RICHARD HURDIS. — CHAPTER I.
Villain, I know thou com'st to murder me.
Marlowe.—Edward the Second.
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Matthew Webber was no trifler. Though represented
by his comrades, as we have seen in a
previous dialogue, as unwilling to shed blood, it may
be added that his unwillingness did not arise from
any scruples of humanity which are always unnecessary
to the profession of the outlaw. He was
governed entirely by a selfish policy, which calmly
deliberated upon its work of evil, and chose that
course which seemed to promise the greatest return
of profit with the greatest security. To avoid
bloodshed was simply to avoid one great agent of
detection. Hence his forbearance. To the moral of
the matter none could have been more thoroughly
indifferent. We beheld him giving instructions to
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an associate the moment that William Carrington
fell by an unknown hand, to pursue the murderer,
not with a view to his punishment, but with a desire
to secure a prompt associate. It was not the wish
of the fraternity of robbers, herding on the Choctaw
frontier, that any body should take up the trade in
that region, of which they desired the monopoly.
When the fellow, thus instructed, had gone, Webber
with his remaining associates at once proceeded to
examine the body, which was lifeless when they
reached it. They wasted no time in idle wonder,
and gave but a single glance at the wound, which
they saw was inflicted by a rifle bullet; then lifting
the inanimate form into the wood, they rifled it of
the large sum of money which Carrington had concealed
in his bosom, and taking it into a little crevice
in the hill-side which could not hide it, they threw
it down indifferently, trusting to the wolves, of
which that neighbourhood had numerous herds, to
remove it in due season. Poor youth! with such a
heart—so noble, so brave—with affections so warm,
and hopes so full of promise, to be shot down in the
sun-light—in the bloom of manhood—by an obscure
ruffian, and be denied a grave!
When they had possessed themselves of the money,
the amount of which gave them no small pleasure,
they put spurs to their horses and rode back
with as great speed as they had used in the
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pursuit. It was necessary that they should do so, and
hasten their flight from the spot where their evil
doings had been begun. My horse had continued
on his course with a speed which had been increased
by his alarm and unrestraint after the fall of his
rider; and Webber saw with no small anxiety that
he was in the direct road to Colonel Grafton's, to
which place he did not doubt that he would return,
having been so lately lodged there. The scoundrels
who were guarding me had, in the mean time, become
greatly disquieted by their apprehensions at
the delay of the pursuers, and not small was their
relief when they saw them safe, and felt themselves
once more secure in their united strength. They
consulted together apart, and frequently pointed to
me where I lay, on my back, and bound rigidly to
an exposed joist of the floor. What had taken place
in the pursuit, they did not reveal in my hearing,
and bitter indeed were my feelings as I lay in this
doubly evil state of incapacity and suspense. The
doubtfulness of my own, was not less a subject of
concern in my mind than was his fate—for my
strongest impression with regard to Carrington was,
that he had escaped in safety to Grafton's. All
then that I had to fear might be the present rage of
my captors. They might sacrifice me before relief
could come. I strove not to think of this—still less
was I willing that the villains should see that I feared
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them—yet, to confess a truth, it required no small
effort to conceal the apprehensions which I could
not subdue, and my success, with all my efforts, was
partial only. They must have beheld the struggle
of my bosom in my face. But of this they seemed
to take no heed. They were too much interested
in their own situation and apprehensions, to give
much regard to mine. They consulted together
earnestly with the air of men who had need of haste
in their resolutions. “We must be off at once,” I
heard Webber say at one time—“there will be no
help for us now if he gets to Grafton's.” This last
sentence brought warmth and assurance to my heart,
I did not now doubt of my friend's safety. “But
this lark?” said Geoffrey—and I saw from the quick
malignant glance which my gambler acquaintance
bestowed upon me when these words were uttered,
that it was of me they spoke. The latter bent forward
to hear the resolve of Webber—whose word
here seemed to be law—with an air of anxiety not
less great than that which I might have shown myself.
The answer of Webber did not seem to satisfy
him.
“What of him?” said the latter. “Shall we
stretch him?” was the farther inquiry of Geoffrey—
an equivocal phrase which I suppose coolly meant
“shall we cut his throat?”
“Pshaw—no!” replied the other. “What's the
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good of it?—let the fellow lie where he is and cool
himself. By to-morrow, somebody will cut his
strings, and help him turn over. He will get hungry
in the mean time, for he didn't eat a hearty dinner—
all his own fault. Come—let us jog.”
Ten minutes had not elapsed when they were all
ready, and I saw them prepare to depart, leaving
me as I lay, bound to the floor by my body
and arms, and capable of moving my legs only.
Webber took leave of me with the composure of one
who has nothing with which to reproach himself.
“Grafton will be here after a while,” said he,
“and set you free. You may tell him I'm sorry,
but it don't suit me to wait for him now. He will
see me, however, at his daughter's marriage. Good
bye.”
The man called Geoffrey said something to me in
a similar spirit; the gambler grinned only upon me
as he passed, but with such an expression of malice
in his visage that, though I did not fear the reptile,
it yet made me shudder to behold him. In a few
moments more I was left alone to muse over my
disconsolate condition. I heard the trampling of
their horses die away in the distance, and such was
the cheerlessness of my situation that I positively
seemed to be chilled by their departure. This,
however, was but the feeling of the moment, and I
was allowed a brief time for its indulgence. To my
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surprise the gambler reappeared when I had thought
him with the rest of his companions full a half
mile off, and the increased malignity embodied and
looking green in his visage, left me little doubts as
to the motive which had made him lag behind. If
I had doubts at the beginning, he did not suffer me
to entertain them long. His words removed them.
“And now,” he said, “my brave fellow, the time
is come for your quittance. You have had the word
of me long enough. You are in my power. What
have you to say for yourself?”
“What should I say?” was my ready and indignant
reply. Truly and miserably did I feel at the
conviction, that I was indeed in the power and
at the mercy of this vile wretch—but if worlds had
depended upon it, I could not have answered him
other than in language of the most unadulterated
scorn.
“Ha! do you not understand me?” he cried.
“Your life, I tell you, is in my power! The only
man in the world who could have kept me from
taking it, is Mat Webber, and he's out of reach and
hearing. It is but a blow, and with all your pride
and insolence I let your blood out upon this floor.
What do you say that I should not?—what prayer
will you make to me that I should spare your life?”
The fellow leaned upon the table which, occupying
the middle of the floor, stood between him and
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the place where I lay. My feet were half under it.
He leaned over it, and shook at me a long knife—
bared, ready for the stroke—in sundry savage
movements. I gave him look for look, and a
full defiance for all his threatenings.
“Prayer to you!” I exclaimed—“that were putting
myself indeed within your power. You may
stab—I cannot help myself—but you shall only
murder, wretch—you shall have no triumph;” and,
grown utterly reckless as I believed there was no
hope of escape and that I must die, I lifted my feet,
and thrusting them with all my might against the
table, I sent it forward with such force as to
hurl it upon him, when both came to the floor together.
The fellow was not much hurt, and a few
moments sufficed for his extrication. With accumulated
fury, that foamed but did not speak, he was
about to rush upon me, when a sudden footstep behind
him drew all his attention to the new comer.
Never could I have believed, till then, that fear could
so suddenly succeed to rage in any bosom. The
villain grew white as a sheet the moment that he
heard the sound and saw the person. It was Webber
who looked upon him with the eye of a master.
“You're a pretty fellow! a'nt you? So you kept
behind for this? Geoffrey warned me to expect it,
as soon as I found you missing; and it's well I got
back in time. You are a fool, Bully boy, and you'll
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be stretched for it. Mount before me, and if you're
wise, forget you've ever seen this chap. Come—
begone, I say—no word—not one—Grafton's under
way already.”
The assassin was actually incapable of answer.
Certainly he made none. The main villain of this
precious set must have seen a various life of service.
The whole train of proceedings which he had this
day witnessed—the first assault upon William and
myself—the pursuit of the former—his death—and
the subsequent attempt of my enemy upon my person,
all seemed to awaken in him but little emotion.
There was but one subject upon which he could not
preserve his temper, and that was his old employer,
Colonel Grafton—but with regard to all others, his
selfishness had schooled him successfully to suffer
no feeling or passion to interfere in the slightest degree
with what might be his prevailing policy.
With the inflexibility of a superior, suspicious of his
slave, he waited until he saw my enemy mount and
set forth, then nodding to me with the freedom of
an old friend, he left the entrance, and I was once
more left alone.
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CHAPTER II.
When Lycabas his Athis thus beheld
How was his friendly heart with sorrow fill'd!
A youth so noble, to his soul so dear,
To see his shapeless look—his dying groans to hear.
Ovid—Metam. B. V.
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Hour after hour rolled on, night was approaching,
and yet no aid came. What could this mean?
What had become of my friend? Had he grown
indifferent to my fate—did he fear to encounter a
second time with the wretches who had pursued
him for his life? I dismissed this doubt as soon
as it was suggested to my mind; but I conceived
any but the true occasion for his delay. I knew
William too well to fear that he would desert me.
I knew that he had no pusillanimous fears to deter
him from a proper risk. He had probably not been
able to get assistance readily, and to come without
an adequate force, was to commit a rashness and incur
a danger, without any corresponding advantage.
I tried to solace myself with the conviction that he
would not be much longer absent, but how cheerless
did I feel the while. The very inability under
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which I laboured to do any thing for myself, was,
to a mind and body like mine—accustomed to do for
themselves always—enough to discourage the hope
of being effectually relieved by others. The approach
of night did not diminish my apprehensions.
The sun had now set, and there was a brief interval
of dusk and silence between its disappearance and
the rising of the moon, which was particularly
gloomy. How dreadfully active my imagination
grew in that interval, and what effect it had upon
my nerves, I almost shame to say; but I felt a degree
of fear in that brief space of time, which I had
never suffered before, and trust, that, in no situation,
I shall ever be compelled to endure again. A state of
conscious helplessness suggests a thousand fears and
fancies that could not be forced upon the mind under
other circumstances. Forms of danger that
would seem impossible even in our dreams, become,
at such a period, unquestionable foes; and the mind
losing its balance, after a brief contest, foregoes all
examination of the danger and yields up the contest
in utter imbecility. But now the moon rose to
cheer me. Light is always cheerful. I could not
see her orb where I lay, but her smiles, like those
of some benign and blessed spirit, streamed through
the thousand cracks and openings of the log hovel
which was now a prison as secure to keep me as
the donjon of the feudal baron. Her beams fell
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around me in little spots that dimpled the whole
apartment with shining and bright glances. Yet
even this cheering spectacle impressed me with
added disquiet when I found myself so securely
fastened to the floor, as not to be able with all my
writhings to avoid the occasional rays that fell upon
my face and eyes. How bitterly did this make me
feel my incapacity—and when, at moments, I heard
the faint but protracted bay of the wolf in his leafy
den not far off, which I did as soon as the night set
in, I could not doubt that he would soon make his
appearance in the deserted hovel; and I, who could
not shelter my face from the light of the moon, had
still fewer hopes of being able to protect myself
from him. With every sound in the neighbouring
thickets I imagined him approaching, under the instinct
of a scent as keen as that of the vulture, to his
bloody feast; and I vainly asked myself what I
should do in my defence, when his gaunt and shaggy
body was stretched out upon my own, and his slobbering
snout was thrust into my face. I strove, but
could not lift an arm—I could only shout in the
hope to scare him from his prey, and, such was my
conscious impotence, that it struck me as not impossible
but that I might have lost the use of my voice
also. Such was the vivid force of this childish apprehension
in my mind that I actually shouted aloud
to convince myself that it was groundless—I shouted
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aloud, and, to my great joy—without any such hope
or expectation—I heard my shouts returned. Another
and another! Never were there sweeter echoes
to the cry for relief. In a few minutes more I was
surrounded by a troop—a half dozen at least—all
friends—yet where was William Carrington—the
dearest friend of all! Where? Where? My demand
was quickly answered. Colonel Grafton, who
led the company, told his story which was painfully
unsatisfactory. My horse, freed from his rider,
had brought the only intelligence which Colonel
Grafton had received. He had seen nothing of my
friend. He was not at home when the horse came
to his gate, and the animal was taken in by a servant.
When he did return, he immediately proceeded
to my assistance; though not before calling
up a patrol of such of his neighbours as he could
rely upon, to assist him in an inquiry in which he
not only feared foul play, but apprehended an issue
with more than the one villain into whose clutches
we had fallen. I was soon freed from my bonds,
but how much more unhappy than I was before.
How puerile had been my selfish apprehensions to
those which now filled my heart when I thought of
Carrington. What had been his fate?—where was
he? How icy cold in my bosom did my blood
run, as I mediated these doubts and dreaded the
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increase of knowledge which I was yet compelled
to seek.
Let me pass over this dreadful interval of doubt,
and hurry on to the palsying conviction of the truth
which followed. Our search that night was unavailing,
but the next morning the woods were scoured,
and it was my fortune to be the first to fall upon
traces which led me to the body of my friend. I
saw where he had fallen—where the horse had evidently
shyed as the shot was given and the rider fell.
The earth was still smooth where he had lain, for
Webber was too much hurried or too indifferent, to
endeavour to remove the marks of the event. It
was not now difficult to find the body. They had
not carried it far; and I removed a clump of bushes
which grew over the hollow in which they had
thrown it, and started with a convulsion of horror to
find it lying at my feet. Cold, silent, stiff—there
he lay—the friend of my heart; battered and bruised—
his noble face covered with blood and dust—one of
his eyes protruding from its socket, and the limbs,
once so symmetrical and straight, now contracted
and fixed in deformity by the sudden spasms of death.
All my strength left me as this dreadful spectacle
met my eyes. I sunk down beside it incapable of
speech or action. My knees were weakened—my
very soul dead within me. I could only sob and
moan, and my choking utterance might well have
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moved the wonder and pity of those about me, to
behold one who seemed otherwise so strong and
bold, now sunk into such a state of woman-like infirmity.
Colonel Grafton condoled with me like a
father, but what could he, or any one say to me in
the way of consolation. Who could declare the
amount of my own loss—and yet, what was my
loss to hers—the poor girl who waited for his return?
From me she was to hear that he never could return?—
that he lay cold in his gore—his voice silent—his
body mangled—his noble figure stiffened into deformity.
I shivered as with an ague fit when I remembered
that it was from my lips she was to hear
all this.
An examination of the body proved two things
which struck me with surprise. It was found that
the fatal wound had been received in front, and that
it had been inflicted by a rifle bullet. How to account
for this I knew not. I had seen no rifle
among the weapons carried by any of the outlaws;
and even if there had been, how should the shot
have taken effect in front, he flying from them—
evidently in rapid flight when shot, and they some
distance behind him. There was only one way at
that moment to account for this, and that was to
suppose that some associate of the pursuers had
either been stationed in front, or had, opportunely
for them, appeared there as he approached the point
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where he had fallen. Though still unsatisfactory to
me, and perhaps to all, we were yet compelled, in
the absence of all better knowledge, to content ourselves
with a conjecture, which, though plausible
enough, did not content us. I felt that there was some
mystery still in the transaction, and that William
had not been slain willingly by the pursuers. Webber
had headed them, and why should he have been
so prompt to murder one, and spare another—ay,
even protect him from harm—who was so completely
in his power. There was as little personal
hostility towards William in the mind of Webber
as towards me—and yet, the blood, warmed by pursuit,
might have grown too rash for the deliberate
resolve even of one so habitually cool as the master
villain on this occasion.
Doubts thickened in my mind with every added
moment of conjecture, and at length I strove to
think no more upon it. I resolved to do so, though
I soon found my resolution idle. How could I forbear
the thought, when I found it had made my
hair gray in that single night. Either that or my
fears had done so, and I fain would believe it was
not the latter. I could think now of nothing else.
That mangled body lay before me whichever way I
turned. I saw the ghastly glaze upon the starting eye
that bulged half way from its socket. I saw that
mouth whose smile it had been a pleasure to see,
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distorted from its natural shape and smeared with
dust and mire. There too was the narrow orifice
through which life had rushed, prayerless perhaps,
and oh! with such terrific abruptness. I thought
then of all his ways—his frank, hearty laugh, his
generous spirit, his free bold character, his love of
truth, his friendship, and the sweet heart-ties which
had bound him to life and earth, and warmed him
with promising hopes, never to be fulfilled. That
last thought was the pang above all. Poor William—
Poor Catharine! Little, in the gushing fulness
of their united hopes, did their hearts dream of a
destiny like this.
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CHAPTER III.
Well! he is dead—
Murdered perhaps! and I am faint, and feel
As if it were no painful thing to die!
Coleridge.
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With a stunned mind and most miserable feelings,
I was almost led away by Colonel Grafton to
his dwelling. For three days I could resolve on
nothing. In that time we committed William to
the earth. A quiet spot under a clump of venerable
oaks, which the Colonel had chosen for his own final
resting place, afforded one to my friend. The heavy
moss depended from the trees above him, and the
warm sun came to his turf in subdued glances
through the withered leaves. Birds had built their
nests from time immemorial in their boughs, and
the constant rabbit might be seen leaping in the long
yellow grasses beneath them when the dusky shadows
of evening were about to fall. The hunter never
crept to this spot to pursue his game of death.
The cruel instrument of his sport was forbidden to
sound therein. The place was hallowed to solemn
sleep and to the brooding watchfulness of happy
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spirits, and in its quiet round we left the inanimate
form of one whose heart had been as lovely in its
performances, as to the eye were the serene shadows
of the spot where we laid him. I envied him the
peace which I was sure his spirit knew, when we
put his body out of sight. God help me, for truly
there was little that felt like peace in mine.
For three days, as I said before, I was like one
stunned and deafened. I had no quickness to perceive,
nor ability to examine. My thoughts were
a perfect chaos, and continual and crowding images
of death were passing before my eyes. The kind
friends with whom I lingered during this brief but
most painful period, did all in their power to console
me. They spared no attentions, they withheld
no consideration, that might have been gratifying
to the bruised and broken spirit. And yet no ministerings
could have been more judicious than were
theirs. The work of kindness was never out of
place. There was nothing intrusive in their 'tendance,
but a general fitness of speech and gesture, so
far as I perceived them, extended through the movements
of the whole family. Colonel Grafton, with
a proper considerateness, entirely forbore the subject
of my loss; his words were few and well timed; and
though they were not directly addressed to my
griefs, their tendency was to administer to them.
If his good sense made him avoid a rude tenting of
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the wound, he did not fall into the opposite error of
seeking to make light of it. His countenance had
a subdued gravity upon it, which softened into
sweetness a face in which benignity and manliness
were evenly mingled, elevating and qualifying one
another, and his language was given to subjects belonging
to the general interests of humanity which
the mourner might very well apply to his affliction
without being curiously seen to do so. Mrs. Grafton's
cares were no less considerate than his. My
mother could not so keenly have studied my feelings
nor so kindly have administered to them. Julia,
too, seemed to grow less shy than usual, and sat
down like a confiding child beside me, bringing me
her work to look at, and unfolding to me the most
valued stores of her little library. Sorrow has no
sex, and woman becomes courageous to serve in
affliction, the man whom she would tremble, in
prosperity, barely to encounter. Her lover made
his appearance but once during my stay, and remained
but a short time, so that I had her company
in several of my sad rambles. Somehow, I felt my
greatest source of consolation in her. It is probable
that we derive strength from the contemplation of a
weakness which is greater than our own. I felt it
so with me. The confiding dependence of this
lovely girl—her appeals to my superior information—
taught me at moments to lose sight of my cares:
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and, perhaps, as she saw this, with the natural arts
of her sex, she became more confiding—more a
child.
At length, I started from my stupor. I grew
ashamed of my weakness. To feel our losses is becoming
enough—to yield to them and sink under
their pressure is base and unmanly. I was vexed
to think that Colonel Grafton should have so long
beheld me in the feeble attitude of grief. I was determined
to resume my character.
“I must go,” I exclaimed; “I must leave you
to-morrow, Colonel.”
It was thus I addressed him on the evening of the
third day after the family had retired for the night.
“Where will you go?” he asked. The question
staggered me. Where was I to go? Should I return
to Marengo? Should I be the one to carry suffering
to the poor girl whom fate had defrauded of her
lover? Could I have strength to speak the words of
doom and misery? Impossible! On my own account
I had no reason to return. I had nothing to seek in
that quarter—no hopes to invite my steps—no duty
(so I fancied then) to impel me to retrace a journey
begun with so much boldness, and, so far, pursued
with so much ill fortune.
“I will not return,” my heart said within me.
“I dare not. I cannot look on Catharine again. It
was my pleadings and persuasions, that made her
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lover my companion in this fatal adventure, and how
can I meet her eye of reproach? How can I hear
her ask—`Where is he?—why have you not
brought him back to me?' Well did I remember
her parting directions—`Take care of one another.'
Had I taken care of him? I was the more prudent,
the more thoughtful and suspicious. I knew him
to be careless, frank, free, confiding. Had I taken
due care of him? Had I been as watchful as I
should have been? Had I not suffered him heedlessly
to plunge into the toils when a resolute word
of mine would have kept him from them?”
I could not satisfy myself by my answer to these
self proposed questions, and I resolved to go forward.
“In the wilds of Mississippi I will bury myself.
The bosom of the `Nation' shall receive me. I
will not look on Marengo again. I will write to
Catharine—I will tell her in a letter what I dare
not look her in the face and speak.”
Such was my resolve—a resolve made in my
weakness and unworthy of a noble mind. When I
declared it to Colonel Grafton, with the affectionate
interest and freedom of a father, he opposed it.
“Pardon me, my young friend, but are you right
in this resolution? Is it not your duty to go back
and declare the circumstances to all those who are
interested in the fate of your friend? It will be
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expected of you. To take any other course will
seem to show a consciousness of error with which
you cannot reproach yourself. Suspicion will become
active, and your reluctance, which springs
from a natural dislike to give pain, will be set down
to other and far less honourable motives. Go back,
Mr. Hurdis—seek the friends of Mr. Carrington
and your own. Though it wring your heart to tell
the cruel story, and rend theirs to hear it, yet withhold
nothing. Take the counsel of one who has
seen too much of the world not to speak with due
precaution, and avoid concealment in all matters of
this sort. Suppress nothing—let nothing that is at
all equivocal be coupled with your conduct where
it affects the interests of others. I have never yet
known an instance of departure from duty in which
the person did not suffer from such departure. And
it is your duty to relate this matter at large to those
who were connected with your friend.”
“But I will write, Colonel Grafton—I will write
all and withhold nothing. My duty to the friends
and relatives of William Carrington cannot call for
more.”
“Your duty to yourself does. It requires that
you should not shrink from meeting them. Your
letter would tell them nothing but bald facts. They
must see you when you give your testimony. They
must see that you feel the pain, that your duty
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calls upon you to inflict. When you show them
that, you give them the only consolation which
grief ever demands; you give them sympathy, and
their sorrows become lessened as they look on yours.
To this poor maiden, in particular, you owe it.”
“Ah! Colonel Grafton, you cannot know the torture
which must follow such an interview. It was
I who persuaded him to go on this hapless journey.
She heard me plead with him to go—my arguments
convinced him. She will look on me as the cause
of all—she will call me his murderer.”
“You must bear it all, and bear it with humility
and without reply. If she loved this youth, what
is your torture to that which your words will inflict
on her? You have the selfish strength and resources
of the man to uphold you—what has she?
Nothing—nothing but the past.—Phantoms of memory
are all that are left to her, and these torture
as often as they soothe. Do not speak then of your
sufferings in comparison with hers. She must, of
necessity, be the greatest sufferer, and you must submit
to see her griefs, and, it may be, to listen to
her reproaches. These will fall lightly on your
ears when you can reproach yourself with nothing.
If you did not submit to them—if you fled from the
task before you—in place of her reproaches you
would have her suspicions, and your own self rebuke
in all future time.”
-- 028 --
[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]
He had put the matter before me in a new light,
and, with a sigh, I changed my purpose, resolving
to start for Marengo in the morning. Meanwhile,
let me relate the progress of other parties to this
narrative.
-- 029 --
CHAPTER IV.
I've done the deed.
Macbeth.
[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]
The murderer of William lay close in the thicket
after he had done the deed. That murderer was
Ben Pickett, and, as the reader may have divined already,
his victim had perished through mistake. The
fatal cause of this was in his employment of my horse—
a circumstance forced upon him by the necessities
of his flight. Pickett knew the horse and looked no
farther. It was a long shot, from a rising ground
above, where the umbrage was thick, and at such a
distance that features were not clearly distinguishable.
The dress of William unfortunately helped
the delusion. It was almost entirely like mine.
We had been so completely associated together for
years, that our habits and tastes in many respects
had become assimilated. The murderer, having
satisfied himself—which he did at a glance—that
the horse was mine, it was the prompt conclusion of
his mind that I was the rider. Crime is seldom
deliberate—the mere act I mean—the
-- 030 --
[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]
determination may be deliberately enough made; but the blow
is most usually given in haste, as if the criminal
dreaded that he might shrink from an act already
resolved upon. Pickett did not trust himself to look
a second time before pulling trigger. Had he suffered
the rider to advance ten paces more, he would
have withdrawn the sight. The courage of man is
never certain but when he is doing what he feels to
be right. The wrong doer may be desperate and
furious, but he has no composed bearing. Pickett
was of this sort. He shot almost instantly after seeing
the horse. He was about to come forward when
he saw the rider tumble; but the sudden approach
of the pursuers whose forms had been concealed by
the narrow and enclosed “blind” through which
they passed, compelled him to resume his position,
and remain quiet. He saw them take charge of the
body, but had little idea that their aim, like his own,
had been vulturous. He saw them busy about
the prey which his blow had struck down, but
concluded that they were friends seeking to succour
and to save. Under any circumstances his hope of
plunder was now cut off, and he silently withdrew
into the forest, where his horse had been hidden, and
hurriedly remounting commenced his return to Marengo.
But an eye was upon him that never lost
sight of him. The keen hunter that Matthew Webber
had set upon his path had found his track, and
-- 031 --
[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]
pursued it with the unerring scent of the blood
hound. More than once the pursuer could have
shot down the fugitive with a weapon as little anticipated,
and as unerring as that which he himself
had employed; but he had no purpose of this sort
in view. He silently followed on—keeping close
watch upon every movement, yet never suffering
himself to be seen. When the murderer paused by
the way side, he halted also; when he sped towards
evening, he too relaxed his reins; and he drew them
up finally only, when he beheld the former, with an
audacity which he never showed while I dwelt in
Marengo, present himself at the entrance of my
father's plantation, and request to see my brother.
The pursuer paused also at this moment, and entering
a little but dense wood on one side of the road,
quietly dismounted from his horse which he fastened
in the deepest thicket, and, under cover of the under
brush, crept forward as nearly as he could, to the
place where Pickett waited, without incurring any
risk of detection.
It was not long before John Hurdis came to the
gate, and his coward soul made its appearance in his
face, the moment that he saw his confederate. His
lips grew livid and quivered—his cheeks were
whiter than his shirt, and his voice so feeble, when
he attempted to speak, that he could only articulate
-- 032 --
[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]
at all by uttering himself with vehemency and
haste.
“Ah, Pickett, that you?—well! what?”
The murderer had not alighted from his horse,
and he now simply bent forward to the other, as he
half whispered—
“It's all fixed, 'Squire. The nail's clinched.
You can take the road now when you please, and
find nothing to trip you.”
“Ha! but you do not mean it, Ben?—It is not as
you say?—You have not done it? Are you sure?
Did you see?”
“It's done—I tell you, as sure's a gun.”
“He's dead then?” said John Hurdis in a husky
whisper—“Richard Hurdis is dead you say?” and
he tottered forward to the rider with a countenance
in which fear and eagerness were so mingled as to
produce an unquiet shrinking even in the bosom of
his confederate.
“I've said it, 'Squire, and I'll say it again to
please you. I had dead aim on his button—just
here, (he laid his hand on his breast)—and I saw
him tumble and come down all in a heap like a bag
of feathers. There's no doctors can do him good
now, I tell you. He's laid up so that they won't
take him down again—nobody. You can go to
sleep now when you please.”
The greater felon of the two shrank back as he
-- 033 --
[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]
heard these words, and covered his face with his
hands. He seemed scarce able to stand, and leaned
against the posts of the gate for his support. A
sudden shivering came over him, and when that
passed off, he laughed brokenly as if with a slight
convulsion, and the corners of his mouth were
twitched until the tears started in his eyes. To
what particular feeling, whether of remorse or satisfaction,
he owed these emotions, it would be difficult
for me to say, as it was certainly impossible
for his comrade to conceive. Pickett looked on
with wondering, and was half inclined to doubt
whether his proprietor was not out of his wits. But
a few moments reassured him as John Hurdis again
came forward. His tones were more composed,
though still unsubdued, when he addressed him:
and, perhaps, something more of human apprehension
dwelt upon his countenance.
“You have told me, Ben Pickett, but I am not
certain. Richard Hurdis was a strong man—he
wouldn't die easily. He would fight—he would
strike to the last. How could you stand against
him? Why, Ben, he would crush you with a blow
of his fist. He was monstrous strong.”
“Why, 'Squire, what are you talking about?
Dick Hurdis was strong, I know, and stout hearted.
He would hold on 'till his teeth met, for there was
no scare in him. But that's nothing to the matter
-- 034 --
[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]
now, for you see there was no fight at all. The
rifle did the business—long shot and steady aim—
so, you see, all his strength went for nothing.”
“But how could he let you trap him, Ben Pickett?
Richard was suspicious_and always on the watch.
He wouldn't fall easily into trap. There must be
some mistake, Ben—some mistake. You're only
joking with me, Ben—you have not found him? he
was too much ahead of you, and got off—well—it's
just as well you let him go—I don't care—indeed,
I'm almost glad you didn't reach him. He's in
the `Nation' I suppose by this time?”
“But I did reach him, 'Squire,” replied the other,
not exactly knowing how to account for the purposeless
tenor of John Hurdis's speech, and wondering
much at the unlooked for relenting of purpose
which it implied. There was something in this
last sentence which annoyed Pickett as much as it
surprised him. It seemed to imply that his employer
might not be altogether satisfied with him
when he became persuaded of the truth of what he
said. He hastened therefore to reiterate his story.
“He'll never get nearer to the `Nation' than
he is now. I tell you, 'Squire, I come upon him on
a by-road leading out from Tuscaloosa, that run
along among a range of hills where I kept. There
was a double hill close by, and the road run through
it—it was a dark road. I tracked him and Bill
-- 035 --
[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]
Carrington twice over the ground. They had business
farther down with a man named Webber, and they
stopt all night with a Colonel Grafton. I got from
one of his negroes all about it. Well, I watched
when he was to come back. When I heard them
making tracks, I put myself in the bush, clear ahead,
in a place where they couldn't come upon me till I
was clean out of reach. Soon he came running like
mad, then I give it him, and down he come, I tell
you, like a miller's bag struck all in a heap.”
“But that didn't kill him? He was only hurt?
You're not sure, Ben, that he's dead? You didn't
look at him closely?”
“No—dickens—they were too hard upon me for
that. But I saw where I must hit him, and I saw
him tumble.”
“Who were upon you?” demanded Hurdis.
“Why, Bill Carrington, and the man he went to
see, I suppose. I didn't stop to look, for, just as I
sprawled him out, they came from the road behind
him, and I saw no more. You didn't tell me that
Bill Carrington was going with him.”
“No—I wasn't certain. I didn't know. But
didn't Carrington come after you, when you shot
Richard?”
“I reckon he was too much frightened—he
jumped down beside the body, and that was all I
stopped to see. I made off, and fetched a compass
-- 036 --
[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]
through the woods that brought me out with dry
feet into another road. Then I kept on without
stopping, and that's all I can tell you.'
“It was strange Bill Carrington didn't take after
you—he's not a man to be frightened easily?”
“He didn't though.”
“But you're not sure, Ben, after all? Perhaps
you've only hurt him? You have not killed him
I think? It's a hard thing to shoot certain at a
great distance—you were far off you say?”
“A hundred yards or so, and that's nothing being
down hill too.”
“Richard was a tough fellow.”
“Tough or not, I tell you, 'Squire, he'll never
trouble you again. It's all over with him. They've
got him under ground before this time—I know by
the sort of fall he gave that he hadn't any life left—
he didn't know what hurt him.”
John Hurdis seemed convinced at last.
“And yet to think, Ben, that a man so strong as
Richard should die so sudden? It was only four
days ago that he had his hand on my throat—he
had me down upon the ground—he shook me like
a feather. And he spoke with a voice that went
through me. I was like an infant in his hands—
I felt that he could have torn me in two. And now,
you say, he cannot lift an arm to help himself?”
-- 037 --
[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]
“No, not to wave off a buzzard from his carrion,”
was the reply.
The arm of John Hurdis fell on the neck of
Pickett's horse at these words, and his eyes with a
vacant stare were fixed upon the rider. After a
brief pause, he thus proceeded in a muttered soliloquy
rather than an address to his hearer.
“If Richard would have gone off quietly and let
me alone—if—but what's the use to talk of that
now?” He paused, but again began in similar tones
and a like spirit. “He was too rash—too tyrannical.
Flesh and blood could not bear with him, Ben.
He would have mastered all around him if he could—
trampled upon all—suffered no life to any—spared
no feelings. He was cruel—cruel to you, and to
me and to all; and then to drag me from my horse
and take me—his own brother—by the throat! But,
it's all over now. He has paid for it, Ben—I wish
he hadn't done it, though—for then—but no matter—
this talk's all very useless now.”
Here he recovered himself, and in more direct
and calmer language, thus continued, while giving
his agent a part of the money which he had promised
him.
“Go now, Pickett—to your own home. Let us
not be seen together much. Take this money—
'tisn't all I mean to give you. I will bring you
more.”
-- 038 --
[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]
The willing fellow pocketed the price of blood,
and made his acknowledgments. Thanks too were
given by the murderer, as if the balance of credit
lay with him who paid in money for the life of his
fellow creature.
“I will come to you to night,” continued Hurdis—
“I would hear all of this business. I would
know more—stay! What is that? Some one comes—
hear you nothing, Ben?”
Guilt had made my wretched brother doubly a
coward. The big sweat came out and stood upon
his forehead, and his eyes wore the irresolute expression
of one about to fly. The composure with
which his companion looked round, half reassured
him.
“No—there's nobody,” said the other—“a squirrel
jumped in the wood, perhaps.”
“Well—I'll come to night, Ben—I'll meet you
at the Willows.”
“Won't you come to the house, 'Squire?”
“No!” was the abrupt reply. The speaker recollected
his late interview with the stern wife of
his colleague, and had no desire to encounter her
again—“No—Ben, I'll be at the Willows.”
“What time, 'Squire?”
“I can't say, now—but you'll hear my signal.
Three hoots and a long bark.”
“Very good—I'll be sure.”
-- 039 --
[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]
John Hurdis remained at the gate a long time
after Pickett rode away. He watched his retreating
form while it continued in sight, then seated himself
on the ground where he had been standing, and
unconsciously, with a little stick, began to draw characters
in the sand. To the labours of his fingers
his mind seemed to be utterly heedless, until, aroused
to a sense of what he was doing and where he sat,
by the approach of some of the field negroes returning
from the labours of the day. he started to his
feet as he heard their voices, but how did his guilty
heart tremble, when his eye took in the letters that
he had unwittingly traced upon the sand. The
word “murderer” was distinctly written in large
characters, before his eyes. With a desperate but
trembling haste as if he dreaded lest other eyes
should behold it too, he dashed his feet over the
letters, nor stayed his efforts even when they were
perfectly obliterated. Fool that he was—of what
avail was all his toil? He might erase the guilty
letters from the sand, but they were written upon
his soul in characters that no hand could reach, and
no labours obliterate. The fiend was there in full
possession, and his tortures were only now begun.
-- 040 --
CHAPTER V.
Let the earth hide thee.
Shakspeare.
[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]
The murderer hurried homewards when this dark
conference was ended. The affair in which he had
acted so principal, yet secondary a part, had exercised
a less obvious influence upon him than upon
the yet baser person who had egged him on to the
deed. There was no such revulsion of feeling in
his bosom, as in that of John Hurdis. Endowed with
greater nerve at first, and rendered obtuse from habit
and education, the nicer sensibilities—the keener
apprehensions of the mind—were not sufficiently
active in him to warm at any recital, when the deed
itself, which it narrated, had failed to impress him
with terror or repentance. If he did not tremble to
do, still less was he disposed to tremble at the bare
story of his misdoings; and he rode away with a
due increase of scorn for the base spirit and cowardly
heart of his employer. And yet, perhaps,
Pickett had never beheld John Hurdis in any situation
in which his better feelings had been more
-- 041 --
[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]
prominent. The weaknesses, which the one despised,
were the only shows of virtue in the other. The
cowardly wretch, when he supposed the deed to have
been done on which he had sent his unhesitating
messenger—felt, for the first time, that it would not
only have been wiser but better, to have borne patiently
with his wrong, rather than so foully to have
revenged it. He felt that it would have been easier
to sleep under the operation of injustice than to become
one's self a criminal. Bitterly indeed did this
solemn truth grow upon him in the end, when sleep,
at length, utterly refused to come at his bidding.
But, though the obvious fears and compunctious
visitings of his employer had provoked the scorn of
the murderer, it was decreed that he himself should
not be altogether free from similar weaknesses.
They developed themselves before he reached his
home. It was nearly dusk when he entered the
narrow by-road which led to his habitation—night
was fast coming on, yet the twilight was sufficiently
clear to enable him to distinguish objects. Without
a thought, perhaps, of the crime of which he had been
guilty; or rather, without a regretful thought, he
pursued his way until the road opened upon his
dwelling. The habitation of his wife and child stood
before him. He could now see the smoke rising
from the leaning clay chimney, and his heart rose
with the prospect—for the very basest of mankind
-- 042 --
[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]
have hearts for their homes—but, all on a sudden, he
jerked his bridle with a violence that whirled the
animal out from his path; and then his grasp became
relaxed. He had strength for no more—he had
neither power to advance nor fly. In an instant,
the avenues to all his fears were in possession of a
governing instinct. Guilt and terror spoke in all
his features. His glazed eyes seemed starting from
their sockets—his jaws relaxed—his mouth opened—
his hair started up and the cold dews gathered at
its roots! What sees he?—what is in his path to
make him fear? Why does the bold ruffian, ready
at all times to stab or shoot—why does he lift no
weapon now? He is sinewless, aimless, strengthless.
There rose before him, even at the gate of his
hovel, a fearful image of the man he supposed himself
to have murdered. It stood between him and
the narrow gateway so that he could not go forward
in his progress. The gaze of the spectre was
earnestly bent upon him with such a freezing glance
of death and doom as the victim might well be supposed
to wear in confronting his murderer. The
bloody hole in his bosom was awfully distinct to the
eyes of the now trembling criminal, who could see
little or nothing else. His knees knocked together
convulsively—his wiry hair lifted the cap upon his
brow.—Cold as the mildewed marble, yet shivering
like an autumn branch waving in the sudden winds,
-- 043 --
[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]
he was frozen to the spot where it encountered him—
he could neither speak nor move. Vainly did he
attempt to lift the weapon in his grasp—his arms
were stiffened to his side—his will was not powerful
enough to compel its natural agents to their duty.
He strove to thrust the rowel into his horse's flanks,
but even to this effort he found himself unequal.
Twice did he strive to cry aloud to the threatening
aspect before him, in words of entreaty or defiance,
but his tongue refused its office. The words froze
in his throat, and it was only able in a third and
desperate effort to articulate words which denoted
idiocy rather than resolve.
“Stand aside, Richard Hurdis—stand aside, or
I'll run over you. You would tie me to the tree—
you would try hickories upon me, would you?
Go—go to John Hurdis now, and he'll tell you, I'm
not afraid of you. No—d—n my eyes if I am,
though he is! I'm not afraid of your bloody finger—
shake it away—shake it away. There's a hole
in your jacket wants mending, man—you'd better
see to it 'fore it gets worse. I see the red stuff
coming out of it now. Go—stand off or I'll hurt
you—ptsho—ptsho—ptsho.”
And, as he uttered this wandering and incoherent
language, his limbs strengthened sufficiently to enable
him, with one hand, to employ the action of a
person hallooing hogs out of his enclosure. The
-- 044 --
[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]
sound of his own voice seemed to unfix the spell
upon him. The ghostly figure sank down before
his mazed eyes and advancing footsteps, in a heap,
like one suddenly slain, and as he had seen his
victim fall. It lay directly before him—he pressed
his horse upon it, but it disappeared before he
reached the spot. A brief space yet lay between
the gate and the hovel, and, passing through the
former, he was about to plunge, with a like speed
towards the latter, when another figure, and one, too,
much more terrific to the fears of the ruffian than
the first—took its place, and the person of William
Carrington emerged at that moment from the dwelling
itself, and stood before him in the doorway.
If Pickett trembled before under his superstitious
imaginings, he trembled now with apprehensions of
a more human description. It was the vulgar fear
of the fugitive that possessed him now. He felt
that he was pursued. He saw before him the friend
of the man he had murdered, speeding in hot haste
to wreak vengeance on his murderer. In the dread
of cord or shot, he lost, in a single instant, all his
former and paralysing terror arising from the blighting
visitation of the world of spirits. He was no
longer frozen by fear. He was strengthened and
stimulated for flight by the appearance of Carrington.
He turned the head of his horse, and with the movement,
the avenger advanced upon him. He felt that
-- 045 --
[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]
there was no escape. There was no hope in flight.
In desperation, he threw himself from the animal—
lifted his rifle, and, in taking deadly aim upon the
figure, was surprised to see it move away with rapid
footsteps and sink into the neighbouring woods, in
the shadow of which it was soon lost from sight.
The conduct of Carrington was more mysterious to
the criminal than was the appearance of the spectre
just before. If he came as the avenger of his friend,
how strange that he should fly! And how could
such timidity be believed of one so notoriously brave
as the man in question? The wonder grew in his
mind the more he reviewed it, and he found it easier
to continue in his wonderment, than to seek by any
reference to his past experience and present thoughts
for any solution of the mystery.
Pale and cold with fright he at last entered his
hovel without farther interruption. The anxious
and searching eyes of his wife beheld in an instant
the disordered emotion so prominent in his; and her
fears were renewed.
“What is it Ben—what disturbs you? Why do
you look around so?” she demanded.
“How long has he been here?—when did he
come?—what does he want?” were the rapid questions
which the criminal uttered in reply.
“Who?—who has been here? of whom do you
ask?” was the response of the astonished wife.
-- 046 --
[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]
“Why, Bill Carrington, to be sure—Who else?
I saw him come out of the door just this minute and
take to the woods. What did he want?—where's
he gone? Who's he looking for? eh!”
“Your're sick, Ben,” said the wife—“your head's
disordered. You'd better lie down.”
“Can't you answer me a plain question?” was his
peremptory answer to her suggestion—“I ask you
what Bill Carrington wanted with me or with
you?”
“He?—nothing that I know of. He hasn't been
here, Ben.”
“The devil you say? Better tell me I'm drunk—
when I saw him, with my own eyes, come out
just a moment ago and take to the woods!”
“You may have seen him in the woods, but I'm
sure you didn't see him come out of this house.
I've been in this room for the last hour—never once
out of it—and nobody but myself and Jane in it—
and nobody's been here that either of us has seen.”
The man turned to Jane, and reading in her
eyes a confirmation of her mother's speech, he
looked vacantly around him for a few moments,
then lifting his rifle, which he had leaned up within
the entrance, rushed out of the house, and hurried
to the woods in search of the person whom he had
seen disappear there. He was gone for an hour
when he returned exhausted. In that time his
-- 047 --
[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]
search had been close and thorough for a circuit of
several miles, in all those recesses which he had
been accustomed to regard as hiding places, and
which, it may be added, he had repeatedly used as
such. The exhaustion that followed his disappointment
was an exhaustion of mind rather than of body.
The vagueness and mystery which attended all these
incidents had utterly confounded him, and when he
returned to the presence of his wife, he almost
seemed to lack the facilities of speech and hearing.
He spoke but little, and, observing his fatigue, and
probably ascribing his strange conduct to a sudden
excess in drink, his wife prudently forebore all unnecessary
remarks and questions. Night hurried on—
darkness had covered the face of the earth, and in
silence the wife and idiot child of the criminal had
commenced their evening meal, Pickett keeping his
place at the fireside without heeding the call to supper.
A stupor weighed down all his faculties, and
he almost seemed to sleep, but a slight tap at the
entrance—a single tap, gentle as if made by a woman-hand
soliciting admission—awakened, in an
instant, all the guilty consciousness that could not
sleep in the bosom of the criminal. He started to
his feet in terror. The keen and searching glance
of his wife was fixed upon his face, and heedful of
every movement of his person. She said nothing,
but her looks were so full of inquiry that it needed
-- 048 --
[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]
no words to make Pickett aware that her soul was
alarmed and apprehensive. She looked as if feeling
that all her previous fears were realised. The
knock at the entrance was repeated.
“Shall I open it, Ben?” was her question, and
her eyes motioned him to a window in the rear.
But he did not heed the obvious suggestion. Gathering
courage as he beheld her glance, and saw her
suspicions, he crossed the floor to the entrance,
boldly lifted the bar which secured it, and, in firm
tones, bade the unknown visiter “come in.”
-- 049 --
CHAPTER VI.
“Our coming
Is not for salutation—we have business.”
Catiline.
[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]
The stranger boldly stepped into the light as the
door was opened for him. The heart of Pickett
sank within him on the instant; for guilt is a thing
of continual terrors; but his glance was fixed on the
person without recognition, and there was nothing
in the air or visage of the intruder, to excite alarm.
His dark swarthy features and sinister eye were, it
is true, sufficiently unprepossessing; but these were
evidently the habitual features of the man, and being
in repose, gave no occult expression to his countenance.
His guise was common enough, consisting
of the common blue and white homespun of the
country; and this, bespattered with mud as if he had
been long a traveller. He demanded traveller's
fare, and begged to be accommodated for the night.
There was no denial of so small a boon, even in the
humblest cottage of Alabama; and though Pickett
-- 050 --
[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]
would rather have had no company, he could not
yet refuse.
“Well,” said Pickett, “we are not in the habit of
taking in travellers, but if you can make out with a
blanket by the chimney, you can have it—it's all I
can give you.”
“Good enough,” said the stranger; “I'm not
particular. Room by the chimney, and light wood
enough for a blaze, and I'm satisfied.”
“Have you had supper?” demanded Mrs. Pickett—
“we can give you some hoe cake and bacon.”
“Thank you, ma'am, but I took a bite from my
bag about an hour ago, as I crossed a branch coming
on, which baited my hunger. I won't trouble
you to get any thing more.”
“You're from below?” asked Pickett with some
show of curiosity.
“No—from above.”
“Do you go much farther?”
“I think not—I've got business in these parts,
and shall return when it's over.”
“You've a horse to see to?”
“No—I foot it—I'm a very poor man.”
The lie was uttered with habitual readiness. The
emissary had hidden and hobbled his horse in the
neighbouring woods. He was too well practised in his
art to forego every precaution. Pickett had no other
-- 051 --
[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]
questions, and but little more was said for the time,
by either of the parties, all of whom seemed equally
taciturn. The wife of Pickett alone continued anxious.
The searching glance of the stranger did not please
her, though it appeared to have its impulse in curiosity
alone. Perhaps, suspecting her husband's guilt, all
circumstances, removed from those of ordinary occurrence,
provoked her apprehensions. With a
just presentiment she had trembled on the stranger's
knock and entrance, and every added moment of
his stay increased her fears. She had as yet had no
conference with Pickett, touching the business
which carried him abroad; and the presence of their
guest denied her all opportunity for the satisfaction
of her doubts. Her evident disquiet did not escape
the notice of her husband, but, he ascribed it, in his
own mind, to her desire to go to bed; which, as they
all slept in the same apartment, was rendered somewhat
difficult, by the presence of the new comer.
His coarse mind, however, soon made this difficulty
light.
“Go to bed, Besty—don't mind us; or to make
the matter easy, what say you, stranger, to a bit of a
walk—the night's clear and not cold neither. We'll
just step out till the old woman lies down, if you
please.”
“To be sure,” said the other—“I was about to
propose the same thing to you.”
-- 052 --
[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]
The fears of Pickett were newly roused by this
seemingly innocent declaration of the stranger—a
declaration, which, at another time, would not
have tasked a thought.
“Why should he wish to take me out to walk
with him at night—why should he propose such a
thing?”—was his inward inquiry; and with hesitating
steps, he conducted the suspicious guest from
the hovel into the open ground before it.
“I was just going to propose the same thing to
you,” said the stranger the moment they had got
there—“for do you see, it isn't to lodge with you
only that I come. I have business with you, my
friend—business of great importance.”
If Pickett was alarmed before, he was utterly
confounded now.
“Business with me!” he cried in undisguised astonishment.—
“What business—what business can
you have with me?” and he stopped full and confronted
the stranger as he spoke.
“Well, that's what I'm going to tell you now—
but, not here—walk farther from the house, if you
please—let's go into this thicket.”
“Into the thicket!—No—I'm d—d if I do!—”
cried the now thoroughly alarmed Pickett.—
“I'll go into the thicket with no stranger that
I don't know. I don't see what business you
can have with me at all; and if you have any
-- 053 --
[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]
you can just as well out with it here, as any where
else.”
“Oh, that's just as you please,” said the other
coolly—“It was for your sake only that I proposed
to go into the thicket, for the business is not exactly
proper for every body to hear; and there's no use
in calling the high road to counsel.”
“For my sake! What the d—I do you mean, my
friend? It's your business not mine—why is it for
my sake that you would have me go into the thicket?”
“Because it might bring you into trouble, if any
ears beside our own were to hear me,” replied the
stranger with indifference. “For my part, I don't
care much where it is said, only to save you from
any trouble.”
“Me from trouble—me from trouble! I don't
know what you can mean; but if you're serious—
where would you have me go?”
“There—that thicket will do. It looks dark
enough for our business.”
The stranger pointed to a dense grove in the neighbourhood,
but on the opposite side of the road—a
part of the same forest in which the reader will remember
to have witnessed an interview between
John Hurdis, and Jane the idiot girl. Not knowing
what to fear yet fearing every thing, the murderer
followed the stranger, whom he now
-- 054 --
[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]
regarded as his evil genius. The other was passing
more deeply into the woods, after having entered
them, than Pickett seemed to think necessary
for his object, and the voice of the latter arrested
him.
“Dark enough for your business, it may be, but
quite too dark for mine. I'll go no further—you
can say here, all you've got to say, no matter what it
is. I'm not afraid, and I think it something strange,
that you should want me to go into the bush in a
dark night, with a person I don't know. I don't
somehow like it altogether. I'm not sure that it's
safe. I mean no harm, but it's not the best sense in
the world, to trust people one don't know.”
“Lord love you!” said the other with a quiet
tone of contempt—“you're more scary than I
thought you. There's nothing to be frightened at,
in me—my business is peaceable—and I'm a peaceable
man. I don't carry a rifle, and I never tumbled
a fellow from his horse at a hundred yards, in all
my life, so far as I can recollect now.”
These words were uttered with the utmost coolness,
and as if they were entirely without peculiar
signification. The effect upon the hearer was almost
paralysing, as it was instantaneous. He started,
as if he had been himself shot—for a moment
was silent under the obvious imputation contained
in the last sentence of his companion's speech—
-- 055 --
[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]
then, recovering himself, with the blustering manner
of the bully, he addressed the other, who saw,
in the dim light which surrounded them, that Pickett's
hand was thrust into the bosom of his vest, as
if in search of some concealed weapon.
“How! you do not mean to say, that I ever did
such a thing? If you do—”
“Put up your knife, brother—and keep your
hand and voice down. Lift either too high, and I
have that about me which would drive you into the
middle of next summer, if you only looked at me to
strike.”
Such was the stern reply of the stranger, whose
tones changed promptly with the circumstances.
Pickett felt himself in the presence of a master. He
was cowed. He released his hold upon the weapon,
which he had grasped in his bosom, and lowering
the sounds of his voice in obedience to the stranger's
requisition, he replied in more conciliatory language.
“What mean you, my friend? What is the business
that brings you here? What would you have
with me; and why do you threaten me?”
“Your hand!” said the other deliberately, while
extending his own.
“There it is; and now, what—?” Pickett reluctantly
complied.
“Only that you are one of us now, that's all.”
-- 056 --
[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]
“One of us—how! who are you?—What mean
you?”
“Every thing. You are a made man—your fortunes
are made. You've become one of a family
that can do every thing for you, and will do it, if
you'll let them.”
The silence of Pickett expressed more wonder
than his words could have done. The other went
on without heeding a feeble attempt which he made
at reply.
“You've volunteered to do some of our business,
and have, therefore, joined our fraternity.”
“Your business—what business—what fraternity?—
I don't know, my friend, what you possibly
can mean.”
“I'll tell you then, and put you out of suspense.
You're just from Tuscaloosa where you've taken
some trouble off our hands. I've come to thank
you for it, and to do you some kindness in return.
One good turn deserves another you know, and this
that you have done for us, deserves a dozen.”
The wonder of Pickett was increased. He almost
gasped in uttering another request to hear all that
the other had to say.
“Why it's soon said,” he replied. “You shot a
lad two days ago near the `Shade' up beyond Tuscaloosa—”
-- 057 --
[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]
“Who says—who saw—it is a lie—a d—d lie;”
cried the criminal in husky and feeble accents, while
quivering at the same time with mingled rage and
fear.
“Oh, pshaw!” said the other—“What's the use of
beating about the bush. I saw you tumble the lad
myself, and I've followed upon your trail ever
since—”
“But you shall follow me no more. One of us
must give way to the other,” cried the criminal in
screaming accents, and while, drawing his knife
with one hand, he aimed to grasp the throat of the
stranger with the other. But the latter was too wily
a scout to become an easy victim. He had watched
his man, even as the cat watches the destined prey—
to whom she suffers a seeming freedom, and sacrifices
at the very moment of its greatest apparent security.
With the movement of Pickett to strike,
was that of the stranger to defend himself—nor to
defend himself only. The strength of the former
was far inferior to that of the man whom he assailed,
and instead of taking him by the throat, he found
his grasp eluded, and at the same moment, the arm
which held the weapon, was secured in a gripe
which effectually baffled all his efforts at release.
“Don't be rash!” said the stranger, with a laugh
in which there was no sign of anger. “Don't be
rash—it's of no use. You're only fighting against
-- 058 --
[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]
your own good, and your powder's wasted on me.
I'm too much for you, and that's enough to make
you quiet. But there's another, and a better reason
than that to keep you quiet. I'm your friend, I
tell you—your best friend, and I can bring you
many friends. I'm come all this distance to befriend
you, and if you'll have patience and be civil, you'll
soon see how.”
“Let go my arm,” said Pickett, chafing furiously,
but still ineffectually, so far as his own efforts to
release himself were concerned.
“Well, I'll do that,” said the stranger, releasing
him at the same instant; “but, mind me, if you try
to use it again, as you did just now, it will be worse
for you. I never suffer a dog to worry me twice.—
I'm sure to draw his teeth, so that he will bite no
other—and if you lift that knife at me again, I'll put
a plug into your bosom, that will go quite as deep,
if not deeper, than your bullet did in the bosom of
that young fellow.”
“You know not what you say—you saw not
that!” was the faint answere of Pickett.
“It's a true bill, man, and I'll swear to it. How
should I know it, if I did not see it? I saw the lad
tumble—saw you scud from the place, rifle in hand,
and take to your creature, which was fastened to a
dwarf poplar in a little wood of poplars. What
say you to that? Is it not true?”
-- 059 --
[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]
Pickett leaned against a tree, silent and exhausted.
He had no answer. The fates had tracked him
to his den.
“Nay—fear nothing, though I know your secret,”—
said the other, approaching him—“You are
in no sort of danger; not from me at least; on the
contrary, you have done our friends a service—have
saved them from the trouble of doing the very thing
that we would have had to do for ourselves. Three of
us pursued the man that you shot, and if he had got
away, which he must have done but for your bullet,
it would have been an ugly and losing matter for us.
You did us good service then I tell you—you volunteered
to be one of our strikers, and we have got
the game. The search of the body gave us a rich
booty, and his death a degree of safety, which we
might not else have enjoyed.”
“Well—wasn't that enough for you? Why did
you come after me?” demanded Pickett bitterly.
“Why follow me with your infernal secret?”
“Lord love you—to give you your share of the
spoil, to be sure, what else? Do you think us so
mean as to keep all for ourselves, and give none to
a man who did, I may say, the dirtiest part of the
business? Oh, no! brother—no! I've brought you
your share of the booty. Here it is. You will see
when you come to look at it, that we are quite as
liberal as we should be. You have, here, a larger
-- 060 --
[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]
amount, than is usually given to a striker.” And, as
the stranger spoke these words, he pulled out something
from his pocket, which he presented to his astonished
auditor. Pickett thrust away the extended
hand, as he replied—
“I want none of it. I will have no share—I
am not one of you.”
“But, that's all nonsense, my brother. You must
take it. You must be one of us. When a striker
refuses his share, we suspect that something's going
wrong, and he takes his share, or he pays for it, by
our laws;” was the reply of the stranger who continto
press the money upon him.
“Your laws!—of what laws—of whom do you
speak?”
“Of our fraternity, to be sure—of the Mystic Brotherhood.
Perhaps, you have never heard of the
Mystic Brotherhood?”
“Never.”
“You are fortunate to have lived long enough to
be wise. Let me enlighten you. The Mystic Brotherhood
consists of a parcel of bold fellows, who
don't like the laws of the state exactly, and of other
societies, and who have accordingly associated together,
for the purpose of making their own, and doing
business under them. As we have no money of our
own, and as we must have money, we make it legal
to take it from other people. When they will not
-- 061 --
[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]
shut their eyes and suffer us take it without trouble,
we shut them up ourselves; a task for the proper
doing of which, we have a thousand different modes.
One of these, the task of a striker, you employed in
our behalf, and very effectually shut up for us, the
eyes of that foolish young fellow, who had already
given us some trouble, and, but for you, might have
given us a great deal more. Having done so well,
we resolved to do you honor—to make you one of
us, and give you all the benefits of our institution,
as they are enjoyed by every other member. We
have our brethren in all the states from Virginia to
Louisiana, and beyond into the territories. Some
of our friends keep agencies for us, even so far as the
Sabine, and we send negroes to them daily.”
“Negroes—what negroes—have you negroes?”
“Yes—when we take them—we get the negroes
to run away from their owners, then sell them to
others, get them to run away again, and in this way,
we probably sell the same negro, half a dozen times.
This is one branch of our business and might suit
you. When the affair gets too tangled, and we apprehend
detection, we tumble the negro into a river,
and thus rid ourselves of a possession that has paid
good interest already, and which it might not be any
longer safe to keep.”
“What—you kill the negro?
“Yes, you may say so.—We dispose of him.”
-- 062 --
[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]
“And how many persons have you in the Brotherhood?”
“Well, I reckon we stretch very nigh on to fifteen
hundred.”
“Fifteen hundred—is it possible!—so many?”
“Yes, and we are increasing daily. Let me give
you the first sign, brother; the sign of a striker.”
“No!”—cried Pickett shrinking back. “I will
not join you. I do not know the truth of what you
say. I never heard the like before. I will have nothing
to do in this business.”
“You must!” was the cool rejoinder—“you must!
Nobody shall strike for us, without becoming one
of us.”
“And suppose I refuse?” said Pickett.
“Then I denounce you as a murderer, to the
grand jury,” was the cool reply. “I will prove you
to have murdered this youth, and bring half a dozen
beside myself to prove it.”
“What if I tell all that you have told me of your
brotherhood?”
“Pshaw, brother, you are dreaming. What if you
do tell—who will you get to believe you—where's
your proofs? But I will prove all that I charge you
with, by a dozen witnesses. Even if it were not
true, yet could I prove it.”
The discomfited murderer perspired in his agony.
The net was completely drawn around him.
-- 063 --
[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]
“Don't be foolish, brother,” said the emissary
of a fraternity, upon the borders of the new states,
the history of which, already in part given to the public,
is a dreadful chronicle of desperate crime, and
insolent incendarism—“Don't be foolish—
you can't help yourself—you must be one of us,
whether you will or not. We can't do without you—
we have bought you out. If you take our business
from us, you must join partnership, or we must shut
up your shop. We can't have any opposition going
on. The thing's impossible—insufferable! Here—
take your share of the money. It will help you to
believe in us, and that's a great step towards making
you comply with my demand; nay—don't hold
back—I tell you, brother, you must go with us now,
body and soul, or you hang, by the eternal.”
Base and wretched as was the miserable Pickett,
in morals and in condition, he was not yet so utterly
abandoned as to feel easy, under a necessity so imperatively
presented to him. The character of his
wife, noble amidst poverty and all its consequent
forms of wretchedness, if it had not lifted his own
standards of feeling and of thought, beyond his own
nature, had the effect, at least, of making him conceal,
as much as he could, his deficiencies from her.
Here was something more to conceal, and this necessity
was, of itself, a pang to one, having but the
one person to confide in, and feeling so great a
-- 064 --
[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]
dependence upon that one. This step estranged him
still farther from her, and while he passionately took
the proffered money, and looked upon the uncouth,
and mystic sign which the other made before him,
in conferring his first degree of membership, the
cold sweat stood upon his face in heavy drops, and
an icy weight seemed contracting about his heart.
He felt as if he had bound himself, hand and foot,
and was about to be delivered over to the executioner.
-- 065 --
CHAPTER VII.
We should know each other—
As to my character for what men call crime,
Seeing I please my senses, as I list,
And vindicate that right with force or guile,
It is a public matter, and I care not
If I discuss it with you.
The Conet.
[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]
The emissary of the Mystic Brotherhood, which
had just conferred the honors of its membership on
one who so richly deserved them, though pursuing
his labours with the rigid directness of an ordinary
business habit, and confining himself thereto, with
a degree of strictness and method not common to the
wicked, was yet, by no means a niggard in his communications.
He unfolded much of the history of
that dangerous confederacy, which it is not thought
necessary to deliver here; and his hearer became
gradually and fully informed of the extent of its resources
and ramifications. Yet these gave him but
little satisfaction. He found himself one of a clan
numbering many hundred persons, having the
means of procuring wealth, which had been limited
-- 066 --
[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]
to him heretofore simply because of his singleness,
and not because of any better principle which he
possessed; and yet he shuddered to find himself in
such a connection. The very extensiveness of the
association, confounded his judgment, and filled him
with terrors. He was one of those petty villains
who rely upon cunning and trick, rather than audacity
and strength, to prosecute their purposes; and
while the greater number of the clan found their
chief security in a unity of purpose and a concentration
of numbers, which, in the end, enabled them
for a season, to defy, and almost overthrow the laws
of society, he regarded this very circumstance as
that, which, above all others, must greatly contribute
to the risk and dangers of detection. The glowing
accounts of his companion, which described their
successes—their profitable murders, fearless burglaries,
and a thousand minor offences, such as negro,
horse stealing, and petty thefts—only served to
enlarge the vision with which he beheld his fears;
and, dull and wretched, he returned with his guest
to the miserable hovel, now become doubly so since
his most humiliating enlightenment, and the formation
of his new ties. His wife and daughter, meanwhile,
had retired for the night; but the woman did
not sleep. She was filled with apprehensions for
her husband, scarcely less imposing than those
which troubled him for himself; yet little did she
-- 067 --
[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]
dream how completely he was in the thrall of that
power from which her own severe and fruitless virtues
had been utterly unable at all times to restrain
him. Her wildest fear never imagined a bond so
terrible as that which had been imposed upon him
in the last half hour.
“Whenever you want to lie down, stranger, you
can do so. There's your blanket. I'm sorry there's
no better for you.” It was with difficulty that Pickett
brought himself to utter these common words of
courtesy.
“Good enough,” said the other—“I'll take it a
little closer by the fire; and, if you have no objection,
I'll throw a stick or two on. I've slept in a better
bed, it's true, but I'll be satisfied if I never sleep in
a worse.”
The hesitating utterance of her husband, and the
cool and ready reply of their guest, did not escape
the keen hearing of the woman. Pickett muttered
something in answer to this speech, and then threw
himself, without undressing, upon the bed. The
other followed the example, and, in a few moments,
his form, stretched at length before the fire place,
lay as quietly as if he were already wrapped in the
deepest slumbers. This appearance, was, however,
deceptive. The emissary had not yet fulfilled all
his duties; and he studiously maintained himself in
watchfulness, the better to effect his objects.
-- 068 --
[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]
Believing him to be asleep, however, the anxieties of
Pickett's wife, prompted her, after awhile, to speak
to her miserable husband, with whom, as yet, she
had had no opportunity of private speech; but her
whispered accents, were checked by the apprehensive
criminal on the first instant of their utterance.
With a quick and nervous gripe, he grasped her arm
in silence, and, in this manner, without a word, put
a stop to her inquiries. In silence, thus, and yet
with equal watchfulness, did the three remain, for
the space of two goodly hours. The night was advancing,
and Pickett began to hope that John Hurdis
would fail to keep his promise; but the hope had
not well been formed in his mind, before he heard
the signal agreed upon between them—three hoots
and a bark—and in a cold agony that found in every
movement a pitfall, and an enemy in every bush,
he prepared to rise and go forth to his employer.
“Where would you go?” demanded the woman
in a hurried whisper, which would not be repressed,
and she grasped his arm as she spoke. She, too,
had heard the signal, and readily divined its import
when she saw her husband preparing to leave her.
“Nowhere—what's the matter—lie still; and
don't be foolish,” was his reply, uttered also in a
whisper, while, with some violence, he disengaged
his arm from her grasp. She would have still detained
him.
-- 069 --
[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]
“Oh, Ben!” was all she said, and the still whispered
accents, went through him with a warning
emphasis, that well reminded him of that good
counsel, which he had before rejected; and which
he bitterly cursed himself for not having followed.
“She was right,” he muttered to his own heart.
“She was right—had I listened to what she said, and
let John Hurdis do his own dirty work, I would
have had no such trouble. But—it's too late now—
too late. I must now get through it as I may.”
He rose, and silently opening the door, disappeared
in the night. He had scarcely done so, when the
emissary prepared to follow him. The wife saw
the movement with terror, and coughing aloud, endeavoured,
in this way, to convince the stranger, that
she was wakeful like himself; but her effort to discourage
him from going forth proved fruitless—
he gave her no heed, and she beheld him, with fear
and trembling, depart almost instantly after her husband.
She could lie in bed no longer; but rising,
hurried to the door, which she again opened, and
gazed anxiously out upon the dim and speechless
trees of the neighbouring forests, with eyes that
seemed to penetrate into the very dimmest of their
recesses. She looked without profit. She saw nothing.
The forms of both her husband and his guest
were no where visible. Should she pursue them?
This was at once her thought, but she dismissed it
-- 070 --
[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]
as idle, a moment after. Shivering with cold, and
under the nameless terrors in her apprehension, she
re-entered the hovel, and closed the entrance.
“God be with me,” she cried, sinking on her
knees, beside the miserable pallet, where she had
passed so many sleepless nights.—“God be with me,
and with him. We have need of thee, Oh, God—
both of us have need of thee. Strengthen me, oh,
God, and save him from his enemies.—The hand of
the tempter is upon him—is upon him, even now.—
I have striven with him, and I plead with him in
vain. Thou only, Blessed Father—Thou, only, who
art in heaven, and art all merciful on earth—thou
only canst save him. He is weak, and yielding
where he should be strong, timid when he should
be bold, and bold only, where it is virtue to be fearful.
Strengthen him, when he is weak, and let him
be weak where he would be wicked. Cut him not
off in thy wrath, but spare him to me—to this poor
child—to himself. He is not fit to perish. Protect
him!—He's—What is this—who? Is it you Jane? Is
it you, my poor child?”
The idiot girl had crawled to her, unseen, during
her brief, but energetic apostrophe to the Eternal,
and with a simpering, half-sobbing accent, testified
her surprise at the unwonted vehemence and seeming
unseasonableness of her mother's prayers. With increasing
energy of action, the woman clasped the
-- 071 --
[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]
girl around the waist—and dragged her down upon
the floor beside her.
“Put up your hands, Jane!” was her exclamation—
“put up your hands with me! pray—pray with
me. Pray to God, to deliver us from evil—your
father from evil—from his own, and the evil deeds
of other men—speak out child, speak fast, and pray—
pray!”
“Our father who art in heaven!” The child went
on with the usual adjuration which had been a possession
of mere memory from her infancy; while the
mother, with uplifted hands, but silent thoughts, concluded
her own heartfelt invocation to the God of
bounty, and protection. She felt that she could do
no more, yet much rather would she have followed
her husband into the woods, and dragged him away
from the grasp of the tempter, than knelt that moment
in prayer.
Pickett meanwhile, little dreaming that he was
watched, hurried to the place assigned for meeting
John Hurdis, among the Willows. The emissary
followed close behind him. It was no part of his
plan to leave the former ignorant of his proper quality;
and the first intelligence which he had of his approach,
was the sound of his voice, which sank into
the heart of Pickett like an ice bolt. He shivered and
stopped when he heard it, as if by an instinct. His
will would have prompted him to fly, and leave it
-- 072 --
[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]
behind forever, but his feet were fastened to the
earth. “What's the matter—why do you come
after me?” he asked.
“I'll go along with you, brother,” said the stranger
coolly in reply.
“As you will, but why? You don't think I'm
running off from you, do you?”
“No!—that you can't do, brother, even if you
would. We have eyes all around us, that suffer no
movement by any of us to be made unseen; and if
you do run, such are our laws, that I should have to
follow you. But I know your business, and wish
for an introduction to your friend.”
“My friend!” exclaimed Pickett in profound astonishment.
“What friend—I know of no friend.”
“Indeed—but you must surely be mistaken; your
memory is confused I see. The friend you're going
to meet. Is he not your friend?”
“I'm going to meet no friend—”
“Surely you are! Brother, you would'nt deceive
me, would you? Didn't I hear the owl's hoot, and
the dog's bark. I wasn't asleep, I tell you. I heard
the signal as well as you.”
“Owl's hootand dog's bark—why, that's no signal
in these parts,” said Pickett, with a feeble attempt
at laughter which failed utterly—“you may hear
owls and dogs all night if you listen to them. We
are wiser than to do that.”
-- 073 --
[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]
The other replied in graver accents than usual.
“I'm afraid, brother, you are not yet convinced
of the powers of the Mystic Brotherhood, or you
wouldn't suppose me to have been neglectful of the
duties they sent me upon. I tell you, they gave it
to me in charge, to follow you, and to find out who
and what you were—to learn your motives for
killing the youth that we were in pursuit of, and to
take all steps, for making so good a shot, and ready
a hand, one of our own. Do you think I lost sight
of you for a single instant, from that time to this?
Be sure I did not. No! I saw you from the moment
you took your nag from the stunted poplar, where
you fastened him. I marked every footstep you
have taken since. When you stopped at that plantation
and told your friend of your success—”
“Great God!—you didn't hear what we said!”
“Every syllable.—That was a most important
part of my service. I wouldn't have missed a word
or look of that conference.”
Pickett turned full upon the inflexible emissary,
and gazed upon him with eyes of unmixed astonishment
and terror. When he spoke at length it was
in accents of mingled despair and curiosity.
“And wherefore was this important? Of what
use will it be to you, to know that I was working
for another man in this business.”
“It helps us to another member of the Mystic
-- 074 --
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Brotherhood, my brother. It strengthens our arm—
it increases our resources.—It ripens our strength,
and hastens our plans. He, too, must be one of us!
It is for this, I seek to know him.”
“But there's no need with him?” said Pickett.
“How—no need?”
“He's rich—he's not in want of money, as we
are. Why should he be one of us.”
“To keep what he's got,” said the other coolly.
“But suppose he won't join you.”
“We'll hang him then, my brother. You shall
prove that he was the murderer!”
“The devil you say—but I'll do no such thing.”
“Then, brother, we must hang you both.”
The eyes of Pickett looked the terror that his lips
could not speak; and without farther words, he led
the way to the place of meeting, urging no farther
opposition to a will, before which, his own quailed
in subjection.
-- 075 --
CHAPTER VIII.
Now we are alone, sir;
And thou hast liberty to unload the burden
Which thou groan'st under.
Massinger.
[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]
There is no fascination in the snake, true or fabled,
of more tenacious hold upon the nature of the
victim, than was that of the emissary of the Mystic
Brotherhood, upon the miserable creature, Pickett.
A wretch born in degradation, living as it were by
stealth, and in constant dread of penal atonement,
life was torture, of itself, enough when it came
coupled with the constant fear of justice. But when
to this danger was added, that of an accountability to
a power, no less arbitrary than the laws, and wholly
illegitimate, the misery of the wretch was complete.
But if such was the influence of such a condition
over Pickett's mind, what must it be over the no less
dishonourable, and far more base offender who employed
him. Though a murderer, a cold blooded
calculating murderer, who could skulk behind a
bush, and shoot down his victim from a covert
-- 076 --
[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]
without warning made, or time given for preparation,
he was yet hardy enough, if he had the sensibility
for hate, to avenge his wrong by his own
hand, and not by that of an agent. John Hurdis had
proved himself deficient even in this doubtful sort
of courage. He could smile and be the villain—
could desire and devise the murder of his enemy;—
but wanted even the poor valour of the murderer.
What must be the feeling—the fear—of his leprous
heart, when he is taught his true condition. When
he finds his secret known—when he feels himself in
the power of a clan having a thousand tongues, and
hourly exposing themselves to a thousand risks of
general detection. It would have been a sight for
study, to behold those three villains gathered together
in that nocturnal interview. Hurdis—his soul
divided between triumph and horror—eager to
learn the particulars of the horrid crime which his
agent had horribly executed, yet dreading the very
recital to which he gave all ears;—Pickett—burdened
with the consciousness of unprofitable guilt, and of its
exposure to the dogging blood hound at his heels;—
and he, the emissary—like a keen hunter—hanging
upon the flanks of both, pricking them forward
when they faltered, and now by sarcasm, and now
by threats, quelling their spirits, and commanding all
their secrets. Secure of his game, he smiled in his
security at the feeble efforts which he beheld them
-- 077 --
[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]
make, and the futile hopes which he saw they entertained,
of being able to baffle his pursuit, and
throw out his unerring nostril from the scent which
he had so fortunately followed. The struggle was,
indeed, no less pitiful than painful, and well might
the utter villain smile with contempt at the partial
character, which the two brought to bear upon their
designs of evil. Without virtue and radically vicious,
they were alike deficient in that bold and daring insolence,
which can defy the laws which it offends,
and by a courage, of however doubtful merit, at least
elevate its offences above the level of sneaking and
insidious vice. His game was that of the cunning
angler, who knows that his hook is keenly fixed in
the jaws of his prey, and who plays with his hopes
only to make his fears more oppressive, and his compliance
the more unreserved and unqualified.
Hurdis was awaiting his companion in the place
appointed.
“What have we here—who is this?” he exclaimed
in surprise, as he beheld the stranger with
Pickett.
“It is a friend?” replied the latter with a subdued
and discouraging voice.
“A friend!” said Hurdis. “What friend? who?
we want no friend—why have you brought him?”
“You mistake,” said the stranger boldly. “You
-- 078 --
[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]
do want a friend, though you may not think so; and
I am the very man for you. But go aside with
Pickett—he'll tell you all about it.”
Having thus spoken, the emissary coolly seated
himself upon a log, and John Hurdis completely confounded
by his impudence, turned, as he was bidden,
for explanation to his agent. They went aside together,
and in a confused and awkward manner,
Pickett went through the bitter narration, which it
almost paralysed the other to hear.
“Great God, Ben Pickett—what have you done?
we are ruined—lost forever!”
The cold sweat rolled from the forehead of Hurdis,
and his knees trembled beneath him. His companion
tried to console him.
“No—there's no sort of danger. Hear his story
of his business, and we know much more against
him, than he knows against us.”
“And what is that to us? What is it to me that
I can prove him a villain or a murderer, Ben Pickett?
Will it help our defence to prove another as worthy
of punishment, as ourselves? Will it give us security?”
“We must make the best of it now. It's too late
to grieve about it,” said the other.
“Ay, we must make the best of it,” said Hurdis,
becoming suddenly bold, yet speaking in tones
-- 079 --
[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]
that were suppressed to a whisper—“and there is but
one way. Hear me, Ben Pickett—does this fellow
come alone?”
“He does!”
“Ha! That is fortunate—then we have him. His
companions are—where, did you say?”
“All about—on the high roads—every where—
from Augusta to Montgomery, to Mobile, to Tuscaloosa—
from the Muscle Shoals to Jackson—from
Tuscaloosa to Chochuma. Every where, according
to his account of it.”
“Which is probably exaggerated. They may be
every where, but they certainly are not here—not
in this neighbourhood.”
“We don't know that, 'Squire. God! there's no
telling. To think that the fellow should track me
so, makes me afraid of every thing.”
“You were careless, Pickett—frightened, perhaps—”
“No, I wasn't. I was just as cool as I wished to
be, and I cleared every step in the road afore I
jumped it.”
“It needs not to talk of this. We must be more
careful in future. We must match his cunning with
greater cunning, or we are undone forever. We are
in his power, and who knows that he is one of a gang
such as you describe? Who knows that he is not an
-- 080 --
[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]
officer of justice—one who suspects us, and is come
to find out our secrets?”
“No, no, 'Squire—how should he be able to tell
me all that he did? How should he know that I shot
Dick Hurdis from the hill that hangs over the road?”
“You remember you told me that yourself, Ben
Pickett, and you say he overheard our conversation,”
cried Hurdis eagerly.
“Yes, 'Squire, but how should he know that I hid
my nag in a thicket of poplars—how should he be
able to tell me the very sort of stump I fastened
him to?”
“And did he do that, Ben?”
“That he did—every bit of it. No, no, 'Squire—
he saw all that he says he saw, or he got it from
somebody that did see it.”
“Great Heavens! what are we to do!” exclaimed
Hurdis, as he folded his hands together, and looked
with eyes of supplication upwards. But his answer
and the counsel which it conveyed, came from an entirely
opposite region.
“Do! well that's the question,” replied Pickett,
“and I don't know what to tell you, 'Squire.”
“We must do something—we cannot remain
thus at the mercy of this fellow. The thought is
horrible. the rope is round our necks, Ben, and he
has the end in his hands.”
“It's too true.”
-- 081 --
[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]
“Hear me!” said Hurdis in a whisper, and drawing
his companion still farther from the spot where
the emissary had been left in waiting—“There is but
one way. He comes alone. We must silence him.
You must do it, Ben.”
“Do what, Squire?”
“Do what!” exclaimed the other impatiently,
though still in a whisper. “Would you have me
utter every word? Do with him as you have done
with Dick Hurdis.”
“I've thought of that, 'Squire, but—”
“But what?”
“There's a mighty risk.”
“There's risk in every thing. But there's no risk
greater than that of being at the mercy of such a
blood hound.”
“That's true enough, 'Squire; but he's too much
for me single handed. You must help me.”
“What's the need? You don't think to do it now?”
demanded Hurdis in some alarm.
“If it's to be done at all, why not now? The
sooner, the better, 'Squire. This is the very time.
He has poked his nose into our pot, and he can't
complain, if he gets it scorched. Together, we could
put it to him, so that there could be no mistake.”
But this counsel did not suit the less courageous
nature of John Hurdis.
“No, Ben, that would be a risk, indeed. We
-- 082 --
[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]
might tumble him, but a chance shot from a desperate
man, might also tumble one or both of us.”
“That's true.”
“We must think of something else—some safer
course, which will be equally certain. He sleeps at
your house.”
“Yes,”—said the other quickly, “but I will do nothing
of that sort, within smell of Betsy. It's bad
enough to draw blood on the high road, but it must
not run on one's own hearth.”
“Pshaw! where's the difference. Murder is murder
wherever it is done.”
“That's true, 'Squire, but there's a feeling in it,
that makes the difference. Besides, I won't have
the old woman worried with any of this business.
I've kept every thing of this sort from her that I
could; and the thing that I most hated Dick Hurdis
for, was his making such a blaze of that whipping
business, as to bring it to her sight. There's Jane,
too! No, 'Squire, my wife and child, must not know
all the dirty matters that stick to my fingers.”
“Well! as you please, on that score. But something
must be done. You must fix a trap for him.
When does he leave you?”
“There's no knowing. He wants to fix you as
as he's fixed me—to make us both members of his
clan—Mystic Brotherhood—as he calls it, and when
that's done, I suppose he'll be off.”
-- 083 --
[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]
“But why should he desire this? What motive
can he have in it? Why a society so extensive.”
“There's no telling; only you'll have to consent.”
“What! to this accursed Brotherhood? Never!”
“How can you help it, 'Squire? If you don't he'll
expose you. He swears to hang you, if you do not.”
“But he cannot. How can he prove his charge?
Besides, I struck no blow—I never left my home.”
“You forget, 'Squire, he heard our talk together.”
“But who'll believe him, Ben? You can swear
him down that you never had such a conversation.”
“No!—I dare not, for then he'd prove me to be
the man that shot. We must submit,
'Squire, I'm afraid, or he'd convict us both; and to
save myself, I'd swear against you. I'd have to
do it, 'Squire.”
This declaration completed the misery of Hurdis,
as it showed him how insecure was the tenure, by
which the slaves of vice are held together. the bitterness
of fear—the very worst bitterness of human
passion—was in his heart, in all its force and fulness,
and he had to drink deeper draughts of its humiliating
waters even than this.
“What! Ben Pickett, can it be that you would give
evidence against me—after all I have done for you?
You do not tell me so.”
“To save life only, 'Squire: To save life only—
for no other necessity. But life is sweet, 'Squire—
-- 084 --
[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]
too sweet for us to stand on any friendship, when we
can save it by giving every thing up beside. It
wouldn't be at the first jump neither, 'Squire, that I
would let out the secrets of an old friend. It is only
when I see there's no other hope to save myself, and
then, I should be mighty sorry.”
“Sorry!” exclaimed Hurdis, bitterly. “Thus it
is,” he thought, “to use base instruments for unworthy
ends. The slave becomes the arbiter—the master—
and to silence and subdue our fears, we add to
our secret consciousness of shame.”
In anxiousness, but without expression, he mused
thus with his own thoughts.
“Well, Ben, since it can be no better,” he spoke
to his companion; “we must even hold together,
and do as well as we can to work ourselves out of
this difficulty. You are resolved to do nothing with
the fellow at your own house.”
Pickett replied in words and a tone, which made
his negative conclusive.
“We must see his hand, then, and know the game
he intends to play,” continued Hurdis. “You are
agreed that we must get him out of the way for our
own safety. To say when and how is all the difficulty.
Am I right?”
“That's it, 'Squire; though, somehow, if we could
clinch him now, it seems to me it would be better
than leaving it over for another day.”
-- 085 --
[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]
“That's not to be thought on, Ben. It's too
great a risk.”
“I don't know, 'Squire. I could give him a dig
while you're talking with him; and if, when I made
the motion, you could take him by the throat, or only
dash your hat in his face to confuse him, I think it
might be done easily enough.”
Pickett showed his Bowie knife as he spoke,
which he had carefully hidden in his bosom, unperceived
by his guest, before he went abroad. But this
plan, though, perhaps, the best, met with no encouragement
from his more politic, or, to speak plainly,
more timid companion. He shook his head, and the
voice of the emissary at a little distance, was heard,
as he sang some rude ditty to cheer the solitude of
his situation, or perhaps to notify the twain that he
was becoming impatient.
“Hark! he approaches us,” said Hurdis. “Let
us say no more now. Enough that we understand
each other. We must watch his game, in order to determine
upon our own; and, though, I would not we
should do any thing to night; yet, what we do, must
not only be done without risk, but must be done
quickly. Let us go to him now.”
-- 086 --
CHAPTER IX.
Your oaths are past, and now subscribe your name,
That his own hand, may strike his honor down,
That violates the smallest branch herein.
Love's Labor Lost.
Unto bad causes, swear
Such creatures as men doubt.
Julius Cæsar.
[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]
The emissary had awaited the end of their long
conference with exemplary patience.
“I could have told you all in fewer words,” he
said bluntly to John Hurdis, the moment they came
in sight.—“The story is soon told by one who is
accustomed to it. I am compelled to talk it over to
so many, that I go through it now almost as a matter
of memory, with a certain set of words which I
seldom have occasion to change. I trust that my
brother, here, has done no discredit to my skill, by
halving it in repeating.”
“I fear not,” replied Hurdis.—“He has certainly
told enough to startle one less confidently assured
in his own innocence, than myself. He has unfolded
a strange history in my ears. Can it be true?”
-- 087 --
[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]
“As Gospel!”
“And you really have the large number of persons
leagued together which he mentions?”
“Full fifteen hundred.”
“And for such purposes?”
“Ay!”
“And what is your object here? What do you
seek from us?”
“To increase the number. We seek friends.”
“Wherefore! Why should you increase your number,
when such an increase must only diminish your
resources?”
“I don't know that such will be its effect, and it
increases our power. We gain in strength, when we
gain in number.”
“But why desire an increase of strength, when
even now you have enough for all your purposes?”
“Indeed! but who shall know—who declare—our
purposes? I, even I, know nothing of them all. I
may suspect—I may conjecture—but I know them
not. They are kept from us, till the proper moment.”
“Indeed—who should then—if you do not? Who
keeps them from you?”
“The Grand Council. They determine for us,
and we execute.”
“Who are they?”
“That must be a secret from you, yet. You shall
-- 088 --
[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]
know it, and all our secrets, when you shall have
taken your several degrees in our Brotherhood.”
“I will take none!” said Hurdis, with more emphasis
than resolution.
“You do not say it!” was the cool reply of the
emissary. “You dare not.”
“How! not dare?”
“It's as much as your life is worth.”
“You speak boldly.”
“Because I am confident of strength, my brother,”
replied the emissary. “You will speak boldly
too—more boldly than now—when you become
one of us. You will feel your own strength, when
you know ours. When you feel as I do, that there
are friends forever nigh, and watchful of your safety;
making your enemies theirs; guarding your footsteps;
fighting your battles; making a common cause
of your interests, and standing elbow to elbow with
you, in all your dangers. Wherefore should I be
bold enough to seek you here—two of you, both
strong men—both, most probably armed.—I, alone,
having strength of person, not greater, perhaps, than
either of you, and, possibly, not so well armed—but
that I feel myself thus mighty in my connections? I
know they have taken my footsteps—they know
where I am at all seasons, as I know where to find
others of our Brotherhood, and if I could not call
them at a given moment, to save me from a sudden
-- 089 --
[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]
blow, I am at least certain that they know where,
and when to avenge me. But, for this, brothers,
both, I should not have ventured my nose into your
very den, as I may call it, telling you of your tricks
upon travellers, and spurring you into our ranks.”
The audacious development of the emissary absolutely
confounded the two criminals, before whom
he stood. They looked at one another, vacantly,
without answer, and the emissary smiled to see in
the ghastly star light, their not less ghastly countenances.
He put his hand upon the arm of Hurdis
who stood next to him.
“I see you are troubled, brother; but what reason
have you to fear? The worst is over. Your secret is
known to friends—to those only who can and will
serve you.”
“Friends! Friends! God help me, what sort of
friends!” was the bitter speech of Hurdis, as he listened
to this humiliating sort of consolation. With
increasing bitterness he continued.—“And what do
our friends want of me? what shall I do for them—
what give them? Their friendship must be paid for,
I suppose. You want money?”
“We do—but none of yours.”
“And why not mine as well as others. Is it not
quite as good?”
“Quite, but not enough of it, perhaps. But we
never take from our friends—from those whom we
-- 090 --
[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]
are resolved to have in our brotherhood. You might
give us money upon compulsion, but it would be
scarce worth our while, to extort that, when your
co-operation is necessary to our other purposes, and
must result in getting us a great deal more.”
“I must know how—I must know your other
purposes, before I consent to unite with you. I will
not league with those who are common robbers.”
“Common robbers, brother,” cried the emissary
with a contemptuous sneer, “are not, perhaps,
such noble people as common murderers,
but, I take it, they are quite as virtuous. But we are
not common robbers, my brother; far from it. You
do great injustice to the Mystic Brotherhood.
Know from me that we are simply seekers of justice;
and we only differ from all others having the
same object, in the means which we take to bring it
about. We are those who redress the wrongs and
injuries of fortune, who protect the poor from the
oppressor, who subdue the insolent, and humble the
presumptuous and vain. Perhaps, we are, in truth,
the most moral community under the sun; since our
policy keeps us from harming the poor, and if we
wrong any body, it is only those who do. We take
life but seldom, and then only with the countenance
of our social laws, and by the will of the majority,
except in individual cases, when the fundamental law
of self-protection makes the exception to other laws
-- 091 --
[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]
which are specified. Does your court house in
Marengo do better than that—more wisely, more
justly? I know to the contrary, my brother, and so
do you.”
“But we are content with our laws,” said Hurdis.
“Ah, indeed! are you willing to be tried by them.
Shall I go to the attorney, and tell him what I know—
shall I point to your agent beside you, and say he
shot down a tall fellow without any notice, and
would have robbed him of his money, if he could,
and all on your account.”
“You could not say that!” said Hurdis in trembling
haste—“his robbery was not our object.”
“His death was.”
“Ay—but he was an enemy—a hateful, malignant
enemy—one who trampled on his elder and
his brother—”
“Was he your brother?” exclaimed the emissary
starting back at the words, and looking upon the
criminal in undisguised astonishment.
The silence of Hurdis answered the question
sufficiently.
“Your own brother—the child of the same mother!
Well! It must have been a cruel wrong that
he did to you.”
“It was!” stammered out Hurdis in reply.
“It must have been,” said the other—“It must
have been. I would take a great deal from a
-- 092 --
[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]
brother, if I had one, before I'd shoot him, and then, I
tell you, if 'twas necessary to be done, my own hands
should do it. I wouldn't send another man on the
business. But, I've nothing to do with that. All
that I've got to say is, that you're just the sort of
man we want. You must be one of us. Swear to
stand by us, help us and counsel with us, and in all
respects obey the Grand Council, and be faithful.”
“Any thing but that. Tell me, my good fellow,
is there no alternative. Will not money answer?
You shall have it.”
“Money!—why, what can you give that we
might not take. What are you worth that you talk
so freely of money. We can take your life and
money too. You only live by our indulgence. And
why do we indulge you?—not because of any affection
that we bear you, nor because of any admiration
which we entertain of your abilities and valour, but
simply because we lack assistants, here and there,
throughout the whole southwest, in order to facilitate
the progress of certain great events, which we
have in preparation. But for this, we should compound
with you, and take a portion of your wealth,
in lieu of your life, which you have forfeited. This
is what we do daily. Whenever we detect a criminal—
a friend, as it were, ready made to our hands—
we do not expose, but guard his secret; and when
he becomes one of us, his secret becomes ours, which
-- 093 --
[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]
it is, then, no less our policy, than principle to
preserve. No, no, my brother—we want you, not
your money. Do you keep your money, but we
will keep you.”
“Great God!” muttered the miserable wretch in
self rebuke, “into what a pit have I fallen. Better
die—better perish at once, than submit to such a
bondage as this.”
“As you please, my friend—but to one or the
other you must submit. You have heard my terms,
you must decide quickly. I have not much time to
waste—I have other members to secure for the confederacy,
and must leave you in a day or so.”
“What am I to do—what is it you require?”
“Your oath—your solemn oath to do what I shall
enjoin upon you, now, and what ever else may at
times be enjoined upon you by the Grand Council.”
“What may that be? What sort of duties do they
enjoin?”
“I cannot answer you that. Our duties are various,
and are accommodated to the several capacities
and conditions of our members. You, for example,
are a man of substance and family. From you, the
tasks exacted would seldom be of an arduous character.
You will, perhaps, be required to furnish
monthly reports of the conduct, wealth, principles,
and pursuits of your neighbours, particularly the most
wealthy, active, and intelligent. It is the most
-- 094 --
[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]
important branch of our study, to know all those who
are able to serve, or to annoy us. You must also
communicate to us, the names of all who intend emigrating
from your parts—find out, and let us know
their destination—the route they take—the amount
of money they have with them, their arms, and resolution.
I will give you an address which will enable
you to communicate these things!”
The enumeration of these degrading offices, filled
the measure of John Hurdis's humiliation. A sense
of the most shameful servitude vexed his soul, and
he absolutely moaned aloud, as in the extremity of
his despair, he demanded—
“May there be more than this?”
“Hardly. You will, perhaps, be required to meet
the brotherhood before long, in order to learn what
farther duties they may impose.”
“Meet them!—where—where do they meet?”
“Every where—but where is not to be said at
this time. You will be warned in season by one of
our messengers, and, possibly, by myself, who will
show you the sign, and whom you must follow. Let
me show you the sign now, and administer the oath.”
The victim submitted, as Pickett had already
done, and the bonds of iniquity were sealed, and
signed between them. John Hurdis began to feel
that there was no slavery so accursed—no tyranny
so unscrupulous—no fate so awful, as that of guilt.
-- 095 --
[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]
He almost began to steel himself with the conviction
that it would be an easier matter for him to give himsel
up at once to the executioner of the laws. With
a feeling almost akin to despair, he beheld the cool
emissary take out his pocket book, and in the uncertain
light of the night record their names—nay, actually
tax both himself and Pickett for the right orthography
in doing so—with all the exemplary and
courtly nicety of one “learned in the law.”
-- 096 --
CHAPTER X.
“It must be done:
There is no timely season in delay,
When life is waiting. I must take the sword,
Though my soul trembles. Would it were not so.”
Conspirator.
[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]
The conference was over. The emissary did not
seem willing to waste more words than were absolutely
necessary. He was a man of business. But
Hurdis, to whom the conference had been so terrible,
he was disposed to linger.
“I must speak with you, Ben Pickett, before you
go,” said he hoarsely to his colleague. The emissary
heard the words, and went aside, saying, as he did
so, with a good humoured smile of indifference upon
his countenance—
“What! you would not that I should hear, though
you know we are now of the same family. You
will grow wiser one day.”
“It's nothing,” said Hurdis—“a small matter—
a mere trifle,” and his tones faltered in the utterance
of the lie.
“It's of no account,” said the emissary, “I do
-- 097 --
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not care to know it;” and, whistling as he went, he
put aside the bushes which surrounded the group,
and made his way towards the road.
“Ben Pickett,” said Hurdis, when the emissary
had got out of hearing—“I cannot bear this dreadful
bondage—it will kill me, if I suffer it a week.
We must break from it—we must put an end to it
in some way or other. I cannot stoop to do the
dirty business of this confederacy—these grand rascals—
and what is our security? This scoundrel or
any one of the pack, may expose us at any moment,
and after toiling deeper in the mire, we shall be
taken out of it at the cart's tail. It is not to be
thought on—I cannot bear it. Speak to me. Say—
what are we to do?”
“Well, 'Squire—I can't say—it's for you to speak.
You know best.”
“Nonsense, Ben Pickett—this is no time for idle
compliments. It is you who should know best. You
are better taught in the tricks of these scoundrels,
than I am, and can give better counsel of what we
are to do. Something must be done;—is there no
easier way to get rid of this fellow than by—
you know what I mean. I would not that either of
us should do any more of that business.”
“I reckon not, 'Squire. There's only one way to
stop a wagging tongue, that I know of; and if you're
willing to lend a hand, why, the sooner it's done,
-- 098 --
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the better. The chap stands by the end of the broken
fence—”
The constitutional timidity of John Hurdis arrested
the suggestion, ere it was fully spoken.
“That's too great a risk, Ben—besides, we have
not come prepared.”
“I don't know, 'Squire. I've got a knife that's
sharp enough, and I reckon you've got your pistols.
'Twould be easy enough as we walk along beside
him. The night's clear enough to let you take good
sight upon him—”
“But should the pistol miss fire, Ben—”
“Why then, my knife,”—was the prompt reply.
“It might do, Ben, if he were not armed also.
But you remember, he told us that he was, and it is
but reasonable to think, that he must be, coming on
such a business as this. He must not only be armed,
but well armed. No, no! It will not do just now;
and there's another objection to our doing it here.
It's too nigh home. Let him leave us first, Ben,
and its safest in every respect to give him long shot
for his passport. That's our plan, Ben—I see no
other.”
“Just as you say, 'Squire, just as you say; but to
tell you the truth, I'm almost of the notion that it's
best to come toe to toe, at the jump—take it now, in
the starlight, and have it over. It's a monstrous cold
business now, that watching behind a bush with your
-- 099 --
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rifle, 'till your enemy comes in sight. It's a cold
business.”
“Yes—it may be, but it's the safest of all; and
our safety is now the single object of both of us.
That must be the way, Ben; and—”
“But who'll watch for him? You, I think—there's
no other, for, as he sleeps at my house, I can't leave
him, you know, to take a stand. You'll have to
do it.”
The suggestion was an astounding one; and, for a
few moments, Hurdis was puzzled and silent. To
become himself a principal actor in such a business,
was no part of his desire. He was unprepared, as
well by habit, as constitution, to engage in deeds of
violence, where he himself was the chief performer,
though at no sort of personal risk. Not that he
had moral or human scruples in the matter. We
have seen enough of him already, to know the reverse.
It was necessary, however, for him to say
something; and he proposed a course to his confederate
which was vacillating and indecisive, and could
promise not even a probable advantage. He could
not muster courage enough to recognize the necessity
of doing all himself, and looking his task in the
face.
“Well, but you could let him off and follow him,
as you followed Dick Hurdis.”
“Yes, if I knew his course so well. But when
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he leaves the neighbourhood road, who knows
where he'll strike. All we know, is, that he goes
upward. We are sure of him then before he gets to
the `Crooked Branch,' which is but ten miles off.
There you could watch for him snugly enough, and
be sure of him from the opposite hill for a good
quarter of an hour. But it would be impossible for
me to beat round him, so as to get in front, before he
reaches that point; and after that, who knows where
he turns his bridle.”
“Well, Ben, but you must find that out. You can
inquire as you go, and mark his hoofs.”
The other shook his head.
“I'm dubious about that way, 'Squire. If the
fellow says true, that he has his friends all about
him, I may be asking about his tracks from one of
them, and then all's dicky with both of us. I think
'Squire, there's only that one way, which is the safe
one. You'll have to take the bush at `Crooked
Branch,' and do this business yourself.”
“But I'm not a sure shot with the rifle, Ben, and
to miss were to knock every thing in the head.”
“Take your double barrel; you're a good shot
with that. Put twenty buck shot in each barrel, and
give him one after the other. He won't know the
difference.”
“If I should miss, Ben—”
“You can't miss—how can you? The path's clear
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—nothing to stop your sight. You're out of his
reach. You're on the hill. You see him coming
towards—going round by—you, and you see him for
two hundred yards on a clear track, after he's passed
you. There's no chance of his getting off, Squire—
and—”
“Ha! what's that,” cried Hurdis, as the sound of
a pistol shot aroused all the sleeping echoes of the
wood. The voice of the emissary followed, and he
was heard approaching them through the bushes.
“Don't be frightened, brothers, but believing you
to have fallen asleep, I thought to rouse you up for
fear that you'd take cold. Are you most done, for
I'm getting cold myself.”
They were taught by this—which the emissary
probably desired—that he had fire arms, and enough,
too, to render the loss of one load a matter of small
consequence.
“The fellow's getting impatient,” said Hurdis in
suppressed tones to Pickett. Then, crying aloud,
“we will be with you directly,” he hurried through
the rest of his bloody arrangements for the ensuing
day. When they were about to go forth, Pickett
suddenly stopped his employer.
“I had almost forgot, 'Squire, but do you know,
Bill Carrington's got back already. He gave me a
mighty bad scare to day that I ha'n't got over yet.”
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“How?” demanded Hurdis with natural alarm.
“I saw him going from my house door. He
hadn't been in it, so Betsy swore to me, though I
could almost swear I saw him come out; and without
stopping to say what he wanted, he took to the
woods, like one more frightened than myself.”
“Strange! He hadn't come home by dinner time
to day. Did you take after him?”
“Yes, after a little while I did, but I was too much
scared at first to do any thing quickly; not that I
was so much scared by Bill Carrington, as by another
that I saw just afore him.”
“Who was that?”
“Dick Hurdis.”
John Hurdis started back, and with jaws distended,
and cheeks, whose pallid hue denoted the cowardly
heart within him, almost gasped his words of
astonishment.
“Ha!—you do not say—but—why ask? You had
not killed him then—and yet—if you had wounded
him even, how could he be there?”
“He was not there,” replied the other in low and
trembling accents.—“It was his ghost.”
“Pshaw! I believe not in such things,” was the
answer of Hurdis; but his faltering tones contradicted
the confidence of his language. “It was your
imagination, Ben—nothing else.”
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And, speaking thus, he drew nigher to Pickett,
and looked cautiously around him. The other, who
had faith, had less fear than him who had none.
“Well, I can't say I don't believe in the things
that I see. Call it imagination or what you will,
it gave me a mighty bad scare, 'Squire. But, come,
sir, let us go to this man—he is approaching us
again—I hear his whistle.”
“A moment,” said Hurdis. Pickett hung back,
while the other hesitated to speak. It required an
unusual effort to enable him to do so.
“I say, Ben—I'm ready to do this matter, but if
you could contrive any way to take it off my hands,
I should like it—”
“I don't see, 'Squire, how I can,” said the other.
“If a couple of hundred, or even three, Ben—”
“I'd like to serve you, 'Squire, but—”
“Say five, Ben.”
“I reckon it's imposible, 'Squire. I see no way;
besides, to tell you the truth, I'd rather not. When
I think that the blood on my hands, already, is got
for fighting another man's battles, 'Squire, I'm worse
satisfied than ever with what I've done, and I'm
clear for doing no more, hereafter, than is for my
own safety.”
“But this is for your safety, Ben—we are in the
same boat.”
“Not so, 'Squire—our boats are different—very
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different. You are in a fine large ship with mighty
sails—I am in a poor dug-out. If I lose my dug-out
it's no great matter. But your ship, 'Squire, if you
lose that?”
“I lose more than you do, and yet we both lose
all we have, Ben. You, your life—I mine—it matters
not much which of us is the most wealthy,
since we both lose every thing in losing life. Our
loss is equal then, and it is your interest, quite as
much as mine, to put this fellow out of the way.”
“Well, 'Squire, the truth is, I'm tired of scuffling
for life. I've been scuffling for it all my life.
I won't scuffle any more. I'll take the world as I
find it. I'll take my chance with this fellow, and
run the risk of his blabbing, sooner than squat down
behind a bush and blow his brains out.”
“And yet you expect me to do it, Ben.”
“No, I don't expect you. You ask me how to
put this fellow out of your way—and I tell you. I
know no other way, unless you'll come to the
scratch at once, and have it out with him now, while
the stars are shining.”
“What! just when you've heard his pistol too,
and know that he's well provided in arms. That
would be madness.”
“I know no other way, 'Squire,” was the indifferent
reply.
“Ah, Ben, don't desert me,” was the pitiful
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appeal of the imbecile villain.—“Don't fly from me
at the very first sign of danger.”
“I don't, 'Squire—I'm ready to jump now, this
minute, into its throat, though you know, as well as
I do, that it's full of teeth.”
“That we must not do. We should both perish,
perhaps—certainly, if my pistol should miss fire.”
“But it would be a warm scuffle for it, 'Squire,
and that's better than waiting in a cold bush.”
“We must not think of such a plan. It would
be folly. The first is the best after all—the safest.
I must do it then myself. I will. Why should I
fear? All rests on it, and he—what is he? The
deed were a benefit to society, not less than to ourselves.”
A sudden fit of courage and morality grew at
once prominent together in the spirit of the dastard.
Driven to the necessity, he at length seemed to
embrace it with the resolution of the man; and, thus
resolved, he went forth to meet the person whom,
the next day, he had decreed for the sacrifice.
-- 106 --
CHAPTER XI.
Like dastard curres, that having at abay
The savage beast embost in wearie chace,
Dare not adventure on the stubborn prey,
Ne byte before, but rome from place to place,
To get a snatch, when turned is his face.
Faery Queen.
[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]
The emissary of the Mystic confederacy had
been well chosen for the business upon which he
came. He discriminated at a glance, between the
characters of John Hurdis and his agent. The imbecility
of the one had been the chief occasion of
his vices; the destitution of the other had originated
his. A proper education, alone, with due reference
to their several deficiencies, could have saved them;
and, under strict guidance and just guardianship
they had, doubtlessly, been both good men. They
were not, however; and the task of the emissary was
to make the particular deficiencies of each, the agent
for securing the required degree of influence over
them. To Pickett, when Hurdis left them, he had
that to say, which, though it did not entirely answer
the intended purpose of securing his hearty
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co-operation, had, at least, the effect of confounding him.
Though the agent of Hurdis could not be immediately
changed into an enemy, he was effectually prevented
from appearing forever after in the attitude
of an active friend. The words were few, which effected
this object.
“That is a poor creature for whom you risked
your life. If he dared, he would even now have you
risk it again for him. There is no need to risk it for
yourself. He would pay you well to murder me!
The fool! as if I, only, am in possession of his secret—
as if I were utterly unguarded in coming down
into his jaws, or stood in any sort of danger of
their closing upon me. I'll tell you what, brother,—
when you stab or shoot, let it be on your own
account. If you do it for another, let it be for one
who is not too great a coward to do it for himself.
Here's a wretch, would kill his enemy—that's nothing—
if his own arm held the weapon! Has the
feeling which makes him hate—the malignity
which prompts him to revenge, yet lacks the very
quality, which alone can make hate honorable, and
malignity manly. By the seal of the Grand Council,
if 'twere with me, I'd compound with the fellow
for his life—take his money, as much as he could
give—and let him off from the confederacy. I despise
such sneaks, and would trust them with nothing.
And yet—they have their uses. To save
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his own throat, he can tell us where others are to be
found, and do the business of a spy, if he lacks the
boldness to take the weapon of the soldier. The
scoundrel, too, to strike his own brother—there's
no trusting such a chap, Pickett, and it's fortunate
for you that another has him on the skirts, as well
as yourself. If ever this business had come out, you
would have suffered all—he'd have made you the
scapegoat, and would have lacked the will, as well
as the courage, to have helped you, by a proper effort,
out of the halter. He is planning something
now—I know it—something against me;—but he
must be a keener hunter of blood than I think him,
to find me napping. By mid-day to-morrow, I'll
put another hound upon his track, so that he shall
take no step without the Council knowing it.”
Thus speaking, the emissary led the way back to
the hovel of Pickett, with a manner of the utmost
unconcern. The latter was too much bewildered by
what he heard—by his own peculiar situation, and
the position in which his former coadjutor was likely
to be placed—to think of any thing calmly, or to
make any answer. He began, with that easy pliability
to vice and its suggestions, which had always
marked his character, to feel that there was no need
for him to struggle against a power that almost
seemed like a fate; and if he had any reflections at
all, they were those of one, who, buffeting much
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with the world's troubles, had, at last, learned to
make something of the worst of them. His mind
began to address itself to the advantages which
might result from this new association, and it was
not an emissary so faithful to his trust, as the one
before us, who would suffer these to go unmustered
into notice. Before Pickett slept that night, he had
come to the conclusion that he might as well take
his share in the business of the Mystic confederacy,
which promised so magnificently and paid so well.
But, meanwhile, what of John Hurdis? What
were his thoughts—his dreams, that night? Any
thing but pleasant and promising. The hopes of
Pickett—springing from his poverty and destitution—
were nothing to him. He was rich—a man of
family and substance. Standing fair in the world's
esteem—seeking the regards and the affections of
the virtuous, and the beautiful—what were his reflections
in the position in which he now found himself?
His felony brought home to his doors, and
only withheld from public exposure—at the mercy
of a band of professed felons—and then, only, by
his timely compliance with their laws and exactions—
by his becoming one with them—forced into
their crimes—forced into all their thousand responsibilities.
What a mesh of dangers gathered about
him! What a fecund crime was that which he had
committed! The teeth of his malignity were
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already sprouting from the ground, and under his own
feet. Well might he tremble at every step he was
about to take, and bitterly curse the folly, not less
than the wickedness, of the deed which he had commissioned
Pickett to perform. And Pickett, too,
had deserted him—that was a blow not less severe
than the rest. Could he have thrust upon the hands
of his agent the other deed yet to be done, he had
been comparatively easy, not so much because of the
service itself, but because he would not then have
been taught so terribly to feel the awful solitude of
crime. The desertion of the confederate is, perhaps,
the first-felt warning which a just fate despatches
to the vicious.
“Fool! miserable fool that I was!” raved the
miserable Hurdis when he found himself alone.
“Where am I? What have I done? Where do I
stand? The earth opens before me. Would it hide
me! I have labored wildly, and without profit. I
am no nearer to Mary Easterby than ever—nay,
farther off than ever—and the blood of a brother,
shed that I might clear the way to her, is upon
my hands in vain. She rejects me, and I have
gained nothing but misery and danger. I am at the
mercy of the worst—the most desperate of mankind!
—With no ties to bind them in my service and
to secrecy. The very wealth which I believed capable
to do every thing, rejected at my hands.
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There is but one hope—but one chance for freedom.
It must be done, and, double misery!—my hand alone
must do it. I must not shrink—I must not falter
now. On the word of this desperado my life hangs.
I must risk life that he should not speak that
word. He must be silenced. Better that I should
do so now, than wait till the sheriff knocks at the
door. It cannot be worse—it may save all.”
His terrors did not deprive him of his cautions,
nor operate to defeat his deliberate thoughts upon
the course which he resolved to take. On the contrary,
it rather contributed to increase his acuteness,
and make his caution more deliberate than ever.
Nature which denied him courage, seemed to have
provided him, in his strait, with a double share of
cunning; and one little incident will sufficiently
serve to show his own providence in making his arrangements.
He had to take his gun from his chamber
after he had carefully loaded both barrels with
buck shot, and, lest he might be met while descending
the stairs, by any of the family or servants, he
lowered it from his window by means of a string—
thus obviating any danger of being seen armed at
an unusual hour of the night. Before the day had
dawned, he had made his way to the place designed
for his concealment; and with the patience, if not
the indifference, of the professed outlaw, he waited
for the approach of one.
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He had to wait for some hours, for Pickett's hospitality
towards his new associate, would not suffer
him to depart till after breakfast. The same consideration
was not sufficient, however, to induce the
former to acquaint the emissary with the ambush
which he well knew had been set for him. His regards
had not yet been warmed to such a degree.
His policy may be comprised in few words.
“If,” thought he, “John Hurdis kills him, well
and good—I've nothing to do with it—I can lose nothing
by it, but will most probably escape from a
connection, which is decidedly dangerous. But,
whether I escape from the connection or not, at
least I am safe from any charges of having done this
deed; I am certainly untroubled with the consciousness
of it. Should he not kill him, still well and
good—we stand where we are. I am neither worse
nor better. The confederacy, if it has its dangers,
has its rewards also—and what am I, and what are
my prospects in the world, that I should heed the
former, when the latter are to me, so important a
consideration. Live or die, my brother, (here he
adapted the affectionate language of the emissary,)
Live or die, my brother, it's all one to me.”
And with these thoughts, though unexpressed, he
sent the emissary forward on his path of danger. As
was inevitable, he took the road upward according
to the opinion of Pickett, and, it may be added, his
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course was directly over the ground which he had
already travelled. The distance was small, however,
from the house of Pickett, to the spot where
Hurdis awaited him; and the fellow took no long
time in approaching it. Meanwhile, what were the
emotions of the felonious watcher. We may imagine—
I cannot describe them. Life and death depended
upon his resolve—so he thought, at least—
yet was he still irresolute. He had chosen, with
the judgment of one experienced in such matters,
the very spot which, for all others, afforded him the
best opportunity of putting his design in execution.
Approaching or departing from him, his victim
was at his mercy for a full hundred yards on either
hand. The bushes around effectually concealed
him—his aim was unobstructed—the path was not
often travelled—not liable to frequent interruption—
the day was dark—there was not a breath stirring.
Yet the hand of the assassin trembled, and
the tremor at his heart was even greater than that of
his hand. Nature had not designed him for a bold
villain. He might have made a cunning shopkeeper,
and succeeded, perhaps, in doing a far better business,
though not a more moral one, in vending bad
wares, and spurious money, than by crying,
“stand” to a true man. His nerves were not of the
iron order, and painfully, indeed, was he made conscious
of this defect, as he beheld his enemy ap
-- 114 --
[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]
proach. No opportunity could have been better.
The road by the branch, above which he lay in
waiting, was almost under him; and for a good three
minutes, the movement of the traveller was in a direct
line with his first appearance. Hurdis got his
gun in readiness, and when the victim came within its
reach, he raised it to his shoulder. But it sank again
a moment after. The muzzle veered to and fro, as a
leaf in the wind. He could not bring the sight to rest
upon the traveller. Keen was the anguish which he
felt when he brought it down to the earth; and it
was in desperate resolve that he again lifted it.
“It must be done,” he said to himself—“there is
no hope else. My life or his—shall I hesitate! I
must do it—I cannot miss him now.”
Again the instrument of death was uplifted in his
unwilling hands, and this time he rested it upon
a limb of the tree, which rose directly before his
person.
“I have him now. It is but fifty yards. There
he is beside the poplar! Ha! what is this—where
is he—I cannot see him—a mist is before my eyes.”
A mist had indeed, overspread his sight. His
straining eyes were full of water, and he drew back
from the tube, and looked over it upon the road.
Still, his enemy was there. Why had he not seen
him before? He would have resumed his aim, but
just then, he saw the eyes of the emissary turned
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[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]
upwards upon the very spot where he stood. Had he
been seen through the bushes? The doubt was a palsying
one, and he shrunk back in terror, and listened
with a beating heart that shook in his very throat,
to hear the steps of the enemy in pursuit of him up
the hill. But he heard nothing and was emboldened
to look again. He had lost one chance. The emissary
had rounded the branch, and was now upon the
other end of the trace and going from him. But his
back was now turned to the assassin, and his base
spirit derived strength from this circumstance. He
felt that he could not have drawn a trigger upon his
foe, while he looked upon his face. He now did
not doubt of his being able to execute the deed.
His arms were rigid—he felt that he was resolved.
There was not the slightest quiver in limb or
pulse; and with the confidence of assured strength,
and a tried courage, he once more lifted the weapon.
Never did man take better aim upon his foe.
The entire back of the slow-moving stranger was
towards him. The distance was small, for, in rounding
the branch, the traveller had approached, rather
than receded from, the point where the murderer
lay in waiting. Cautiously, but firmly, did he cock
the weapon. The slight click upon his own ears,
was startling, and before he could recover from the
start which it had occasioned him, and while he was
about to throw his eyes along the barrel, his
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marrowless purpose was again defeated by one of the simplest
incidents in the world. A flock of partridges,
startled by the head of the horse, flew up from the
road side, at the very feet of the traveller. The moment
had passed. The victim was out of reach before
his wretched enemy could recover his resolution.
Desperate and wild, John Hurdis rushed out
of his covert, and half-way down the hill. He would
have cried aloud to the retreating emissary. He
would have defied him to an equal, mortal struggle.
But the soul was wanting, if not the will. The
sound died away in his husky throat. The voice
stuck—the tongue was palsied. The imbecile
dropped his weapon, and sinking down upon the
grass beside it, thrust his fingers into the earth, and
moaned aloud. It is a dreadful misery to feel that
we can confide in no friend—that we can trust no
neighbour; but this sorrow is nothing to that last humiliating
conviction, which tells us that we cannot
trust ourselves. That our muscles will fail us in
the trying moment—that, when we most need
resolution, we shall find none within our hearts.
That our nerves shall be unstrung when their tension
is our safety—that our tongue shall refuse its
office, when its challenge is necessary to warm
our own hearts, and alarm those of our enemies.
Conscious imbecility next to conscious guilt, is the
most crushing of all mental maladies. To look upon
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that poor, base, criminal now, as he lies upon the
grass—his fingers stuck into the sod and fixed there—
his jaws wide, and the frothing tongue lolling out
and motionless—big drops upon his forehead—bigger
drops in his red and glassy eyes—his hair
soaked by the sweat of his mental agony, and all his
limbs without life—and we should no longer hate,
but pity—we should almost forget his crime in the
paralysing punishment which followed it. But this
was not the limit of his afflictions, though, to the
noble mind, it must appear the worst. There were
yet other terrors in store for him. He was yet to
learn, even in this narrow life, that “the wages of
sin is death.”
-- 118 --
CHAPTER XII.
“Why stand you thus amazed? Methinks your eyes
Are fixed in meditation; and all here
Seem like so many senseless statues;
As if your souls had suffered an eclipse
Betwixt your judgment and affections.”
Woman Hater.
[figure description] Page 118.[end figure description]
Hours elapsed before John Hurdis arose from the
earth upon which he had thrown himself, overcome
by the mortification of his conscious imbecility.
When he did arise he was like one bewildered. But
he went forward. Stunned and staggering, he went
forward—the stains of the soil upon his face and
hands—his gun and clothes marked also with the
proofs of his humiliation. But whither should he
go? His mind, for a brief space, took no heed of
this question. He wandered on without direction
from his thought; but, with an old habit, he wandered
towards the dwelling of his coadjutor, Pickett. He
was partially awakened from his stupor, by the
sounds of a voice—the merry voice of unheeding
childhood. The sounds were familiar—they half
recalled him to himself—they reminded him where
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he was, while fully impressing upon him his forlorn
condition. They were those of the idiot girl, and
she now came bounding towards him with an old
feeling of confidence. But ere she drew nigh, she
remembered the interview with John Hurdis in
which her mother unexpectedly became a party.
Without knowing why, she yet well enough understood
that her mother found fault with her conduct
on that occasion, and the remembrance served to arrest
her forward footsteps. She hung back when
but a few feet from the criminal; and a faint cry escaped
her. She shrunk from his altered appearance.
There is no form of idiocy, which brings with it an
utter insensibility to wo; and never was wo more
terribly depicted upon human countenance, than it
was then on that of John Hurdis. The involuntary
exclamation and spontaneous speech of the girl,
taught the miserable criminal, who had hitherto regarded
his inner man only, to give a moment's consideration
to his outer appearance; and he smiled
with a sick and ghastly smile to behold the clay-stains
upon his garments.
“Oh, Mister John—what's the matter—what
have you been doing to yourself. Look at your
clothes. You've tumbled in the ditch, I reckon.”
“Yes, Jane—yes! I've had a fall, Jane—a bad
fall. But how do you, Jane—I havn't seen you for
a very long time.”
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“'Most a week, Mister John—and I've been
wanting to see you too, Mister John, to tell you all
about the strange man, and dad; and how mother
was frightened so. But you're hurt, Mister John—
you've got a bad hurt, I'm sure, or you wouldn't
look so.”
John Hurdis thought only of his hurts of mind,
and his moral fall, in replying to the idiot in the affirmative—
a reply which she received in a purely
literal sense. She would have run on in a strain of
childish condolence, but he listened to her impatiently,
and, at length, with an air that mortified the
child to whom he had always looked indulgence
only, he interrupted her prattle, and bade her go
to the hovel and send her father to him. She prepared
to comply, but her steps were slow, and looking
back with an expression of mournful dissatisfaction
on her countenance, awakened Hurdis to a more
considerate feeling. Changing his tone of voice,
and employing a few kind words, she bounded to
him with a sudden impulse, caught his hand, kissed
it, and then, like a nimble deer, bounded away in
the direction of the hovel. An age seemed to pass
away, in the mind of the criminal, ere Pickett came
in obedience to his summons. When he beheld him
coming, he retired into the wood, to which the other
followed him, eagerly asking, as he drew nigh—
“Well, 'Squire—how's it—all safe—all done?”
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“Nothing's done!” was the reply. All's lost—
all. Oh, Pickett! I am the most miserable, the most
worthless wretch alive. My heart failed me at the
very moment. My hand refused its office—my
eyes—my limbs—all denied their aid to rescue me
from this accursed bondage. I knew it would be
so—I feared it. I would that you had done it—I
am!—Pity me, Ben Pickett, that I must say the
words myself—I am a coward—a poor, despicable
coward. I cannot avenge my own wrong—I cannot
defend my own life. I cannot lift my arm, though
the enemy stands threatening before me. I must
only submit and die.”
The look which accompanied these words—the
looks of mingled frenzy and despair—of feebleness
and passion—would beggar all attempt at description.
The cheeks of the wretched imbecile were
white—whiter then the marble. His eyes glassy, almost
glazed with the glaze of death. His mouth was
open, and remained so during the greater part of
their conference; and a stupid stare which he fixed
upon his companion while the latter spoke in reply,
was far from attesting that attention which his ear,
nevertheless, gave to his utterance. The inferior,
yet better nerved villain, absolutely pitied, and, after
his own humble fashion, endeavoured to console him
under his afflictions. But words are idle to him who
has need of deeds which he dares not to perform
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himself, and cannot purchase from another. It was
a bitter mockery to Hurdis, in his situation, to hear
the commonplaces of hope, administered by one
whom guilt and ignorance, alike, made hopeless as a
teacher of others, as he must have been in his own
case hopeless. After hearing all that Pickett could
say, Hurdis was only conscious of increased feebleness.
“Go home with me, Ben—I feel so weak—I
don't think I can find the way myself. I am very
weak and wretched. Let me take your arm.”
Pickett complied, and relieving him from the gun,
the weight of which was oppressive to him under
his general mental, and physical prostration, conducted
him through by-paths to his home. Ere they
reached the avenue, he gave him up the gun, and
finding that he was unable to confer farther, though
willing, upon their mutual situation and necessities,
he left him with a cold exhortation to cheer up and
make the most of his misfortune. The other heard
him with little head or heed, and in the solitude of
his own chamber endeavoured to conceal the marks
of that misery which he was only now beginning to
discover it was beyond his art to subdue.
But, to return to my own progress while these
events were passing. It will be remembered that,
stunned by the murder of my friend, I was for three
days almost incapable of thought or action. I
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lingered during that time with Colonel Grafton, whose
own kindness and that of his happy family ministered
unremittingly to the sorrows which they did
not hope to stay. After that time I felt the necessity
of action. The stunning sensations occasioned by the
first blow were now over, and I began to look about
me, and to think. I set forward on my way homeward,
burdened with the cruel story, which I did
not know how to relate. Nothing but a penknife and
plain gold ring of William Carrington had been left
untouched by his robbers. They had stripped him of
every thing in the shape of arms and money. The
knife was in a vest pocket and was probably too insignificant
for appropriation; the ring—one given
him by Katharine—was upon a little finger, and probably
escaped their notice, or was too tight for instant
removal. These I bore with me back—sad
tokens of what I could not bring. His horse they
had taken in their flight from the hovel, and probably
sold the next day in the Choctaw nation. Mine
was preserved to me, as, when William fell, and he
felt himself freed from all restraint, he naturally
made his way back to Colonel Grafton's where he
had been well provided for the night before. I had,
indeed, lost nothing, but that which I could not replace.
My money was untouched in my saddle
bags, and even that which I had about my person
had been left undisturbed. It is true, I had concealed
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it in a secret pocket of my coat, but they had not
even offered at a search. The flight of Carrington
had too completely occupied their minds at first, and
the large sum which they found upon his person,
had subsequently too fully answered their expectations
to render it important, in their urry, that they
should waste time in examining me. Perhaps, too,
they may have regarded William as the purse bearer
for both. Whatever may have been the cause
of their neglect, I was certainly no loser of any
thing with which I had at first set out. And yet
how dreadful was the loss which I had to relate!
How could I relate it—how name to the poor girl,
looking for her lover, any one of the cruel words,
which must teach her that she looked for him in
vain? This was my continual thought, as I travelled
homewards. I had no other. It haunted me with
a continual questioning, and the difficulty of speech
seemed to increase with the delay to answer it, and
before I had answered it, I reached home.
The very first person I encountered was John
Hurdis. I approached him unawares. He was
walking from me, and towards the house. I had dismissed
from my bosom all feeling of hostility; for,
since the murder of William, it seemed to me that
all my old hates and prejudices were feeble. They
were all swallowed up and forgotten in that greater
sorrow. So completely had this become the case,
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that, though, at leaving him but a week before, I
should have only spoken to him in curses. I now
spoke to him in kindness. My speech seemed to confound
him, no less than his conduct, on hearing it,
confounded me. As I have said, he was walking
from me in the road leading up to the avenue. He
had nearly reached the entrance, and was so completely
absorbed in his own thoughts that the head
of my horse provoked none of his attention. I called
to him, and I am sure that my voice could not have
been made more studiously unoffending.
“Well, John, how are you—how are all?”
“John—John!” he exclaimed, turning round, and
staring at me with a face full of unspeakable agitation.
“Who's that! What do you mean? What
do you want with me? Ha!”
“Why, what's the matter with you, John?” I
cried.—“What frightens you—don't you know me?”
“Know you. Yes, yes—I know you;” and his
face and movements both indicated a strong disposition
on his part to fly from me, but that his trembling
limbs refused to assist him.
“Why do you shrink from me?” I asked, thinking
that all his agitation arose from our previous
quarrel, and the fear that I was seeking some opportunity
of personal collision with him. “Why do
you shrink from me, John Hurdis? I am not angry
with you now—I do not seek to harm you. Be
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yourself, brother, for God's sake, and tell me how
the old folks are. How's mother?”
He saw me alight from my horse, which I did at
this moment, and approach him, without being able
to give me any answer. When, however, I had got
alongside of him, he enforced himself to speech, but
without replying to my question.
“And what brings you back? How did you—I
mean—you have come back safely?”
“Ay—I am safe,” was my answer; “but, truth to
say, brother John, you do not seem to know exactly
what you mean. What! you are still angry about
the old business?—but you are wrong. It is for me
to be angry, if any body; but I am not angry—I
have forgiven you. Tell me, then, are the old people
well?”
“They are!” was his only and brief answer; and
I got nothing from him, but plain yes and no, while
we moved along together to the house. He was
evidently overcome with astonishment and fear. I
knew him to be timid, but, at that time—ignorant as
I was then, of the history which has been already
related—I found it difficult to account for his imbecility.
It was easily understood afterwards. But
even then I looked on him with pity, mixed with
scorn, as, shrinking and silent, he moved along beside
me. Guilty or not, I would not have had in
my bosom such a soul as his, for all creation.
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CHAPTER XIII.
Hold! Hold!
Oh, stop that speedy messenger of death,
Oh, let him not run down that narrow path,
Which leads unto thy heart.
Satiro-Mastix.
[figure description] Page 127.[end figure description]
My unexpected return, of course, brought the family
together. John Hurdis could not well be absent,
and he was a pale and silent listener to my melancholy
narrative. The story was soon told, and
a dumb horror seized upon all. I saw that he was
palsied—that he shivered—that a spasmodic emotion
had fastened upon all his limbs, but even had he
not been guilty, such emotion, at such a narrative,
would have been natural enough. He rose to leave
the room, but staggered in such a manner that he
was forced once more to take his seat. My account
of the murder had confirmed the story of the emissary.
He had a vain, vague hope before, that the
clan—the Mystic Confederacy—was a fable of the
stranger, got up for purposes yet unexplained, or, if
true, that its purposes and power, had been alike
exaggerated. The history of my seizure, and of the
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pursuit of William Carrington, however, was attended
with so many circumstances of bold atrocity,
that he could deceive himself no longer as to the
strength and audacity of the clan. Still, his guilty
soul, could draw some consolation, even from a fate
so dreadful. He breathed with more freedom, when
he found that I unhesitatingly ascribed the murder
of my friend to the robbers, and had no suspicion in
any other quarter. His own common sense sufficiently
taught him that such a belief was the most
reasonable and natural to one who did not know the
truth; and with a consciousness of increased security,
from one quarter at least, he did not afflict himself
much with the reflection that he had been the
murderer of one unoffending person, and the cruel
destroyer of another's dearest hopes. So long as he
was himself safe, these considerations were of small
importance. And, yet let us not suppose that they
did not trouble him. He had not slept in peace from
the moment that he despatched Pickett on his
bloody mission. He was doomed never to sleep in
peace again—no, nor to wake in peace. Forms of
threatening followed his footsteps by day, and images
of terror haunted his dreams by night. He
might escape from human justice, but he soon felt
how idle was any hope to escape from that worst
presence of all—the constant consciousness of crime.
But I must not forget my own trobles in
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surveying those of John Hurdis. Of his woes I had no
thought at this moment. My only thought was of
that fearful interview with Katharine. What would
I not have given could I have escaped it. But such
wishes were foolish enough. I had undertaken the
task, regarding it as a solemn duty, as well to the dead,
as to the living, and, sooner or later, the task was
to be executed. Delay was proof of weakness, and
that afternoon I set out for the house of the poor
maiden, widowed ere a wife. During the solitary
ride, I thought in vain of the words which I should
use in telling her the story. How should I break
its abruptness—how soften the severity of the
stroke. The more I thought of this—as is most
usually the case in such matters with most persons,
the more difficult and impracticable did the labour
seem, and, but for the shame of such a movement, I
could have turned my bridle, and trusted to a letter
to do that, which I felt it impossible that my lips
should do well. I had seen preachers, otherwise sagacious
enough, undertake to console the afflicted,
by trite maxims, which taught them—strangely
enough—to forbear grief for the very reason which
makes them grieve—namely, because their loss is
irreparable. “Your tears are vain,” says the book-man.—
“Therefore I weep,” replied the man. How
to avoid such wanton folly was the question with me,
yet it was a question not so easy to answer. The
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[figure description] Page 130.[end figure description]
mind runs upon commonplaces in the matter of human
consolation, and we prate of resignation to the
end of the chapter to those who never hear us.
This, of course, assumes the grief to be sincere.
There is a conventional sort of sorrow which is relieved
by conventional language; and the heir finds
obedience to the will of providence, a very natural
lesson. But the love of Katharine Walton seemed
to me a thing all earnestness. I had seen enough of
her to know that she could freely have risked life
for William Carrington—to tell her that no risk of
life could save him now, I felt convinced would almost
be at the peril of hers. Yet the irksome labour
must be taken—the risk must be met. I had that
sort of pride which always sent me forward when
the trial appeared a great one; and the very extremity
of the necessity, awakened in me an intensity
of feeling, which enabled me to effect my object.
And I did effect it—how it will be seen hereafter.
Enough, that I shared deeply in the suffering I was
unavoidably compelled to inflict.
It was quite dark when I reached her dwelling.
My progress towards it had been slow, yet I felt it
too fast for my feelings. I entered the house with
the desperate haste of one who distrusts his own resolution,
and leaps forward in order that it may not
leave him. My task was increased in difficulty, by
the manner in which Katharine met me. The
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[figure description] Page 131.[end figure description]
happy heart, confident in its hope, shone out in
her kindling eye, and in the buoyant tones of her
voice.
“Ah, Mr. Hurdis—back so soon! I did not look
for you for a whole month. What brought you—
but why do I ask, when I can guess so readily?
Have you seen Mary yet?”
While she spoke, her eyes peered behind me as if
seeking for another; and the pleasant and arch smile
which accompanied her words, was mingled with a
look of fondest expectation. I could not answer
her—I could not look upon her when I beheld this
glance. I went forward to a chair, and sank down
within it.
She arose and came hurriedly towards me.
“What is the matter—are you sick, Mr. Hurdis?”
And, though approaching me, her eyes reverted
to the entrance as if still seeking another. Involuntarily,
I shook my head as if in denial. She saw
the movement and seemed to comprehend it. Quick
as lightning, she demanded—
“You come alone?—Where's William—where's
Mr. Carrington?”
“He did not come with me, Katharine. He could
not.”
“Ha! could not—could not! Tell me why he could
not come, Mr. Hurdis. He is sick!—where did you
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[figure description] Page 132.[end figure description]
leave him? He is ill, perhaps—dangerously ill.
Tell me—speak, Richard Hurdis—your looks frighten
me.”
“They should, Katharine.”
I could not then speak more. My face was averted
from her. Trembling with half-suppressed emotion,
she hastened to confront me. Her voice grew thick
and hoarse as she again spoke.
“You have come for me, Richard.—You have
come for me to go to him. He must be ill, indeed,
when he sends for me. I will go to him at once—
let us set out instantly. Where did you leave him?
Is it far?”
I availed myself of the assistance which she thus
furnished me, and replied—
Near Tuscaloosa—a two days' journey.”
“Then the less time have we to spare, Richard.
Let us go at once. I fear not to travel by night—I
have done it before. But tell me, Mr. Hurdis, what
is his sickness. From what does he suffer?”
“An accident—a hurt.”
“Ha! a hurt—”
“A wound!”
“God be merciful—a wound—a wound. Out
with it, Richard Hurdis, and tell me all, if you be a
man. I am a woman, it is true, but I can bear the
worst, rather than the doubt which apprehends it.
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How came he by a wound—how was he hurt—what
accident?”
“He was shot!”
“Shot! shot! By what—by whom? Tell me,
Richard, dear Richard—his friend—my friend—
tell me not that he is hurt dangerously—that he will
recover—that there are hopes. Tell me, tell me, if
you love me and would have me live.”
I shook my head mournfully. Her hand grasped
my arm, and her gripe though trembling, was firm
as steel.
“You do not say it—you cannot tell me, Richard—
that his wound is mortal. That William—I cannot
think it—I dare not, though you may tell me so—
that he will die!”
“Be calm, awhile, dear Katharine, and hear me.”
I answered retreatingly, while I took her hand,
with which she still continued to grasp my arm, in
my own. She released her hold instantly.
“There! I am calm. I am patient. I listen.
Speak now, Richard—fear not for me, but tell me
what I must hear, and what, if my apprehensions be
true, I shall never be better prepared to hear than
now. William Carrington is hurt—by an accident
you say. He sends for me. Well—I will go to him—
go this instant. But you have not told me that there
is hope—that he is not dangerously—not mortally
hurt. Tell me that. It is for that I wait.”
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Wonderful woman! She had recovered her stature—
her firmness—her voice—all, in a single instant.
And never had she looked so beautiful as
now, when her eyes were shining with a fearful
light—when doubt and apprehension had imparted
to their natural fire, an expression of wildness, such
as the moon shows when mocked on her march, by
clouds, that flit over her disk, yet leave no impression
on its surface. When her small and rosy mouth,
the lips slightly parted and occasionally quivering,
exhibited the emotion, which she was only able to
subdue by assuming one of a higher character, and
putting on the aspect of command. Full, finely
formed in person, with a carriage in which grace
and dignity seemed twins, neither taking precedence
of the other, but both harmoniously co-operating,
the one to win, the other to sway; she seemed, indeed,
intended by nature to command. And she
did command. Seeing that I hesitated, she repeated
her injunction to me to proceed; but with a voice
and words that evidently proved her to have lost
some of her most sanguine hopes, by reason of my
reluctant and hesitating manner.
“Tell me one thing only—tell me that I am in
time to see him! That he will not be utterly lost—
that I may again hear his voice—that he may hear
mine—that I may tell him, I come to be with him
to the last—if need be, to die with him. Say,
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Richard—say, my brother, for he called you his—say that
I will be in time for this.”
My answer was spoken almost without my own
consciousness, and it seemed as instantaneously, to
deprive her of all hers.
“You will not!”
With one wild, piercing shrick, she rent the air,
while tossing her arms above her head, she rushed
out of the room and into the passage. Then I heard
a dead, heavy fall; and, rushing after her, I found her
prostrate at the foot of the stairs, as utterly lifeless
as if a cleaving bolt had been driven through her
heart.
-- 136 --
CHAPTER XIV.
What! thou hast fled his side in time of danger,
That clung to him in fortune!
Oh! cruel treachery; he had not done thee
So foul a wrong as this, Away, and leave me.
The Paragon.
[figure description] Page 136.[end figure description]
I followed her with all haste and raised her
from the floor. My cries brought her mother to her
assistance—a venerable and worthy dame, whom
years and disease had driven almost entirely to her
chamber. She received her daughter at my hands
in an almost lifeless condition. I assisted in bearing
the poor maiden to her room; and after giving the
mother a brief account of what had taken place—for
the circumstances of the scene would admit of no
more—I left her for my father's habitation. I shall
not undertake to describe my misery that night.
The thought, that, in my want of resolution, my
haste, my imperfect judgment, I had given a death
stoke to the poor heart that I had seen so paralysed
in a single instant before my eyes, was little less
than horrible to me. It was a constant and stalking
terror in my eyes. In my dreams, I beheld the
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bloody body of William Carrington, and the lifeless
form of Katharine beside it, stretched out in
the same damp, cold, bed of death. If I awakened,
my active fancy represented a thousand similar objects—
familiar forms lying and gasping in all the agonies
of dissolution, or crouching in terror, as if beneath
some sudden bolt or blow. In all these visions
I never lost sight of the living and real scene of misery
through which I had so recently gone. At first,
the smiling, hopeful face of Katharine rose before
me; and I could distinguish the devoted love in the
look that asked after her betrothed, when her lips
refused all question. Then rose the wonder why
he came not—then the doubt—then the fear—the terror
next; and, lastly, the appalling and thunder-riving
blow, which hurled her to the ground in a stupor
scarcely less firm and freezing than was that
which had stricken down her lover, and from which
he could never more awake. Was it better that she
should awake? Could the light of returning life, be
grateful to her eyes? Impossible! The heart which
had been so suddenly overthrown, was never destined
to know any other than the consciousness of
sorrow. There was no light in life for her. The
eyes might kindle, and the lips might wear a smile,
in after days, even as the tree which the wanton
axe of the woodman has wounded, will sometimes
put forth a few sickly buds and imperfect branches.
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But these do not speak for life always. The life of
the soul is wanting—carried off by untimely sap.
The heart is eaten out, and gone; and when the tree
falls, which it does when the night is at the stillest,
men wonder of what disease it perished. The natural
world abounds in similitudes for humanity,
which, it is our misfortune, perhaps, too infrequently
to regard.
The next day, to my surprise, I was sent for, by
Katharine. I had not thought it possible she should
recover in so short a time—she was, it seems, resolved
to hear all the dreadful particulars of my narrative;
and strove, with wonderful energy, to listen
to them calmly. Her words were subdued almost
to a whisper, and uttered as if measured by the stop-watch.
I could see that the tension of her mind was
doing her but little good.—That she was overtasking
herself, and exhausting the hoarded strength of
years, to meet the emergency of a moment. I implored
her to wait but a day, before she required
the intelligence she wished; I pleaded my own
mental suffering in excuse; but to this, she simply
answered, by touching her head with her finger,
and smiling in such a sort, as if to rebuke me
for arrogating to myself a greater degree of feeling
and suffering than was hers. I could not refuse, and
yet, I trembled to comply with her demand.
I shuddered as I thought upon the probable—nay,
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the almost certain—consequences of evil which
must follow to her life, from the recital. Her features
denoted a latent war in the mind, in which my
details, like the spark to the combustible, I felt sure,
must bring about an explosion no less terrible than
sudden. Her eyes were bloodshot and dry—without
a sign of moisture. Had they been wet, I should
have been more free to speak. Her cheeks were
singularly pale; but in the very centre of her forehead,
there was a small spot of livid red—an almost
purple spot—that seemed like a warning beacon, fired
of a sudden in sign of an approaching danger. I
took her hand in mine, as I sat down by the couch
on which she lay, and found it cold and dry. There
was little, if any, pulse, at that moment. It was not
long after, however, when it bounded hotly beneath
my finger, like a blazing arrow, sent suddenly from
the bended bow.
“And now,” she said, “now that I am calm,
Richard—I can hear all that you have to say—you
need not be afraid to speak to me now, since the
worst is known.”
“You have heard, then, from your mother?” I
asked affirmatively.
“Yes, I have heard all—I have heard that he
is—” here she interrupted the sentence by a sudden
pause, which was followed by a long parenthesis.
“You will now see how strong I have become, when
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you hear the words that I can calmly speak—know
then that you can tell me nothing worse than I already
know. I know that he is dead, to whom I had
given myself, and whom—I repeat it to you, Richard,
as his friend—and whom, as heaven is my witness, I
most truly loved.”
“I believe it—I know it, Katharine; and he knew
it too.”
“Did he? are you sure he knew it,” she asked,
putting her hand upon my arm as she spoke these
words in a tone of appealing softness. “Ah, Richard,
could I know that he felt this conviction to the
last—could I have been by to have heard him avow
it—to have laid bare my heart before him—to have
listened to the last words in which he received and
returned my affections. Oh, those last words, those
last words!—Let me hear them. What were they?—
it is for this I sent for you to come. It is these
words that I would hear. Tell me, then, Richard,
and set my heart at rest—give peace to my mind and
relieve me from this anxiety. What said he at the
last, what said he'?'
“Will it relieve you? I fear not, Katharine—I
fear it would only do you harm to listen to such
matters now. You could not bear it now.”
“Not bear it! Have I not heard all—have I not
borne the worst? What more can you have to say
to distress me? I tell you, I know that he is dead;
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I know that I shall speak to him no more—that I
can never hear his voice in answer to mine. For
him, I might as well be dumb as he. You see now,
that I can speak the words which yesterday you
could not speak. What then have you to fear? Nothing—
nothing. Begin then, Richard—begin, my
brother, and tell me the particulars of this cruel
story. It will be a consolation, though a sad one,
to know the history of the sorrow that afflicts me.”
“Sad consolation, indeed, Katharine, if any, but I
will not believe that it can be a consolation now.
Some time hence, when you have learned calmly to
look upon your loss, and become reconciled to your
privation, I doubt not that you will receive a melancholy
satisfaction from a knowledge of the truth.
But I do not think that it will benefit you now. On
the contrary, I fear that it will do you infinite harm.
You are not well—there is a flushed spot upon your
brow which shows your blood to be in commotion;
to-morrow, perhaps—”
“No to-morrow, Richard;—all days are alike to
me now. I am already in the morrow—the present
is not mine—I live in the past or in the future, or I
live not at all. Let me then hear from you now—
let me know all at once—now, while the cup is at
the fullest, let me drink to the bottom, and not take
successive and hourly draughts of the same bitter
potion. I must hear it from you now, Richard,
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without delay or evasion, or, I tell you, I cannot
sleep again. If I do, it will only be to dream a
thousand things, and conjure up a thousand fancies,
much more terrible than any you can bring me now.
Come, then! why should you fear to tell me, when
I already know the worst? I know that he perished
by the sudden stroke of the murderer, having no
time given him for prayer and preparation. Can
your story tell me worse than this? No! no! you
have no words of darker meaning in my ears, than
those which my own lips have spoken.”
“Katharine, dear Katharine, let me have time
for this. Let me put it off for awhile. Already the
blood is rising impetuously in your veins. Your
pulse beneath my finger is shooting wildly—”
“I am calm—you mistake, dear Richard—you
are no doctor, clearly—I was never more calm—
never more composed in all my life. My pulse, indeed!”
The impatient and irritable manner of this speech,
was its sufficient refutation.—I replied,
“Your will is calm and resolute, Katharine—I
doubt not your strength of mind and purpose—but
I doubt your command of nerve, Katharine, and
your blood. You are very feverish.”
She interrupted me almost petulantly.
“You are only too considerate, Richard. Perhaps,
had you been half so considerate, when a
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fellow traveller with the man you called your friend,
and who certainly was yours, he had not perished.”
“Katharine!”
“Ay! I speak what I think, Richard—what I
feel. You are a grave physician when with me.
You talk sagely and shake your head. But with
him—with William Carrington—were you grave,
and wise, and considerate? You persuaded him to
this journey—you knew that he was hasty and
thoughtless—did you shake your head in warning,
and lift your finger when you saw him running
wide from prudence—from safety?”
“Katharine, my child,” exclaimed the mother.
“You are unkind—you do Richard injustice.”
“Let him show me that I do him injustice, mother.
That is what I wish him, and pray him, to
do. I do not desire to do him injustice.” Her tone
and manner, which were almost violent before, now
changed even into softness here, and turning to me,
she continued, “you know I do not wish to do you
injustice; but why will you not oblige me? Why
not tell me what I claim to know—what I have a
right to know?”
I could see that the blood was mounting in torrents
to her brain. Her pulse was momently quickening,
and the little speck of red, so small and unimposing
at first, had overspread her face, even as the
little cloud, that dots the eastern heavens at morning,
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spreads by noon until it covers with storm and thunder
the whole bosom of the earth. It was more than
ever my policy to withhold a narrative so full of details,
which, though they could unfold no circumstance,
worse in substance than that which she already
knew, were yet almost certain to harrow up her
feelings by the gradual accumulation of events before
her imagination, to a pitch almost unendurable.
I resorted to every argument, plea, suggestion—
every thing which might move her to forego her
wish—at least for the present. But my efforts were
unavailing.
“You entirely mistake me,” she would say. “I
am earnest—not excited. My earnestness always
shows itself in this manner. I assure you that my
blood is quite as temperate as it would be under the
most ordinary affliction.”
And this she said in words that were uttered
with spasmodic effort! Her mother called me aside
for a moment.
“You will have to tell her,” she said; “the very
opposition to her desire makes her worse. Tell her
all, Richard, as she demands it, and God send, that
it be for the best.”
Thinking it probable that such might be the case,
though still reluctant, I waived my objections, and
determined to comply. When I resumed my seat
by the bedside, and avowed this determination, as
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if to confirm the words of the mother, a sudden
change came over her. Her respiration, which had
been impeded and violent before, became easier; and,
closing her eyes, she leaned back upon the pillow,
from which, during the greater part of the previous
conference her head had been uplifted; and thus prepared
herself to listen. It was a strong effort which
she made to be, or seem, composed, and it was only
successful for a time. My confidence in it soon began
to waver, as I found, when fairly in my narrative,
that her eyes were re-opened, and with a fearful
resumption of light—her head once more raised
from the pillow; and her unconscious hand, when I
reached that part of my narrative which detailed
the first assault upon us at the hovel of Webber,
suddenly extended and grasping my arm which lay
on the bed beside her.
“Stop—stop awhile—a moment—I am not ready
yet to hear you—not yet—not yet.”
I paused at her direction, and she sank back upon
the pillow, and closed her eyes with a rigid pressure
of her fingers upon their lids as if to shut out from
sight some horrible vision. In this state she remained
for a space of several seconds; and I could
perceive, when she resumed her attitude of attention,
and bade me proceed with my narrative, that
though she might have succeeded in expelling the
phantom from her sight, the very effort requisite in
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doing so, had accelerated the action of her blood. I
proceeded, however, striving to avoid every word,
phrase, or unnecessary incident, which might have
the effect of increasing the vividness of an event,
already too terribly impressive; but with all my caution,
I could perceive the constant flow and gathering
of excitement in her brain. Her words became
thick yet more frequent. She started constantly
from the pillow to which she as constantly and immediately
sank back, as if conscious of departing
from the tacit pledge which she had given me, but
which I had never relied on, to be calm and collected
while I spoke. At length, when I told of the
flight of Carrington, of his pursuit by the ruffians,
of the long interval, in which, bound to the floor, I
lay at their mercy, and after they had gone, before
the arrival of Grafton to my relief; and how I looked
for my friend in vain among those who rescued me;
her emotion grew utterly beyond constraint, and
she cried out aloud, and gasped with such effort between
her cries, that I dreaded lest suffocation
should follow from her fruitless endeavours at speech.
But she contrived to speak.
“Yes! yes; they came—they loosed you—they
set you free—but what did they for him—what did
you, who called yourself his friend? What did you
for him, who was yours? Tell me that—that!”
These were words of madness—certainly there
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was madness in the wild and roving expression of
her fire-darting eye. I would even then have paused
if I could; but she would not suffer it. Resuming
a look of calmness—such a look as mocked itself
by its inadequacy to effect her object—when she
saw me hesitate, she begged me to continue.
“I am calm again, Richard—it was for a moment
only. Forgive me, I pray you, Richard—forgive
me and go on. Let me hear the rest. I will not
cry out again.”
I hastened to close the painful narrative, but she
did not hear me to the end. She was no longer capable
of knowing what she did, or said, but leaping
from the couch, in defiance of all my own and her
mother's efforts—short of absolute violence—to restrain
her, she strode across the chamber, as if with
a leading purpose in view. Then, suddenly turning,
she confronted me, with a face in which, if a
face might ever be said to blaze with fire and yet
maintain its natural expression, hers did. She
gazed on me for a few seconds with all the intensity
of an expression which was neither hate nor anger,
but blind ferocity, and destructive judgment; and
then she spoke, in accents which would have been
bitter enough to my heart, had I not well enough
understood the maddening bitterness in hers.
“And so he was murdered, and you led him on
this expedition to be murdered. You were his
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friend—and while they pursued him for the accursed
money—you lay quietly—without effort—having
bonds, which a child—a woman—which I—weak and
feeble as I am—which I would have broken at such
a time—which you might have broken, had you
been warmed with a proper spirit to help your
friend. And he thought you a brave man, too—
he told me you were so, and I believed it—I gave
him in charge to you; and you suffered your villains
to murder him. Tell me nothing, I say, Richard
Hurdis—they were your villains, else how should
you, a brave man, submit, as you did, to be bound
and laughed at, while he could break from his bonds
and escape from the very snare to which you so
tamely submitted. I will not hear you—they were
your villains—else how should you, a brave man,
submit and do nothing. Would he—would William
have submitted thus? Would he have left his
friend to perish. Or, if he could not save his life,
would he have come sneaking home with the tidings
of his friend's murder and his own base cowardice?
No, Richard Hurdis—I tell you—I answer for the
dead—he would have pursued these murderers to
the ends of the earth. He would have dragged them
to justice, or slain them with his own hands. He
never would have slept in his bed till he had taken
this vengeance. Day and night would have been to
him the same. Day and night, he had pursued
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them—through the forests—through the swamps,
in all haunts, in all disguises, till he had revenged
the murder of his friend. 'Till, for the holy blood of
friendship, he had drained the hearts of all having
any hand in his murder. But you—what have you
done! Ha! ha! ha! Bravely—bravely, Richard
Hurdis. William thought you had courage—he
did—and he relied on it. He relied too much.
You have shed no blood, though he is murdered.
You have neither shed the blood of his murderers,
nor your own. Show me a finger scratch if you
can. You are—ha! ha! ha! this is courage, is it?
and he thought you brave—well, the wisest may be
mistaken—the wisest—the very wisest.”
She went on much farther, but her ravings grew
incoherent, and at length, from imperfect thoughts
her strength being nigh exhausted, she only articulated
in broken words and sentences. On a sudden,
she stopped; her eye grew fixed while gazing upon
me, and her lower jaw became paralysed ere the
halting word was uttered. I saw that a crisis was at
hand, and rushed towards her at the fortunate moment.
I caught her as she fell; and she lay paralysed
and senseless, like the very marble, in my
arms.
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CHAPTER XV.
Are they both dead! I did not think
To find thee in this pale society
Of ghosts so soon.
The Brothers.
[figure description] Page 150.[end figure description]
Though little of a physician, I yet saw that something
must be done for her relief instantly, in this almost
complete suspension of her powers, or she must
perish; and procuring a lancet which was fortunately
in the house, made an opening in one of her arms.
The results were hardly satisfactory. A few drops
of jellied and almost black blood, oozed from the
opening, and had no visible effect upon her situation.
I opened a vein in the other arm but with little better
success. Warm fomentation and friction were next
resorted to, but to no advantage; and, leaving the patient
to the charge of the mother, I mounted my
horse and rode with all speed to the nearest physician—
a man named Hodges, an ignorant, stupid fellow,
but the best, which, at this time, our neighborhood
could afford. He was one of those accommodating
asses, who have the one merit at least, if they
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are fools in all other respects, of being an unpretending
one; and gladly, at all times, would he prefer
taking the opinion of another to the task of making,
or the responsibility of giving, one of his own. I
have heard him ask an old lady if she had jalap and
calomel in the house; and when she replied that she
had not, but she “had some cream of tartar,” answer
“that will do ma'am,” and give the one medicine
in lieu of the other. There was little to be
looked for at the hands of such a creature; but what
were we to do? I had already exhausted all my little
stock of information on such subjects; and ignorance,
in a time of emergency, is compelled to turn, even
to licensed stupidity, for the relief which it cannot
find itself.
Dr. Hodges came and did nothing. He re-opened
the veins without advantage, repeated the warm
water fomentations, took an extra chew of tobacco,
shook his empty head and remained silent. I ventured
a suggestion of the merits of which I had
only a partial guess.
“Would not a blister to the head help her, Doctor?”
“I think it would, Mr. Hurdis—I think you had
better try it.”
Cursing the oaf in the bitterness of my heart, I
went to work, with the help of the old lady, and we
prepared a blister. When it was ready, we
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proceeded to cut away the voluminous masses of her
raven hair, the glistening loveliness of which we
could not but admire, even while we consigned it
to destruction. But we were not suffered to proceed
in this work. Ere the scissors had swept
away one shred, the unhappy maiden awakened
from her stupor; but she awakened not to any mental
consciousness. She was mad—raving mad; and
with the strength of madness she rushed from the
couch where she was lying and flew at her mother
like a tigress. I was fortunately nigh enough to interfere,
and save the old lady from her assaults, or
the effects might have been seriously hurtful. I
clasped her in my arms and held her, though with
some difficulty. Her strength was prodigious under
the terrible excitement which raged in her bosom,
and, though rather a strong man, I found that
I dared not relax for a single instant in my hold, or
she became free. Yet she complained not that I
held her. She uttered no word whatsoever. She
knew nothing—she spoke to none. Sometimes, a
slight moaning sound escaped her lips, but she had
no other form of language. Her eyes were fixed
and fiery; yet they never seemed to look upon
any one of us. I observed that they seemed instinctively
to avoid the light, and that they shone
with a less angry lustre when turned towards the
darker sections of the apartment, and from the
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windows. Seeing this, I directed the mother to double
her curtains and exclude as much of the light as
possible—this done, it seemed to relieve the intensity
of her stare and action. But she was as little disposed
to be quiet as before. The moment I yielded
in my grasp, that moment did she make new
exertions to escape; and when she failed in her object,
that same slight moaning, perhaps, once or twice
repeated, was all the acknowledgment given by
her lips to the annoyance which the constraint evidently
put upon her. In the mean time, what a terrible
loveliness shone in her countenance and form.
The pythoness, swelling with the voluminous fires
of the god, were but a poor comparison to the divinity
of desolation, such as she appeared at that moment
to my eyes. Her long black tresses which we
had let loose in order to cut, were thrown all around
her own neck, and partially over my shoulders as I
held her. Her eyes were shooting out from their
spheres—the whites barely perceptible as the dilating
orbs seemed to occupy entirely the dry and fiery
cells, from which they yet threatened momently to
dart. Purple lines and blotches gleamed out upon, and
as suddenly disappeared from, her face—the consequence,
probably, of her restraint, and the violent exertions
which she made to get herself free from it; and
her teeth and lips were set as resolutely as if death's
last spasm had been already undergone. If they
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opened at all, it was only when she uttered that
heart piercing moan—so faint—so low—yet so
thrilling, that it seemed to indicate at every utterance
the breaking of some vital string. In this
way she continued full two hours without intermitting
her struggles. My arms had grown weary of
the rigid grasp which I had been compelled to keep
upon her, and sheer exhaustion must have soon compelled
me to relax my hold. But, by this time,
she, too, had become exhausted—her efforts grew
fainter, though the insane direction of her mind was
not a whit changed. Gradually, I felt her weight
increase upon me, and her own exertions almost entirely
cease; and I thought at length that I might
safely return her to the couch. It was with some
difficulty that I did so, for her poor mother—miserable
and infirm, not to say terrified—could give
me no help; and the doctor, no less terrified than
she, had hurried off, on the first exhibition of the
maiden's fury, to procure her, as he promised, some
medicine which was to be potential for every thing.
But the doctor knew not the disease of his patient.
With all his “parmaceti” he could do nothing for that
“inward bruise,” which was mortifying at her heart.
When fairly placed in the bed, I found it still
somewhat difficult to keep her there; and in order
to avoid giving her pain which the grasp of my hand
might do, I contrived to fold the bed clothes in such
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a manner about her, as not only to retard her movements,
but to enable us, by sitting upon either side,
to keep her down. An old negro servant was called
in to assist in this duty, and with the mother's aid,
I was partially relieved. With a few struggles more,
her eyes gradually closed, and her limbs seemed to
relax in sleep. An occasional moan from her lips
alone told us that she suffered still; and a sudden
opening and flashing of her eye at other moments,
still served to convince us that her show of sleep
was deceptive. She slept not, and we were compelled
to be watchful still.
While she remained in this situation our doctor
returned to my great surprise, bringing with him a
score of bottles with one nostrum or another. He
seemed a little more confident now in what he should
do, having, most probably during his absence, consulted
some book of authority in the circle of his limited
reading. Thus prepared, he compounded a dose
from some two or three bottles, one of which—assaf
œtida—soon declared its quality to our nostrils,
and left no hope to Doctor Hodges of making a medical
mystery—a practice so common among small
practitioners—of the agent by which he was to work
the salvation of the patient. I had no great hope of
the potion which he brought, for I had no great
faith in the doctor, but I readily took the wine-glass
in which he compounded it, and addressed
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myself to the arduous task of forcing it down the throat
of the poor sufferer. It was an arduous task, indeed!
Her teeth were riveted together, and she seemed to
have just sense enough to close them more tenaciously
in defiance to our prayer that she might open
them. Here was a difficulty; but as Hodges insisted
upon the vital importance of the dose, cruel as
the operation seemed, I determined to do all that I
could to make her take it. In our efforts we were
at length forced to pry her teeth apart with our fingers,
and to force the glass between them. It was
an error to have used the wineglass in such a situation;
and the reflection of a single instant would
have taught us to transfer the medicine to a spoon.
We were taught this lesson by an incident of startling
terror; for no sooner had we put the edge of the
glass between her divided teeth, than they closed
upon it crunching it into the minutest fragments.
Fortunately, I was prompt enough to prevent the
worst consequences of this act. I dropped the fragment
of the glass which remained in my hands, and
grasped her instantly by the throat. I grasped her almost
as tightly as I should have done a mortal
foe. It was a desperate resort for a desperate situation.
I nearly strangled her, but it was the only
thing that could have saved her from swallowing
the broken particles. With my fingers, while the
jaws were stretched apart, I drew out the bits of
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glass which were numerous, though not without
cutting her mouth and gums in a shocking manner.
The blood ran from her mouth, and over the side
of her pallid face, staining its purity; and her tongue,
bleeding also the while, hung over the lips, and yet
she seemed to feel none of the pain. No cry escaped
her—no struggle was made—and the occasional
moan which now and then continued to escape her,
was the acknowledgment of a greater agony than
any for which we labored to provide remedies.
Dr. Hodges persevered in his physic, but we
might as well have spared the poor girl the pain of
forcing it down her throat, for it did no good. Her
madness, it is true, was no longer hysterical; but this
change was probably quite as much the result of exhaustion
as of the medicine we gave her. She
seemed conscious of none of our labors. Yet she
studiously kept her eyes from the spectator, and
fixed them upon the darkest part of the wall of
her chamber. Her grief was speechles in all other
respects; she seemed not to hear, and she answered
none of our inquiries. In hope to arouse and
provoke her consciousness, I even ventured to
speak to her of her lover, and the cruel fate which
had befallen him. I named to her the bitter words
of death which I had shrunk before to utter. But
the ear seemed utterly obtuse. She moved neither
limb nor muscle, and the stupor of complete mental
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indifference was gradually overcoming all her faculties.
Thus she continued throughout that day. Night
came on, and yet there was no change. It was a
dismal night to me. I sat up with her and watched
her with a degree of nervous irritation and anxiety
which led me to fear, at moments, that I might fall
into some condition of insanity like that I witnessed.
The poor old mother strove to sleep, but she could
not subdue the nature within her; and that raised
her every moment to look into the face of her child,
whose unconscious eyes were yet bright and unblessed
by sleep. Besides these, there were no interruptions
to the general silence of the night, unless
that slight and now scarcely sensible moan,
which continued at intervals to escape the lips of
the sufferer, might be called one. Day dawned upon
us, and found her still in the same condition. We
gave her the prescribed physic, but I felt while pouring
it down her throat that our labors were as cruel
as they were idle. We administered the little nourishment
which she took, in the same manner—
by violence. She craved nothing—she asked for
nothing—and what we gave her brought no nourishment
in consequence. The day and night passed
in the same manner with the preceding. I snatched
a few hours of sleep during the day, and this enabled
me again to sit up with her the night following. But
there were other watchers beside myself around her
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bed; and, amidst all my agonising thought of the
terrible picture of affliction present in my eyes, there
were other thoughts and feelings of a far differing
character, mingling among them, and operating
upon my mind. Mary Easterby sat by the bed-side
of the invalid, and our eyes and hands met more
than once during the night, which to me, though
not less painful, was far less wearisome, than that
which I had passed before. Such is the nature of
man. We foster our petty affections even at the
grave of our friend's sweetest hopes. Our plans and
promises for self, desert us no where—they mingle
in with our holiest emotions—they pile the dust of
earth upon the very altars of heaven. Perhaps, it is
only right that such should be the case. Our nature
while on earth must be, to a certain extent, earthy.
It may be, too, that our pride undergoes some restraint
when it discovers that base necessities and
narrow aims clog the loftiest wing, and dazzle the
most eagle-eyed of the soaring spirits among men.
But why linger upon a painful narrative like this?
Why record throbs and agonies? I will hasten to a
conclusion which the reader may readily anticipate.
Katharine Walker died. In three days more she
was silent forever! Her hopes, her fears, her pangs—
all were silent—all buried. Five days did she
live in this state of suspended consciousness—taking
no nourishment save that which we poured down
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her throat by main force; and every added hour
proved her less able to oppose us in our labors of
doubtful kindness. She sank just after that last paroxysm
in which she crushed the brittle glass between
her teeth. Our man of art had exhausted his
slender resources of skill, and with a modesty that
did not shake a confident head of power to the last
moment, he soon declared his inability to help her
more. But we needed not his words to give us
painful assurance to this effect. We saw it with our
own eyes, while looking into the fast glazing orbs
of hers. We knew, from every symptom, that she
must die. Perhaps it was as well—what should she
live for?
It was on the sixth day after her attack, when her
powers had been so far exhausted that it became
somewhat doubtful at moments whether she breathed
or not, and when, up to that time she had given no
sort of heed to any of the circumstances going on
around her, that she suddenly started, as if out of a
deep sleep, and turned her sad but still bright eyes,
now full of divine intelligence, upon me. There
was “speculation” in their orbs once more. The
consecrating mind had returned to its dwelling
though it were only to set all in order, and then dispose
of it forever. I bent forward as I saw the glance
which she gave me, and breathlessly asked her how
she felt.
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“Quite well,” she answered in a scarcely perceptible
whisper—“quite well, Richard; but it is so
dark. Do put aside that curtain, if you please. Mother
has shut every thing up. I don't know whether
it's day light or not.”
I rose and put aside the curtain; and the waiting
sunlight, the broken but bright beams that he
sprinkled through the leaves, came bounding into
the chamber. Her eyes brightened as if with a natural
sympathy, when she beheld them. She made
an effort to raise herself in the bed, but sunk back
with an expression of pain, which slightly impressed
itself upon her countenance, even as a breath
passes over the mirror giving a momentary stain to
its purity. It was one breath of the approaching
tyrant—to her the consoler. Seeing that she desired
to be raised, I lifted, and sustained her head
upon my bosom. Her mother asked her if she felt
better.
“Well, quite well,” was her answer. A minute
did not elapse after that, when I felt a slight shiver
pass over her frame, which then remained motionless.
Her breathing was suspended. I let her head
sink back gradually upon the pillow, and looking
in her face, I saw that her pure, yet troubled spirit,
had departed forever. My watching was ended.
-- 162 --
CHAPTER XVI.
I shall find time;
When you have took some comfort, I'll begin
To mourn his death and scourge the murderer.
T. Heywood, 1655.
[figure description] Page 162.[end figure description]
The ending and beginning I had seen—the
whole of this catastrophe. We buried the poor
maiden in a grove near her dwelling in which her
feet had often rambled with him whose grave
should have been beside her. There was nothing
more for me to do—there was no reason why I
should linger in Marengo; and I resolved once more
to leave it. As yet, my error remained uncorrected
in regard to Mary Easterby. I still deemed her the
affianced wife of John Hurdis; and—sometimes wondering
why he came not with her to the dwelling
of Katharine Walker, and sometimes doubting their
alliance from little signs and circumstances, which
now and then occurred to my observation,—I was
still impressed with the conviction that there was
no more hope for me. I escorted her home after
the burial of Katharine, and sad and sweet was our
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conference by the way. We rode together, side by
side on horseback, and we soon left the animals to
their own motion which was gratefully sluggish to
me. I will not say whether I thought it so to her,
but, at least, she gave no symptoms of impatience,
nor made any effort to accelerate the movements of
her steed. It will not, perhaps, be assuming too
much, to suppose that, in some large respects, our
thoughts and feelings ran together in satisfied companionship.
We were both deeply affected and
subdued by the cruel events to which we had been
witnesses. There was a dreadful warning to hope,
and love, and youth, in the sad history which has
been written, and which we were forced to read in
every stage of its performance. Never could morality
teach more terribly to youth its own uncertainties,
and the mutations hanging around that deity
whose altar of love it is most apt to seek in worship.
How evanescent to our eyes seemed then all
our images of delight. The sunlight, which was
bright and beautiful around us—making a “bridal
of earth and sky,”—we looked upon with doubt and
apprehension as a delusion which must only woo to
vanish. We spoke together of these things; and
what, it may be asked, was the conclusion of all
this sombrous reflection? Did it make either of us
forswear the world and hope? Did it make either
of us more doubtful and desponding than before?
-- 164 --
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No! Its effects were softening and subduing, not
overthrowing—not destructive of any of those altars,
to which love brings wreaths that wither, and
offers vows that are rejected or forgotten. We lost
not one hope or dream of youth. We gave freedom
to none of our anticipations. Even the lessons taught
us by the death of those who, loving in life so fondly,
in death were not divided, were lessons of love.
The odour of the sacrifice made amends for the consumption
by fire of the rich offerings which were
upon the altar; and love lost none of his loveliness
either in her eyes or mine, because, in this instance,
as in a thousand others, it had failed to rescue its votaries
from the grasp of a more certain, if not a
greater power. The lesson which was taught us by
the fate of Katharine Walker, made us esteem still
more highly the sacred influence, which could consecrate
so sweet and pure a spirit to immortality,
and lead it, without struggle or reluctance, into the
brazen jaws of death. What a triumph to youth,
to fancy, to reflection, was the thought which portrayed
a power so wonderful—so valuable to those
who more than love already.
“I will see you before I leave Marengo, Mary,”
was my promise on leaving her that evening.
“What! you mean to leave us, again, Richard?”
was her involuntary and very earnest demand.—
“Oh, do not, Richard—wherefore would you go?
-- 165 --
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Why would you encounter such cruel risks as befell
poor William? Stay with us—leave us not again.”
With an utterance and movement, equally involuntary,
I took her hand and replied,
“And would you have me stay, Mary? Wherefore?
What reward can you give—what is there
now in your power to give that could bribe me to
compliance?”
I paused just at the time when I should have spoken
freely. To what I had said, she could make
no answer; yet she had her answer ready to what I
might have said. But I said nothing, and she made
no reply. Yet, could I have seen it!—had I not been
still the blind and besotted slave and victim to my
own jaundicing and jealous apprehensions, the blush
upon her cheek, the tremor upon her lip, the downcast
and shaded eye, the faltering accent—all these
would have conveyed an answer, which might have
made me happy then. And yet these persuasive
signs did not utterly escape my sight. I felt them,
and wondered at them—and was almost tempted, in
the new warmth of heart which they brought me,
to declare my affections, but for the thought that it
would be unseemly to do so, at a moment when we
had just left the chamber of death, and beheld the
last gleam of life pass from the eyes of loveliness
and youth. Fool that I was, as if love did not plant
his roses even on the grave of his worshipper, and
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find his most flourishing soil in the heart of the
beloved one.
That night my mother drew me aside, and asked
me with some significance, what had passed between
Mary and myself.
“Nothing.”
“What! have you not spoken?”
“Of what?”
“Of your love!—”
“No! Why should you think it, mother? What
reason? Is she not engaged to John—is that matter
broken off?”
“I think it is—he has not been to see her for a
week.”
“Indeed!”
“And have you not seen, my son, how sad she
looks—she has looked so ever since you went
away.”
“That may be only because he has not been to
see her, mother; or it may be because of the affliction
which she has been compelled to witness.”
“Well, Richard, I won't say that it is not, and
yet, my son, I'm somehow inclined to think that
you could have her for the asking.”
“Do you think so, mother, and yet—even if it
were so, mother, I would not ask. The woman who
has once accepted the hand of John Hurdis, though
she afterwards rejects him, is not the woman for me.”
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“But, Richard, I'm not so sure now that she ever
did accept him. There was that poor woman, Mrs.
Pickett, only a few days ago came here, and she
took particular pains to let me know that Mary and
John were never half so near together, to use her
own words, as Mary and yourself.”
“How could she know any thing about it,” was
my reply.
“Well, I don't know; but I can tell you, she's a
very knowing woman—”
“She would scarcely be the confidant of Mary,
nevertheless.”
“But you will see Mary, Richard—you will try.”
“If I thought, mother, that she and John had
never been engaged—if I knew that. But I will
see her.”
The promise satisfied both my mother and myself
for the time; and I now gave myself up to
reflection in solitude, as a new task had been
forced upon me, by the circumstances of the few
past days. I had suffered more in mind from
beholding the misery and madness of Katharine
Walker, than it would be manly to avow; and there
was one portion of this tragedy which more than
any other, impressed itself upon me. I was haunted
by the continual presence of the lovely maniac,
as she appeared at the moment when she denounced
me as deserting my friend, exposing, and leaving
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him to peril, and finally suffering his murder to go
unavenged. The more I thought upon this last passage
of her angry speech, the more impressively
did it take the shape of a moral requisition. I strove
seriously to examine it as a question of duty, whether
I was bound to go upon this errand of retribution
or not, and the answers of my mind were invariably
and inevitably the same. Shall the murderer
go unpunished—shall so heinous a crime remain
unavenged? Are there no claims of friendship—of
manhood upon you? The blood of the innocent
calls upon you. The indignities which you yourself
have undergone—these call upon you. But a
louder call upon you than all, is the demand of society.
She calls upon you to ferret out these lurkers
upon the highway—to bring them to justice that
the innocent traveller may not be shot down from
the thicket, in the sunshine, in the warm morning of
youth, and hope, and confidence. True—the laws of
man do not summon you forth on this mission; but
is there no stronger voice in your heart inciting
you to the sacred work? The brave man waits not
for his country's summons to take the field against
the foreign enemy—shall he need her call when
his friend is slain almost by his side; and when
sworn foes to friendship, and truth, and love, and all
the social virtues, lurk in bands around their several
homes to prey upon them as they unconsciously
-- 169 --
[figure description] Page 169.[end figure description]
come forth? Can you doubt that it is your duty to
seek and exterminate these wretches? You say that
is the duty of others no less than of yourself; but
does the neglect of others to perform their duties,
render yours unnecessary or release you? On the
contrary, does it not make it more incumbent upon
you to do more than would be your duty under
other circumstances, and to supply, as much as lies
in your power, their deficiencies? Such was the
reasoning of my own mind on this subject; and it
forced conviction upon me. In the woods where I
had meditated the matter, I made my vow to the
avenging deities.
“I will seek the murderers, so help me heaven!
I will suffer not one of them to escape, if it be
within the scope of my capacity and arm, to bring
them to justice.” And, even upon the ground where
I had made this resolution, I kneeled and prayed
for the requisite strength and encouragement from
heaven in the execution of my desperate vow.
This resolution induced another, and endued me
with a courage which before I had not felt. Conceiving
myself a destined man, I overleapt, at a moment,
all the little boundaries of false delicacy, morbid
sensibility, and mere custom, which before, had,
perhaps, somewhat taken from my natural hue of
resolution—and the next day I rode over to the house
of Mary Easterby. A complete change by this
-- 170 --
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time had taken place in my feelings in one respect.
I was no longer apprehensive of what I said in
speaking to Mary. I now proceeded as if in compliance
with a prescribed law; and asking her to
walk with me, I led her directly to the favorite
walk which, in our childhood, our own feet chiefly
had beaten out in the forests. I conducted her
almost in silence to the huge fallen tree which had
formed the boundary of our previous rambles, and
seated her upon it, and myself beside her, as I had
done a thousand times before.
“And now Mary,” I said, taking her hand, “I
have a serious question to ask you, and beg that you
will answer it with the same unhesitating directness
with which I ask it. Your answer will nearly
affect my future happiness.”
I paused, but she was silent—evidently through
emotion—and I continued thus:
“You know me too well to suppose that I would
say or do any thing to offend you, and certainly
you will believe me when I assure you that it is no
idle curiosity which prompts me to ask the question
which I will now propose.”
A slight pressure of her fingers upon my wrist—
her hand being clasped the while in mine—was my
sufficient and encouraging answer, and I then boldly
asked if she was or had been engaged to John Hurdis.
Her answer, as the reader must anticipate, was
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unequivocally in the negative. In the next moment
she was in my arms—she was mine. Then followed
explanations which did away, as by a breath, with a
hundred little circumstances of my own jaundiced
judgment, and of my brother's evil instigation,
which for months I had looked upon as insuperable
barriers. For the part which John Hurdis had in
raising them, I was at that moment quite too happy
not to forgive him. I now proceeded to tell Mary
of my contemplated journey, but not of its objects.
This I kept from the knowledge of all around me,
for its successful prosecution, I had already well
conceived, could only result from the secrecy with
which I pursued it. Nor did I suffer her to know
the direction of country in which I proposed to travel;
this caution was due to my general plan, and
called for, at the same time, by her natural apprehensions,
which would have been greatly alarmed to
know that I was about to go into a region where
my friend had been so inhumanly murdered. I need
not say that she urged every argument to keep me
in Marengo. She pleaded her own attachment,
which, having once avowed, she now delighted in;
and urged every consideration which might be supposed
available among the thoughts of a young maiden
unwilling to let her lover go. But my resolve had
been too seriously and solemnly taken. “I had an
oath in heaven,” and no ties, even such, so dear
-- 172 --
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ones, as those which I had just formed, could make
me desire escape from it if I could. She was compelled
to yield the contest since I assured her that
my resolution was no less imperative than my engagements;
but I promised to return soon, and our
marriage was finally arranged for that period.
What an hour of bliss was that, in those deep
groves, under that prevailing silence. What an elysium
had suddenly grown up around me. How potent
was the magician which could make us forget
the graves upon which we stood, and the blood still
flowing around us, dreaming only of those raptures
which, in the fortunes of two other fond creatures
like ourselves, had so suddenly been defeated. In
that hour I thought not of the dangers I was about
to undergo, and she—the dear girl hanging on my
bosom, and shedding tears of pleasure—she seemed
to forget that earth ever contained a tomb.
Next morning, after we had taken breakfast, I
strolled down the avenue to the entrance, and was
suddenly accosted by a man whom I had never
seen before. He rode up with an air of confidence
and asked me if I was Mr. Hurdis, Mr. John Hurdis.
I replied in the negative, but offered to show
him the way to the house where he would find the
person whom we sought. We met John coming
forth.
“That is your man, sir,” said I, to the stranger.
-- 173 --
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He thanked me, and instantly advanced to my brother.
I could not help being a spectator, for I was
compelled to pass them in order to enter the house;
and my attention was doubly fixed by the singular
manner in which the stranger offered John Hurdis
his hand. The manner of the thing seemed also to
provoke the astonishment of John, himself, who
looked at me with surprise amounting to consternation.
I was almost disposed to laugh out at the
idiot stare with which he transferred his gaze from
me to the stranger, and to me again, for the expression
seemed absolutely ludicrous; but I was on terms
of too much civility with my brother to exhibit any
such unnecessary familiarity; and, passing into the
house, I left the two together. Their business
seemed of a private nature, for they went into the
neighbouring woods to finish it; and John Hurdis
did not return from the interview, until I had set
forth a second time on my travels. The meaning
of this conference, and the cause of that singular
approach of the stranger which awakened so much
seeming astonishment in the face of John Hurdis,
will be sufficiently explained hereafter. Little did
I then imagine the nature of that business which I
had undertaken, and of the mysterious developments
of crime to which my inquiries would lead me.
-- 174 --
CHAPTER XVII.
What! thou dost quit me then—
In the first blush of my necessity,
The danger yet at distance.
Captive.
[figure description] Page 174.[end figure description]
It was, perhaps, an earnest of success in the pursuit
which I had undertaken, that I did not underrate,
to myself, its many difficulties. I felt that I
would have to contend with experienced cunning
and probably superior strength—that nothing but
the utmost adroitness and self-control could possibly
enable me to effect my purposes. My first
object was to alter my personal appearance, so as
to defeat all chance of recognition by any of the
villains with whom I had previously come in collision.
This was a work calling for much careful
consideration. To go down to Mobile, change my
clothes, and adopt such fashions as would more completely
disguise me, were my immediate designs; and
I pushed my way to this, my first post, with all speed
and without any interruption. My first care in Mobile
was to sell my horse which I did for one hundred
and eighty dollars. I had now nearly five
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[figure description] Page 175.[end figure description]
hundred dollars in possession—a small part in silver,
the rest in United States Bank, Alabama, and Louisiana
notes, all of which were equally current. I
soon procured a couple of entire suits, as utterly different
from any thing I had previously worn as possible.
Then, having a proper regard to the usual
decoration of the professed gamblers of our country,
I entered a jeweller's establishment, and bought
sundry bunches of seals, a tawdry watch, a huge
chain of doubtful, but sold as virgin, gold; and some
breastpins and shirt buttons of saucer size. To
those who had personally known me before, I was
well assured that no disguise would have been more
perfect than that afforded by these trinkets—but
when, in addition to these and the other changes in
my habit of which I have spoken, I state that my
beard was suffered to grow goatlike, after the most
approved models of dandyism, under the chin, in
curling masses, and my whiskers, in rival magnificence,
were permitted to overrun my cheeks—I
trust that I shall be believed when I aver that after
a few weeks space, I scarcely knew myself. I had
usually been rather fastidious in keeping a smooth
cheek and chin, and I doubt very much, whether my
own father ever beheld a two days' beard upon me
from the day that I found myself man enough to shave
at all, to the present. The more I contemplated my
own appearance, the more sanguine I became of
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success; and I lingered in Mobile a little time longer
in order to give beard and whiskers a fair opportunity
to overrun a territory which before had never
shown its stubble. When this time was elapsed,
my visage was quite Siberian; a thick cap of otter
skin, which I now procured, fully completed my
northern disguises, and, exchanging my pistols at a
hardware establishment, for others not so good, but
for which I had to give some considerable boot, I
felt myself fairly ready for my perilous adventure.
It called for some resolution to go forward when
the time came for my departure, and when I thought
of the dangers before me; but when, in the next instant,
I thought of the murder of my friend, and of
the sad fate of his betrothed, my resolution of vengeance
was renewed. I felt that I had an oath in
Heaven—sworn—registered;—and I repeated it on
earth.
Let me now return for an instant to the condition
of my worthy brother, and relate some passages, in
their proper place in this narrative, which, however,
did not come to my knowledge for some time after.
The reader will remember my meeting with the
stranger at the entrance of the avenue leading to my
father's house, who asked for John Hurdis, and to
whom I introduced him. It will also be remembered
that I remarked the surprise, nay almost consternation,
which his appearance and address seemed
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to produce in my brother's countenance. There was
a reason for all this, though I dreamed not of it then.
John Hurdis had good cause for the terrors, which,
at that time, I found rather ludicrous, and was almost
disposed to laugh at. They went together
into the woods, and, as I left the plantation for Mobile
an hour after, I saw no more of either of them
on that occasion. The business of the stranger may
best be told in John Hurdis's own words. That
very afternoon he went to the cottage of Pickett,
whom he summoned forth, as was his custom, by a
signal agreed upon between them. When together,
in a voice of great agitation, John began the dialogue
as follows:
“I am ruined, Pickett—ruined, undone forever.
Who do you think has come to me—presented
himself at the very house, and demanded to see me?”
Pickett looked up, but exhibited no sort of surprise
at this speech, as he replied by a simple inquiry.
“Who?”
“A messenger from this d—d confederacy. A
fellow with his cursed signs—and a summons to
meet the members at some place to which he is to
give me directions at a future time. I am required
to be in readiness to go, heaven knows where, and to
meet with, heaven knows who—to do, heaven knows
what.”
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Pickett answered coolly enough—and with an air
of resignation to his fate, which confounded Hurdis.
“He has been to me too, and given me the same
notice.”
“Ha! and what did you tell him—what answer—
what answer?”
“That I would come—that I was always ready.
I suppose you told him so, likewise?”
“Ay—you may well suppose it—what else, in
the name of all the fiends, could I tell him. I have
no help—I must submit—I am at their mercy—
thanks to your bungling, Ben Pickett—you have
drawn us both into a bog which is closing upon us
like a gulf. I told him as you told him, though it
was in the gall of bitterness that I felt myself forced
to say so much, that I would obey the summons
and be ready when the time came to meet the
`Mystic Confederacy.'—Hell's curses upon their
confederates and mystery—that I was at their disposal
as I was at their mercy—to go as they bid me,
and do as they commanded—I was their servant—
their slave—their ox, their ass, their any thing.—
Death! death! that I should move my tongue to
such admission, and feel my feet bound in obedience
with my tongue.”
“It's mighty hard, `Squire, but it's no use getting
into a passion about it. We're in, and, like the horse
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in the mire, we mustn't think to bolt, 'till we're
out of it.”
“It's mighty hard, and no use getting in a passion,”
said Hurdis ironically, and with bitterness
repeating the words of his companion. “Well, I
know not, Ben Pickett, what situation would authorise
a man in becoming angry and passionate if
this does not. You seem to take it coolly, however.
You're more of a philosopher, I see, than I can
ever hope to make myself.”
“Well, 'Squire, it's my notion,” said the other,
“that what's not to be helped by grumbling, will
hurt the grumbler. I've found it so, always; and now
that I think of it, 'Squire, there's less reason for you
to grumble and complain than any body I know;
and, as it's just as well to speak the truth first as last,
I may say now once for all, that it was you that bungled,
not me, or we shouldn't have got into this bog;
or we might have got out of it.”
“Indeed! I bungle, and how I pray you, Mr.
Pickett? Wasn't it you that was caught in your
own ambush?”
“Yes—but who sent me? I was doing your business,
'Squire, as well as I could; and if you didn't
like my ability, why did you trust it? Why didn't
you go yourself. I didn't want to kill Richard Hurdis—
I wasn't his brother.”
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“And then to mistake your man too—that was
another specimen of your bungling.”
“Look you, 'Squire, the less you say about that
matter, the better for both of us. The bungling is
but a small part of that business that I'm sorry for.
I'm sorry for the whole of it, and if sorrow could
put back the life in Bill Carrington's heart, and be
security for Dick Hurdis's hereafter, they'd both
live for ever for me. But if I was such a bungler
at first, 'Squire, there's one thing I may tell you,
and tell you plainly. I was never afraid to pull
trigger, when every thing depended on it. The cure
for all my bungling was in your own hands. When
the man first talked with us in these same woods,
under them willows, what did I say to you? Didn't
I offer to close with him, if you'd only agree to use
your pistol? And wasn't you afraid?”
“I was not afraid—it was prudence only that
made me put it off,” said Hurdis hastily.
“And what made you put it off when you way-laid
him in Ten Mile Branch? No, 'Squire, as you
confessed yourself, it was because you were afraid
to shoot, though every thing hung on that one fire.
Had you tumbled that fellow, we had'nt seen this;
and if it had been convenient for me to have done it,
as God's my judge, I'd much rather have put the
bullet through a dozen fellows like that, than through
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one clever chap like Bill Carrington. That's a business
troubles me, 'Squire; and more than once
since he's been covered, I've seen him walk over
my path, leaving a cold chill all along the track behind
him.”
“Pshaw, Ben, at your ghosts again.”
“No, 'Squire, they're at me. But let's talk no
more about it. What can't be undone, may as well
be let alone. We must work out our troubles as
we can; and the worst trouble to our thoughts is,
that we have worked ourselves into them. We
have nobody but ourselves to blame.”
The manner of Pickett had become somewhat
dogged and inflexible, and it warned Hurdis, who
was prompt in observing the changes of temper in
his neighbour, to be more considerate in his remarks,
and more conciliating in his tone of utterance.
“Well, but Ben, what is to be done? What are
we to do about this summons? How shall we get
over it—how avoid it?”
“Avoid it! I don't think to avoid it, 'Squire.”
“What! you intend to go when they call you?”
“Certainly—what can I do? Don't you intend
to go? Did you not promise obedience?”
“Yes, but I never thought of going. My hope
was, that something might turn up between this and
then, that would interpose for my safety. Indeed
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I never thought of any thing at the moment, but
how best to get rid of the emissary.”
“That's the smallest matter of all,” said Pickett.
“Now it is,” replied Hurdis; “but it was not
then, for I dreaded lest some one should ask his business.
Besides, he was brought up to me by Richard,
and his keen eyes seem always to look through
me when he speaks. As you say, to get rid of him
is in truth, a small business, to getting rid of his
gang. How can that be done is the question? I
had hope when I came to you—”
The other interrupted him hastily.
“Don't come to me for hope, 'Squire; I should
bungle, perhaps, in what I advise you to do, or in
what I do for you myself. Let us each paddle our
canoes apart. I'm a poor man that can't hope to manage
well the business of a rich one; and as I've
done so badly for you before, it won't be wise in
you to employ me again. Indeed, for that matter, I
won't be employed by you again. It's hard enough
to do evil for another, and much harder, to get no
thanks for it.”
“Pshaw, Ben, you're in your sulks now—think
better of it, my friend. Don't mind a harsh word—a
hasty word—uttered when I was angry, and without
meaning.”
“I don't mind that, 'Squire—I wish it was as
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[figure description] Page 183.[end figure description]
easy to forget all the rest, as to forgive that. But
the blood, 'Squire—the blood that is on my hands—
blood that I didn't mean to spill, 'Squire—'tis that
makes me angry and sulky—so that I don't care what
comes up. It's all one to me what happens now.”
“But this fellow, Ben. You say you have resolved
to comply with the summons, and to go
when they call for you?”
“Yes?”
“And what am I to do?”
“The same, I suppose. I'm ready to go now; and
I give you the last counsel, 'Squire, which I think
I ever will give you, and that is to make the best of
a bad situation—do with a good grace, what you
can't help doing, and it will go the better with you.
They can't have any good reason to expose a man of
family to shame, and they will keep your secrets so
long as you obey their laws.”
“But suppose they command me to commit crime—
to rob, to murder?”
“Well then you must ask yourself which you'd
prefer—to obey or to swing. It's an easy question.”
“On all sides—the pit—the fire—the doom!” was
the pitiable and despairing exclamation of Hurdis,
as he clasped his forehead with his hands, and closed
his eyes against the terrors which his imagination
brought before them. Suddenly recurring, he asked,
“But why, Ben, do you say this is the last
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counsel which you will give me. You do not mean to
suffer a hasty and foolish word, for which I have already
uttered my regrets, to operate in your mind
against me—”
“No, 'Squire Hurdis—I don't mind the words
of contempt that you rich men utter for the poor—
if I did, I should be miserable enough myself, and
make many others more so. That's gone out of my
mind, and, as I tell you, I forget it all when I think
of those worse matters which I can't so well forget.”
“Why then say you will counsel me no more?”
“Because I'm about to leave Marengo forever.”
“Ha! remove! where—when?”
“In three days, 'Squire, I'll be off, bag and baggage,
for the `Nation.' My wife's ripe for it—she's
been at me a long time to be off from a place where
nobody knows any good of me. And I have heard
a good deal about the `Nation.' ”
“And what will you do there for a livelihood.”
“Well, just what I can—try at least, to live a little
more honestly than I did here—or more respectably,
which is not often the same thing.”
“But do you expect when there, to evade this
`confederacy?' ” Hurdis eagerly demanded.
“No—I have no such hope.”
“How then can you hope to live more honestly?”
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“More respectably, I may.”
“They will summon you to do their crimes.”
“I will do them.”
“What! shed more blood at a time when you are
troubled for what's already done.”
“Yes—I will obey where I cannot escape;
but I will do no crime of that sort again on my
own account—nothing which I am not forced to
do. But if they say strike, I will do so as readily
as if it was the best action which they commanded.
I will cut the throat of my best friend at their
bidding, for you see, 'Squire, I have been so long
knocked about in the world—now to one side, now
to another, like a clumsy log going down stream—
that I'm now quite indifferent, I may say, to all the
chances of the current; and I'll just go wherever it
may drive me. This `confederacy' can't make me
worse than I have been—than I am—and it increases
my security and strength. It gives me more
certain means and greater power; and if I am to be
forced, I will make what use I can of the power that
forces me.”
“But, Ben, such a resolution will make you a
willing and active member of this clan.”
“Surely!” said the other indifferently.
“All your old interests and friendships, Ben,
would be forsaken, rooted up—”
“Ay, 'Squire, and my old friends just as liable
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to my bullet and knife as my enemies, if the command
of the confederacy required me to use them.
You yourself, 'Squire—though we have worked together
for a long time—even you I would not spare,
if they required me to shed your blood; and you
will see from this, that there is no hope for you unless
you comply with the summons, and heartily
give yourself up to the interests of the whole fraternity.”
Hurdis was stricken dumb by this frank avowal
of his associate. He had no more to say, and with
a better understanding of each other than either had
ever possessed before, there was now a wall between
them, over which neither at the present moment
seemed willing to look. In three days more Pickett
with all his family, was on his way towards the
“nation,” where, it may be added in this place, he
had already made arrangements with the emissary
for a more active co-operation with the members of
the “Mystic Confederacy.” His destiny which
forced him into the bosom of this clan, seemed thoroughly
to yield to his desire. The buffeting of the
world, of which he had spoken, had only made him
the more indifferent to the loveliness of virtue—
more reckless of the risk, and less averse to the
natural repulsiveness, of vice.
-- 187 --
CHAPTER XVIII.
He seemed
For dignity composed, and high exploit;
But all was false and hollow.
Milton.
[figure description] Page 187.[end figure description]
Were it proper for me to pause in my narrative
for the purpose of moral reflection, how naturally
would the destitute condition of the criminal, as instanced
in the case of John Hurdis, present itself for
comment. Perhaps the greatest penalty which vice
ever suffers is its isolation—its isolation from friends
and fellowship—from warm trust, from yielding
confidence. Its only resources are in the mutual interests
of other and perhaps greater criminals, and
what is there in life so unstable as the interests of
the vicious? How they fluctuate with the approach of
danger, or the division of the spoil, or the drunkenness
of heart and habit which their very destitution
in all social respects must necessarily originate.
When John Hurdis separated from his late colleague,
who had taught him that they were no longer bound
to each other by mutual necessities, he felt as if the
last stay, in the moment of extremity, was suddenly
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taken from him. A sickness of soul came over him,
and that despair of the spirit which the falling
wretch endures, in the brief instant, when, catching
at the impending limb, he finds it yielding the moment
that his hold is sure upon it, and, in its decay,
betraying utterly the last fond hope which had promised
him security and life.
But, enough of this—my journey is begun. I entered
a steamboat, one fair morning, and with promising
auspices, so far as our voyage is considered,
we went forward swimmingly enough. But our
boat was an old one—a wretched hulk, which, having
worked out its term of responsible service in the
Mississippi, had been sent round to Mobile, at the
instance of cupidity, to beguile unwitting passengers
like myself, to their ruin. She was a piece of patch-work
throughout, owned by a professional gambler,
a little Israelite, who took the command without
knowing any thing about it, and by dint of good
fortune, carried us safely to our journey's end. Not
that we had not some little stoppages and troubles
by the way. Some portion of the machinery got
out of order, and we landed at Demopolis, built a
fire, erected a sort of forge, and in the space of half
a day and night repaired the accident. This incident
would not be worth relating, but that it exhibits the
readiness with which our wildest and least scientific
people, can find remedies for disasters which would
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seem to call for great skill and most extensive preparations.
On the eleventh day we reached Columbus;
but in the meantime, practising my new resolves,
I made an acquaintance on board the boat.
This was an old gentleman, a puritan of the bluest
complexion, whom nobody would have suspected of
being a rogue. Setting out to seek for, and meet with
none but rogues, he yet nearly deceived me by his
sanctity; and had I not maintained my watchfulness
a little longer than I deemed necessary myself, I
should have taken it for granted that he was a saint
of the most accepted order, and, if I had not committed
my secret to his keeping, I should, at least,
have so far involved its importance as to make my
labour unavailing. Fortunately, as I said, having
put on, with the dress common to the gamblers of
the great Mississippi Valley, as much of their easy
impudence of demeanor as I could readily assume,
I succeeded as effectually in convincing my puritan
that I was a rogue, as he did in persuading me, at the
beginning, that he was an honest man. It was my
good fortune to find out his secret first, and to keep
my own. It so happened that there were several passengers
like myself, bound for Columbus on the Tombeckbe,
to which place our boat was destined. As
customary at that time, we had no sooner got fairly
under weigh before cards were produced, and one
fellow, whose lungs and audacity were greater than
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the rest, was heard throughout the cabin calling
upon all persons who were disposed to “take a
hand,” to come forward. With my new policy in
view, I was one of the first to answer this challenge.
I had provided myself in Mobile with several packs,
and taking a couple of them in hand, I went forward
to the table which meanwhile had been drawn out in
the cabin and coolly surveyed my companions. Our
puritan came forward at the same moment, and in
the gravest terms and tones, protested against our
playing.
“My young friends,” he cried, “let me beg you
not to engage in this wicked amusement. Cards
are, as it has been often and well said—cards are
the prayer books of the devil. It is by these that he
wins souls daily to his gloomy kingdom. Night
and day he is busy in these arts, to entrap the unwary,
whom he blinds and beguiles until, when they
open their eyes at last, they open them in the dwellings
of damnation. Oh, my dear children, do not
venture to follow him so far. Cast the temptation
from you—defy the tempter; and in place of these
dangerous instruments of sin, hearken, I pray you,
to the goodly outpourings of a divine spirit. If you
will but suffer me to choose for you a text from this
blessed volume—”
Here he took a small pocket bible from his bosom,
and was about to turn the leaves, when a cry from
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all around me, silenced him in his homily, which
promised to be sufficiently unctuous and edifying.—
“No text—no text,” was the general voice—
“none of the parson—none of the parson.”
“Nay, my beloved children—” the preacher begun,
but a tall good-humoured looking fellow, a
Georgian, with the full face, lively eyes and clear
skin of that state, came up to him, and laid his broad
hand over his mouth.
“Shut up, parson, it's no use. You can't be heard
now, for you see it's only civility to let the devil
have the floor, seeing he was up first. If, now, you
had been quick enough with your prayer-book, and
got the whip-hand of him, d—n my eyes, but you
should have sung out your song to the end of the
verses; but you've been slow, parson—you've been
sleeping at your stand, and the deer's got round you.
You'll get smoked by the old one, yourself, if you
don't mind, for neglecting your duty.”
“Peace, vain young man—”
He was about to begin a furious denunciation, but
was allowed to proceed no farther. The clamor was
unanimous around him; and one tall fellow, somewhat
dandyishly accoutred like myself, coming forward,
made a show of seizing upon the exhorter.
Here I interposed.
“No violence, gentlemen; it's enough that we
have silenced the man, let him not be hurt.”
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“Ay, if he will keep quiet,” said the fellow, still
threatening.
“Oh, quiet or not,” said the Georgian, “we
mustn't hurt the parson. 'Dang it, he shan't be hurt.
I'll stand up for him.—Parson, I'll stand up for you;
but by the Hokey, old black, you must keep your
oven close.”
I joined in promising that he would be quiet and
offer no farther interruption, and he so far seemed
to warrant our assurance as, without promising himself,
to take a seat, after a few half suppressed groans,
on a bench near the table, on which we were about
to play. I was first struck with suspicion of the fellow
by this fact. If the matter was so painful to his
spirit, why did he linger in our neighbourhood when
there were so many parts of the boat to which he
might have retreated? The suspicion grew stronger
when I found him, after a little while, as watchfully
attentive to the progress of the game as any of
the players.
Favourably impressed with the frankness of the
Georgian, I proposed that we should play against
the other two persons who were prepared to sit
down to the table, and my offer was closed with instantly.
We bet on each hand, on the highest trump,
and on the game with each of our opponents, a dollar
being the amount of each bet, so that we had a
good many dollars staked on the general result of the
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game. I know that I lost nine dollars before the
cards had been thrice dealt. I now proceeded to
try some of the tricks which I had seen others perform,
and in particular that in which the dealer, by
a peculiar mode of shuffling, divides the trumps between
his partner and himself. My object was to
fix the attention of one of my opponents, whom I
suspected from the first to be no better than he
should be, simply because he wore a habit not unlike
my own, and was covered with trinkets in the
same manner. But I lacked experience—there was
still a trick wanting which no slight of hand of mine
could remedy. Though I shuffled the cards as I
had seen them shuffled, by drawing them alternately
from top and bottom together, I found neither
mine nor my partner's hand any better than before,
and looking up with some affected chagrin in my
countenance, I caught sight of what seemed to be an
understanding smile between the opponent in question
and the parson, who, sitting a little on one side
of me, was able to look, if he desired it, into my
hand. This discovery—as I thought it—gave me no
little pleasure. I was resolved to test it, and ascertain
how far I was correct in my suspicions. I flattered
myself that I was in a fair way to fall upon the clue
which might conduct me into the very midst of the
gamblers, who are all supposed to be connected more
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or less on the western waters, and yield me possession
of their secrets. Accordingly, I displayed
certain of my cards ostentatiously before the eyes of
the preacher, and had occasion to observe, an instant
after, that the play of my opponent seemed to be regulated
by a certain knowledge of my hand. He
finessed constantly upon my lead; and with an
adroitness which compelled the continual expression
of wonder and dissatisfaction from the lips of
my partner. I was satisfied, so far, with the result
of my experiment, and began to think of pausing
before I proceeded farther; when my Georgian
dashed down his cards as the game was ended
against us, and cried out to me, with a countenance
which, though flushed, was yet full of most excellent
feeling—
“Look you, stranger, suppose we change. We
don't seem to have luck together, and there's no fun
in being all the time on the losing side. The bad
luck may be with me, or it may be with you, I don't
say, but it can do no harm to shift it to other shoulders,
whoever has it. I've been diddled out of
twenty-six hard dollars, in mighty short order.”
“Diddled!” exclaimed my brother dandy, with
an air of ineffable heroism, turning to my partner.
Without discomposure the other replied:
“I don't mean any harm when I say diddled,
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stranger, so don't be uneasy. I call it diddling
when I lose my money, fight as hard for it as I can.
That's the worst sort of diddling I know.”
The other looked fierce for a moment, but he
probably soon discovered that the Georgian had replied
without heeding his air of valor, and there
was something about his composed manner which
rendered it at least a doubtful point whether any
thing in the shape of an insult would not set his
bulky frame into overpowering exercise. The disposition
to bully, however slightly it was suffered to
appear, added another item to my suspicions of the
character before me. The proposition of my partner
to change places with one of the other two, produced
a different suggestion from one of them, which
seemed to please us all. It was that we should play
vingt-un.
“Every man fights on his own hook in that, and
his bad luck, if he has any, hurts nobody but himself.”
I had begun to reproach myself with a course
which, however useful in forwarding my own objects,
had evidently contributed to the loss by my
partner of his money. If free to throw away my
own, I had no right to try experiments on his purse,
and I readily gave my assent to the proposition.
Our bets were more moderate than before, but I
soon found the game a losing one still. The
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preacher still sat at my elbow, and my brother dandy was
the banker; and in more than one instance when I
have stood on “twenty” he has drawn from the pack,
though having “eighteen” and “nineteen,”—upon
which good players will always be content, unless
assured that better hands are in the possession of
their opponents, when, by “drawing,” they cannot
lose. This knowledge could only be received from
our devoted preacher, and when I ceased to play—
which, through sheer weariness I did—I did so with
the most thorough persuasion, that the two were in
correspondence—they were birds of the same brood.
Moody and thoughtful, for I was now persuaded
that my own more important game was beginning to
open before me, I went to the stern of the boat, and
seated myself upon one of the bulks, giving way to
the bitter musings of which my mind was sufficiently
full. While I sat thus, I was startled on a sudden
to find the preacher beside me.
“Ah, my young friend, I have watched you during
your sinful play, against which I warned you,
with a painful sort of curiosity. Did I not counsel
you against those devilish instruments—you scorned
my counsel, and what has been your fortune. You
have lost money, my son, money—a goodly sum,
which might have blessed the poor widow, and the
portionless orphan—which might have sent the
blessings of the word into strange lands among the
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benighted heathen—which might have helped on in
in his labours wayfaring teacher of the word—
which might be most needful to yourself, my son,
which, indeed, I see it in your looks—which you
could very ill spare for such purposes, and which
even now it is your bitter suffering that you have
lost.”
Admiring the hypocrisy of the old reprobate, I
was yet, in obedience to my policy, prepared to respect
it. I availed myself of his own suggestion,
and thus answered him.
“You speak truly, sir; I bitterly regret having
lost my money, which, as you say, I could ill spare,
and which it has nearly emptied my pockets to have
lost. But suppose I had been fortunate—if I was
punished by my losses for having played, he who
won, I suppose, is punished by his winnings for the
same offence. How does your reason answer when
it cuts both ways?”
“Even as a two edged sword it doth, my friend;
though in the blindness of earth you may not so
readily see or believe it. Truly may it be said that
you are both equally punished by your fortunes.
You suffer from your losses—who shall say that he
will suffer less from his gains. Will it not encourage
him in his career of sin—will it not promote
his licentiousness—his indulgence of many
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vices which will bring him to disease, want, and, possibly—
which heaven avert—to an untimely end.
Verily, my friend, I do think him even more unfortunate
than thyself; for, of a truth, it may be said, that
the right use of money is the most difficult and dangerous
of all; and few ever use it rightly but such
as gain it through great toil, or have the divine instinct
of heaven, which is wisdom, to employ it to
its rightful purposes.”
Excellent hypocrite! How admirably did he
preach! How adroitly did he escape what had
otherwise been his dilemma. He almost deceived
me a second time.
“In your heart, now, my friend, you bitterly repent
that you heeded not my counsel.”
“Not a whit!” was my reply. “If I were sure
I could win, I would stick by the card table forever.”
“What! so profligate and so young. Oh! my
friend, think upon your end—think of eternity.”
“Rather let me think of my beginning, reverend
sir, if you please. The business of time requires
present attention, and to a man that is starving your
talk of future provision is a mere mockery. Give
me to know how I am to get the bread of life in
this life before you talk to me of bread for the next.”
“How should you get it, my friend, but by
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painstaking and labour, and worthy conduct. The world
esteems not those who play at cards—”
“And I esteem not the world. What matters it
to me, my good sir, what are the opinions of those
to whom I am unknown, and for whom I care nothing.
Give me but money enough, and I will
make them love me, and honor me, and force truth
and honesty into all shapes, that they may not offend
my principles or practice.”
“But, my son, you would not surely forget the
laws of honesty in the acquisition of wealth?”
This was said inquisitively, and with a prying
glance of the eye, which sufficiently betokened the
deep interest which the hypocrite felt in my answer.
But that I was now persuaded of his hypocrisy, I
should have never avowed myself so boldly.
“What are they? What are these laws of honesty
of which you speak? I cannot, all at once, say that I
know them.”
“Not know them!”
“No!”
“Well,” he continued, “to say truth, they are
rather frequently revoked among mankind, and have
others wholly opposite in character substituted in
their place; but you cannot mistake me my young
friend—you know that there are such laws.”
“Ay, laws for me—for the poor—to crush the
weak—made by the strong for their own protection
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—for the protection of the wealth of the cunning.
These are not laws calculated to win the respect or
regard of the destitute—of those who are desperate
enough, if they did not lack the strength, to pull
down society with a fearless hand, though, perhaps,
they pulled it in ruin upon themselves.”
“But you, my friend, you are not thus desperate—
this is not your situation.”
“What! you would extort a confession from me,
first of my poverty—then of my desperation—you
would drag me to the county court, would you, that
you might have the proud satisfaction of exhorting
the criminal in his last moments, in the presence of
twenty thousand admiring fellow creatures, who
come to see a brother launched out of life and into
hell. This is your practice and creed is it?”
“No, my friend,” he replied, in a lower tone of
voice, which was, perhaps, intended to restrain the
emphatic utterance of mine. “Know me better, my
friend—I would save you—such is my heart—from
so dreadful a situation—yes, I would even defeat the
purposes of justice, though I felt persuaded you
would sin again in the same fashion. Be not rash—
be not hasty in your judgment of me, my friend. I
like you, and will say something to you which you
will, perhaps, be pleased to hear. But not now—
one of these vicious reprobates approaches us, and
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what I say must be kept only for your own ears.
To-night, perhaps—to-night.”
He left me with an uplifted finger, and a look—
such a look as Satan may be supposed to have fixed
on Adam in Paradise.
-- 202 --
CHAPTER XIX.
'Twill be a bargain and sale,
I see, by their close working of their heads,
And running them together so in counsel.
Ben Jonson.
[figure description] Page 202.[end figure description]
The old hypocrite sought me out again that night.
So far, it appears that my part had been acted with
tolerable success. My impetuosity, which had been
feigned, of course, and the vehemence with which I
denounced mankind in declaring my own destitution,
were natural enough to a youth who had lost
his money, and had no other resources; and I was
marked out by the tempter as one so utterly hopeless
of the world's favors, as to be utterly heedless
of its regards. Of such, it is well known, the best
materials for villany are usually compounded, and
our puritan, at a glance, seems to have singled me
out as his own. We had stopped to repair some
accident to the machinery, and while the passengers
were generally making merry on land, I strolled
into the woods that immediately bordered upon the
river, taking care that my reverend fox, whose eye
I well knew was upon me, should see the course I
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took. I was also careful not to move so rapidly as
to make it a difficult work to overtake me. As I
conjectured would be the case, he followed and
found me out. It was night, but the stars were
bright enough, and the fires which had been kindled
by the boat hands, gave sufficient light for all ordinary
objects of sight. I sat down upon the bluff of
the river, screened entirely by the overhanging
branches which sometimes almost met across the
stream, where it was narrow, from the opposite
banks. I had not been here many minutes before
the tempter was beside me.
“You are sad, my friend—your losses trouble you.
But distrust not Providence which takes care of all
us, though, perhaps, we see not the hand that feeds
us, and fancy all the while that it is our own. You
will be provided when you least look for it; and
to convince you of the truth of what I say, let me
tell you that it is not in goodly counsel alone that I
would serve you, I will help you in other matters—
I can help you to the means of life—nay, of wealth.
Ha! do you start? Do you wonder at what I say?
Wonder not—be not surprised—be not rash—refuse
not your belief, for of a truth, and by the blessing
of God, will I do for you all that I promise, if so be
that I can find you pliant and willing to strive for
the goodly benefits which I shall put before you.”
“What! you would make me a preacher, would
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you? You would have me increase the host of
solemn beggars that infest the country with stolen
or silly exhortations, stuffed with abused words,
and full of oaths and blasphemy. But you are mistaken
in your man. I would sooner rob a fellow
on the highway, than pilfer from his pockets while
I preach. None of your long talks for me—tell me
now of some bold plan for taking Mexico, which,
one day or other, the southwest will have to take,
and I am your man. I care not how bold your
scheme—there is no one so perfectly indifferent to
the danger as he who cannot suffer the loss of a single
sixpence by rope or bullet.”
“You do not say, my friend, that you would willingly
do such violence as this you speak of, for the
lucre of gain. Surely, you would not willingly slay
your brother for the sake of his gold?”
“Ask me no questions, reverend sir,” I replied,
moodily. “I am not in the humour to be catechised.”
“And yet, my friend,” he continued, “I much fear
me that your conscience is scarcely what it should
be. This was my surmise to day as I beheld you
with those unholy cards in your hands. Did I not
see you, while giving them that sort of distribution
which is sinfully styled shuffling—did I not see you
practising an art which is commonly held to be unfair
among men of play. Ha! my son—am I not
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[figure description] Page 205.[end figure description]
right?—have I not smitten you under the fifth
rib?”
“And what should you, a preacher of the Gospel
as you call yourself, what should you know about
shuffling?”
“Preacher of the Gospel I am, my friend,” was his
cool reply. “I am an expounder of the Holy Scriptures,
though it may be an unworthy one. I have
my license from the Alabama conference, for the
year 18—, which, at a convenient season, I am not
unwilling that you should see. Yet, though I am
a preacher of the Blessed Word, I have not, and to
my shame be it spoken, been always thus. In my
youth, I am sad to say, I was much given to carnal
indulgence, and many were the evil practices of my
body, and many the evil devices of my heart. In this
time of my ignorance and sin, I was a great lover
of these deadly instruments of evil; and among my
fellows I was accounted a proficient, able to teach in
all the arts of play. It was thus that I acquired the
knowledge—knowledge which hurts—to see when
thou designedst a trick in which thou didst yet fail,
to win the money of thy fellow. I will show thee
that trick, my friend, that thou mayst know, I tell
thee nothing but the truth.”
Here was a proposition from a parson. I closed
with him instantly.
“You will do me a great service, I assure you.”
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“But, my friend, you would not make use of thy
knowledge to despoil thy fellow of his money.”
“Would I not? For what else would I know the
art?”
“But if I could teach thee other and greater arts
than these—if I could show thee how to make thy
brother's purse thine own, at once, and without the
toil of doling it out dollar by dollar, I fear me, my
friend, that thou wouldst apply this knowledge also
to purposes of evil—that thou wouldst not regard the
sinfulness of such performances, in the strong desire
of lucre which I see is in thy heart—that thou
wouldst seek an early chance to put in practice the
information which I give thee.”
“And wherefore give it me then? Of a certainty
I would employ it, as you see, to increase my means
of life.”
“Alas! my friend, but thy necessity must be great—
else would I look upon thee with misgivings and
much horror.”
“Great indeed! I tell you, reverend sir, that but
for your coming, it is ten to one I had sent a bullet
through my own head, or buried myself in the
waters of the `Bigby.' ”
“Thou surely didst not meditate an act so heinous.”
“Look here!” and I showed him my pistol as I
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spoke. He coolly took it into his hands, threw up
the pan, and with his finger assured himself that it
was primed. His tone was altered instantly. He
dropped the drawling manner of the exhorting; and
though his conversation was still sprinkled with the
canting slang of the itinerant preacher, which long
use had probably made habitual, yet he evidently
ceased to think it necessary to play the hypocrite
with me any longer.
“You are too bold a fellow,” he said, “to throw
away your life in such a manner, and that too because
of the want of money. You shall have money—
as much as you wish of it; and I take it, you
would infinitely prefer shooting him who has it,
rather than yourself—”
“Nay, nay, not that neither, reverend sir. There's
some danger of being hung for such a matter.”
“Not if you have money. You forget, my friend,
your own principles. You said, and said truly,
that money was the power which made virtue and
opinion take all shapes among men; and when this
is the case, justice becomes equally accommodating.
You shall have this money—you shall compel this
opinion as you please, so that you may do what you
please, and be safe—only let me know that you
wish this knowledge.”
I grasped his hand violently.
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“Ask the wretch at the gallows if he wishes life,
and the question is no less idle than that which you
put to me.”
“Come farther back from the river—some of
these boatmen may be pulling about; and such matters
as I have to reveal, need no bright blaze like
that which gleams upon us from yon forge. That
wood looks dismal enough behind us—let us go
there.”
Thither we went, and having buried ourselves
sufficiently among the thick undergrowth to be free
of any danger of discovery or interruption, he began
the narrative which follows; and which, together
with much additional but unnecessary matter, I have
abridged to my own limits.
“There was a boy,” said he, “a poor boy of West
Tennessee, who knew no parents, and had no friends—
who worked for his bread and education, such as
it was, at the same moment, and in spite of all his
labours, found, at the end of every year, after casting
up his accounts, that he had gained during its passage
many more kicks than coppers.”
“No uncommon fortune in a country like ours.”
“So he thought it,” continued the parson, availing
himself of my interruption; “so he thought it.”
He wasted no time and feeling in idle regrets of a
condition which he found was rather more general
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than grateful to mankind, and one day he asked
himself how many years he was willing to expend
in trying to get a living in an honest way.”
“Well—a reasonable question. What answer?”
“A reasonable one—like the question. Life is
short even if we have money, said he to himself;
but we have no life at all without it. Following a
plough gives me none—I must follow something
else.”
“Well?”
“He resolved on being honest no longer.”
“Indeed! But how could he put his resolution
into effect in a country like ours, where we are inundated
with so much professional virtue?”
“He put on a professional cloak.”
“Excellent.”
“But, though commencing a new, and, as it
proved, a profitable business, he was not so selfish
as to desire a monopoly of it—on the contrary, a
little reflection suggested to him a grand idea, which
was evolved by the very natural reflection which
you made just now.”
“What was that?”
“Simply that his condition was not that of an individual,
but of thousands.”
“Well—that is a trueism. What could he make
of that?”
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“A brotherhood.”
“How?”
“He conceived that, if there were thousands in
his condition, there were thousands governed by his
feelings and opinions. We all have a family likeness
in our hearts, however disguised by habits,
manners, education; but when habits, manners, education
are agreed, and to these is added a prevailing
necessity, then the likeness becomes identity, and
the boy who, on reaching manhood, resolved to be
no longer despicably honest, felt assured that his
resolve could be made the resolves of all who are
governed by his necessities.”
“A natural reflection enough—none more so.”
“Accordingly, his chief labour was that of founding
an order—a brotherhood of those who have
learned to see, in the principles which ostensibly
govern society, a nice system of cobwebs, set with
a double object, as snares to catch and enslave the
feeble and confiding, and defences for the protection
of the more cunning reptiles that sit in the centre,
and prey at ease upon the marrow and fat of the toiling
insects they entangle.”
“Such is certainly a true picture of our social
condition. Man is the prey of man—the weak of
the strong—the unwary of the cunning. The more
black, the more bloated the spider, the closer his
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web, and the greater the number and variety of his
victims. He sits at ease, and they plunge incontinently
into his snare.”
Such were some of the reflections with which I
regaled my companion. He proceeded with increasing
earnestness.
“He travelled through all the slave states making
proselytes to his doctrine. With the cassock of a
sanctified profession which we no more dare assail
now than we did four hundred years ago, he made
his way not only at little or no expense, but with
great profit. On all hands he found friends and followers—
men ready to do his bidding—to follow
him in all risks—to undertake all sorts of offences,
and in every respect to be the instruments of his
will, as docile and dependent as those of any oriental
despot known in story. His followers soon grew
numerous, and having them scattered through all
the slave states, and some of the free, he could enumerate
more than fifteen hundred men ready at his
summons and sworn to his allegiance.”
I was positively astounded.
“But you are not serious?”
“As much so as at a camp meeting. There is
not an atom of the best certified texts of Scripture
more true than what I tell you.”
“What! fifteen hundred men—fifteen hundred
in these southern states professing roguery.”
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“Nay—not professing roguery—there you are
harsh in your epithet. Professing religion, law,
physic, planting, shopkeeping,—any thing, every
thing, but roguery. They practise roguery, and roguery
of all kinds, I grant you, but no professions
could be more immaculate than theirs.”
“Is it possible!” My wonder could not be concealed,
but I contrived to mingle in some delight
with my tones of astonishment, and my words were
cautiously adapted to second my affectation of delight.
“Yes,” he continued, “by the overruling influence
of this boy as I may call him, though now a
full grown man, such has become the spread of his
principles, and such is the power which he wields.
Yet, in all his labours, mark me, he himself commits
no act of injustice with his own hand. He
manages—he directs others—he sets the spring in
motion and counsels the achievement, yet no blow
is struck by his hand. He is above the petty details
of his own plans, and leaves to other and minor
spirits the task of executing the little offices by
which the grand design is carried out, and the work
effected.”
“Why, this man is a genius.”
My unaffected expression of admiration warmed
my companion, and he soon convinced me not only
that he had all the while spoken of himself, but that
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he was remarkably sensitive on the subject of his
own greatness. Discovering this weakness, I plied
him by oblique flatteries of the wonderful person
whom he had described to me, and he became seemingly
almost entirely unreserved in his communications.
He related at large the history of the clan—
the Mystic Confederacy, as it was termed—as it has
already been partially narrated to the reader; and
my horror and wonder were alike increased at every
step in his progress. I could no longer doubt that
the fellows who murdered William Carrington were a
portion of the same lawless fraternity; and while the
developments of my new acquaintance gave me fresh
hope of being soon able to encounter with those
murderers, they opened my eyes to a greater field
of danger and difficulties than had appeared to them
before. But I did not suffer myself to indulge in
apprehensive musings, and pressed him for an increase
of knowledge; taking care at my each solicitation
to lard my inquiries thick with oily eulogies
upon the great genius who had planned, and so far
executed, his enterprises.
“How has this wonderful man contrived to evade
detection, or suspicion at least? It is not easy to
have a secret kept which is so numerously confided.”
“That is one of the beauties of his scheme, that
he confides little or nothing which affects himself,
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and he secures the alliance and obedience of those
only who have secrets of their own much more detrimental
to them if made public than could be any
which they have of his. His art consisted simply
in seeking out those who had secrets of a dangerous
nature. In finding these he found followers. But
though he has not always escaped suspicion—he has
been able always to defy it. Societies have been formed,
schemes laid, companies raised and juries prompted,
to catch him in the act, but all in vain. It is not
easy to entrap a man who has an emissary in every
section of the country. The most active secretaries
of the societies were his creatures—the schemes have
been reported him as soon as laid, and one of his own
right hand men has more than once been an officer
of the company sworn to keep watch over him in
secret.”
“Wonderful man!—and what does he design with
all this power? To rob merely—to procure money
from travellers upon the highway—would not seem
to call for such an extensive association.”
“Perhaps not!—but he has other purposes; and
the time will come, I doubt not, when his performances
will, in no respect, fall short of the power
which he will employ to effect them. When I tell
you of such a man, you see at once that he is no
common robber. Why should he confine himself
to the deeds of one—be assured he will not. You
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will see—you will hear yet of his performances, and
I tell you they will be such that the country will
ring with them again.”
“He must be a man of great ambition—he should
be to correspond with the genius which he evidently
has for great achievements. I should like to
know—by my soul, but I could love such a man as
that.”
“You shall know him in season—he is not unwilling
to be known where he himself knows the
seeker, but—”
He paused, and I determined upon giving my
hypocrisy a crowning virtue, if possible, by utterly
overmastering his. I put my hand upon his shoulder
suddenly, and looked him in the face, saying deliberately
at the same time:—
“You are the man himself—I'll swear it.”
“How!” he exclaimed, in some alarm; and I
could see that he fumbled in his bosom as if for a
weapon. “How! you mean not to betray me?”
“Betray you, no. I honour you—I love you.
You have opened a road to me—you have given me
light. An hour ago and I was the most hopeless
benighted wretch under heaven—without money,
without the means of getting it, and fully resolved
on putting a bullet through my head. You have
saved my life—you have saved me.”
He seized my hand with warmth.
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“I will be the making of you,” he replied. “I
have the whole southwest in a string, and have only
to pull it to secure a golden draught. You shall be
with me at the pulling.”
“What more he said is unnecessary to my narrative,
though he thought it all important to his. In
brief, he told me that he had concocted his present
schemes for a space of more than twenty years—
from the time that he was fifteen years of age, and
he was now full thirty five; showing by this a commendable
perseverance of purpose, which, in a good
work is seldom shown, and which, in a good work,
must have ensured to any individual a most triumphant
greatness. We did not separate that night
until he had sworn me a member of the “Mystic
Confederacy,” and given me a dozen signs by which
to know my brethren, make myself known, send
tidings and command assistance—acquisitions which
I shuddered to possess, and the consequences of
which, I well knew, would task all my skill and
resolution to escape and evade.
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CHAPTER XX.
I protest.
Maugre thy strength, youth, place and eminence,
Despight thy victor sword, and fire new fortune,
Thy valour and thy heart—thou art a traitor.”
King Lear.
[figure description] Page 217.[end figure description]
My thoughts, in my berth that night, were oppressive
enough. I had involved myself in the
meshes of a formidable conspiracy, and was now liable
to all its dangers. It mattered not to the public
how pure were my real purposes, so long as the
knowledge of them was confined only to myself.
The consciousness of virtue may be a sufficient
strengthener of one's resolve, but I doubt whether
it most usually produces a perfect feeling of mental
quiet. I know all was turmoil in my brain that
night. I tossed and tumbled, and could not sleep.
Thought was busy, as indeed she had need be. I
had now full occasion for the exercise of all my
wits. To entrap the black and bloated spiders in
their own web was now my task—to escape from it
myself, my difficulty. But I had sworn to avenge
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William Carrington; and now, with a less selfish feeling,
I registered another oath in heaven.
In my next conversation with the parson, who
gave me, as his name, Clement Foster, though I
doubt not—indeed I afterwards discovered—that he
had twenty other names;—I endeavoured, with all
my art, to find out if he knew any thing of Webber,
and his associates. To do this, without provoking
suspicion, was a task requiring the utmost caution.
To a certain intent I succeeded. I found that Webber
was one of his men, but I also discovered that
he let me know nothing in particular—nothing, the
development of which might materially affect his
future plans, or lead to the discovery of his past projects.
I was evidently regarded as one, who, however
well estimated, was yet to undergo those trials
which always precede the confidence of the wicked.
I was yet required to commit myself, before I could
be recognised in a fellowship of risk and profits with
them. Foster gave me to know, that there was a
test to which I would be subjected—a test depending
on circumstances—not arbitrary—and my full and
entire admission to the fraternity, would depend on
the manner in which I executed my task.
“You will have to take a mail bag, or shoot an
obstinate fellow, who has more money than brains,
through the head. Our tasks are all adapted to the
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particular characters of our men. Gentlemen bred,
and of good education and fine feelings, will be required
to do some bold action—our common rogues
and underlings, are made to run a negro from his
master, or pick a pocket at a muster, or pass forged
notes or some small matter of that sort. You, however,
will be subjected to no such mean performances.
I will see to that.”
Here was consolation with a vengeance. I felt
my cheek burn, and my heart bound within me;
but I was on the plank, and the stern necessity
schooled me so, that I was able to conceal all my
emotion. But I soon found that there were other
tests for me; and that my friendly parson was not
yet so satisfied that my virtue was of the desirable
complexion. My brother dandy sought me out one
day before we reached Columbus.
“I see,” said he, confidentially, “that parson talking
with you very frequently, and as you seem to
listen to him very respectfully, I think it only an
act of friendship to put you on your guard against
him. Between us, he's a great rascal, I'm more
than certain. I know him to be a hypocrite, and
while I was last in Orleans, there was a man advertised
for passing forged notes, and the description
given of the rogue, answers to a letter, the appearance
of this fellow.”
I thanked him for his kindness, but told him that
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I really thought the parson a very good man; and
could not believe that he would be guilty of such an
act as that ascribed to him.
“You're mistaken,” said he; “you're only too
confiding—and I'll convince you, if you'll only
back me in what I do. Stand by me, and I'll charge
him with it before the captain, and, if so, we'll
have the reward. I'll lay my life his pocket is full
of forged bills at this very moment.”
I answered him with some coolness, and more indifference.
“I'm no informer, sir, and do not agree with you
in your ill opinion of the poor man. At least, I have
seen nothing in his conduct, and witnessed nothing
in his deportment to warrant me in forming any
such suspicions. He may have forged notes or not,
for me—I'll not trouble him.”
The fellow went off no wise discomfited, and I
heard nothing more of his accusation. That night
I related the circumstance to Foster, who smiled
without surprise, and then said to me in reply—
“You see how well our agents work for us. Haller
(that was the dandy's name,) is one of our men.
He knew from me of what we had spoken, and proposed
to try you. It is no small pleasure to find you
so faithful to your engagements.”
In this way, and by the practice of the most unrelaxing
cunning, I fully persuaded Foster of my
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integrity—if I may use that word in such relation.
Hour after hour gave me new revelations touching
the grand fraternity—the “Mystic Brotherhood”—
into the bosom of which I was now to be received;
and of the doings and the capacities of which Foster
spoke at large and with all the zest of the truest paternity.
After repeated conferences had seemed to
assure him of my fidelity, he proceeded to reveal a
matter which, in the end, proved of more importance
to my pursuit than all the rest of his revelations.
“We have quarterly and occasional meetings of
our choice spirits, who are few in number, and one
of these meetings is at hand. We meet in the neighbourhood
of the Sipsy Swamp, on the road from Columbus
to Tuscaloosa, where we have a famous
hiding place, which has heard—and kept too—many
a pretty secret. We have a conference to which
twenty or more will be admitted, who will report
their proceedings in Western Alabama. There will
be several new members like yourself, who are yet
in their noviciate; but none, I am persuaded, who
will go through their trial half so well as yourself.”
“What! the stopping the mail, or shooting the
traveller!”
“Yes—'tis that I mean. You will do your duty,
I doubt not. There is another business which we
have on hand, which is of some importance to our
interests:—it is hinted that one of our leading
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confederates—a fine young fellow who committed an
error, and joined us in consequence, a year ago, is
about to play the traitor; or, at least, fly the track.”
“Ah, indeed! And how do you punish such an
offence.”
How! But by death!—our very existence as a society,
and safety, as men, depend upon the severity
which we visit upon the head of the traitor. He
must die—that is, if the offence be proved against
him.”
“What! you give him a trial then?”
“Yes;—but not by jury—no such folly for us.
We put on the track of the offender, some two or
three of our most trusty confederates, who take note
of all his actions, and are empowered with authority
to put the law in force without farther reference to
us. I will try and get you upon this commission,
as your first trial before we invest you with our orders.
Haller will most probably be your associate in
this business. He brings the report of the suspected
treason, and it is our custom to employ in a business
those persons who have the clue already in their
hands. Haller has some prejudice against Eberly,—
there have been words between them, and Eberly,
who is a fellow of high spirit, got the better of him,
and treats him with some contempt.”
“Will there not be some danger of Haller's abusing
the trust you give him then, and making its
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powers subservient to his feelings of personal hostility.”
“Possibly—but Haller knows our penalty for that
offence, and will scarcely venture to incur it. Besides,
I fear there is some ground for his charges—
I have heard some matters about Eberly myself
which were suspicious.”
“Eberly!” said I, “where did I hear that name
before? I have surely heard it somewhere.”
“Not unlikely—I know several Eberlys in Georgia
and Alabama—it's not a very uncommon name,
though still not a common one.”
The consciousness of the next instant, made my
cheek burn. I remembered hearing the name of
Eberly uttered by one of the banditti, while I lay
bound in the hovel of Matthew Webber; and then it
appeared to me in language which was disparaging.
Things were beginning to fit themselves strangely
together before my eyes, and when the parson left
me to retire to his birth, I was soon lost in a wilderness
of musing. We soon reached and landed at
Columbus—a wild looking and scattered settlement,
at that time, of some thirty families, within a mile
of the Tombeckbe. We proceeded boldly to the
tavern—our parson leading the way; and never was
prayer more earnest and seemingly unaffected than
that which he put up at the supper table that night.
He paid amply for his bacon and greens, by his
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eloqeunce. He tendered no other form of pay, nor indeed,
did any seem to be desired. The next morning,
it was arranged between us that we should all meet
at a spot a little above the ford at Coal Fire Creek—a
distance of some thirty miles from Columbus, and
on the direct route to Tuscaloosa. But here a difficulty
lay in my way which had been a source of annoyance
to me for the three days past. I had no
horse, and had declared to Foster my almost absolute
want of money. To proceed on my mission, it
was necessary to procure one, and if possible, a good
one; and how to do this while Foster stayed, was a
disquieting consideration. But he was too intent
upon securing his new associate, and not less intent
upon his old business, to suffer this to remain a difficulty
long.
“You must buy a horse in Columbus, Williams,
(that was the name I had set out with from Mobile)
you cannot get on without one. As you have no
money, I must help you, and you can repay me after
you have struck your first successful blow. Here
are a couple of hundred dollars—bills of the Bank of
Mobile—counterfeit, it is true, but good here as the
Bank itself. There's an old fellow here—old General
Cocke that has several nags—you can possibly
get one from him that will do you good service, and
not cost you so much, neither. Go to him at once
and get your creature—you'll find me to-morrow
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noon at the creek just as I tell you. Set up a psalm
tune, if you can, even as you reach the creek, and
you'll hear some psalmody in return that will do
your heart good.”
He left me, followed by Haller, and I took a short
mode for getting rid of the counterfeit bills he gave
me. I destroyed them in my fire that night, and
taking the necessary sum from my own treasury, I
proceeded to procure my horse, which I found no
difficulty in doing, and at a moderate price; though
General Cocke had none to sell. I bought from another
person whom I did not know.
Being so far ready, I took a careful examination
of my pistols, procured me an extra knife of large
size in Columbus, and commending myself to Providence
with a prayer mentally uttered, as earnest
as any which I ever made either before or since, I
set off for the place of meeting which I reached
about sunset. Though nothing of a Psalm-singer, I
yet endeavoured to avail myself of the suggestion of
Foster, and accordingly set up a monotonous stave,
after the whining fashion of the Methodists of that
region—and was answered with a full burst of the
same sort of melody, of unsurpassable volume, proving
the lungs of the faithful whom I sought, to be
of the most undiseased complexion. I was immediately
joined by Foster and three other persons, among
whom, I felt a spontaneous movement of pleasure in
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my bosom, as I recognised the features of Matthew
Webber. But it was the pleasure of the hunter,
who, having his rifle lifted, discovers the wolf at the
entrance of the den. It relieved me from many apprehensions
to find that Webber, though looking at
me with some attention, did so without seeming to
recognise me. This was an earnest of success in my
pursuit, which cheered me not a little in my onward
progress.
We entered their hiding place together, where, in
a leafy cover that might have been used by innumerable
tribes of bears and foxes before, we found our
supper and a tolerable lodgment for the night.
There we slept though not till some hours had been
spent in conversation touching a thousand plans of
villany, which astounded me to hear, but to which I
was compelled not only to give heed, but satisfaction.
But little of their dialogue interested me in
my pursuit;—to some parts of it, however, I lent an
ear of excited attention. Webber spoke of Eberly;
and though I could not understand much of the matter
he referred to, yet there was an instinct in my mind
that made me nervous while the discussion continued,
and melancholy long after it was over. To
me was the task to be assigned of pursuing this
young man, of spying into his conduct, and reporting
and punishing his return to the paths of virtue.
Not to do this work faithfully to those who sent me
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was to incur his risk; and this was a position into
which, with my eyes open, I had gone of my own
head. It was no small addition to my annoyance,
that, in prosecuting the search into Eberly's conduct,
I was ministering to the mean malice of Haller, and
the open hate of Matthew Webber. But there was
no room for hesitation now. I was to go forward or
fall. My hope, as well as purpose, was for the best;
my resolution to do nothing wrong. My task was
to steer wide of injury to others, and of risk to myself.
No easy task with so many villains around
me. A sentence or two of the dialogue which so
interested me, may be well enough repeated here.
It will be supposed that what was said, must have
had the effect of lifting the destined youth in my
consideration—it certainly placed him in a more
favourable light than could well be claimed for one
found in such a connection.
“He is become too melancholy for any business
at all,” said Webber, “and least of all for such a
business as ours. Set him to watch for a traveller,
and he plays with the leaves, twists the vines round
his finger, writes in the sand, and sighs all the while
as if his heart were breaking.”
“Why, he has suffered himself really to fall in love
with the girl!” exclaimed Foster. “What an ass!”
“So he is—and that is perhaps his chief offence,
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since a man who is an ass can never be a good knave—
certainly never a successful one,” was the reply
of Webber.
“True enough, Matthew,” said Foster, “but this
is the poor fellow's misfortune. In this condition
he can do nothing for himself any more than for us.
Will he marry the girl?”
“If he can.”
“And can he not?”
“Yes—I think he may—he might if he could keep
his secret. But it is my fear that he cannot keep his
secret. His heart has got the better of his head—
his conscience of his necessities; and these gloomy
fits which he has now so constantly, not only makes
him neglectful of our interests and his duties, but
will, I am dubious, precipitate him into some folly
which will be the undoing of all of us. You know
the laws, Clement Foster; don't you think he could
get clear of justice, by telling all he knows about us.”
“Pshaw! what does he know, and who would believe
him, unless he gave us up to justice—unless he
brought the hounds to our cover; and even that
would do little unless he could point out and prove
particular acts. What does he know of me—or you;—
we could prove him a liar by a cloud of witnesses
whom he never saw, who would go into court, and
swear every thing.”
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“True enough; but that we should get clear does
not do away with his offence, should he endeavor
to involve us.”
“By no means—but wherefore should he seek to
do so. What could be his object. His own exposure
follows, or indeed, precedes ours; and for a man
to prove himself a knave, merely to show that his
neighbour is just as bad, is thrice sodden folly.”
“Well—such is always your conscientious fool.”
“But Eberly is a fool of love, Mat, and not of
conscience.”
“And fools of love, Foster, are very apt to be
fools of conscience.”
“By no means—they are the greatest knaves in
the wide world, and worse hypocrites than a pork-eating
parson. They lie or do any thing to get the
woman; for passion was never yet a moralist.”
“Well—I don't know, but Eberly has done nothing
for some time past. He has let several matters
slip through his fingers. There was an affair
only two weeks ago, that nearly swamped us all
from his not coming according to promise.”
“What affair? Something I have not heard of.”
“Yes—there were two larks that were hitched at
my house, or rather that we tried to hitch; one of
them got out of the noose, and thumped Breton over
his mazzard so that the bridge of his nose is broken
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down for ever. He got off as far as the `Day
Blind,' and there was tumbled by a stranger—a fellow
that we sent after, and made sure of. I told you
something already of the matter.”
Here was something to confound me. Webber
evidently alluded to the affair of William and myself;
yet he spoke of my friend being killed by a
stranger. I was confused and bewildered by the
new position of events, but was quite too awkwardly
placed to venture any questions on so dangerous
a topic. They proceeded in their dialogue:
“All this comes of his passion for the girl; when
they are once married, you'll see that he'll recover.”
“If I thought so, by God, it would please me the
best of all things. It would do my heart good to
sing it in the ears of her insolent father, that his
daughter was the wife of a public robber—a thief of
the highway.”
“So, so, Mat!—don't, I pray you, disparage our
profession. Tenderly, tenderly—no nicknaming—
and have done with your malice. Malice is a base,
bad quality, and I heartily despise your fellows who
treasure up inveterate prejudices. They are always a
yellow souled, snakish set, that poison themselves
with the secretions of their own venom. Now, for
my part, I have no hates, no prejudices—if I have
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any thing to thank Heaven for, it is possessions of a
better sort than this. My chickens lay better eggs,
and hatch no vipers.”
A pretty sentiment enough for a rogue and hypocrite.
But of what strange contradictions are we
compounded. The dialogue was soon brought to a
close.
“It is understood, then,” said Foster, that “Haller
and Williams (meaning me,) are to watch his
motions, and see that he keeps in traces. Are these
two enough, or shall we put a third with them?”
“Quite enough to follow and to punish, though it
is well that we should all note his movements, and
watch him when we can. Does Mr. Williams know
the extent of his power?” demanded Webber turning
to me.
“Ay,” was the reply of Foster—“he knows that
he has power to adjudge, and execute even to death;
but I would beg him to recollect that he must award
with great caution against a confederate. An unjust
punishment incurs similar judgment; and we are
prompt to avenge an injury done to one of our comrades.
I would not have him too precipitate with
Eberly—he is a fellow of good qualities—he is bold
as a lion—generous to the last sixpence—”
“And a little too conscientious, you should add,”
was the interruption of Webber—“a little too
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conscientious. We were a few thousand dollars the
richer, but for that.”
“Ah, you mistake, Matthew—he was busy making
love and had holiday. Let him but become a
husband, and you'll see then how constant he will
be—in his absence from home.” Here the conversation
ended for the night.
-- 233 --
CHAPTER XXI.
The drunkard after all his lavish cups
Is dry and, then is sober; so, at length,
When you awake from the lascivious dream
Repentance then will follow, like the sting
Placed in the adder's tail.
White Devil.
[figure description] Page 233.[end figure description]
The next morning, before it was yet dawn, Foster
aroused me where I was sleeping beneath my green
wood tree.
“We must be stirring, Williams; I have tidings
from some of our friends in Tuscaloosa, who appoint
to meet me to-morrow noon, at the Sipsy. We
have a snug place in the River Swamp, more secure
and comfortable even than this; and we shall no
doubt meet many of our friends. There, too, you
must keep a bright look out, for you will there see
Eberly, and your watch must begin from the moment
you encounter him.”
I arose with no very comfortable feelings at this
assurance. I was to begin the labors of the spy.
Well! my hand was in for it, and it was no time to
look back. I must on, with what feeling it mattered
little to those around me; and, having gone so far,
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perhaps but little to myself. I strove, as well as I
might, to shake off my sombre feelings—certainly
to conceal their expression. Foster did not seem
to heed my taciturnity. If he did, he did not suffer
me to see that he remarked it; but playfully and
even wittily remarking upon the sluggish movements
of our companions, Webber included, to whom
early rising seemed an annoyance, he led the way,
and we were all soon mounted and on our journey.
It was near noon when we reached our place of destination,
and such a place! Imagine for yourself, a
thousand sluices over a low boggy ground running
into one, which, in time, overflowing its channels
sluices all the country around it, and you have some
faint idea of the borders of the Sipsy River. Nothing
could we see but a turbid yellow water, that
ran in among the roots of the trees, spread itself all
around for miles, forming a hundred little currents
some of which were quite as rapid as a mill race.
The road was lost in the inundation; and but that
our men were well acquainted with the region, we
should have been drowned—our horses at least—in
the numerous bays and bogs which lay every where
before us. Even among our party a guide was necessary—
and one who understood the route better
than the rest was singled out to lead the way. For
a time we seemed utterly lost in the accumulating
pits and ponds, crossing currents and quagmires in
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which our path was soon involved, and I could easily
conjecture the anxiety of our company from the
general silence which they kept. But our guide
was equal to the task, and we soon found ourselves
upon a high dry island, within a few yards of the
opposite shore, which, when we reached, Foster
throwing himself with an air of satisfaction from
his horse, proclaimed it our present resting place.
Here we were joined by a man whom I had not
seen before, who had been awaiting us, and who
brought letters to Foster. Some of these, from Mobile,
New Orleans, Montgomery and Tuscaloosa, he
was pleased to show me; and their contents contributed
not a little to confound me, as they developed
the large extent of the singular confederacy, of
which I was held a member. Some of the plans
contained in these letters were of no less startling
character. One, which was dwelt on with some
earnestness by two of the writers was a simultaneous
robbery of all the banks.
“A good proposition enough,” was the quiet remark
of Foster, passing his finger over the paragraphs—
“had they in money but one tenth part of
the amount which they have in paper. But to
empty vaults which have no specie, is little to my
taste. I should soon put a stop to specie payments,
without rendering necessary an act of congress
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Here now, is something infinitely more profitable,
but far more dangerous. We shall consider this.”
He pointed out to me another suggestion of the
writer which seemed to have been debated upon
before—the atrociousness of which curdled my blood
to read. I could scarcely propose the question.
“But you will hardly act upon this—it is too—”
I was about to say horrible—it was well I did not.
Foster fortunately finished the sentence for me in a
different manner.
“Too dangerous you would say! It would be to a
blunderer. But we should be off the moment it was
over. Having made use of the torch, we should only
stay long enough to take what was valuable from
the house, and not wait until it had tumbled upon
us. But this matter is not yet ready. We have
business, scarcely less profitable, to be seen to, and
three days more may give us a noble haul. See to
this. Here I am advised by a sure friend at Washington,
that a large amount of Government money
is on its way for the Choctaws—it will not be my
fault if they get it. That is worth some pains-taking—
but—”
He paused and folded up his papers. The tramp
of steeds was heard plashing through the mire and
approaching the island. Webber was next heard in
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conversation with the new comers whose voices now
reached us distinctly. Foster addressed me as he
heard them in suppressed tones and with a graver
manner.
“That's Eberly's voice,” he said—“you must
look to him, Williams. From this moment do not
lose him from your sight till you can report on his
conduct decisively. Here is Haller coming towards
us. He has heard of Eberly's approach and
like yourself will be on the watch. Let me say to
you that Haller will report of you as narrowly as
he does of Eberly. He does not know you yet,
and has no such confidence in you as I have. I
know that you will fear nothing that he can report;
and yet, that my judgment may not suffer in the
estimation of our people, I should be better pleased
if you could outwatch your comrade.”
I made out to say—“Trust me—you have no
need of apprehension. I will do my best at least.”
“Enough,” said he—“he comes. Poor fellow,
he looks sick—unhappy!”
This was said in an under tone, as if in soliloquy,
and the next moment, the person spoke of, emerging
from the shade of a bush which stood between himself
and me, came full in my sight. What was my
astonishment and misery to behold in him, the
young man Clifton, introduced to me by Colonel
Grafton, and, as I feared, the accepted lover of his
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daughter. I was rooted to the spot with surprise
and horror, and could scarcely recover myself in
time to meet his approach. A desperate resolve
enabled me to do this, and when he drew nigh, I
was introduced to him as “one of us” by Foster.
Clifton, or as I shall continue to call him Eberly,
scarcely gave me a look. His eyes never once met
either Foster's or my own. He was pale and looked
care-worn. With a haggard smile, he listened to
the kind yet hypocritical compliments of Foster,
but uttered nothing in reply. Other persons now
began momently to arrive, and by night our number
was increased to twenty-five or thirty. I underwent
the fraternal hug, with all the old villains, and
some five noviciates like myself; and, in a varied
discussion of such topics as burglary, horse and negro
stealing, forging, mail-robbing and various other similarly
innocent employments, we contrived to pass
over the hours without discord or monotony until the
coming on of night put our proprietors in mind of supper.
I need not dwell upon any of the plans and purposes
of crime, in particular, which underwent discussion
on that occasion, since none of them will
affect very materially my own narrative. It is
enough for me to affirm that among these members
of the Mystic Brotherhood, crime of all sorts and
complexions, seemed reduced to a perfect system,
and the hands which ministered seemed to
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move rather like those of automata than of thinking
and resolving men. At supper I sat opposite to
Eberly—my eye was fixed upon him all the while,
and my recognition of him, as the lover of the poor
Julia, fully reconciled me to the task I had undertaken
of convicting him of treason to his associates.
His treason to beauty—to innocence—to hospitality,
and confiding friendship—made my otherwise
odious duty a grateful one; and I felt a malignant
sort of pleasure, as I watched my victim, to think
that his punishment lay in my own hands. And
yet, while I looked upon him, I felt, at moments,
my heart sink and sicken within me. I somehow
began to doubt how far he could be guilty—how far
he could be guilty with these—how far guilty to
her? He ate nothing, and and looked very pale and
wretched. His spirit seemed any where but with
his associates—and though his eye acknowledged
every address, and his tongue replied to every demand,
yet it was evident enough that there was a
lack of mental consciousness—an abstractedness of
mood and thought, which left it doubtful when he
spoke whether he was altogether assured of the
words he uttered or of those he heard. After supper
our chief rogues renewed the discussion of sundry
of their plans, and for a while the curiosity
which I felt at the strangeness of some of their propositions,
and the stories of their several
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achievements, half reconciled me to listen to their heinousness.
But there was quite too much of it in the
end—a still-beginning, never-ending repetition of
the same business, only varied by the acting persons,
place and time; and, following the lead of Webber
and one or two others, I went aside to the fire which
Haller had kindled up, and under a tent of bark, I
housed myself for the night. I did not hope for
sleep, for my mind was full of troublesome thoughts,
yet I was surprised by the feather-footed visitant,
and slept soundly for a space of two hours. I was
awakened by some one shaking me by the shoulder,
and, starting to my feet, found my comrade Haller
standing beside me.
“Get up,” he said, “it's time to look after Eberly.
He has gone out into the bushes, having left Webber
whom he slept with. He thought Mat was
asleep, and stole off. We must get on his trail and
see what he's after.”
I obeyed and we went together with great caution
to the rude tent in which Webber slept. He gave us
some directions, and following them we soon found
our man. He had gone to the place where Foster slept
alone—a bushy dell of the woods scooped out sufficiently
to enable one, by crawling through a narrow
mouth to secure an easy, though perhaps confined
couch within. The greater apertures made by torn
branches or fallen leaves were supplied by saplings
-- 241 --
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hewn from neighbouring places, and twisted in with
the native growth of the spot; and with the aid of
some rushes, a blanket, and a good warm watchcoat,
Foster had a tenement which art could scarcely
have made warmer, though in social respects, it certainly
might have undergone considerable improvement.
We reached a spot within hearing distance of this,
in sufficient time to note the first approaches of
Eberly to its inmate. Foster came forth at his summons,
and as my eye turned upon the course which
they took together, Haller touched my arm. When I
turned, I beheld Webber also standing beside us,
who, taking Haller with him, proceeded cautiously to
an opposite point, where it seems they expected the
two to go, Webber giving me instructions to
follow them cautiously from where I stood; by
which division of our force, he seemed resolute that
one of us should succeed in our espionage. The
several fires of the party were nearly extinguished.
But there was still light enough to enable me to
discern the outlines of their persons as they moved
from me. I crept and crawled upon my mission of
baseness, with all pains-taking circumspectness, but
every moment increased the space between me and
the men I pursued, until I had nearly lost sight of
them altogether, when, on a sudden, they turned
about and came again towards me. It is probable
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that they may have been disturbed by the too eager
progress of the two spies on the other side, who
thus drove them back upon me. Whatever may
have been the cause of their return, I had barely
time to shrink back into the shade of a large tree as
they approached it; and the spot being sufficiently
dense and dark prompted them to make it the scene
of their conference. Foster was the first to speak.
Stopping short as he reached a cluster of saplings,
only a few paces removed from the place where I
stood in shadow, he said,
“Here now, Eberly, we are safe. Every thing
is still here, and there is no more danger of interruption.
Unfold yourself now. What secret have
you—why do you bring me forth at an hour when
I assure you a quiet snooze would be more agreeable
to me than the finest plot which you could fancy
for robbing the largest portmanteau in Alabama?”
“Do not jest with me, Foster—I cannot jest; it
is a matter of life and death to me which makes me
disturb you, else I should not do it. My life hangs
upon your hands—more than life; I cannot sleep
myself; forgive me that I have taken you from
yours.”
Never were the tones of a man more piteously
imploring than those of the speaker. I could well
believe him when he said he could not sleep.
“Your life and death!” said Foster; “why, what
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mean you man! Don't stop to apologise for breaking
my sleep, when such is the danger. Speak—
speak out, and let us know from what quarter the
storm is coming. Who is the enemy you fear?”
“You!” was the emphatic reply. “You are my
enemy!”
“Me!”
“You, your fellows, and mine—myself! These
are my enemies, Foster. It is from these that my
apprehensions come—it is these that I fear; my life
is in their hands. More than life—much, much
more.”
“Ha! What is all this.”
“You wonder. Hear me, Foster. I will tell you
the truth—nothing but the truth. I must leave the
fraternity. I am not fitted for its membership. I
cannot do the work it requires at my hands. I dare
not—my soul sickens at its duties; and I cannot perform
them. I lack the will—the nerve.”
“You know not what you say, Eberly,” was the
grave reply of Foster. “You surely do not forget
the penalties which follow such an avowal as this.”
“No! would I could forget them! Have I not
said that my life and death are in your hands!”
“Wherefore have you awakened me then?” was
the cold and inauspicious reply. “I could tell you
no more than you already know.”
“Yes—you can save me. I come to you for pity.
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I implore you to save me, which you can. A word
from you will do it.”
“Can I—should I speak that word? It would ruin
me—it would ruin us all!”
“No! It would not. You could lose nothing by
letting me go free—nothing; for I can do nothing
for you. I cannot commit crime—I can neither lie
nor rob, nor slay; I cannot obey you; and, sooner or
later, you must execute your judgment upon me
for neglect or perversion of my pledges.”
“This is certainly a very sudden attack of virtue,
Mr. Eberly. You can neither lie, nor steal, nor
slay. You have become too pure for these duties;
but I remember the time, and that too, no very distant
time, when you were guilty of one or more of
these dreadful sins from which your soul now
shrinks.”
“Ay—and I remember it too, Foster. I did not
need that you should remind me; would I could
forget it—hence came my bondage. You discovered
my unhappy secret, and forged my shackles.
It is to you that I come to break them.”
“You deny not that you were guilty of the robbery
of old Harbers then?”
“I deny it not; and yet I know not, Foster, if it
was an offence of which I have so much reason to
be ashamed. Thank God, I took not his money for
myself; the wants of a dying mother, the presence
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of a cruel necessity, was my extenuation, if not excuse,
for that hapless act—an act which has been
the heavy millstone around my neck in each
succeeding moment of my life. Bitterly have I
repented—”
“You cannot repent. You shall not repent!” was
the sudden speech of Foster. “You have not the
right to repent—you are sworn to us against it, and
cannot repent without our permission.”
“It is for that permission, Foster, that I come to
implore you now. I know that you are superior to
the cold and cruel people whom you lead You will—
you must feel for my situation. I am of no use
to you. I cannot rob the traveller, nor forge a note,
nor inveigle a negro from his master—still less can I
stab or shoot the unoffending man who opposes
my unlawful attempts upon his property. I am, indeed,
only an incumbrance upon you—”
“You have our secrets.”
“I will keep them—I swear to you, Foster, by
all that is sacred that I will keep them.”
“You cannot, to be honest—to go back to the
paths of virtue. You must reveal our secrets; and
not to do so is a half virtue which looks monstrously
like hypocrisy. It is a compromise with vice to say
the least of it, which puts the blush upon your late
returning innocence. No Eberly, we must keep
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our secrets ourselves by keeping bound those who
know them. Say that you are unable to serve us by
any of the acts you mention—you are not less able
to serve us in other respects, equally sinful yet not
so obnoxious to public censure or punishment. As
a strong man it might be my lot to depend on your
friendly sympathy to save me from a halter.”
“I would do it, Foster, believe me.”
“We must make you do it. We must keep our
reins upon you. But of what avail would be a permission
to you which could not annihilate the
proofs which we have against you? Whether we
suffered you to go free, and held you to be no longer
one of us, or not; the offence which we could prove
against you, would still make you liable to the law.
Our mere permission to depart would be nothing—”
“Yes—every thing. It would free me from a
bondage that now crushes me to the earth and defeats
all my meditated action in other respects.
For the wrong I have done to Harbers, I would make
atonement—”
“Repay him the money from the robberies of
others,” replied Foster with a sneer.
“No, Foster,” said the young man patiently,
“not a cent would I bear from your treasury. I
would go forth as unincumbered with your booty as
I hope to be unincumbered with the sin and shame
of the connection.”
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“You use tender words in speaking of your comrades
and their occupations, Eberly.”
“Without meaning to offend, Foster. But hear
me out. I should not merely repay Harbers, but I
would confess to him the crime of which I had been
guilty.”
“Ha! and the subsequent sinful connections which
you have formed with us; and our precious doings
together. This is your precious plan, is it?”
“Not so! Though resolved to declare my own
crimes and errors, I am not bound to betray the confidence
of others.”
“This is your resolution now—how long will it
remain so; and what will be our security when the
chance happens, which may happen, when, at one full
swoop, you may take us all like a flock of partridges
and deliver us up as an atonement for your own
youthful sins, to the hands, so called, of Justice.
Eberly, Eberly, you are speaking like a child; do
you think we can hearken to a prayer such as that
you make. Why every white-livered boy of our
band, who happened to fancy a pair of blue eyes and
a dimity petticoat, would be seized with a fit of virtue
towards us in precise degree with his hot lust
after the wench he fancied—”
“Stay, Foster, I see that you are aware of my intimacy
with Miss Grafton.”
“Surely. You have never taken a step that I am
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not acquainted with. And now let me ask—did you
feel our bondage so oppressive till you became acquainted
with this girl?”
“I did not—my knowledge of her first impressed
upon me, with a more just sense of their value, the
value of these rewards which follow virtuous practice.”
“Pshaw, man, how is the getting of this girl a
reward of virtue. Can't you get her now, while
you are a trusted member of the Confederacy? To
the point, man, and speak out the truth, have you
not spoken to her, and has she not consented to be
yours?”
“She has.”
“What more! Marry her—we do not hinder
you. We object not to the new bonds which you
propose to put on yourself, though grumbling so
much at ours. Be sure, we shall none of us forbid
the banns. Marry her, and settle down in quiet;
our laws will give you no trouble; your duties shall
be accommodated to the new change in your condition,
and, as a justice of the peace, a juror, member
of the assembly or of congress, you can be as eminently
useful to us as—nay, more useful than—a
striker along the woods, or a passer of counterfeit
notes. These are small matters which any bull-head
amongst us can perform; you have talents which can
better serve us in higher stations.”
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The youth shook his head as he replied sadly—
“If I did not love Julia Grafton, or if I loved her
less, it might be easy to be satisfied with what you
say. But I neither can nor will fetter myself or
her in a bondage such as you mention. In truth,
Foster, I can serve you no more—I can serve the
Confederacy no more—I make this declaration to
you, though I die for it. On your mercy I throw
myself—on your kindness often professed, and tried
on more occasions than one. Be my friend, Foster—
on my knees I pray you to save me in this respect—
save me—let me go free—I will leave the country—
I will go into a distant state, where you can be in no
danger from any thing that I can do and say. You
can have no reason to refuse me, since you can have
no interest in keeping me to pledges which yield
you no interest, and only bring me suffering. Feeling
as I do now, and situated as I am, I can do nothing
for you. Command me to strike here or there,
and I cannot obey you. From this day forth I must
withhold my service, though you do not cancel my
bonds.”
Foster seemed touched while the young man
spoke, but this, perhaps, was only a part of his cool
and ready hypocrisy. He interrupted Eberly when
he had said the last sentence.
“Your refusal to serve us would, you know, be
the signal for your death.”
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“I know it—and if you send forth the decree, I
must meet my doom, and I trust will meet it like a
man. But I would escape this doom; and to you,
and you only, I refer, to extricate me from it—to
effect my object, and get my release from the secret
council. There is but one man whose refusal I
fear, and with him you would have some difficulty,
I doubt not; but even that I know you could overcome.
Webber hates Grafton, the father of Julia, and
hates me, because I love her honourably. It was he
who brought her to my notice, and prompted me to
the scheme by which I became an intimate in the
family; a scheme projected for a dishonourable and
foul purpose, which has resulted so far, in one of
which I have no reason to be ashamed. I would
spare her the shame, Foster, of having consented to
share the name and affections of one, who may be
outlawed the very moment that he confers upon her
his name.”
I have said enough to exhibit the nature of this
conference, which was continued twice as long. In
its progress, the youth exhibited a degree of remorse
and sorrow on the score of his own offences, and an
honourable and delicate consideration in reference to
Julia Grafton, which turned all my feelings of hostility
into feelings of pity. Nor was this sentiment
confined to my own bosom. I conscientiously believe
that Foster sympathised with his grief, and
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inly determined, so far as the power in him lay, to
help him to the desired remedy. The conference
was ended by the latter saying to him, as he led the
way back to his place of rest—
“I must think on this matter, Eberly. I will do
what I can for you, but I can promise nothing. I
deny not that I have influence, but my influence
depends, as you well know, upon such an exercise
of it as will best accord with the views and wishes
of those whom I control. I am sorry for you.”
The youth stood a moment when the other had
gone. Then throwing his arms up to Heaven, as he
turned away, he exclaimed—
“At the worst, I can but perish. But she! she
at least, shall suffer nothing, either from my weakness
or my love. She, at least, shall never be wedded
to my accursed secret. Sooner than that, let
the bullet or the knife do its work. Thank God,
amidst all my infirmities, I have no dastard fear of
death;—and yet—I would live. Sweet glimpses of
joy in life, such as I have never known till now,
make it a thing of value. Oh! that I had sooner
beheld them—I had not then been so profligate of
honour—so ready to yield to the base suggestions of
this wretched clan.”
-- 252 --
CHAPTER XXII.
I'll note you in my book of memory,
To scourge you for this reprehension;
Look to it well, and say you are well warned.
Shakspeare.
[figure description] Page 252.[end figure description]
The unhappy youth had scarcely gone from sight,
when Mat Webber and my colleague Haller emerged
from a bush opposite, not ten paces off, in which
they had, equally with myself, listened to the whole
dialogue as I have already narrated it.
“So!” was the exclamation of Webber, shaking
his slow finger after the departing form of the youth—
“So! It is as I expected; and your doom is written,
Master Eberly. Foster can save you, can he?
We will see to that! It would be a difficult matter
for him to save himself, were he to try it. It is
well you have no hopes from me—well! I hate
your girl, do I, because she is the daughter of Grafton,
and hate you because you love her honourably?
Well! there is truth in the notion, however your
dull brains happened to hit upon it. I do hate both
of you for that very reason. Had the fool used his
pleasure with the girl, by God, I had forgiven him
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—he had had my consent to go where he pleased,
and swear off from us at any moment, for he has
done nothing since he has been a member—he was
never of much use, and will be of still less now.
But to love where I hate, is an offence I cannot so
readily forgive.—No, Haller—the bullet and the
knife for him. He shall keep our secrets, and his
own too, if you and Williams do your duty. Ha!—
who's that?”
“Williams himself,” was my answer, as I came
out of my hiding place, and joined them.
“Well!—you have heard him—he avows his treason,
and you know his doom. What need of delay?
Go after him alone—you will not have a better
place for the blow if you waited a month. Go
alone, and despatch the business.”
I was not prepared for so sudden a requisition,
and the sanguinary and stern command at once confounded
me. Yet Webber had only repeated the
words of Foster. In our hands lay the award and
the execution of justice. We had been instructed to
punish the moment we resolved that the penalty had
been incurred; and there was no reasonable pretext
for doubt. What to do or say, I knew not—to think
of committing the cruel deed was, of course, entirely
out of the question. Fortunately, the answer
of my colleague, Haller, relieved me.
“We had better wait and hear what Foster has
-- 254 --
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to say. He may not be pleased that we should proceed
so suddenly, particularly when we knew that
he had promised to take the affair into consideration.”
“And what can his consideration come to? What
can he have to say? He cannot alter the laws—he
cannot acquit an offender whom we condemn—he
has no power for that.”
“No! He has no power for that; and, so far as
my voice goes, we shall give him no such power in
this instance,” was the reply of Haller. “Yet, as
a matter of civility only, it will be better that we
should not proceed in this business till we have
heard what Foster has to say. He might look upon
it that we slighted his opinions, and his wishes, at
the least; and there's no necessity for our seeming
to do that. Besides, we cannot lose by the delay.
We can execute to-morrow just as well as to-day—
Eberly cannot escape us.”
“True—that's true,” was the reply of Webber;
“though to speak plainly, I don't like this undertaking
to interfere on the part of Clem Foster. He
can't certainly hope to persuade us to reverse our
judgment, and let this boy loose, unmuzzled, to confuse
and convict us in some of their rugged courts
of justice.”
“No! As you heard him say, that's a matter
more easy to think upon than to do. All that
-- 255 --
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Eberly could say in a court house, could not prove
against one of us, and we might hang him whenever
we choose.”
“Yes! But we don't want to get into a court of
justice at all,” said Webber; “and there's little need
for it, when we have laws, and courts, and executioners
of our own. I tell you, Haller, that I shall
regard as an enemy any man who attempts to get
this chap off from punishment. He shall die, by the
Eternal.”
“So he may, for what I care,” said Haller.—“So,
indeed, he shall, under our own certainty of what he
deserves, and the power which has been intrusted
to us. Be at rest, Mat Webber—I have as little
reason to let Edward Eberly escape as you have. I
hate him—from my heart, I hate him. He has
scorned and insulted me before our men; and it will
go hard with me, if I don't avenge the insult with
sevenfold vengeance.”
“I'm satisfied that you will keep your word, Haller;
but Foster's a smooth-spoken fellow, and he
may have some kink in his head for saving this chap.
He used to be very fond of keeping company with
him, and they were always spouting verses and such
stuff together. I know, too, for all Foster speaks so
promptly of punishing him, that, in his secret heart,
he had much rather let Eberly go clear from
-- 256 --
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punishment, though he risked the safety of the whole company
by it.”
“No danger of his doing it, whatever may be his
wish,” said Haller. “You have my oath upon it,
Mat. Whatever Foster may say or do in the
business, he can't say or do any thing to alter my
determination.—So make yourself easy. To-morrow,
or the next day, at farthest, will wind up the
traitor.”
“You must keep watch meanwhile upon him.”
“Yes! Go about it now, Williams; look to Eberly
for the space of an hour, and I will come and
relieve you. I must go with Webber, to see what
Foster has to say in the business; and hearken to his
interference, even if we do not mind it. But I don't
think he'll interfere, Mat:—The spouting poetry
might please his ears well enough, but I'm convinced
he could slit the pipe of the spouter the moment
he was done.”
“Perhaps so,” was the reply of Webber; “but,
at all events—”
They were leaving me now, and Haller interrupted
the speaker to counsel me before he went.
“I showed you, Williams, the place where Eberly
sleeps—do you think you can find it?”
“Yes—I doubt not.”
“Then go to it at once, and note well who goes
-- 257 --
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in to him, and who comes out. If he comes out
slily, and seems disposed to make off, do not stop
to consider, but give him your bullet. Be sure to
do this, if you find him with his horse.”
These were the instructions of Webber. The
other merely said—
“Don't fear that he will try to make off. He
knows such efforts cannot give him security, though
he should, for the present, escape us. No!—He
thinks Foster's influence can save him; and he will
remain quiet in reliance upon it.”
“Be not now too sure, Williams,” were the parting
words of Webber—“watch closely, or the fellow
may escape you yet. Remember, you are on
trial now; your promotion depends upon your zeal
and success.”
Nothing but the purposes which influenced me,
could have enabled me to tolerate, with patience,
such language from such a wretch. I felt my heart
burn, and my blood rise, and my lip quiver, with an
anger which it required all my strength of resolution
to repress, every moment which I spent in my
connection with this herd of rogues. They left me,
and obeying their instructions, I proceeded to the
place among the bushes—a leafy house—where Eberly
slept; and, taking a position which enabled me
to observe all the movements of its inmates, I pre
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[figure description] Page 258.[end figure description]
pared, with a thoughtful and sleepless mind, to pass
away my hour of watch.
Haller afterwards related to me what took place
in their interview with Foster. As he had predicted,
the latter made but a feeble effort to excuse the
unfortunate Eberly.
“We first tried to find out,” said Haller, “if
Foster was disposed to have any concealment from
us; and pretending that we knew nothing of the interview
between Eberly and himself, we spoke of
other matters entirely. But he volunteered and told
us all pretty nearly as we ourselves heard, except he
may have suppressed some of those parts where
Eberly spoke scornfully of Mat Webber. These
he did not speak. He then asked us what we
thought of the application, and when we told him
that now there was no doubt that Eberly ought to
to die and must die, he agreed with us entirely. Indeed,
even if he had not agreed with us, he must
have seen from the resolved manner in which we
spoke, that it would not have been wisdom in him
to express his disagreement; and his death is therefore
resolved upon. We are instructed to do the
business at once—better now than never—you say
he is still in his house.”
This conversation took place where I had been
watching in front of the bushy dwelling in which
-- 259 --
[figure description] Page 259.[end figure description]
Eberly slept, but my answer to the concluding question
of my comrade, was a falsehood.
“Yes he is still there—no one has gone in or out
since I have been here.”
Nothing but the lie could save me, and I had no
scruples whatsoever in telling it. I had seen persons
go in and out. Scarcely had I got to my place
of watch, indeed, when I saw Foster enter the dingle.
I crawled closely up behind it, and heard enough to
convince me that Foster was a greater hypocrite
than I had thought him, yet not so bad a man.
“Eberly,” he said, quickly. The youth started
from the ground where I could see he was kneeling.
He started and drew a pistol in the same moment.
The click of the cock warned Foster to speak again.
He did so and announced his name.
“I come to warn you that you can stay here no
longer. I cannot save you, Eberly. I wish I
could. But that is impossible. My lips must denounce
you, to keep myself unsuspected. There is a
conspiracy against me, which I must foil. To seek
to save you, I would only sacrifice myself and do
you no service. I can do nothing, therefore, but
counsel you to fly. The sooner you are off the better.
Indeed, I risk not a little in coming to you
now. Britton, the trusty fellow, advises me that
Webber, Haller and Williams are even now denouncing
me in the woods, where it seems they
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[figure description] Page 260.[end figure description]
over-heard all our conference. It was well that I suspected
them, and scrupulously addressed my words
rather to their ears than yours. This will excuse to
you my seeming harshness. But I can say no more.
In a short time they will seek me. Take that time
to be off. Fly where you can. Put the Ohio between
us as soon as possible, for no residence in the
southwest will save you.”
But few words were uttered by the visitor; but
these were enough to prompt the immediate exertions
of the youth. Hitherto he had appeared to me
in an attitude rather feeble and unmanly—there was
something puny and effeminate in the manner of his
appeal to Foster in their previous interview; but
this he seemed to discard in the moment which
called for resolute execution. He drew forth and
reprimed his pistols, set his dirk-knife in readiness,
and was ready in two minutes to depart.
“Fortunately, I left my horse on the very edge
of the island!” was his self congratulating remark.
“Foster, God bless you as I do! Would that I
could persuade you to fly with me.”
The other shook his head.
“Go! go! that is impossible. You fly—because
you have hopes to fly to.—I have none. You love,
Eberly—may your love be more fortunate than mine
has been—than I am disposed to think human affections
generally are. It is because I too have loved,
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[figure description] Page 261.[end figure description]
that I sympathise with you, and am willing to assist
you in your flight. I know not that I am serving
you, Eberly, in this, yet it is my will to serve you.
Take the will for the deed and be gone with all
haste. You have not a moment—adieu.”
Foster left him, and an instant after, Eberly
emerged from the dingle. It was in my power to
have obeyed to the very letter the instructions which
had been given me, and to have shot him down without
difficulty. My extended arm, at one moment,
as he passed from the copse, could have touched his
shoulder. But my weapon was unlifted; and I felt
a sudden satisfaction as I found it in my power to
second the intentions of Foster. This personage
had placed himself also in a more favorable light before
my eyes, during the brief interview which I
have narrated. It gave me pleasure to see that amidst
brutal comrades, and wild, lawless and foul pursuits
he yet cherished in his bosom some lingering sentiments
of humanity. There was something yet in
his heart which partook of the holy nature of a childhood
which, we may suppose, was even blessed with
hopes and kindred, and, which, however perverted
now to the lessons and performances of hate, once
knew what it was to do homage at the altar of confiding
love. Foster, as may already have appeared
to the reader, was not deficient in those requisitions
-- 262 --
[figure description] Page 262.[end figure description]
of education which refine the taste and sentiment,
however much they may fail to impress themselves
for good on a corrupt and insensible spirit.
To return. I denied to Haller, as already stated,
that any one had gone in or out from the place
where Eberly slept. In the unequivocal lie was my
only hope, and I had no scruple to utter it. My
comrade then spoke as follows:
“We have agreed among ourselves that he must
be wound up. Foster makes no objections, and
Webber insists that it be done immediately. To
you it is entrusted to give the blow; and this concludes
your trial. I will go in and entice him out
to you. Do you creep forward as you see me enter.
Stand behind you tree to the left, and I will bring
him under it, on the other side. Have your pistol
cocked and use it. But take care not to mistake
your man. If you notice his white hat, you can't
blunder. Keep quiet now, while I go in.”
He left me, and I paused where I was. Musing
on the unanticipated disappointment of the ruffian,
a sudden whisper at my side aroused me to a recollection
of myself. The voice was Webber's—he had
crawled up to me with the stealthy pace of the wild
cat; and my involuntary start, as he spoke, attested
my wonder at the ease and dexterity of his approach.
“Why do you stand,” he said in stern accents;
-- 263 --
[figure description] Page 263.[end figure description]
“were you not told what to do—where to go? You
have no time to waste—go forward.”
Not to seem remiss, I answered promptly—
“I wished him first to get there. Both of us
moving at the same time might alarm him.”
“More likely to do so moving one at a time; but
move now—you are slow. You will win no favour
in the club if you are not more prompt.”
I could have driven my fist into his teeth as he
spoke thus authoritatively. But prudence stifled my
anger. As it was, however, I gave a sharp reply
which had in it a latent threat.
“You will find me prompt enough when the time
comes, Mr. Webber.”
“I hope so, I hope so,” he said coolly. I went
forward and reached my station but a single instant
before Haller re-emerged from the copse.
“He is gone—the bird is off,” he cried out as he
approached.
“Ha! how is this?” exclaimed Webber, putting
his hand upon my shoulder with a firm gripe—
“You have let him escape, Williams. You have
slept on your post, man; or you have connived—”
He paused, but his language, tone and manner
were so irresistibly provoking, that I shook his
grasp from my shoulder and facing him boldly,
replied—
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[figure description] Page 264.[end figure description]
“It's false! whoever says it. I have done neither,
sir—neither connived with him nor seen him
fly. Recall your words, or by Heavens, I strike
you in the mouth.”
“And if you did, young'un, you'd get little profit
from it. You'd get quite as good as you sent. But
this is no time to vapour. It's very likely you're
right and I'm wrong, and that must satisfy you at
present. How is it, Haller?—Wherefore should he
fly? Did you not understand that he would wait to
hear Foster's decision?”
“No—I did not understand, but I inferred it. It
seemed to me from the confidence which he expressed
in Foster's ability to save him, that he would
scarce think it policy to fly; since flight, as it indicated
distrust of us, would, at once, provoke our
distrust of him, and lead to a denial of his prayer.
I would have sworn that we should find him here.”
“He has thought better of it, and taken to his
heels. But he has not gone far. He will not go
far. He's to marry Grafton's daughter—I know
that they're engaged and the affair is to take place
very soon. I shouldn't be at all surprised from his
agitation and hasty reference to Foster—not to speak
of his flight now—if it is fixed for to-morrow or the
next night.”
There was much in this speech to confound and
afflict me. “That marriage must be prevented,” I
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[figure description] Page 265.[end figure description]
inly declared to myself—“I must risk every thing
to prevent its consummation. The poor girl must
not be sacrificed to such a connection. However
much I may pity him”—and circumstances really
began to impress me favourably toward Clifton—
“I must yet save her.”
While the two confederates debated the matter,
I formed my own plans.
“Mr. Webber,” I said, “you have ascribed the
flight of this man to my neglect, or, which is worse,
my connivance; and your apology, if it may be
called such, is scarcely satisfactory to me. But I
leave my personal atonement over, and waive my
own claims to the interests of our confederacy. I
claim to pursue this man, Eberly—to pursue and
put him to death. The privilege is mine, for several
reasons—the principal are enough. I will establish
my claim to the confidence of the confederacy, and,
as the death of Eberly seems now essential to our
secret, secure that. Instruct me where to seek for
him—I will pursue him to Grafton's and put a stop
to this wedding in the most effectual manner. Give
me the necessary directions, and you shall see, that
I am neither a sleeper nor a traitor. You will also
see whether I am bold enough to strike either in our
common cause or in defence of my own honour.”
“Shrewdly crowed, young chicken, and to the
purpose,” was the chuckling response of Webber.
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[figure description] Page 266.[end figure description]
“Now that's what I like—that's coming out like a
man, and if you succeed in doing what you promise
you will undoubtedly have an equal claim on me
and the confederacy. But don't misunderstand, me,
Williams. I never had any doubt of your honour,
and if I had, your offer now sufficiently proves me
to have been wrong. I spoke from the haste and
disappointment of the moment; and I have not the
slightest question that Eberly took off the moment
after leaving Foster. He took the alarm at something
or other—and men who have in them a consciousness
of wrong find cause of alarm in every thing;
or it may be that he meditated flight from the first,
for now I think of it, I observed when he first came
that he fastened his horse on the edge of the swamp,
by “Pigeon Roost Branch,” which you know, Haller,
is scarce a stone's throw from the main road.
Though that would be a stranger plan than all, since
if he meditated flight, he need not have come. He
only incurred useless risk by doing so.”
“He's half mad—that's it,” said Haller—“but
let us look if his horse is gone. That will settle
our doubts. It may be that he is still on the island
somewhere.”
To ascertain this fact did not take many minutes,
and the absence of the horse confirmed the flight of
the fugitive. I now demanded of Webber if my
proffer was accepted. To go upon a mission of this
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kind which would enable me to seek out and confer
with Colonel Grafton, was now the dearest desire of
my heart. To save his daughter was a sufficient
motive for this desire—to wreak the measure of my
great revenge upon the damnable fraternity with
which I had herded for this single object, was no
less great, if not, in a public point of view, much
greater. I had a stomach for the lives of all—all.
The memory of my murdered friend took all mercy
from my heart.
To my question, Webber answered—
“We must see what Foster says. We will go to
him at-once. I'm willing that you should go about
this business, and will help you to all information;
but I'm scarcely in a hurry about it now. I've been
thinking it would please me better to let him marry
the girl before we kill him. Then, if it so happened
that I could ever lay my foot on Grafton's throat, as
I hope to do before long, I could howl it in his ears,
till it hurt him worse than my bullet or my knife,
that his sweet Julia, his darling, of whom he is so
fond, and proud, and boastful, was the wife of a common
robber—a thief of the highway—a rogue to all
the world, and worse than a rogue, to his own comrades.
That would be a triumph, Haller; and Grafton,
if I know the man rightly would go out of the
world with a howl when I cried it in his ear.”
Sickening at the fiendish thought, I turned with
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revulsion from the fiend, and felt humbled and sad
as I was constrained to follow such a ruffian in silence
and without any show of that natural resentment
which I felt. But I conquered my impatience
as I reflected that, by delay, I hoped to obtain, at
once, a complete and certain satisfaction. An image
of my sanguinary revenge rose before my eyes as I
then went forward; and in fancy, I beheld steaming
wounds, and I felt my feet plashing in rivulets of
stagnating blood—and, a strange but shuddering
pleasure went through my bosom at the fancy.
-- 269 --
CHAPTER XXIII.
—The land wants such
As dare with rigor execute the laws;
Her fester'd members must be lanced and tented:
He's a bad surgeon that for pity spares
The part corrupted, till the gangrene spreads,
And all the body perish: He that's merciful
Unto the bad is cruel to the good.
Randolph.
[figure description] Page 269.[end figure description]
Foster received the tidings of Eberly's flight
with well-affected astonishment. Putting on the
sternest expression of countenance, he looked on me
with suspicion.
“And you were set to watch him, Williams.—
How is this? I fear you have been neglectful—you
have slept upon your watch—I cannot think that
you have had any intelligence with Eberly.”
In answering the speaker, I strove to throw into
my eyes a counselling expression, which it was my
hope to make him comprehend. My answer, shaped
to this object, had the desired effect.
“I have not slept, and you do me only justice,
when you think that I have had no intelligence with
the fugitive. But I have volunteered to pursue him,
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and will execute your judgments upon him, if I can;
even though he should put the Ohio between us.”
The reader will remember, that the phrase here
italicised was employed by Foster himself, in giving
his parting counsels to Eberly. Foster readily remembered
it, and I could detect—so I fancied—in
the tone of voice with which he addressed me in
reply, a conviction that I was privy to his own
partial, and, perhaps, pardonable treachery to his
comrades. In every other respect he seemed unmoved,
and his reply was instantaneous.
“And we accept your offer, Williams—you shall
have the opportunity you seek to prove your fidelity,
and secure the confidence of the club. We are
agreed, Webber, are we not, that Williams shall take
the track of Eberly?”
“Ay—to-morrow, though I care not that he should
strike till the day following, if it be that I conjecture
rightly on one matter.”
“What matter? What is it that you conjecture?”
demanded Foster, suspiciously.
“Why, that Eberly is about to marry Julia Grafton.
It would not surprise me much if the affair
takes place in a day or two.—I think it must be so,
from his present anxiety.”
“He would be a fool, indeed, to think of such
a thing, without our permission,” replied Foster;
`but even if such be the case, wherefore would you
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defer execution upon him, till the day following,
supposing that Williams should get a chance to strike
as we blow.”
“I would have the marriage completed,” was the
answer. “I would have Grafton's pride humbled
by his daughter's union with one whom we should
be able not only to destroy, but dishonor. By all
that is devilish in my heart, Foster, I could risk my
life freely, to tell Grafton all this story, with my
own lips the day after his daughter's nuptials.”
“Well, you hate fervently enough,” said Foster;
“and, perhaps, where one's hand's in, he may as
well thrust away with his whole soul. But this
helps not our purpose. It is agreed, you say, that
Williams goes upon this business?”
“Yes.”
“Then his course must take him at once to Grafton's
neighbourhood.”
“Yes—that is our course too. We meet to-morrow,
you recollect, with Dillon and others, at the
`Blind.' Our beginners must be examined there.”
“But Williams must start before us.”
“No—it needs not” said Webber. “We need
be in no hurry now, since there can be no doubt
that we shall be able to find Eberly at any moment
within the three next days. Williams knows that
he must find him in that time, and if he does not,
send Dillon and Haller on his track, and they find
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him, I'll bet my life, though they hid him in the
closest scuttle-hole of Natchy swamp. Let us all
go together to the meeting at the `Blind,' and not
alarm the traitor by pressing the pursuit upon him
in the very moment of his flight. Let him have a
little time—let him marry away, and be happy, if
he can, for a night or two. It will not diminish his
punishment that he has a taste only of wedlock.
Julia Grafton is a sweet girl enough—I could have
taken her myself, and, perhaps, been an honest overseer
of her father's plantation all my life—bowing
respectfully to his high mightiness, and kissing the
rod of his rebuke—had he only looked a willingness
to let me have her. But, as it is—let the game go!
It matters not much who has what we can't have;
and yet I hate Grafton so cursedly, that it gives me
pleasure to think that she is to be the wife of one so
completely in our power, as Edward Eberly—or
Clifton, as we should call him in Grafton Lodge.
Let him swing freely on his gate awhile; and Williams
may take his time. He cannot escape all of
us, though he may escape him.”
“You will instruct Williams then, when he shall
go, and where,” said Foster.
“Yes—that shall be my look out. In the meantime,
let us go to sleep. We have to start early,
and the small hours are beginning—I can tell from
the increasing darkness and the cold. Let us wrap
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up, and sleep fast, for we must be stirring early.
Williams, I'll wake you in the morning.”
“The sooner the better,” was my reply; “for,
between us, I don't like this putting off. If I am to
go after Eberly, I'd rather start at daylight, and
strike as soon as I get a chance. I hate when I have
such a business on hand, to risk its justice by my
own delay; particularly when delay can be avoided.
Besides, I'm thinking that if Eberly marries this
girl, he will be cunning enough to leave the country.
Ten to one, he's made all his arrangements for an
early start, and will be off on fast horses soon after
the event.”
“That's true,” said the ruffian; “I did not think
of that—you shall start as soon as possible after we
have met our men at the `Blind' to-morrow. We
must meet them there first, for I have business of
importance with one of them that must be seen to;
and you'll have to wait till I can show you the way
to Grafton's, and some few of our hiding places
thereabouts.”
In my eagerness, I had almost told him that I
knew the place well enough, and could find it without
him. My anxiety to be in season to prevent the
nuptials, had nearly blinded me to the great risk of
detection, to which such an avowal must have subjected
me. But I met the inquiring glance of Foster's
eye at this moment, and that brought me to my
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senses. It taught me that I was playing a part of
triple treachery, and warned me to be duly cautious
of what I uttered. Without farther question or re-
ply, we broke up for the night; and it seemed to me
that I had scarcely got snugly into my place of rest,
and closed my eyes for an instant, before I was
awakened by Webber, with a summons to set for-
ward. However wanting in proper rest, for my
partial slumbers of the night had given me no re-
freshment, I had too greatly at heart the peace of
Grafton's family, and the safety of the poor girl
Julia, not to leap with alacrity at the summons. Ten
minutes sufficed to set us all in motion, and as the
bright blaze of the sun opened upon us, we were
speeding on at full gallop, some seven of us, at least,
to our place of meeting at the 'Blind.' There had
been, at different periods of the night, full thirty
men in our bivouac in the Sipsy, but they came and
went at all hours, and none remained but those who
had something of the general management of the
rest. Five of these were my companions now.
The other two were Haller and myself. Haller, it
seems, was not so much a counsellor as a trusted un-
derling or orderly—a fellow sufficiently cunning to
seem wise, and so much of the rogue as to deserve,
even if lacking wisdom, a conspicuous place among
those whose sole aim was dishonesty. But our busi-
ness is not with him.
A smart ride of a few hours brought us to our
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resting place, a nest of hills huddled together confusedly,
and forming, with the valley already described
called the “Day Blind,” an hundred natural
hiding places of like form and character. Here I
was within a few miles only of Col. Grafton's residence.
I had passed the dwelling of Matthew
Webber, already so well known to the reader, and
who should be my companion, side by side with
me as I passed it, but Webber himself. I watched
him closely when we came in sight of it, and
though I could see that he regarded it with wistful
attention, yet he was as silent as the grave even on
the subject of his own late proprietorship; and my
position was too nice and ticklish to make any reference
to it, advisable on my part.
When we got to the place of rest, which was about
noon, we found several of the Brotherhood already
assembled, most of whom were instantly taken aside
by Foster, Webber, and one or two others, who ruled
with them, and underwent an examination as to
what they had done or were in preparation to do.
For my part I had nothing to do but saunter about
like many others—lie down on the sunny knolls,
and tumble among the yellow leaves, lacking employment.
This was no pleasurable exercise for one
who had in his heart such an unappeasable anxiety
as was then pervading mine, and which I could
scarce keep from exhibition. Meantime, I could
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see men coming and going on every side; the persons
seeming quite as multiformed and particoloured as
the business was diverse in character in which they
were engaged. While I gazed upon them without
particular interest, my eyes were drawn to a group
of three persons who now approached the valley
from a pass through the two hills that rose before
me. At the distance where I lay, I could not distinguish
features, but there was an air and manner about
them, which, in two of the party, compelled my closest
attention. The horses which they rode seemed
also to be familiar; and with more earnestness of feeling
than I can now describe, or could then account for,
I continued to gaze upon them, as, without approaching
much nigher to where I lay, they continued
their progress forward to where Foster and Webber
were in the habit of receiving their followers. But,
at length, overcome by strange surmises, I sprang to
my feet, and shading my eyes with my hands, endeavoured
to make out the parties. The next moment
they disappeared behind the knoll, and, with
my anxiety still unsubdued, I threw myself again
upon the ground, and strove with my impatience as
well as I could. Perhaps a full hour elapsed when
I saw the three re-emerge from behind the knoll,
and come out into the valley. They were followed
by Foster, who conducted them a little aside, and
the four seated themselves together for a while, on
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the side of the hills; after a brief space, Foster left
them and came towards me. He threw himself down
beside me, with an air of weariness.
“Well, Williams, you seem to take the world
easily. Here you lie, stretched at length upon the
ground, as if it had no insects, and looking up to the
skies as if they were never shadowed by a cloud.
For my part I see nothing but insects and worms
along the earth, and nothing but clouds in Heaven.
This comes from the nature of our pursuits, and to
speak a truth, I sometimes see a beauty in virtue
which I have never been able to see in man. I almost
think, if circumstances would let me, that I
would steal away, like poor Eberly, from our comrades,
and try to do a safer and a humbler sort of
business, among better reptiles than we now work
with.”
This speech, if meant to deceive, did not deceive
me.
“You would soon long to return, Foster, to your
present companions and occupations, or I greatly
mistake your temper,” was my reply. “Your ambition
is your prevailing principle—to sway your
leading object—to be great—to have distinction, is
the predominating passion of your heart.”
My reply was intended merely to flatter him and
it had its effect. He paused for an instant, then
said with a smile,
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“And you would add, Williams, that, like Milton's
Devil, I am not at all scrupulous as to the sort of
greatness which I aim at, or the quality of the instruments
with which I wrought.”
“And if I did, Foster, I do not see that the imputation
would do you any discredit. Men are pretty
much alike wherever we find them, and there are
virtuous monsters no less than vicious ones. Circumstances
after all, make the chief differences in
the characters of mankind; and many a saint in
white, born in my condition, would have cut many
more throats than it's my hope ever to do. To
rule man is to rule man—any inquiry as to the moral
differences between those you rule and those you
rule by, is a waste of thought, since the times, and
the seasons, the winds and the weather, or a thousand
differences which seem equally unreal and
shadowy, are the true causes of the vices of one class
and the virtues of another. A planter pays his debts
and is liberal if he makes a good crop—he fails in
both respects if his crop fails; and the creditor denounces
him as a rogue, and sells his property under
the hammer of a sheriff, while the church frowns upon
him from the moment he ceases to drop his Mexican
in the charity hat. Saints and devils are pretty much
the same people, if the weather prevails with equal
force in their favour; but when the wind changes
and blights the crop of the one, and ripens that of
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the other, ten to one, the first grows to be a general
benefactor and is blessed by all, while the other is
driven from society as a miserable skunk, whom it
is mere charity to kick out of existence. You should
not bother your head in wishing for better followers
or a dominion less questionable. If you have fifteen
hundred men willing to fight and die for you, and
not minding the laws on the subject, you are a
better and greater man than the governor of Mississippi,
who, do his best, cannot command fifteen
hundred votes. To my mind it is clear that yours
is the greater distinction.”
“That is true; and yet, Williams, what is distinction,
indeed, but a sort of solitude—a dreary eminence,
which, though we may behold many, labouring
at all seasons to scramble up its side, how few
do we see able to occupy it, how much more few the
number to keep it. My eminence, imposing as it may
seem to you, is at best very insecure. I have rivals—
some who seek to restrain me and to crush my
power, by lopping off my best friends at every opportunity
and on the slightest pretences. These I
am bound to save, yet I do so at great peril to myself.
I risk my own rule, nor my rule only—I risk
my life daily, in this connection, by seeking to
save, as I am resolute always to do, the friend, however,
wanting in other respects, who has proved true
to my desires and cause.”
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I saw which way these remarks tended; and resolved,
at once, to put a satisfactory conclusion to
the apprehensions which I saw prevailed in the mind
of my companion. He was obliquely seeking to
justify himself for his course in regard to Eberly
which he saw that I knew—and, probably, he was
aiming to discover in how far I might be relied on
in sustaining him in any partisan conflict with the
rivals of whom he spoke. My answer was not
without its art; and it fully answered its intended
purpose.
“You do no more than you should,” was my reply.
“You are bound to succour your friends even
against the laws of your comrades, since they risk
the peril of these laws in serving you. I understand
your difficulty—Indeed, it did not need that
you should declare it to me, in order to make me
know it. I had not been an hour in your camp on
the Sipsy before I saw the secret strife which was
going on; and I may say, Foster, once for all, you
may count upon me to sustain you against any rival
that may be raised up in opposition to your just rule
from among the confederates. Count on me, I say,
to support you against Webber and his clan, for it
strikes me that he is the fellow you have most to
fear.”
“You are right,” he said grasping my hand nervously—
you are quite right, and I admire your
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keenness of observation only less than the warmth
of your personal regard for me. Webber is indeed
the person who is now plotting secretly against me.—
There will be a trial of strength between us in the
council of twelve to-morrow—and I shall defeat him
there, though, by so small a vote that it will tend to
stimulate him to still greater exertions, and to make
him more inveterate in his hostility, which he has
still grace enough to seek to hide.”
He would probably have gone on much farther in
the development of the miserable strife that followed
hard upon his state, but that a movement of my
own interrupted him. My eyes had been for some
time turned watchfully upon the group of three
persons to which I have already called the reader's
attention. They had left the little knoll on which
they seated themselves when Foster first emerged
with them from the place of conference, and had
advanced somewhat farther into the valley, and
consequently rather nearer to my place of repose,
which was half way down one of the hills out of
which it was scooped. This approach enabled me
to observe them better, and as they moved about
among another party, who were pitching quoits,
my eyes gradually distinguished their persons first,
and at length their features. This discovery led
to my interruption of Foster's developments. What
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was my consternation and wonder to recognise John
Hurdis in one, and Ben Pickett in another of this
group. With difficulty I kept myself from leaping
upright—my finger was involuntarily extended towards
them.
“What see you?” demanded Foster looking in
the same direction. His demand was a sufficient
warning for me to be cautious, and yet for the life
of me, I could not forbear the question in reply.
“Who are those?”
“What—the pitchers?”
“Yes—yes! and their companions—the lookers
on.”
“One of the pitchers is a fellow named Hatfield—
a close friend of Webber, and one of our most
adroit spies—he is the fellow in green—the other
two are common strikers who will set out on an
expedition to-night. They are exceedingly expert
horse stealers, and the people near Columbus will
hear of them before they are two days older—the
tallest one is named Jones—the other Baker.”
“And how do they incline—towards you or
Webber?” was an indifferent question almost too
indifferently put to answer the purpose of a disguise
to my real curiosity, for which it was intended. I
heard his answer impatiently, and then with lips
that trembled, I demanded—
“And who are the three lookers on? I have not
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seen them before?—They were not with us on the
Sipsy last night?”
“No—they have just come from down the river.
The smaller fellow is one of our keenest emissaries;
and perhaps, one of our bravest men. He has just
brought up the two men who are with him—”
“What! as prisoners?” I exclaimed in my impatience.
“Prisoners indeed! No! What should we do with
prisoners? They belong to us. They are our
men.”
“Why then do you say he brought them up?”
“This is the affair. I have but just finished their
examination. It appears that the large, fat fellow, is
rather a rich young planter some where in Marengo.
He had a brother with whom he had a quarrel.
This brother set off with a companion some weeks
ago for the “Nation,” where they proposed to enter
lands. The elder brother avails himself of this opportunity
to revenge himself for some indignities put
upon him by the younger, and despatches after him
the fellow in homespun whom you see beside him—
his hands in his breeches pockets. Webber, it
appears, about the same time, laid a trap for the two
travellers, one of whom fell into it very nicely—the
other broke off and got away. They pursued, him,
but they must have lost him, but for the timely aid
of the chap in homespun, who, lying in wait, shot
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down the fugitive and then made off to his employer.
According to our general plan, an emissary
was sent after the murderer, and in securing him,
the secret of the brother was discovered. In this
way, both have been secured, and are now numbered
among our followers.”
I have abridged Foster's narrative, in order to
avoid telling a story twice. Here was a dreadful
discovery. My stupid amazement cannot be described.
I was literally overcome. Foster saw
my astonishment and inquired into its cause. My
reply was, perhaps, a sufficient reason for my astonishment,
though it effectually concealed the true
one.
“Good God! Can this be possible? His own
brother?”
“Even so. Neither you nor I would have done
such a thing, bad as we may be held by well ordered
society. The fellow seems but a poor creature after
all, and could hardly stand during our examination.
Of such creatures, however, we make the most useful,
if not the most daring members. We will let
him go back to Marengo after to-morrow, and be a
pillar of the church, which I think it not improbable
he will instantly join, if, indeed, he be not already
a member. The other fellow, who is called Pickett,
takes to us with a relish, and Webber has found him
a place to squat somewhere on the banks of the Big
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Warrior. But, a truce to this. Here Webber approaches.
Do not forget Williams—and, I am your
friend. We must act together for mutual benefit.
Mum now!”
Webber drew nigh, bringing with him the emissary
who had gone after Pickett and John Hurdis.
They remained with the pitchers, among
whom, I may add, Pickett was, at this time, incorporated,
and working away as lustily as the most expert.
But I had no time allowed me to note either
his, or the labors of John Hurdis. My attention
was instantly challenged by Webber, who, unless
angry, was not a man of many words.
“Get yourself in readiness, Williams—I will set
you on the track in an hour, and show you a part
of the route.”
I proceeded to obey, and it was not long, as may
be conjectured, before I was properly mounted for
that journey which was to eventuate in the rescue
of my friend's child from the cruel sacrifice which
was at hand. Webber and myself set off together.
Foster shook my hand at parting, and his last phrase
was one, which, between us, had a meaning beyond
that which met the ear.
“I trust you will find your man, Williams, though
he even puts the Ohio between us. Let us see you
back soon.”
I was annoyed by the searching stare of the keen
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eyed emissary. His eyes were never once taken
from my countenance from the moment of my introduction
to him; and I am sure that he had some
indistinct remembrance of me, though fortunately
not of a sufficiently strong character to do more than
confuse him. I dreaded discovery every moment,
but, though watching me keenly to the last, with a
most unpleasant pertinacity of stare, he suffered me
to ride away without the utterance of those suspicions
which I looked momently to hear spoken.
-- 287 --
CHAPTER XXIV.
Cold tidings, sir,
I bring you, of new sorrows. You have need
To make division of your wide estate,
And parcel out your stores. Take counsel, sir,
How you will part from life; for 'tis my fear
That you must part from hope, which life more needs,
Than the dull fare it feeds on.
Knight Errant.
[figure description] Page 287.[end figure description]
We did not delay, having now put ourselves in
readiness, but, after a few brief words of parting, we
left Foster and the emissary, whose searching eyes
I was truly anxious to escape from. That fellow's
stare gave me more uneasiness, and a greater idea
of the danger that I ran, than any other one circumstance
since my connection with the ruffians. Foster
did not let me leave him without giving me
some expressive glances. I could see that he was
desirous of saying something to me, which, I fancied,
must concern Eberly; but we had no opportunity
for a private word after Webber joined us, and to
make an opportunity was wishing far more than I
desired or Foster was prepared for. Off we went
at full gallop, and we were soon out of sight of the
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encampment, and rough hills were momently rising
between us. In the course of a quarter of an hour I
found myself going once more over the very spot
where we found the body of William Carrington.
I shuddered involuntarily as my eyes rested upon it:
the next moment I saw the glance of Webber fixed
curiously on the same spot, and a slight smile played
upon his lips, as he caught my look of inquiry.
“A tall fellow was tumbled here only the other
day,” he said with an air of indifference that vexed
me, “who might have been alive and kicking now, if
his heels had been less active.”
I now drew nigher, and pretended a curiosity to
hear the story, but he baffled my desire as he replied—
“Not now—another time, when we are more at
leisure I'll tell you stories of what I've seen and
know, to make you open your eyes much wider
than you do now. But here we reach the road, the
`Day Blind' as they call it, for it's so deep and narrow
that there's always a shade over it. This road,
taking the left hand fork, when you get on a mile
farther, takes you direct to Grafton's. You'll see
the avenue leading to the Lodge, to the right, and a
pretty place enough it is. You can lie to-night at a
house which you'll see two miles after you pass
Grafton's, where you'll find two of our people.
Give them the two first signs, and they'll know who
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you are, and provide you with any help you may
call for. But the places which you must watch in
particular, are the two avenues to the Lodge—the
front and rear. There is a thick wood before the
back avenue, where we've got one of our men
watching now. You must relieve him and send him
to me instantly. He will not need you to urge him
to full speed if you will only remember to tell him
that the saddle wants nothing but the stirrups, he'll
understand that, and come.”
“But what does that mean?” I demanded.
“Oh, nothing much—it's a little matter between
us, that doesn't at all concern the fraternity.”
“What! have you secrets which the club is not
permitted to share?”
“Yes—when they do not conflict with our laws.
An affair with a petticoat is a matter of this sort.”
“And yet such is Eberly's affair.”
“True! But Eberly would sacrifice all to the petticoat,
and for that we punish him. He might go
after a dozen women if he pleased, and have a seraglio
like the Grand Turk, and none of us would
say him nay, if he did not allow them to play Dalilah
with him and get his secret. But listen now,
while I give you the necessary information.”
Here we stopped awhile, and he led me into the
woods, where he gave me a brief account of Grafton
family and Lodge, informed of one or two hiding
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places of Eberly, and even told me at what hour I
might look to see him arriving at the avenue. So
keen had been his watch, and that of his creatures,
upon the doomed fugitive, that, as I afterwards discovered,
he was not only correct to the very letter
in what he told me, but he also knew every movement
which his victim made; and there had not
been a day, for the three months preceding, in which
he had not been able at any time to lay hands upon
him. Indeed, had the directions of Webber been
followed while in the Sipsy swamp, Eberly could
not by any possibility have escaped, unless through
my evasion of the murderous task which had been
then assigned me. I need not add that such would
have been the case. Regarding the unhappy youth as
not undeserving of punishment, I had yet no desire to
become his executioner. I had taken enough of this
duty on my hands already, and my late discovery,
touching John Hurdis, had increased the solemnity
of the task to a degree which put the intensity of
my excitement beyond all my powers of description.
I could now only reflect that I had sworn in
the chamber of death, and in the presence of the
dead, to execute the eternal sentence of justice upon
the person of my own brother. When Webber left
me in that wood, I renewed the terrible oath before
Heaven.
But to my present task. I rode forwards as I
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had been counselled, and soon came in sight of the
well known Lodge, which, whatever might be my
wish, I did not dare to enter, until I had first got out
of the way of the spy whom Webber kept upon it,
and whom he requested me to send to him. Avoiding
the entrance accordingly I fell into a by-path,
which ran round the estate, and whistling a prescribed
tune, as I approached the back avenue, I had
the satisfaction to hear the responsive note from the
wood opposite. Who should present himself at my
summons, but my ancient foe, the Tuscaloosa gambler
whom they called George. I felt the strongest
disposition to take the scoundrel by the throat, in a
mood betwixt merriment and anger; but there was
a stake of too much importance yet to be played for;
and with praiseworthy patience I forbore. Subduing
my voice, and restraining my mood to the
proper pitch, I introduced myself to him in the prescribed
form. I showed him the two first signs of
the club, the sign of the striker, and the sign of the
feeler—the first being that of the common horse-thief
or mail robber—the other that which empowers
a member to probe the nature of the man he
meets and secure him, if he thinks he can, to the
uses of the brotherhood. I gave him my assumed
name, and the history of my membership, and then
sent him on his way—happy to get him out of mine—
to the brothers in the encampment. I waited with
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impatience till he had gone fairly out of sight, then,
with a full heart, and a bosom bounding once more
with freedom, I entered the avenue, and hurried forwards
to the dwelling of my friend.
My disguise was quite as complete in concealing
me from Col. Grafton, as it had been in hiding me
from my foes. It was with difficulty I persuaded
him to know me. His first words, after he became
convinced of my identity, were—
“And the poor girl Katharine? How did she
stand your tidings?”
“She is dead.” I told him all the particulars;
and accounted for the disguise in which I appeared,
by telling him what were the novel duties which I
had undertaken.
“You are a bold man—a very bold man, Mr. Hurdis—
and how far have you been successful?”
Briefly, I related to him my meeting with Foster—
the success of my plans—his revelations to me—
and the progress of events until I came to the encampment
in the Sipsy swamp. These he listened
to with an intense interest, and frequently interrupted
me to relate little incidents within his own
knowledge, which, strange and unaccountable before,
found an easy solution when coupled with such
as I related. When I had told him thus far, I came
to an uneasy halt. He had evidently no apprehension
that he could be interested farther in such a
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narrative, than as a good citizen and a public magistrate.
Finding me at a pause, he thus spoke:
“And you left these rascals in the Sipsy—you
have come now for assistance, have you not?”
“You are right, Colonel—I have come to get
what assistance I can to bring them to punishment.
But I left them not in the Sipsy—they are nigher
than you think for; and much more conveniently
situated for a surprise.”
“Ha!—in the `Day Blind'—is it so? That has
long been a suspicious place—and if my conjecture
is right, I will do my best to ferret them out, and
clear it for good and all.”
“They are near it, if not in it,” was my reply. I
proceeded to describe the place which he very well
knew.
“In three days more, Hurdis, I shall be ready
for the hunt. We cannot conveniently have it
sooner; since a little domestic matter will, for the
next day or two, take up all my attention; and I
must forget the magistrate for a brief period in the
father. You are come in season, my friend, for our
family festivities. My daughter, you must know,—”
“Let me stop you, Colonel Grafton—I do know;
and I trust you will not regard the bearer of ill
tidings as responsible for the sorrow which he brings.
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Your daughter, you would tell me, is to be married
to Mr. Clifton—”
“Yes—it is that. But what ill tidings?”
“Mr. Clifton is with these ruffians—I saw him in
the Sipsy swamp.”
“What! a prisoner?”
I shook my head.
“Nothing worse, I trust. They have not murdered
him, Mr Hurdis? He lives?”
“He lives, but is no prisoner, Colonel Grafton.
It is my sorrow to be compelled to say, that he was
with them voluntarily when I saw him.”
“How! I really do not understand you.”
I hurried over the painful recital, which he heard
in speechless consternation. The strong man failed
before me. He leaned with a convulsive shudder
against the mantel place, and covered his face with
his hands. While he stood thus, his daughter entered
the room, with a timid and sweet smile upon
her lips, but shrunk back the moment that she saw
me. As yet, none of the family but Colonel Grafton
himself, knew who I was. The father turned as he
heard her voice.
“Julia,” he said, “my daughter,”—go to your
chamber—remain there till I send for you. Do not
leave it.”
His voice was mournful and husky, though he
strove to hide his emotion. She saw it, and
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[figure description] Page 295.[end figure description]
prepared to obey. He led her by the hand to the door,
looking back at me the while; and when there, she
whispered something in his ears. He strove to
smile as he heard it, but the effort was a feeble and
ineffectual one.
“Go to your mother, my child—tell her that it
matters nothing. And do you keep your chamber.
Do not come down stairs till I call you.”
The girl looked at him with some surprise, but
she did not utter the question, which her eyes sufficiently
spoke. Silently she left the room, and he
returned to me instantly.
“Hurdis, you have given me a dreadful blow;
and I cannot doubt that what you told me, you believe
to be the truth. But may you not be deceived?
It is every thing to me and my child, if you can think
so—it is more important, if you are not, that I should
be certified of the truth. You saw Clifton in the
swamp with these villains—that I doubt not. It
may be too that you heard them claim him as a colleague.
This they might do—such villains would
do any thing—they might claim me as well as you—
for the horse thief and the murderer would not
scruple to rob the good name from virtue, and murder
the fair reputation of the best of us. They have
sought to destroy me thus already. Tell me then
on what you ground your belief—give me the
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particulars. It may be, too, that Clifton, if he leagues
with them at all, does so for some purpose like your
own.”
How easy would it have been to deceive the father—
to persuade him to believe any thing which
might have favoured his desires, though against the
very face of reason and reflection.
“I would I could answer you according to your
wish, but I cannot. I have told you nothing but the
truth—what I know to be the truth—if the confessions
of Clifton himself, in my hearing, and to the
leader of this banditti, can be received in evidence.”
“His own confessions—Great God!—can it be
possible! But I hear you. Go on, Mr. Hurdis—
tell me all. But take a chair, I pray you. Be seated,
if you please, for I must.”
He strode over the floor towards a seat, with a slowness
of movement which evidently proceeded from
a desire to conceal the feebleness of body which he
certainly felt, and to a certain extent exhibited. He
sunk into the chair, his hands clasped, and drooping
between his knees, while his head was bent forward,
in painful earnestness, as I proceeded in my story.
I related, step by step, all the subsequent particulars
in my own narrative, suppressing those only which
did not concern Clifton. He heard me patiently,
and without interruption, to the end. A single groan
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only escaped him as I concluded; and one brief exclamation
declared for whose sake only, all his suffering
was felt—
“My poor, poor Julia!”
Well might this be his exclamation; and as it came
from his lips, while his eyes were closed, and his
head fell forward upon his breast—I could see the
cherished hopes of a life vanishing with the breath
of a single moment. That daughter was the pride
of his noble heart. Nobly had he taught—dearly
had he cherished her; with a fond hand he had led
her along the pleasant paths of life, securing her
from harm, and toiling with equal care, for her happiness.
And all for what? My heart joined with
his, as I thought over these things, and it was with
difficulty I could keep my lips from saying after his
own—“poor, poor Julia!”
At this moment a servant entered the apartment.
“Mr. Clifton, sir!”
“Ha! comes he then!” was the sudden exclamation
of the father, starting from his chair, and, in a
single instant, throwing aside the utter prostration
of soul which appeared in his features, and which
now gave place to a degree of energy and resolution,
which fully spoke for the intense fire which had
been kindled in his heart.
“Show him in!”
The servant disappeared.
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“This night, Mr. Hurdis, this man was to have
married my daughter. You have saved us just in
time. You speak of his repentance—you have almost
striven to excuse him—but it will not answer.
I thank you—thank you from my heart—that you
have saved us from such connection. Step now into
this chamber. You shall hear what he will say—
whether he will seek to carry out his game of deception;
and, to the last, endeavour to consummate
by villany, what his villany had so successfully
begun. It is but right that you should hear his answers
to my accusation. He may escape the vengeance
of his brother scoundrels—but me he shall
not escape. He comes—into that chamber, Mr. Hurdis,
I must beg you to retire—bear with me if I seem
rude in hurrying you thus. My misery must excuse
me, if I am less heedful than I should be of ordinary
politeness.”
Thus, with that nice consideration of character
which made him somewhat a precisian in manners,
he strove to forget his own feelings in his effort to
avoid offending mine. At that moment I could have
forgiven him a far greater display of rudeness than
that for which he apologised. When I looked upon
the face of that father, solicitous to the last degree
for the welfare of the beloved child of whom such
care had been taken, and thought upon the defeat of
all his hopes, and possibly all of hers, which had
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followed my narration, I could not but wonder at the
iron strength of soul which could enable him to bear
his disappointment so bravely.
He conducted me into the little room, to which
for the present he had consigned me, and taking from
it a small mahogany box, which I readily conceived
to be a case of pistols, he returned instantly to the
apartment which I left, where, a moment after, he
was joined by Clifton.
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CHAPTER XXV.
To what gulfs
A single deviation from the track
Of human duties, leads ever those who claim
The homage of mankind!
Sardanapalus.
[figure description] Page 300.[end figure description]
“Colonel Grafton.”
“Mr. Clifton,” were the simple forms of address
employed by the two on first encountering.
“You are surprised to see me so soon, Colonel
Grafton,” was the somewhat abrupt speech of Clifton
the next minute.
“Surprised! not a whit, sir,” was the quick reply.
“You were looked for.”
“Looked for, sir! Ah! yes, of course, I was expected
to come, but not yet, sir—not for some hours.
You looked for me, indeed, but you scarcely looked
for the person who now seeks you; and when you
know the business which brings me, Colonel Grafton,
you will not, I am afraid, hold me so welcome
as before.”
“Why should you be afraid, Mr. Clifton? Believe
me you were never more welcome than at this
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very moment—never!” was the grave and emphatic
reply. “You seem surprised, sir, that I should say
so, but wherefore? Are you surprised that I should
promptly welcome the man who seeks to do so much
honor to my family as to become one of it? Why do
you look on me so doubtingly, Mr. Clifton? Is
there anything so strange in what I say?”
“No, sir, nothing, unless it be in the manner of
your saying it. If you speak, Colonel Grafton, in
sincerity, you add to the weight of that humility
which already presses me to the earth—if in derision—
if with a foreknowledge of what I come to say—
then, I must only acknowledge the justice of your
scorn and submit myself to your indignation.”
“Of what you came to say, Mr. Clifton?” slowly
replied the half hesitating listener. “Speak it out
then, sir, I pray you—let me hear what you came
to speak. And in your revelations do not give me
credit for too great a foreknowledge, or you may
make your story too costive for the truth. Proceed,
sir—I listen.”
“You seem already to have heard something to
my disadvantage, Colonel Grafton. It is my misfortune
that you have not heard all that you might have
heard—all that you must hear. It is my misery
that my lips alone must tell it.”
The unfortunate young man paused for an instant,
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as if under the pressure of emotions too painful for
speech. He then resumed:
“I come, sir, to make a painful confession; to tell
you that I have imposed upon you, Colonel Grafton—
dreadfully imposed upon you—in more respects
than one.”
“Go on, sir.”
“My name, sir, in the first place, is not Clifton
but—”
“No matter, sir, what it is! Enough, on that
point, that it is not what you call it. But the letters,
sir—what of them? How came you by letters of
credit and introduction from my known and tried
friends in Virginia?”
“They were forged, sir.”
“Well, I might have known that without asking.
The one imposition fairly implies the other.”
“But not by me, Colonel Grafton.”
“They were used by you, and you knew them
to be forged, sir. If your new code of morality can
find a difference between the guilt of making the
lie, and that of employing it when made, I shall be
informed, sir, if not pleased. Go on with your story
which seems to concern me; and, considering the
manner of its beginning, the sooner you bring it to
an end the better. What, may I ask, did you propose
to yourself to gain by this imposition?”
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“At first, sir, nothing. I was the creature—the
base instrument of the baser malice of another.
Without any object myself, at first, I was weak
enough to labor thus criminally for the unworthy
objects of another.”
“Ha! indeed! For another. This is well—this is
better and better, sir; but go on—go on.”
“But when my imposition, sir, had proved so far
successful as to bring me to the knowledge and the
confidence of your family—when I came to know
the treasure you possessed in the person of your
lovely daughter—”
“Stay, sir—not a word of her. Her name must
not pass your lips in my hearing, unless you would
have me strike you to my feet, for your profanity
and presumption. It is wonderful to me, now, how
I can forbear.”
“Your blow, though it crushed me into the earth,
could not humble me more, Colonel Grafton, than
my own conscience has already done. I am not unwilling
that you should strike. I came here this
day to submit, without complaint or prayer, to any
punishment which you might deem it due to your
injured honour to inflict. But, as a part of the reparation
which I propose to make to you, it is my
earnest desire that you should hear me out.”
“Reparation, sir—reparation! Do you talk to
me of reparation—you that have stolen into my
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bosom, like an insidious serpent, and tainted the
happiness, and poisoned all the springs of joy which
I had there. Tell your story, sir—say all that you
deem essential to make your villany seem less, but
do not dare to speak of reparation for wrongs that
you cannot repair—wounds that no art of yours, artful
though you have proved yourself, can ever
heal.”
“I do not hope to repair—I feel that it is beyond
my power to heal them. I do not come for that. I
come simply to declare the truth—to acknowledge
the falsehood—and, in forbearing to continue a course
of evil, and in professing amendment for the future,
to do what I can for the atonement of what is evil in
the past. To repair my wrongs to you and yours,
Colonel Grafton, is not within my hope. If it were,
sir, my humility would be less than it is, and, perhaps,
your indulgence greater.”
“Do not trust to that, sir—do not trust to that.
But we will spare unnecessary words. Your professions
for the future are wise and well enough; it is
to be hoped that you will be suffered to perform them.
At present, however, our business is with what is
past, of evil, not with what is to come, of good. You
say that you were set on by another to seek my
confidence—that another prepared the lies by which
you effected your object. Who was that other?
Who was that master spirit to which your own
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yielded such sovereign control over truth and reason,
and all honesty? Answer me that, if you would
prove your contrition.”
“Pardon me, sir, but I may not tell you that. I
may not betray the confidence of another, even
though I secured your pardon by it.”
“Indeed! But your principles are late and reluctant.
This is what is called `honour amongst
thieves.' You could betray my honour, and the
confidence of a man of honour, but you cannot
betray the confidence of a brother rogue.”
“My wrong to you, Colonel Grafton, I repent too
deeply to suffer myself to commit a like wrong
against another, however unworthy he may be.
Let me accuse myself, sir; let me, I pray you, declare
all my own offences, and yield myself up to
your justice, but do not require me to betray the secrets
of another.”
“What! though that other be a criminal—though
that other be the outlaw from morals, which you
should be from society, and trains his vipers up to
sting the hands that take them into the habitations
of the unwary and the confiding! Your sense of
moral justice seems to be strangely confounded, sir.”
“It may be—I feel it is, Colonel Grafton, but I am
bound to keep this secret, and will not reveal it. It
is enough that I am ready to suffer for the offence to
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which I have weakly and basely suffered myself to
be instigated.”
“You shall suffer, sir; by the God of Heaven you
shall suffer, if it be left in this old arm to inflict due
punishment for your treachery. You shall not escape
me. The sufferings of my child shall determine
yours. Every pang which she endures shall
drive the steel deeper into your vitals! But proceed,
sir, you have more to say. You have other offences
to narrate—I will hear you.”
“I feel that you will not heed my repentance. I
know, too, why your indulgence should be beyond
my hope. I do not ask for forgiveness, which I
know it to be impossible that you should grant; I
only pray that you will now believe me, Colonel
Grafton, for before Heaven I will tell you nothing
but the truth.”
“Go on, sir, tell your story; your exhortation is
of little use, for the truth needs no prayer for its prop.
It must stand without one or it is not truth. As for
my belief, that cannot affect it. Truth is as certainly
secure from my doubts, as I am sorry to think she has
been foreign to your heart for a long season. If you
have got her back there, you are fortunate, thrice
fortunate. You will do well if you can persuade
her to remain. Go on, go on, sir.”
“Your unmeasured scorn, Colonel Grafton, helps
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to strengthen me. It is true, it cannot lessen my
offence to you and yours, but it is no small part of
the penalty which should follow them; and holding
it such, my punishments grow lighter with every
moment which I endure them.”
“Trust not that. I tell you, William Clifton, or
whatever else may be your true name—for which I
care not—that I have that tooth of fire gnawing in
my heart, which nothing, perhaps, short of all the
blood which is in yours can quench or satisfy.
Think not that I give up my hope of revenge as I
consent to hear you. The delay but whets the appetite.
I but seek in thought for the sort of punishment
which would seem most fitting to your offence.”
“I will say nothing, Colonel Grafton, to arrest or
qualify it—let your revenge be full. The blood will
not flow more freely from my heart, when your
hand shall knock for it, than does my present will,
in resignation, to your demand for vengeance. Let
me only, I pray you, say a few words, which it
seems to me will do you no offence to hear, and
which I feel certain it will be a great relief to me to
speak. Will you hear me, sir?”
The humility of the guilty youth seemed not without
its effect on the heated, but noble old man, who
replied promptly:
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“Surely, sir—God forbid that I should refuse to
hear the criminal. Go on—speak.”
“I am come of good family, Colonel Grafton—”
began the youth.
“Certainly—I doubt not that. Never rogue yet
that did not.”
A pause ensued. The voice of the youth was
half stifled, as with conflicting emotions, when he endeavoured
to speak again. But he succeeded.
“I am an only son—a mother—a feeble, infirm
mother—looked to me for assistance and support. A
moment of dreadful necessity pressed upon us, and
in the despair and apprehension which the emergency
brought with it to my mind, I committed an
error—a crime, Colonel Grafton—I appropriated the
money of another!”
“A fit beginning to so active a life—but go on.”
“Not to my use, Colonel Grafton—not to my use,
nor for any pleasure or appetite of my own, did I
apply that ill got spoil.—It was to save from suffering
and a worse evil, the mother which had borne
me.”
“I believe, Mr. Clifton, in no such necessity,”
was the stern reply. “In a country like ours, no
man need steal, nor lie, nor cheat. The bread of
life is procured with no difficulty by any man having
his proportion of limbs and sinews, and not too
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lazy and vicious for honest employment. You could
surely have relieved your parent without a resort to
the offence you speak of.”
“True, sir—I might. But I did not know it then—
I was a youth without knowledge of the world or
its resources. Brought up in seclusion, and overcome
by the sudden terror of debt, and the law—”
“Which, it seems, has kept you in no such wholesome
fear to the end of the chapter. Pity for both
our sakes that it had not. But to make a long story
short, Mr. Clifton, and to relieve you from the pleasure
or the pain of telling it, know, sir, that I am
acquainted with all, and, perhaps, much more than
you are willing to relate.”
“Indeed, sir—but how—how came you by this
knowledge?”
“That is of no importance, or but little. Not an
hour before you made your appearance, I received
an account of your true character and associates—
thank Heaven! in sufficient time to be saved from
the fatal connection into which my child had so
nearly fallen.”
“She should not have fallen, Colonel Grafton,”
said Clifton solemnly. “I came on purpose to declare
the truth, sir.”
“So I believe, Mr. Clifton; and it is well for you,
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and, perhaps, well for me, that you were so prompt
to declare the truth when you made your appearance.
Had you but paused for five minutes—had
you lingered in your self exposure—I had put a bullet
through your head with as little remorse, as I
should have shot the wolf which aimed to prey upon
my little ones. I had put my pistols in readiness
for that purpose. They are this instant beneath my
hands. Nothing but your timely development could
have saved you from death, and even that would not
have availed, but that you have shown a degree of
contrition during your confession, to which I could
not shut my eyes. Know, sir, that I not only knew
of the deception practised upon me, but of your connection
with the daring outlaws who overrun the
country; and from whom, by the way, you have
much more at this moment to fear, than you can
ever have reason to fear from me. Their emissaries
are even now in pursuit of you, thirsting for your
blood.”
“Colonel Grafton, tell me—I pray you tell me—
how know you all this.”
“Is it not true?”
“Ay!—ay! true as Gospel, though my lips, though
I perished for denying, should never have revealed
it.”
“What! you would still have kept bond with these
outlaws?”
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“No, sir; but I would not have revealed their secrets.”
“But you shall sir—you shall do more. You
shall guide me and others to the place where they
keep. You shall help to deliver them into the hands
of justice.”
“Never, sir! never!” was the quick reply.
“Then you perish by the common hangman, Mr.
Clifton,” said Colonel Grafton. “Either you deliver
them up to punishment, or you die for your share
in their past offences.”
“Be it so—I can perish, you will find, without
fear, though I may have lived without honour. Let
me leave you now, Colonel Grafton—let me pass.”
“You pass not here, while I have strength to keep
you, sir,” said Grafton; and as these words reached
my ears, I heard a rushing sound, and then a struggle.
With this movement, I opened the door, and
entered the apartment. They were closely grappled
as they met my sight, and though it was evident
enough that Eberly studiously avoided the application
of his whole force in violence to Grafton, it was
not the less obvious that he was using it all in the
endeavor to elude him, and break away. I did not
pause a moment to behold the strife, but making forward,
I grasped the fugitive around the body, and
lifting him from the floor, laid him, in another
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instant, at full length upon it. This done, I put my
knee upon his breast, and presenting my dirk knife
to his throat I exacted from him a constrained and
sullen submission.
-- 313 --
CHAPTER XXVI.
The sun has set;
A grateful evening doth descend upon us,
And brings on the long night.
Schiller.
[figure description] Page 313.[end figure description]
To dispose of him now was a next consideration,
and one of some little difficulty. It was no wish of
mine, and certainly still less a wish with Colonel
Grafton, to hold the unfortunate and misguided youth
in bondage for trial by the laws. This was tacitly
understood between us. By the statements of his
associates, it was clear enough that he had been a
profitless comrade, doing nothing to earn the applause,
or even approval of the criminal; and as little,
if we except the mere fact of his being connected
with such a fraternity, to merit the punishment of
the laws. His hands had never been stained by
blood; and, setting aside his first offence against virtue,
and that which brought him into such perilous
companionship with vice, we knew nothing against
him of vicious performance. Apart from this, the
near approximation which he had made towards a
union with the family of Colonel Grafton, however
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mortifying such an event may have become to his
pride, was calculated to produce a desire in his mind
that as little notoriety as possible should be given to
the circumstances; and even had Eberly been more
guilty than he was, I, for one, would rather infinitely
have suffered him to escape, than to subject the poor
girl, whose affections he had won, to the constant
pain which she must have felt by the publication of
the proceedings against him. Even as it was, her trial
was painful enough, as well to those who witnessed
her sufferings, as to the poor heart that was compelled
to bear them. Enough of this at present.
But it was essential at this moment, when it
was our design to entrap the heads of the “Mystic
Brotherhood,” that Eberly, though we refrained to
prosecute him before the proper tribunal, should not
be suffered to escape our custody. By his reluctance
to accuse, or to act against these outlaws, he evidently
held for them a degree of regard, which might
prompt him, if permitted, to apprise them of their
danger, even though he may have held himself aloof,
as he had promised, from all future connection with
them. But how and where to secure him was another
difficulty for which an answer was not so
readily provided. To imprison him in the dwelling,
in which that very day he was to have found his
bride, and in which, as yet uninformed of the melancholy
truth, that unconscious and full hearted
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maiden was even then preparing to become so,
was a necessity of awkward complexion; and yet to
that necessity we were compelled to come. After
deliberating upon the matter with an earnestness
which left no solitary suggestion unconsidered, the
resolution was adopted to secure the prisoner in the
attic until our pursuit of his comrades was fairly
over. This, it was our confident hope, would be the
case by the close of the day following, and only until
that time did we resolve that he should be a prisoner.
His comrades once secured, and his way of
flight, it was intended, should be free. How our
determination on this subject was evaded and rendered
unavailing, the following pages will show.
His course once resolved upon, and the measures
of Colonel Grafton were prompt and decisive.
“Keep watch upon him here, Hurdis—let him
not stir, while I prepare Mrs. Grafton with a knowledge
of this unhappy business. My daughter, too,
must know it soon or late, and better this hour than
the next, since the strife will be the sooner over.
They must be out of the way when we take him up
the stairs—out of hearing as out of sight. Once
there, I have a favourite fellow who will guard him
as rigidly as I should myself.”
He left me, and was gone, perhaps, an hour—it
was a tedious hour to me in the painful watch that
was compelled to keep over the unhappy prisoner.
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In this time he had communicated the discovery
both to his wife and Julia; and a single shriek, that
faintly reached our ears, and the hurried pace of many
feet going to and fro in the adjacent chambers, apprised
us of the very moment when the soul of the
poor maiden was anguish-stricken by the first intelligence
of her hapless situation. My eye was fixed
intently upon the face of Eberly, and when that
shriek reached us, I could see a smile, which had in
it something of triumph, overspread his cheek, and,
though it did not rest there a single moment, it
vexed me to behold it.
“Do you exult!” I demanded, “that you have
made a victim of one so lovely and so young? Do
you rejoice, sir, in the pang that you inflict?”
“No! God forbid”—was his immediate answer.
“If it were with me now, she should instantly forget
not only her present, but all sorrows—she should
forget that she had ever known so miserable a wretch
as myself. But is it wonderful that I should feel a
sentiment of pleasure, to find myself an object of regard
in the eyes of one so pure—so superior? Is it
strange that I should rejoice to find that I am not an
outcast from all affections, as I am from all hopes;
that there is one angelic spirit who may yet intercede
for me at the bar of Heaven, and pray for, and
command mercy, though she may not even hope for
it on earth?”
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Grafton now returned, and the flush of anger was
heightened on his face, though I could see a tear even
then glistening in his eye.
“Mr. Clifton,” he said calmly, but peremptorily—
“we must secure your person for the night.”
“My life is at your service, Colonel Grafton—I
tender it freely. As I have no hopes in life now, I
do not care to live. But I will not promise to remain
bound if I can break from my prison. I came
to you of my own free will, without any impulse
beside; and, though I thought it not unlikely when
I came, and revealed my story, that you would take
my life, I had no fear that you would constitute yourself
my gaoler. I am not prepared for bonds.”
“Make what distinctions you please,” was the
cold reply—“you hear my resolution. It will be
my fault if you escape, until I myself declare your
freedom. I trust that you will not render it necessary
that we should use force to place you in the
chamber assigned for you.”
“Force!” he exclaimed fiercely, and there was a
keen momentary flashing of the youth's eye, as he
heard these words, that proved him a person to resent
as quickly as he felt; but the emotion soon gave
way to another of more controlling influence. His
tone changed to mildness, as he proceeded:
“No, sir—no force shall be necessary. Lead me
where you please. Do with me as you please. I
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know not whether it would not be better and wiser
for me, henceforward, to forego my own will and
wishes altogether. God knows it had been far better
and wiser, had I distrusted them half as much
hitherto as I now distrust them. I had now—but,
lead on, sir—conduct me as you will, and where
you will. I will not trouble you longer—even with
my despondency. It is base enough to be humbled
as I am now—I will not farther debase myself by
the idle language of regret. I have put down a boy's
stake in the foolish game which I have played—I
will bear with its loss as a man. I will go before
you, sir, or follow even as you desire. It shall not
be necessary to employ violence. I am ready.”
We could not help pitying the youth, as we conducted
him up stairs into the small garret-room,
which had been prepared for him. He was evidently
of noble stuff at first—naturally well fashioned
in mind and moral—with instincts, which, but for
circumstances, would have carried him right—and
feelings gentle and noble enough to have wrought
excellence within him, could it have been that he
had been blessed with a better education, and less
doubtful associates, than it was his fortune to have
found. He certainly rose greatly in my esteem
within the last two hours, simply by the propriety
of his manners, and the degree of correct feeling
with which he had, without any ostentation, coupled
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their exhibition. Securing the windows as well as
we could, and placing a sturdy and confidential servant
at the door of the chamber, which was double-locked
upon him, we descended to the lower apartment,
where we immediately proceeded to confer
upon the other toils before us.
“There is some public good,” said Colonel Grafton,
with a degree of composure, which spoke admirably
for the control which his mind had over his
feelings—“There is some public good coming from
the personal evil which has fallen to my lot. The
proposed festival, which was this night to have taken
place, brings together the very friends, as guests,
whom I should have sought in our proposed adventure
to-morrow, and whom it would have taken me
some time to have hunted up, and got in readiness.
Our party was to have been large—and I trust that
it will be, though the occasion now is so much less
loving and attractive than was expected.”
This was said with some bitterness, and a pause
ensued, in which Grafton turned away from me and
proceeded to the window. When he returned, he
had succeeded quite in obliterating the traces of that
grief which he was evidently unwilling that his face
should show. He continued:
“We shall certainly have some fifteen able-bodied
and fearless men, not including ourselves; there may
be more. Some of them will, I am sure, bring
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their weapons; they have done so usually; and for
the rest, I can make out to supply them, I think.
You shall see, I have a tolerable armoury, which
though any thing but uniform, can be made to do
mischief in the hands of men able and willing
enough when occasion serves to use it. There is a
rifle or two, an old musket, two excellent double-barrelled
guns, and a few pistols, all of which can be
made use of. You, I believe, are already well provided.”
I showed him my state of preparation, and he
then proceeded.
“I know the region where these fellows harbour,
much better than you do, and, perhaps, much more
intimately than they imagine. My plan is to surprise
them by daybreak. If we can do this, our fifteen
or twenty men will be more than a match for
their thirty. And then, I trust, we have no less an
advantage in the sort of men we bring to the conflict;
men of high character, and among the most
resolute of the surrounding country. I have no
doubts that we shall be able to destroy at least one
half of them, and disperse the rest. We must strike
at your master-spirits—your Foster and your Webber—
though the former, according to your account,
seems not without his good qualities. The latter is
a tough villain, but he fears me, deny it as he may.
If he did not, having such a feeling towards me as
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he has so openly avowed, he would have drawn
trigger on me before now. I must endeavour, this
time, to wipe out old scores, and balance all my accounts
with him. These two, and one or two more
provided for, and we may be content with the dispersion
of the rest. I care nothing for the pitiful
rascals that follow—let them go.”
But such was not my thought. There was one
of these pitiful rascals whom it brought the scarlet
to my cheek to think on. Brother though he was,
he was the murderer of William Carrington, and I
had sworn, and neither he nor Pickett could escape,
according to my oath. But of this I said nothing to
Colonel Grafton. I was resolved that John Hurdis
should perish, but that he should perish namelessly.
There was a family pride still working in my
breast, that counselled me to be silent in respect to
him. We proceeded in our arrangements.
“There are two fellows belonging to this clan,”
said Grafton, “that lodge, if I recollect rightly what
you said, some two miles below me.”
“Yes, at a place called `the Trap Hole,' if you
know such a spot; it was described to me so that I
could find it easily, but I know nothing of it.”
“I know it well—it's an old hiding place; but I
had not thought the hovel was inhabited. These
fellows must be secured to-night at an early hour.
They are spies upon us, I doubt not, and will report
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every thing that happens, if they see anything unusual.
Certainly, it is our policy to clear our own
course as well and speedily as possible; and as soon
as our men come, which will be by dark or before,
we will set forth as secretly as we may, to take them
into custody. This, as you have the signs which
they acknowledge, can be done without risk. You
shall go before, and set them at rest, while we surround
the house and take them suddenly. They
will hardly life weapon when they see our force;
and, once in our possession, we will take a lesson
from the book of Master Webber and rope them
down in the woods, with a handful of moss in their
mouths to keep them from unnecessary revelations.”
Such, so far, was our contemplated plan. It was
the most direct of any, and, indeed, we hardly had
a choice of expedients. To come upon our enemy
by surprise, or in force, was all that we could do,
having so little time allowed us for preparation of
any sort. It was fortunate that we had a man like
Grafton to manage—a man so well esteemed by the
friends he led, and so worthy in all respects of the
confidence they put in him. As the hour drew
nigh, and the looked for guests began to assemble,
he rose superior to the paternal situation in which
he stood, and seemed to suppress the father in the
man and citizen. He revealed separately to each of
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his guests the affair as it now stood, upon which
they had been summoned together, then submitted
the new requisition which he made upon their services,
as a friend and magistrate alike. With one
voice they proclaimed themselves ready to go forth
against the common enemy, and with difficulty were
restrained from precipitating the assault; changing
the hour to midnight from the dawn. This rashness
was fortunately overruled, though it could scarcely
have been thought rashness, if all the men had possessed
an equal knowledge with Colonel Grafton, of
the place in which the outlaws harboured. To quiet
the more impetuous among his guests, he led them
out after dark, in obedience to our previous resolve,
to take the two fellows at `the Trap Hole,' and, I
may say, in brief, that we succeeded to a tittle in
making them prisoners just as we had arranged it.
Surprise was never more complete. We roped
them to saplings in a thicket of the woods, filled
their mouths with green moss, and the arms of
which we despoiled them, enabled us the better to
meet their comrades.
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CHAPTER XXVII.
Had we never lov'd so kindly,
Had we never lov'd so blindly:
Never met or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken hearted.
Burns.
[figure description] Page 324.[end figure description]
We completed our preparations at an early hour,
and by midnight were ready to depart on our work
of peril. We had so arranged it as not to go
forth en masse—it was feared that, if seen, our
array would occasion apprehension, and possibly
lead to a detection and defeat of all our plans. By
twos and threes, therefore, our men set forth, at different
periods, with the understanding that, taking
different routes, we were all to rendezvous at the
“Day Blind,” by one o'clock, or two, at farthest.
The onslaught we proposed to make with the first
blush of the morning. I remained, with two others,
behind with Colonel Grafton, until the designated
hour drew nigh; then, with emotions exciting in the
last degree, and greatly conflicting with each other,
I mounted my steed, and we took our departure for
the place agreed on. Let us now return, for a few
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moments, to the unhappy maiden, whose bridal
night was so suddenly changed to gloom from festivity.
We were permitted to see nothing of her
sorrows. When first stricken by the intelligence
which her father gave of her felon lover, her grief
had shown itself in a single sudden shriek, a fainting
fit, and, for some time after, a complete prostration
of all her physical powers. Restorative medicines
were given her, and it was only when she was
believed to be in a deep and refreshing slumber, that
her mother retired to her own apartment. But the
maiden did not sleep. The medicines had failed to
work for her that oblivion, that momentary blindness
and forgetfulness, which they were charitably intended
to occasion. The desire to relieve her mother's
anxiety, which she witnessed, led her to an undoubted
effort at composure, and she subdued her
sorrows so far, as to put on the aspect of a quiet
apathetic condition, which she was very far from enjoying.
She seemed to sleep, and as the hour was
late, her mother, availing herself of the opportunity,
retired for the night, leaving her daughter in charge
of a favourite nurse, who remained in the apartment.
Julia, who was no less watchful than suffering, soon
discovered that her companion slept. She rose gently,
and hurried on her clothes. Her very sorrows
strengthened her for an effort totally inconsistent
with her prostration but a little while before; and
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the strange and perilous circumstances in which Eberly
stood, prompted her to a degree of artfulness,
which was alike foreign to her nature and education.
The seeming necessity of the case could alone furnish
its excuse. She believed that the life of the
youth was jeoparded by his position. In the first
feeling of anger, her father had declared him to be
liable to the last punishments of the law, and, in the
same breath, avowed himself, as an honest magistrate,
bound to inflict them. She was resolved, if
possible, to defeat this resolution, and to save the unhappy
youth, whom, if she might no longer look
upon with respect, she, at least, was still compelled
to love. Without impugning the judgment of her
father, she felt the thought to be unendurable, which
told her momently of the extreme peril of the criminal;
and, under its impulse, she was nerved to a degree
of boldness and strength, quite unlike the submissive
gentleness which usually formed the most
conspicuous feature in her character and deportment.
We have already seen that it was really no part of
Grafton's desire, whatever might be the obnoxiousness
of Eberly to the laws, to bring him to trial.
Though evidently connected with the banditti that
infested the country, and, strictly speaking, liable to
all the consequences of their crimes—yet the evidence
had been conclusive to Grafton, that the unhappy
youth had shared in none of their
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performances. Could he have proved specifically any one
offence against him, Grafton must have brought him
to punishment, and would have done so, though his
heart writhed at its own resolution; but it was with
a feeling of relief, if not of pleasure, that he found
no such evidence, and felt himself morally, if not legally,
freed from the necessity of prosecution, which
such a knowledge must have brought with it. To
secure Eberly until his late associates were dispersed
or destroyed, was the simple object of his detention;
for, to speak frankly, it was Grafton's fear, that if
suffered to go forth, he might still be carried back,
by the desperate force of circumstances, to the unholy
connections from which he had voluntarily
withdrawn himself. He had no confidence in the
avowed resolutions of the youth, and deemed it not
improbable, that, as his repentance seemed originally
to have been the result of his attachment to
Julia, the legitimate consequence of her rejection
would be to throw him back upon his old principles
and associates. But this doubt did injustice
to the youth. The evil aspects of crime had disgusted
him enough, even if the loveliness of virtue
had failed to persuade him. His resolution was
fixed, and considering his moral claims alone, without
reference to the exactions of society, it may be
safely said, that never was Eberly more worthy of
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[figure description] Page 328.[end figure description]
the love of Julia Grafton, than at the very moment
when it was lost to him forever.
With cautious hands she undid the fastening of
her apartment, and, trembling at every step, but still
resolute, she ascended the stairs which led up to the
garret chambers. In one of these Eberly was confined.
From this—as there was but a single window,
to leap from which would have been certain
death—there was no escape, save by the door, and
this was securely fastened on the outside, and the
key in the possession of a faithful negro, to whom
Colonel Grafton had given particular instructions for
the safe keeping of the prisoner. But the guardian
slept on his post, and it was not difficult for Julia to
detach the key from where it hung, upon the fore-finger
of his outstretched hand—this she did without
disturbing him in the slightest degree. In another
moment she unclosed the door, and fearlessly entered
the chamber.
“Julia!”—was the exclamation of the prisoner, as,
with a fresh sentiment of joy and love, he beheld
her standing before him. “Julia, dear Julia, do I
indeed behold you? You have not then forgotten—
you do not then scorn the wretch who is an outcast
from all beside?”
He approached her. Her finger waved him back,
while she replied, in melancholy accents:
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[figure description] Page 329.[end figure description]
“Clifton, you must fly. You are in danger—
your very life is endangered, if you linger here.”
“My life!” replied the criminal, in tones of melancholy
despair. “My life! Let them take it. If
I must leave you, Julia, I care not to live. Go to
your father—let him bring the executioner—you
will see that I will not shrink from the defiling halter
and the cruel death—nay, that I will smile at
their approach, when I am once assured that I cannot
live for you.”
“And you cannot!” said the maiden, in sad but
firm accents. “You must forget that thought, Clifton—
that wish, if, indeed, it be your wish. You
must forget me, as it shall now be the chief task of
my life, to forget you.”
“And can you, Julia—can you forget me, after
those hours of joy—those dear walks, and the sweet
delights of so many precious, and never-to-be-forgotten
meetings? Can you forget them, Julia? Nay,
can you desire to forget them? If you can—if such
be, indeed, your desire, then death shall be doubly
welcome—death in any form. But I cannot believe
it, Julia—I will not. I remember—but no! I will
not remind you—I will not seek to remind you,
when you declare your desire to forget. Why have
you sought me here, Julia? Know you not what I
am—have you not been told what the world calls
me—what the malice of my cruel fortune has
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[figure description] Page 330.[end figure description]
compelled me to become? Have you not heard?—must
I tell you that I am—”
“Hush!” she exclaimed, in faltering and expostulating
accents. “Say it not, Clifton—say it not.
If, indeed, it be true as they tell me—”
“They have told you then, Julia?—your father
has told you—and oh! joy of my heart, you ask of
me if what they have said to you can be true. You
doubt—you cannot believe it of me. You shall not
believe it—”
“Then it is not true, Clifton?” cried the maiden
eagerly, advancing as she spoke, while the tear which
glistened in her eyes, took from her whole features
the glow of that joy and hope, which had sprung up
so suddenly in her bosom. “They have slandered
you when they pronounced you the associate of these
outlaws—it is a wanton, a malicious falsehood, which
you can easily disprove? I knew it—I thought it from
the first, Clifton; and yet, when my father told me—
and told me with such assurances—with such solemn
looks and words—and upon such evidence—ah! Edward,
forgive me, when I confess to you, I could not
doubt what I yet dreaded and trembled to believe.
But you deny it, Edward—you will prove it to my
father's conviction to be false—you will cleanse
yourself from this polluting stigma, and I feel, I
hope, we shall be happy yet. My father—”
The chilling accents of her lover's voice recalled
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[figure description] Page 331.[end figure description]
her from the hopeful dream which her young heart
began to fancy. He dashed the goblet of delight
from the parting lips which were just about to quaff
from its golden circle.
“Alas! Julia, it is only too true—your father has
told you but the truth. Bitter is the necessity that
makes me say so much; but, I will not deceive you;
indeed, if he told you all, he must have told you
that I came of my own free will to undeceive him.
My own lips pronounced to him my own fault, and,
humbling as its consciousness is to me, I must declare
that, in avowing my connection with these
wretched associates, I have avowed the extent of
my errors, though not of my sufferings. Thank
God! I have taken part in none of their crimes—I
have shared in none of their spoils—my hands are
free from any stain, save that which they have received
from grasping theirs in fellowship. This, I
well know is a stain too much, and the contact
of my hands would only defile the purity of yours.
Yet, could I tell you the story of wo and suffering
which drove me to this miserable extremity, you
would pity me, Julia, if you could not altogether
forgive. But wherefore should I tell you this?”
“Wherefore!” was the moaning exclamation of
the maiden as the youth briefly paused in his speech,
“Wherefore—it avails us nothing. Yet I will believe
you, Clifton—I must believe that you have
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[figure description] Page 332.[end figure description]
been driven to this dreadful communion, if I would
not sink under the shame of my own consciousness.
I believe you, Edward—I believe you, and I pity
you—from my very soul I pity you. But I can no
more; let us part now. Leave me—fly while there
is yet time. My father returns in the morning, and
I fear that his former regard for you will not be
sufficient to save you from the punishment which
he thinks due to your offences. Indeed, he will
even be more strict and severe because of the imposition
which he thinks you have practised upon
him—”
“And upon you, Julia—you say nothing of that.”
“Nothing! Because it should weigh nothing
with me at such a moment. I feel not the scorn
which you have put upon me, Edward, in the loss
which follows it.”
“Blessed, beloved spirit; and I too must feel the
loss; and such a loss! Oh! blind, base fool that I
was, to suffer the pang and the apprehension of a
moment, to baffle the hopes and the happiness of a
life. Ah, Julia, how can I fly? How can I leave
you?—knowing what you are, and not forgetting
that you have loved me, worthless as I am.”
“No more of this, Edward,” replied the maiden,
quickly withdrawing her hand from the grasp which
his own had passionately taken upon it; “no more
of this; it will be your policy, as it shall be my duty,
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[figure description] Page 333.[end figure description]
to forget all this. We must strive to forget—we
must forget each other. It will be my first prayer
always, to be able to forget what it must only be
my constant shame and sorrow to remember.”
“And why your shame and sorrow, Julia? I tell
you that in connecting myself most unhappily with
these wretched people, I have abstained from their
offences. If they have robbed the traveller, I have
taken none of their spoils. If they have murdered
their victim, his blood is not upon my hands. I
have been their victim, indeed, rather than their
ally. They forced me—a dire necessity forced me—
into their communion; in which I have been a witness
rather than a partaker.”
“Alas! Edward, I am afraid the difference is but
too slight to be made use of in your defence. Did
you witness to condemn and disapprove? Did you
seek to prevent or repair? Did you stay the uplifted
hand which struck down the traveller? Did you
place yourself on his side to sustain and help him in
the moment of his deadly and last peril? My father
would have taken this part—his lessons have always
taught me that such was the part always of the
brave and honourable gentleman. If you have taken
this part, Edward; if you can prove to him that you
have taken this part—”
She paused. The criminal shrunk from her
while she spoke, and covered his face with his
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[figure description] Page 334.[end figure description]
hands, while he murmured hoarsely, and in bitter,
broken accents—
“I have not. I have seen him robbed of his little
wealth—I have seen him stricken down by the unexpected
blow; and I have not lifted voice or
weapon in his defence. Basely have I witnessed
the deeds of baseness, and fittingly base should be
my punishment. And yet, Julia, I could say that—
will you hear me?” he demanded, seeing that she
turned away.
“Speak—speak,” she murmured faintly.
“Yes, Julia, I have that to say which would go
far to make you forget and forgive my weakness—
my crime.”
“Alas! Edward, I fear not. There is nothing—”
“Nothing! Nay, Julia, you care not to hear my
defence. You are indifferent whether I live or
die—whether they prove me guilty or innocent of
crime,” said he, with a bitter manner of reproach.
She answered with a heart-touching meekness.
“And yet I come even now to save your life.
I throw aside the fears and delicacy of my sex—I
seek you at midnight, Edward—I seek you but to
save. Does this argue indifference?”
“To save my life. Oh, Julia, bethink you for a
moment what a precious boon this is to one of whom
you rob every thing which made life dear, at the
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[figure description] Page 335.[end figure description]
very moment when you profess to save it. This is
a mockery—a sad, a cruel mockery. Let them take
the life if they will; you will see how that boon is
valued by me, to which you offer to prove that you
are not indifferent. You will see how readily I can
surrender the life which the withdrawal of your love
has beggared—which the denial of your esteem has
embittered forever!”
“Ah, Edward, speak not thus. Wherefore would
you force me to say that my love is not to be denied
nor my esteem withheld, by a will, or in an instant?”
“And you do still love—you will promise, Julia,
to esteem me yet—”
“No! I will promise nothing, Edward—nothing.
I will strive only to forget you; and though I
promise not myself to be successful in the effort,
duty requires that it should yet be made. Go now.
Let us part, and forever. My father and his guests
are all gone—there is none to interrupt you in your
flight. Fly—fly far, Edward, I pray you. Let us
not meet again; since nothing but pain could come
from such a meeting.”
“But, Julia, will you not promise me that if I can
acquit myself worthily, you will once more receive
me.”
“I cannot! my father's will must determine mine,
Edward; since it is to his judgment only that I can
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[figure description] Page 336.[end figure description]
refer, to determine what is worthy in the sight of
men, and what is not. Were I to yield to my affections
this decision, I should, perhaps, care nothing
for your offences; I should deem you no offender;
and love would blindly worship at an altar from
which truth would turn away in sorrow and reproach.
Urge me not farther, Edward, on this
painful subject. Solemnly I declare to you, that
under no circumstances henceforward can I know
you, unless by permission of my father.”
Eberly strode away, with a spasmodic effort, to
another part of the chamber. His emotions left him
speechless for a while; when he returned to her, his
articulation was still imperfect; and it was only by
great resolution that he made himself intelligible at
last.
“I will vex you no more. I will be to you, Julia,
nothing—even as you wish. I will leave you; and
when next you hear of me, you will weep, bitterly
weep; not, perhaps, that you have sent me from you
in scorn, but that I was not wholly worthy of that
love which you were once happy to bestow upon
me.”
He passed her as he spoke these words, and before
she could fix any one of the flitting and confused
fancies in her mind, he had left the apartment,
and her ear could readily distinguish his footsteps as,
without any of the precautions of the fugitive,
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[figure description] Page 337.[end figure description]
trembling for his life, he deliberately descended the
stairs. She grasped the post of the door, and hung
on it for support. Her strength which had sustained
her throughout the interview, was about to leave
her. When she ceased to hear his retreating steps she
recovered herself sufficiently to reach her chamber;
where, after locking carefully her door, she threw
herself, almost without life, upon her bed, and gave
vent to those emotions which now, from long restraint,
like the accumulated torrents of the mountain,
threatened in their flow to break down all barriers,
and overwhelm the region which they were
meant to invigorate and refresh. One bitter sentence
of hopelessness alone escaped her lips; and the
unsyllabled moaning which followed it, attested the
depths of these sorrows which she had so long and
so nobly kept in check.
“He leaves me—I have seen him for the last
time—I have heard his departing footsteps—departing
forever. Hark! it is the tread of a horse. It
is his. He flies—he is safe from harm. He will
be free—he will be happy, and I—Oh! my father—
I am desolate!”
-- 338 --
CHAPTER XXVIII.
If thou couldst redeem me
With any thing but death, I think I should
Consent to live.
The Traitor.
[figure description] Page 338.[end figure description]
Meanwhile we sped towards our place of rendezvous.
We reached it, as we had calculated, in
sufficient season. The whole party was assembled at
the “Blind,” according to arrangement, and within
the limited hour; and, for a brief period after our reunion,
nothing was to be heard but the hum of preparation
for the anticipated strife. Our weapons, as
before stated, were of a motley description. But
they were all effective—at least, we resolved that
they should be made so. Leaving as little to accident
as possible, we reloaded and reprimed our fire
arms, put in new flints where we could do so, and
girded ourselves up for the contest with the cool considerateness
of men who are not disposed to shrink
back from the good work to which they have so far
put their hands. Encouraged by the feeling and
energy of Colonel Grafton, who was very much beloved
among them, there was not one of the party
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[figure description] Page 339.[end figure description]
who did not throw as much personal interest into
the motives for his valour, as entered either into Grafton's
bosom or mine. When we were all ready, we
divided ourselves into three bodies, providing thus
an assailing force for the three known outlets of the
outlaws' retreat. One of these bodies was led by
Grafton, and under his lead, and by his side, I rode—
to two sturdy farmers of the neighbourhood, who
were supposed to be more conversant with the place
than the rest, the other divisions were given; and it
was arranged that our attack upon the three designated
points should be as nearly simultaneous as possible.
The darkness of the forest—the difficulty of
determining and equalising the several distances—
the necessity of proceeding slowly and heedfully, in
order to avoid giving alarm, and other considerations
and difficulties of like nature and equal moment, rendered
our advance tedious and protracted; and though
we had not more than two miles to cover after separating
at the Blind, yet the gray streaks of the
early dawn were beginning to vein the hazy summits
in the East, before we reached the point of entrance
which had been assigned us.
The morning was cold and cloudy, and through
the misty air sounds were borne rapidly and far.
We were forced to continue our caution as we proceeded.
When we reached the valley, the porch,
as it were, to the home among the hills where the
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[figure description] Page 340.[end figure description]
robbers had found their refuge, we came to a dead
halt. There were slight noises from within the enclosure
which annoyed us, and we paused to listen.
They were only momentary, however, and we rode
slowly forward, until the greater number of our little
party were fairly between the two hills. In my
anxiety, I had advanced a horse's length beyond
Colonel Grafton, by whose side I had before ridden.
We were just about to emerge from the passage into
the area, when the indistinct figure of a man started
up, as it were, from beneath the very hoofs of my
horse. I had nearly ridden over him, for the day
was yet too imperfect to enable us to distinguish between
objects not in motion. He had been asleep,
and was, most probably, a sentinel. As he ran, he
screamed at the loudest pitch of his voice—the probability
is, that in his surprise he had left his weapon
where he had lain, and had no other means of
alarming his comrades, and saving them from the
consequences of his neglectful watch. In the midst
of his clamours, I silenced him. I shot him through
the back as he ran, not five steps in front of my
horse, seeking to ascend the hill to the right of us.
He tumbled forward, and lay writhing before our
path, but without a word or moan. At this moment,
the thought possessed me, that it was John Hurdis
whom I had shot. I shivered involuntarily with the
conviction, and in my mind I felt a busy voice of
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[figure description] Page 341.[end figure description]
reproach, that reminded me of our poor mother. I
strove to sustain myself, by referring to his baseness,
and to his deserts: yet I felt sick at heart the while.
I had the strangest curiosity to look into the face of
the victim, but, for worlds, I would not then have
done so. It was proposed that we should examine
the body by one of the men behind me. It was
a voice of desperation with which I shouted in reply—
“No—no examination.—We have no time for
that.”
“True!” said Grafton, taking up the words.—
“We must think of living, not dead enemies. This
shot will put the gang in motion. We must rush on
them at once, if we hope to do any thing, and the
sooner we go forward the better.”
He gave the word at this moment, which I seconded
with a fierce shout, which was half-intended
to overcome and scare away my own obtrusive fancies.
“Better,” I said to myself—“better that I should
believe John Hurdis to be already slain, than that I
should think the duty yet to be done. He must
perish, and I feel that it will be an easier deed to
slay him while he is unknown, regarding him merely
as one of the common enemy.”
These self-communings—indeed the whole events
which had occasioned them—were all the work of a
-- 342 --
[figure description] Page 342.[end figure description]
moment. I had fired the pistol under the impulse
which seemed to follow the movement of the victim,
as closely as if it had been a certain consequence of it.
In another instant we rushed headlong into the valley,
just as sounds of fright and confusion reached us
from one of the opposite entrances, which had been
assigned the other parties. There was now no time
for unnecessary reflections—the moment for thought
and hesitation had gone by, and the blood was boiling
and bounding in my veins, with all the ardour
and enthusiasm of boyhood. Wild cries of apprehension
and encouragement reached us from various
quarters, and we could see sudden forms rushing out
of the bushes, and from between the hollows where
they had slept; and with the sight of them, our men
dashed off in various directions, and divided, in pursuit.
Colonel Grafton and myself advanced in like
manner, towards a group consisting of three persons,
who seemed disposed to seek, rather than fly from
us. A few bounds brought us near enough to discover
in one of these, the person of Matthew Webber.
The two deadly enemies were now within a few steps
of each other; and, resolving to spare Colonel Grafton
the encounter with a man who had professed
such bitter malice towards him, and such a blood-thirsty
and unrelenting hate, I put spurs to my horse,
and, with earnest efforts, endeavoured to put myself
between them; but my object was defeated, and I
-- 343 --
[figure description] Page 343.[end figure description]
was soon taught to know that I required all my address
to manage my own particular opponent. This
was the man whom we have before seen as the
emissary of the Brotherhood, at the habitation of
Pickett, and, subsequently, when I left the encampment,
ostensibly as the spy upon Eberly. This fellow
seemed to understand my object, for he put himself
directly in my way; and, when not three steps
distant, discharged his pistol at my head. How he
came to miss me I know not. It would appear impossible
that a man resolved and deliberate as he
certainly showed himself then and elsewhere to be,
should have failed to shoot me at so small a distance.
But he did; and, without troubling myself at that
moment to demand how or why, I was resolved not
to miss him. I did not. But my bullet, though
more direct than his, was not fatal. I hit him in the
shoulder of the right arm, from the hand of which
he dropped the knife which he had taken from his
bosom, the moment after firing his pistol. My horse
was upon him in another instant; but, as if insensible
to his wound, he grasped the bridle with his remaining
hand, and, by extending his arm to its utmost
stretch, he baffled me for a brief space, in the
effort which I was making to take a second shot. It
was but a moment only, however, that he did so. I
suffered him to turn the head of the horse, and deliberately
took a second pistol from my bosom. He
-- 344 --
[figure description] Page 344.[end figure description]
sunk under the breast of the animal as he beheld it,
still grasping him by the bridle, by swinging from
which, he was enabled to avoid the tramplings of his
feet. But I was not to be defeated. I threw myself
from the animal, and shot the outlaw dead, before
he could extricate himself from the position into
which he had thrown himself. This affair took less
time to act than I now employ to narrate it. Meanwhile
the strife between Colonel Grafton and Webber
had proceeded to a fatal issue. I had beheld its
progress with painful apprehensions, beholding the
danger of the noble gentleman, without the ability
to serve or succour him. On their first encounter, the
deliberate ruffian calmly awaited the bold assault of
his foe, and, perhaps, feeling some doubt of his weapon,
in aiming at the smaller object, or resolved to
make sure of him though slow, he directed his pistol
muzzle at the advancing steed, and put the bullet
into his breast. The animal tumbled forward, and
Webber nimbly leaping to one side, avoided his
crushing carcass, which fell over upon the very spot
where the outlaw had taken his station. In the fall
of the beast, as Webber had anticipated, Grafton became
entangled. One of his legs was fastened under
the animal, and he lay prostrate and immovable for
an instant, from the stunning effect of the fall. With
a grim smile of triumph, Webber approached him,
and when not three paces distant from his enemy,
-- 345 --
[figure description] Page 345.[end figure description]
drew his pistol, but before he could fix the sight
upon him, a fierce wild scream rang through the
area, and in the next instant, when nothing beside
could have saved Grafton, and when looking fearlessly
at his advancing enemy, he momently expected
the death which he felt himself unable to avoid,
he beheld, with no less satisfaction and surprise, the
figure of the doubly fugitive Clifton bounding between
them, to arrest the threatened shot. He came
too late for this, yet he baffled the vengeance of the
murderer. The bullet took effect in his own bosom,
and he fell down between Grafton and Webber, expiating
his errors and offences, whatever may have
been their nature and extent, by freely yielding up
his life to save that of one, who just before, as he
imagined to the last, had sat in inflexible and hostile
judgment upon his own. A faint smile illuminated
his countenance a moment before his death, and he
seemed desirous to turn his eyes where Grafton lay,
but to this task he was unequal. Once or twice he
made an effort at speech, but his voice sunk away
into a gurgling sound, and at length terminated in
the choking rattle of death. Webber, while yet the
breath fluttered upon the lips of his victim, strode
forward, with one foot upon his body, to repeat the
assault upon Grafton, which had been baffled thus,
but before he could do this, he fell by an unseen
hand. He was levelled to the earth, by a stroke
-- 346 --
[figure description] Page 346.[end figure description]
from the butt of a rifle from behind, and despatched,
in the heat of the moment, by a second blow from
the hands of the sturdy forester who wielded it. We
extricated Grafton from a situation which had been
productive to him of so much peril, and addressed
ourselves to a pursuit of the surviving outlaws who
were scattered and flying on all hands. In this pursuit,
it fell to my lot to inflict death, without recognising
my victim at the time, upon the actual murderer
of William Carrington. I saw a fellow skulk
behind a bush, and shot him through it. That was
Pickett. I only knew it when, in the afternoon of
the day, we encountered his wife, with countenance
seemingly unmoved, and wearing its general expression
of rigid gravity, directing the burial of her
miserable husband, whom a couple of negroes were
preparing to deposit in a grave dug near the spot
where he had fallen.
But our toils were not ended. Seven of the outlaws
had been killed outright, or so fatally wounded
as to die very soon after. Two only were made
prisoners; and we had started at least eight or ten
more. These had taken flight in as many different directions,
rendering it necessary that we should disperse
ourselves in their pursuit. My blood had
been heated, by the affray, to such a degree that I
ceased to think. To go forward, to act, to shout and
strike, seemed now all that I could do; and these
-- 347 --
[figure description] Page 347.[end figure description]
were performances through which my heart appeared
to carry me with an ungovernable sensation of
delight; a sensation cooled only when I reflected
hat the body of John Hurdis had not yet been
found—that we were in pursuit of the survivors;
and that I had sworn by the grave of the hapless Katherine
Walker, to give no mercy to the murderers
of my friend. My oath was there to impel me forward
even should my heart fail me, and forward I
went in the bloody chase—we urged, having a distant
and imperfect view of two wretches; both
mounted and fleeing backward upon the Big Warrior.
They had gone through the “Blind,” and for a
mile farther I kept them both in sight. At length,
one disappeared, but I gained upon the other.
Every moment brought the outlines of his person
more clearly to my eye, and at length I could no
longer resist the conviction that the fates had
brought me to my victim.—John Hurdis was before
me. What would I not then have given to
have found another enemy. How gladly would I
then have unsworn myself, and, could it be so, have
given up the task of punishment to other persons.
There was a sound of horsemen behind me, and at
one moment, I almost resolved to turn aside and
leave to my comrades the solemn duty which now
seemed so especially to devolve itself upon me.
But there was a dread in my mind that such a
-- 348 --
[figure description] Page 348.[end figure description]
movement might be misconstrued, and the feeling
be taken for fear, which was in strict truth the creature
of conscience. The conviction grew inevitable
that the bloody duty of the executioner was mine.
The horse of my brother stumbled; the fates had delivered
him into my hands—he lay on the earth before
me; and, with a bursting heart, but a resolved
spirit, I leaped down on the earth beside him. He
had weapons, but he had no power to use them. I
would have given worlds had he been able to do so.
Could he have shown fight—I could have slain him
without scruple; but when, at my approach, he raised
his hands appealingly, and shrieked out a prayer of
mercy, I felt ashamed of the duty I had undertaken.
I felt the brutal blood-thirstiness of taking life under
such circumstances—the victim but a few paces off—
using no weapons, and pleading with a shrieking
desperate voice for that life, which seemed at the
same time too despicable to demand or deserve a
care. And yet, when I reflected that to grant his
prayer and take him alive, was not to save his life,
but to subject him to a death, in the ignominy of
which I too must share; I felt that he could not live.
I rushed upon him with the extended pistol, but
was prevented from using it by a singular vision, in
the sudden appearance of the poor idiot daughter of
Pickett. She came from the door of a little cottage
by the road-side, which I had not before seen, and
-- 349 --
[figure description] Page 349.[end figure description]
to which, it is more than probable, that John Hurdis
was bending his steps, as to a place of refuge. To
my horror and surprise she called me by name, and
thus gave my brother the first intimation which he
had of the person to whom he prayed. How this
idiot came to discover that which nobody besides
had suspected, was wonder enough to me; and while
I stood, astounded for the instant, she ran forward
like a thoughtless child, crying as she came:
“Oh, Mr. Richard, don't you shoot—it's Master
John—it's your own dear brother—don't you shoot—
don't.”
“Brother!” cried the miserable wretch, with
hoarse and husky tones, followed by a chuckle of
laughter, which indicated the latent hope which had
begun to kindle in his breast at this discovery.
“Away—I know you not, villain,” was my cry,
as I recoiled from him, and again lifted the pistol
in deadly aim. The idiot girl rushed between
us, and rising on tiptoe, sought to grasp the extended
hand, which I was compelled to raise above her
reach.
“Run, Master John, run for dear life,” was her
cry, as she clung upon my shoulders. “Run to
the bushes, while I hold, Mr. Richard—I'll hold
him tight—he can't get away from me. I'll hold
him tight enough while you run.”
The miserable dastard obeyed her counsel; and
-- 350 --
[figure description] Page 350.[end figure description]
while clinging, now to my arms, and now to my
legs, she baffled my movements, and really gave him
an opportunity, which a cool, brave fellow would
have turned to account, and most probably saved
himself. He, in his alarm, actually rushed into the
woods in the very direction of the pursuit. Had he
possessed the spirit of a man, he would have leaped
upon his horse, or upon mine, and trusted to the
chase a second time. Hardly a minute had elapsed
from his disappearance in the woods, and when I
had just extricated myself from the clutches of the
girl, which I did with as little violence as possible,
when I heard one shot and then another. I resumed
my horse and hurried to the spot whence the
sounds came. One of our party, who had taken the
same route with me, had overtaken the fugitive, and
had fired twice upon him as he fled. My voice
trembled when I asked the trooper, as he emerged
from the bush, if the outlaw was dead.
“As a door nail!” was the reply. I stopped for
no more; but turning the head of my horse again, I
renewed the pursuit of the second fugitive, whom I
had first followed. My companion kept with me,
and we went forward at full speed. As we rode we
heard the faint accents of the idiot girl crying in the
woods for “Master John;” as, here and there, she
wound her way through its recesses, seeking for
him who could no longer answer to her call. The
-- 351 --
[figure description] Page 351.[end figure description]
sounds were painful to me, and I was glad to get
out of hearing of them. I had now none of those
scruples in the pursuit which had beset me before.
My trial was over; and fervently in my heart did I
thank God, and the stout fellow who rode beside
me, that my hand had not stricken the cruel blow
which was yet demanded by justice. I urged my
horse to the utmost and soon left my companion behind.
I felt that I must gain upon the footsteps of
the fugitive. There were few horses in the country
of better bottom, and more unrelaxing speed than
mine. He proved himself on this occasion. Through
bog and branch, he sped; over hill, through dale,
until the road opened in double breadth upon us.
The trees grew more sparsely—the undergrowth was
more dense in patches, and it was evident that we
had nearly reached the river. In another moment
I caught a glimpse, not of it only, but of the man I
pursued; and he was Foster. He looked round once,
and I fancied I could detect a smile playing on his
lips. I felt loth to trouble this strange fellow. He
was a generous outlaw, and possessed many good
qualities. He had given me freely of his money,
though counterfeit, and had shown me a degree of
kindness and consideration, which made me hesitate,
now that I had brought him to the post. I concluded
it to be impossible that he should escape me,
and I summoned him with loud tones to surrender,
-- 352 --
[figure description] Page 352.[end figure description]
under a promise which I made him, of using all my
efforts and influence to save him from the consequences
of the laws. But he laughed aloud, and
pointed to the river. “He will not venture to swim
it surely,” was my thought on the instant. A few
moments satisfied my doubts. There was a pile of
cotton, consisting of ten or fifteen bags, lying on the
brink of the river, and ready for transportation to
market whenever the boats came by. He threw
himself from his horse as he reached the bags, and
tumbling one of them from the pile into the stream,
he leaped boldly upon it, and when I reached the
same spot, the current had already carried him full
forty yards on his way, down the stream. I discharged
my pistol at him but without any hope of
touching him at that distance. He laughed good-naturedly
in return, and cried out—
“Ah, Williams, you are a sad dog, and something
more of a hypocrite than the parson. I am afraid
you will come to no good, if you keep on after this
fashion; but, should you ever get into a difficulty
like this of mine, I am still sufficiently your friend
to hope that you may find as good a float. You can
say to the owner of this cotton—a man named Baxter,
who, I suppose, is one of your party this morning—
that he will find it some five miles below; I
shall not want it much farther. Should he lose it,
however, it's as little as a good patriot—as it is said
-- 353 --
[figure description] Page 353.[end figure description]
he is, should be ready at any time to lose for his
country. Farewell—though it be for a season only.
We shall meet some day in Arkansas, where I shall
build a church in the absence of better business, and
perhaps make you a convert. Farewell.”
Colonel Grafton came up in time to hear the last
of this discourse; and to wonder and laugh at the
complacent impudence and ready thoughts of the
outlaw. Foster pulled his hat, with a polite gesture,
when he had finished speaking, and turned his eyes
from us in the direction which his strange craft was
taking.
“Shall I give him'a shot, Colonel?” demanded one
the foresters, who had come up with Grafton, lifting
his rifle as he spoke.
“No, no!” was the reply—“let him go. He is
a clever scoundrel and may one day become an
honest man. We have done enough of this sort of
business this morning, to keep the whole neighbourhood
honest for some years. Let us now return,
my friends, and bury those miserable creatures out
of sight. Hurdis!” He took me suddenly aside
from the rest, and said:
“Hurdis, there is a girl back here, who says that
you have killed your own brother. She affirms it
positively.”
“She speaks falsely, Colonel Grafton,” was my
reply; “I am not guilty of a brother's blood; and
-- 354 --
[figure description] Page 354.[end figure description]
yet I may say to you that she has spoken a portion
of the truth. A brother of mine has been killed
among the outlaws. Guilty or not guilty of their
offences, he pays the penalty of bad company. If
you please we will speak of him no more.”
I had been married to Mary Easterby about three
years, when one day who should pay us a visit but
Colonel Grafton and the lovely Julia, the latter far
more lovely than ever. Her sorrows had sublimed
her beauty, and seemed to give elevation to all her
thoughts and actions. The worm was gnawing at
her heart, and its ravages were extending to her
frame; but her cheek, though pale, was exquisitely
transparent, and her eye, though always sad, was
sometimes enlivened with the fires of an intense
spirituality which seemed to indicate the approximation
of her thoughts to the spheres and offices of
a loftier home than ours. She lived but a year after
this visit, and died in a sweet sleep, which lasted
for several hours, without being disturbed by pain,
and from which she only awakened in another
world. May we hope that the loves were happy
there which had been so unblessed on earth.
THE END.
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Woolrych's Life of Jefferies, 8vo.
Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 8vo.
Gaskell on the Manufacturing Population of England, 8vo.
Tooke's Life of Catharine 2d.
Hampton's Polybius, 3 vols. 8vo.
Gessner's Whole Works, 3 vols.
Helvetius on the Mind, 8vo.
Helvetius on Man.
Browning's History of the Huguenots, 2 vols. 8vo.
Hayward on Horticulture, 8vo.
Works on Architecture, Mechanics,
Engineering, &c.
Nicholson's Architectural Dictionary.
Nicholson's Practical Builder.
Nicholson's Principles of Architecture.
Nicholson's Builder's Director.
Nicholson's Five Orders of Architecture.
Nicholson's Practical Masonry, Bricklaying, &c.
Nicholson's Practical Carpentry, Cabinet Making, &c.
Nicholson's Perspective.
Nicholson's Carpenter's Guide.
Stuart's Dictionary of Architecture.
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Britton and Pugin's Illustrations of Public Buildings of London.
Britton and Pugin's Specimens of Gothic Architecture.
Gregory's Mechanics.
Gregory's Mathematics, for practical men.
Smeaton's Reports on Civil Engineering, new edition.
kater's Mechanics.
Eastman on Topographical Plan Drawing.
Barlow's Treatise on Manufactories and Machinery of England.
Douglass on Military Bridges.
Herbert and Galloway's History and Progress of the Steam Engine.
Hebert and Galloway's Engineers and Mechanics' Encyclopedia.
The Repertory of Arts and Patent Inventions—32 of the early
volumes—very scarce.
Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclopedia, 18 vols.
Rees's Encyclopedia, 47 vols.
Grier's Mechanics' Pocket Dictionary.
Pambour on Locomotives.
Lardner on the Steam. Engine.
Wood on Rail Roads, &c.
McNeill's Tables of Calculation for cutting Embankments, &c.
for Rail Roads, &c.
Partington on Steam Engines, Steamboats, &c.
Stuart on Steam Engines.
Adcock's Engineer's Pocket Book.
Tredgold's Elementary Principles of Carpentry.
Tredgold on Steam.
Tredgold on Strength of Cast Iron.
Drewry on Suspension Bridges.
Turnbull on Iron.
Walker's Mechanics.
McAdams on Roads.
Parnell on Roads.
Hebert on Rail Roads.
Blunt and Stephenson's Civil Engineer, part 1 to 5, folio.
History of the Coal Trade of Great Britian, from 1830 to 1836, folio.
Public Works of Ireland, folio, numerous plates.
Gordon on Locomotion.
Hutton's Mathematical Tables, 8vo.
Hutton's Mathematical Tracts, 3 vols. 8vo.
Tredgold's Hydraulics.
Partington's Manual of Experimental Philosophy, 2 vols. 8vo.
Tredgold on Warming and Ventilating Public Buildings.
Francœur's Mathematics, 2 vols. 8vo.
Jameson's Mechanics of Fluids, 8vo.
Matthew's Hydraulia, 8vo.
Carus on Teeth of Wheels, 8vo.
Barlow's Theory of Numbers.
Robison on Marine Surveying.
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Simms, William Gilmore, 1806-1870 [1838], Richard Hurdis, volume 2 (E. L. Carey & A. Hart, Philadelphia) [word count] [eaf363v2].
