is elbowed
aside by those who are on the march
before him, or who have already gained possession
of advantages of which he cannot partake. But
here he has elbow-room, and here it is that spirit
and enterprise find their appropriate world.”
Such, or something like them, were in reality
the reflections of a traveller who, one fine spring
afternoon, when the twilight was lending its mellow
lustre to the smiling landscape, rode into the
town of Dangerfieldville, a formidable name assuredly;
but the colonel had followed the fashion
of the west, where, if a man has a name as long
as that of Aldibirontiphoskiphornio, it goes hard
-- 088 --
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but he will tack a ville to its tail when he lays
the foundation of a city which is to become the
great mart of the western world. The young
man bestrode a blooded horse, which is indispensable
in Kentucky to the character of a gentleman,
and which horse carried a portmanteau seemingly
well filled with “plunder,” on which was strapped
a brown camlet cloak with a purple velvet cape,—
we like to be particular in these matters, in imitation
of our betters,—and which brown camlet
cloak with a purple velvet cape was surmounted
by a blue, or perhaps it might have been a green,
silk umbrella, on which was written in black ink
the name of Dudley Rainsford, which we will venture
to suggest might peradventure have been
that of the traveller himself. He wore a gray
frock, with covered buttons, and buttoned with a
single button, the fourth from the bottom; a singlebreasted
vest of buff Marseilles, with two pockets,
probably to carry his money in; a pair of white
drilling pantaloons, with a spot of ink on the left
leg, a little below the knee; and a pair of boots,
the toes of which were as wide as a broad-horn,
and which, to the best of our knowledge and belief,
were right and left.
His horse, which seemed almost worn out with
the day's journey, was an iron-gray, about fifteen
hands high, with a star of five points in his forehead,
three black feet, and one white one, which,
if we mistake not, make four. He had two ears,
one on the right, the other on the left side of his
head; a pair of nostrils, one close by the other,
and looking for all the world like twins; a white
mane hanging on the right side of his neck; and
two eyes, which looked exactly as if he could see
out of them. Just below his right ear was a spot
-- 089 --
[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]
of hair rather inclining to white, which might or
might not be occasioned by some unaccountable
cause; and, from his slavering a little at the
mouth, it might be predicated of him that he had
been eating too heartily of red clover. He was
guided by a snaffle-bridle with a plated bit, neither
very new nor very old; and his saddle was
wrought of the skin of a pig. We hope the reader
will not be out of patience with this particular
inventory of goods, chattels, accoutrements, &c.
&c. &c. This traveller is destined to be the hero
of our tale; and he must be but an illiterate person
who doth not know the fashion of the times
requires that a hero should be delineated with the
same minute particularity with which we describe
a stolen horse, an absconding swindler, or a runaway
negro in an advertisement.
Mr. Rainsford was slowly passing a large mansion,
with a piazza from one end to the other, and
bearing marks of opulence as well as taste, when he
was accosted by a voice as follows, in a tone of
good-humoured banter,—
“Hullo! I say, stranger, did you ever happen
to see a snail in your travels?”
“I rather suspect I have,” replied the stranger,
stopping his tired horse; “what then?”
“Why, then, I reckon you must have met him;
for you never could have overtook him at that
rate, any how.”
The stranger again pricked his horse into a
walk, when the man of the long piazza called
out,—
“Hullo! stranger, you're barking up the wrong
tree; what business have you to pass this house?”
“What's that to you?” replied Mr. Rainsford,
rather in a huff at being so unceremoniously
-- 090 --
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interrogated, and presuming this was some importunate
innkeeper who wanted his custom.
“I'll tell you directly, stranger; but, first and
foremost, let me ask if you ant rather fresh in
these parts; for I can see with half an eye you
don't understand trap.”
“Trap! I won't be trapped by you, I promise
you.”
“You won't, eh?—we'll see that directly, I
reckon. Colonel,” said he, calling to some one
within, “colonel, I believe here's an unaccountable
sort of character, for he seems afraid to
stop at a gentleman's house when invited in a civil
way. Come out, and put the grace of our Lord
upon him, for you know you're a justice of peace.”
This address was followed by the appearance
of a gentleman rather beyond the middle age,
whom we shall not describe, because we hope the
reader will recognise him at the first glance as his
old acquaintance, Colonel Dangerfield. He accosted
the traveller politely, and apologized for the
detention of his friend Bushfield.
“I believe you don't know the custom of this
village,—I may say of the whole country. No
traveller passes this or any other house without
stopping, unless he can give a good and sufficient
reason for such a gross piece of neglect.”
“I wish to find an inn, sir; can you direct me
to one?”
“Whew!” cried Bushfield; “an inn!—why,
every house is an inn here, except that the landlord
don't charge any thing to his customers. I
say, stranger, where did you come from, that you
expect to find taverns here in Old Kentuck?”
“You will alight, and spend the night here, sir,
if you please,” said Colonel Dangerfield; “I shall
-- 091 --
[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]
be proud to receive you, and you will find no
public-house within a hundred miles of this in the
direction you are going.”
“My good sir, I cannot think of imposing on
your hospitality. I was recommended here as to
a place where I could purchase a good tract of
land at a reasonable price; for I design to settle
in this country if I can be suited, and was looking
out for an inn when this gentleman accosted me.”
“Another new settler!” grumbled Bushfield;
“the country will soon be as full of people as a
prairie is of wolves; there'll be no such thing as
turning round in it without hitting some feller's
elbow. I must cut dirt soon for some place where
there's more room.”
The colonel repeated his invitation with such a
frank cordiality, that the stranger at length, on
being satisfied that there was no place of public
entertainment in the village, accepted it, and,
alighting from his horse, was ushered into a large
room plainly yet comfortably furnished, and occupied
by several persons of both sexes.
“A stranger,” said Colonel Dangerfield.
“My name is Rainsford.”
“O, never mind, sir; the name of stranger is
enough for us.”
“Why, where was this genius raised?” said
Bushfield to himself; “a wild turkey would know
better. Whenever a man goes to tell me his
name when he enters my house, I calculate he
thinks I suspect him of being a horse-stealer.”
The company rose when the stranger was introduced,
and the colonel presented him to his
wife, who was still a comely and genteel matron,
for the feeling of good breeding is independent of
the mere forms of fashion; to his son Leonard,
-- 092 --
[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]
now a tall, straight, noble-looking youth; and to
his daughter Virginia, now grown to the full size
of graceful womanhood; not forgetting also Mr.
Ulysses Littlejohn, who on the entrance of Rainsford
had risen from three chairs, on one of which
he sat, on another reclined his arm, and on the
third supported his left leg, after the fashion of
Old Virginia, the mother of presidents, and the
parent of a mighty state.
“And so,” said Colonel Dangerfield, after a few
preliminary compliments, “you are looking for a
settlement somewhere in this part of the country?”
“I came with an intention of residing in it, certainly;
but I fear I am not qualified for a farmer.”
“Can you cut down a tree as big round as all
out doors in less time than you can look at it?”
asked Bushfield.
“I fear not,” said the other, smiling; “I never
attempted to handle an axe but once that I recollect,
and then I almost cut off my toe.”
“Ah! you won't do here, unless maybe you
can trail a deer, and shoot a bear in a cane-brake
so thick that a mustard-seed shot couldn't find the
way through it without grazing the bark.”
“I can do neither of these things; but perhaps
I can learn.”
“Learn! you are too old for that, stranger. A
man must begin with the eggshell on him, as the
partridges learn to run, and get up before daylight
many a year in and year out, before he can
get to be worth much—I mean in the way of living
in these parts.”
“I have not been accustomed to such enterprises,
nor can I perform such feats,” said the
young traveller.
“Then what in the name of old Daniel Boone
-- 093 --
[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]
brought you here, stranger?” said Bushfield,
bluntly.
“I scarcely know myself,” said the stranger;
and Virginia, who happened to be looking at him
at the moment, saw a cloud pass over his face, and
detected a long-drawn sigh.
Tea was now brought in as a treat to the
stranger, and the conversation took another turn.
-- 094 --
CHAPTER XI. A short Retrospect.
[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]
Nine years—the number of the Muses, and
doubtless for that reason selected by Horace as
the period during which every discreet author
ought to keep his piece in reserve before he ventures
to give it to the world,—a precept to which
we ourselves have paid particular attention in respect
to this work,—nine years had elapsed since
Colonel Dangerfield had first pitched his tent in
the wilderness. In that time, such is the magic
of industry and enterprise directed by the arts
of civilized life, a complete change had been
in rapid progress, from the wild luxuriance of nature
to the rich redundant blessings of cultivated
fields and comfortable abodes, the plainness of
whose outsides was gloriously contrasted by the
liberal hospitality within. The first year of his
arrival he was only the lord of a wilderness, the
possession of which was disputed equally by the
wild animals and the red men who hunted them.
By degrees, however, the former had become more
rare, and the latter had receded before the irresistible
influence of the “wise white man,” who,
wheresoever he goes, to whatever region of the
earth, whether east or west, north or south, carries
with him his destiny, which is to civilize the
world, and rule it afterwards.
While the grain was growing luxuriantly in
the fields, and the flowers beginning to bloom in
-- 095 --
[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]
the garden of Colonel Dangerfield, another and a
fairer flower was expanding into rich maturity
within his walls. Little Virginia was now a tall
girl, straight as one of the high trees of the western
forests, though not quite so lofty, and graceful
as an Indian maid. She had never seen a superior,
nor ever felt the miserable consciousness of
inferiority, which is the parent of that affectation
which destroys all grace of motion and action, and
takes away the dignity of self-possession. A person
conscious of equality with all around will
seldom, if ever, be awkward, embarrassed, or ungraceful.
Virginia was the only daughter of the patron,
the head of the settlement, and by far the most
wealthy man within a circuit of a hundred miles.
The vast tract of land, for which he had given a
few shillings an acre, had increased in value
almost a hundredfold, and the owner of Powhatan
was now the proprietor of half a dozen townships.
There was something, too, in the character and
services of Colonel Dangerfield which, independently
of his wealth, drew on him the regard and
respect of the settlers in this region. He had been
their leader in more than one of those Indian
wars which preceded the last expiring efforts of
the kings of the woods, and which gave to the
now fertile fields of Kentucky the poetical name
of “the dark and bloody ground.” Under the
tuition of Bushfield, who still lived, notwithstanding
his hair-breadth escapes if we had leisure to
record them would baffle all the creations of the
wildest fancy, he had become an expert and enterprising
woodland warrior; and the former indolence
of his character had been strengthened and
invigorated by the presence of eternal dangers, as
-- 096 --
[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]
well as the necessity of perpetual exertion. Yet
still, with all these claims to distinction, which
were acknowledged with gratitude, there was in
almost every respect a perfect equality in social
intercourse between the different members of the
little community. Any airs of superiority on the
part of the colonel and his family would have
been met by a prompt denial of their claims; for
they had shared dangers, privations, and sufferings
together, and these vicissitudes had made
all equal. There was no distinction but that
of the honest man and the rogue, the brave
man and the coward. In no situation, indeed, do
we feel the necessity of that union of honest men,
which is the beau ideal of the social system, so
much as in one of these parent settlements, which
the arm of justice and the restraints of the laws
have not yet been able to reach.
Such a state of existence at once entails the necessity
of an association among the honest portion
of the community for the defence of their
rights and the punishment of aggressors. Hence
originated the institution called the Regulators,
formerly common on the remote frontiers, where
the influence of the general government was not
felt, and where there were as yet no local authorities.
These were a body of the principal settlers,
who combined for the purposes of self-defence,
and who became of necessity both the judges and
the executors of the forest laws. Horse-stealing
was the great crime in those days, and when an
occurrence of this kind took place the Regulators
set out in pursuit; and prompt and severe was
the punishment inflicted on the culprit. These
associations, so indispensable in a region without
laws or magistrates, have been distorted by
-- 097 --
[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]
ignorant, or prejudiced, or malicious writers into
bands of desperate outlaws, congregated for the
purpose of levying black-mail, committing the
most wanton outrages, and violating in fact all
those rights which it was the first and only object
to defend. Without doubt, these conservators of
the peace and property of the honest and industrious
sometimes exceeded the measure of justice,
as it might have been safely administered in a
regularly organized community; but it is obvious
that, without some such association, the first pioneers
of civilization might have become impracticable
and dangerous outlaws; and it is equally
obvious that where neither jails, nor guardhouses,
nor any of the means of securing criminals exist,
punishments must be prompt as well as corporeal.
But we have been diverted from the course
of our story by a wish to give a simple explanation
of what has been so entirely misrepresented.
The daughter of Colonel Dangerfield had been
brought up among the surrounding villagers on
the principle of perfect equality, in so far as to
recognise their equal claim to an exchange of all
the courtesies of social intercourse; and let it be
recollected they were not ignorant people, for
it is not the vulgar of our country that seek
their fortunes in the west. It is the men of
long reaching views; those who have sagacity
to perceive, talent to win the advantages
which such a course presents, and fortitude to
incur the sacrifices necessary to obtain them.
There were among this little band of adventurers
men from New-England, Virginia, and elsewhere,
who had been educated at colleges, and carried
diplomas with them into the wilderness; and
there were women, who, if not accomplished in
-- 098 --
[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]
the arts of music, painting, or dancing, were of
as cultivated minds, as delicate apprehensions, as
pure morals and habits, as ever figured in courtly
drawing-rooms, or saw themselves in full-length
mirrors. It is true that the vicissitudes of a new
and original course of existence, the trials, hardships,
and dangers of succeeding generations, and
the plenty of elbow-room enjoyed by the descendants
of these emigrants, have somewhat changed
the characters of the men, but they have produced
a race which, take them all in all, with all their
faults and eccentricities, as physical and intellectual
beings, we do verily believe, are not to be surpassed
by any that ever existed. There is, however,
a wild originality, a wayward humour, a
blunt sincerity, a plain-spoken freedom, and an independence
of thought as well as action, which we
have seen produce most ludicrous effects upon a
delicate apprehensive dandy, or a self-sufficient
gentleman conscious of his individual importance.
In short, they are the last men in the world to
bow to authority or prescription, in literature,
taste, dress, or philosophy; and will just as readily
demur to the despotism of their tailor as to the
system of the universe.
But the women of the west, particularly of Old
Kentucky! How shall we describe them, and
most especially our heroine, the tall, graceful,
mild, tender, independent, high-spirited, Virginia
Dangerfield? They are to those of our Atlantic
cities, what the wild deer is to the lamb; both
gentle, charming, graceful, and of a most delicate
relish; yet one possessing a character of peculiar
wildness, and exhibiting a certain air of careless
grace, the product of freedom from restraint; the
other, sweet to the eye and to the imagination
-- 099 --
[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]
too, yet not quite so piquant, not quite so—so—
what shall we say, so exquisitely compounded as
to distinguish the peculiar charms of both without
doing injustice to either?—not quite so much of
the venison flavour. The free enjoyment of the
air, and of exercise on horseback more especially,
to which the women of the west were at that
time so constantly accustomed, seems to produce
similar effects with the discipline of the boarding
school and the drawing-room. The result of
each is a graceful deportment; but the first is
most graceful, because it is unstudied and free
from affectation or mannerism.
Virginia grew up in the pure air and amid the
pure springs of a Kentucky paradise, which every
true Kentuckian will swear beats every other
paradise that exists, or ever did exist, in this mundane
terrene. Her eyes were those of a halftamed
fawn, tender and apprehensive, spirited, yet
expressing the most perfect gentleness of character.
Her skin was as transparent as the fountains
of pure water out of which she drank, and though
the general hue of her face was pale, it was delightful
to see how the blood ran on errands from
her heart to her face, when agitated by a sudden
impulse.
The state of the country at the time, and the
disinclination of Mrs. Dangerfield to part with
her only daughter, had prevented Virginia from
acquiring any of the usual accomplishments of
young women of her expectations in life; but
her mind was as far from being uncultivated as
her manners were from being rustic. We have
said that Mrs. Dangerfield was an accomplished
woman, by which we meant, of a cultivated mind
and graceful manners. Music, dancing, and other
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accomplishments now so common, were in the
days of her youth not accessible to the ladies of
the United States, especially those who resided in
the country. But still the attainment of all the
truly ladylike embellishments, those which radically
influence the mind and manners, were within
reach of the wealthy. Mrs. Dangerfield had
availed herself of these, and was in all respects
what we, old fashioned as we are, should call a
perfectly well-bred woman.
Her example, for ever before Virginia, could not
fail of being all powerful in the formation of her
manners, for what magic is like that of the influence
of a kind, attentive, sensible, persevering
mother, over the early youth of her children.
She is the watchful sentinel whose vigilance
never sleeps, never relaxes for a single moment.
She sees the enemy approaching in ambush afar
off, and sounds the alarum to each intruding
emissary of mischief. The latent fault, the budding
passion, the early wilfulness, the first transgression
in morals or in manners, is instantly
checked by the sleepless monitor; and well and
truly may it be said, that not more surely does the
child draw its first nourishment from the bosom
of its mother, than it receives its first bias of good
or evil from her early precepts and example.
Bred up in this sequestered spot, at a distance
from the great whirlpool of life, Virginia knew
little of the world except that little portion around
her, and what the occasional perusal of a few
books afforded. She read little, but thought much,
and there is no doubt but that habitual reflection
is a richer fountain for the mind than books, and
contributes far more to its strength and originality.
Without intimate associates of her own age and
-- 101 --
[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]
sphere, she passed much of her time alone, and
solitude is the nurse of the imagination. Her
spirits were naturally lively, yet there were intervals
when they subsided into quiet repose, or sunk
into a temporary abstraction, during which her
fancy expatiated in a world of its own creation.
Leonard Dangerfield was two years older than
his sister, and a thrifty young sapling with a little
of the outside bark on. He had been sent to one
of the new colleges, which had lately sprung up
among the girdled trees, yclept cities; had taken
a degree, and was held in the village of Dangerfieldville
to be a whole team of a young fellow,
who could handle a rifle, make a speech, or tree
a rackoon with any he man that ever breathed
in all out of doors.
Master Ulysses Littlejohn still continued his
old system of killing time, but complained sorely
that he had now nobody to assist him, the colonel
being too much occupied in his private and public
duties to bear him company. On his first coming
to the wilderness he had signalized himself greatly,
as he said, by shooting a buffalo, and had lived
upon the glory of this achievement ever since.
But there were some doubts as to the accuracy
of his report, for when Old Pompey went to the
spot described by Ulysses to bring home the game,
it had disappeared in a miraculous manner. The
sage Ducklegs hereupon disbelieved the whole
story,and many were the innuendoes he afterwards
threw out on the subject of buffaloes running
away after they had been shot stone dead, all of
which were received by Master Littlejohn with
marked disapprobation.
“Ducklegs,” would he say, “you don't know a
B from a buffalo's foot.”
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“Ah, may be so, Massa Leetlejohn; but old
nigger know buffalo from no buffalo for all dat.”
Having renewed the reader's acquaintance with
the principal personages, we shall now jog on
with our story.
-- 103 --
CHAPTER XII. Chit chat, and all that.
[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]
The conversation at the tea-table, around
which the whole company were seated in a sociable
old-fashioned style, turned on the project of
Rainsford forming a settlement in the township
bordering on the domains of Colonel Dangerfield.
That gentleman gave him the benefit of his experience
and advice on the subject, and Littlejohn
enjoined him forthwith to lay the foundation of
a great city, just at the junction of two streams,
both of which might be made navigable by act of
congress. But the stranger, though he professed
an intention to establish a colony, seemed so indifferent
about the means, that Bushfield began to
suspect he was“playing 'possum,” that is to say
enacting the hypocrite, for some purpose or other
he could not fathom.
Colonel Dangerfield also thought it somewhat
singular that a man should travel all the way
from the seacoast to settle new lands, and be so
indifferent about it. He threw a penetrating
glance at the young man, but it was met by a
countenance so interesting, so full of melancholy
depression, that he felt his heart yearn towards
him, and every trace of suspicion vanish from his
mind. It was a countenance that seemed familiar
with sorrows and suffering, full of anxiety, apprehension,
almost despair. There was something
in his voice, too, expressive of hopeless
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[figure description] Page 104.[end figure description]
despondency, and, when he spoke, it was as though he
little cared whether to speak or be silent.
“You are fatigued,” said the colonel, “and don't
seem quite well; had you not better retire, Mr.
Rainsford?”
“O, not at all, sir; if you permit me, I will
remain till your usual hour. Though I have
rode far to-day, I am not the least tired.”
And then, as if conscious that he owed his best
exertions to repay the hospitality of his host, he
rallied himself, and entered into conversation with
a spirit, intelligence, and occasionally an eloquence
that delighted everybody, most especially Mr.
Bushfield, who pronounced him afterwards to be
fit for a congress man, if he could only fight as
well as he could talk.
The subject, we need hardly say, was politics;
for we have heard an observing old gentleman
affirm, that when you see three men talking together
in the United States, it is ten to one the
subject is politics, five to one religion, and three
to one making a speculation. They were discussing
the matter of a new constitution, a species
of domestic manufacture exceedingly common,
when an old Indian called the Black Warrior
came in without ceremony, and took his seat in
a corner of the room. Some years previous to
the time of which we are speaking, and when the
Indians still carried on their depredations upon
the new settlements, the Black Warrior had been
protected on some occasion by Colonel Dangerfield
from the fury of a party of white men who
had taken him prisoner. When in process of
time the irresistible wave of the white population
had scattered the remnants of the Indian tribes on
the wings of the wind, the Black Warrior, who
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had become obnoxious to his people by his gratitude
to Colonel Dangerfield, preferred remaining
in the vicinity of the village. Here the colonel
built him a hut, and administered to his wants so
far as was necessary, for he was still an expert
hunter, and he and Leonard were often absent a
whole day together in the forests, chasing the
deer. He was accustomed to come and go at the
house of the colonel without ceremony, and it frequently
happened that he did so without uttering
a single word, except a short salutation. At other
times he would join in the conversation so far as
a single remark, or an assent or dissent. But he
was a man of few words and of imperturbable
gravity, as indeed are all his kind, so much so
that the good Quakers, who first settled NewJersey
and Pennsylvania, always called them the
“sad people.”
It happened that Bushfield, who was a man capable
of finding fault with singular discretion,
was denouncing the general government for not
taking sufficient care to protect the exposed frontier
from the depredations of the Pottawotomies,
the Kickapoos, and other odd-named fellows.
“If I was President of the United States, I'd
make them smell brimstone through a nail-hole.”
“Eh, good!” said the Black Warrior, after waiting
to see that nobody replied; for the savages in
this respect set an example to the civilized man;
“good! you white men all cowards.”
“What's that you say, you old tan-coloured varmint?”
cried Bushfield.
“Let him say on,” said the colonel.
“I say,” continued the Black Warrior, with
perfect coolness and indifference, “I say you white
men all cowards. Your whole government is
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founded in cowardice. You give up your freedom
of action; you fetter yourselves with laws
till you don't know which way to turn, because
you can't take care of yourselves; you give away
your money to make roads and bridges, because
you are afraid to travel through the woods and
swim over rivers; and you pay taxes for soldiers
to come and protect you. Huh!—the Indians
protect themselves; they neither give away their
money nor their liberty to pay other people for
taking care of them.”
Rainsford was quite struck with this new view
of the social system, and entered into some little
discussion with the old natural philosopher, in the
course of which he took occasion to insist upon
the superior comforts and conveniences of civilized
life.
“Huh—yes!” said the Black Warrior, “all your
lives are spent in slaving to get things that we
have learned to do without. The Indian is the
only true gentleman; the white man is the Indian's
nigger; he works to make guns and blankets
for us.”
“Niggers!” cried Bushfield, jumping up in a
rage; “the Kentuckians niggers!”
The old redskin replied to this only with a significant
“huh!” and, lighting his pipe, departed
without ceremony to his hut in the forest.
“I never see or think of these people but I
pity them,” said Rainsford.
“Pity the Ingens! for what?” answered Bushfield,
warmly; “I'll tell you what, stranger, if you
had lived in Old Kentuck as long as I have, and
seen what I have seen, you'd talk other guess, I
reckon. When I first remember this country,
nobody could sleep of nights for fear of the
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Ingens, who were so thick you couldn't see the trees
for them. There isn't a soul in all Kentucky but
has lost some one of his kin in the Ingen wars,
or had his house burnt over his head by these
creturs. When they plough their fields, they
every day turn up the bones of their own colour
and kin who have been scalped, and tortured, and
whipped, and starved by these varmints, that are
ten thousand times more bloodthirsty than tigers,
and as cunning as 'possums. I, stranger, I am the
last of my family and name; the rest are all gone,
and not one of them died by the hand of his
Maker. My grandfather fell and was scalped at
Old Chilicothe; my uncle was massacred at Ruddle's
Station, after he had surrendered; my father
lost his life at the Blue Licks, when all Kentucky
was in mourning; my two brothers were kidnapped
when they were boys, and never heard of
afterwards; and—and—my mother and sister
were burnt up in our house, while all the men
were out to catch a horse-thief, by a party of Shawanoes.
They bared the doors and windows, and
my little sister loaded the gun, which my mother
fired as fast as she loaded. They killed two of
the varmints; the others set fire to the house,
and—and—J—s! that any white man should pity
an Ingen here on `the dark and bloody ground!”'
There was an energy, a mixture of wild pathos
and singularity in this effusion of Bushfield exceedingly
affecting, and Rainsford could not help
acknowledging, that to judge rightly of the conduct
of mankind in all situations, we should know
the necessity under which they laboured, and the
provocations to which they were exposed. There
are none so virtuous as people out of the reach of
temptation, and none so forgiving as those who
have no motives for revenge. On retiring to the
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room prepared for his reception, the young man
seated himself at an open window, and indulged
in a train of melancholy reflections. The moon
rode high in the heavens, and threw her mild
lustre over the quiet scene, interrupted only by
the distant howlings of the wild animals of the
forest, that sometimes approached near enough
to rouse the watchdogs, whose deep-mouthed
warnings echoed far and wide. The lofty girdled
trees, stripped of their foliage, and bristling the
surrounding fields like the tall masts of first rate
men-of-war, gave an air of desolation to the landscape,
which was bounded at a distance by a dark
wall of gloomy forest. He thought of the past,
and it presented nothing but sad realities; he
thought of the future, and it furnished only
gloomy forebodings. “Better were it,” thought
he, “that I should become at once, what I shall be
ere long, as sure as the fate which hasfor three
generations hung over my unhappy race will one
day be mine. I should then be at least unconscious
of my miseries; but now the very anticipation
of what too surely I shall soon be, is a thousand
times worse than if I really were what I anticipate.
One year more, and then—oh! gracious
Providence! what shall I be then?” Unconsciously
he groaned, in the agony of his spirit;
and Virginia, who was likewise contemplating the
scene from an adjoining window, overheard him.
Her curiosity and sympathy were both equally
excited; but feeling she was intruding on the sorrows
of a stranger, she quietly retired to her repose.
Yet she could not sleep for a while, and as
she lay wondering what might be the cause of such
an expression of suffering, she could hear the
stranger pacing to and fro across his chamber for
hours.
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CHAPTER XIII. The sudden departure of Rainsford, and the mysterious deportment of Master Zeno Paddock.
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The morning was cheerful and smiling, and
Mr. Rainsford appeared at breakfast apparently in
good spirits; but Virginia, who by some newly-awakened
impulse began to feel an interest in a
young man who groaned and walked his chamber
at night, thought she saw in his face the haggard
emblems of long suffering. His features were
regular and singularly expressive, but it was not
altogether a pleasing expression. The lines of
his forehead bore the marks of habitual contraction;
his complexion was of an ashy hue; his
cheek and eyes somewhat more sunken than beseemed
a man so young; and the latter exhibited
a cast of fearful apprehension, as though they
were watching some secret enemy stealing upon
him unawares. His person was of the middle
size; his limbs well formed; but there was nothing
of the brisk vigour of youth in his action, which
was languid, careless, and dilatory. His voice
was musical, but it was the music of melancholy.
Suspicion is the product of experience; naturally,
our race is full of liberal confidence. In
the early stages of society there is little temptation
to fraud, and, consequently, less occasion
for apprehension; for men have little to lose
or gain by it, and hence, in proportion to the simplicity
of manners and modes of life will be the
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extent of confidence and hospitality. Rainsford
was accordingly received unquestioned at the
house of Colonel Dangerfield, not only because
the colonel was liberal, but that in this sequestered
region, as there was no temptation to attract
rogues, so there had been no examples to create
suspicion.
After breakfast, Colonel Dangerfield proposed
taking a ride to view the lands in the neighbourhood.
“I feel an interest in your settling among us,
and long to see you getting about it. If you bestir
yourself manfully, in two years you will have
every thing comfortable about you.”
“Two years!” echoed Rainsford, with a sigh.
“What, are you so impatient you can't wait
two years? It is but a short time.”
“Too long for me,” said the other, apparently
entirely abstracted from the scene and the occasion.
As they rode to the spot which was the object
of their visit, the colonel spoke of what was necessary
to be done in the first stage of a new settlement,
and entered on a variety of details, such
as he thought might interest his guest; but his
mind seemed to be wandering to other subjects.
Sometimes he did not answer at all, and at others
nothing or very little to the purpose.
“Stranger,” said Bushfield, who accompanied
them on his way home, he not being a resident in
the village of Dangerfieldville, “stranger, you
don't seem on the track of what the colonel says.
But I'll tell you what, a man that comes to settle
in these parts must be wide awake, and rip and
tear away like a horse in a cane-brake. But somehow
you don't appear to mind what's said to you,
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any more than my old horse Shavetail, who lost
his hearing at the last general training, they fired
at such a rate.”
“I believe, indeed, I was guilty of the ill manners
of thinking of something else; I am apt to
be absent,” said Rainsford, with a melancholy
smile.
“What! you're one of the booky fellers that
think of one thing while they are talking about
another. There's an old varmint at Frankford
Academy, as I heard, that one day cut his forefinger
to a sharp point instead of a pencil, for want
of thinking what he was about.”
“What a beautiful country!” exclaimed Rainsford,
as they ascended an eminence which commanded
a vast expanse of all the charming varieties
of nature; forests of primeval growth, rich
meadows, extensive plains, swelling hills gradually
rising into mountains, and little rivers
winding their way as if they neither knew nor
cared whither they were going; “what a beautiful
country is Kentucky!”
“Beautiful?—it's transcendent! Yes, if Old
Kentucky was cut off from all the rest of the
earth, she'd be a world within herself,” answered
Bushfield.
A spot was selected for the residence of Rainsford
on the bank of a little stream which found
its way to the Kentucky River through a rich
meadow imbosomed in the hills.
“'Tis a little paradise,” said he; “but I fear it
is too distant from any other habitation.”
“Distant!” cried Bushfield, “not at all; why,
you and I shall be nigh neighbours. Don't you
see that blue mountain yonder? I live just on the
other side, and it's only fifteen miles off.”
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`That's rather too far for me; I don't like to
be alone.”
“Not like to be alone! why, where under the
sun did you spring from, stranger? Now, for my
part, I don't want any other company than my
dog, my rifle, and plenty of game. I never wish
to see the smoke of my neighbour's chimney.
You'll have a smart chance of company at Dangerfieldville,
which isn't above six miles off, as I
should calculate.”
After a few minutes' reflection, Mr. Rainsford
assented to the location of his house, observing,
it was after all, perhaps, of little consequence where
he pitched his tent, to the great disgust of Bushfield,
who set him down in his own mind as a
fellow that hadn't fire enough in him to prevent
his being frostbitten in the dog-days.
According to the custom of the backwoods, the
inhabitants of the village turned out the next day,
and before the sun was set had built him a stately
log house of two rooms and a garret, all neat and
complete, and fit for a king. But in these new
countries it is much more difficult to furnish than
to build a house, and it became necessary to resort
to some of the older settlements before his mansion
could be prepared for his reception.
“You've got a cage, said Mr. Littlejohn, “and
now all you want is a bird to sing in it;” and he
looked significantly at the fair Virginia, whose
head was full of the groans and perturbed midwatch
pacings she had heard the night before.
The damsel blushed deeply, while a singularly
inexplicable expression passed like a cloud over
the face of the young man as he replied,—
“I fear no bird will ever sing in cage of mine,
except the screech-owl or the raven.”
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“I shall hear you sing another tune before
long. Why, what will you do, who have been
raised where people stand as thick as canes
in a cane-brake, in a house all alone by yourself?
Miss Dangerfield shall recommend you to a little
bird that sings like a Virginia nightingale.”
“Miss Dangerfield will do no such thing,” replied
Virginia, and left the room in a flurry.
Rainsford walked forth to the house of one
Zeno Paddock,[2] who officiated in the twofold
capacity of schoolmaster and political oracle
to young and old of the village of Dangerfieldville.
His great ambition was to set up a
newspaper, but he could not yet bring the matter
about to his satisfaction. Here the young gentleman
staid so long that Mr. Littlejohn wondered
what he could have to say to that eternal busybody,
whom he despised from the bottom of his
heart, inasmuch as he was not content with attending
to his own business, which was bad enough
in all conscience, but interfered with that of all
his neighbours. There was nothing Ulysses
held so cheap as a man who had a decided taste
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[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]
for any species of employment except that of killing
time. Zeno was a huge devourer of newspapers,
and was generally found with one in his
hand at every interval of leisure.
One evening, some ten days afterwards, all
the family, with the exception of Leonard, who
had gone to the state capital to finish the study of
the law, was gathered together. Rainsford announced
his intention of not taking possession of
his new establishment until the ensuing spring,
as he should not like to sojourn alone in the wilderness
during the dreary season of winter. The
colonel and Mrs. Dangerfield expressed their satisfaction
at the prospect of having him for a welcome
guest some time longer.
Mr. Rainsford appeared much affected. “You
have been kind, very kind to me. A stranger, and
without the least claim to your hospitality, you
have received and entertained me as a son or a
brother. But—but—I do not mean to spend the
winter in this part of the world.”
Virginia made a sudden movement of surprise,
and the colonel exclaimed, “Indeed! I am sorry
for it.”
“No; I have thought—I never was at New
Orleans. I should like to see the banks of the
great river Mississippi; and besides, I can furnish
myself with several articles which I confess my
house stands wofully in need of. I shall return
early in the spring, and then set myself seriously
to work, clearing land and raising corn.”
Nothing was said against this arrangement, and
in a few days Rainsford was on his way to the
Ohio, whence he meant to embark in the first
convenient conveyance on his destination. He
took leave of the colonel and Mrs. Dangerfield
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[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]
with the deepest expressions of obligation; of
Virginia with the frankness of a brother, while
she parted from him with the only appearance of
affectation she had ever been known to exhibit.
She was in the highest spirits, and laughed excessively,
particularly where there was no occasion.
“Can I bring you any thing from New Orleans?”
said he.
“Let me see—O yes, bring me a parrot, or a
monkey, or something to amuse me; for really,
Mr. Rainsford, I have been almost tired to death
this summer for want of agreeable company.
How I should like to be always in a crowd!”
This was a great story.
“There are plenty of paroquets in the woods.”
“Yes, but they are so dull, they don't talk, and
what is a parrot or a man that can't speak?”
“Well, Miss Dangerfield, I shall certainly attend
to your wishes. I will endeavour to find you a
suitable companion among the parrots or the
monkeys.”
There was something in this little dialogue that
grated harshly on the feelings of both, and a
pause ensued, which lasted until Rainsford was
summoned to proceed on his voyage down the
river.
“Farewell, madam, and farewell, colonel,” said
he, with deep emotion, “and farewell, Miss Dangerfield;”
and his voice assumed a tone of melancholy
kindness.
“Good-by, Mr. Rainsford,” said Virginia; “don't
forget the parrot and the monkey.”
Virginia was so merry for at least an hour after
his departure, that her mother could not help
noticing her extraordinary vivacity.
“One would think you rejoiced at Mr.
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Rainsford's going away, and yet I cannot help regretting
to lose his society next winter. He was not lively,
but sensible and well informed, and when he did
talk it was very agreeably.”
“Well, for my part,” said the young lady, “I
think he was the stupidest young man I ever met
with in all my life.”
“My dear Virginia, you must excuse me, but I
don't believe one word you have said.”
Virginia laughed, and ran away to the river's
side; but the boat in which Rainsford embarked
had already disappeared in a turn of the river,
and she returned home after a long lingering
walk, in a mood so quiet and sedate, that she
scarcely spoke a word all the rest of the day.
Hardly had Rainsford departed when Zeno
Paddock made his appearance, with a newspaper
in his hand, and asked to speak with Colonel
Dangerfield in private. Their conference lasted
rather longer than was customary with the colonel,
who generally eschewed the company of
Zeno. What was its import he did not think
proper to disclose; but he was observed to be
absent and thoughtful all the rest of the day,
contrary to his usual habits, for he was a man of
great vivacity of character. Zeno marched off
with an air of great importance, occasionally
stopping to look at his newspaper, and nodding
his head significantly as he carefully folded it up
and put it in his pocket.
“I suppose that varlet wanted you to assist
him in setting up his newspaper?” said Littlejohn,
wishing to sound the colonel.
“It was about a newspaper,” replied the other,
and taking horse, rode out without asking the
company of his friend.
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“There's some mystery in this matter,” quoth
Littlejohn, and he went to consult Pompey the
Great, who still lived in all the dignity of aristocracy,
and was as tenacious of the honour of
the family as ever.
“I'll tell you what,” said Pompey; “'spose he
want massa to scribe to he paper.”
“Pooh! nonsense.”
“Well den, 'spose he want to insult him bout
Massa Leonard setting up for member of 'sembly.”
“Pish! do you think he'd consult anybody but
me in matters of such consequence?”
“Well den, 'spose—I dare say it must have
bin someting else, hey, Massa Leetlejohn?”
“Pomp, I didn't think you was such an old
blockhead.”
“Well den, 'spose you go ax somebody wiser
dan me,” said the great Ducklegs in a huff, and
the two friends parted in no very good-humour
with each other, leaving the mystery to be explained
by the course of time, and the events it
carries in its mighty womb.
eaf311v1.n2[2] On scanning our work a little more critically, after completing
the story, it for the first time occurred to us that the sketch of Zeno Paddock, in his compound character of schoolmaster and
editor, might possibly be construed into an attempt to throw ridicule
on these two classes. We take this opportunity of entirely
disclaiming any such purpose; our object having been simply to
portray a character from nature, such as without doubt has existed,
and we dare say still exists, in situations similar to that in
which we have imagined him. We should be the last in the
world to attempt weakening the influence or undermining the
respectability of two professions to which the present age owes,
and posterity will owe, more, perhaps, than to any others whatever.
Yet still, there certainly are among them persons whose
follies and whose ignorance diminish the just influence of the
whole; and to ridicule these is to vindicate, not to undervalue,
those who are objects of respect and consideration.
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CHAPTER XIV. A voyage, a story, and a land adventure.
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The boat in which Rainsford took passage
down the Kentucky River was bound on a voyage
up the Ohio, and consequently at the junction of
the two rivers he shifted himself and his “plunder,”
to the first which happened to come by on
its way to New Orleans. This proved to be a
broad-horn, of which, by a singular coincidence,
our old acquaintance Samuel Hugg was captain
and owner. Many long years had elapsed since
he carried the fortunes of Colonel Dangerfield
down the Ohio; but they had passed over him,
as the elements pass over the rugged rock, making
it only more rough and hard. He was still
as straight and almost as tall as the sycamores
that tower along the banks of the western rivers,
and his rough vivacity remained undiminished,
though he sometimes complained, or rather swore
most originally, at the steamboats, which were
now just beginning to make their first trials on
the western waters, preparatory to the mighty
change they have since worked in the destinies
of that extensive region. The sagacious mind
of Captain Sam foresaw in their success the ruin
of his business, and the extinction of the broad-horns
on the Ohio and Mississippi, and he often
took occasion to call down upon them the judgment
of snags, sawyers, sandbanks, and bursting
of boilers. Nevertheless, he was sometimes
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wrought upon to confess that the varmints were
sweet creturs, and that it was “Transcendent to
see them ploughing their way up the Mississippi,
as if the d—l himself kicked 'em on end, anyhow.
That Daniel Boone is a screamer,” would
he say; “she beats the old man himself, and he
was no fool, I tell you. I used to know him when
he was sixty year old, and then he could beat any
man in Old Kentuck shooting at a mark. I remember
I stood once a hundred yards off, and let
him shoot a rifle ball at a tin pint mug right on
the top of my head, and I wish I may be utterly
onswoggled if he didn't tip it off as slick as bear's
grease, anyhow. Ah! there's no such screamers
nowadays.”
The captain, as we before observed, was a
mighty considerable talker, and in the twilight of
the autumnal evening, as they glided silently
down the stream, he delighted to tell of his adventures
on the waters of the west, which he had
navigated for more than forty years. Some of
his stories were what are deemed tough, and it required
a little extension of one's faith to believe
them; but there was an extravagance about them
which at times was not a little amusing, when
coupled with a concatenation of phrases that may
fairly be called inimitable. We ought not to omit
recording that Cherub Spooney, now no longer a
smart chance of a boy, but a full-grown man, was
still attached to the service of Captain Hugg, and
at the time we are speaking of officiated as second
to the commander, to whom he considered himself
equal in every respect. Besides Spooney, the
crew consisted of two or three new hands, and
the invariable appendage of all these boats, a gentleman
of colour, officiating as cook, and who
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Captain Sam swore was the knowingest chap he
ever knew. “The varmint can't read,” would he
say, “but I wish I may be split into shingles, if
he can't tell what's in a newspaper by only smelling
it.”
One evening, Rainford, who found his melancholy
charmed in spite of himself by the interesting
novelty of his situation, and the strange
language and manners of his companions, sat
listening to the conversation of the crew as they
were enjoying one of the most beautiful twilights
nature ever bestowed upon the earth. There was
a silence, a luxurious softness in the aspect and
quiet repose of the crystal river, as it glided noiselessly
along between low level banks from which
sprung giant trees, that spread their broad limbs
like vast umbrellas, that was exquisitely agreeable,
and harmonized delightfully with the silence of
the earth, which here bore scarce a trace of the
labours of man. They were now approaching
the junction of the two great rivers, which, rising
in distant regions of the world, at length unite
their waters in one mighty stream, and journey
together to the ocean of oblivion.
The party was seated on the roof of the broad-horn,
which consisted of boards inclining at each
end from the centre, so as to let the rain run off,
and singing or telling stories according to custom,
aided by the indispensable accompaniment of a
competent supply of whiskey. Rainsford had
seated himself also upon the roof of the boat, to
enjoy the scene before him, and was now casting
a glance of admiration on either side; now busying
himself in a labyrinth of reflections, which,
whether he turned to the past, the present, or the
future, were equally fraught with unqualified
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bitterness. Gradually, however, his attention was
arrested by the following extraordinary tale.
“Well then, captain, if he won't sing, suppose
you tell us another story,” quoth Cherub Spooney.
“Ay, do now, captain; tell us the story of the
strange cretur you picked up going down the
river,” said another.
“Ah! now do, Massa Cappin Sam,” quoth
blackey.
“Well, I'll tell you how it was. We had hauled
in the broad-horn close ashore to wood; wind
was up-stream, so we couldn't make much headway
anyhow. Bill told the nigger to cook a few
steaks off Clumsy—that was what we called the
bear I shot the day before—well, while we were
a-wooding—”
“That story's as long as the Mississippi,” said
one.
“Shut pan, and sing dumb, or I'll throw
you into the drink,” exclaimed Spooney.
“Why, I heard that story before.”
“Well, supposing you did, I didn't; go on,
captain.”
“Well, as I was saying, Spoon, the nigger—”
“I tink he might call um gemman of choler,”
muttered blackey.
“The nigger went to cook some bear while we
were wooding, so that we might have somethin
to go upon. When we came back, what kind of
a varmint do you think we started in the cane-brake?”
“I reckon an alligator,” said blackey.
“Hold your tongue, you beauty, or you shall
smell brimstone through a nail hole,” cried
Spooney; “go ahead, go ahead, captain.”
“Well, as I was saying we started the drollest
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varmint perhaps you ever did see. Its face was
covered with hair, like a bull buffalo, all but a
little place for his eyes to see through. It looked
mighty skeery, as though it thought itself a gone
sucker, and calculated we were going to eat it, before
we killed it; but we carried it aboard the broad-horn,
and took compassion on the poor thing. I
slapped it on the back, and told it to stand up on
its hind legs, and I wish I may run on a sawyer
if it didn't turn out to be a live dandy.”
“Had it a tail?”
“I'll wool lightning out of you, Bill, if you interrupt
me.”
“That's actionable in New Orleans.”
“Ha! ha! whoop! wake snakes—go ahead,
go ahead, and don't be so rantankerous,” shouted
the audience.
“I swear, if he once gets my tail up, he'll find
I'm from the forks of Roaring River, and a bit of
a screamer,” said Captain Hugg.
“Well, go ahead—go ahead—tell us about
the dandy—ha, ha, ha! I should like to have
seen it when it stood upon its hind legs. What
did it say?”
“Why, I asked what they called such queer
things where it came from, and it said Basil; and
that the captain of the steamboat had put it ashore
because it insisted on going into the ladies' cabin.
Well, some of us called it summer-savory, some
catnip, some sweet basil, and we had high fun
with the cretur, and laughed till we were tired.
And then we set him on a barrel forked eend
downwards—”
“Yough! yough! yough!” ejaculated blackey,
bursting into one of his indescribable laughs.
“No laughing in the ranks there—throw that
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nigger overboard if he laughs before I come to
the right place, and then you may all begin.
Well, then, I began to ask him all about himself;
and he told me he was a great traveller; and that
he had been so far north, that the north star was
south of him. And then he asked me if I knew
any thing of navigation and the use of the globes.
`To be sure I do,' said I; `aint they made for people
to live on?' Then he inquired if I ever heard
of Hershell, or Hisshell, I forget which, and I told
him I knew him as well as a squirrel knows a
hickory-nut from an acorn.' `He's dead,' said the
queer cretur.
“`No, no,' says I, `that won't do, there's no
mistake in Shavetail, you may swear. I saw a
pedler with some splendid sausages made of red
flannel and turnips go by our house and I changed
with him some wooden bacon hams. He came
from Litchfield, where Hershell lived, and didn't
say a word about it.' Here he made a note in his
book, and I begun to smoke him for one of these
fellers that drive a sort of trade of making books
about Old Kentuck, and the western country; so
I thought I'd set him barking up the wrong tree
a little. And I told him some stories that were
enough to set the Mississippi afire; but he put
them all down in his book. One of my men was
listening, and he sung out, `Well, Sam, you do take
the rag off the bush, that's sartin;' and I was fearful
dandy would find out I was smoking him; so
I jumped up and told Tom a short horse was soon
curried, and I'd knock him into a cocked-hat if he
said another word. And that broke up the conversation.
“Next morning we stopped to wood a little below
New-Madrid, and the dandy, who seemed one of the
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curiousest creturs you ever saw, and was poking
his nose everywhere, like a dog smelling out a
trail, went with me a little way into a cane-brake,
where we met a woman living under a board shed,
with four or five children. Dandy asked her if
she was all alone—she said her husband had gone
up to Yellow Banks to look for better land. Then
he wanted to know what she had to eat, and she
said nothing but sweet pumpkins. `What, no
meat?' said he—`No, nothing but sweet pumpkins.'
`Well,' said dandy, `I never saw any thing half so
bad as this in the old countries.' And then he put
his hand in his pocket, and gave her a pickalion.
`Thank you,' said she, `as I am a living woman,
I've tasted no meat for the last fortnight—nothing
but venison and wild turkeys.' `The d—l you
hain't,' said dandy,and wanted to get the pickatlon
back again.”
“What a wild goose of a feller, not to know
that nothing is called meat in these parts but salt
pork and beef. He's a pretty hand to write books
of travels,” said Spooney.
“I wish I may be forced to pass the `old sycamore
root' up-stream twice a day, if I'd give the
Mississippi Navigator for a whole raft of such
creturs. But what did you do with him at last,
captain?” said another.
“Why, I got tired of making fun of the ringtail-roarer,
and happening to meet the steamboat
Daniel Boone, Captain Lansdale, coming down
stream, just as she had smashed a broad-horn, and
the owner was sitting on the top of it, singing,
`Hail, Columbia, happy land,
If I ain't ruin'd I'll be —.
I persuaded the captain to let dandy come aboard
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again, on his promising to keep out of the ladies'
cabin. So we shook hands, and I wish I might be
smash'd too if I wouldn't sooner hunt such a raccoon
than the fattest buck that ever broke bread
in old Kentuck.”
The next morning the broad-horn arrived at
the junction of the two great rivers Ohio and
Mississippi, which Rainsford had anticipated with
no small degree of impatience. But he found
there was nothing to the eye particularly striking.
The imagination indeed might dwell on the endless
course of the two streams here rolling along the
collected waters of such vast regions. The union
of these mighty rivers was consummated in the
midst of a dead solitude. For many miles before
it joined the Mississippi, the Ohio glided through
a low swampy wilderness, quietly, and with a
wave as limpid as the crystal spring, until turning
a sharp angle it met the swift torrent of the
great father of waters, the “wicked river,” as the
boatmen called it, and was whirled away by its
irresistible impetuosity. It was the union of a
gentle, unresisting maiden with a rough and
angry giant. The boiling eddies, the turbid waters
of the Mississippi, inevitably conjure up the idea of
an eternal warfare with the earth; it tears its banks
as it rushes along; and sometimes, as if impatient
of its devious windings, forces itself a passage
through a projecting point, making a new channel
in one place, and leaving another dry. The chief
ambition of a western adventurer is to found a
great city on speculation; and it may be well supposed
that the junction of these two great rivers
did not escape the keen eye of these sagacious
people, who may be said to live on futurity.
Tradition said that a city had once been founded
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here, consisting of some houses built on piles.
But the first rising of the Ohio inundated the surrounding
region, and discouraged the adventurers.
Rainsford saw but a single house, standing
alone in the vast solitude, and making if possible
its loneliness more striking. Its windows were
broken, its outside blackened by the weather, and
such was its melancholy aspect that Captain Hugg
said it always put him in mind of the voice of one
crying in the wilderness.
Launched on the bosom of the swift Mississippi
the broad-horn proceeded with an accelerated
course, and without stopping, until they arrived
near the little town of New-Madrid, where it was
necessary to halt for a supply of wood. It was a
close sultry day, with scarcely a breath of air
stirring, and the atmosphere of a hazy obscurity,
which almost always lays a load of languor on
the spirits. The birds were sheltered in the deep
forests, where they remained panting in silence;
and the few domestic animals to be seen, ventured
as far into the rapid stream as they dared, and
there stood lashing the insects with their tails,
listlessly and languidly, as if the effort was almost
beyond their strength. While the argonauts of
the broad-horn were gathering drift-wood along
the shore, Rainsford, accompanied by Captain
Sam, strolled to the confines of the Great Prairie, as
it is called, which extends for many miles from
the borders of the Mississippi. As they stood admiring
the rolling expanse of vapours which gave
to its vast surface the appearance of the distant
ocean in a calm, and coursing with their eyes the
dead and noiseless solitude, a distant rumbling
sound caught their attention for a moment—
ceasing for a moment, and in a moment beginning
again, apparently nearer than before. It was
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succeeded by a vast cloud of dust, which all at once
obscured the air, and hid from their view the face
of the world.
“Cut dirt, stranger, for your life; there's a
whirlwind coming,” cried Captain Sam, suiting
the action to the word.
But he had scarcely spoken when the earth
opened between them, and they stood rocking to
and fro on either side a yawning chasm. The
ground rose in waves, like the sea in a storm; the
vast trees that skirted the bare precincts of the
endless plain nodded and struck their high heads
together with a crash, and lashed each other with
their giant limbs; the earth burst its strong ribs,
and rose, and split into vast ravines; the waters
broke through their bounds, and while they formed
new lakes, or forced themselves into new channels
in some places, in others they left large spaces
high and dry. Anon the waves of the firm-fixed
earth subsided for a moment, and she lay trembling
and quivering as in the paroxysm of an
ague.
During this appalling interval, Rainsford and
his companion rose from the ground, where they
had been thrown by the resistless force of the vibrations,
and instinctively sought refuge they
knew not whither. The captain made towards
the river, as being his natural element; while the
other climbed one of the lofty trees that skirted
the bounds of the interminable plain, from a vague
apprehension of the waters, which, as well as the
earth, seemed struggling to free themselves from
the fetters of Nature's inflexible laws. He had
scarcely done this, when again the same appalling
noises approached from another quarter, and again
the firm-set earth began to heave and curl itself
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into a sea of waves that seemed to approach from
a distance, gathering strength, and rising higher
and higher, until they burst, scattering vast volumes
of water and sand high in the air, and leaving
the ground seamed with deep chasms, which
the traveller still surveys with astonishment and
dismay. In a few moments the earth seemed
changed into a different element, and to become
an ocean. A large portion of the district around
was covered with the waters, and the tree on
which Rainsford had sought refuge stood rocking
to and fro in the midst of them. Darkness, or at
least an obscurity, like that of a total eclipse of the
sun, came over the world; and such was the dismay
of all animated nature, that a little bird came
and sought refuge in the bosom of the young man,
where it lay quiet and tame in the trance of terror.
He could feel its little heart beat against his
own, and the communion of sympathy between
him and the panting flutterer was not unsoothing
in this terrible hour.
Casting his eye towards the town of New-Madrid,
he beheld the houses tottering and tumbling
to pieces, and the people fleeing to and fro
in all the desperation of overwhelming terror.
Turning to the Mississippi, he suddenly observed
it in one particular spot boil up, and overflow its
banks, carrying boats and every thing that floated
on its surface far over into the fields, where they
were left perfect wrecks. Nay, it spared neither
the living nor the dead, for all at once he saw the
little graveyard of the village, with its mouldering
bones and quiet inhabitants, lifted, as it were, from
its resting-place, and hurled into the torrent, where
it and they were scattered, never to be associated
again in time or in eternity. In this situation he
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remained all that day and night, amid a succession
of shocks that seemed to threaten the annihilation
of the whole scheme of nature, and the
production of a second chaos. Such was the exhaustion
of his frame, that he could scarcely support
himself; and had he not wedged his body in
the crotch of the tree, he must have fallen and
perished. In the morning the waters around him
had gathered into a newly-formed lake at a distance
of a few miles, and the shocks intermitted.
The little bird that had lain all night panting in
his bosom, apparently revived by the presence of
the cheerful morning sun, struggled from its place
of refuge, flew away, like the dove from the ark
when the waters had subsided, and did not return.
Stiff and exhausted, he descended from his perch,
and with great labour and difficulty made his way
to the town, where he found a few persons who
had ventured to return to their homes, or rather
the ruins of their homes. Fortunately, these
dwelt not in palaces or stately houses, but in cottages
of logs and clay, and few or no lives had
been lost. Many were missing for a time, but
they all returned again save one man, who had
been left on an island in a lake formed by the
convulsions of the earthquake, and whose bones
were accidentally found long afterwards.
Among those who made their appearance during
the day, to the great satisfaction of our hero,
was the captain and crew of the broad-horn in
which he had taken his passage. The story they
told of their translation from the waters to the
land was tinged with many wonders and extravagances,
which, being repeated day after day, and
year after year, gradually approached to the incredible.
It was a time and a region of wonders,
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however, and not the least of these was the extraordinary
abstinence of Captain Sam and his people.
They neither swore nor drank whiskey that day,
nor during the continuance of the shocks of the
earthquake, which lasted with occasional intervals
so long, that the people of the neighbourhood got
used to it, insomuch that a veritable traveller relates,
that going ashore near New-Madrid, and
visiting the house of an old lady, he was alarmed
by certain disagreeable tremblings of the earth;
whereupon she exclaimed, in an encouraging
tone, “O, don't be frightened, stranger; it's only
the earthquake.” We are sorry to say that the
reformation of these worthies lasted no longer
than the earthquake, and that they returned in
due time to their old habits. Tradition says that
this remarkable phenomenon produced a radical
reform in the phraseology of Captain Sam Hugg;
for that whereas before he was accustomed to
designate himself as “half horse, half alligator,
and a little of the steamboat,” he ever afterwards
added “a small sprinkling of an earthquake” to
the former ingredients.
Rainsford remained in the village of New-Madrid
several days, in a state of mind little to be
envied. The tremendous and appalling scenes
he had encountered, operating on his gloomy,
nervous, and apprehensive temperament, had increased
his propensity to melancholy anticipations.
Such dispositions are almost always inclined to
fanaticism, and prone to wrest the great phenomena
of nature from the mysterious universal
agents of Providence, to the paltry and miserable
instruments of abject superstition. With a vain
and impotent presumption, they imagine the wrath
of Heaven is roused for the attainment of petty
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purposes of individual punishment, and exclaim,
in the language of the insane interpreter of the
Divine will,—
I saw the bolt of heaven launch'd from on high,
Mark'd its bright course, and lo! it kill'd a fly!
Under the influence of this delusion, he imagined
that there was something ominous, something
prophetic in the earthquake which had
thus arrested his voyage down the river. He
viewed it as a distinct indication that he was not
permitted to proceed for the purposes he had in
view, because these purposes were become unnecessary
by the sure and certain fate that awaited
him, and which he now fully persuaded himself
was in a swift progress to its final consummation.
“To what end,” would the fiend whisper to him,
`to what end visit distant scenes? to what purpose
enlarge thy mind, or cultivate thy understanding,
or gratify thy curiosity, by contemplating
the vast works of the creation? or to what
purpose set thy house in order, since in a little
while, yea, as sure as the voice of the Deity prophesies
in the thunder, the whirlwind, and the
earthquake, in a little while thou wilt neither be
able to enjoy the noble feast of the mind, nor taste
the blessings of a peaceful home?”
Guided by this dangerous monitor, Rainsford,
after lingering about the village, where his nerves
and his imagination were irritated and sublimated
by the perpetual recurrence of the shocks of the
earthquake, for some days, and enduring the harassing
struggle of not being able to make up his
mind whether he should proceed to New Orleans
or not, at length determined to retrace his steps
to the place whence he had departed, and he
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returned unexpectedly to the village of Dangerfieldville,
after an absence of about a month.
Colonel Dangerfield received him with hospitable
civility, for it was almost a part of his religion
to treat every human being as if he had gained a
sanctuary when once beneath the shelter of his
roof. But Rainsford, whose nerves vibrated to
the slightest touch of neglect as well as the slightest
indication of a want of cordiality, saw, or fancied
he saw, a diminution in the honest warmth
with which the colonel had bade him farewell in
the manner he received him now. On the part
of Mrs. Dangerfield all was kindness and matronly
welcome. The young lady met him with a lively
nonchalance.
“You have made a quick voyage and a speedy
return,” said she; “well, have you brought me
the present you promised?”
“I have not been to New Orleans,” was the reply.
“No farther than New Madrid.”
“Well, and what did you see there, any parrots
or monkeys?”
“No, I only saw an earthquake.”
“An earthquake!” exclaimed they all, supposing
he was jesting, as they had not yet heard
of it in this remote region, where its effects were
not felt.
“How did it look?” asked Virginia.
“It looked like the last agony of expiring nature—
as if the Omnipotent had resigned his empire
of the universe, and left the rebel elements to
struggle for mastery. It looked—pray Heaven I
may never look upon its like again.”
“Come, come, young man,” said the colonel, in
rather a severe tone, “no jesting on such subjects.
It is unworthy a rational being, as of the Being
that created him.”
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“Jesting! as I live, sir, I saw the earth rolling
in solid waves, and felt myself tossed on them as
if I had been on the sea. I saw the trees rock,
and knock their heads against each other till they
dashed themselves to pieces. I saw the ground
open, and spout out lakes and rivers. And I saw
the churchyard, and the graves, and the mouldering
bones, all lifted up and carried away out of
sight. If such are the jestings of the great Ruler
of the universe, what must his anger be?”
The hearers were overawed by the picture he
drew, and the deep seriousness of his tones convinced
them he was at least in earnest. Virginia,
as she scanned his face, saw in it such a change
since they parted, such an expression of haggard
terror, and such a pale hue of ill health, that she
felt the dews on her eyelashes, and a pang shot
through her heart at having sported with the feelings
of one whom she was sure was labouring
under sickness of body or mind.
Further inquiries produced a more detailed and
coherent account of the great phenomenon he had
witnessed. But still there was an air of wildness
approaching to rhapsody in his manner and language,
which seemed to indicate that his nerves
had not yet recovered the shock of such an appalling
scene, nor his imagination settled down
into a state of wholesome repose. The whole of
the remainder of the day he was restless and unquiet;
and any sudden jar or noise made him
start as if apprehensive of approaching danger,
Colonel Dangerfield, as he watched the singularities
of his conduct, could not help recalling to
mind the communications of that knowing politician,
learned wight, and pestilent busybody, Zeno
Paddock.
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CHAPTER XV. The Author doeth homage to his mother earth, after which he describes a hunting match.
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Winter, with his hoary beard and fiery proboscis,
whence hung glittering icicles like jewels
from barbarian nose, now stripped the forest of
its green leaves, the gardens of their blushing
honours, and cast them away like worthless weeds
to wither and die, and return like man, and all
created nature, to their common mother, earth.
There are who complain of the different dispensations
of Providence to man and the world he inhabits;
that the former knows but one fleeting
spring, while the other every revolving year renews
its youthful beauty till the consummation of
all things arrives. But beshrew such pestilent
humgruffians! hath not the wise Dispenser of
all good things made ample amends by giving us
memory to recall our youthful pleasures; fancy
to paint a thousand scenes fairer and more delicious
than spring e'er offered to the eye of mortals?
And last and best of all, hath he not given us
Hope, whose glorious visions far exceed all that
the May of life ever realized? The richest gifts
showered on the earth; her diamonds, gold, and
carpets of flowers; her power of renewing all her
youthful charms at each revolving year, are
nothing to those bestowed on man—his reason,
and his immortality.
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Yet let us not undervalue our good old mother
earth, for good she is, ay, and beautiful too,
whether clothed in the eastern magnificence of
imperial green, or basking in the glowing gold of
summer sunshine, or flaunting like Joseph in the
many-coloured coat of autumn, or wrapped in her
wintry winding-sheet, she awaits like the just
man the hour when she shall arise more glorious
for her long sleep. Who can contemplate her
smiling valleys, rich meadows, golden harvests,
grateful flowers, whispering woods, endless winding
rivers, boundless pathless seas, full-bosomed
hills, and cloud-capped mountains, without a feeling
of awful recognition of Infinite Power? Who
can behold the admirable union and aptness with
which all these participate in one great end without
doing homage to Infinite Wisdom? And who
can revel in the balmy air, inhale the breath of
the meadows and the flowers, listen to the music
of her birds, her brooks, her whispering leaves,
her answering echoes, and taste her other bounteous
gifts of all that man can wish or enjoy,
without bowing his head in grateful acknowledgement
of Infinite Mercy?
Though long divorced from the country, we
have not yet, thank Heaven! quite lost the rural
feeling. We can still recall the scenes of early
life with a pleasure unalloyed by pining regrets
for the past or unmanly fears of the future; and
we often steal a few days from the racket of the
noisy town to bury ourselves in the holy quiet
of the mountains; renew once more the simple
pleasures of days long past, and be a boy
again with our own little boys; to chase butterflies
and grasshoppers; attack wasps' nests; tumble
on the haycocks; gather chestnuts; ramble
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whole mornings without object or end; and last,
and dearest pleasure of all, follow some mountain
brook through its romantic rugged solitudes; and
pit our art against the cautious timidity of the
speckled monarch of the leaping stream.
The winter brought with it a cessation of out-door
employments, save that of hunting, to the
rural inhabitants of the village of Dangerfieldville,
and gathered them, especially of evenings,
around the glowing fire, where Master Littlejohn
revelled in the luxury of three chairs to his heart's
content. Sometimes they made parties to hunt
the deer, or the scoundrel bear, whose rugged nature
and rugged hide make him the scandal of
the forest. On these occasions Bushfield was
always summoned to take the command, and
never conqueror led his army to the field with
more eager appetite for glory than our gallant
woodman. Rainsford, who by degrees seemed to
have in some measure recovered his usual level
of mind and spirits, often accompanied them, and
always felt the resistless inspiration of the sport.
Even Mr. Littlejohn occasionally gathered himself
together, and sallying forth among the rest,
rifle in hand, “talked big,” as the Black Warrior
phrased it, and did marvellously little. It was his
invariable custom to place himself in some convenient
spot, and there await the coming of the deer.
If it came, he had his shot and generally missed;
if it came not, he had a most excellent opportunity
of boasting what he would have done had an
opportunity offered. One day when the Black
Warrior happened to be on the same station with
him, Littlejohn missed a fine fat buck, which came
leaping along within ten yards of him.
“Huh!” said the red man, “your rifle is
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bewitched, you must go and get some great medicine
to cure it.”
“Medicine? What, would you have me give
my gun a dose of physic?”
“I mean great medicine. Something to make
him shoot straight. Something Great Spirit give
to his good people to keep off bad one.”
“Pooh—do you think the Great Spirit meddles
with such nonsense as shooting a deer?”
“Yes, Great Spirit meddle with every thing.
I go hunting, I shoot, shoot, shoot, no kill any
thing, bad spirit won't let me, deer run away,
birds fly away, no hit. Well, I go to conjurer,
and he give me great medicine Great Spirit give
him, and then when I fire, huh! down drop deer,
bird, bear, every thing; bad spirit gone away.
Well, I go fish—fish come, nibble, nibble, nibble,
no bite, no catch one at all, bad spirit come and
say no. Well, I go to conjurer again, and he give
me 'nother great medicine. Then I go fish once
more, and then, huh! I catch many as I please.
Bad spirit gone again.”
“Now you don't believe this, do you?”
“Believe? Indian know so. You white men
say, proof of the pudding in the eating. I shoot
nothing, I catch no fish, I go get great medicine,
den I shoot every thing, never miss. And I
get fish, many as I can carry. Huh! is not all
owing to the great medicine?”
“I don't believe one word of it.”
“No! look here.” And opening his tobaccopouch
he carefully brought out an eagle's feather.
“There, there one great medicine. I leave him
home I shoot nothing, I bring with me I never
miss. Huh! You white men think you have
all the great medicines. Indian got some too. But
hark!”
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And at that moment they heard the sonorous
music of the deep-mouthed hounds, echoing far
and wide, and approaching the pass they occupied,
in full career. Nigher and nigher came their cry,
and Littlejohn, who had neglected to reload his
rifle, set about it immediately. But before the
deed was done, the deer, with his antlers thrown
back on his neck, and eyes almost starting out of
his head with fear, came bounding past like the
wind. But the charmed rifle of the Black Warrior
arrested his course; the bullet entered his
breast, he sprung his last spring, and fell dead.
“There—you see, great medicine do that.”
“Great fiddlestick,” quoth Littlejohn, who was
not a little jealous of the success of the Indian.
A North American Indian, in his primitive state,
never betrays the least emotion except when he is
drunk. None study dignity and self-possession
as he does; nor is there in the civilized world,
or in the courts of eastern despots, a greater slave
to etiquette. In battle, he strikes down his enemy
with graceful deliberation. At the stake, he inflicts
the keenest tortures with the same indifference
he endures them. He never declaims except
when inspired by whiskey. He never interrupts
another, and he never boasts of his exploits.
When he appeals to his tribe for any new dignity,
he relates them with an air of indifference, and
leaves the audience to say what shall be his reward.
When the full-blooded Indian means mischief,
he is silent; and when the half-breed weeps,
beware of him.
The Black Warrior affected to take no notice
of the contemptuous epithet of Littlejohn. The
rest of the party now came up, and being satisfied
with the sport, and laden with game, returned to
the village in triumph.
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CHAPTER XVI. Rainsford is besieged by the Holy Alliance of Zeno and Judith—The former achieves a great discovery.
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The state of depression under which Rainsford
had laboured for some time previous to the period
of his introduction to the reader, naturally made
him exceedingly sensitive to the slightest appearance
of neglect, and peculiarly sagacious in detecting
its first dawnings. Since his return to the
village, he fancied that there was a falling off in
the cordiality with which he had heretofore uniformly
been treated by Colonel Dangerfield. The
rest of the family were, as usual, kind and attentive;
but although the colonel never on any occasion
committed an overt act that distinctly marked
a change in his feelings towards his guest, for that
was against the canons of Old Virginia and her
buxom daughter Kentucky, still there was something
wanting, some inexplicable, indescribable
little demonstrations of welcome, which the sensitive,
melancholy stranger felt, but could not analyze.
He now seldom or never asked Rainsford
to accompany him abroad, and the interest he had
heretofore taken in his affairs seemed to have subsided
into something like indifference.
“I will no longer trespass on his hospitality,”
said the young man, and sallied once more forth
to visit Master Zeno Paddock, with whom he held
a long confabulation, the result of which will
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[figure description] Page 140.[end figure description]
appear anon in all human probability. That same
evening he took the opportunity, on some allusion
being made to something or other that indicated
an understanding on the part of the family of
Colonel Dangerfield that he was to spend the rest
of the winter with them, to observe, with some
little embarrassment, that he was about to remove
to Mr. Paddock's, who lived nearly opposite, a distance
of two or three hundred yards.
The ladies expressed surprise, and the elder
made some little attempt at remonstrance against
this desertion; the colonel, as if offering a sacrifice
of inclination to old habits, compelled himself
to make a few civil speeches; but they wanted
the eloquence of cordiality, and the thing was
soon settled that the removal should take place
the next morning. Additional melancholy gathered
in the face of Rainsford after this, and he
retired earlier than usual to his room, but not to
his repose. Virginia heard him pacing to and
fro, and detected, or fancied she detected, the occasional
murmurs of a sorrowful or discontented
spirit. Again her curiosity was excited, her sympathy
awakened, by the apparent mystery of his
nightly wakefulness; and her mind grew more
and more confirmed in making it the subject of
frequent contemplation.
The next day Mr. Rainsford took possession of
his homely lodgings; but the change proved little
satisfactory, and instead of finding greater quiet,
as well as more perfect freedom from observation
and restraint, he was perpetually pestered with
the attentions of Zeno Paddock, together with his
excellent helpmate Mrs. Judith, whose curiosity
vied with that of her husband. The classical
academy of Zeno being situated a little distance
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in front of his log castle, he caused his tripod of
authority to be forthwith removed to the vicinity
of a window, which commanded a full view of the
chamber of Rainsford, and enabled him to superintend
the motions of that mysterious personage.
If he visited Colonel Dangerfield, which he still
continued to do occasionally, Master Zeno, as the
boys always called him, was on nettles till he had
an opportunity of questioning him as to what was
said, done, thought, and looked on the important
occasion; or if he walked forth into the village,
or down by the river-side, or into the neighbouring
forest, ten to one Master Zeno left his dominion
to the lord of misrule, and sallied out to watch his
motions. Often when Rainsford fancied himself
alone, he would find his tormentor close behind
him, and not unfrequently he seemed to come out
of the earth, or to drop from the clouds, so sudden
was his appearance.
Mrs. Judith, who was so ugly that one might
be almost tempted to suppose it was her identical
self that had cut off the head of Holofernes, and
placed it in triumph on her own shoulders, was
not a whit more chary of her company at home.
She would bring her work, and sit with him, and
put as many cross questions as a superlative pettifogger
does when he wants to confound a simple
witness. Indeed, her curiosity passed all human
understanding.
“I am sure you must be melancholy, Mr. Rainsford,”
said she, on one of these occasions.
“No.”
“Then I'm sure you are sick. Do let me give
you some horehound or catnip-tea. Now I'm
sure you must be sick.”
“No, I'm very well.”
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“Then I'm sure you must have something on
your mind. O, now I have it, you must be in
love; all young men are in love,”—and she smiled
like a hippopotamus or a sea-lion—“an't you, now,
Mr. Rainsford?”
“No, Mrs. Paddock, I'm not in love,” said he, a
little impatiently.
“Well, that's transcendent; not in love, and
been a whole season living with Miss Phiginny
Dangerfield! Well, I vow, that's mighty! Well
then, I suppose—where was you raised, Mr.
Rainsford?”
“She takes me for a blood-horse or a gamechicken,
confound her!” thought he. “I was
raised, madam, in the house of my father.”
“No, sure! well, I declare now, I thought so.
Where did he tarry, if I may be so bold?”
“In the land of the living once,” said the young
man, with a sigh.
“Ah! poor man! I thought so. When did he
die, if I may be so curious?—Pshaw! I never did
see such rotten thread as this!—but, as I was saying,
when did the poor dear old gentleman die?”
sighing and sniffling a little.
“Before I was born.”
“Well, that's droll, I declare. I wish I had a
pair of spectacles. I believe I'm losing my eyes.”
“I wish you would lose your tongue,” thought
Rainsford.
“Did he leave a widow?”
“Yes, madam, he did.”
“And children besides you?”
“Yes, yes, yes! I had once two brothers.”
“No, sure! and what has gone with them all?”
“They are all dead!” exclaimed Rainsford,
whose agitation now became excessive.
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“Dead! now you don't say as much. I declare
it's very droll. What did they all die of?”
“What I shall die of one day or other!” and
the youth covered his face with his hands, while
his bosom heaved with strong emotion.
“Ah! now don't take on so, now don't,” said
Mrs. Judith, coaxingly, for she was a good-natured
woman, notwithstanding she carried the head of
Holofernes on her shoulders; “don't take on so;
it's dangerous to think too much of these things.
I knew a Mrs. Fudgell once, that got out of her
wits on account of an awakening, and killed her
own little child, because, as she said afterwards,
when she came to herself, a spell before she died,
she thought an angel appeared to her, and told
her she must do it. People often commit murder
out of pure dumps, which turns their brains
upside down. If you take on so, maybe you'll be
tempted to commit murder, and—”
“Woman! woman!” cried Rainsford, “what
are you talking of? Do you know—have you
ever heard—but that is impossible! Some fiend
has sent you here to torment me.” His countenance
was pale and haggard, his limbs quivering
with the tension of agony, as he seized his hat,
and darted out of the room towards the recesses
of the forest.
“He—m—m! I reckon, I suspect that all is
not right; I wouldn't have on my mind what that
young man has for something!” and she went
straight over to the classical academy to tell Zeno
all about it.
But that worthy professor of birchen classics
had got the start of her. He had seen Rainsford
hurry out of the house and make for the wood;
and, sliding from his three-legged stool,
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hastened after him, impelled by an agony of curiosity,
leaving his congregation of little boys and girls
as it were without a shepherd, to their mischievous
divertisements.
Rainsford buried himself in the obscurity of the
forest, and wandered about till his agitation had
somewhat subsided. He sat down upon the mouldering
trunk of a majestic tree that had been overthrown
by a whirlwind, and wiped the dew from
his cold forehead.
“To what am I reserved at last?” said he; “I
came hither into the wilderness in hope to escape
the miserable degrading fate that hangs over me;
to find some place where my name and all that
concerns me was unknown; where the dreadful
secret of my life might remain without disclosure
till—till destiny itself revealed it! But it pursues
me everywhere; the detestable babbling of this
woman discloses it; the very air I breathe vibrates
the chord of agony in my heart, and discloses it.
Murder!—that I should ever become a murderer,
as that prating woman hinted!” and he groaned
in despair as he pronounced the word murderer.
Just at that moment he heard some one sneeze,
and, rushing to the spot from whence it proceeded,
encountered the veritable Master Zeno crouching
behind a tree.
“What do you want here?” cried the young
man, seizing him by the collar.
“I—I came to consult you about setting up my
newspaper, sir. I was thinking—”
“You did! and I suppose you heard what I
said just now?”
“Why, I confess, sir, I did hear the last part;
for I assure you I just came up the moment I
sneezed.”
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“Well, and what did you hear?”
“Why, sir, I, I thought—I'm not sure, but
I thought I heard you talking something of
escaping a degrading fate; of finding some place
of refuge. I hope you're not tired of my house
already. I'm sure my wife and I pay you all the
attention in our power, and never leave you alone
if we can help it. I really hope—”
“Pooh! what else did you hear?”
“Why, I might be mistaken—I dare say I was,
but I thought I heard you say something about
murder, or murderer, or some such matter. But
understand me, sir; I don't mean to say I believe—
that is to say—my dear sir, what do you think
of my plan for setting up a newspaper?”
“Look you, Mr. Paddock, you have intruded
upon my privacy, and overheard, or at least in
part overheard, what I had rather die than have
known or even suspected till—till it is too late to
keep the secret. It will be known too soon for
me, but, until then, I would wish you never to
say any thing on the subject.”
“O no, sir, by no means; I promise to keep it
a perfect, a most profound secret, that you are a—
that is to say—but what think you, sir, of my
plan for setting up a newspaper?”
“Why,” and Rainsford reflected a moment,
“this I think, and this I promise you, that if you
will solemnly swear—”
“What, on the Bible, sir?”
“No, solemnly pledge your welfare in this
world and that which is to come, never to reveal,
not even to your wife, not to any living soul or
human ear, what you have this day seen and
heard; I will furnish you with the means of establishing
a newspaper at once.”
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“What! a weekly, or a daily?”
“Daily or hourly if you please.”
“A daily!—a daily!” cried Zeno, rubbing his
hands; “sir,—Mr. Rainsford,—I promise you
solemnly not to open my lips sleeping or waking,
alive or dead, on the subject of the mur—I mean
on the subject—provided you enable me to set up
a daily paper,—daily sir, daily, I think you
said?”
“I did, and I'll keep my word; but if you break
yours,—if I don't break every bone in your body,
nay, drive the breath out of it for ever, say I'm
a liar and a coward. Go home, and if I ever
catch you dogging me again, I'll shoot you as
sure as you're alive; look here,” and he exhibited
to the astonished eyes of Master Zeno Paddock a
real genuine Joe Manton, that caused the man of
letters to make himself scarce in the shortest possible
time.
“Well! well! what did you see, what did
you hear, what did you do?—now do tell me,
Zeno, or I shall burst,—quick, quick, quick!” exclaimed
Mrs. Judith, running out of breath to
meet her lord; “now do tell me, I promise you
I won't whisper a syllable to any living soul.”
“You won't?” said Zeno, drily.
“No, not even to Mrs. Tupper.”
“Well, that's right; and to make sure you'll
keep your promise,—come here, Judy,—a word
in your ear; I didn't hear, see, or do any thing,—
now don't tell anybody, will you?”
Hereupon Mrs. Judith gave her lord and master
a most irreverent box on the ear, which caused
the bells to ring bob-majors therein. But he resolutely
kept the secret, having the hope of the
newspaper and the fear of Joe Manton before his
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eyes, although sore were the struggles which rent
his mind, and the temptations he resisted. So
strong was the vocation of our classic to follow
Rainsford in his wanderings, that he sometimes
caught himself in the very act, and was obliged,
as it were, to turn the outward man round by
force, and set him going the other way. He considered
it not, however, in the bond, to refrain
from the inquisition within doors, and made himself
amends for his abstinence by day, by peeping
into his low chamber window ten times a night,
and listening with all his ears. As for Mrs.
Judith, she came to a resolution to drown herself,
and was proceeding towards the river for that
purpose, when her good angel whispered her that
it was out of all nature for a person to keep a
secret twenty-four hours, and that either Zeno
had nothing to tell, or she would certainly know
it in due time. Accordingly she returned home,
and like a faithful helpmate set about cooking the
good man's supper, which tradition says he ate
with singular demonstration of satisfaction, mumbling
between whiles, “A daily!—a daily! who'd
have thought it; what a lucky rogue I am,” until
Mrs. Judith was seized with another acute fit of
curiosity, which would have assuredly taken away
her breath, had it not luckily set her tongue running
like unto a mill-clapper.
When Master Zeno came to say his prayers,
which he did every night, his conscience smote
him sorely on the score of keeping such a horrible
secret as that of which he had just possessed
himself. But then his conscience weighed but a
scruple or two, and the temptation to disregard its
monitions weighed several pounds. There was
the hope of reward and the fear of punishment
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in this world, staked against the long reckoning
of the future, and it is scarcely necessary to say
which of the scales kicked the beam. Zeno behaved
like a man of honour; he kept the secret,
at the same time that he hinted to everybody in
the village, not excepting his loving wife, that he
knew enough of a certain person that should be
nameless to hang him, as sure as his name was
Zeno Paddock.
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CHAPTER XVII. Treating of what follows that which went before.
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The persecutions of Mrs. Judith frequently
drove Rainsford to seek repose, or at least relief,
either in rambling through the woods, now showing
forth all the desolation of winter, or at the
fireside of Colonel Dangerfield, where he was
always received with welcome by the ladies, and
perfect civility by the colonel. Though he generally
took his gun with him, it was observed he
never brought home any game, and the Black
Warrior frequently in his dry way advised him to
procure some great medicine to make his rifle
shoot straight. Mrs. Judith nearly distracted
herself with wondering what under the sun could
tempt a man into the forest in the depth of winter,
except the prospect of killing something; and
Bushfield laughed at him most unmercifully when
he came over on a visit to Dangerfieldville. In
short, Mr. Rainsford had the rare felicity of setting
everybody wondering, and becoming an object of
speculation to the whole village.
But there was one, and the fairest one of all,
who felt somewhat more than curiosity about this
young man, and that was Virginia Dangerfield.
She was a high-spirited, imaginative young
maiden, bred up amid the solitudes of nature, or
at least without friends or companions of her
own age and degree of refinement, and Rainsford
was the first youth she had seen since the days
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of her childhood, whose mind and attainments,
feelings and pursuits, in any way harmonized
with hers. Besides, there was something in the
strong vicissitudes of temper he occasionally exhibited,
such striking contrasts between the melancholy
tones of his voice, the pallid hue of his
cheek, the dark and gloomy tenor of his sentiments
at times, and the gay, nay, almost wild
vivacity he frequently indulged, until it almost
approached to an appearance of artificial excitement,
that was continually calling forth her wonder,
her admiration, or her pity. Such a combination,
it is generally believed, soon blends into
one warmer sentiment in the heart of a young
female; but as yet Virginia only cherished a strong
feeling of sympathy towards this young man,
blended with a strange, inscrutable, and fearful
perception, she scarcely knew how or whence imbibed,
which prevented that entire confidence
which is the best foundation of virtuous love.
When he was depressed and sad, she felt her
heart drawn towards him irresistibly; but when
he broke forth, as he sometimes did, into wild yet
eloquent rhapsodies, bordering on incoherence;
when his eyes sparkled and his cheeks glowed
with a sort of wayward inspiration, she knew
not why, but she could not sympathize with what
seemed so unnatural.
His conduct to her also savoured of the inconsistencies
which marked his general deportment.
He frequently passed his mornings and evenings
during the winter in her society, and in general
his conversation was highly intellectual, as well
as imaginative; but at times his mind would
seem to fly off suddenly from the subject into a
train apparently having no connexion with it,
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and referable to no conceivable concatenation of
ideas. For days in succession he would exhibit
towards her a course of the most delicate unobtrusive
attentions, which she was tempted to interpret
as young maidens are wont; and then,
perhaps, without warning, provocation, or apparent
motive, absent himself voluntarily, or rather
studiously avoid her. It is scarcely in human
nature not to resent such wayward caprices, and
Virginia repaid him, when, with as little seeming
reason as he had for absenting himself, he
returned again. Thus they went on, half-friends,
half-lovers; at one time cool, at another cordial.
In the mean while, Mrs. Judith continued her
system of espionage, and almost every day discovered
something that nearly killed her with
the pangs of curiosity. Master Zeno honourably
kept his word to Rainsford, saving the exception
we hinted at in the last chapter; and truth
obliges us to disclose the fact, that he encouraged
his wife to continue her investigations, by taking
every occasion to laugh at her vague suspicions.
She was “determined to convince him some day
or other, that their lodger had something or other
on his conscience that might better not be there.”
In pursuance of this praiseworthy resolution, she
continued her attentions, and favoured Rainsford
with her company so frequently of a morning,
and indeed all day, that he was more than once
on the point of leaving the village, and remaining
until the spring invited him to take possession of
his own house. But he knew not whither to go;
he shrunk from the society of the world; the
rivers were all frozen; travelling without roads
through the forest was impracticable to all but an
Indian or a backwoodsman; and besides all this,
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Virginia Dangerfield was such a charming girl,
so gentle in her manner towards him, with such
wild yet tender eyes, and such a voice! “Her
words fall from her lips as soft and as sweet as
the honey trickles from the new honeycomb,”
said he; and so saying, he bit his thumb at Mrs.
Judith Paddock, and bade defiance to the head of
Holofernes.
One night, when all the village slept, Rainsford
was pacing his chamber as was his custom. He
managed to keep the foul fiend that haunted his
imagination, at bay while the sun shone, and the
passing show of the world was exhibiting before
his eyes; but when night and silence came, and
when all that charmed him away from himself
was absent from his sight, the grinning spectre
rose and besieged his pillow the moment he laid
down his head. Then it was that the short intervals
of unreal enjoyment, or rather of illusive
rest, were paid for by hours of sleepless, restless,
miserable anticipations. To escape these, he
would weary himself by walking back and forth
for hours and hours, until, weary and debilitated,
he sought a troubled repose, in a sleep to which
the habitual contemplation of his waking hours,
gave a character of reflected horrors. Occasionally
he stopped to look out at his window on the
dead landscape, commanded by the rising ground
on which the village was situated. Not a breath
of air was stirring, not a sound was abroad; no
whispering leaves, no chirping insects; nor katydid,
nor tree-frog, nor any thing that breathed of
life, seemed to exist at that moment save himself
alone. The earth was wrapped in her white
winding-sheet of snow, and reposing in the trance
of temporary death. The dark forest which
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bounded the view at a distance seemed to his
harassed fancy the utmost verge of the world,
the commencement of the region of oblivion,
beyond which all is chaos, uncertainty, and of
which nothing is assuredly known, until all knowledge
is vain.
As he stood buried under a mass of thronging
incongruities, all at once it seemed that the sun
had risen at midnight, and cast his bright morning
ray upon the dark woods. A ruddy glare
illuminated, not only the trees, but the sky above
them, gradually extending higher and higher, and
wider and wider, and brightening in its expansion,
until the stars waxed dim and the moonbeams
disappeared. The state of his mind inclined
Rainsford to superstitious influences, and,
as he watched these appearances in strange and
awful perplexity, it occurred to him to look at his
watch. It was scarcely one o'clock. It was not
the first blush of the morning; and what could
it be but some apt and supernatural warning;
some one of those mysterious messages of mighty
changes or individual ills, which, like the long
shadows of the trees when the sun declines to the
western horizon, stretch far beyond reality, and
distance the course of time? A single word awoke
him from his dream.
The dismal cry of “Fire!” from a single hoarse
voice at once conveyed to his mind the natural
solution of the threatening omen. In an instant
he was in the grass-grown street which divided
the village, and at the same moment saw the
flames breaking out from the roof of Colonel Dangerfield's
mansion, which, being built of pinewood,
burnt almost with the rapidity of tinder.
Not a soul was stirring as yet but himself and the
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person who had given the alarm, and from the
total silence within, it was evident that none of
the family were as yet awakened. Rainsford's
first impulse was to knock violently at the door
and call aloud. But it would seem that we miserable
short-sighted mortals never sleep so sound as
when the thief is abroad or the house on fire. No
one answered, no one appeared, and the flames
were gaining strength at every instant. A thought
struck him, and running round to the side of the
house where Virginia slept, he threw a large stone
at her window, which broke two or three panes of
glass, and scattered them about the room. The
noise awoke her; she ran to the window, and demanded
what was the matter.
“For the sake of your life,” cried Rainsford,
“ask no questions; the house is on fire, and every
soul in it seems dead or asleep. Quick, quick,
Virginia, or you are lost—I beseech you lose not a
moment.”
Virginia disappeared, and Rainsford hastened
to receive her at the front door, which he
found had been at length opened by Littlejohn,
who stood, as villagers are wont to stand
on occasions that so seldom occur, without knowing
what to do, or which way to turn himself.
The rest of the family gathered around him,
with the exception of Colonel Dangerfield, who
had gone the evening before to attend to some
magisterial business at the county-town, some
twenty miles off, and of Virginia, who had not
yet made her appearance.
“Thank God!” exclaimed Rainsford, “you are
all safe.” Here he looked round, and found Virginia
was not there.
“Where is Miss Dangerfield?” cried he, and
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rushed into the house. The chamber of Virginia
was at the extremity of the hall of the second
story, which ran the whole length of the house;
and Rainsford discovered, to his horror, that the
staircase which led to it was in flames. At the
head of the stairs he thought he could distinguish
a white figure stretched at full length, and
apparently insensible. He sprang three steps
upwards, but the flames dashed in his face, and
sent him back again. Again he made a desperate
effort, but suffocation drove him once more
to the foot of the stairs. By this time Mrs.
Dangerfield and the rest of the family, with a
crowd of villagers, were drawn to the spot, and
saw the white victim of the flames lying as before
described. The mother was held by force
from rushing to her relief, and at length, overcome
by her feelings, fainted, and was carried
away insensible. At this moment Virginia recovered
sufficient animation to rise, and sufficient
recollection to be aware of her situation. A third
time Rainsford attempted the ascent, and returned
with his hair in a blaze.
“Fly to your chamber-window—fly—fly!” cried
he, almost suffocated with heat, smoke, and agitation.
“I cannot fly!” exclaimed Virginia, faintly, and
sunk down, to all appearance never to rise again,
save when all the human race arise. The flames
now approached the fair and gentle victim, whose
hours seemed fast drawing to instants of time, and
silent dismay and total inaction succeeded the
noise and bustle of the preceding scene.
At the last decisive moment a sudden thought
seemed to revive Rainsford from the leaden stupor
which his excessive yet abortive exertions had
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cast upon his mind and body. Pails of water had
been brought in by the villagers in the vain hope
of arresting the progress of the flames, and various
articles of household furniture were thrown about
the lower entry. Among these was a large damask
table-cloth, a relic of the ancient glory of
the Dangerfield dynasty, which Rainsford seized,
dipped in the water, threw it over his head,
darted up the staircase, which yet hung together,
and, seizing the lifeless body of Virginia,
found his way blindfold down again, with little
injury to himself or the young lady, whom he
tenderly sheltered under the wet damask, which
was almost scorched to a cinder ere he had performed
the perilous feat. But a few moments
were consumed in the transactions we have just
related; and scarcely had the safety of Virginia
been achieved, when the roof fell in, and
the crowd was obliged to leave the mansion to
its fate.
Virginia was carried by Rainsford, in a state of
utter insensibility, to a neighbouring house, whither
her mother had been taken, and where she
now remained in perfect distraction of mind. The
sight of her daughter, however, soon brought her
to herself; but it remained doubtful whether Virginia
would ever revive. The long time she had
remained in her swoon, and the heat and smoke
in which she was enveloped, had apparently for
ever quenched the vital spark; and for many an
anxious moment all exertions to awaken it only
strengthened a conviction that all was vain.
Twice did they abandon the attempt, all except
the mother, whose insurmountable affection
seemed to produce a prophetic reliance on the
eventual triumph of human means, aided by the
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blessing of Omnipotence. She still persisted, and
her perseverance was at length rewarded. Slowly,
and as if, like Lazarus, she was awaking from the
tomb, and casting off the chains of Death himself,
Virginia revived to consciousness, and the spell
of suspended animation was finally broken. By
degrees she came to her recollection, and, casting
her eyes towards the smoking ruins, threw herself
into the arms of her mother, exclaiming, “My
father can build a new house; but if I had lost
thee, my mother, where should I find another like
thee?”
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CHAPTER XVIII. A great discovery of Mrs. Judith Paddock; to wit, that this is a most scandalous and wicked world.
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There are certain conceited moralists, or philosophers,
if so please ye, and certain affected sentimentalists,
who profess to consider life and all
its blessings, a boon not worth receiving, not worth
possessing, and not worth our thanks to the great
Giver. In the pride of fancied superiority, they
pretend to look with calm contempt on the struggles,
the pursuits, the enjoyments of their fellowcreatures,
and to hold themselves aloof from such
a petty warfare for petty objects. They undervalue
the enjoyments, they exaggerate the sufferings
of the human race, and indirectly impeach
the mercy of Providence, in having created countless
millions of human beings only to increase the
sum of misery in this world.
But, for our part, we hold no communion with
such men, whether they are sincere or not; nor
do we believe for one single moment—except,
peradventure, when suffering a twinge of the
tooth-ache—that the good-hearted, well-disposed
inhabitants of this world, take them by and
large, do not on the whole enjoy more than
they suffer even here, where it would seem
from these philosophers and sentimentalists there
is as little distribution of infinite justice as
there is dispensation of infinite mercy. What
though there are intervals of sorrow,
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disappointment, remorse, agony, if you will, mingled
in the cup of existence, that man must be very
wretched indeed who, in looking back upon his
course, cannot count far more hours of enjoyment
than of suffering. We deceive ourselves perpetually,
and there is nothing which we exaggerate
more than the ordinary calamities of others, until
the truth is brought home to ourselves by being
placed in the same situation.
When mankind appear to be plunged in the
very waters of bitterness, without hope or consolation,
they are not, after all, so wretched as might
be imagined by the young and inexperienced.
Melancholy, grief, nay, even despair can find a
strange pleasure in unlimited self-indulgence.
The good Being who gives the wound seems to
have provided a remedy to soften its pangs, by
ordaining that the very grief which dwelleth in
the innermost heart should be mixed with some
rare ingredients that sweeten or allevaite the bitter
draught. In his extremest justice, he seems to
remember mercy; and while he strikes, he spares.
Amid clouds and darkness there is still an unextinguished
light; in storms and tempests there
floats a saving plank; amid the deepest wo there
is a sad luxury in giving way without restraint
to tears; in calling to mind again and again the lost
object of our affections, summing up the extent
of our irretrievable loss, and pouring into our own
wounds the balm of our own pity.
Happiness consists in a quiet series of almost
imperceptible enjoyments that make little impression
on the memory. Every free breath we draw
is an enjoyment; every thing beautiful in nature
or art is a source of enjoyment; memory, hope,
fancy, every faculty of the intellect of man is a
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source of enjoyment; the flowers, the fruits, the
birds, the woods, the waters, the course, the vicissitudes,
and the vast phenomena of nature, created,
regulated, and preserved by the mighty hand
of an omnipotent Being, all are legitimate and
easonable sources of enjoyment, within the reach
of every rational being. Death is indeed the lot
of all, and all should yield a calm obedience to
the law of nature when the hour shall come. But
a fretful impatience or an affected contempt of
life, is as little allied to philosophy as to religion.
Such being our view of the subject, we are rather
inclined to admire than to blame Virginia for
being grateful to Rainsford for the preservation
of a life as yet unstained by guilt or unblighted by
suffering. The gift, and the manner of bestowing
it, touched her to the soul, and, co-operating
with former predispositions in his favour, produced
a feeling so exquisitely tender, that if it
was not love, it certainly was not friendship.
Perhaps it partook of both, and in all probability
it had more of the former than of the latter. As
it was, however, it communicated a touching
character to her speech, her actions, and—shall
we confess it?—to her looks, when she sometimes
watched with a newly-awakened interest those
sudden changes of temper, those wild sallies of
imagination, which she fancied waxed more and
more frequent. The inconsistencies of his conduct
also became every day more marked, and if
he at one time was little less than a lover, he
would at another become little less than rude and
neglectful. Yet with all this, there was more, far
more of the appearance of being irresistibly impelled
by necessity than of acting under the influence
of wanton caprice. It was evident that
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grief, or some feeling allied to it, was at the root
of all his eccentricities.
The morning after the fire a messenger was
sent for Colonel Dangerfield, who returned in the
evening. In the warmth of his gratitude for the
preservation of his daughter, he thanked Rainsford
with all his heart, and for a while every vestige
of his former coolness disappeared. But
though his conduct continued such as would have
satisfied a stranger that the young man was a
prime favourite, still Rainsford felt that the colonel
was rather striving to repay an obligation than
giving way to a spontaneous feeling of kindness.
“He has heard or he suspects the secret reason
of my flying from my home,” whispered the apprehensive
conscience of the unfortunate wanderer;
and his first impulse was to rid him of his
presence for ever, by departing as he came. But
still he remained spellbound by an influence which
every day became stronger, and every hour added
something to the burthen he bore.
A few days sufficed for the erection of a new
mansion in the room of that which had been
burnt. The good villagers resorted to what, in
woodland phrase, is called “log-rolling,” which
means a combined effort of many to do that which
is either difficult or impossible to one. They
gathered together and built the colonel a house,
but it was a sad falling off from the other; being
simply constructed of logs, after the manner of a
primitive settlement; where, there being no sawmills,
the only resource is to take the whole tree,
or “go the whole hog,” as they say in “Old Kentuck.”
Nor could they boast much of their furniture,
great part of that in the old house having
been destroyed. But the spring was approaching,
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the colonel had ample funds to build and furnish
a house equal to the one he had lost, and they
were content to wait. Indeed, we have observed,
that not only do people who have the means of any
gratification in their power exhibit less eagerness
for its enjoyment; but it is equally true, that those
who have once possessed the luxuries of wealth,
generally submit to their loss with a much better
grace than people who have never known any
other state, endure the pressure of poverty. The
reason is, that the former have had experience of
how little real value are mere superfluities in the
cup of happiness, while the latter view them
through the exaggerated medium of their imagination.
The family was settled in the new log-palace,
and matters going on in the usual jog-trot
way, when one morning Mrs. Judith Paddock,
having been on the watch for some time, saw the
coast clear, and sallied forth across the way to
pay a visit to Miss Virginia Dangerfield, whom
she found, as she wished, alone. That young lady
did not much covet the society of Mrs. Judith,
but it was a rule of the house never to refuse
either hospitality or politeness to any but the
worthless. The good woman was accordingly
received with due kindness, and invited to sit
down. For some time she talked of matters and
things in general; then she came to particulars;
condoled with Virginia on the burning of the
house; congratulated her on her escape, and
finally uttering a deep sigh, stopped her everlasting
tongue for a moment.
“What is the matter, Mrs. Paddock?” said Virginia.
“Ah!—heigho!—this is a wicked world.”
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“It has indeed rather an indifferent reputation,
but what induced you to make the remark just
now?”
“Ah!—heigho!” And here she smoothed her
white apron. “It's a scandalous world, a very
scandalous world. I could tell such things—but
I'd rather cut out my tongue than scandalize any
human being, not even so much as a nigger.”
Virginia knew the good Mrs. Judith had something
on her mind, but determined not to be
accessary to bringing it forth. Perhaps she knew
enough of her to know that she would hear it
without. Mrs. Judith sighed, and smacked her
lips again.
“Ah! who'd have thought it, who'd have thought
it—such a nice young man!”
“Who, Mrs. Paddock, your husband?” said
Virginia, smiling.
“No, indeed, Miss Phiginny. Ah! he's another
guess sort of a man. But what a shocking
pity it is. Heigho! it's a scandalous, a wicked
world this.”
“Have you just found that out, Mrs. Paddock?”
“No, indeed, I'm not quite such a fool, Miss
Phiginny; but I've found out something else.”
“Ah!” Virginia was just going to ask what,
but checked herself, determined to be innocent of
every thing except listening. Again Mrs. Judith
sighed, and shook her ambrosial curls.
“Ah! what a nice young man that Mr. Rainsford
seems to be. I talk to him sometimes for
hours, and he don't interrupt me a single word.
O! he's a nice young man. But—heigho!—
what a wicked world we live in.”
Virginia began to fidget a little, and it was just
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on the tip of her tongue to inquire what Mrs.
Judith meant. But she only blushed.
“To be sure, he saved your life, they say. But,
heigho!—mercy knows, if all I heard is true, it
was the least thing he could do to make up for
the life he took.”
“What! woman—Mrs. Paddock—what do you
say? What are you going to say?”
“Ah! its such a scandalous world—heigho!—
such a wicked world, that I'd rather not tell what
I know, if it wasn't that I think it my bounden
duty to you and the colonel.”
Virginia now trembled in spite of herself, and
demanded at once all the woman knew. Mrs.
Paddock drew her chair closer to her side, and
began in an under tone, ever and anon looking
around cautiously.
“You must know, Miss Phiginny, that though
I like to find out what is going on here in the village,
its only that I may keep it a secret from
everybody. Especially, you know it's my business
to know all about people that live in our house,
else they might be horse-thieves or murderers;”—
and she emphasised the word;—“and I be never
the better for it. So I think it my duty to keep
an eye upon them, and if I see or hear any thing
suspicious, why, I follow it up, until, I warrant
you, I ferret it out, somehow or other. Well,”
and here she drew her chair closer to Virginia,
who turned pale at this awful preface. “Well,
I somehow, I hardly can tell how, for I assure
you I never listened at his keyhole, or—or—
peeped in at his window, I often saw Mr. Rainsford,
if his name is indeed Rainsford, in great
distress; and heard him groan late at night,
and walk across the floor. Well, putting odds
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and ends together, says I to myself, says I, “If
that young man hasn't got something on his mind
that hadn't ought to be there, my name isn't Judith
Squires,' that's my maiden-name, Miss. `And,'
says I, `it's my duty to find it out, that I may keep
it a secret from everybody like, you know.”'
“Well, well, go on, Mrs. Paddock. Let me
know the worst.”
“Ah! bad enough in all conscience, Miss Phiginny.
Well, you see, I kindly, you know, turned
the conversation upon different sorts of wickedness,—
ah! this is a wicked world!—just to see
if I could find out something from his looks, or
words, or actions, you know. Well, I talked
about stealing horses; and how the regulators
served a horse-thief once; they tied him to a tree
and whipped him. But I couldn't see any thing
that looked like a guilty conscience; and so another
time I told him of a man that robbed a traveller
who was coming to buy land, and had his
pocket-book full of money, but he looked as innocent-like
as a child. And so I went on, talking of
all sorts of bad things, without stirring his conscience
at all, as I could see. When, one day—
ah! this is a wicked world!—one day, it was
yesterday three weeks, I believe. Yes, it was
yesterday three weeks. I happened to be telling
him about Mrs. Fudgell, poor soul, who, you
know, went mad with religion, the year before
last, and killed her child, you know. Well, if he
didn't jump up as if he had been shot, and he
cried out, `What, murder her own child! Oh
God! Oh God! that ever I was born for such
misery!' and he snatched his hat and ran out
of the room as if the sheriff had been after him.
Now, putting all these things together,—Heigho!
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If this was not such a scandalous world, I should
say that Mr. Rainsford had—”
“What?” shrieked Virginia.
“The weight of blood on his conscience. I
saw a man hanged once for murder that looked
as much like him as two peas.”
The idea was too horrible, and yet there certainly
was something in his conduct, altogether
strange, mysterious, and inexplicable. But Virginia
thrust the grinning fiend suspicion from her
with a mighty effort, and looking, with a pale
countenance of severity at Mrs. Judith, warned
her solemnly against indulging or uttering such
ridiculous slanders. She summoned all her
powers of reasoning to convince her of the utter
improbability of such a man being stained with
such a crime; she held up to her view the cruelty
of imputing such deep guilt to a stranger, whose
conduct since his residence among them had been
kind, benevolent, and praiseworthy, in every respect;
and she drew from Mrs. Judith a promise
that she would never tell to any other human
being what she had just disclosed to her. “As for
me,” cried Virginia, “I would as soon suspect my
father.”
“Yes, and so would I. But ah! heigho!—it's
a very wicked and scandalous world this.”
Mrs. Judith took her leave, and Virginia remained
buried in the gloom of a painful melancholy
revery long after her departure.
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CHAPTER XIX. Showing how little reason one generation hath to laugh at another.
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The evening of the day on which the foregoing
interview took place Rainsford spent at the
house of Colonel Dangerfield. He was more than
usually elevated in the early part of the visit, and
surprised as well as charmed them all, with the
knowledge and intelligence he displayed. He
sketched the manners and fashions of the day
with spirit, mingled with no little spice of satire,
and exhibited a perfect knowledge of the subject.
It was evident that he had mixed with the great
world, and Colonel Dangerfield was pleased at an
opportunity of recalling his own recollections of
the early part of his life.
“And is it possible,” said Virginia, “that the
young children dress like old people, and the old
people like young children?”
“It is true, I assure you. I have often walked
behind a lady in the street, whom I took for one in
the bloom of youth, she was so bedizened with
flounces and flowers, and quickened my pace to
get a sight of her face; when lo, and behold, it
turned out to be that of a grandmother.”
“Well, I suppose the elderly gentlemen are
more discreet?”
“Why, I can't say much in their favour. For
aught I saw, they were as much inclined to outrage
nature and propriety as the venerable old
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ladies. The dandies of threescore were as plenty
as the belles of a certain age, and emulated that
deportment which, though it constitutes the charm
of youth, is the reproach of old age.”
“And the poor little children?”
“Ay, the poor little children, you may well
call them. If you could only see the figures
their mistaken parents make of them, you'd
scarcely know whether they were premature
old ladies, or premature young ones. They are
absolutely crippled with finery, so that all the
grace and vivacity of youth is smothered under a
load of many-coloured trumpery, and they waddle
along like so many little caricatures of the pigmy
race. I declare to you that nothing is more common
than to see a little girl of three years old
going to school with her hair in papers.”
“O, now I am sure you are jesting?”
“No, indeed, Miss Dangerfield, it is quite impossible
for me to do justice to the masquerade
figures you see in the fashionable promenade of
a fashionable city, at the fashionable hour when
the fashionable people are abroad. They seem
dressed, not for walking, but for an assembly; they
appear to forget that good taste is nothing else
than good sense applied to a particular object;
and that every thing which impedes the freedom
of the person must be essentially unbecoming
and ungraceful.”
“From what you say, dress must be the reigning
foible of the age.”
“It is indeed, and, what is still worse, it is no
longer possible to distinguish people by their dress,
for all dress alike, from the mistress to the maid
from the parlour to the kitchen.”
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“How ridiculous and absurd!” exclaimed Virginia.
“Why so ridiculous and absurd?” asked the
colonel, who had been attending to the conversation
without joining in it.
“Why, my dear father, is it not palpably ridiculous
and absurd for people to dress all alike
when their situations are all different?”
“Not if they have the means of doing so without
sacrificing what is of more consequence than
outward appearance. If the mistress dress like
an opera-dancer, it would be hard to prevent the
maid from making a fool of herself too.”
“But, sir,” said Rainsford, “ought not every
person to dress according to their means and occupations?”
“O, certainly, always according to their means,
and agreeably to their occupations when they are
engaged in them. But on Sundays and holydays,
when all are gentlemen and ladies, if the industrious
tradesman, or the industrious man or maidservant,
purchase a suit of broadcloth or a silken
gown, faith I don't see that anybody has a right
to complain, provided they have the means and
the honesty to pay for it.”
“But, sir, to dress in all the preposterous extravagance
of the fashion!”
“Well, the fault is in the preposterous extravagance
of the fashion, and in those who set the
example, not those who follow it. The young
imitate the elder and wiser, the child copies the
parent, and the lower classes always look up to
the higher. All these last have to do is to set
them a good example, instead of complaining that
they follow a bad one.”
“But don't you think the universal propensity
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of all classes of people, high and low, in this country,
to indulgence of every kind, a great evil?”
“Perhaps I do; but we must bear in mind that
superfluity is the parent of extravagance. When
civilized people are restricted in their means to
the narrow circle of the actual wants of nature,
they will necessarily be economical; but when,
by the exercise of any ordinary trade or occupation,
they can earn more than this, the surplus
constitutes either a fund for saving or a fund for
spending. In this country every man can, if he
pleases, earn more than is requisite for the purposes
of mere necessity. It is the boast and the
blessing of us all that this is the case. But all
sublunary blessings have their drawbacks; we
must take the evil with the good, and compound
for a disposition to luxury and extravagance in
the lower orders, on the score of the universal
diffusion of competency among all classes.”
“I never saw such caricatures,” exclaimed Virginia,
looking at some milliners' costumes which
Rainsford happened to have brought with him
as curiosities; “look here, sir—only do look here,
mother!”
Mrs. Dangerfield laughed, as well she might;
and Virginia continued to declare that never was
any thing so absurd as the dresses of the little
children.
“Come here, Virginia,” said her father, taking
her hand, and leading her opposite to where hung
a picture, which had been rescued from the flames
of the old mansion by the piety of the great Pompey
Ducklegs, and which exhibited the precise
effigies and suits of a little boy and girl in the age
of bag wigs, mighty cuffs, high-quartered shoes,
hoop petticoats, whalebone stays, and lofty
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headgear; “look there, Virginia; and I beg of you to
refrain from committing the indecorum of laughing
at your grandfather, when I tell you that at
the age of twelve years he wore that identical
wig, that veritable buckram coat with sheet-iron
skirts, that mortal pair of cuffs, those indescribable
indispensables, and that most formidable sword of
most formidable length. The little girl—but don't
laugh at her, Virginia; she was thy great-aunt,
and thou art her namesake. She died the year
you were born—but the subject is a melancholy
one. What think you of a young gentleman and
lady of fourscore years ago, compared with their
successors of the present day?”
“Why, really, sir, it seems to me that if the
present day has gained nothing, it has lost nothing
in the way of dressing little children.”
“You say true, my dear; those who talk about
one age being essentially wiser and better than
another talk little less than sheer nonsense. Human
nature, while it approaches perfectibility on
one hand, recedes from it on the other; where it
gains on the right, it loses on the left, like our
great river Mississippi, which tears away its banks
only to form a new deposite at its mouth: thus
creating a new world in the ocean from the spoils
of the old. Every succeeding age is only a new
edition of the past.”
“With improvements?” said Rainsford.
“With alterations in the binding rather than
the contents, I doubt. And now, my dear, as the
vicar of Wakefield said, `Go help your mother
make the goose-pie.”' The young damsel accordingly
left the room to pursue her domestic avocations.
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“Whoop!” exclaimed a voice without, which
they all recognised as that of Bushfield.
“Come in, come in,” cried the colonel.
“Come in! why, ain't I in?” exclaimed he, as
he entered in a great flurry, and seated himself.
“What a race I've had. I'll be goy blamed if I
haven't bin trying to catch this squirrel—a fair
chase, and no favours asked. There we were at
rip and tuck, up one tree and down another. He
led me a dance all the way from kingdom come
till I got just by the village here; and what do
you think? I had to shoot the trifling cretur
after all. He got up on the top of the highest
tree prehaps you ever did see; so I let him have
it, just for being so obstinate.”
“An excellent shot,” said the colonel; “you've
hit him in the eye, I see.”
“O no, it isn't, but I was mad; no, no, it's a
disgraceful shot—what I call a full huckleberry
below a persimmon; for when I want the skin of
one of these fellers, I always shoot a leetle before
his nose, and then the wind of the ball takes the
varmint's breath clean away, and I don't hurt the
fur.”
“You must have had some practice,” said Rainsford.
“I'll be goy blamed if you wouldn't think so, if
you only knew me as well as I know my old
rifle.”
“I should like to go out with you one of these
times, if there is good sport in your part of the
world.”
“I don't know what you call good sport,” cried
Bushfield, who had now got on his hobby, “but
I partly conceit if you had been with me one
day last fall you'd have thought so. I saw a deer
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and its fawn across a creek the other side of the
mountain, and I wasn't altogether slow in letting
fly, I tell you. The ball ranged them both. I
had to wade through the creek, and I found the
ball had entered in a hollow tree, after going right
clean through the two deer, where there was a
hive of honey, and the honey was running away
like all natur; so I stooped down to pick up something
to stop it, when I put my hand on a rabbit
hid under a great toadstool. But somehow or
other, coming across the creek, my trousers had
got so full of fish, that one of the buttons burst
clean off, and I will agree to be eternally derned
if it didn't hit a wild turkey right in the left eye.
Whoop! ain't I a horse?”
“A whole team, I should think,” said Rainsford,
highly amused with the eccentric rhodomontade
of the woodman. Virginia happening at this moment
to enter, he addressed her with a good-humoured
kind of audacity,—
“You neat little varmint, have you got any
thing for supper? for may I be lost in a cane-brake,
as I once was when I first came to these
parts, if I ain't transcendently hungry. I could
eat like all wrath.”
Supper was brought in, and Bushfield made “a
most transcendent supper.” The company continued
sitting round the table enjoying this little
social meal, which was once the evening tattoo
that brought all the family together, but which
is now elbowed out of the circle of domestic economy
into drawing-rooms and saloons, and might
rather be called the morning breakfast than the
evening supper. Virginia, who had a mischievous
little female relish for humour, and who could
enter into that of Bushfield, which, indeed, though
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odd and extravagant, had nothing in it partaking
of vulgarity, took occasion to question him as to
the particulars of the story of his being lost in the
cane-brake to which he had alluded.
“Well, I know you want to have a laugh at
me; but howsomever, I don't so much mind being
laughed at by a woman, and so I'll tell you the
story for all that; and you may laugh anyhow,
as you're not a man. I was out after a bear that
had been about my hut several nights, and he led
me such a dance! I wasn't such a keen hand at
finding my way then, and at last I got into a cane-brake
along the river, where the canes stood so
thick, I wish I may be shot if you could put the
leetle eend of a small needle between them without
spectacles. Well, I was ripping and tearing
away to get out, but only got deeper and deeper
in the plaguy place; when all at once I heard the
queerest noise I ever came across in all my days,
though I've heard a pretty considerable variety,
and I then thought I knew all the notes of the
varmints, from the growl of a bear to the screech
of a panther. But I could make nothing of this,
and began to keep a sharp look out, which was
hardly worth while, for I couldn't see to the end
of my eyelashes, the canes were so transcendent
close together. Well, I cut and slashed about,
and every now and then heard the queer noise;
at last it was so close to me, that I pricked my
ears and cocked my gun, to be ready to take keer
of myself in case of risk. Well, as I kept on ripping
and tearing about, at last I came smack on
the drollest-looking thing, prehaps, you ever laid
your eyes on. It sat all in a heap, like the feller
that found sixpence apenny in a place, with its
head down below its shoulders, and its hair all
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hanging about like the beard of a buffalo bull.
`Whoop!' said I; and the varmint raised its head,
when I wish I may be shot if it didn't turn out a
real he Ingen.
“`Hullo!' said I, `what trade are you carrying
on here, friend?' but I must say I had a mind
to shoot the feller, though I hadn't then the same
cause I have now to hate the varmints. However,
I thought I'd first see whether he'd make
battle or no; so I waited to hear what he had to
say. But when I spoke to him, all he did was to
grin and growl just like a lame bear. `I say now,
stranger,' says I, `what may you be about here?'—
`R—r—r—r!' said he, and grinned like a monkey.
`Well then,' said I, `if you don't choose to
tell what you're about, maybe, prehaps, you will
tell where you happened to come from?' `R—r—
r—r!' said the varmint again. `Well then, prehaps
you'll tell me where you are going?' `R—r—
r—r!' I began to be a little mad, and had a
transcendent mind to shoot him; but somehow
or other I held back, until I came up and took
hold of his shoulder, and shook him like a bottle
of bitters; when I wish I may be goy blamed if
he didn't spring up higher than the top of the
cane-brake, and give a great whoop, and scamper
off like a flash of lightning. I followed the trail he
made; it led me down to the river. Then I knew
where I was, and I was so pleased with the cretur
for showing me the way, that, somehow or other
kindly, I couldn't harm him, and he got off clear
that time, anyhow.”
“I'm glad of that,” said Virginia; “it would
have been barbarous to hurt the poor creature.”
“I don't know,” returned the other; “for it
turned out he was a crazy Ingen, that was let run
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about by his tribe, because these people have a
sort of superstitious respect for such characters.
I afterwards heard he got into a white station
when the men were away, and murdered two or
three women and children. I only wish I had
known what was to happen, and may I be eternally
condemned to live in a big city like Lexington
if I wouldn't have winged him, if he had
been as mad as a buffalo bull that has had a rifleball
flattened against his forehead.”
No one but Virginia noticed that during the
latter part of this story Rainsford laboured under
a suppressed agitation, which he strove to conceal
with all his might. But when Bushfield came to
the catastrophe, the arm which the young man
had thrown over the back of her chair trembled so
violently as to communicate to it a tremulous motion,
which thrilled to her very heart. As if by a
violent effort, he rose, and, scarcely bidding good
night, departed abruptly. That night Virginia
lay for hours thinking of the tale of Mrs. Judith
Paddock, and sometimes coming to a conclusion
which alternately thrilled her with a dry and
parching horror, or wetted her pillow with tears.
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CHAPTER XX. “How sweet in the woodlands. ”
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The morning opened brightly, and the sun
shone with a newly-awakened warmth that indicated
the gradual approaches of spring. Its
balmy influence chased away the dark shadows
which the midnight fancy conjures up in silence
and obscurity, and the vague horrors which had
beset the pillow of Virginia vanished like spectres
at the dawn of day. Few that have traced the
map of their own minds but must have been
struck with the different views and feelings which
govern the different periods of the day, and remarked
how often the decisions of the pillow are
reversed by the hurry, the bustle, the excitements,
and temptations of the busy, sprightly morning.
Imagination is the queen of darkness; night the
season of her despotism. But daylight, by presenting
a thousand objects to the eye, the hearing,
and the touch, restores the empire of the senses,
and, from being the sport of fancy, we become
the slaves of realities.
Rainsford did not make his appearance at the
house of Colonel Dangerfield for several days
after his abrupt exit as recorded in the last chapter.
He accompanied Bushfield on a visit to his
hermitage, under pretence of taking lessons in
hunting, but in reality partly to escape the prying
curiosity, the sociable visits of Mrs. Judith, and
partly from the apprehensive timidity of his mind,
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which suggested to him that he had made himself
conspicuous by his emotions on the occasion
to which we have before alluded.
The habitation of this Indian white man, as the
savages called him, was simply a log cabin, the
appurtenances of which were barely sufficient for
the purposes of eating and sleeping. The forest
supplied him with food, such as is considered the
most delicate among the disciples of luxury; the
skins of the deer and the bear furnished him with
bed and clothing; his rifle was his purse; his
powder and shot his ready cash; for they afforded
him the medium of exchange for every thing
which they did not themselves enable him to procure
in the surrounding forest. Bushfield never
rode, it made him so tired, he said; and Rainsford
was heartily fatigued when they came upon
the solitary cabin, after scouring the woods in
their way. His companion was frequently obliged
to wait for him, and very often he would have
been inevitably lost in the mazes of the trackless
wild, had not the Indian whoop of his companion
served to recall him from his wanderings. He
had been induced to take a rifle with him, but
sorely repented his temerity, for its weight wearied
him at length almost beyond endurance; besides,
though they met plenty of game, it so happened
that Rainsford always missed, while the
other never failed. No man likes to be outdone,
even in what he does not value himself upon; and
no man, perhaps, cordially respects another who
is totally ignorant of that in which he himself
excels. Bushfield sometimes got a little out of
patience with Rainsford, and Rainsford often envied
Bushfield his skill in the rifle. In the crowded
city such an accomplishment would have been
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beneath his attention, but in the forest it was held
the standard of manhood.
“Stranger,” said Bushfield, on occasion of the
other missing a squirrel which was crouching at
the summit of a tree of moderate height, and
which had been resigned to him as an easy shot;
“stranger, I reckon you haven't had the advantage
of being raised in the woods, anyhow; why,
I could have brought down that squirrel with both
eyes shut, let alone one.”
“No; I had the misfortune to be brought up
in a city, where nobody carries a gun, except the
militia.”
“Nobody carry a gun! why, what do they
carry then, a dirk?”
“No; the young gentlemen sometimes carry a
switch about as thick as my little finger.”
“A switch! why, what would they do now,
supposing they were to come right face to
face with a bear or an Ingen? what a mighty
figure they'd cut.”
“Yes; but there are neither bears nor Indians
to fear.”
“Sure that's true enough; for I remember when
I went home to North Carolina, to see the old
place, I'll be shot if there wasn't a little varmint
of a town built right smack on the spot that used
to be one of the best deer stations in the whole
country. I couldn't stand that, no, that was too
bad, so I cut a stick and made tracks, and came
back to my old range; but they won't let a feller
alone where he has plenty of elbow-room, and I
begin to think of leaving here soon, and carrying
a trail across the Mississippi, anyhow.”
“Why so?”
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“Why, I'll tell you, stranger. It's getting too
dense hereabouts.”
“Dense?”
“Yes; the people are getting too close together,
they han't elbow-room. Why, do you know
there's a feller has had the impudence to locate
himself over yonder, within three miles of me.
I saw the smoke of his chimney the other morning,
and heard a strange dog bark; so I tracked
the feller, and put it to him if he wasn't ashamed
to come and disturb a man in this unneighbourly
manner. Bym-by, says I to him, a man won't
have room to turn round here without hitting
somebody's elbow, and the upshot of the business
is, that either you or I must cut a stick and quit
this hunting-ground, or I'll see if I can't make
you, anyhow.”
“Well, and did he cut a stick?”
“Not he, the rantanckerous squatter! he said
he had as good a right there as any bear or wolf
that ever broke bread; as good as I had, that
have been in possession here ever since old
Rogers Clarke licked the Ingens so beautifully.
I'm a considerable old feller now, and followed
close on the trail of old Boone, and it's a mighty
pretty piece of nonsense if I han't a right to the
country about here, as much as I can throw a
stick at; and I wish I may be dragged head foremost
through a thorn-bush, if this interloper sha'n't
clear out pretty considerably in a hurry, or I'll be
down upon him like all wrath, anyhow. I'd as
good a mind as I ever had to shoot a wild deer, to
have a fight with him off the reel, and settle the
right of soil at once; but then I bethought myself
he might listen to reason some other time,
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and so I told him I'd give him till next month to
make tracks, or make up his mind to get a most
almighty licking, if nothing else. But whoop!”
cried he, in a wild voice, that rung through the
woods, and roused the inmates of a rude cabin,
consisting of a litter of puppies and an old black
woman, with hair as white as snow, who came
out to welcome their master.
“Well, here we are, old Snowball,” cried Bushfield,
who seemed delighted to get home; “here
we are, and I don't think there's many such places
as this betwixt here and kingdom come. Come
in, come in, stranger, you're right welcome; but
there's no use in telling a man what everybody
knows, anyhow.”
Old Mammy Phillis,—that was the pastoral
name of Bushfield's housekeeper,—was one of
those unaccountable creatures, as he called her,
who, with the appearance of age and decrepitude,
are capable of undergoing great labour and
fatigue. Like old ricketty machines, they seem
to keep going from the mere force of habit, long
after the parts which compose them are dislocated
or worn out.
“Come, come, mammy, stir these old stumps of
yours, and get us something to eat; I'm as hungry
as a whole team of horses. What have you got
to treat us with, hey?”
“Sum deer meat, massa.”
“Well, cook us a steak, in less than no time.
That old sinner is the plague of my life,” continued
Bushfield, “I wish I'd bin swamped in the
Mississippi before I was fool enough to bring her
here. I find there's no such thing as being one's
own master as long as a man has any company
about him. He's like a nail in a piece of timber;
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he can't move one way nor t'other, and there he
sticks as straight as a pine-tree, till he grows rusty
and drops out. I never could find out how you
manage to live without doing just what you like
and going where you please, anyhow. For my
part, stranger, I can't fetch my breath anywhere
except in all out-doors, and had sooner lay down
on a bed of leaves with a sky blanket, than sleep
on one of your hard feather-beds, that pretty nigh
break a man's bones. I wish I may be hoppled all
my life to come, if I didn't once get within a
huckleberry of being smothered to death in one
of them beds with curtains all round 'em. Catch
me there agin, and I'll give you leave to currycomb
me, anyhow. How under the sun do you
make out to live in such a queer way, stranger?”
“Custom familiarizes us, and then the pleasures
of society make amends for the want of perfect
freedom of action.”
“Society! I'd as soon think of getting used to
be handcuffed, or hoppled, as we do our horses to
keep 'em from straying away in the woods.
There's nothing I ever did in all my life that I
wish the d—l had me so much for doing, as bringing
that old Snowball home here; for somehow
or other, I've never rightly had my own way since
she came. The cretur is always in my way,
and sometimes I catch her great goggle eyes
set upon me, so that I seem tied fast to my
seat, and altogether am as good as a nigger myself.”
“Well, but I suppose you have your own way
for all that?”
“Have my own way! what d'ye take me for,
stranger? wasn't I born, no, not born, but raised
in Old Kentuck; and d'ye think I wouldn't have
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my way and my say, if an earthquake stood on
one side and a flash of lightning on the other,
and crossed their arms right before me, as much
as to say, stand where you are? But a man may
have his own way, and yet somehow or other not
do just as he pleases after all.”
“I don't see exactly how.”
“No? well then, I'll split the log for you. See
here now, what I call having my own way, is
doing a thing in spite of what other people may
say or do to prevent me; and what I call doing
as I please, is to have nobody to come about me
and put on their wise airs, and tell me I'd better
not, or I shall repent, or I'd wish some day or
other I'd took their advice; and worry and fret
a feller's soul into a knot-hole, so that when he
does take his own way at last, he wabbles about
like a broad-horn in an eddy, instead of shooting
right straight ahead like all nature, and after all,
as I said before, has no pleasure in having his
own way. There's nothing on the face of the
earth I hate so much as advice.”
“And would you reject the advice of a friend?”
“Friend! I don't know what friend means;
except somehow I think I might be wrought upon
to stop a bullet before Colonel Dangerfield. He's
a man now that I would allow to advise me
without knocking him down; I liked him from
the first hour I saw him, and if I must tell the
bare truth, I do believe it was because he always
took my advice in coming down the Ohio, and
locating his settlement and all that, instead of
making believe he knew better than I; I can't
stand that, no, no, I can't stand that, anyhow. I'd
blow any other man as high as the Alleghanies,
if he was to go to advise me. But as I was
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saving—I wonder what keeps the old cretur so
long with the steaks?—as I was saying, it was a
blue day when I first put this old rotten tree across
my path.”
“How came you to commit such an error?”
“Why, I'll tell you how it was. I had lived
here I don't know how many years, for it's no
matter to me to count the scores of winters and
summers, and springs and falls; but I was prehaps,
stranger, the most almightiest happiest feller
that ever hunted a buffalo. The cretures came
sometimes and looked into my door, the deer
would hardly get out of my way, and the bears
and wolves came growling and howling round
the house at night so beautifully—O! if you only
had an idea of the splendid independence of living
in the woods fifteen or twenty miles from
anybody, you'd never be happy anywhere else,
I'll be goy blamed if you would. Only think,
stranger, of my being all alone, not a soul to lay
so much as a straw in my way, to look at me, or
to talk to me, or give me advice, or watch which
way I was going, or inquire what I was going to
do,—O, it was splendid! If I wanted any thing
to eat, instead of working for it like a nigger, I
took my rifle and shot a deer or a wild turkey,
for they were so thick you couldn't miss them;
if I wanted amusement, I went into the woods,
and had a hunt after the bears and wolves, who
sometimes made battle and came pretty nigh treeing
me; it was transcendent, anyhow. If I
wanted a rousing fire, I went just outside the door
and cut down a tree, which fell right under the
window, and I had no trouble to tote it half a
mile. I only wish you may one day be as happy
as I was, but that's quite beyond the Rocky
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Mountains, for the Gar-broth people are cluttering
up the country hereabouts so fast, that no man
will be able to do as he pleases much longer.
Well, as the Old Boy would have it, the emigration
came this way and the game went that, so I
was obliged to stay out sometimes all night
in the winter to kill a deer, and I got the
rheumatism. I was pretty considerably nigh
starving, for all I could do was to crawl to the
door, and shoot a squirrel or a woodpecker; it's
mighty bad living on squirrels and woodpeckers.
Well, when I got better, I thought I would somehow
go and buy a smart chance of a nigger boy
to live with me, and help along in case I should
get the rheumatism again, for it's like a wolf, it
will be coming back where it has had the
taste of blood. But then I had not money enough
for this, for I always hated to have more than I
wanted, and so I took old Phillis, whose master
gave her to me for nothing, and a bad bargain I
have had of her, anyhow; for as I said before she
takes away all the pleasure of having my own
way, which is almost as bad as not having my
own way at all. Not that she asks any questions,
about where I am going or when I shall come
back, but she looks so plaguy curious that I'll be
goy blamed if it don't sometimes make me feel as
if I wasn't my own master. But here comes the
old sinner; she hangs fire like a rusty rifle, but
always goes off at last.”
And sure enough, the savoury odour of the venison
steaks, which far transcends any thing that Jupiter
ever snuffed up from pagan altars, smote
the olfactory nerves of Bushfield with such a triumphant
relish as to mollify his anger, and allay
his impatience, of this new species of petticoat
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government; and the two sat down to the banquet
with as good an appetite as ever fell to the lot of
ancient epicure, or modern sojourner in that great
cook-shop of the civilized world yclept Paris.
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CHAPTER XXI. A most knowing wife, and a most discreet husband.
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The foregoing was one of the longest talks
that Bushfield probably ever held in the whole
course of his life, a large portion of which had
been spent in solitude. He might be called a
hermit of a rare species. One who loved to be
alone, not for the purposes of pious abstraction, or
uninterrupted repose, but that he might indulge
his own active, unrestrained love of liberty without
interruption. There had been days, nay
years of his life, in which he scarcely spoke to
a human being; and he had thus acquired a
habit of taciturnity which could with difficulty be
overcome, except when among those he liked, or
animated by the subject of the happiness of his
peculiar mode of life. He lived, for the most part,
with his dog and his gun; and the encounter
with a fellow-creature in the woods he ranged,
had the same effect on him that the presence of a
wild beast in a populous city has on the peaceable
citizens. It was an intrusion, and excited a
strong disposition to hunt the outlaw. He was
not by any means devoid of excitement in his solitary
abode, for hunting had become a habit, a
passion; and never did the vainest old soldier relate
his exploits in the field with a higher relish of
enthusiasm than did our sturdy backwoodsman
detail his triumphs over the wild animals that
peopled his woodland domain. In doing this, he,
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like the war-worn veteran aforesaid, was prone
to make inroads upon the regions of the imagination,
insomuch that some of his stories actually
bordered on the marvellous.
Rainsford accompanied him in one or two of his
enormous peregrinations, which generally lasted
all day, and would have consumed the night too,
had he not protested against sleeping in the open
air, though Bushfield swore, “like all wrath,” that
it was the greatest luxury in the world. But two
men of such dissimilar habits seldom covet the
society of each other, or form any permanent
friendship. Each secretly despises his companion.
It is only in the crowded haunts, and among
the peaceful occupations of mankind, that the superiority
of education, intellectual acquirements,
and gentlemanly accomplishments, are highly
valued; and it is only on the exposed frontiers of
life, in the midst of perils and privations, that
hardy daring, and the capacity to endure fatigue,
are estimated at their proper value.
Rainsford gave out the third day, and his host
voluntarily, and indeed necessarily, accompanied
him home to show the track through the woods.
“Stranger,” said he, “you've had a mighty
poor sort of a raising, I should reckon. Why,
you're no more fit for the woods than a wild turkey
is for a justice of peace. What would you
do now if you had to turn out every day and
shoot your dinner, or go without it, or fight a
dozen Indians at a time, or find your way through
the woods two or three hundred miles, without a
path, and nothing to eat but an old pair of moccasins?
I wish I may be shot if I don't think some
of our old Kentucky women would cut a better
figure than you do here.”
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The last part of this speech grated harshly on
the feelings of Rainsford.
“And what would you do,” replied he, “if you
were obliged to live in a city, change your linen
twice a day, and your coat three times; gallant
the ladies; attend tea-parties; dance the waltz;
and go through all the ceremonies of good breeding?
'Faith, I think you'd cut rather a more ridiculous
figure than I do here in the woods. The
ladies would all run away from such a savage,
and the men laugh at you.”
“Would they! If they attempted to follow
such a track as that, I'd soon tree them. If I
didn't make 'em shut their pans quicker than a
flash of lightning, I hope I may be civilized tomorrow,
as you call it. I don't much mind being
shot at, nor should I care a great deal about running
the gauntlet Ingen fashion, because I'm used
to that. But let me give you one piece of advice
stranger, never laugh at a feller in a hunting-shirt,
or you'll be likely to get a most almighty licking.
You'll be down as quick as I can dodge
an Ingen, and that's quicker than wink, anyhow.”
The return of Rainsford was welcomed by Virginia
with mingled emotions of pleasure and
pain; by Mrs. Judith with most extraordinary
marks of satisfaction; and by Master Zeno with
wonderful cordiality. Since his departure Mrs.
Judith had laboured under a fit of mortal ennui,
seeing she had nobody to watch, and her life became
as it were a dead blank, for want of the excitement
of curiosity. There was not a secret
stirring in the whole village of Dangerfieldville.
Master Zeno had a still better reason for hailing
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the return of his guest; it was now almost time to
begin his preparations for the Daily, and he took
an early opportunity of jogging Mr. Rainsford's
memory.
“Well, well, sir” rubbing his hands; “I've
kept the secret.”
“What secret?”
“Why—why, you know, the secret you told—
I mean that I happened, by the merest accident
in the world to overhear in the woods. The
secret that you are—hem!—”
A deep paleness passed over the face of the
young man; and it was not unnoticed by Master
Zeno, who had an eye and an ear like the man in
the fairy tale; he could see through a mountain, and
hear the grass grow when a secret was in the way.
“Well,” and he vainly essayed a melancholy
smile. “Well, you have kept your word, you
say, and I will keep mine. Make out an estimate
of the cost of establishing a paper.”
“A daily, sir?”
“Ay, a daily, if you wish. I will give you an
order on a merchant, who has money of mine in
his hands, at Pittsburg. And you can very likely
procure all the materials you want at that place.”
“Here it is, sir, here's the estimate. I've had
it ready ever since I overheard, by the merest
accident in the world, you were—hem. What a
fortunate man I am!”
“Very,” said the other, dryly, and he went and
wrote, and returned with an order for the money
required.
“I'm afraid I'm robbing you, sir,” said Master
Zeno, after putting up the draft snugly in an old
leather convenience called a pocket-book. “But
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you may calculate on me to a certainty. I'll keep
your secret, sir; and if anybody dares to accuse
you of being a—hem—I'll attack them in my Daily,
in such a style they'll be glad to be quiet. But
really, sir, I'm afraid I'm robbing you.”
“No, not in the least. I am in possession of more
than I want; far more than I shall ever live to
use. It is no pleasure to me to be rich, for when
I think of the manner in which I became so, I
loathe the very name of money. I would willingly
be made a public example; that my secret
should be exposed to the world, so I could bring
back to life, and its best gift, those to whom it
once belonged, and restore all I have received, to
its owners. You are welcome to the money, so
you only make a good use of it.”
“I will enlighten the universe,” said Zeno;
and they parted just at the moment Mrs. Judith
had applied her ear to the keyhole, or rather to a
knothole, for other there was none.
She heard nothing, save the latter part of the
last speech of Rainsford, about being made
a public example—of restoring the money to
those to whom it once belonged; and above all,
the never to be forgotten words; “Take the
money, so you only make a good use of it.” And
she resolved within her secret soul to take special
care that this last injunction was complied with.
Master Paddock remained on the exact spot
where he had been left by Rainsford, cogitating
on the full and free confession he had just heard
from that wicked, yet inconsiderate youth, as he
now felt satisfied he was. “`To those to whom
it once belonged.' These were his very words.
Then he must have robbed and murdered at least
two persons! What a diabolical young sinner!
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I wish I had made him pay double for keeping
his secret. But never mind, I'll get more out of
him, I warrant. And when I've got all I can,
why I'll quiet my conscience by getting the
young rascal hanged.”
Having come to this righteous conclusion, he
turned round, and turning saw the head of Holofernes
within what is called striking distance, for
it certainly struck him dumb.
“My dear,” quoth the enchanted head, “how
much money did Mr. Rainsford give you to keep
his secret?”
“Pooh! What money? what secret?”
“Ah! heigho!—what a wicked world this is.
Now, who'd have thought such a nice young man
was a—”
“A what?”
“Hem—ah!—heigho!—it's a very scandalous
world. I sometimes almost wish I was out of it.
But come now, tell me how much money you got
for keeping the secret; now do, Zeno!” and she
fawned on him like a roaring lioness.
“Pooh! pooh!—nonsense. I've got no money—
how should you know any thing about it?”
“Why, then, if you must know, I'll tell you. I
happened to be in the next room, and I happened
to hear every thing you said, and I know all
about it. There now, are you satisfied? Heigho!
what a wicked world we live in!”
“Why then, if you know all, I may as well tell
you, I suppose.”
“Yes, yes—do, do, do—oh!” and she discovered
such an itching curiosity, that the shrewd Zeno
was convinced she pretended to know more than
she really did; whereupon, he coolly replied,—
“But now I think of it, if you do really know
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all, there is no occasion to waste time in telling
you.” And so saying, he walked out of the room
with the air of a man having money in his pocket,
which, we presume, is what is called the air noble.
Had it not been for one single resource, Mrs.
Judith would have undoubtedly burst the boiler
of her curiosity, and exploded into scalding steam
instead of tears. People who live in the great
world, surrounded by excitements of a thousand
various kinds, and with a thousand resources for
passing away the time, can form no idea of the
biting curiosity of a real full-blooded village gossip,
who, having little employment at home, has
no other resource for passing the idle hours than
prying into the affairs of her neighbours. It becomes,
not only a passion, but the master passion
of the soul, and swallows up all the others, as the
rod of—no, hang it! that's too musty—as the
mighty Mississippi swallows up a hundred mighty
streams.
Next to the pleasure of gaining a secret, that of
telling it is held the most delectable; nay, some
who have investigated this matter more deeply
are inclined to the opinion that the after-pleasure
of telling, like the dessert of a modern lady's dinner,
is the better part of the feast. However this
may be, there is no doubt in our minds that Mrs.
Judith Paddock would have met with a catastrophe,
had she not forthwith solaced her disappointment
at failing to get at the whole secret by
communicating the portion she did know, to the
first person she could get to listen to it, which unfortunately
happened to be Miss Virginia Dangerfield.
She sought that young maiden, who, in
truth, could scarcely bear the sight of her since
the communication of this being such a wicked
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world, such a scandalous world. She never
saw her coming across the way without feeling
a shivering presentiment of some unwelcome
news; but such is the strange inconsistency of
human nature, that she still would linger and
listen, though perhaps every word was a dagger
to her heart. There is a sort of supernatural fascination
in fear, and, above all, in horrible realities.
The gentlest, tenderest portion of the human
race, that portion whose charity is untiring, whose
pity never dies—need I name woman?—which is
the most fearful, the most apprehensive, the most
delicate, dwells with most intense interest, and
lingers most devotedly over the page where
horrors are accumulated on horrors, and wickedness
is displayed in the most atrocious colours
of utter abandonment. We see decent women
thronging from all parts of the country to
witness the last agonies of a dying villain who
falls a merited sacrifice to the sanctity of the laws
and the safety of society; not because they are
cruel, but that they are attracted by the grateful
horrors of the scene, fascinated by the witchcraft
of the terrible. All our readers will probably
recollect occasions when some horribly disgusting
or exquisitely painful exhibition of the vices or
infirmities of human nature in its lowest stage of
degradation and misery has suddenly presented
itself. They have turned away in thrilling horror
as they passed; yet, strange to tell, curiosity,
or rather the fascination of the terrible, has
wrested from them by force a single glance, and
that glance has impressed the scene so keenly on
the imagination, as to haunt it by day and appear
as a spectre by night for a long while afterwards.
It was thus with Virginia, who, while she
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shrunk with averted mind from the mere idea of
the possibility of the suspicions of Mrs. Judith
being true, was yet irresistibly impelled to listen
to every new surmise and every questionable circumstance
that, while it increased her doubts,
added to her sufferings. Already had that struggle
between the heart and the reason commenced
in her mind, to which it falls to the lot of so
many gentle beings either to yield unresisting victims,
or, if victors, to conquer at the price of the
loss of all that vivacity of hope, that thrilling
sense of pleasure, which makes us look up from
the dark valley of the shadow of old age with
a long, lingering, wishful eye, at the sunshiny
region of youth, from which we have imperceptibly
slidden for ever.
To such croaking ravens as Mrs. Judith, there
is nothing so grateful as to excite surprise, wonder,
pleasure, pain, any striking or violent emotion;
it is all one to them, provided they can
excite something. Indifference gives them the
fidgets irretrievably. Mrs. Judith had for this
reason particular pleasure in telling Virginia any
thing which was calculated to increase her suspicions
of Rainsford, for she saw it created the most
intense and painful interest. She began, as usual,
with the eternal gossip cant of the wickedness of
this world, the propensity to scandal, &c. &c., and
finally disclosed, not only what she had heard, but
what she imagined of what she had not heard of
the conversation between Rainsford and Master
Zeno, not by any means omitting the large sum
of money the former had given her husband to
keep his secret. “If it is not a wicked and abominable
secret, why should he bribe my Zeno to
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keep it? Ah! heigho! what a wicked world,
what a scandalous world we live in?”
Poor Virginia! what a situation was thine, and
what a struggle hadst thou to go through in order
to hide, if possible, in the folds of thine innocent
heart the poisonous asp that lay coiled there instilling
his deadly poisons!
“You don't seem well somehow, Miss Phiginny,”
said this mischievous incendiary, after sitting
in simpering hypocritical sympathy, watching
the war of feelings reflected in the changeful
countenance of the young maiden; “you don't
seem well. Let me advise you to take some
spring physic—some yerbs; do now, dear Miss
Phiginny. Ah! heigho! this is a wicked, a scandalous
world!” and the woman departed to watch,
but not to pray.
Mrs. Dangerfield came in a few minutes after,
and found Virginia sitting still, and white as a
statue, unconscious of existence. She started
as her mother entered, and, throwing her arms
about her neck, melted into a quiet shower of
tears.
“My dear Virginia, what is the matter with
you?”
“I don't know; I cannot tell you now, my dear
mother; but in a little while, as soon as I know
more, you shall know all.”
“In your own good time, my daughter; but
remember, there are no sorrows, no perplexities,
no wishes, no disappointments which a virtuous
and obedient daughter ought to keep long from
the ear of a kind, affectionate mother.”
“You shall know all; I promise you shall know
all as soon as I know it myself.”
“I am content, dear Virginia; and now cheer
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up, for I see Mr. Rainsford has returned from his
visit to Bushfield, and is crossing over this way.”
The young lady retired for a few minutes, and
met Rainsford with an effort to be cheerful.
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CHAPTER XXII. Proving that the chief use of words is to mar our meaning.
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The meeting between Virginia and Rainsford
was awkward and embarrassing. Each was conscious
of possessing a secret, and each equally
apprehensive of betraying it to the other. Virginia
could not but perceive that Rainsford displayed
a degree of shyness which she suspected
arose from his recollection of the emotion he had
betrayed at hearing the story of the mad Indian;
while Rainsford thought he perceived in her countenance
an expression half tender, half fearful, and
in her eyes the traces of tears. She forced herself
to question him as to the incidents of his visit
to Bushfield; he prosed away on the subject till
both were heartily tired; and, in short, they talked
of every thing except the subject which really occupied
their minds.
But they say murder will out at last; and however
we may play about a subject of deep interest
for a while, like a moth round the candle, we are
pretty certain to singe our wings with it in the
end. The exquisite pain she had endured under
the pressure of the growing suspicion which in
spite of herself still rankled in her heart, had
brought her to the conviction it was necessary
to her future peace that his guilt or innocence
should be established. If the former, she had
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made up her mind to warn him to leave the place
for ever, and to forget, if possible, every feeling
towards him but that of gratitude; and if the latter,
it was due to his honour, as well as to her own happiness,
that he should have an opportunity of establishing
it beyond doubt or contradiction. But to
put the direct question to a man to whom she was
under so deep an obligation, and with whom she
was associating almost every day on terms of intimacy,
required a hardihood of which she had at
no period been mistress. Several times she essayed
to touch the subject, but as often her heart
failed her; and after talking themselves weary
about nothing, a dead, oppressive silence ensued.
Chance, however, at length brought them to the
subject nearest her heart. Rainsford had roused
himself to observe, that as the spring was approaching,
he intended soon to take possession of his
house, and begin his new settlement.
“You will be very solitary; but perhaps the
precepts and example of Mr. Bushfield have made
you in love with the independence of living
alone?”
“No,” replied the young man; “loneliness has
no charms for me. I hate a crowd as much as I
fear—I mean dislike being alone. But I confess
there is one thing which reconciles me in some
degree to leaving the society of my friends, and
that is, the idea of escaping the eternal inquisition
of Mrs. Judith Paddock. I never met with so
troublesome a woman in my life.”
“Why, she certainly is the gossip of the village.”
“Yes, and so fond of getting at the secrets of
other people, only that she may keep them from
other people. I saw her leave this house a few
minutes ago brimful of something. I hope you
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have not trusted her with any of your secrets,”
said he, smiling.
“No!” and her heart palpitated as she proceeded;
“no, but she intrusted me with the secret
of another.”
Rainsford gave a slight start; and Virginia,
who forced herself to look him full in the eye,
fancied she saw an increase of paleness in a face
that was always pale. The ice being broken, she
nerved herself for the crisis, as all minds of a
higher order do when once it has arrived.
“She told me something that deeply concerns
you and, I will confess it, me also; for I cannot
be indifferent to the character and actions of the
man to whom I am so deeply obliged.”
“Me? What can she say, what can she know
of me? I assure you, Miss Dangerfield, she can
know nothing of me. I have never made her my
confidant.”
“But confidence is not always necessary in
these cases. An involuntary look; a sudden
start; an indiscreet word; a habit of talking to
one's self; a thousand little indications of which
we are not aware, or cannot restrain, are the
agents by which guilt, or misery, let out their
deep buried secrets.” The strong feeling which
had taken possession of the soul of the young
maiden, communicated firmness to her nerves, and
enabled her to look Rainsford in the face during
this speech, with a firm, yet gentle melancholy
expression. With a thrilling pang she saw him
wince and quiver with emotion, as thus she
touched the string whose music was the howl of
the demon that beset his steps by day and by
night. He mastered his feelings however; and
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collecting all the energies of despair, asked in a
firm manly tone for further explanation.
“You ought to know it; and I and my family
at least, ought to know if what Mrs. Paddock says
she has heard, and seen, and suspects, is true or
false.”
“What—what has she heard? what has she
seen? and what does she suspect?” said the
young man, almost furiously.
“I—I—cannot—yes! I will tell you—what I
will not deny, has almost—has rendered it absolutely
necessary, if it be true, that you—that we
should never meet again; that you should quit
this place and never return.”
“Well, let me hear it, Virginia,” replied he, in a
hoarse voice; and leaning back in his chair he
awaited what was to follow, with the feelings of
one whose conscience has already whispered the
secret.
Virginia, then, with a kind solemnity, detailed
to him the substance of the two confidential communications
of Mrs. Judith, at the same time
refraining from making any comments, or drawing
any conclusions. It was impossible; it was
not in her heart; and if it had been, it was not in
her tongue to hint at the seeming evident conclusion,
arising from such extraordinary emotion,
and such a bribe offered for secrecy.
As she proceeded, the feelings of Rainsford
became more apparent; he trembled; he gasped
for breath; he clasped his hands, and finally covered
his face and wept aloud, as if his heart was
breaking. The agitation of Virginia was almost
equal to his own, and she kept him company in
silent tears. At length recovering herself she put
the question directly.
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“Is the tale of Mrs. Paddock true?”
“It is—but—”
“Then let us never see each other more. I
cannot betray you. But you must leave this
place for ever.”
“But, Virginia! Miss Dangerfield—let me explain—”
“I want no explanations; nothing you can
say will remove or soften the dreadful feelings
your presence now inspires. Leave me—I forgive
you. I—I pity you.”
“But, dear Virginia—”
“Dear Virginia! How dare a wretch like you
apply that epithet to a virtuous woman?”
“I am a wretch; the veriest of all wretches
that ever crawled on the earth, and cursed the
hour he was born. But my misfortune ought not
to deprive me of all sympathy. God knows I
want it.”
“Misfortune!” cried she, contemptuously.
“I at least cannot help what I am; it was, or it
will be the work of fate; the curse of inheritance.”
“The work of fate!” cried Virginia, passionately.
“Yes! this is the blasphemous cant of
every wretched being, who thus attempts to fasten
the temptations of Satan on the dispensations of
Heaven, and vindicate himself by accusing his
God. Go, go—leave me, and for ever, for the
more you attempt to extenuate, the more I loathe
you. May Heaven forgive me for saying so to
the saviour of my life!”
“Well, madam, I will go,” said he, proudly.
“I will try to forget you: but if I cannot, I will
at least endeavour to remember you only as one
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who is an exception to the rest of her gentle sex,
in being without pity.”
“Pity! is not the tale of Mrs. Paddock true?”
“It is; I cannot deny it.”
“Then, why are you here, sir?”
“I am gone, madam.”
“Miserable, hardened wretch!” exclaimed Virginia,
as he shut the door and departed, with the
insolent air of an injured man.
END OF VOL. I.
