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The thanks of our little company were frankly given to our
young North-Carolinian, who had delivered himself much more
successfully than we were prepared to expect, from the previous
scenes in which his simplicity had quite failed to suspect the
quizzings of the Alabamian. That satirical worthy joined in the
applause with great good humor and evident sincerity, though
he could not forbear his usual fling at the venerable North State.

“Verily, thou hast done well, my young friend from the empire
of Terebinth; thou hast delivered thyself with a commendable
modesty and simplicity, which merits our best acknowledgements.
Pray, suppose me, among the rest, to be eminently delighted
and grateful accordingly. That a tragedy so grave, and
so symmetrical as the one you have told, could have been conjured
out of any of the historical or the traditional material of
North Carolina, I could scarcely have believed. I have been
pleased to think her genius too saturnine or phlegmatic for
such conceptions. If she lost the phlegm for a moment, it was
to indulge in a spasmodic sort of cacchination. She relishes the
ludicrous at times. Travelling last summer over her railroad
to the east, we came to a place called `Strickland.'

“`Strickland!' cries the conductor: and at the word, an old
woman got out, and a group of smiling country-girls got in.

“`Strickland, indeed!' exclaimed one Jeruthan Dobbs, an
aged person in a brown linen overall, and with a mouth from ear
to ear, defiled at both extremities, with the brownest juices of
the weed — `Strickland, indeed! that's one of them big words
they've got up now, to take in people that don't know. The
people all about here calls the place `Tear-Shirt' and they
kain't be got to l'arn your fine big name for it. Strickland's
quite too big a mouthful for a corn-cracker.'

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“Think of the pathetic susceptibilities of any people who call
their village `Tear-Shirt!' I could not well believe it, and
knowing in what sort of ditch water hyperbole our common
sort of people are apt to deal, I turned to the fellow and said —
You don't mean that `Tear-Shirt' is the real name of this place?'

“`Why to be sure I do,' said he `that's what the people calls
it all about; its only the railroad folks that names it `Strickland';—
and he then told a long cock-and-bull story of a famous
fight in these parts, at the first settling of the place, in which
one of the parties, though undergoing a terrible pummelling all
the while continued to tear the shirt wholly from the back of his
assailant; and this imposing event, seizing upon the popular
imagination, caused the naming of the place — the ludicrous
naturally taking much firmer hold with the vulgar than the sublime.

“The most pathetic circumstance that I ever witnessed, or,
indeed, heard of in North Carolina, occurred in this very region,
and on the same occasion. I mentioned that a group of country-girls
came into the cars, at this place of ragged-linen cognomen.
They were pretty girls enough, and several beaux were in attendance;
and such sniggering and smiling, and chirping and
chittering, would have made Cupid himself ache to hear and witness,
even in the arms of Psyche.

“`Ain't you going to take little Churrybusco along with you,
Miss Sallie?' demanded one of the swains, holding up a pet puppy
to the windows of the car.

“`Ef they'd let me,' answered one of the girls; `but they'd
want me to pay for his passage.'

“`He'll be so sorry ef you leave him!' quoth the lover.

“`Well, I reckon,' responded the girl, pertly enough, `he
won't be the only puppy that's sorry.'

“`You're into me, Miss Sallie!' was the answer; `and I shall
feel sore about the ribs for the rest of the day.'

“`I don't think,' answered the girl —`I never gin you credit
for any feeling.'

“`Ah! you're too hard upon a body now.'

“`Well, I don't want to be; for when I think about leaving
Currybusco, I has a sorrowful sort of feeling for all leetle dogs.'

“`Well, take us both along. I'll pay for myself, and I

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reckon the conductor won't see Churry, and he won't say nothing
ef he does.'

“`You think so?'

“`I does.'

“`Well, hand him up here. I'll try it.'

“And, with the words, the insignificant little monster, of gray
complexion and curly tail, was handed into the window of the
car, and carefully snuggled up in the shawl of Miss Sallie. Soon
we were under way. Soon the conductor made his appearance
and received his dues. If he saw the dog, he was civil
enough not to seem to see. For a few miles, the puppy and the
damsel went on quietly enough. But Churrybusco became impatient
finally of his wrappings in the mantle, and he scrambled
out, first upon the seat, then upon the floor of the car. Anon,
we stopped for a moment at some depôt, where twenty-two
barrels of turpentine were piled up ready for exportation. Here
Churrybusco made his way to the platform, and, just as the car
was moving off, a clumsy steerage passenger, stepping from one
car to another, tumbled the favorite from the platform upon the
track. Very terrible and tender was the scream of the young
lady—

“`Churrybusco! Churrybusco! He's killed! he's killed!'

“But the whining and yelping puppy soon showed himself
running with all his little legs in pursuit of the train, and bowwowing
with pitiful entreaty as he ran.

“`Stop the car! stop the car!' cried the young lady to the
conductor passing through.

“`Stop h—l!' was the horrid answer of the ruffian.

“The lady sobbed and begged, but the obdurate monster was
not to be moved by her entreaties. The damsel was whirled
away, weeping all the while. If you ask tradition, it will probably
tell you that the pup has kept on running to this day, on
his stumps, as the fellow fought in the old English ballad. The
whole scene was very pathetic — after a fashion. Now, that is
the most tragic adventure that I ever had in North Carolina.”

“You may find others more tragical,” quoth our North-Carolinian,
significantly, “if you travel frequently on that route, and
use your tongue as freely as you do here.”

We soon got back to the traditions of the great deep — its

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storms and secrets. Our captain then told the following anecdote
of his own experience:—

“You remember the fate of the Pulaski? Well, when she
arrived from Savannah, full of passengers, and took in almost as
great a number in the port of Charleston, the packet-ship Sutton,
which I then commanded, was up for New York also. The
Pulaski was all the rage, as she had announced that she was to
be only one night at sea. My ship had a large list of her own
passengers, some of whom were prudent enough to prefer our
ancient slow and easy sailer. But two of them were now anxious
to leave me, and take the Pulaski. Of course, I had no objections
to their doing so; I simply objected to giving them back their
money. They were not so anxious to get on as to make them
incur double expense of passage, so they remained with me,
growling and looking sulky all the way. Of course, my resolution
saved their lives, but I do not remember that they ever
thanked me for having done so, or apologized for their sulks
upon the way. But, curious enough, before they left the port,
and while they were clamoring for their discharge, there came
a gentleman from the interior, who had taken passage in the Pulaski,
and paid his money to that vessel. He implored a place in
my ship, giving as his reason that he was afraid to go in the
steamer. He was troubled with a presentiment of danger, and
preferred to forfeit his money, rather than lose his life. His
earnestness to get on board the Sutton, and to escape the Pulaski,
was in amusing contrast with that of my two passengers
who wished to escape from me. I had no berth for the stranger,
but he insisted. He could sleep anywhere — any how —
and desired conveyance only. He was accommodated, and was,
of course, one of those who escaped the danger.

“It so happened that we had on board the Sutton several
members of one of the most distinguished of the South Carolina
families. A portion of this family, in spite of the wishes of the
rest, had gone in the Pulaski. The steamer, of course, soon
showed us her heels, and the Sutton went forward as slowly as
the most philosophical patience could desire. We had light
and baffling winds — nothing to help us forward — but no bad
weather. The long-sided coast of North Carolina stretched
away, never ending in length, for days upon our quarter. At

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length, by dint of patience rather than wind, we reached that
latitude in which the Pulaski had blown up four days before.
We must have been very nearly over the very spot, as we discovered
by calculation afterward. Of course we were wholly in
ignorance of the terrible catastrophe.

“That evening, one of the gentlemen of the Carolina family I
have mentioned, came to me, and said that he had heard cries
of distress and moanings, as of some persons upon the water. I
immediately set watches about the vessel, examined as well as
I might myself, but could neither hear nor see any object beyond
the ship. He again heard the noises, and again I watched
and examined. He was excited necessarily, and I greatly anxious.
With the first dawn of morning I was up in the rigging,
and sweeping the seas with my glass. Nothing was to be seen.
We had no special fears, no apprehensions. There seemed no
reason for apprehension. None of us thought of the Pulaski.
She was a good seaboat, and, saving the presentiment of the
one passenger, who did not again speak of the scruples he had
expressed on shore, there were not only no apprehensions entertained
of the steamer's safety, but our passengers, many of
them, were all the while regretting that they had not gone in
her. We never heard of her fate, or suspected it, till we took
our pilot off Sandy Hook. Now, what do you say of the warning
cries which were heard by the one gentlemen, whose kinsmen
in the Pulaski were all lost. Four days before, they were
perishing, without help, in that very spot of sea. The presentiments
of the one passenger, before we started, the signs manifested
to another after the terrible event, are surely somewhat
curious, as occurring in the case of this single ship. I think
that I am as little liable to superstitious fears and fancies as anybody
present, and yet, these things, with a thousand others in
my sea experience, have satisfied me to believe with Hamlet,
that

Once open the way for the supernatural, and it is surprising
what a body of testimony you can procure. Most people are
sensitive to ridicule on this subject, and will rarely deliver the
secrets of their prison-house to other ears, unless the cue has

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been first given to the company by one bolder than the rest. Our
captain's anecdote led to a variety of experiences and revelations,
at the close of which, one of the party, being reminded of
his appointment as next raconteur, bestowed the following dark
fancy-piece upon us, which he assured us was woven in the
world of dreams, and was, in most respects, a bona fide report of
a real experience in the domain of sleep: —

A TALE OF THE FEUDAL AGES.