“Thunder and turf, my honey! do you mane to
make me your inimy?” cried the Hibernian. “Would
ye be after resaving a tap on yer own pate, my
honey?”

“Devil-may-care if I do, but you can't give it me,
nor any lad of your inches,” cried the Alabamian,
who in the same moment lifted the astonished Irishman
to his full height in the air, in defiance of all
his struggles, and then dropped him down with as
little reluctance as if he had been one of the most
insensible “p'raties” of his fatherland.

“There, Patrick, what do you say to that, and be
d—d to you?”

A battle to the death was nearly the consequence
of this display of prowess on the part of the Alabamian,
who, no ways loth, prepared for it with the
utmost sang froid, and answered the threats of Patrick
with a swaggering and cool defiance, which
denoted the most perfect confidence in himself. But
it was not the policy of Saxon, who recognised a
follower in Dennis O'Dougherty, to suffer it. He
interposed to keep the peace, and used all the usual
and effective arguments common to cases of such
urgent necessity. The bar supplied the means of
bringing about a pacification, quite as often as it promotes
the strifes and vexations which lead to war,
and the Alabamian expressed himself as clearly of
opinion that the fun was quite as great to drink, as
to fight, with a stout fellow.

“As for Patrick, here—”

“Dennis, if you plase—Dennis O'Dougherty, of
the O'Doughertys of Ballyshannon by the pit of
Ballany—a family of the ouldest—there's no telling,
indade, when the O'Doughertys were not a family
of the ouldest.”

“That accounts for your loss of strength, Mr.
O'Dougherty,” said the Alabamian; “if you hadn't

[figure description] Page 018.[end figure description]

come from so old a family, I should not have tumbled
you so easily. Your great-grandfather must
have been rather a stout chap in his time, and it
might have given me more trouble to spring him to
the ceiling. But the blood gets mighty thin going
through three, or five, or seven generations, unless
the breed is crossed mighty often. Now, don't
you see the advantage of being of a new family? In
my state, all the men are of new families, and we've
got the strength in us. Perhaps, the time will come
that our children will grow weak and feeble like
you, Dennis, and some chap, away from the Red
River, or the Sabine—some new fellow from Texas
or thereabouts—will swing the grandson of Dick
Jamison just as easily as he can swing you, Dennis.”

“Asily, do you say, Misther Dick Jeemison!” exclaimed
Dennis; “not so asy, my honey, if the thing
is to be thried agin. You had the back of me, Mr.
Dick Jeemison, an' that's a rason why you should
come to the front. But, shall it be for a quart, that
we shall take a friendly gripe at the ribs, or will it
be the shillelah, my honey?”

“Stick, fist, or hug, Dennis O'Dougherty, it's all
the same to Dick Jamison. You're of too old a family,
Dennis, to stand up with a young man from
Alabama; the stuff's not in you, my lad, and I
should swallow you at a mouthful and never ask
after the salt.”

“Now, don't ye be after desaving yerself, my
honey,” replied the Irishman, somewhat astounded at
the cool impudence of the Alabamian, not merely in
disparaging his hitherto acknowledged powers, but in
the still more remarkable disparagement of the greater
merits of an old family, which, to the great horror
and surprise of Dennis, were now made to give way
to the claims of a young one. The almost contemptuous
terms which the member of the new house

[figure description] Page 019.[end figure description]

employed in determining the proper precedence of
the latter, uttered with so much complacency, tended
still more to embitter the idea. “Now, don't ye be
after desaving yerself, Mr. Dick Jeemison, saing
it was behind my back that ye overkim Dennis
O'Dougherty; and don't ye be after thinking that
ye can overkim him again behind his back, when his
face is turned upon ye. There's a difference, my
honey, between a jontleman's face and his back, that
ye'll be after belaving when ye've sane them together
as I will show ye mine, with a shillelah in aitch
hand, and a pistol in the other, and the spirit of univarsal
liberty in the sowl which will make a rivolution
in your ideas, Mr. Dick Jeemison, and tache you
a leetle abolition of doctrine, that ye may take back
with ye to Alabama.”

“Abolition!” exclaimed one of the inmates of the
bar.

“Abolition!” echoed another and another, and a
dozen faces were peering into the face of the Hibernian
at the inauspicious word.

“Who's talking abolition here?” said one.

“What blasted emissary of Arthur Tappan is it?”

“It's his own self, I do think,” said a third; and
the murmurs began to close with the ominous inquiry
after that venerable border magistrate, Judge
Lynch.

“Jontlemen!” exclaimed the Hibernian, who
began to feel some misgivings that his position
might be made a very awkward one, if the Alabamian
should happen to take the lead against him.
“Jontlemen!” said he, turning from one to the other,
with an air of mingled apology and defiance, “don't
be after desaving yourselves, and misconsaving
Dennis O'Dougherty. I'm a jontleman by my mother's
side,—she was an O'Flaherty—”

“To be sure; don't you suppose, Dennis, that we

[figure description] Page 020.[end figure description]

know all that?” said the Alabamian; “look you,
friends and fellow-citizens, we all know what Dennis
means by abolition, but being an Irishman born, and
of an old family that's nearly worn out, how should
he be able to speak good English. He is a gentleman,
as he says, by the mother's side—his mother being
an O'Flaherty; and a lady by his father's side, the
old gentleman being an O'Dougherty; and therefore
he asks you all to join with him here in a sup
of whisky,—regular Monongahela,—that we may
have a revolution of ideas and an abolition of distinctions.
That's what Dennis means by abolition,
only the poor fellow hasn't been long enough in
America to speak good English. And, look you,
my friends, it's not a bad notion now, I tell you, for
a man whose family's almost worn out, to wish to
abolish distinctions where our families are only
just beginning. He'd be mighty willing to let that
matter drop, and so you see he's for giving us a drop
all round; so come, Kitty, fill your quart and set
out the sugar, and look you, friends, we'll drink to
the health of Mr. Dennis O'Dougherty, who is a gentleman
by his mother's side, and a lady by his father's;
and may he soon recover his strength by
getting into a new family.”

This speech was received with loud huzzas. The
explanation of the Alabamian, as it was only understood
in part, was perfectly satisfactory to all parties;
the countrymen around were satisfied with it, as
its result was one easily swallowed and perfectly
habitual; and the Hibernian, though there was
much in the speech to confound his better judgment,
and stagger his conception of the English he
already knew, was also content to receive it without
scruple as explanatory of his own ideas, simply as he
found it so successful with all around, and as it relieved
him from a predicament, which some recent

[figure description] Page 021.[end figure description]

examples had already convinced him, might have
become an awkward, if not a dangerous one. A
more general diffusion of the peace principle was
evident soon after the quart flagon was placed upon
the counter of the publican, and the Alabamian, who
was something of a wag, and no little of a democrat,
was soon busy in labouring to convince Dennis that
there was no greater misfortune on earth than to be
the descendant of a very old family; as he proceeded
to show by every analogous case, drawn from the history
of bird, beast and reptile, that the breed must
degenerate, with every successive advance, after the
fifth generation; and the only hope of an old nation
was to merge itself, as soon as possible after that period,
in the body and bosom of a new. The final
speech of Mr. Jamison, at the moment when we propose
to leave the company, may be put on record as
containing a proposition of quite as much political
truth as theory.

“It's in America here, Dennis, my boy, that we will
preserve the English, and the Irish, and the Scotch,
when, in your own country, you'll all be worked
down to a mere stump of what you were. It's here,
I tell you, that the English people will get a new
growth, a height and a depth, a breadth and a bottom,
when the old families wouldn't have one fellow
among 'em fit to carry guts to a bear. This is the
country, after all, to make men out of your sticks,
jist the same as taking a plant from one place
where it's been growing so long that it's come to
nothing, and putting it into a new field where
it never was before. See the difference! how it
shoots up—how it spreads, and what a fine crop you
get from it for the first five years—maybe seven,—
but after that you must carry it farther off to some
new opening, and begin again. If I was to do any
thing for you, Dennis, I'd marry you off at once to

[figure description] Page 022.[end figure description]

Polly Whitesides,—you all know Polly Whitesides,
my boys?”—A general laugh attested the success
of the reference.—“I'd marry you off to Polly
Whitesides, of Beattie's Bluff, and make a new family
out of an old one.”

“It's a lady you spake of, Mr. Dick Jeemison?”

“Ay, to be sure, a lady—what else? She's six
feet in her stockings, with cheeks red as a gobbler's
gills, and an arm, Dennis, that would put your thigh
out of countenance!”

“J—s! and she's a lady, Mr. Jeemison?”

“And the very gal to make a new and rising family
out of an old one on its last legs,” was the reply.

Let us change the scene, and follow Vernon into
the apartment into which he was carried at the moment
when the blow from the shillelah of Dennis
O'Dougherty had laid him senseless on the floor.

CHAPTER II.

“Now we have argument
Of justice, and our very breath is law,
To speak thee dead at once.”
Shirley.

[figure description] Page 023.[end figure description]

While the uproarious controversy was in progress
between the Alabamian and his Irish opponent in the
tavern-hall, Vernon, through the considerateness and
care of Saxon, was conveyed to an inner apartment
in a state of insensibility. The outlaw had his unexpressed
objects in this disposition of the youth, and
his connexion with the constables readily enabled him
to make such arrangements as left him in his sole
custody. A public assurance which he gave them
in the bar-room, that he would be answerable for the
forthcoming of the prisoner whenever they might
demand him, not only satisfied the worthy emissaries
of the law, but won golden opinions for the outlaw
from the unreflecting spectators. They did not, with
a single exception, remark the strangeness of such a
proceeding; nor wonder, as well they might, how it
was that a stranger's assurance, and one who appeared
to have been the companion of the traveller,
should be taken as good security for the temporary
release of the same person charged with a crime so
heinous. The more acute Alabamian saw this matter
in its true light, and was not the less curious

[figure description] Page 024.[end figure description]

though he said nothing on the subject. As for the
constables, the reader, who knows already what they
are, will not be surprised at the ready complaisance
which they yielded to the will of the outlaw. They
were very well satisfied to exchange the tedious
watch over the prisoner for the livelier bustle of the
tavern-hall. There they soon joined the revellers,
and gave themselves up to that perfect recklessness
of good order and morality, which, in no little degree,
tended to confirm the growing suspicion in the
mind of the Alabamian that there was something
wrong in their proceedings. A sudden regard for
Vernon had been the fruit of the first moment of
their meeting; as he saw, or fancied he saw, even
through the reserve which is usually the accompaniment
of superior endowments and education, a
frankness of manner and character in the youth,
which, while resembling, was grateful to his own.
These first loves, or favourable impressions, are
very common to a forest country such as ours,
where no long time is allowed for the formation of
intimacies, and where the instincts of blood are
always more active than the slow and cautious approaches
of reason and philosophy. He assisted,
we may state, to carry the insensible form of the
youth into the chamber, and having ascertained that
Lucchesa was not without its physician, he despatched
one of the urchins that lingered at the
tavern-door, to require his assistance; a task which
the boy readily undertook with the tempting reward
of a fip-penny-piece before him. This done, Jamison
returned to his controversy with the Irishman, which
he made subservient to the occult purposes of inquiry
which lay at the bottom of his mind. He
plied the whisky flagon with an industry which
he took pains to make appear as the consequence of
his own love for the living beverage; and he soon

[figure description] Page 025.[end figure description]

had occasion to congratulate himself on the discovery
of one or two facts, which, though subordinate
in importance, were yet of a character to confirm
him in his suspicions. He soon discovered, in
the first place, that his Irish adversary, in one or two
unwitting speeches, was an old acquaintance of the
constables; and, from the modes of speech and the
sort of anecdote in which the latter freely dealt, he
was easily led to infer that, however honest they
might be at this writing, they had certainly, at some
past period not so very remote, been very exemplary
picaroons. That their morals were not such
as should entitle them to the selection of a devout
magistrate such as Judge Nawls had been described
to be, was sufficiently clear from the facility with
which they threw aside that starched semblance of
decency which they had just before put on in the
assumption of a character, and in the performance
of duties, far other than those to which they had
been sworn. They soon forgot the commands of
their leader, who was too busy elsewhere to heed
their behaviour, and hear their riotous uproar; as,
in the person of Dennis O'Dougherty they recognised
a well known Jack Pudding of their gang; and the
renewal of sundry old jokes at his expense, did more
than any thing beside to convey to the mind of the
acute and unsuspected Alabamian, the extent and
sort of intimacy which had before subsisted between
them. Their presence brought no little increase of
merriment to the carousing party. The fun had
been about to decline till their appearance. A renewal
of mirth was the necessary consequence of
the arrival of such old proficients, and the replenishing
of the flagon furnished an equal supply of the
pabulum so necessary for the fervour of village wit,
and the otherwise costive humour of a country population.
Our friend Jamison, speaking from his soul,

[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]

cried, “d—n the expense,” at every hearty summons
to the company to refill—a summons not less grateful
than imperative, and one never to be disputed
among men, no less social in character than docile
in obedience to the lawful authority. Leaving these
good companions for awhile, let us seek the chamber
to which Vernon had been carried.

This was a little low shed-room containing two
beds, a single chair, a broken mirror, and a couple
of rude coloured pictures, such as good taste was
willing to take, without scruple, during the war of
1815, at the hands of patriotism. Never did native
genius effect a more rascally portraiture of humanity.
One of the pictures represented the battle of New
Orleans; the other a scalping-scene at the massacre
of Fort Mimms, on the Tensaw. In the former,
Packenham might have been seen going through the
air like one of his own congreves, as blazing red,
certainly, and describing pretty much the same sort
of curve when at the moment of declension. His
head nearly touched his heels, and the grapeshot
might have been seen just about to bury their hissing
hot bodies in the gaping wounds, from which the
blood was already streaming, in pretty much the
same volume as would issue from the sudden opening
of a water-plug in the streets of Philadelphia.
A complete display of pyrotechnics—a shower of fire—
encircled him, and formed the only light, lurid and
sulphurous still, which the artist permitted on the
British side of the business. In this he strove hard
to accomplish the clair obscur with the utmost practical
nicety. The rest of the battle was a chaos of
heads, legs, and arms; horses kicking without bodies;
men running without feet, and wheeling cannon
just as busy advancing and receding, though never a
man was left standing at the drag-ropes. Here
imagination had done much towards the

[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]

achievement of that desideratum in all her works, the vague,
twilight, picturesque, and imperfect dimness, which
denotes every thing that is not beheld, and makes
equivocal whatever is distinct. But the amor patriæ
was predominant in the display of the American lines—
there all was clear, effulgent, and imposing. Still
and stern the Kentuckians and Tennesseeans, stood
upon the terraces. Never were attitudes more perfect.
Even those who knelt for the purpose of better aim,
were drawn with wonderful exactitude and majesty.
Here was truth. The eyes ranged the tube with a
mathematical exactness. Had you taken the instruments
in hand, and separated the lines between the
eyes, the drop, and the British, you would have seen
in an instant how certain was their defeat. Every
muzzle covered its man—every bullet had its special
commission; and our artist had made it a matter
sufficiently clear, without reference to any dull history,
that the American victory arose from no other
cause than the excellent aim of the riflemen. The
whole story was told at a glance; and when you recollect
that the artillery was managed with similar
nicety, you have no sort of difficulty in accounting
for all the havoc of that bloody field. But the whole
powers of the artist were concentrated around the
form of the hero of that day. General Jackson was
surrounded with a thousand natural glories. The
sun rose over his left shoulder, and his epaulet, reflecting
his light upon surrounding objects, was almost
as bright, and quite as large, as himself. “Bombs
bursting in air” surrounded him with halos of falling
stars that became tributary, in like manner, to the
awful distinctness of his face and figure. There he
stood,

His portrait was true, as all the portraits of very

[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]

great men must be true, even when most imperfect.
There were the same thin pale cheeks, the raised
cheek-bones, thin compressed lips, keen eyes, high
narrow forehead, and raised hair—the head, for the
greater perfection of the portrait, having been left
uncovered, in defiance of smoke and flame, bombs
and rockets, crackers and carcasses. But the terrors
of expression in his face were the wonders of
the performance. Even had the riflemen been
utterly wanting to the battle, you would have seen
that these were enough for the victory. There was
not a wrinkle in the old warrior's brow that did
not look like a two-edged sword. His mouth was
pursed up to seem a seam—the lines forming to a
common centre, the appearance of which led you to
expect a sudden expansion, no less great than the
undue contraction, from which triple hail and thunder
was to issue. His beard, too—for the general,
if the artist may be considered good authority in a
particular so perfectly domestic, had not shaved for
seven days—his very beard, too, like that of old
Giaffar, “curled in ire,” as he waved a sword twice
his own length, and pointing to Packenham's whizzing
and whirling carcass, seemed disposed to thrust
it—very unnecessarily, it would seem—into the aperture
made so voluminously large already by the
grapeshot aforesaid. Language fails to do justice
to this terrific picture—go to Lucchesa, reader, and
see for yourself. We forbear that of the massacre
at Fort Mimms, in order that nothing may be anticipated.
Like that of the battle, it is a painting
sui generis. Never were scalps taken from skulls
with more terrible felicity of execution than in this
picture. At Raymond court-house you will see
another, by the same artist, in which a muse more
moral than she of history has been invoked;—Justice
with her scales very properly presides over the
hall of justice. It is rather awkward, indeed, that

[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]

one scale should be lower than the other, but this
difference simply suggests a play of the fancy, and
cannot subject the painter to the imputation of any
serious want of discrimination. Certainly, we shall
venture to incur no risk, in this brief passage, of
indulging in false and superficial analysis.

Strange to say, the merits of these pictures entirely
escaped the notice of Saxon. Whether he
had seen them before, or, as is quite probable, entertained
no taste for the fine arts—a deficiency quite
too general in our country, and quite too common
among all people whose habits are wandering
to make it likely that any rebuke will be of
service for a hundred years to come—one thing is
certain, that he never gave so much as a glance to
the panels in which these gorgeous performances
had been set on high. His eye and thought was upon
the young man alone, who lay insensible upon the
couch; and, under the pretence of restoring him to
consciousness, the outlaw, so soon as all other persons
had retired from the chamber, very coolly proceeded
to unbutton the vest and bosom of his patient,
and explore the contents of a thin gause-like
handkerchief which encircled his waist, and which
he untied with the dexterity of an old proficient in
all such practices, without disturbing the position of,
or removing the handkerchief from, the body. A
few moments sufficed to enabled him to disengage
from the folds of the handkerchief a small packet
which lay on the right side of the youth. This
he transferred with all speed to his own bosom;
and, folding a newspaper in like bulk and form, he
deposited it in place of the papers appropriated, retied
the handkerchief, rebuttoned the shirt and vest;
and all this without disturbing the wounded man
and before the arrival of the physician;—an event,
however, which occurred the moment after.

[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]

Dr. Saunders was rather a clever young man, who
had received a license to practice but a few months
before, and was no less modest than well-informed.
He examined the hurt of Vernon with the assistance
of the Alabamian who, on the arrival of the physician,
left the company without, and with the anxiety
of an old friend awaited the result. Vernon had overtasked
himself. The wound in his thigh which had
bled so copiously was irritated by the hard riding
of the day. He had ridden rapidly in order to
overtake the carriage of Wilson, and had overcome
a distance of more than forty miles. The excitement
following previous events, and the anticipation
of those before him, had also contributed to the irritation
of his system; and, when arrested for so heinous
an offence as that of murder, and the murder,
too, of his late companion, it is not improbable that
fever would have followed his mental suffering even
without the additional injury which he received
from the unmeasured blow of the Irishman. The
patient's consciousness returned while the examination
of the physician was going on. He started,
and with an instinctive movement which betrayed
the deep interest which he had at stake, he threw off
the intrusive hands about him, and his own were
thrust into his bosom and not withdrawn until he
assured himself of the safety of the secret deposit
which he had bound around his body. With anxiety
and agitation heightened by fever, he turned to the
two attendants, and demanded what was meant by
their familiarities. The matter was soon explained,
the doctor announced himself, and coming slowly
to a recollection of what had taken place in the
tavern, Vernon quietly submitted himself to his hands.

Meanwhile, in the possession of his prize and
anxious for its examination, Saxon availed himself
of the coming of the physician to retire to another

[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]

apartment. There, in secret, he unfolded the packet,
the contents of which had the instant effect of clouding
his brow with anger, and sending the blood into
his cheeks.

“It is then true,—it is as I thought and feared!
This is then only another Hurdis—another spy, selfappointed,
for our destruction. He has played his
game admirably, but not perfectly. Not well
enough for success, but so well as to make it necessary
that we should silence him for ever. It is
needful for our own safety that we do this—we can
spare no longer—his doom is written.”

He conned the papers closely; one of which, a
blank commission with the signature of Governor
R—, he tore into fragments and flung into the
fireplace. The others comprised a brief narration
of his own doings as Clem Foster in Alabama; copies
of affidavits sworn to in that state, and a list
of names,—a copy of which had been given to
Rawlins by Vernon the night before,—of suspected
persons in Mississippi. These called for the more
serious attention of the outlaw.

“These must fly,” he muttered, as he looked over,
and pencilled off, a portion of the list,—“the neighbourhood
is closely settled and will soon be too hot
to hold them; but they may stave off danger here
on the Big Black for a year or two more. Still it
will be as well to warn off some of the more black
and crooked—fellows who cannot even look honest,
may well run in advance of the danger. But Cane
Castle will hide all their vices, and that is as far as
they need go for the present. This agent of his
Excellency—would he had come himself—once
fairly salted, and we shall have no trouble for some
time to come. There are few in Mississippi prepared
to take his place, and manage his cards so
cunningly as almost to blind so old a stager as

[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]

myself. His game's up—and there's an end of it.
Nawls will send him to Vicksburg, and the `beagles'
will take him by the way. Then follows his
execution, in terrorem, for the benefit of our own
doubtful and soft-hearted fellows in the swamp.
He will die by our laws—he has assumed the toils
of the spy—he incurs its dangers; and our own require
that we should show no mercy. And now
for a little more hypocrisy. I would know why he
seeks this traveller, Wilson,—and the hurry of Wilson
to leave old Badger's, is no less curious. I must
sound him on these subjects.”

With exemplary composure he proceeded to the
apartment of Vernon which was still occupied by
the physician and the Alabamian, and placing himself
on one side of the patient, congratulated him
on his improved looks and restoration. The compliment
was a very suspicious one, for, by this time,
our hero felt himself seriously ill—he could not
mistake the heat of his frame; the bounding quickness
of his pulse; the parching thirst which assailed
him; the soreness of his head, and the painful throbbing
of his wounded thigh. These were evidences,
even if the physician had been absent, sufficient to
make him aware of his true condition.

“I thank you,” he said, “but I am not better. I
feel ill—seriously ill; and this painful accusation,
this troublesome arrest! So strange, so sudden and
startling:—I trust, gentlemen”—looking round as
he spoke—“I trust that you believe me guiltless of
this crime—nay, it must be so,—the officers are
gone,—they have been convinced of their mistake,
I suppose.”

“Mistake!” said Saxon, with an incredulous expression—
“what mistake, Mr. Vernon?”

“Why, sir, mistake of facts or of person. Did
they not arrest me for murder—the murder of
Horsey, poor fellow?”

[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]

“Yes, sir, but if it be a mistake, it is one of those
mistakes that they continue obstinately to persist in.
They are in the adjoining hall. It was on my
pledge that you should be forthcoming that they
consented to leave you in privacy until you might
be recovered from your injuries.”

“I thank you, sir, again I thank you,” replied
Vernon—“it is due to the kindness of your interposition,
and to the attention of these gentlemen,
that I should assure you, that I am wholly
guiltless of the crime which is charged against me,—
that, so far from seeking to harm the unfortunate
young man, whose fate I have heard of for the first
time from this proceeding, I should feel myself
bound by every duty and feeling to succour and to
save him. He is a wild, hairbrained, but worthy
youth, whose family is good, and whose old father
has treated me with kindness. That I may be suspected
is, perhaps, not so strange:—we travelled together
and separated suddenly—he, taking the lower
road for Benton at the forks, and I, the upper,
which, with some delays and interruptions, has led
me here. That he may have fallen a victim to
some wanton assassin is, perhaps, little surprising
in a neighbourhood in which crime is said to be so
frequent; but that I should be seriously held to answer
for his death is a matter too idle to annoy me
much or make me apprehensive of its consequences.
I have no sort of doubt, gentlemen, that an examination
before the magistrate will result in my immediate
discharge from arrest.”

The company unanimously expressed their hopes
that such might be the result; and Jamison loudly
declared his conviction of it.

“The truth's in your face, Mr. Vernon,—I saw
it from the first, and that made me so willing to
give Paddy O'Rafferty or O'Dougherty, or

[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]

whatever O' it may be, an ugly hoist, for the liberty he
took with you, bringing you soon to an acquaintance,
all on one side, between your head and his
shillelah. He'll not do it again, I'm thinking, not
while Dick Jamison is bystanding. I know well
enough you'll get out of this scrape, so cheer up,
Mr. Vernon. I'll see you out of the mire while I've
got any footing to stand on, and when I ha'n't, why
I'll walk the bog with you. D—e, but I like your
face, and there's no telling what I'll do and say for
a fellow I like. I'll run, ride, talk and fight for my
friend; and when he's a stranger like myself in a
new place, that's the very time that I can't desert him.
So count upon Dick Jamison while the breath's in
him.”

The expressive eye of Vernon made an acknowledgment
to the hearty volunteer, which his lips did
not articulate; and his hand freely returned the
pressure which the latter gave him as he concluded
his characteristic speech. The sympathies of the
stranger, however rudely expressed, were grateful to
the youth in the feeling of discontent and depression
which was natural to his condition; and the
unstudied frankness of his utterance was only an
additional proof that his sentiments came from the
fellow's heart. The reflections of Vernon's mind
were no ways cheering at this moment. His course,
upon which he had entered with so much confidence
and hope, had been attended with disasters
from the beginning, produced, not through his own
measures or management, but by influences entirely
foreign. Pursued by Horsey and annoyed by his
prying curiosity—scarcely freed from him, before
suffering in an encounter into which he was forced
by a sense of duty which no honourable mind could
shrink from; and now, arrested and suffering for
the alleged murder of the man whose presence

[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]

was so perfectly unsought and so undesirable:—these
continuous events seemed to hold forth auguries the
most inauspicious to that adventure which had been
undertaken with so much hope. The voice of kindness
came to him, therefore, at the moment of his
despondency, with an influence to be remembered;
and he felt that he was not altogether desolate
while the sturdy Alabamian was beside his couch.
The truth, which was declared by his frank utterance,
and denoted in the manly and not-to-be mistaken expression
of his features, won instant confidence from
our hero; and remembering one of his leading objects,
he thought to himself, “here is another ally—here is
another to join with me in the strifes that may follow
any pursuit of this banditti.”

The wounds upon Vernon's thigh were re-dressed—
the irritation of the part soothed by the application
of external dressings; his head, which had suffered
a severe contusion, was properly bandaged,
a nostrum given intended to lessen the fever, in
the attainment of which object, a vein was also
opened. This done, Doctor Saunders proceeded
to silence the worthy Alabamian, whose tongue was
one of those habitually restless ones, which, suspended
in the roof of his mouth, rather than the
gap of his throat, are for ever wagging from side to
side in the fruitless hope of finding a place of rest.

“We must leave our patient in quiet, gentlemen—
his fever is high—his mind is not at ease, and the
necessity of the case must be my apology for insisting
upon his being left to himself.”

“I will but say to the officers that I yield him to
their custody,” said Saxon, leading the way to the
bar-room.

“They cannot remove him,” said the physician.

“That is for them to determine,” was the reply of
the outlaw.

[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]

“It will be an unnecessary and wanton cruelty if
they do. The young man cannot escape if he
would. He is really too feeble. They may watch
him, and be at hand, but must not intrude upon him.”

“I'll be d—d if they do!” was the asseveration
of the Alabamian, glad of an opportunity to use
the instrument upon which the interdict of the
physician, while in the chamber of the patient, sat
with a very unpleasant weight. The keen eye of
Saxon surveyed him for an instant with no very
pleasant expression, but he said nothing; while the
other proceeded to declare that, law or no law, he
would see that none but himself should approach
the sick man's chamber, and “as for taking him
out,” he continued, “until he's willing to go himself,
let me see any one try it, and if he don't bear a
hickory, his mother never bore a fool.”

The arrival of another party suggested, however,
a new plan of arrangements. This was no other
than the traveller whom Vernon had pursued—
certainly, with no sort of apprehension on the part
of the former, that such had been the case. Old
Wilson entered with timid, trembling footsteps—
a cautious tread, as if walking upon eggs—and a
furtive glance thrown from side to side as the different
groups of the bar-room met his eyes, which
denoted either a very suspicious temper, or one
strangely unused to the devil-may-care freedoms of a
public tavern. As he advanced he encountered the
three persons who had just emerged from the passageway
into the public hall, and whose more respectable
appearance, in garb and manner, than that
of the persons generally by whom the tavern was
filled, naturally prompted the visiter to address his
inquiry to them.

“Gentlemen, I would like to know—sorry to stop

[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]

you—but is there not a young gentleman here by
the name of Vernon?”

“There is,” answered Jamison, who already assumed
the entire representation of his new friend.

“Can I be suffered to see and speak with him?”
inquired Wilson.

“I am afraid not,” replied the physician. “Mr.
Vernon has suffered some serious hurts which have
brought on fever. Even the noise of this bar-room
is unfavourable to him in his present situation.
His mind is very much excited, and inclines to wander.
I would prefer that he should not be disturbed.”

There was some eagerness in the expression of
Wilson's face, and in his manner, as he replied—

“I have heard of his hurts, sir, and as I partly
know him, and believe him to be a worthy young
man, I came to propose that he might be taken to
my house, while his illness lasted. It will be more
quiet than he can possibly find it here, and—”

“You, perhaps, have not heard of the accusation
against him?” was the remark of Saxon.

“And what the d—l has that to do with the gentleman's
offer, I'd like to know?” was the fierce demand
of the Alabamian. “I'm sure nobody who
knows Vernon would think him guilty of the thing
after his own lips had told 'em he hadn't done it.”

Jamison spoke for his new friend as sturdily as if
they had been intimate a thousand years. His manner
startled and somewhat aroused the outlaw. This
might be seen in the kindling and flashing of his eye,
and in the sudden glow that flushed his cheek; but
however much he might have been moved to resent
it, there were other considerations, much more
strong, that counselled forbearance; and the reply
of Mr. Wilson to his inquiry, interposed, as it were,

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

between himself and the man who had shown himself
so susceptible of provocation.

“I have heard of the charge to which you allude,
and which, I think with the gentleman here, must be
quite groundless. It was the rumour which reached
me of his arrest, and of his illness, but a little time
ago, by which I was informed that he was in my
neighbourhood; and the thought that he might be
removed with advantage to my dwelling—”

“This is an offer not to be disregarded,” said the
physician, interrupting him; “and if the officers
would permit his removal—”

“Permit it—they must, and be d—d to them.
Look you, men, this here prisoner of yours—he's in
a d—d bad way, and will be worse, unless you let
us carry him to the old gentleman's house. See
you, I'll be bail for his coming whenever he's able to
see the justice; or you can stay here, and keep on
the look-out for him, and for me too if you choose,
for I won't budge till the lad gets better. What do
you say, you man-catching rascals, to being civil for
awhile—it'll be nothing out of your pockets, I can
tell you, while Dick Jamison has any thing in his.”

The constables, at whose approach Mr. Wilson
might have been seen to shrink with some trepidation,
were not disposed to consent so readily. They
hemmed and hawed awhile—muttered together as if
in consultation—spoke aloud of their duties and the
great risk and responsibility, and, from their delay
and reluctance, were rousing up the choler of the irritable
Alabamian to a new outbreak of ferocious
friendship, when Saxon, to whom they looked entirely
for their cue, quietly remarked—

“It appears to me that the officers cannot refuse
so reasonable an arrangement. They can keep as
close a watch over the prisoner at the house of Mr.
Wilson as at the tavern, and the doctor's opinion that

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

the young man cannot fly in his present situation,
and should be free from noise, ought to satisfy them
without any other security; though, if they need any
other, I'm ready to become bound in bail along with
this gentleman.”

“Will you?” said Jamison; “well, d—me, you're
a better fellow than I thought you, after all—so
give's a shake of your paw, and let there be peace
between us. Well, what do you say, you sharks in
fresh water, have you got your senses yet?”

“Faith, we must let the jontleman off the hook,
since ye all says it,” began the Irishman, when
interrupted, no less by the stern expressive looks of
Saxon, than by the sudden burst of his former opponent.

“Hillo! Dennis! and what the d—l have you got
to do in the business, my lad? Shut up, you little
old fellow—you have no right to speak at all until
you are fairly married into a new family. Get you
gone to Polly Whitesides, and let her give you a
brush up before you dip your oar into another's navigation.”

And, with these words, the now good-humoured
rowdy clapped his open hand as an effectual stopper
on the widely distended jaws of the only half-sober
son of St. Patrick, whose brain was just in that condition
of fermentation when he could understand
that he had blundered, though in what respect, he
did not hope to divine, until he had taken an added
supply of the “crather,” or utterly freed himself from
the control of that which he had already swallowed.

CHAPTER III.

“High-climbing rock—low sunless dale—
Sea—desert—what do these avail?—
Oh, take her anguish and her fears,
Into a deep recess of years.”
Wordsworth.

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

The arrangement thus effected needed but the
consent of the principal party to its immediate operation;
and Mr. Wilson was ushered into Vernon's
chamber by the ready aid of Dick Jamison. Our
hero, though confused by his application as much
as by certain medicines which had been administered
by Doctor Saunders, was yet not insensible
to the advantages in sundry respects which the contemplated
removal might afford him. As an invalid,
with the possible prospect before him of a protracted
illness, it promised that repose and quiet which he
felt would be grateful, if not necessary to his condition;
and when he reflected on the probability of
his being able to secure the main object of his
journey, in a quiet pacific manner, and by degrees
which would neither startle nor offend, he could not
mistake the course which he should at once adopt.
But still he hesitated, nay refused;—thanked the
old gentleman for his hospitality and consideration—
made light of his own services previously rendered,
and, though in faltering accents, declared

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

himself utterly unwilling to transfer the cares of a
sick bed, and that too of a stranger, to the household
of his friendly visiter, and to the great interruption
of its domestic privacy and quiet. The nice
and jealous sensibility of Harry Vernon was busy to
produce this determination; and feelings which he
did not then seek to analyze—which he might not
at that moment have perceived—influenced his declared
resolution when all the obvious reasons of
his mind fought against it. He remembered the
lovely daughter of the defaulter; and when he reflected
that it might become necessary to expose the
crime of the father, he was unwilling to incur the
reproaches—the probable and perhaps well-founded
hostility—of one whose favourable opinion already
grew in his mind the embodied standard of a becoming
excellence. But the reluctance of our hero
warmed the manner of the old man to something
like persuasiveness—he urged many good reasons
why the patient should consent—denied the inconvenience
and annoyance—spoke of his own little
household comforts, and to sum up all in brief, assured
him that his consent alone would make easy
the minds of himself and family, since the necessity
under which they laboured of attending to some
pressing interests had compelled them to leave their
preserver on a previous occasion, with a seeming
indifference to his condition which might well expose
them to the charge of coldness and ingratitude.
The objections of Vernon gradually vanished
when he heard from the lips of the father that such
was the argument of his daughter by which he had
been moved to the offer; and it needed but the reasseveration
of Dr. Saunders that the removal was
full of promised benefit and might promote his more
speedy restoration, to induce his full consent to the
arrangement. Behold our hero then fairly

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

admitted as a guest in the dwelling of the man whom
he pursued as a fugitive.

Two days only had passed since Mr. Wilson and
his family had become occupants of the same household.
They had pursued their way to this secluded
and lovely spot, with direct steps, from the moment
when they left the hospitable dwelling of the rigid
Methodist. They had reached it late in the evening
of the same day, and the night was too far advanced
to enable them to behold the beauties of the
locality. But the cottage, though small, was neat,
and furnished with a larger attention to those things
which are classed under the ordinary term “comforts,”
than was commonly the case in a region so
remote from the demands of fashionable society.
Virginia Wilson beheld on all sides those little
items, in the shape of carpet, chimney ornament,
piano and guitar, which, if they do not of themselves
secure the happiness of life, at least contribute somewhat
to its good humour and content. But the circumstance
which chiefly satisfied her on the night
of their arrival, was the improved temper and
cheerfulness of her father. While on the road he
had exhibited a degree of querulousness and impatience
which she had never perceived in him before
the commencement of their present journey; and
this temper was coupled with an air of precipitance
and apprehension—a seeming distrust of all he met—
a shrinking that looked like fear from all he encountered—
which filled her own mind with apprehension,
and made her at moments doubtful whether
there was not something like mental alienation in
him,—a suggestion of her fear which alone seemed
sufficient to account for a course of conduct
and manner, such as he had never shown to her
before. These had worn away in great degree
from the first moment after they had set their feet

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

on their new threshold. The natural cheerfulness
of the father seemed restored. He spoke soothingly
and tenderly as if desirous to compensate his children
for what they had been made to suffer in their
journey; and the fond, pliant hearts of both responded
to his cares, and grew glad in the return of those
smiles of the parent which are the sweetest sunshine
to the devoted and dutiful child.

“Virginia, Louisa, my dear children,” he exclaimed,
folding them in his arms as soon as the
first cares and excitements of their arrival were
over, and when they remained alone together in
their little parlour—“we have reached our restingplace
at last—henceforth, my dear children, this is
to be your home. Lucchesa is one of the loveliest
spots in Mississippi, and I have chosen one of the
sweetest spots that surround Lucchesa. Here, Virginia,
your rambles will be unimpeded and always
beautiful; the woods are thick and various, and
filled with the sweetest flowers; and you may now
pursue your study of botany with more perfect selfapprobation,
since you will find abundant varieties
of subjects to justify your love. And you, Louisa—
what will you say to these little hills when you shall
see them? They will seem to your eyes, which
have never seen any but the dead flats of the low
country, to be little less than mountains. Your
feet will tire to ascend them at first, but after a little
while, you will grow wild as a kid in your rambles—
there will be no keeping you in.”

“But, father,” said the child, drawing closer to the
old man—“the woods are so wild and strange
they frighten me—there's a strange noise among
the big pines, and when I walk among them I hear
sounds that seem like the voices of spirits.”

“It is the wind, my child, that shakes the trees,
and murmurs when it presses against them as if

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

vexed at being arrested. You will grow used to
that, until you learn to like it, as I doubt not your
sister does already. What say you, Virginia?”

A melancholy, spiritual smile, which passed over
the lips and lightened in the eyes of the elder maiden
for an instant, was his sufficient answer, and the
father proceeded.

“Our cottage is not one of the best in Lucchesa,
but it was the best that I could buy. We will improve
it as we can. You will see in the daylight
that it lies on the side of a little depression that we
low country people may almost call a valley. It is
so low that you can only see it from the top of the
hills; and the houses of Lucchesa can scarcely be
seen at all from the top of ours. We have a little
garden, Louisa, and you shall tend the flowers,
while I raise the squashes and the potatoes and the
cucumbers. Our gallery (piazza) runs round three
sides of the house, the north only excepted; and
though we lie in the valley, we have a sweet and
extended prospect of hill-slopes on every side. The
woods seem naturally to open into vistas, and these
I will improve, until the cottage shall be the centre,
from which an hundred avenues of sight shall diverge,
and into which they shall gather from every
point of the compass. But enough of plans for to-night.
Louisa, your eyes grow heavy in spite of all
I can tell you. Kiss me, my child, and then find
out your chamber.”

The child, drowsy, but still striving to be attentive,
did as she was bidden. The elder sister was left
alone with her father, whose mood grew less cheerful
with the absence of the child, and whose manner
became far less easy. For a few moments a silence
that was painful to both succeeded her departure.
Mr. Wilson rose from his seat and paced the room
with emotions that were evidently oppressive. Twice,

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

thrice, did his step falter and seem about to pause as
he passed before his daughter, who, with head leaning
upon her palm, seemed oppressed with emotions
also, which, if not so exciting, were, perhaps,
scarcely less oppressive than his. At length, as if
overcoming a strong reluctance, the father stopped
beside her, drew a chair, and taking her hand in his,
addressed her as follows:

“Virginia, my dear child, you have said nothing.”

“Father, what should I say—what would you
have me say?” replied the daughter, the cloudy sadness
deepening on her lovely countenance.

“That you repine not—that you are satisfied—
that you are happy. See you not, my child, that
the same paternal love which has striven so much
to make you happy before, has spared nothing here
within the compass of the country's resources to
supply what you may have left behind?”

“But wherefore are they left behind, my father?
Wherefore have we left the home where the same
pleasures, if you call them such, were already ours?
Was there nothing in the old home to endear us to
it—was it not endeared to us by the happy life we
had lived in it—was it not endeared to us by the
very death of her—that beloved mother—who
made so much of the happiness we have lost—
whose loss made so much dearer to us the little we
had left?”

“And was it not good reason that we should fly,
my daughter, from a dwelling where we had known
that loss?”

“Alas, my father, it could not have been for that
reason that you left our home—our home which
death itself had seemed to sanctify. Years have
passed since that cruel hour of parting, and the pang
had passed away in the bitter memory of joys felt
without a pang, and the assuring hope which was so

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

cheering to us all, that she who suffered was now
sainted beyond suffering. Oh, no! dearest father,
my heart will not hear this reason—my mind cannot
receive it. There must be another cause, and that
cause, my father, is one which it doubly grieves me
to believe, has made whiter than ever the hair upon
your forehead.”

“Virginia, my child, why will you press me thus?”
cried the father, striding hastily along the floor with
his hands clasped above his eyes, as if to shut from
sight the mournful and inquiring expression of her
countenance.

“Because I am a child no longer,” was her reply,
as, darting from her seat, she rushed towards him,
and, catching one of his hands in both of hers, sunk
upon her knees with a passionate manner which well
accompanied the earnest and emphatic language
which she employed, and which, while clinging to
him, she continued to pour forth. “Because I am a
child no longer—I am a woman grown—I can both
think and feel. I can surely understand the sorrows
that I still must share, and if I understand, my father,
may I not help to relieve them? Were my dear mother
living, I should look to her for the truth, when
sorrow troubled and danger followed your footsteps;
but in her absence I must take her place, and I implore—
nay, I claim it as my right, my father—to
know what grief, what threatening danger has driven
us to this wilderness, where the forests are yet almost
as wild as at their birth; where we have no
society, and where we see no friends.”

“And can it be for the absence of society—nay,
can it be even for the loss of friends, when her father
and her sister are still left her—that I hear these questions—
that I witness this affliction of my daughter?”
was the answer—an answer, the burden of which
did not represent the real conviction in the father's

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

mind, but which enabled him to evade the more
searching inquiries which the first portion of her
speech had conveyed.

“No!” she exclaimed, rising to her feet, “as
heaven is my help and hope, dear father, I answer
`No!' It is not the little circle which I have left,
nor the few friends for whom I had sympathy and
attachment, that gives me cause of sorrow, however
their loss may at moments occasion feelings of regret;
nor is the wilderness into which we have wandered
so uncongenial to my tastes and habits as to
provoke inquietude and annoyance. I think not of
these in the conviction that you are unhappy—that
a secret cause of dread and danger hangs about you
which makes you so often heedless of my love and
indifferent to my endearments. Nay, shake not your
head, my father—that smile does not deceive me.
You require me to be happy, to be at ease, and find
satisfaction and pleasure in the dwelling which you
have found in Lucchesa, and the comforts which
your customary care has gathered about us. I answer
you that I will, so soon as I find that you derive
pleasure and content from the same sources. Let
me see you at ease, and you shall find me so; but
while your brow is clouded—while your air and
movements denote a secret apprehension of evil, I
cannot but share the cloud upon your brow, and my
apprehensions grow only the greater because I can
neither see nor guard against the coming of the
danger which you fear. Let me know all, my
father. Give me the knowledge of this mystery—
for there is mystery—and rely upon me to soothe
your sorrows, though I may not avert their cause.
Rely upon me to share those griefs with satisfaction
which now bring me nothing but terror and
despondency.”

“You know not what you ask, my child!” cried

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

the father, hoarsely. “What if I should answer?
What if, foolishly persuaded by your entreaties, I
should reveal the cause of my sorrow—nay, to
silence you at once, what if my revelations brought
you shame along with sorrow? Ha! do you shrink—
do you tremble?—Would you still hear—Virginia,
would you still listen to a narration of guilt, which
would make your sorrow less endurable? Speak!
shall I now relate what you have been so curious to
hear?”

“Guilt!” exclaimed the daughter, with feeble accents
and a shrinking, sinking pain. “No! no! It
cannot be—there is no guilt—there can be no shame.
These are cruel words, my father; do not again speak
them, I implore you—forgive me, forgive me—but
you were so serious just now, when you spoke, that
I almost believed you. Tell me your afflictions,
but tell me not that there is guilt and shame, which,
indeed, I well know there cannot be.”

“Enough! Press me no further, Virginia,” continued
the father, recovering his calmness in some
degree, and, with some effort, smoothing the excited
expression of those features, which, almost convulsed
a moment before, had nearly convinced his daughter
of the truth of the general confession he had made.
“I trust that you will never know that guilt or shame
could be coupled with your father's memory and
image—”

“And yet, my father, this change of name.” She
spoke with tremulous accents, and a renewal of that
look of shrinking apprehensiveness which denoted
the bewildered state of her judgment, warring with
her feelings and desires; unwilling to believe aught
that could degrade or lessen the worth of one whom
she was no less bound to venerate than willing to
love, and yet the mystery of whose conduct left her

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

utterly doubtful in which direction to incline her
faith.

“Policy, my daughter, need have no association
with either guilt or shame,” replied the father, evasively,
and by a general remark, to which there
could be no exception as such. “When I tell you,”
he continued, “that the assumption of another name
is necessary to my present interests, you are not to
imply any thing dishonourable or unworthy in the
change. There are motives which justify—there
are reasons which make it necessary.”

“Ah, my father, but there are no reasons which
should make you deny your confidence to your
daughter,” was the prompt reply. She, at once,
seized upon the true and only point at issue between
them, which she urged with as great a degree of
earnestness as became the relationship between
them. “I believe you that there are motives which
require you to do this; but, surely, my dear father,
you can neither deny my interest in a knowledge of
these motives, nor my prudence in reserving them
from exposure as carefully as yourself. Give to my
love, dear father, that reliance which it has evermore
given to you.”

“You ask too much, Virginia; you are yet but a
child to me. There are many things which are
neither becoming nor necessary for a woman to
know—which, indeed, she could not know—could
not understand. It is enough that this is one of them—
let me hear no more of this.”

“Father!”

“Nay, my child, I mean not to be stern—I would
not be angry—but this is a point upon which you
are too earnest—too much disposed to insist—of
which you speak too frequently.”

“It is only because it is a constant thought, my
father—a painful thought—a doubt—a fear.”

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

“Let it be so no longer, my child. Do you not
see that I have grown cheerful since I have reached
Lucchesa? You do not see me apprehensive now
that we are in a place of safety.”

“Safety!” was the natural exclamation. “And was
the danger then so near us?”

“Nay, how can you ask, Virginia, when but three
days ago we all lay at the mercy of a gang of
robbers?”

A deep sigh escaped from the lips of the serious
maiden, but she said nothing. She saw that her
father strove to deceive her, and she forbore any farther
reference to a topic which he was so anxious to
exclude, even at the expense of truth. He saw her
conjecture and sickened as he did so; but he could
say little or nothing to remove it; and conscious of
his feebleness in this respect, and in the inadequacy
of any art or argument, short of a frank confession,
to do away with her apprehensions, he resorted to
the humbler policy of seeking to divert her mind
by reference to other objects. With a general
knowledge of the feminine nature, in certain minor
respects, such as their love for petty pleasures, he
strove to engage her mind in such matters as might
amuse rather than employ it. But in this, he soon
perceived, from the quiet indifference of her answers,
that he must fail; and, tired of his task, and dissatisfied
with himself, he forebore all farther effort, and
the lateness of the hour soon furnished a sufficient
reason for their separation for the evening.

Virginia Wilson retired to her couch, but sleep
was slow to visit her that night. Her heart was too
much filled with the mysterious circumstances which
hung around her father—her mind too much troubled
with the apprehensions which had harassed
him for several preceding weeks—to suffer the
velvet-footed deity to approach her without warning,

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

and to obtain facile possession, at an early hour, of
his accustomed dominion. The night waned slowly,
while a thousand thoughts and conjectures, chasing
each other with as much rapidity, if not with as
many startling transitions, as the images that flit
over the magic glass of the wizard, made her mind
a populous world, where all was commotion and
much was strife. She thought, with unspeakable
anguish, of the reserve of her father on those circumstances,
evidently momentous, which had troubled
him, and still troubled him, though, under their
terrors, he had sought safety in a region still wild,
and still the abode of so much that was barbarous.
What were those circumstances?—and had he indeed
found the safety which he admitted had been the
object of his aim? These were questions that did
not cease to afflict her, because she lacked all means
for their solution. She could only hope and pray—
she could only resolve to assume a cheerfulness
which she could not feel, and to drive from her mind,
by the acquisition of an early interest in the strange
world to which she had been brought, that more
grateful region to which she had been accustomed.
This was, perhaps, the least of the mental difficulties
in the way of Virginia Wilson. Hers was one
of those commanding intellects that depend little
upon the mere externals of society for their comforts
and enjoyments—that make place and fortune
subordinate considerations in an estimate of life's
resources and rewards; and require peace of mind
and confidence of heart in their own, and the purity
of those with whom their lot is cast, rather than the
praise of men or the plenty and profusion, which, to
so large a portion of mankind, constitute the “be
all” and the “end all” of existence. The wilderness
had no terrors, but many charms; and to one who has

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

seen quite as much of the superficial worthlessness
and empty vanity of society, as of its harmony and
grace, it was no difficult matter to find a charm in
solitude which more than atoned for the fleeting
pleasures she had lost. Under the care of such a
mind as hers, and surveyed through the medium of
such sweet affections as ministered around the altars
of her unselfish heart, the wilderness could soon be
made to blossom as the rose. But the dread of that
nameless danger which followed the footsteps of
her only living parent, haunted her thoughts with a
continual presence. She estimated the powers of
this danger from the terrors which had possessed
her father's mind, and the very failure of conjecture
to answer the doubts of her constant inquiry,
was of itself a source of wo, which made her
misery the greater. Still, it had never possessed
her mind until the evening of her arrival in Lucchesa,
and until the occurrence of that conversation
with her father, a portion of which is briefly reported
above, that there could be any shame or disgrace
in connexion with the necessity which had
driven him from his home. It will be remembered
with what earnestness and pleading anguish she had
exclaimed against the brief and passing suggestion
of her father, that guilt and shame were coupled
with his sorrows. This hint—though afterwards
evaded and denied by Mr. Wilson, when he beheld
the effects upon his child, to whom he did not dare
communicate the truth—yet took possession of her
mind, when the silence and secrecy of her chamber
left her at liberty to re-examine the subject;
and when she recurred to the secret and precautionary
measures which her father had taken
for his flight from Orleans—the indirectness of his
course—the change of name—the constant

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

apprehensions which harassed him, making him as imbecile
in resolution as they made him acute in observation—
her fears, faint and shadowy at first,
grew into distinctness, and acquired new bulk and
body with every additional moment of reflection.
She could now, and for the first time, readily conceive
the motive for flight and fear, for that startling
terror which at moments enfeebled his limbs and
covered him with tremors—which made his voice
sound hollow in his throat—which made his eye
shrink to encounter even the fond and affectionate
gaze of hers; and which, in the dialogue already
briefly given, had moved him to those few but incoherent
expressions, convulsively uttered, which
could only have found their way to the lips of one
labouring under insanity or guilt. That he was not
insane she knew,—that he was guilty, the fear was
rapidly growing into a faith within her mind. But
of what was he guilty? Strange to say, the difficulty
became as great as ever when she reached
this stage of conjecture, or conviction; and, after a
vain effort, by a reconsideration of all the subjects
attending his movements from Orleans, to arrive at
such hypotheses of the particular crime for which
he fled, as would seem reasonable to her thought,
she gave up the effort in sheer exhaustion, not without
a lurking dread that, in a moment of passion, he
might have stricken some enemy to the ground, and
forfeited his own life in atonement for that of his
fellow. Not for a single instant did she fancy that
he had been faithless to his public trust—that he had
incurred the scorn of all good men through a miserable
appetite for gold. Still, though dismissing, as
well as she might, the distresses of her father's
situation from her thoughts, she found it difficult to
win the slumbers that she wooed. Her mind had

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

been too much excited by events and scenes which
were new to the even and unbroken currents of her
ordinary existence, to sink into quiet and leave her
to repose; and the new world in which she found
herself, and the circumstances, some of them exciting
and startling enough, which had occurred
on their journey, called for brief review. Some of
these were like a dream—the flitting shadow of a
disordered image, such as gathers before the eye
of a drowsy fancy, and fills the mind with conflicting
impressions. Yet there was one image
that lay at the bottom of all others—which rose
last to her survey, and lingered long after all the
rest had departed—which was neither indistinct
nor imperfect—which stood proudly and nobly before
the eye of her imagination, and on the pure
tablets of her memory—alone, unmixed with any
other form or fancy—a controlling, commanding,
imperial presence. This was the image of Vernon.
She saw him once more as, bounding from the
wood, he rushed forward without fear to the rescue
of her father. She heard the clear, silvery
accents of his voice, sweet, though stern, as he
shouted to his companion to follow, and to the
robbers as he pursued. She beheld the grace of
all his movements, as, bending in the saddle, he
passed the carriage at full speed in chase of the
assailants, though already wounded; and a sudden
tremor was renewed at her heart, as she remembered
his faint accents when he returned, and when,
sinking down before her in the road, he lay unconscious
until they reached the dwelling of the Methodist,
a noble specimen of manly grace and
beauty. Not a single feature that her eye scanned
at that moment, but rose to her memory with the
distinctness of life; and, with a sentiment of

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

fluttering pleasure at her heart, strangely mingled up
with that sadness which is ever the companion
of devoted love, she continued to muse upon the
events connected with his presence, until thought
subsided into sleep, and her dreams renewed, under
various aspects of pain and pleasure, the images
and events which she had been last reviewing.

CHAPTER IV.

“More particulars must justify my knowledge.”
Cymbeline.

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

Virginia rose the next morning with better spirits.
Her “bosom's lord” sat somewhat lightlier upon its
throne. Sleep had refreshed and strengthened her,
and those dreams, those sweet, vague, twilight fancies
that came so commended to her heart by their
association with its own, as yet, unexpressed desires,
had given a warmer glow to her cheek than
it wore on the preceding evening. How soon youth
relieves itself from the pressure and weight of most
afflictions—with what elasticity it springs from the
earth, and shakes off the dew and the despondency,
and laughs aloud in the consciousness of a new
birth, as it prepares, like the swift arising sun, to set
forth on the glorious race of life. Sorrow to the
young is only one of those shadows that momentarily
cloud its skies. Wait but the morrow—nay,
wait but a single hour,—and the cloud has passed
away, the sun resumes his empire of light and
laughter and universal dominion; the stars sing out
a fresher song of rejoicing at the coming of the
moon-browed night; and the recollection of storm
passes away from the reviving spirit with the succeeding
glories of every changing moment. True

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

though it be, that memory may preserve the pain—
nay, the pain itself may still lurk within the heart,—
and yet, it is as a memory only—there is no
venom in the wound. The pure of heart sooner
than any other, relieve themselves from the heavier
pressure of their burdens. Like Christian in Bunyan,
every additional step, advancing up the hills of virtue,
diminishes the weight of that bundle which the
best of us are still compelled to carry.

The cheerfulness of the maiden was increased as
she found an improvement in her father's mood and
bearing. He had resumed the old smiles which he
was accustomed to wear in those more palmy days
of the heart to all parties, when fortune smiled upon
his household, and indiscretion had not as yet prepared
the way for guilt. The gloomy humours,
which had made contact with him for the last few
weeks unpleasant, even to a daughter so dutiful as
Virginia, were seemingly all dissipated; and before
breakfast was well over, the resumption of old aspects
in the little family, gradually had the effect of
softening what was strange, and providing what
was deficient, in their place of forest retreat. The
cares of the new household—the work of order—
occupied the morning, and employment is a choice
morality, as it promotes content. The furniture was
to be arranged; the pictures to be hung; the curtains
raised; the carpets laid, and a thousand little
matters to be attended to, which employed all parties,
and prevented that brooding gnawing thought,
which is quite as frequently the growth of the body's
idleness as of the mind's activity. Then, there was
the little garden to be looked at, and plans were to
be hit upon for disposing of its solid squares, and
cutting into angles, crescents, stars and circles, its
dead and uniform levels. To survey the little farm
in its whole extent, was the business of an hour, and

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

dinner time approached with a rapidity which was
unaccountable to all. After dinner the carriage
was prepared for a drive about the environs of Lucchesa,
and in a better mood for appreciating the
beauty of rural objects than she had been for weeks
before, Virginia took her seat in the airy vehicle,
from which the travelling top had been removed,
and prepared, with the more easily delighted Louisa,
to see all the charms of scenery of which her father's
taste and previous knowledge of the region,
made him a very able cicerone.

We have already afforded to the reader a brief
and passing glimpse of Lucchesa, on the approach
of Vernon to that lovely village. It will not surely
be supposed necessary that we should endeavour to
dilate upon this portion of our labours: since, with a
few small and partial exceptions, most country villages
have the same general outlines. Yet, as we
have said before, Lucchesa was a village among a
thousand, and stood almost alone in many respects
among most of the little villages of Mississippi. The
general aspects of a social settlement in countries
purely agricultural, are seldom very pleasing. The
proprietors of the land are better pleased to centre
around themselves, on their own plantations, their
resources and attractions. These persons seldom
dwell in communities, and villages are, accordingly,
with few exceptions, given up to such only as ply
the arts of trade, and subserve, in some central spot,
the wants and wishes of a populous surrounding
country. As this surrounding country is thickly or
sparsely settled,—as it is rich or poor—will be the
moral and social characteristics of the village which
looks to it for support. The occupants are usually
such as need has driven. They are not often natives
of the neighbourhood for which they toil; and until
very lately, but few tradesmen were known in the

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

southern country, who did not “hail from” New
England or New York. The exceptions to this general
rule were, perhaps, the blacksmith or the
wheelwright. The Yankee adventurer is seldom a
labourer. He is a trader, a tavernkeeper, a tailor,
a pedler—he will do any thing that will enable him
to avoid those heavier toils that call for great muscular
activity and power. He is a jobber, a contriver,
a calculator, an inventor—one of that cunning
class, which, like the fox, takes good care
always to employ another's fingers to draw his nuts
out of the fire.

It demanded brief time for our party to see the
whole extent of the little settlement; and this done,
as the afternoon was only half spent, the ride was
prolonged by a short ramble in the neighbouring
country. They had but a little while returned from
this ride before they were apprised by a talkative
African, who was employed as a sort of gardener,
of the events which had taken place at the tavern—
the arrest of Vernon—his supposed attempt to
escape, and the injuries which he received from the
officers in consequence. The tale did not lose in
the usual exaggerations, nor was it quite so briefly
narrated as it appears in this passage. It might be
easy for us to let Cudjo speak for himself, as it is
so favourite a custom with so many of our authors
to make the negro a conspicuous actor in their
scenes; and we see no good reason why a negro
who speaks better English, and wears breeches,
should not be quite as decent a personage in a modern
novel, as a naked Highlander. Besides, Cudjo
was an actor, and his animated gestures and fitting
action might be a very good lesson to many of
more pretension and a less imposing colour, who
have greater rights and make more use of them to
the great annoyance of deliberative assemblies. He

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

commenced his story with a serious bluster; something
like the manner of a northwester in its first
approaches. The restraints, self-imposed upon his
manner at first, were only intended to heighten the
Kean-like outbreaks toward the close. He was,
according to the prevailing rules among the stagestricken
heroes, simply reserving his powers for the
fifth act—and when he reached the part where he
proceeded to show the conflict between Vernon and
the officers—when he described their joint rush upon
him and the descending blow of the Irishman's shillelah—
he did it with such terrific truth, that Virginia
screamed aloud, and Mr. Wilson, grasping the
arm of the negro, demanded to know if the youth
was killed. But to this question he could obtain no
satisfactory answer. Cudjo knew, indeed, well
enough, but like a prudent narrator, he drew the
curtain over the scene at that point when the doubt
was most oppressive. He knew no more—he would
tell no more—but confined himself, when more particularly
examined, to simple reiterations of the part
into which he had studiously thrown his greatest
powers; and the renewal of which no persuasion
could move him to forego. He knew his strong
ground, and was resolved to make the most of it;
the more particularly when he found that he had
acquired, as well from the burden of his story as
from his manner of telling it, a fearful interest in the
eyes of his young mistress. The agitation and
alarm of Virginia Wilson were great, but natural
enough; and while her father stood looking with
equal surprise and indecision upon the reiterated
gestures of the slave which were made to supply
those breaks in his story where his language was
imperfect or incomprehensible, she clasped his arm,
motioned his dismissal of the negro, and proceeded,
though trembling with emotions of no ordinary

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

character, to remind him of the duties which lay before
him.

“You must seek this gentleman, my father. He
has saved us in a moment of great danger, at the
peril of his own life. You can only atone for the
seeming indifference with which you left him, sick
and wounded at Mr. Badger's, by attending to him
now.”

“How attending to him, Virginia? I am no
doctor.”

“Oh, sir!—O, my father!”

“Yes—I don't see, Virginia, what we are to do.”

“Oh, sir, but you cannot help seeing. He is at
this tavern—you know not in what condition. If he
be seriously hurt you must provide the physician,
and bring him to your house.”

“What, here, my child?”

“Yes, sir, here. What can the sick man expect
of comfort in a public tavern—in one where he can
have no attendance?”

“And what attendance can he have here, Virginia,
more than from a physician?”

“Your attendance—mine—Louisa's—the attendance
of a private family having more comforts at
command, and acknowledging a debt of gratitude to
this youth, whose weakness, and sickness, and injuries
may all arise from the very part which he took
in our rescue. He is charged with murder, and
what murder can it be but that of the man whom he
killed in preserving us? It is your duty to preserve,
and to succour, and to defend him. Your evidence,
alone, may save him from the punishment of that
deed, for the justification of which no one can offer
better proof than yourself. Go to him, my father,
bring him to your own house, and see to his injuries.
Our utmost pains will scarcely acquit us of the deep

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

debt of gratitude we owe him, and for which we
could not even before bestow our thanks.”

We have seen the result of this interview between
the reluctant father, and the resolute and well-minded
daughter. She gained her object, though not without
finding considerable difficulty in the coldness and
the fears of the conscious criminal. The very name
of a sheriff's officer distressed him—the idea of absolute
personal contact with them filled him with apprehensions,
and when Virginia suggested the probable
importance of his testimony in the youth's
defence, the image of the keen-eyed magistrate
looking into his own secret soul, re-awakened the
terrors which beset him on his flight. But the
maiden's mind was too firmly impressed with the
conviction of what was due by her father for himself
and his children to the daring stranger, and she
was too happy, even in spite of the youth's sufferings,
that the chance was afforded them to remove
the impression from his mind, that they—perhaps, if
the truth were properly written, it would read she—
had been ungrateful, in so speedily flying from one
who had done them such good service, without
speaking their acknowledgments—may, without
ministering to those hurts which he had suffered in
their defence. And yet, when her father had departed
on his mission of humanity, her heart began
to tremble with some new misgivings. Had she not
been too urgent in this business—had she not over-stepped
the nice boundaries of maidenly modesty in
pressing for the admission of this young man into
her father's dwelling? Might not the tavern be as
good as any other place for his recovery—as full of
aids and comforts? And, again, what if he were
not a gentleman? A man might be brave and
generous enough to risk his own life for the succour
of a stranger, yet lack all those more estimable

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

points of character, which would entitle him to the
freedom of a family—to an entrée into its sacred
retreats—to a seat beside its hearth—to the ministering
cares of its daughters. But such was not the
case with Vernon. Her convictions fought earnestly
against this suggestion. Her arguments were such
as, naturally enough, rise uppermost in the mind of
the young, the beautiful, the amiable, and true. He
was himself young, and his face, distinguished by
the clear skin and features of a nice symmetry,
wore an expression too unequivocally noble and
manly, even while his eyes were closed in the
swooning fit which had overcome him during their
brief ride to the house of Badger, to suffer her to
suppose him wanting in those advantages of birth,
education, and a proper taste and character, with
which her hoping fancy had already endowed him.
He, too, must be true and amiable, and with this
satisfactory conclusion to her thoughts and doubts,
it was still surprising to herself why her heart should
so flutter and beat, when she listened to her father's
narrative after his return, and when she knew that
the youth was already an inmate of the house.

But the agitation of her heart passed away when
she was informed of his condition—when she learned
that his hurts rendered it necessary that he should be
kept in a state of the utmost quiet, lest the delirium
which had already shown itself partially in his words
and actions, should be increased to an extent which
might baffle the powers of medicine. It was then
that she became the woman—that she threw off the
enfeebling apprehensions and fancies of the girl, and
following her father to the chamber of the patient
prepared to assist in the labours of the nurse.

The position in which Virginia found herself was
an intoxicating one. The strong man whose gallantry
had saved her father and herself, lay before

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

her, an unconscious dependent. To her feeble
strength and whispered will, he could oppose
neither strength nor will. She could look upon his
pale face and the subdued and silent features, without
challenging a returning glance. She could hear
the feeble moan and incoherent sentence that fell from
his lips and without being startled by a single consciousness
of the exquisite delicacy of her own position.
While he lay helpless and delirious, her emotions
were all of that serene order which belong to
the undisturbed performance of a single duty. There
was nothing to alarm her sensibilities—nothing to
make her look too narrowly into the propriety of
her position, or the seeming tenderness of that regard
which she persuaded herself, was the due of
gratitude—of humanity—any thing, in short, but the
ministrations of love. The affections of women are
usually unselfish. They love the more profoundly
the more they serve. Their love grows with their
labours—with their toil for the beloved—and, the
idea of all injustice or oppression excluded, their
passion is proportionately increased by their cares.
To be allowed to serve, is with them to love the object
of their devotion. It is for man to show himself
grateful for the service; this, perhaps, in the warmth
of their devoted homage, is the utmost that they ask.
Yet, even when this acknowledgment is withheld,
the greater number of them will still continue the
service. The service itself, to the dependent spirit,
is a joy; and they will ask little more than the vine
that only prays the privilege to be suffered to cling
around the tree. Perhaps the heart of the woman
who has once loved, will only cease to love when it
is denied to cling and to entwine itself. Even
when there is no returning caress, the sufferance of
love will still be a sweet privilege to the very dependent
spirit. How many are there who enjoy no

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

more than this—how many more are there who
merit, much more than man, that unceasing homage
which they are only suffered to bestow!

It might have been that Virginia Wilson would
have soon forgotten Vernon, had they not a second
time encountered. Love is not a thing of first sight,
though first impressions, confirmed by a subsequent
knowledge of the object, will very commonly ripen
into love. However favourable had been the impressions
made upon Virginia by the appearance of
the handsome stranger, changing scenes, objects,
and circumstances, must soon have erased them, or
subdued the vivid colours in which they were first
made. But the cares of tendance upon the sick-bed
of the youth—the deep and difficult respiration of
his breast, labouring under the fever which assailed
him—his languid but incoherent utterance—the occasional
moan and whisper which escaped his lips, and
those broken words which had a meaning she would
have given worlds to understand—these were all
circumstances which, as they denoted his dependance
upon her, increased her interest in him; and no
hours were more sweet during the time of his illness
than those in which she was suffered to watch beside
his couch. But the crisis was soon over—a
few days effected a favourable change—the returning
consciousness of the patient, in freeing her from
her attendance, deprived her of the sweet privilege
which his situation had afforded; and the languid
eyes of Vernon looked round him vainly and impatiently
for that lovely countenance of which he had
some sweet and partial glimpses in the intervals of
his disease. In place of these he encountered no
forms more interesting than those of Mr. Wilson, or
the little Louisa, or the sturdy Alabamian, or the
more wily Saxon, the outlaw—both of these last
being necessarily admitted to visit at the house of

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

Wilson, as friends of the invalid. As Vernon grew
better, his anxieties at his situation were renewed
He felt the difficulties in crease of declaring his true
character, as the agent of justice, to his hospitable
entertainer; and the annoying character of this feeling
was not a little heightened as he looked upon the
bewitching grace, and encountered the timid glances
of his lovely daughter. There was another circumstance
that also afflicted him. He could not mistake
the interest with which the keen eyes of Saxon
followed the movements of Virginia Wilson; nor
suppress the involuntary pang with which he listened
to the language of the outlaw, subdued, conciliatory,
yet free and graceful, which he held with her. Saxon,
too, sometimes enjoyed a privilege, which, in his
feeble state, was necessarily denied to him. He
could attend her in those afternoon walks, when the
sun, sinking behind the forests, left only a few glimmering
tokens of his light to soften the scene, and
beguile the musing and melancholy spirit into groves,
which, shady, sweet, and solitary, seemed more than
all other scenes beside, to harmonize kindred spirits,
and bring them into a more near communion with
each other. Vernon, he knew not why himself,
felt uneasy at these rambles. Not that they were
frequent. Had he been a just as well as a close observer,
he would have discovered that, on those evenings
when Saxon returned with the maiden from her
walk, she always came back at a much earlier hour,
and her reserve was no less obvious than the obtrusive
attention of her companion. Could he have
been permitted a glance at them in their rambles, he
would have been as much struck with the cold courtesy
of her tones in replying to her companion, and
the evident unwillingness which she displayed to receive
those thousand little attentions which are so
apt, where the parties incline to each other, to

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

sweeten the dull ramble, and shorten the prolonged
paths of the forest. But Vernon already watched all
things with eyes readily disposed to see them
through a false medium, and a spirit that conjectured
the worst of all things which it is not permitted
to see. His inability to share in the rambles of the
maiden necessarily increased his apprehensions of
the more fortunate person who happened to be her
companion; and his distrust of the outlaw, which
had been a sort of instinct, making him reluctant to
assimilate with that person from the first, was now
heightened to a feeling of positive dislike, as he contemplated
the superior advantages which he possessed,
and dreaded the events which might spring
out of them. Assuming that the attentions of Saxon
were as grateful to Virginia as they seemed imposing
in his own eyes, he suffered his annoyance to show
itself, sometimes, in a cold glance and colder speech
to the maiden herself, at moments when the jealous
fit was particularly active in his bosom; and it was
only by a strong and resolute exercise of that manly
sense, which was the prevailing characteristic of his
mind, that he could see, and seek to repair by an
immediate change of deportment, the brutality of
which he felt himself guilty. On such occasions her
eyes would sink to the floor—her voice, which had
urged its inquiry in a tremulous tone that might have
conveyed a grateful meaning to the heart of any
lover, not blinded and made obtuse by other and
perverse feelings, would become silent; and she
would seize an early opportunity to retire from the
eyes of all, and in the solitude of her chamber pore
over those mysterious emotions which oppressed
her, without remedy; and wonder at the excitement
in her heart, for which she felt unable to account.
Why had the words of Vernon such power over
her? Why did she shrink from his gentler glances

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

—why did she suffer at his cold ones? Why was
it such a pleasure to hear that voice, the sounds of
which yet made her tremble? It was not long before
circumstances provided her with a reply.

Meanwhile, Vernon improved hourly, and the
attendance of the physician ceased to be necessary.
The hour was approaching when the officers of the
law would claim their prisoner, though this conviction
was productive of more disquietude in his mind
because of the pleasant communion which it was
destined to disturb, than because of any danger in
which his arrest promised to involve him. That he
should be seriously made to answer for the death of
Horsey, he did not suffer himself to think for an instant;
yet, he did not, because of his confidence in
himself, neglect those duties, the performance of
which arose out of his present situation. He prepared
letters to his friend and patron, Carter, giving
a succinct detail of his wanderings and adventures,
up to the very moment of his writing, omitting no
event which might be held worthy of communication,
excepting such details as belonged to the conferences
which he had had with Badger and Rawlins
on the subject of the banded robbers of the
country. On this head he deemed it prudent to
forbear all remark in a letter which was to be entrusted
to the ordinary post; particularly, indeed,
as Carter was not greatly interested in any such
matters. With respect to the fate of Horsey, he
related all that had reached him and all that he
knew—detailed the chief particulars of their dialogues
where they threw any light upon the purposes
or course of that erratic youth, described the
circumstances under which they parted, and, after
relating the affair of young Mabry, and the assault of
the latter upon himself, suggested a surmise—which
he would yet have willingly foreborne—that this

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

young man himself might have been the murderer;
for the probabilities strongly inclined to this opinion.
“I know,” he continued—“I know, my dear sir, that
you will not need my solemn assurance,—which I
yet make—that my hands are utterly guiltless of
this young man's death. I trust to make this appear
in my examination before the justice, and I
am scarcely less anxious that you should do your
best to convince his worthy old parents to the same
effect. Next to the pain of this most humiliating
situation in which I find myself, is the deep sorrow
which I should ever feel at incurring, however unjustly,
the suspicions of the good people whose kindness
to me was not the less grateful to my heart, because
it was comparatively unimportant to my interests.
I must pray you then to spare no effort, by
an array of all the favourable facts which you possess,
and a careful display of those arguments which
you understand as well as myself, and which conclusively
establish the folly and impolicy of such a
deed, to acquit me, in their eyes, of the cruel imputation.
I write,” he continued, “from the house of
William Maitland, himself, with whose family I
have been an inmate for the last five days. I am
in part indebted to his hospitable care for my improved
health and recovery from my hurts. As yet
he knows nothing of me, of my connexion with you,
or of my objects. My developement of the latter, in
such a manner as to effect your generous intentions
towards his children—both of whom are females—
and to escape the reproach of requiting good with
evil, shall be my study between this and the period,
when, in compliance with the demands of the officers
of justice, I shall be compelled to leave him.
My position is one of considerable delicacy, and
my course, therefore, must be the result of a calm
and serious consideration.”

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

Such was a portion of the elaborate letter which
Vernon prepared for the persual of his guardian.
Could it be imputed as insincerity, or an improper
suppression of necessary particulars, that the writer
said not a word more on the subject of those children
of Ellen Taylor, in whom Carter had such a prevailing
interest and to whom he was disposed to exhibit
a degree of generosity no less novel than extreme?
Vernon's own conscience smote him for the suppression
of particulars which he knew must interest
his patron to know; but he strove in vain to overcome
a reluctance, the sources of which he was unwilling
to examine.

He was yet writing, when he heard the fall of a
light footstep passing through the gallery. He knew
the step—and he hurried to the window with a
movement, which, in his feeble state, it required
some effort to make. His eyes followed the slowly
moving form—the form of perfect symmetry—the
movement of perfect grace. Her course lay through
the garden to the shrouding woods beyond it. This
was her accustomed walk. He forgot himself while
he gazed—his thoughts were steeped in the dews of
a most elysian fancy—his worship was oblivious of
all other objects than the one of its adoration. On
a sudden she looked behind her—she looked upward—
their eyes encountered, and then she fled—
fled even as the young fawn, that, wandering forth
from the forest for a single instant, and for the first
time—in that single instant, encounters the glance
of the hunter.

CHAPTER V.

“Well, perform it,
The law is satisfied: they can but die.”
The Old Law.

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

A new spirit rose in his bosom as he beheld this
movement. “Why should I not pursue?” was the
involuntary self-inquiry of his mind. He grew
stronger as he proposed it. The stiffness of his
wounded limb seemed to lessen, and grasping the
staff with which he had been wont to hobble across
his chamber in the last two days, he moved forward
with a degree of rapidity that was scarcely justified
by prudence. Unseen, he passed through the gallery,
descended the steps, followed the lightly-beaten footpath
which he had seen her take around the garden,
and was soon hidden in the same forests which yet
concealed her from his sight. A new thought entered
his mind at this moment. A keen pang of jealousy
thrilled through his heart. “What if I intrude
upon a sacred privacy? Goes she not to meet this
smiling fellow—this Saxon—this pleasing wordmonger?
Walk they not together daily? Wherefore
should I approach them?” Had the question
been answered by his reason merely, he would most
probably have returned to the dwelling without farther
search. But he remembered the backward

[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

glance which she gave him—her sudden flight, and
that memory, which answered nothing and told nothing,
had yet a signification of more effect upon his
heart than all the arguments of his mind to his understanding.
He went forward, and she had neither fled
so far nor so fast, but that he was able to overtake
her. She sat upon a fallen pine—one that the hurricane
had but lately wrested from its foundation, the
foliage yet green upon its branches. The long
leaves hung around, and half-shrouded her from his
sight. Him she saw not, but remained in her sitting
posture, unconscious of his approach, until he was
within a few paces of her. Then she started to her
feet—then he beheld that face—those eyes once
more turned upon him, and he fancied they had
been glistening with tears. But this might have
been a fancy only—what need had she to weep?
He saw no tears, and dismissed the suspicion from his
mind; but he could not doubt that her cheeks were
more pale than usual, and the languid brightness of
her eyes—their dewy softness—could not be mistaken.
There were certainly some keen sensibilities
at work within her bosom. He was moved instinctively
by this conviction—he felt that there were
some weaknesses in his own, but he strove to silence
and put down that ever ready consciousness which
is so apt, in every young man's bosom, to convert
into his special divinity the first passable damsel
whom he sees. Vernon was a youth of calm, good
sense, and he was determined to keep his emotions of
blood and fancy from having their own way. He
assumed a lightness and gayety of tone when he
addressed her, which called for an effort. He took
her hand, re-conducted her to her seat, and placed
himself beside her while he spoke.

“Give me joy, Miss Wilson, that I am at last able
to find out your favourite walks. I caught a glimpse

[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]

of you from the window, and grew strong to pursue,
as I beheld the ease of your flight. I have long
envied you these walks,—let me make you my acknowledgments,
since it is, perhaps, owing to your
friendly cares that I am so soon able to enjoy them.”

“Not to mine—not to mine,” was her hasty reply.
“I have done but little, Mr. Vernon—I am
very happy that any thing that we could do should
have been agreeable to one to whom we owe so
much. You—”

“Ah! you would remind me of a happy moment—
but you need not; I am too proud of having
served you, however slightly, to forget my own
good deeds. I may not boast of them, but I need
no help to persuade me to remember them; they will
always form a part of that pleasant chronicle, Miss
Wilson, which the heart makes of its fortunate
events. I shall set them all down together with the
five days enjoyed in your cottage.”

“Enjoyed, Mr. Vernon?” was the smiling question.
“Endured, you mean.”

“No, enjoyed,” was the answer. “The pain of
the illness is soon forgotten in the cares of the nurse;
and the kindness which has soothed is always a
pleasure to be remembered, even when the pain is
forgotten. Let me say, then, how sweet to me is
the obligation of gratitude which I feel to you and
yours, for the pleasant cares which have ministered
to my feebleness and need.”

“Do not speak of it, Mr. Vernon. My father
has only done his duty. But for you, we know not
what might have happened to us. You saved us at
the hazard of your life, and what we have done
called for no hazard.”

“But much trouble—much annoyance—”

“No, no! Mr. Vernon—it was a pleasure, sir—
to—”

[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]

She paused—the jealousy of a nice maiden delicacy
became apprehensive that her gratitude might
express itself too warmly. Gratitude she knew was
justified, but that had its own language, and the caution
was only a proper one, lest she might employ for
its expression the language of a warmer sentiment.
Perhaps Vernon detected something of this consciousness,
for he put his hand upon hers with a
gentle effort to detain it in his grasp, as he said,
hurriedly—

“Speak, Miss Wilson—go on.”

She withdrew her hand—the flush was renewed
upon her face, but she said nothing. A moment followed
of awkward silence to them both, which was
only broken by a strong and decided effort on the
part of Vernon. His lively manner had utterly departed
in the first few moments of their interview,
and it was with a gravity natural on many accounts
to his situation that he renewed the conversation.

“Next,” he said, “to my acknowledgments for
your hospitality and kindness, Miss Wilson, is the
desire which I feel to place myself in a right point
of view before you. I would seek to assure and
convince you that your kindness has not been bestowed
upon a criminal, though I have no proof beyond
my own asseveration, by which to convince
you that I am utterly guiltless of this murder which
is laid to my charge.”

“Oh, think not, Mr. Vernon, that we believe—
that we can believe this foolish charge—I am sure—
I know that it is groundless.”

“On my honour, you do me only justice. The
shedding of blood—the taking of life—is an offence
against humanity from which my soul would shrink,
unless in a case of absolute necessity. The only
deed of the kind of which I have ever been guilty
is one that took place almost in your sight, and was

[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]

strictly justifiable from the circumstances preceding
it.”

“Yes—yes!” faltered the maiden, with a shudder.

“The young man for whose death I have been
summoned to answer, was one of whom I knew but
little—nothing unfavourable—but on the contrary,
much which commanded my indulgence and regard.
I had neither quarrel to maintain against him, nor
interest to pursue; and my own objects, Miss Wilson,
were of a nature which made me particularly
desirous to avoid all strife and difficulty with any
and every body. That I have not been able to
avoid them, is due rather to my evil fortune than my
desire. I know nothing of the grounds upon which
this charge has been made against me, or of the parties
making it, but I trust soon, Miss Wilson, to
satisfy the judge of that innocence which you have
so kindly declared yourself willing to believe.”

“Oh, sir, we know—we hope it will be so. I am
sure there can be no doubt of it. My father says
he is certain you will be released, and Mr. Jamison
told me but yesterday that you no more committed
the crime than he did, and he will soon enough convince
the justice to that effect. He is very friendly
to you, sir, that Mr. Jamison.”

“A good fellow—a strange fellow, whom I never
saw before the evening of my arrival at Lucchesa;
but, like the frank men of our western forests generally,
he carries his heart in one hand and his weapon
in the other, always and equally ready whether for
friend or foe. I hope he may not be too sanguine in
this matter—I rely rather upon my own consciousness
of innocence than upon any knowledge of the
facts with which I am acquainted. I know nothing
of the circumstances upon which the accusation is
based.”

“Nor does he, I imagine; at least, he could tell

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

father nothing, who was very anxious to know. His
convictions in your favour seemed to arise from his
prepossessions; you are fortunate, Mr. Vernon, in
finding friends so readily—perhaps that fact alone
may be considered a presumption in your defence.”

“I am afraid it would go but a little way to my
acquittal; but then it can be nothing but a presumption
against me, and a presumption, unsupported
by strong circumstances, can do me little harm.
And yet, Miss Wilson, there is something in your
opinion which carries to my mind a hope scarce less
grateful than would be the assurance of my easy
escape from this cruel imputation.”

“What is that, sir?” she asked, innocently. The
question would have been left unspoken had she
looked up in his face when she replied, and beheld
the increasing brightness and piercing regard, contained
in his glance.

“That you found nothing strange or wonderful—
nothing unnatural or unexpected—in the supposed
facility with which I have secured the favouring
prepossessions of others. May I hope that he who
has won the friendship of the rude countryman, will
not be thought too presuming if he fancies that he
has also not vainly striven for that of the city maiden?
Your friendship, Miss Wilson, would be that
of beauty and youth, and education—taste without
artifice—opinion without rudeness, and intellectual
strength mingled with grace and sentiment. May
I hope for these—may I dream, in the vanity of a
too sanguine spirit, that in finding these qualities in
you, and estimating them at their true value when
found, I have not prayed in vain for the acquisition
of your regards. Your friendship—”

He paused—the sentence remained unfinished,
though its purport was no less clear to her mind
than it was in the mind of him who yet withheld its

[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]

utterance. It may be added, that she felt how much
more grateful it was, left unspoken, than if it had
been concluded. Vernon himself felt that it could
not be concluded as it then stood. It was too cold
a projected termination to matter that was naturally
rising into warmth, and a manner already warm
and beginning to be impassioned. He wisely stopped
short—short where he was—and she breathed less
freely under the pressure of a sentiment which was
strangely sweet, though almost suffocating. And
he—the glow upon his cheek made itself felt—the
tremors at his heart grew almost to a murmur like
the swift dropping of distant falling rain. Was it,
indeed, friendship that he solicited from the favouring
estimate of Virginia Wilson? At that moment
neither of them thought of friendship,—they thought
of any thing beside. The sympathy was of a
stronger sort which was stirring in the bosom of the
two, and it found its proper utterance at last.

But let us abridge the scene. Love passages are
rarely of interest to third parties; and either glide
into the bright fantastics, such as glow in the ethereal
world and season of a Romeo, or become, in
the measured economy of the modern calculator, a
question of portion, pin-money and proper establishment.
In either case, the reader or speculator yawns
in weariness or disgust, and is satisfied with those
results which tend to a final dismissal of all the parties.
We might hope—we certainly should pray—
for a better interest with these. Vernon was no
lovesick fantastic, though warmed by a temperament
never subdued, not always measured, and
sometimes endowed with no limited tongue for utterance;
but his passions were perhaps more governable
than those of most young men, and he had
gone through a long course of severe self-study, by
which they had not only been regulated to a certain

[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]

movement, but his reason had also been advanced
to a certain supremacy. This self-acquired power
kept his utterance within the bounds of good taste
and propriety—his love was that of the man and
the gentleman—his passions were those of civilization.
He had learned to know that blood frequently
presumes in the language of affection, and becomes
obtrusive because of a selfishness which it disguises
by another name,—he also knew that the first lesson
which true love has ever taught, is one of humility—
but that humility which is always allied to hope. Love
is the religion of the passions, and its zeal, though
warm and fiery, is still that of one officiating at high
altars, where the first sign of the advent of the god
is shown by the submission of the worshipper. By
gradual transitions—by the one mystic key-note—
the look, the word, which, here and there, suggests
the stages by which two hearts, having the same
journey to take, are gradually brought together—an
interest grew up in the breast of each, leading to a just
comprehension of the other; and ere the one spoke,
the other felt. Vernon, to his own surprise, discovered
that he had won a heart long before he ever
dreamed of looking for one; and Virginia Wilson—
certainly, until she met with our hero, she had never
thought it worth while to take any care of that, which
she now discovered it to be so seriously sweet a
business to surrender.

Though we have denied ourselves the pleasure of
beholding the love scene and hearkening to the love
dialogue between the parties, there was another
who, “squat like a toad” in the cover of the neighbouring
foliage, had no such scruples as restrain us.
He heard and witnessed all. This was the outlaw
Saxon. He had followed their footsteps, and had
penetrated to a spot which would enable him to arrive
at a knowledge as vexing to his spirit as was

[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]

the manner degrading by which it was obtained.
He heard, with ill-suppressed fury, the whispered
word, half doubt, half tenderness—he saw the
smile which trembled in the eye it lightened—the
gentle meeting of those mingling hands, which,
under Love's slightest pressure, become instincts
themselves and of the most sensitive character;—
and no less new than bitter was the pang that went
through his own breast, as he beheld the happiness
he envied. He had only of late grown conscious
of a passion such as he had never felt before. He
had sought Virginia Wilson daily from the first
hour that her presence had shone upon his sight;
and under the pretence of an interest in his wounded
fellow-traveller, he had obtained access to her dwelling
with the purpose of pressing those attentions by
which he hoped to secure an interest in her heart.
He had joined her in her daily walks—was not
without that easy dialogue and graceful manner
which are of all things most essential to success
with women; and had striven with his best powers
to commend himself to her regards. Yet she had
shrunk from his pursuit; had discouraged the intimacy
at which he aimed—had responded coldly
to his conversation, and shown herself more than
commonly obtuse whenever he had striven to be
more than commonly intelligible. Yet, here was
one, who, almost without his own consciousness—
certainly, without design—had succeeded in that
which had tasked his utmost ability under the guidance
of a settled purpose and a deliberate scheme.
The mortification of his pride increased the pang of
his disappointment, and the vindictive determination
with which he had before regarded Vernon, now
assumed a deeper character in his mind.

“It is well,” was his thought, as he surveyed
the pair—“but the hour of vengeance is at hand.

[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]

You would bind the outlaw, Harry Vernon! We
shall see. Artful, and strong, and sagacious, as you
think yourself, you are in the toils. Deceived by
one traitor, Clement Foster will scarcely suffer himself,
hand and foot, to be manacled by another.
Pliant once, he is now unyielding; and by all that
is sacred in the love of the saint and the fear of the
sinner, you shall pay the penalty of your presumption
by your life. You would hunt the bear in his
native brake, beware of his embrace.”

He left the place of his concealment with a stealthy
step, and without disturbing the lovers, who were
now but too much absorbed with one another to
have senses for the rustling branches, or the slight
motion of a gliding form among the leaves. He
proceeded to the tavern with all the impatience of
hate and summoned his confederates, who played
the part of the officers of justice. To them he issued
his commands, and described the place in
which the lovers were still to be found.

“Seek him there,” said the vindictive outlaw;
“and seize on him at once. Give him no indulgence—
drag him away, though you find him in her arms.
Hear none of his promises—hearken to none of her
entreaties. The scoundrel is a spy upon us—another
Hurdis; and he deserves no mercy at our hands.
Away! you know the place.”

He saw them depart in the same instant, and
waited with malicious impatience, the result of his
previous mandate. The lovers meanwhile had prepared
to return to the cottage. They were already
on their way—the hand of the maiden in that of
Vernon's; her eyes cast upon the ground as she
listened to those accents so dear to the young heart—
those idle words and whispers, which, though
they sound sillily enough in the ears of third persons,
seem to the initiate more precious than manna in

[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]

the wilderness. At this moment they were encountered
by the ruffians who stood suddenly in the path
before them. Virginia shrunk back in alarm, while
a faint scream issued from her lips.

“How now, fellows! What mean you?” demanded
Vernon, who did not at first recognise
them.

“Fellows! indeed!” said one. “We'll see who's
the better fellow when Judge Nawls sets eyes upon
us. That's for being civil to you, I suppose, and
letting you off when we had you. But there's an
end to that. You must go along with us.”

“Along with you! Who are you?”

“Oh, you've no memory of us. I shouldn't be
surprised if you've forgot yourself too. You're not
Mr. Harry Vernon, that killed one Thomas Horsey,
and we aint the men that 'Squire Nawls sent to catch
you. Come, come, young 'un, that's not doing the
thing handsomely—that's not keeping to your promise.
You must go along with us at once, so drop the
young lady's arm, and here's our'n. It aint quite so
soft a one, it's true, but, by the hokey, it's better able
to help you, and then you know, need must when the
devil drives—so no grumbling.”

The action of the ruffian corresponded with his
words. His hand was already extended toward the
collar of Vernon's coat, when, stepping back a pace,
the indignant youth lifted his staff with a promptness
and determination which drove the fellow back much
faster than he had advanced. In another instant,
however, a calmer mood filled the mind of Vernon.

“This is all idle. I certainly do not mean to resist
these men—I have no reason to fear the magistrate.”
Such were his thoughts as he turned to Virginia.

“Miss Wilson, forgive me. I am giving you a
needless alarm. These are the officers of justice,
and seeing me well enough to travel, they naturally

[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]

enough seek to perform their duty. Will you proceed
to the house?—I will follow you. I would speak
with them awhile.”

He led her forward until they had passed the officers,
then left her to proceed alone while he returned
to them.

“Gentlemen, I will be ready to go with you in an
hour;—I will but return to the dwelling of Mr. Wilson,
and at the end of that time will meet you at
the tavern.”

“Twont do, my boy,” was the answer, “you're
too ready with your stick to be trusted. You must
go with us now. We can't trust you out of our
sight.”

The youth would have expostulated, but while he
spoke one of the ruffians threw himself upon him,
bore him to the earth, and, in spite of all his assurances
that he would quietly accompany them, proceeded
to bind his arms with a cord which the providence
of Saxon had procured for the purpose, and
which the assistance of his companion enabled him
to use in spite of the angry but feeble resistance of
the prisoner. When bound, they lifted him to his
feet, and placing themselves, one on each hand, commanded
him to move forward in the direction of the
tavern. He did so with as much quietness of temper
as he could command under the reasonable anger
which naturally followed the provocation. He tried
to convince himself that they were doing nothing
more than their duty—that they had yielded him all
reasonable indulgence; and were bound, as soon as
they discovered his ability to travel, to secure his
person against the chances of escape. But the sedative
effect of his own reasonings was very partial.
He still could not resist the wish that his arms were
once more free, and his staff once more in his hands.
“My staff should make ye skip,” thought he, in the

[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]

language of the “Ancient Mariner.” But he overcame
a desire which he felt to be no less idle than
hopeless, and tried to obtain his remedy in another
way. “A civil answer turneth away wrath,” and
he had long known that a civil tongue will carry a
man unscotched through the whole western country.
Assuming the men beside him to be no other than
what they professed to be, he determined to reason
with them as persons who could have no motive for
refusing any indulgence to a prisoner which was not
inconsistent with the security of their trust.

“You are unnecessarily hard with me, men,” he
said quietly. “You can have no reason for thinking
I would run away, since, if such had been my desire,
I could have been off at daylight, and none had
been the wiser. Why then would you make an enemy
of a man who can be your friend—who is willing
to reward you? Suffer me to go back to the
dwelling of Mr. Wilson for an hour only. You, in
the meantime, can watch the dwelling on all sides.
My horse is at the tavern—you can secure him, and
without a horse I cannot fly very far. I wish but to
make my acknowledgments to the family which has
treated me with so much kindness.”

“You ought t' have done all that before, my lark—
there's no time for you now. So set forward. I
tell you there's no trusting you. You clipped me
over my noddle already, the first day I set hands on
you, and my jaw isn't quite smooth yet; and you
forget, just a bit ago, you'd have tried it again with
that stout hickory that helped you forward. Twice
warned is enough for me—I don't risk a third scuffle
with any man if I can help it. So, look you, give
but a single flirt again, and here's into you.”

The fellow showed a monstrous bowie-knife as
he spoke these words, and by his reckless expression
of countenance, suited to his bold and unfeeling

[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]

language, Vernon readily believed that his better
policy was to obey quietly. He went forward, and
encountered the hardy Alabamian, Jamison, who
was just about setting out for Wilson's, on his customary
afternoon visit to his friend. Saxon was
nowhere to be seen. Nothing could exceed the
rage of the Alabamian, as he witnessed the degrading
situation in which his friend stood. He
was at once for fighting the officers, and nothing
but the most earnest appeals from Vernon kept him
from violence. One thing, however, he was resolved
to do, and in this particular our hero was
satisfied he should have his own way—that was
to cut the cords which bound the arms of the prisoner.
He drew his knife for the purpose, and was
advancing, when the constables both opposed him
with like weapons. But he was not to be intimidated
by this show of valour.

“There's two of you,” he said, “but I count myself
good for three, at least, such slender chaps as
you; so here goes at your kidneys, and one drive
of my six pounder will let more sins out of your
carcasses than all the saints could ever put in virtues.”

With an earnestness which left nothing to conjecture,
the stout-hearted Alabamian, wielding his
knife in air,—a huge, bright instrument, with a
back-bone like that of a butcher's cleaver, so heavy
that its own weight, if falling, must have made its
wounds deadly—prepared to rush forward upon
the constables. But these worthies were not willing
to wait for such an encounter. Receding from
their posts, they clamoured to the bystanders for
protection, crying out a “rescue”—a “rescue.”
Without heeding their clamour, or suffering any
thing to divert him from his purpose until it was finished,
Jamison cut the cords of the prisoner, and

[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]

seizing the moment when the officers were most noisy
and most remote, he whispered in his ear—

“Be off now, Harry Vernon—there's my own
horse hitched close beside you, and I'll keep off the
rascals while you're mounting. Show 'em clean
heels, and I'll be after you with your own nag, and
will join you at Buzzard Roost in two hours. They're
afraid of me, the niggers, and you see I aint afraid
of them. D—n 'em, I don't mind half-a-dozen of
them, fair front and no dodging. So go ahead, my
boy, and leave the scatteration to me. You're too
weak to fight now, so there's no reason or right to
expect it of you.”

The Alabamian was astounded when Vernon
thanked him, but declared he had no purpose of the
kind.

“I am innocent of the charge, Mr. Jamison, and
do not fear to meet it.”

“Oh, well! That's right enough; but guilty or
innocent, you see, Harry, when they're for putting
ropes on a freeman, that's a time to be off, or to fight
with tiger's tusk. I'm all grinders after that, and a
ridge saw that works along the middle.”

Meanwhile the clamours of the constables were
gathering a crowd about them.

“He has cut the prisoner loose—the man that
murdered Tom Horsey—help!—seize!—catch the
murderer,” &c.

“Shut up, you yelping pugnose!” cried the indignant
Alabamian, “and none of your d—d lies about
a business you can't understand. Look you, men,
they had the gentleman corded up as if he had been
a panther of the wilderness—roped his hands behind
him,—and he just out of a sick bed, and making no
resistance, and telling them all the while he was
ready to go along with 'em. It's only they're sich
blasted cowards, afraid of a sick man—afraid of

[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]

any man. Dang my buttons, I'm almost ashamed I
didn't borrow a pen-knife to do the business. This
bowie-blade is a'most too big for such etarnal small
souls as they've got.”

“You hear him confess he drew his knife upon
us?” said one of the officers to the crowd.

“Ay,” said Jamison, “and how it scared the niggers
white when they saw it.”

“He rescued the prisoner from us.”

“A lie, nigger—he's at your service—he says it
himself—so bring out his horse; and I'll tell you
another thing—I'm at your service too. I'll ride along
with you and see fair play, and if you've got any
thing to say agin Dick Jamison, let it out as loud as
you please when you stand before the judge.”

The scene ended with the quiet departure of Vernon,
accompanied by his friend Jamison, under the
enforced escort of the officers.

CHAPTER VI. Caliban.

Lo, how he mocks me! wilt thou let him, my lord?

[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]

Having now fairly lodged Vernon for the murder
of Horsey, it is high time that we should retrace our
steps and look into the progress of the latter important
personage. Though somewhat baffled in his
hope of having a companion, in a kindred spirit, to
the end of his journey, the stage-struck hero was not
without his consolation in the moment of the parting
from his friend. He was on his way to the scene
of action—another day would bring him to the place
where the wandering tribe was to be found, for
whose communion he panted even as the hart panteth
after the water brooks; and visions of theatric
glory began to gather on his eyes. With that restlessness
of imagination which betrayed itself in
every thing which he said and did, he was already
fancying himself in the midst of such difficulties,
arising from bad management and the laboured rivalry
of inferior persons, as were really grateful to
a man of his temperament. His cogitations, which
broke forth at moments into rabid soliloquy, were
most generally of this description. Now he laughed
at the idea of Jim Tilton and Hugh Peters, and the
ridiculous figures which they must cut as Brutus

[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]

and Julius Cæsar; at the next moment, he was soliciting
their applause for some new reading with
which he contemplated to astound the natives and
improve Shakspeare. Anon he went back to the
cottage of Yarbers, and his visions, then, were of
Mary Stinson as the most perfect Juliet that ever
stimulated the best capacities of a Montague; and
as that fancy worked in his mind, his voice grew
more emphatic, and a spectator in the bushes might
have been no less surprised than amused to have
heard and seen him as he rode, declaiming at the
full pitch of his lungs to Juliet in the balcony, and
at moments, in the earnestness of his action, almost
flinging himself from the ungainly and venerable
steed of his sire, whose neck he sometimes embraced,
by a very natural error of his imagination which
confounded it with the form of Juliet, or Mary Stinson
rather, who, in such moments, seemed brought
immediately within his reach. In this manner, with
a mind far away, in a province utterly foreign to
that through which his only half-conscious person
travelled, he went forward without interruption, and
was only brought back to the actual condition of
things around him when he reached the river, and
the grim Charon of that stygian stream, leading his
horse through bog and sluice, contrived, with some
difficulty and after no little delay, to place the two
fairly in his boat. Some time was consumed in
conveying him across, for the river swamp, in the
day of which we write, was one of the most interminable
intricacies that ever distressed a good steed
or vexed an impatient traveller. But the delay did
not so much affect the actor. He soon made a companion
of the boatman—a simple, stupid fellow, who
scarcely comprehended five of all the words that
were said to him, and answered none. But Horsey
needed no answer—his only object was an auditor,

[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]

and he was sufficiently satisfied, if suffered to talk
on without stint or limit, though the hearer made
no response to any of the questions which he asked.
These were neither few nor unimportant; but as the
actor did not wait for an answer, why should we?
He was soon, comparatively speaking, set across
the river; but the thousand hollows of the swamp,
filled with the waters of a recent freshet, were
around his path, leaving it at moments doubtful in
what direction he should pursue his way. But Tom
Horsey was not the man to suffer himself to be bewildered
long. His mind soon ran off in the direction
of his desires, and looking rather to the end of
his journey than to his course, he gave himself not
much concern about the way which led to it. After
a few moments of reluctant attention, in which it
seemed to his eyes that all his efforts only led his
hobbling horse from one sluice into another, he soon
forgot every thing but the one subject most at his
heart; and if his allegiance wavered for an instant,
it was, perhaps, in regard to an exception which
might be considered, indeed, only an auxiliar to the
other—namely, the person of Mary Stinson, and
she as Juliet. With a mind thus directed, he had
no attention to bestow upon the external world
around him, and did not seem to heed, or be conscious
of the fact, that the day was approaching to
its close—and that so far from nearing the cottage
where he proposed to spend the night; he had, in
fact, utterly departed from every thing like a road,
his horse slowly toiling forward through Indian footpaths
that deepened occasionally into the cart or
wagon width, but only at places where the presence
of bog or creek suggested the best of reasons why
they should do so, and not because they had ever
been employed by any such vehicles. But, utterly
absorbed in his own speculations, none of these signs

[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]

were perceptible to the actor, and night would have
come upon and caught him in the swamp before he
would have been conscious of his predicament; but
for the sudden appearance upon his path of one,
whose wild and uncouth exterior and abrupt entree,
were of too startling a character to pass without regard.
The stranger was a chunky little imp, not
more than four feet high; wearing a bunch upon his
shoulder, which at first glance, suggested to Horsey
the idea of a native born Richard. His arms were
long like those of an ape; his ears of corresponding
dimensions; his lips, pursed into a point like two
bits of shrivelled coonskin, were covered with a
thick furze, not unlike that of the hair upon the same
animal; and with a short pug-like nose, and little,
quick, staring gray eyes, that peeped out from under
a shaggy white pent house of hair—he presented altogether
the most comical appearance that could be
imagined, and one that would have made the fortune
of a cunning showman in any of the Atlantic
cities. His legs, though short, were strangely bowed—
indeed, the extreme curve which they described
was one cause of their shortness. He might have
risen to five fair feet, could they have been smoothed
out symmetrically. As he went forward, which he
did with a readiness that occasioned surprise in the
spectator, the bow of the advanced leg would completely
overlap the other, so that he would seem, to the
passing glance, in possession of one only. His garb
contributed something to his comical appearance.
He wore tights, as pantaloons, which showed to a
nicety the attenuated size of the crooked limbs on
which he depended for support. He seemed almost
entirely without flesh. The lower limbs were not
merely short and deformed, but slender to a degree
which made the spectator apprehensive that they
might snap as readily as pipe stems under the swollen

[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]

and dropsical bulk of body which they carried. But
this show was deceptive. The urchin had an elasticity
of muscle, a capacity of stretch and endurance
in his sinews, and a share of positive strength in his
excessive breadth of shoulders, which made him
little inferior in conflict to most ordinary men; and
in speed he could have outwinded the best. A little
jacket of green bombasin, made on a plan quite as
narrow and contracted as the breeches, rendered
the hump singularly conspicuous upon his shoulders;
and by contracting these somewhat too closely,
served to throw the long and apish arms out from
the body in such a manner as greatly to increase
the similitude between the owner and the ungainly
animal to which we have likened him. A coonskin
cap, set rather jauntily on his cocoanut-shaped head,
and tied under his chin with a green riband, completed
this parody on man, who, leaping suddenly
out of a green bush in the middle of a mud puddle,
that lay beside the path, proved a more startling
object of terror to the horse of the actor, than of
surprise to himself. The animal sunk back on his
haunches with a snort of terror; and, with a greater
show of muscle and spirit than he had deigned to
vouchsafe since he had begun the journey from
Raymond, he was for wheeling about in good earnest,
and making fleeter back tracks than he had
ever made before. But that Horsey was a born
rider, like every other western man, he had been
soused for a season in any one of the hundred miry
habitations of frog, hog and alligator, which so
thickly garnished the low territory around him.
Meanwhile the little urchin stood upright, or as
nearly upright as he could, in the narrow pathway,
never making the slightest movement to budge or
assist the rider, but grinning with a smile of satisfaction
at every wheel and flirt of the still frightened

[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]

animal, which promised to fling his rider into the
ditch. The unassisted efforts of Horsey, however,
managed to evade these attempts, and at length,
finally succeeded in subduing the spirit—no difficult
task—even if he did not so soon quiet the terrors of
“old dot-and-go-one.” Shaking his finger at the
dwarf as he forced the horse forward, the actor exclaimed
with a degree of good nature, which probably
arose from the consciousness that his good
horsemanship had not been without a spectator,—
and which, had he not been the conqueror in the
strife, would not have been so apparent—

“Ah, you comical little fellow! How you scared
my horse!”

“And you too, if the truth was known, Mr.,”
was the unhesitating reply of the urchin. “I'm a
man mighty apt to scare people that's not used to
me.”

“Gad! there's reason in what you say!” exclaimed
the actor. “But look you, my pretty little
Jack of Clubs, suppose I had been a sour-tempered
fellow instead of what I am, what would I be doing
at this time, and what sort of speech would you be
making? Wouldn't I be using a hickory upon your
shoulders, my lad, for scaring my horse, and—”

“His rider!” The urchin finished the sentence
after his own fashion. “Ha! ha! ha!” The woods
rang with his yelling laughter—a peal more
strange and unnatural than any thing in his shape.
“Ha! ha! ha! Mr. Traveller—more easy said
than done. If the thing were tried, it might be your
shoulders and my hickory; and if you think otherwise,
why, you can only begin the business as soon
as you please.”

“Say you so, you little apology for a man—you
little cock-a-doodle-doo—I'm almost tempted to try
odds with you for the fun of it, for riding by one's

[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]

self makes one rather dull, and the fun that turns
up by the roadside is always apt to be the funniest.
Wait a bit, then, till I can cut a hickory.”

And the actor made a show of dismounting as he
spoke.

“Boo! boo!” cried the little urchin with a yell,
as, leaping from the path, he ran along a fallen
tree, slippery with mire, that rose out of the ooze
of the swamp and stretched away into a canebrake,
in the midst of whose tops the dwarf squatted himself
down, and grinned, and laughed, and pointed
with his finger at the assailant, confident that he
could not so easily be approached by an unpractised
footman, and secure of a second means of
flight, in the branches of a tupola hanging above
him into which a customary leap would easily carry
him.

“Ah! ha!” exclaimed Horsey, “there you are;
and you think yourself safe, do you, but what do
you think of that, my little mannikin, eh?”

He pointed a pistol upward as he spoke, but the
derisive laugh of the dwarf mocked this exhibition,
as he in turn produced from his breast a like weapon,
the dimensions of which would have swallowed
up those of his assailant.

“Ha! ha! and what do you think of that?” said
the urchin. “It's snout for snout—and the advantage
is all o' my side as yet.”

“How do you make that out, you pretty little deformity?”
demanded the actor, in good-natured accents,
amused rather than annoyed by the readiness
of the urchin.

“Well, it's easy enough, and you might see for
yourself,” replied the other; “I'm rather the littlest
man of the two, but I have the biggest pistol—
you're the biggest man with the littlest pistol. Aint
my chance the best to hit, you big fellow—aint it

[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]

now? Suppose we try—that's the best way to come
at it—you may bang away first, for all the good it's
going to do you.”

“Come down, you small specimen of humanity—
you youngest son of the little old gentleman in black,”
said the actor, with a hearty good humour that satisfied
the dwarf there was nothing more to fear. “Come
down, you queer little coxcomb, and let's hear all
about you. You are certainly the strangest sniggering
little scamp, that I've seen in all my travels.
You'd make a most superb fellow on the stage—a
witch in Macbeth—no!—'Gad, maybe you're one of
us already.”

“Maybe I am, maybe I'm not!” said the dwarf
with a grin as he descended. “Who are you—can
you bite?”

“Bite!”

“Yes, bite—have you got teeth to bite, or are you
nothing but a barking dog?”

“Teeth to bite—barking dog!—why you talk as
queerly as you look, my little Richard.”

“Richard! Why, who told you my name?”

“What! your name is Richard then?”

“Yes, with a pair of scales to the end of it—you
couldn't guess that, I reckon?”

“No! I don't know what you mean.”

“I'll tell you—my name is Richard Stillyards, or
Dick Stillyards—sometimes they call me Dick Still,
and sometimes Dick Yards, and then it's only when
I'm in the humour that I answer them. I always
answer gentlemen when they call me by my right
name.”

This was said with a manner which filled Horsey
with merriment, and would have filled a wiser man
with sadness. The swagger, the solemn strut with
which it was accompanied, and the air of superiority
with which the narrow and protrusive chin was

[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]

perked forward, had in it so much of a rotund selfconceit,
that never was that foible of humanity so
completely be-mocked and be-devilled.

“Why, what is there to laugh at, I wonder?” said
the dwarf, in tones and with a manner of more real
dignity, though with an equally ludicrous effort.

“Hark ye, Stillyards, my dear fellow,” cried the
good-natured Horsey, “let us shake hands. You're
a d—d comical little fellow, Stillyards, and we must
jog on together. I'll make your fortune, Stillyards;
by the powers, you shall grow famous—you shall.
Don't you grin, my boy, I'm telling you nothing but
the truth. You shall grow famous and make your
fortune. You shall be one of us—and I'll undertake
your tuition. By the ghost of David, Stillyards, I'll
find you a dozen characters in Shakspeare alone
which could not be done by any body half so well
as yourself. You have read Shakspeare, Stillyards,
have you not?”

“Read!” said the dwarf, with something like a
sinking of his dignity. “Well, stranger, to say the
truth, reading aint my business, though, I suppose,
I could larn just as soon as any body else. There's
a nigger of Joe Smith's, named Peter—his young
misses taught him to read in a short six months only,
and he can now read write-hand 'most as good as
print. I'm sure if I had any chance, I could larn as
quick as Peter.”

“Devil a doubt, Dicky, that you might, but who's
to learn you, unless you could persuade the same
young lady that taught Peter to give you a few
lessons?”

“Why, didn't you say you'd larn me?” said
Richard Stillyards, with a grin of satisfaction that
caused a considerable encroachment of his mouth
upon the territory usually conceded to cheeks and
ears.

[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]

“To speak and act, you terrapin, and not to read,”
was the reply.

“Look you, stranger, if it's the length of my
teeth you want to know, call me out of my name,” replied
the urchin, with a grave air of offended dignity.
“You're not the first man that's lost flesh between
my jaws for making too free; so it's jist as well you
should know it beforehand. I know I'm a little
smaller than you, and maybe not quite so good-looking,
but that's neither here nor there, and I don't
mind the difference of size no more, when I feel
wolfish, no more than I'd mind a dog-bark in a
seedy night. I axed you a question jist now, and
didn't get an answer.”

“What was that, Mr. Richard Stillyards?” demanded
Horsey, with an air of respectful deference,
exceedingly delighted with the strange monster he
had encountered, and disposed, with a true actor's
fondness for fun, to humour the weakness which betrayed
itself so ludicrously. “What was it, Mr.
Richard?—speak again, and don't imagine for an instant
that I am at all desirous to fill your jaws with
my flesh, as I cannot say with certainty that I have
any to spare—certainly none to spare, unless you
are willing to take it just where I give you leave. I
could give you a bite in one place or in another, and
not miss it, perhaps, but it's likely you'd be choosing
for yourself. Eh?”

The literal manner in which Horsey had chosen
to accept the coarse figurative language which the
urchin had employed was, in western parlance,
“a huckleberry above his persimmon;” and Mr.
Richard Stillyards began to regard his companion
as an animal no less strange to him than he appeared
to Horsey. After a brief space, which he devoted
in silence to a jealous survey of those features,
which, by this time, the actor had schooled into

[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]

inflexibility, he replied, as if satisfied with his examination—

“I was a-thinking at first, stranger, that you was
a-funning with me, but I believe it's only because you
don't know no better. I'm a country gentleman in
these parts, and have company camping out in the
woods, here away, down by the corner of Little
Bend in the Cane Prairie—every fellow's a man
among 'em, all barking dogs—and so I axed you
about your teeth.”

“My teeth?”

“Yes, your teeth,” replied the deformed curiosity;
“aint you got teeth? Can't you bite?”

The actor surveyed him with intentness, and the
result of his examination, as he beheld the bona fide
earnestness in the fellow's face, was to convince him
that Richard Stillyards was an idiot—a conclusion
which, no doubt, has been already reached by the
reader. But let him not be mistaken. Dick was no
idiot, but a cunning owl that hoots with a greater
drawl of melancholy when most meditating mischief.
He had his purposes in the question that seemed so
excessively simple to his companion, and was answered
satisfactorily when he received no answer.

“Dick, my lad, you're a strange fellow. To ask
a man whose teeth have been opening upon you
every moment since we have met, if he has any!”

“Oh, no harm, mister—I don't mean any harm—
to be sure, I see you have got teeth, and I oughtn't
to ask, but it's a way I've got; but you're a-travelling
only?” and here the urchin gave a keen, quick
glance to the corpulent saddle-bags, filled to the brim
with knight, prince, warrior, and tyrant, which hung
from the saddle of the actor. In a second instant
his eye was averted, as he beheld that of the traveller
fixed upon him.

[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]

“Dick, my boy,” said Horsey, “you're a nut for
the devil to crack, for d—me if I can. To be sure
I'm a traveller, just as certainly as I've got teeth;
and now that you remind me, I'd like to know where
I'm travelling, and how far I may be from a place
of lodging?”

“Why, don't you know?”

“Devil a bit.”

“What! you don't know where you're a-travelling?
I reckon you knew when you begun?”

“Why, yes! That I did, but look you, many a
man sets out for the horse and finds the halter. I
started for Benton.”

“Benton?”

“Yes, Benton. How far am I from the house of
one Jenks Glover?”

“Jenks Glover! Why, he's on the lower road—
a matter of sixteen miles to the left of you. You've
got on the wrong track.”

“The devil you say!”

“No! I say the wrong track; it's you that said
`the devil,' three times, or maybe more, and it's no
wonder you lost the road. You must have lost it
after the first jump at the ferry.”

“And it's how far to Benton?”

“Mush! I can't tell you—it's on the other road,
and a smart round about chance to get to it.”

This news confounded our traveller. He shrugged
his shoulders, and looked round him upon the dismal,
dark, and seemingly impenetrable swamp, the pale
cypresses of which shot up sparingly, with the tupola
and the ash, to gigantic heights, interlaced between
with a complete wall of matted canes, briars, and
wild thorny vines, that promised to defy even the
rude pressure of the grisly bear, or his more good-natured
sable brother. The prospect made the actor
shudder.

[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]

“Dick, my boy,” he said, “whose is the nearest
house, and how far?”

“There aint no house on this road, that I knows
of, and nobody.”

“`If that thy speech be sooth!”' the actor began,
after the nature within him; but the dogged stare of
the dwarf warned him that his companion suffered
nothing equivocal, and he resumed in plain English:
“No house, Richard—no house, my dear fellow?—
Why, what am I to do—where am I to sleep to-night?”

A grin diffused itself from ear to ear upon the fellow's
countenance, as he listened to the words and
beheld the visible consternation of the actor. He
seemed disposed to amuse himself at the expense of
the traveller.

“I reckon you aint used to sleeping out of the
dry. You were born, maybe, in a nice house, with
a close roof to it?”

“Ay, to be sure, and in a devilish comfortable bed
too, I reckon; but what then, Dicky, my darling?”

“It's a bad chance you'll have for a dry house
here in Big Black Swamp; there's no better house
than Cane Castle, and it's so large you can't see the
walls, and it's so high you can't see the roof; and if
you aint used to the stars for candles, you'll have to
go to bed in the dark. There's no house near by,
and only one under ten miles, and that's 'Squire
Nawls'—and he's a judge, and don't take in travellers.”

“But he lives on the Benton road.”

“No he don't. I reckon he's on the upper road,
a smart distance from it. As for road—you're in no
road at all here—you're in Big Black Swamp, and
if your nose was long enough, you could smell the
river at a short mile off, on your right. If you was
used to the smell, you could smell it here without

[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]

going much farther. I can, easy enough,”—snuffing,
while he spoke, with consummate complaisance—
“and a mighty sweet smell it has, too, just after the
sun's gone down.”

“You're an amateur, Mr. Richard.”

“No, d—d if I am, and I tell you agin, stranger,
'twont do to call me by any nickname. I'm Mr.
Richard Stillyards, or Dick Stillyards, and I won't
go by any other, so I warn you before danger.”

“Well, Dick, my dear fellow, I'll be civil—the
fact is, I'm in no humour for making enemies. But
tell me where I am to sleep to-night—where shall I
get a bed?”

“I licked Ike Laidler only a month ago, 'cause
he called me a little circumstance,” continued the
deformed.

“And sufficient provocation too,” said the actor;
“but, Mr. Stillyards, the bed—the bed—the house
to sleep in.”

“Well, now, stranger, you're mighty pushing.
Ha'n't I told you there's no house under ten miles—”

“Then you told a whopper, Dick Toady,” cried
a third person, suddenly emerging from the bushes
on the left, and interrupting the dwarf without any
of that scrupulous consideration upon which he was
so much disposed to insist in his conversation with
Horsey. The stranger was a small man, with a narrow
sunburnt face, a hook nose, and lively twinkling
gray eyes, that seemed to cover a world of cunning.
His voice was good-humoured, and at the first sound
of it the dwarf started with an air of dissatisfaction,
which did not seem to justify the free and familiar
manner with which the new-comer had addressed
him.

“How should you tell the gentleman, Toady, that
there's no house nearer than Judge Nawls'?”

“Well, where's any?”

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