CHAPTER XII.
“If there be trial and a strife to come,
Let us embrace it, with a goodly joy;
Not linger to behold it, with wild stare,
A sad presentment of the coward heart.”
But, though we turn aside from the highway to
plant or to pluck the flower, we may not linger there
idly, or long. The business of life calls for speed
not less than repose; and the play of existence, for it
is little else, vibrates with more or less rapidity, according
to the circumstances of its proper employment.
To fly heedlessly and for ever, and to stagnate and
rust, are alike evil; and the swift race-horse may not
always be trained to his highest pitch of speed, without
suffering in consequence. Having lingered for
a while, and mused over sacred memories, let us
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content ourselves with casting our tribute-flower upon the
grave of the beautiful, and hurry away upon our own
necessities; striving, if not to forget, at least not improvidently
to remember.
The hot chase over, which Proctor had urged after
Singleton, the latter, accompanied by his uncle, now
fairly out, returned quickly to the shelter of the
swamp. There they arrived late in the night, and
proceeded at once to those slumbers which were imperatively
called for by their late fatigue. With early
morning, however, Colonel Walton aroused his little
troop and prepared to depart. Unincumbered as he was
with baggage or prisoners, he determined to proceed
instantly on his way to North Carolina, where he
hoped to encounter the advancing continentals. He
proposed to unite his men, as they were quite too few
for a distinct command, with some one of the corps
most needing them in the incomplete squadrons of the
southern army. His own services he proposed to volunteer
to Gates, whom he knew in Virginia, and between
whom and himself there had been an intimacy
prior to the commencement of the war. He did not
doubt, with these recollections in his mind, to obtain
an honourable appointment from his hands. The squad
of Singleton was not able to move with so much
rapidity. It had baggage, provisions, and prisoners
to carry; and, more than all, a tolerable supply of powder
and buckshot for Marion, which Humphries, through
cautious management, had made out to procure in
Dorchester. The preparations for Walton's departure,
however, aroused the rest; and the troopers generally
turned out to take leave of their friends and past comrades.
Among those who rose early that morning
from their slumbers, though with a motive widely different
from the rest, was the corpulent Porgy, whose
whole dream by night had been a mixed vision of
terrapin. He saw it in all shapes before his delighted
imagination. First came a picture of the sluggish
water, the protruding log, and, at its extremity, precisely
as he had really seen them some hours before,
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the three unconscious and sleeping victims. Nothing
could be more distinct and rational. One by one he
felt himself again securing them; and there they lay
at his feet, their yellow bellies turned upward in the
moonlight, while their feet paddled about ineffectually
on either side; and their long necks were thrust forth
in manifest dissatisfaction, as they strove to regain a
more upright, or, to speak more to the card, a less
unnatural position. Then came the dismemberment;
the breaking into their houses, the dragging forth of
the rich contents—the crowding eggs and the choice
collops of luxurious swamp-fed meat. Various were
the dishes prepared by his fancy out of the mass before
him; and he awakened at daylight, soberly bent
to put some of his sleeping fancies to the test of
actual experiment. The proposed departure of Colonel
Walton and his party aroused his indignation: he
grew eloquent to Humphries on the subject.
“To go off at an hour so unseasonable, and from
such a feast as we shall have by noon—it's barbarous.
I don't believe it—I don't believe a word of it, Bill.”
“But I tell you, Porgy, it is so. The colonel has set
the boys to put the nags in fix for a start, and him and
the major only talk now over some message to Marion
and General Gates, which the colonel's to carry.”
“He's heard nothing then of the terrapin, you
think? He'd scarcely go if he knew. I'll see and tell
him at once. I know him well enough.”
“Terrapin, indeed, Porgy! how you talk! Why,
man, he don't care for all the terrapin in the swamp.”
“Then no good can come of him; he's an infidel.
I would not march with him for the world. Don't
believe in terrapin! a man ought to believe in all
that's good; and there's nothing so good as terrapin.
Soup, stew, or hash, all the same; it's a dish among a
thousand. Nature herself shows the value which she
sets upon it, when she shelters it in such walls, and
builds around it such a fortification as this—see now
to that fellow, there. He held on to his back, would
you believe it, Humphries—confound him! for half an
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hour after I had been working at him! First, his
head—I got it out with difficulty with my knife and a
stick sharpened for the purpose; and when I had
hewn it off—you see it there, and there it will gasp
and jerk long after we've done eating the body—I
went to work upon the shell. Nothing but the hatchet
took it off, after all; and see what a gash I gave my
fingers while working upon it; but the game was
worth it, and the value of the meat is always in proportion
to the toil which it gives us to get at it—so
with an oyster—so with a crab—so with a shrimp—
so, indeed, with all the dainties of which human appetite—
if appetite may be considered merely human,
which I doubt—is properly conscious.”
“Well, that's true—all the tough things to come at
are mighty sweet; but it does seem to me, Porgy,
that you make too much of your belly; you spoil it,
and it will grow so impudent after a while, that there
will be no living with it.”
“There's no living without it, my dear fellow; and
that's reason enough for taking care of it. The belly
is a great member, my friend—a very great member.
We should not speak of it irreverently; its claims are
peculiar; it is the source of satisfaction in numberless
ways; and, I am convinced, however people may talk
about the brain, that it's a poor business after all, in
the way of thinking, in comparison with the belly. A
great deal may be said in favour of the belly; but
why need I say it? it is enough to name it, and its importance
is understood at once by all people; and if
Colonel Walton be the gentleman I think him, he will
find a sufficient reason for delaying his journey until
noon, as soon as he hears of this terrapin. Go to him,
Bill—go to him, old fellow; give him particulars, and
let him see what he loses by going. Stay; take the
upper crust of one of them with you—this fine one,
for example; and if that doesn't bring him to his
senses, I give him up. Go now, my dear fellow; be
quick about it, or you lose him, and he the soup.”
Never was man more in earnest than Porgy; and
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Humphries, who loved to hear him talk upon his favourite
topic, told him how utterly impossible it was
for Walton to remain; assured him that he had already
intimated the terrapin, and the various forms in which
it was to be provided, by the highly ingenious gourmand;
and even went so far as to repeat, verbatim, as
it were, certain regrets of the departing colonel at the
necessity which deprived him of the new luxury.
“Ay, that was it. I would have had his opinion of
the dish, for he knows what good living is. There's
a pleasure, Humphries, in having a man of taste
and nice sensibilities about us. Our affections—our
humanities, if I may so call them—are then properly
exercised; but it is throwing pearl to swine to
put a good dish before such a creature as that skeleton,
Oakenburg—Doctor Oakenburg, as the d—d
fellow presumes to call himself. He is a monster—a
fellow of most perverted taste, and of no more soul
than a skiou, or the wriggling lizard that he resembles.
Only yesterday, we had a nice tit-bit—an exquisite
morsel—only a taste—a marsh-hen, that I shot myself,
and fricasseed after a fashion of my own. I tried
my best to persuade the wretch to try it—only to try
it—and would you believe it, he not only refused, but
absolutely, at the moment, drew a bottle of some vile
root decoction from his pocket, and just as I was about
to enjoy my own little delicacy, he thrust the horrible
stuff into his lantern jaws, and swallowed a draught of
it that might have strangled a cormorant. It nearly
made me sick to see him, and with difficulty could I
keep myself from being angry. I told him how ungentlemanly
had been his conduct, taking his physic
where decent people were enjoying an intellectual repast—
for so I consider dinner—and I think he felt
the force of the rebuke, for he turned away instantly,
though still the beast was in him. In a minute
after, he was dandling his d—d coachwhip, that he
loves like a bedfellow. It is strange, very strange,
and makes me sometimes doubtful how to believe in
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human nature. It is such a monstrous contradiction
between tastes and capacities.”
How long Porgy would have gone on after this
fashion, may not well be said; but the trooper was
called away from hearing him, by his commanding
officer. In the mean while, Tom, the black cook,
made his appearance, after repeated demands had
been urged by the gourmand for his presence. The
negro came, rubbing his eyes, half asleep still, and
monstrous stupid.
“Tom, my boy!” said Porgy.
“Ki! Mass Porgy; you no lub sleep you' sef,
da's no reason he no good for udder people. Nigger
lub sleep, Mass Porgy; an' 'taint 'spectful to git up
'fore de sun.”
“No matter, boy—no matter—open your eyes, Tom,
you black rascal, and look at your brethren. See
here, King Coal—for you're black enough to be one of
his relations—see here what we've got to go upon,
my boy. Get down to the creek, and give your face
a brief introduction to the water, then come back and
be made happy.”
“Dah berry fine cooter, for true—berry fine cooter,
Mass Porgy—whay you bin nab 'em?”
“Where do you think, boy, but on the old cypress
log, running into yonder pond. That was their home;
and there they came out last night to nap it. Fortunately,
I slept not on my post, and I stole a march upon
'em. I caught 'em all asleep; and that's a warning to
you, Tom, never to go to sleep on the end of a log.”
“Heh! wha' den, Mass Porgy—nobody guine eat
nigger eben if dey catch 'em. Tom berry hard wittle
for buckrah.”
“Make good cooter soup, Tom, nevertheless. Who
could tell the difference? Those long black slips of
the meat in terrapin-soup, look monstrous like negro
toes and fingers; and the Irish soldiers in garrison
wouldn't know the one from t'other. Tom, Tom, if
they catch you sleeping!”
“Oh, Mass Porgy, I wish you leff off talking 'bout
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sich tings. You make my skin crawl like yellow
belly snake.”
“Well, well; get your pot, old boy, and see that
you let nobody meddle with our doings. Get me a
couple of deep gourds, that I may mix up the ingredients
comfortably. I am going to make a new stew,
and you shall have your share of it, Tom, that you may
keep your eyes open to catch terrapin all night for
ever after.”
“Berry well; mind, Mass Porgy, I guine 'member
dis what you tell me.”
“You shall have your share—but go now and get
ready: and mind, Tom, the two calabashes—and,
Tom!”
“Sa!”
“Be sure and get some herbs, dry sage, thyme,
mint; and if you can, take up a few onions—and,
Tom!”
“Sa!”
“Say nothing to that d—d fellow Oakenburg—do
you hear, sir?”
“Enty I yerry, mossa; but it's no use; de doctor
lub snake better more nor cooter.”
“Away!”
The negro was gone upon his mission, and throwing
himself at length upon the grass, the eyes of Porgy
alternated between the rising sun and the empty shells
of his terrapins.
“How they glitter!” he said to himself: “what a
beautiful polish they would admit of! It's surprising
they have never been used for the purposes of manly
ornament. In battle, burnished well, and fitted to
the dress in front, just over humanity's most conspicuous
dwelling-place, they would turn off many a
bullet from that sacred, but too susceptible, region.”
And, as he mused, he grappled one of the shells, the
largest of the three, and turning himself upon his back,
lay at length, while fitting the shell closely to the
designated spot. In this pleasant experiment, he was
surprised by Singleton.
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“A strange idea that, Mr. Porgy,” said the commander;
“but the shield is rather small for the part
to be protected. Your figure in that neighbourhood
might demand the shelter of a turtle shell rather than
that of a terrapin. It has gone somewhat beyond such
restraints as that.”
“A truth, Major Singleton—a truth, sir,” cried the
other, respectfully rising from the earth, and saluting
his superior with the finished grace of a gentleman;
“but I am a modest man, sir, and a stale proverb, sir,
helps me to my answer:—Half a loaf is said to be
better than no bread, and half a shelter, in the same
spirit, is certainly better than none. An illustration
meant for the interior may not inaptly serve the exterior
of one's body. The force of this shell, sir,
though inadequate to the protection of all this region,
which, as you say, has gone somewhat beyond proper
restraints, may yet protect the most assailable part.
Take care of what we can, sir, is a wholesome rule,
letting what can take care of the rest.”
“You are a philosopher, Mr. Porgy; and I am
glad to believe so, as we shall leave you but little time
after the conclusion of the repast, for which, I perceive,
you have made some extraordinary preparations.
We shall start, sir, for the Santee, with the decline of
the sun this afternoon; and will accordingly disturb
some of those pleasant contemplations which usually
follow the feast.”
The gourmand looked somewhat blank, as he replied—
“But, major, do I understand you? are we to break
up camp here, for good and all?”
“For the present, certainly, we shall. We move, bag
and baggage, this afternoon, and push for Nelson's ferry
as fast as we can. Our retreat here is now sufficiently
known to make it unsafe to delay in it much longer,
and we shall soon be wanted for vigorous service on
the frontier.”
“This is a goodly place, major; better could scarce
be chosen for secrecy, and other no less positive
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advantages. Fresh provisions are more abundant here
than in Dorchester, and I am convinced that these
ponds will yield us cat, quite as lively as the farfamed
ones of Edisto. I need not point you more
particularly to the commodity just before us.”
“These are attractions, Mr. Porgy; but as we go
next to the Santee, the difference will not be so very
great—certainly not so great as to be insisted upon.
The Santee is rich in numberless varieties of fish and
fowl, and my own eyes have feasted upon terrapin of
much greater dimensions, and much larger numbers
than the Cypress yields.”
“And of all varieties, major? the brown and yellow—
not to speak of the alligator terrapin, whose flavour,
though unpopular with the vulgar, is decidedly superior
to that of any other? You speak knowingly, major?
“I do. I know all the region, and have lived in the
swamp for weeks at a time. The islands of the
swamp there are much larger than here; and there
are vast lakes in its depths, where fish are taken at
all hours in the day with the utmost ease. You will
see Colonel Marion, himself, frequently catching his
own breakfast.”
“I like that—a commander should always be heedful
of his example. That's a brave man—a fine fellow—
I like him, major—that commander of ours; and
now that you have enlightened me, sir, on the virtues
of the Santee, and our able colonel, I must own that my
reluctance to depart is considerably lessened. At late
noon, you said?”
“At late noon.”
“I thank you, Major Singleton, for this timely
notice. With your leave, sir, I will proceed to these
preparations for dinner, which are rather precipitated
by this movement. That rascally head there, major,”
kicking away the gasping head of one of the terrapins
as he spoke, “seems to understand the subject
of our conversation—of mine at least—and opens its
jaws every instant, as if it hoped some one of us would
fill them.”
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Talking all the while, he waddled away with his
gourds of turtle, and Singleton beheld him, a moment
after, busy with Tom, the negro, in earnest preparations
for the feast.
The partisan commander had his word for all in
the swamp—a word of kind remark and pleasant encouragement.
There were none unnoticed by him in
some way or other. The trooper trimming the thick
hair from his horse's heels, and paring down his hoof,
received his countenance, and heard, and replied to,
his friendly observation, most usually upon the subject
of his particular lobour at that moment. The group
huddled up beneath the tree—some mending their
bridles, some trimming the mould edges of their bullets,
and some, more homely still in their industry,
repairing wide rents in coat or breeches—and there
were not a few busy at such labours—all, in turn,
received his consideration. To all, the same information
was conveyed—the same degree of confidence,
seemingly, with nothing withheld, was duly given;
and the friendly bearing of the captain towards his
men, was rather that of an equal than of a superior.
Yet there was no familiarity between the parties. A
certain calm, equable temper of reserve, on his side, invariably
restrained obtrusiveness. He smiled, but
never laughed with them. He stood, when he spoke
to them; and always rose for that purpose, if he had
previously been sitting. His was that due consideration
of man, as an animal, that never permitted him to
assume any position which might expose him to the
free embraces of those over whom he had command.
Yet, his gentleness of speech, his grace of deportment,
his pleasant manner, were all proverbial among
his men. He smiled now, as he spoke to them, though
his heart was, at the moment, even bleeding inly.
He knew not yet the extent of his loss, but he well
knew the extent of the loss which he had to fear. It
was owing partly to a desire to escape from these
thoughts that he lingered so long among his troop.
Singleton, at length, having himself gone the rounds,
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looked at all the things, and spoken with all the men
in his camp, now retired to a small oak under which
he usually rested. He threw himself down upon the
dry moss that formed his couch, and gave himself up
to thoughtful musing, not only about his affections,
but about his duties. While he lay thus, he did not
perceive that Lance Frampton had placed himself
quietly upon the other side of the tree. The boy at
length attracted his attention.
“What's the matter, Lance?” he inquired kindly,
as he saw that there was something like emotion in
the boy's countenance.
“Oh, sir, it's not me that any thing's the matter with;
but it's you.”
“With me! why, what do you mean, boy?”
“Why, sir, you talked and groaned so in your sleep
this morning. I woke before daylight, and I heard
you, and it so frightened me!”
“Frightened, boy! you must not be frightened at any
thing—a soldier is not to be frightened. But what did
I say?”
“Why, sir, you quarrelled with somebody; and you
cursed—”
“Cursed! You must be wrong, Lance,” said the
major, gravely; “I never curse—never.”
“I know, sir—I know you don't curse when you're
awake, but you did this morning when you were
asleep. I was sure 'twas you; because when I got up
and looked round the tree, the moon was shining right
upon your face, and so I went to the end of the branch
and broke it there—you will see it hanging, so as to
make it fall between you and the moonlight; and after
that your face was shaded. But you cursed, and
gnashed your teeth together, and looked as if you were
fighting somebody in your sleep.”
“Indeed!” and Singleton mused gravely for a few
moments after hearing this narrative: he looked to
the extremity of the branch, where the boy, by breaking
the bush, without separating it from the tree, had
screened his sleeping eyes from the injurious effects
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of the glaring moon. This instance of gentle devotion
found its way to the heart of Singleton, and his tones
were kinder than ever to his youthful protegé.
“I am sorry that I cursed, Lance; I try not to do
so: I am more sorry that you should hear me curse.
You must endeavour to forget that you heard it, in
kindness to me, and in duty to yourself. Never allow
yourself, as long as you live, to commit so great a
folly; and remember always the advice that I now
give you, when you look at this little dirk. Stay—
place it there, with the leather, close upon the left
side—let the point go out in front somewhat, while
the handle inclines under the crotch of the left arm.
Take care of it: it has saved my life once, and may
save yours: but use it only when it is necessary for
such a purpose.”
Simms, William Gilmore, 1806-1870 [1835], The partisan: a tale of the revolution, volume 2 (Harper & Brothers, New York) [word count] [eaf358v2].
