p371-018 THE WIGWAM AND THE CABIN. GRAYLING; OR, “MURDER WILL OUT. ” CHAPTER I.

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The world has become monstrous matter-of-fact in latter days.
We can no longer get a ghost story, either for love or money.
The materialists have it all their own way; and even the little
urchin, eight years old, instead of deferring with decent reverence
to the opinions of his grandmamma, now stands up stoutly for his
own. He believes in every “ology” but pneumatology. “Faust”
and the “Old Woman of Berkeley” move his derision only, and
he would laugh incredulously, if he dared, at the Witch of Endor.
The whole armoury of modern reasoning is on his side;
and, however he may admit at seasons that belief can scarcely
be counted a matter of will, he yet puts his veto on all sorts of
credulity. That cold-blooded demon called Science has taken
the place of all the other demons. He has certainly cast out innumerable
devils, however he may still spare the principal.
Whether we are the better for his intervention is another question.
There is reason to apprehend that in disturbing our human
faith in shadows, we have lost some of those wholesome moral restraints
which might have kept many of us virtuous, where the
laws could not.

The effect, however, is much the more seriously evil in all that
concerns the romantic. Our story-tellers are so resolute to deal
in the real, the actual only, that they venture on no subjects the
details of which are not equally vulgar and susceptible of proof.
With this end in view, indeed, they too commonly choose their

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subjects among convicted felons, in order that they may avail themselves
of the evidence which led to their conviction; and, to prove
more conclusively their devoted adherence to nature and the truth,
they depict the former not only in her condition of nakedness, but
long before she has found out the springs of running water. It
is to be feared that some of the coarseness of modern taste arises
from the too great lack of that veneration which belonged to,
and elevated to dignity, even the errors of preceding ages. A
love of the marvellous belongs, it appears to me, to all those who
love and cultivate either of the fine arts. I very much doubt
whether the poet, the painter, the sculptor, or the romancer, ever
yet lived, who had not some strong bias—a leaning, at least,—
to a belief in the wonders of the invisible world. Certainly, the
higher orders of poets and painters, those who create and invent,
must have a strong taint of the superstitious in their composition.
But this is digressive, and leads us from our purpose.

It is so long since we have been suffered to see or hear of a
ghost, that a visitation at this time may have the effect of novelty,
and I propose to narrate a story which I heard more than once in
my boyhood, from the lips of an aged relative, who succeeded, at
the time, in making me believe every word of it; perhaps, for the
simple reason that she convinced me she believed every word of
it herself. My grandmother was an old lady who had been a resident
of the seat of most frequent war in Carolina during the Revolution.
She had fortunately survived the numberless atrocities
which she was yet compelled to witness; and, a keen observer,
with a strong memory, she had in store a thousand legends of that
stirring period, which served to beguile me from sleep many and
many a long winter night. The story which I propose to tell was
one of these; and when I say that she not only devoutly believed
it herself, but that it was believed by sundry of her contemporaries,
who were themselves privy to such of the circumstances as
could be known to third parties, the gravity with which I repeat
the legend will not be considered very astonishing.

The revolutionary war had but a little while been concluded.
The British had left the country; but peace did not imply repose.
The community was still in that state of ferment which was natural
enough to passions, not yet at rest, which had been brought

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into exercise and action during the protracted seven years' struggle
through which the nation had just passed. The state was
overrun by idlers, adventurers, profligates, and criminals. Disbanded
soldiers, half-starved and reckless, occupied the highways,—
outlaws, emerging from their hiding-places, skulked about the
settlements with an equal sentiment of hate and fear in their
hearts;—patriots were clamouring for justice upon the tories, and
sometimes anticipating its course by judgments of their own;
while the tories, those against whom the proofs were too strong
for denial or evasion, buckled on their armour for a renewal of
the struggle. Such being the condition of the country, it may easily
be supposed that life and property lacked many of their necessary
securities. Men generally travelled with weapons which
were displayed on the smallest provocation: and few who could
provide themselves with an escort ventured to travel any distance
without one.

There was, about this time, said my grandmother, and while
such was the condition of the country, a family of the name of
Grayling, that lived somewhere upon the skirts of “Ninety-six”
district. Old Grayling, the head of the family, was dead. He
was killed in Buford's massacre. His wife was a fine woman,
not so very old, who had an only son named James, and a little
girl, only five years of age, named Lucy. James was but fourteen
when his father was killed, and that event made a man of
him. He went out with his rifle in company with Joel Sparkman,
who was his mother's brother, and joined himself to Pickens's
Brigade. Here he made as good a soldier as the best. He had
no sort of fear. He was always the first to go forward; and his
rifle was always good for his enemy's button at a long hundred
yards. He was in several fights both with the British and tories;
and just before the war was ended he had a famous brush with
the Cherokees, when Pickens took their country from them. But
though he had no fear, and never knew when to stop killing while
the fight was going on, he was the most bashful of boys that I ever
knew; and so kind-hearted that it was almost impossible to believe
all we heard of his fierce doings when he was in battle.
But they were nevertheless quite true for all his bashfulness.

Well, when the war was over, Joel Sparkman, who lived with

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his sister, Grayling, persuaded her that it would be better to move
down into the low country. I don't know what reason he had
for it, or what they proposed to do there. They had very little
property, but Sparkman was a knowing man, who could turn
his hand to a hundred things; and as he was a bachelor, and
loved his sister and her children just as if they had been his own,
it was natural that she should go with him wherever he wished.
James, too, who was restless by nature—and the taste he had enjoyed
of the wars had made him more so—he was full of it; and
so, one sunny morning in April, their wagon started for the city.
The wagon was only a small one, with two horses, scarcely
larger than those that are employed to carry chickens and fruit
to the market from the Wassamaws and thereabouts. It was
driven by a negro fellow named Clytus, and carried Mrs. Grayling
and Lucy. James and his uncle loved the saddle too well
to shut themselves up in such a vehicle; and both of them were
mounted on fine horses which they had won from the enemy.
The saddle that James rode on,—and he was very proud of it,—
was one that he had taken at the battle of Cowpens from one of
Tarleton's own dragoons, after he had tumbled the owner. The
roads at that season were excessively bad, for the rains of March
had been frequent and heavy, the track was very much cut up, and
the red clay gullies of the hills of “Ninety-six” were so washed
that it required all shoulders, twenty times a day, to get the wagon-wheels
out of the bog. This made them travel very slowly,—
perhaps, not more than fifteen miles a day. Another cause
for slow travelling was, the necessity of great caution, and a
constant look-out for enemies both up and down the road. James
and his uncle took it by turns to ride a-head, precisely as they
did when scouting in war, but one of them always kept along
with the wagon. They had gone on this way for two days, and
saw nothing to trouble and alarm them. There were few persons
on the high-road, and these seemed to the full as shy of them
as they probably were of strangers. But just as they were about
to camp, the evening of the second day, while they were splitting
light-wood, and getting out the kettles and the frying-pan, a person
rode up and joined them without much ceremony. He was
a short thick-set man, somewhere between forty and fifty: had

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on very coarse and common garments, though he rode a fine black
horse of remarkable strength and vigour. He was very civil of
speech, though he had but little to say, and that little showed him
to be a person without much education and with no refinement. He
begged permission to make one of the encampment, and his manner
was very respectful and even humble; but there was something
dark and sullen in his face—his eyes, which were of a light
gray colour, were very restless, and his nose turned up sharply,
and was very red. His forehead was excessively broad, and his
eyebrows thick and shaggy—white hairs being freely mingled
with the dark, both in them and upon his head. Mrs. Grayling
did not like this man's looks, and whispered her dislike to her
son; but James, who felt himself equal to any man, said,
promptly—

“What of that, mother! we can't turn the stranger off and say
`no;' and if he means any mischief, there's two of us, you know.”

The man had no weapons—none, at least, which were then
visible; and deported himself in so humble a manner, that the
prejudice which the party had formed against him when he first
appeared, if it was not dissipated while he remained, at least
failed to gain any increase. He was very quiet, did not mention
an unnecessary word, and seldom permitted his eyes to rest upon
those of any of the party, the females not excepted. This, perhaps,
was the only circumstance, that, in the mind of Mrs. Grayling,
tended to confirm the hostile impression which his coming
had originally occasioned. In a little while the temporary encampment
was put in a state equally social and warlike. The
wagon was wheeled a little way into the woods, and off the road;
the horses fastened behind it in such a manner that any attempt
to steal them would be difficult of success, even were the watch
neglectful which was yet to be maintained upon them. Extra
guns, concealed in the straw at the bottom of the wagon, were kept
well loaded. In the foreground, and between the wagon and the
highway, a fire was soon blazing with a wild but cheerful gleam;
and the worthy dame, Mrs. Grayling, assisted by the little girl,
Lucy, lost no time in setting on the frying-pan, and cutting into
slices the haunch of bacon, which they had provided at leaving
home. James Grayling patrolled the woods, meanwhile for a

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mile or two round the encampment, while his uncle, Joel Sparkman,
foot to foot with the stranger, seemed—if the absence of all
care constitutes the supreme of human felicity—to realize the
most perfect conception of mortal happiness. But Joel was very
far from being the careless person that he seemed. Like an old
soldier, he simply hung out false colours, and concealed his real
timidity by an extra show of confidence and courage. He did
not relish the stranger from the first, any more than his sister;
and having subjected him to a searching examination, such as
was considered, in those days of peril and suspicion, by no means
inconsistent with becoming courtesy, he came rapidly to the conclusion
that he was no better than he should be.

“You are a Scotchman, stranger,” said Joel, suddenly drawing
up his feet, and bending forward to the other with an eye
like that of a hawk stooping over a covey of partridges. It was a
wonder that he had not made the discovery before. The broad
dialect of the stranger was not to be subdued; but Joel made slow
stages and short progress in his mental journeyings. The answer
was given with evident hesitation, but it was affirmative.

“Well, now, it's mighty strange that you should ha' fou't with
us and not agin us,” responded Joel Sparkman. “There was a
precious few of the Scotch, and none that I knows on, saving
yourself, perhaps,—that didn't go dead agin us, and for the tories,
through thick and thin. That `Cross Creek settlement' was a
mighty ugly thorn in the sides of us whigs. It turned out a raal
bad stock of varmints. I hope,—I reckon, stranger,—you aint
from that part.”

“No,” said the other; “oh no! I'm from over the other
quarter. I'm from the Duncan settlement above.”

“I've hearn tell of that other settlement, but I never know'd
as any of the men fou't with us. What gineral did you fight
under? What Carolina gineral?”

“I was at Gum Swamp when General Gates was defeated;”
was the still hesitating reply of the other.

“Well, I thank God, I warn't there, though I reckon things
wouldn't ha' turned out quite so bad, if there had been a leetle
sprinkling of Sumter's, or Pickens's, or Marion's men, among them
two-legged critters that run that day. They did tell that some of

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the regiments went off without ever once emptying their rifles.
Now, stranger, I hope you warn't among them fellows.”

“I was not,” said the other with something more of promptness.

“I don't blame a chap for dodging a bullet if he can, or being
too quick for a bagnet, because, I'm thinking, a live man is always
a better man than a dead one, or he can become so; but to
run without taking a single crack at the inimy, is downright cowardice.
There's no two ways about it, stranger.”

This opinion, delivered with considerable emphasis, met with
the ready assent of the Scotchman, but Joel Sparkman was not
to be diverted, even by his own eloquence, from the object of his
inquiry.

“But you ain't said,” he continued, “who was your Carolina
gineral. Gates was from Virginny, and he stayed a mighty short
time when he come. You didn't run far at Camden, I reckon,
and you joined the army ag'in, and come in with Greene? Was
that the how?”

To this the stranger assented, though with evident disinclination.

“Then, mou'tbe, we sometimes went into the same scratch together?
I was at Cowpens and Ninety-Six, and seen sarvice at
other odds and eends, where there was more fighting than fun.
I reckon you must have been at `Ninety-Six,'—perhaps at Cowpens,
too, if you went with Morgan?”

The unwillingness of the stranger to respond to these questions
appeared to increase. He admitted, however, that he had been
at “Ninety-Six,” though, as Sparkman afterwards remembered,
in this case, as in that of the defeat of Gates at Gum Swamp, he
had not said on which side he had fought. Joel, as he discovered
the reluctance of his guest to answer his questions, and perceived
his growing doggedness, forbore to annoy him, but mentally resolved
to keep a sharper look-out than ever upon his motions.
His examination concluded with an inquiry, which, in the plain-dealing
regions of the south and south-west, is not unfrequently
put first.

“And what mout be your name, stranger?”

“Macnab,” was the ready response, “Sandy Macnab.”

“Well, Mr. Macnab, I see that my sister's got supper ready

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for us; so we mou't as well fall to upon the hoecake and bacon.”

Sparkman rose while speaking, and led the way to the spot, near
the wagon, where Mrs. Grayling had spread the feast. “We're
pretty nigh on to the main road, here, but I reckon there's no
great danger now. Besides, Jim Grayling keeps watch for us,
and he's got two as good eyes in his head as any scout in the
country, and a rifle that, after you once know how it shoots,
'twould do your heart good to hear its crack, if so be that twa'n't
your heart that he drawed sight on. He's a perdigious fine shot,
and as ready to shoot and fight as if he had a nateral calling that
way.”

“Shall we wait for him before we eat?” demanded Macnab,
anxiously.

“By no sort o' reason, stranger,” answered Sparkman.
“He'll watch for us while we're eating, and after that I'll change
shoes with him. So fall to, and don't mind what's a coming.”

Sparkman had just broken the hoecake, when a distant whistle
was heard.

“Ha! That's the lad now!” he exclaimed, rising to his feet.
“He's on trail. He's got a sight of an inimy's fire, I reckon.
'Twon't be onreasonable, friend Macnab, to get our we'pons in
readiness;” and, so speaking, Sparkman bid his sister get into the
wagon, where the little Lucy had already placed herself, while
he threw open the pan of his rifle, and turned the priming over
with his finger. Macnab, meanwhile, had taken from his holsters,
which he had before been sitting upon, a pair of horseman's
pistols, richly mounted with figures in silver. These were large
and long, and had evidently seen service. Unlike his companion,
his proceedings occasioned no comment. What he did seemed a
matter of habit, of which he himself was scarcely conscious.
Having looked at his priming, he laid the instruments beside him
without a word, and resumed the bit of hoecake which he had
just before received from Sparkman. Meanwhile, the signal
whistle, supposed to come from James Grayling, was repeated.
Silence ensued then for a brief space, which Sparkman employed
in perambulating the grounds immediately contiguous. At length,
just as he had returned to the fire, the sound of a horse's feet
was heard, and a sharp quick halloo from Grayling informed his

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uncle that all was right. The youth made his appearance a
moment after accompanied by a stranger on horseback; a tall,
fine-looking young man, with a keen flashing eye, and a voice
whose lively clear tones, as he was heard approaching, sounded
cheerily like those of a trumpet after victory. James Grayling
kept along on foot beside the new-comer; and his hearty laugh,
and free, glib, garrulous tones, betrayed to his uncle, long ere he
drew nigh enough to declare the fact, that he had met unexpectedly
with a friend, or, at least, an old acquaintance.

“Why, who have you got there, James?” was the demand of
Sparkman, as he dropped the butt of his rifle upon the ground.

“Why, who do you think, uncle? Who but Major Spencer—
our own major?”

“You don't say so!—what!—well! Li'nel Spencer, for sartin!
Lord bless you, major, who'd ha' thought to see you in
these parts; and jest mounted too, for all natur, as if the war was
to be fou't over ag'in. Well, I'm raal glad to see you. I am,
that's sartin!”

“And I'm very glad to see you, Sparkman,” said the other,
as he alighted from his steed, and yielded his hand to the cordial
grasp of the other.

“Well, I knows that, major, without you saying it. But
you've jest come in the right time. The bacon's frying, and
here's the bread;—let's down upon our haunches, in right good
airnest, camp fashion, and make the most of what God gives us
in the way of blessings. I reckon you don't mean to ride any
further to-night, major?”

“No,” said the person addressed, “not if you'll let me lay my
heels at your fire. But who's in your wagon? My old friend,
Mrs. Grayling, I suppose?”

“That's a true word, major,” said the lady herself, making her
way out of the vehicle with good-humoured agility, and coming
forward with extended hand.

“Really, Mrs. Grayling, I'm very glad to see you.” And
the stranger, with the blandness of a gentleman and the hearty
warmth of an old neighbour, expressed his satisfaction at once
more finding himself in the company of an old acquaintance.
Their greetings once over, Major Spencer readily joined the

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group about the fire, while James Grayling—though with some
reluctance—disappeared to resume his toils of the scout while the
supper proceeded.

“And who have you here?” demanded Spencer, as his eye
rested on the dark, hard features of the Scotchman. Sparkman
told him all that he himself had learned of the name and character
of the stranger, in a brief whisper, and in a moment after
formally introduced the parties in this fashion—

“Mr. Macnab, Major Spencer. Mr. Macnab says he's true
blue, major, and fou't at Camden, when General Gates run so
hard to `bring the d—d militia back.' He also fou't at Ninety-Six,
and Cowpens—so I reckon we had as good as count him one
of us.”

Major Spencer scrutinized the Scotchman keenly—a scrutiny
which the latter seemed very ill to relish. He put a few questions
to him on the subject of the war, and some of the actions in
which he allowed himself to have been concerned; but his evident
reluctance to unfold himself—a reluctance so unnatural to
the brave soldier who has gone through his toils honourably—had
the natural effect of discouraging the young officer, whose sense
of delicacy had not been materially impaired amid the rude jostlings
of military life. But, though he forbore to propose any
other questions to Macnab, his eyes continued to survey the features
of his sullen countenance with curiosity and a strangely
increasing interest. This he subsequently explained to Sparkman,
when, at the close of supper, James Grayling came in, and
the former assumed the duties of the scout.

“I have seen that Scotchman's face somewhere, Sparkman,
and I'm convinced at some interesting moment; but where, when,
or how, I cannot call to mind. The sight of it is even associated
in my mind with something painful and unpleasant; where could
I have seen him?”

“I don't somehow like his looks myself,” said Sparkman, “and
I mislists he's been rether more of a tory than a whig; but that's
nothing to the purpose now; and he's at our fire, and we've
broken hoecake together; so we cannot rake up the old ashes to
make a dust with.”

“No, surely not,” was the reply of Spencer. “Even though

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we knew him to be a tory, that cause of former quarrel should
occasion none now. But it should produce watchfulness and
caution. I'm glad to see that you have not forgot your old business
of scouting in the swamp.”

“Kin I forget it, major?” demanded Sparkman, in tones which,
though whispered, were full of emphasis, as he laid his ear to the
earth to listen.

“James has finished supper, major—that's his whistle to tell
me so; and I'll jest step back to make it cl'ar to him how we're
to keep up the watch to-night.”

“Count me in your arrangements, Sparkman, as I am one of
you for the night,” said the major.

“By no sort of means,” was the reply. “The night must be
shared between James and myself. Ef so be you wants to keep
company with one or t'other of us, why, that's another thing, and,
of course, you can do as you please.”

“We'll have no quarrel on the subject, Joel,” said the officer,
good-naturedly, as they returned to the camp together.

CHAPTER II.

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The arrangements of the party were soon made. Spencer renewed
his offer at the fire to take his part in the watch; and the
Scotchman, Macnab, volunteered his services also; but the offer
of the latter was another reason why that of the former should be
declined. Sparkman was resolute to have everything his own
way; and while James Grayling went out upon his lonely rounds,
he busied himself in cutting bushes and making a sort of tent for
the use of his late commander. Mrs. Grayling and Lucy slept
in a wagon. The Scotchman stretched himself with little effort
before the fire; while Joel Sparkman, wrapping himself up in his
cloak, crouched under the wagon body, with his back resting
partly against one of the wheels. From time to time he rose and
thrust additional brands into the fire, looked up at the night, and
round upon the little encampment, then sunk back to his perch
and stole a few moments, at intervals, of uneasy sleep. The
first two hours of the watch were over, and James Grayling was
relieved. The youth, however, felt in no mood for sleep, and
taking his seat by the fire, he drew from his pocket a little volume
of Easy Reading Lessons, and by the fitful flame of the resinous
light-wood, he prepared, in this rude manner, to make up
for the precious time which his youth had lost of its legitimate
employments, in the stirring events of the preceding seven years
consumed in war. He was surprised at this employment by his
late commander, who, himself sleepless, now emerged from the
bushes and joined Grayling at the fire. The youth had been rather
a favourite with Spencer. They had both been reared in the
same neighbourhood, and the first military achievements of James
had taken place under the eye, and had met the approbation of
his officer. The difference of their ages was just such as to permit
of the warm attachment of the lad without diminishing any
of the reverence which should be felt by the inferior. Grayling
was not more than seventeen, and Spencer was perhaps

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thirty-four—the very prime of manhood. They sat by the fire and
talked of old times and told old stories with the hearty glee and
good-nature of the young. Their mutual inquiries led to the revelation
of their several objects in pursuing the present journey.
Those of James Grayling were scarcely, indeed, to be considered
his own. They were plans and purposes of his uncle, and it
does not concern this narrative that we should know more of their
nature than has already been revealed. But, whatever they were,
they were as freely unfolded to his hearer as if the parties had
been brothers, and Spencer was quite as frank in his revelations
as his companion. He, too, was on his way to Charleston, from
whence he was to take passage for England.

“I am rather in a hurry to reach town,” he said, “as I learn
that the Falmouth packet is preparing to sail for England in a
few days, and I must go in her.'

“For England, major!” exclaimed the youth with unaffected
astonishment.

“Yes, James, for England. But why—what astonishes you?”

“Why, lord!” exclaimed the simple youth, “if they only knew
there, as I do, what a cutting and slashing you did use to make
among their red coats, I reckon they'd hang you to the first
hickory.”

“Oh, no! scarcely,” said the other, with a smile.

“But I reckon you'll change your name, major?” continued
the youth.

“No,” responded Spencer, “if I did that, I should lose the object
of my voyage. You must know, James, that an old relative
has left me a good deal of money in England, and I can only
get it by proving that I am Lionel Spencer; so you see I must
carry my own name, whatever may be the risk.”

“Well, major, you know best; but I do think if they could
only have a guess of what you did among their sodgers at Hobkirk's
and Cowpens, and Eutaw, and a dozen other places, they'd
find some means of hanging you up, peace or no peace. But I
don't see what occasion you have to be going cl'ar away to England
for money, when you've got a sight of your own already.”

“Not so much as you think for,” replied the major, giving an
involuntary and uneasy glance at the Scotchman, who was

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seemingly sound asleep on the opposite side of the fire. “There is,
you know, but little money in the country at any time, and I must
get what I want for my expenses when I reach Charleston. I
have just enough to carry me there.”

“Well, now, major, that's mighty strange. I always thought
that you was about the best off of any man in our parts; but if
you're strained so close, I'm thinking, major,—if so be you
wouldn't think me too presumptuous,—you'd better let me lend
you a guinea or so that I've got to spare, and you can pay me
back when you get the English money.”

And the youth fumbled in his bosom for a little cotton wallet,
which, with its limited contents, was displayed in another instant
to the eyes of the officer.

“No, no, James,” said the other, putting back the generous
tribute; “I have quite enough to carry me to Charleston, and
when there I can easily get a supply from the merchants. But I
thank you, my good fellow, for your offer. You are a good fellow,
James, and I will remember you.”

It is needless to pursue the conversation farther. The night
passed away without any alarms, and at dawn of the next day
the whole party was engaged in making preparation for a start.
Mrs. Grayling was soon busy in getting breakfast in readiness.
Major Spencer consented to remain with them until it was over;
but the Scotchman, after returning thanks very civilly for his accommodation
of the night, at once resumed his journey. His
course seemed, like their own, to lie below; but he neither declared
his route nor betrayed the least desire to know that of
Spencer. The latter had no disposition to renew those inquiries
from which the stranger seemed to shrink the night before, and
he accordingly suffered him to depart with a quiet farewell, and
the utterance of a good-natured wish, in which all the parties
joined, that he might have a pleasant journey. When he was
fairly out of sight, Spencer said to Sparkman,

“Had I liked that fellow's looks, nay, had I not positively disliked
them, I should have gone with him. As it is, I will remain
and share your breakfast.”

The repast being over, all parties set forward; but Spencer,
after keeping along with them for a mile, took his leave also.

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The slow wagon-pace at which the family travelled, did not suit
the high-spirited cavalier; and it was necessary, as he assured
them, that he should reach the city in two nights more. They
parted with many regrets, as truly felt as they were warmly expressed;
and James Grayling never felt the tedium of wagon
travelling to be so severe as throughout the whole of that day
when he separated from his favourite captain. But he was too
stout-hearted a lad to make any complaint; and his dissatisfaction
only showed itself in his unwonted silence, and an over-anxiety,
which his steed seemed to feel in common with himself, to
go rapidly ahead. Thus the day passed and the wayfarers at
its close had made a progress of some twenty miles from sun to
sun. The same precautions marked their encampment this night
as the last, and they rose in better spirits with the next morning,
the dawn of which was very bright and pleasant, and encouraging.
A similar journey of twenty miles brought them to the place
of bivouac as the sun went down; and they prepared as usual
for their securities and supper. They found themselves on the
edge of a very dense forest of pines and scrubby oaks, a portion
of which was swallowed up in a deep bay—so called in the dialect
of the country—a swamp-bottom, the growth of which consisted
of mingled cypresses and bay-trees, with tupola, gum, and
dense thickets of low stunted shrubbery, cane grass, and dwarf
willows, which filled up every interval between the trees, and to
the eye most effectually barred out every human intruder. This
bay was chosen as the background for the camping party. Their
wagon was wheeled into an area on a gently rising ground in
front, under a pleasant shade of oaks and hickories, with a lonely
pine rising loftily in occasional spots among them. Here the
horses were taken out, and James Grayling prepared to kindle
up a fire; but, looking for his axe, it was unaccountably missing,
and after a fruitless search of half an hour, the party came to
the conclusion that it had been left on the spot where they had
slept last night. This was a disaster, and, while they meditated
in what manner to repair it, a negro boy appeared in sight, passing
along the road at their feet, and driving before him a small
herd of cattle. From him they learned that they were only a
mile or two from a farmstead where an axe might be borrowed;

[figure description] Page 016.[end figure description]

and James, leaping on his horse, rode forward in the hope to obtain
one. He found no difficulty in his quest; and, having obtained
it from the farmer, who was also a tavern-keeper, he casually
asked if Major Spencer had not stayed with him the night before.
He was somewhat surprised when told that he had not.

“There was one man stayed with me last night,” said the farmer,
“but he didn't call himself a major, and didn't much look
like one.”

“He rode a fine sorrel horse,—tall, bright colour, with white
fore foot, didn't he?” asked James.

“No, that he didn't! He rode a powerful black, coal black,
and not a bit of white about him.”

“That was the Scotchman! But I wonder the major didn't
stop with you. He must have rode on. Isn't there another
house near you, below?”

“Not one. There's ne'er a house either above or below for a
matter of fifteen miles. I'm the only man in all that distance
that's living on this road; and I don't think your friend could
have gone below, as I should have seen him pass. I've been all
day out there in that field before your eyes, clearing up the brush.”

CHAPTER III.

[figure description] Page 017.[end figure description]

Somewhat wondering that the major should have turned aside
from the track, though without attaching to it any importance at
that particular moment, James Grayling took up the borrowed
axe and hurried back to the encampment, where the toil of cutting
an extra supply of light-wood to meet the exigencies of the
ensuing night, sufficiently exercised his mind as well as his body,
to prevent him from meditating upon the seeming strangeness of
the circumstance. But when he sat down to his supper over the
fire that he had kindled, his fancies crowded thickly upon him,
and he felt a confused doubt and suspicion that something was to
happen, he knew not what. His conjectures and apprehensions
were without form, though not altogether void; and he felt a
strange sickness and a sinking at the heart which was very unusual
with him. He had, in short, that lowness of spirits, that
cloudy apprehensiveness of soul which takes the form of presentiment,
and makes us look out for danger even when the skies are
without a cloud, and the breeze is laden, equally and only, with
balm and music. His moodiness found no sympathy among his
companions. Joel Sparkman was in the best of humours, and his
mother was so cheery and happy, that when the thoughtful boy
went off into the woods to watch, he could hear her at every moment
breaking out into little catches of a country ditty, which the
gloomy events of the late war had not yet obliterated from her
memory.

“It's very strange!” soliloquized the youth, as he wandered
along the edges of the dense bay or swamp-bottom, which we
have passingly referred to,—“it's very strange what troubles me
so! I feel almost frightened, and yet I know I'm not to be frightened
easily, and I don't see anything in the woods to frighten me.
It's strange the major didn't come along this road! Maybe he
took another higher up that leads by a different settlement. I
wish I had asked the man at the house if there's such another

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

road. I reckon there must be, however, for where could the major
have gone?”

The unphilosophical mind of James Grayling did not, in his
farther meditations, carry him much beyond this starting point;
and with its continual recurrence in soliloquy, he proceeded to
traverse the margin of the bay, until he came to its junction with,
and termination at, the high-road. The youth turned into this,
and, involuntarily departing from it a moment after, soon found
himself on the opposite side of the bay thicket. He wandered on
and on, as he himself described it, without any power to restrain
himself. He knew not how far he went; but, instead of maintaining
his watch for two hours only, he was gone more than four;
and, at length, a sense of weariness which overpowered him all
of a sudden, caused him to seat himself at the foot of a tree, and
snatch a few moments of rest. He denied that he slept in this
time. He insisted to the last moment of his life that sleep never
visited his eyelids that night,—that he was conscious of fatigue
and exhaustion, but not drowsiness,—and that this fatigue was so
numbing as to be painful, and effectually kept him from any sleep.
While he sat thus beneath the tree, with a body weak and nerveless,
but a mind excited, he knew not how or why, to the most
acute degree of expectation and attention, he heard his name
called by the well-known voice of his friend, Major Spencer.
The voice called him three times,—“James Grayling!—James!—
James Grayling!” before he could muster strength enough to
answer. It was not courage he wanted,—of that he was positive,
for he felt sure, as he said, that something had gone wrong, and
he was never more ready to fight in his life than at that moment,
could he have commanded the physical capacity; but his throat
seemed dry to suffocation,—his lips effectually sealed up as if
with wax, and when he did answer, the sounds seemed as fine
and soft as the whisper of some child just born.

“Oh! major, is it you?”

Such, he thinks, were the very words he made use of in reply;
and the answer that he received was instantaneous, though the
voice came from some little distance in the bay, and his own
voice he did not hear. He only knows what he meant to say.
The answer was to this effect.

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

“It is, James!—It is your own friend, Lionel Spencer, that
speaks to you; do not be alarmed when you see me! I have
been shockingly murdered!”

James asserts that he tried to tell him that he would not be
frightened, but his own voice was still a whisper, which he himself
could scarcely hear. A moment after he had spoken, he
heard something like a sudden breeze that rustled through the
bay bushes at his feet, and his eyes were closed without his effort,
and indeed in spite of himself. When he opened them, he saw
Major Spencer standing at the edge of the bay, about twenty
steps from him. Though he stood in the shade of a thicket, and
there was no light in the heavens save that of the stars, he was
yet enabled to distinguish perfectly, and with great ease, every
lineament of his friend's face.

He looked very pale, and his garments were covered with
blood; and James said that he strove very much to rise from the
place where he sat and approach him;—“for, in truth,” said the
lad, “so far from feeling any fear, I felt nothing but fury in my
heart; but I could not move a limb. My feet were fastened to
the ground; my hands to my sides; and I could only bend forward
and gasp. I felt as if I should have died with vexation
that I could not rise; but a power which I could not resist, made
me motionless, and almost speechless. I could only say, `Murdered!'
—and that one word I believe I must have repeated a
dozen times.

“ `Yes, murdered!—murdered by the Scotchman who slept
with us at your fire the night before last. James, I look to you
to have the murderer brought to justice! James!—do you hear
me, James?'

“These,” said James, “I think were the very words, or near
about the very words, that I heard; and I tried to ask the major
to tell me how it was, and how I could do what he required; but
I didn't hear myself speak, though it would appear that he did,
for almost immediately after I had tried to speak what I wished
to say, he answered me just as if I had said it. He told me that
the Scotchman had waylaid, killed, and hidden him in that very
bay; that his murderer had gone to Charleston; and that if I
made haste to town, I would find him in the Falmouth packet,

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

which was then lying in the harbour and ready to sail for England.
He farther said that everything depended on my making
haste,—that I must reach town by to-morrow night if I wanted to
be in season, and go right on board the vessel and charge the
criminal with the deed. `Do not be afraid,' said he, when he
had finished; `be afraid of nothing, James, for God will help and
strengthen you to the end.' When I heard all I burst into a flood
of tears, and then I felt strong. I felt that I could talk, or fight,
or do almost anything; and I jumped up to my feet, and was just
about to run down to where the major stood, but, with the first
step which I made forward, he was gone. I stopped and looked
all around me, but I could see nothing; and the bay was just as
black as midnight. But I went down to it, and tried to press in
where I thought the major had been standing; but I couldn't get
far, the brush and bay bushes were so close and thick. I was
now bold and strong enough, and I called out, loud enough to be
heard half a mile. I didn't exactly know what I called for, or
what I wanted to learn, or I have forgotten. But I heard nothing
more. Then I remembered the camp, and began to fear that
something might have happened to mother and uncle, for I now
felt, what I had not thought of before, that I had gone too far
round the bay to be of much assistance, or, indeed, to be in time for
any, had they been suddenly attacked. Besides, I could not think
how long I had been gone; but it now seemed very late. The
stars were shining their brightest, and the thin white clouds of
morning were beginning to rise and run towards the west. Well,
I bethought me of my course,—for I was a little bewildered and
doubtful where I was; but, after a little thinking, I took the back
track, and soon got a glimpse of the camp-fire, which was nearly
burnt down; and by this I reckoned I was gone considerably
longer than my two hours. When I got back into the camp, I
looked under the wagon, and found uncle in a sweet sleep, and
though my heart was full almost to bursting with what I had
heard, and the cruel sight I had seen, yet I wouldn't waken him;
and I beat about and mended the fire, and watched, and waited,
until near daylight, when mother called to me out of the
wagon, and asked who it was. This wakened my uncle, and
then I up and told all that had happened, for if it had been to

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

save my life, I couldn't have kept it in much longer. But though
mother said it was very strange, Uncle Sparkman considered that
I had been only dreaming; but he couldn't persuade me of it;
and when I told him I intended to be off at daylight, just as the
major had told me to do, and ride my best all the way to Charleston,
he laughed, and said I was a fool. But I felt that I was no
fool, and I was solemn certain that I hadn't been dreaming; and
though both mother and he tried their hardest to make me put off
going, yet I made up my mind to it, and they had to give up.
For, wouldn't I have been a pretty sort of a friend to the major,
if, after what he told me, I could have stayed behind, and gone on
only at a wagon-pace to look after the murderer! I dont think
if I had done so that I should ever have been able to look a white
man in the face again. Soon as the peep of day, I was on horse-back.
Mother was mighty sad, and begged me not to go, but
Uncle Sparkman was mighty sulky, and kept calling me fool
upon fool, until I was almost angry enough to forget that we were
of blood kin. But all his talking did not stop me, and I reckon I
was five miles on my way before he had his team in traces for a
start. I rode as briskly as I could get on without hurting my
nag. I had a smart ride of more than forty miles before me, and
the road was very heavy. But it was a good two hours from
sunset when I got into town, and the first question I asked of
the people I met was, to show me where the ships were kept.
When I got to the wharf they showed me the Falmouth packet,
where she lay in the stream, ready to sail as soon as the wind
should favour.”

CHAPTER IV.

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

James Grayling, with the same eager impatience which he has
been suffered to describe in his own language, had already hired
a boat to go on board the British packet, when he remembered
that he had neglected all those means, legal and otherwise, by
which alone his purpose might be properly effected. He did not
know much about legal process, but he had common sense enough,
the moment that he began to reflect on the subject, to know that
some such process was necessary. This conviction produced another
difficulty; he knew not in which quarter to turn for counsel
and assistance; but here the boatman who saw his bewilderment,
and knew by his dialect and dress that he was a back-countryman,
came to his relief, and from him he got directions where
to find the merchants with whom his uncle, Sparkman, had done
business in former years. To them he went, and without circumlocution,
told the whole story of his ghostly visitation. Even as
a dream, which these gentlemen at once conjectured it to be, the
story of James Grayling was equally clear and curious; and his
intense warmth and the entire absorption, which the subject had
effected, of his mind and soul, was such that they judged it not
improper, at least to carry out the search of the vessel which he
contemplated. It would certainly, they thought, be a curious coincidence—
believing James to be a veracious youth—if the Scotchman
should be found on board. But another test of his narrative
was proposed by one of the firm. It so happened that the business
agents of Major Spencer, who was well known in Charleston,
kept their office but a few rods distant from their own; and to
them all parties at once proceeded. But here the story of James
was encountered by a circumstance that made somewhat against
it. These gentlemen produced a letter from Major Spencer, intimating
the utter impossibility of his coming to town for the space
of a month, and expressing his regret that he should be unable to
avail himself of the opportunity of the foreign vessel, of whose

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

arrival in Charleston, and proposed time of departure, they had
themselves advised him. They read the letter aloud to James
and their brother merchants, and with difficulty suppressed their
smiles at the gravity with which the former related and insisted
upon the particulars of his vision.

“He has changed his mind,” returned the impetuous youth;
“he was on his way down, I tell you,—a hundred miles on his
way,—when he camped with us. I know him well, I tell you,
and talked with him myself half the night.”

“At least,” remarked the gentlemen who had gone with James,
“it can do no harm to look into the business. We can procure a
warrant for searching the vessel after this man, Macnab; and
should he be found on board the packet, it will be a sufficient circumstance
to justify the magistrates in detaining him, until we
can ascertain where Major Spencer really is.”

The measure was accordingly adopted, and it was nearly sunset
before the warrant was procured, and the proper officer in
readiness. The impatience of a spirit so eager and so devoted as
James Grayling, under these delays, may be imagined; and
when in the boat, and on his way to the packet where the criminal
was to be sought, his blood became so excited that it was with
much ado he could be kept in his seat. His quick, eager action
continually disturbed the trim of the boat, and one of his mercantile
friends, who had accompanied him, with that interest in the
affair which curiosity alone inspired, was under constant apprehension
lest he would plunge overboard in his impatient desire to
shorten the space which lay between. The same impatience enabled
the youth, though never on shipboard before, to grasp the
rope which had been flung at their approach, and to mount her
sides with catlike agility. Without waiting to declare himself or
his purpose, he ran from one side of the deck to the other, greedily
staring, to the surprise of officers, passengers, and seamen, in the
faces of all of them, and surveying them with an almost offensive
scrutiny. He turned away from the search with disappointment.
There was no face like that of the suspected man among them.
By this time, his friend, the merchant, with the sheriff's officer,
had entered the vessel, and were in conference with the captain.
Grayling drew nigh in time to hear the latter affirm that there

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

was no man of the name of Macnab, as stated in the warrant,
among his passengers or crew.

“He is—he must be!” exclaimed the impetuous youth. “The
major never lied in his life, and couldn't lie after he was dead.
Macnab is here—he is a Scotchman—”

The captain interrupted him—

“We have, young gentleman, several Scotchmen on board, and
one of them is named Macleod—”

“Let me see him—which is he?” demanded the youth.

By this time, the passengers and a goodly portion of the crew
were collected about the little party. The captain turned his
eyes upon the group, and asked,

“Where is Mr. Macleod?”

“He is gone below—he's sick!” replied one of the passengers.

“That's he! That must be the man!” exclaimed the youth.
“I'll lay my life that's no other than Macnab. He's only taken
a false name.”

It was now remembered by one of the passengers, and remarked,
that Macleod had expressed himself as unwell, but a few moments
before, and had gone below even while the boat was rapidly approaching
the vessel. At this statement, the captain led the way
into the cabin, closely followed by James Grayling and the rest.

“Mr. Macleod,” he said with a voice somewhat elevated, as
he approached the berth of that person, “you are wanted on deck
for a few moments.”

“I am really too unwell, captain,” replied a feeble voice from
behind the curtain of the berth.

“It will be necessary,” was the reply of the captain. “There
is a warrant from the authorities of the town, to look after a fugitive
from justice.”

Macleod had already begun a second speech declaring his feebleness,
when the fearless youth, Grayling, bounded before the
captain and tore away, with a single grasp of his hand, the curtain
which concealed the suspected man from their sight.

“It is he!” was the instant exclamation of the youth, as he beheld
him. “It is he—Macnab, the Scotchman—the man that
murdered Major Spencer!”

Macnab,—for it was he,—was deadly pale. He trembled like

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

an aspen. His eyes were dilated with more than mortal apprehension,
and his lips were perfectly livid. Still, he found strength
to speak, and to deny the accusation. He knew nothing of the
youth before him—nothing of Major Spencer—his name was
Macleod, and he had never called himself by any other. He denied,
but with great incoherence, everything which was urged
against him.

“You must get up, Mr. Macleod,” said the captain; “the circumstances
are very much against you. You must go with the
officer!”

“Will you give me up to my enemies?” demanded the culprit.
“You are a countryman—a Briton. I have fought for the king,
our master, against these rebels, and for this they seek my life.
Do not deliver me into their bloody hands!”

“Liar!” exclaimed James Grayling—“Didn't you tell us at
our own camp-fire that you were with us? that you were at
Gates's defeat, and Ninety-Six?”

“But I didn't tell you,” said the Scotchman, with a grin,
“which side I was on!”

“Ha! remember that!” said the sheriff's officer. “He denied,
just a moment ago, that he knew this young man at all; now, he
confesses that he did see and camp with him.”

The Scotchman was aghast at the strong point which, in his
inadvertence, he had made against himself; and his efforts to excuse
himself, stammering and contradictory, served only to involve
him more deeply in the meshes of his difficulty. Still he
continued his urgent appeals to the captain of the vessel, and his
fellow-passengers, as citizens of the same country, subjects to the
same monarch, to protect him from those who equally hated and
would destroy them all. In order to move their national prejudices
in his behalf, he boasted of the immense injury which he had
done, as a tory, to the rebel cause; and still insisted that the
murder was only a pretext of the youth before him, by which to
gain possession of his person, and wreak upon him the revenge
which his own fierce performances during the war had naturally
enough provoked. One or two of the passengers, indeed, joined
with him in entreating the captain to set the accusers adrift and
make sail at once; but the stout Englishman who was in

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

command, rejected instantly the unworthy counsel. Besides, he was
better aware of the dangers which would follow any such rash
proceeding. Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island, had been already
refitted and prepared for an enemy; and he was lying, at
that moment, under the formidable range of grinning teeth, which
would have opened upon him, at the first movement, from the jaws
of Castle Pinckney.

“No, gentlemen,” said he, “you mistake your man. God
forbid that I should give shelter to a murderer, though he were
from my own parish.”

“But I am no murderer,” said the Scotchman.

“You look cursedly like one, however,” was the reply of the
captain. “Sheriff, take your prisoner.”

The base creature threw himself at the feet of the Englishman,
and clung, with piteous entreaties, to his knees. The latter shook
him off, and turned away in disgust.

“Steward,” he cried, “bring up this man's luggage.”

He was obeyed. The luggage was brought up from the cabin
and delivered to the sheriff's officer, by whom it was examined in
the presence of all, and an inventory made of its contents. It
consisted of a small new trunk, which, it afterwards appeared, he
had bought in Charleston, soon after his arrival. This contained
a few changes of raiment, twenty-six guineas in money, a gold
watch, not in repair, and the two pistols which he had shown while
at Joel Sparkman's camp fire; but, with this difference, that the
stock of one was broken off short just above the grasp, and the
butt was entirely gone. It was not found among his chattels. A
careful examination of the articles in his trunk did not result in
anything calculated to strengthen the charge of his criminality;
but there was not a single person present who did not feel as morally
certain of his guilt as if the jury had already declared the
fact. That night he slept—if he slept at all—in the common jail
of the city.

CHAPTER V.

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

His accuser, the warm-hearted and resolute James Grayling,
did not sleep. The excitement, arising from mingling and contradictory
emotions,—sorrow for his brave young commander's
fate, and the natural exultation of a generous spirit at the consciousness
of having performed, with signal success, an arduous
and painful task combined to drive all pleasant slumbers from his
eyes; and with the dawn he was again up and stirring, with his
mind still full of the awful business in which he had been engaged.
We do not care to pursue his course in the ordinary walks
of the city, nor account for his employments during the few days
which ensued, until, in consequence of a legal examination into
the circumstances which anticipated the regular work of the sessions,
the extreme excitement of the young accuser had been renewed.
Macnab or Macleod,—and it is possible that both names
were fictitious,—as soon as he recovered from his first terrors,
sought the aid of an attorney—one of those acute, small, chopping
lawyers, to be found in almost every community, who are
willing to serve with equal zeal the sinner and the saint, provided
that they can pay with equal liberality. The prisoner was
brought before the court under habeas corpus, and several grounds
submitted by his counsel with the view to obtaining his discharge.
It became necessary to ascertain, among the first duties of the
state, whether Major Spencer, the alleged victim, was really
dead. Until it could be established that a man should be imprisoned,
tried, and punished for a crime, it was first necessary
to show that a crime had been committed, and the attorney made
himself exceedingly merry with the ghost story of young Grayling.
In those days, however, the ancient Superstition was not
so feeble as she has subsequently become. The venerable judge
was one of those good men who had a decent respect for the faith
and opinions of his ancestors; and though he certainly would not
have consented to the hanging of Macleod under the sort of

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

testimony which had been adduced, he yet saw enough, in all the circumstances,
to justify his present detention. In the meantime,
efforts were to be made, to ascertain the whereabouts of Major Spencer;
though, were he even missing,—so the counsel for Macleod
contended,—his death could be by no means assumed in consequence.
To this the judge shook his head doubtfully. “ 'Fore
God!” said he, “I would not have you to be too sure of that.”
He was an Irishman, and proceeded after the fashion of his country.
The reader will therefore bear with his bull. “A man may
properly be hung for murdering another, though the murdered
man be not dead; ay, before God, even though he be actually
unhurt and uninjured, while the murderer is swinging by the
neck for the bloody deed!”

The judge,—who it must be understood was a real existence,
and who had no small reputation in his day in the south,—proceeded
to establish the correctness of his opinions by authorities
and argument, with all of which, doubtlessly, the bar were exceedingly
delighted; but, to provide them in this place would
only be to interfere with our own progress. James Grayling,
however, was not satisfied to wait the slow processes which were
suggested for coming at the truth. Even the wisdom of the judge
was lost upon him, possibly, for the simple reason that he did not
comprehend it. But the ridicule of the culprit's lawyer stung
him to the quick, and he muttered to himself, more than once,
a determination “to lick the life out of that impudent chap's
leather.” But this was not his only resolve. There was one
which he proceeded to put into instant execution, and that was to
seek the body of his murdered friend in the spot where he fancied
it might be found—namely, the dark and dismal bay where the
spectre had made its appearance to his eyes.

The suggestion was approved—though he did not need this to
prompt his resolution—by his mother and uncle, Sparkman. The
latter determined to be his companion, and he was farther accompanied
by the sheriff's officer who had arrested the suspected felon.
Before daylight, on the morning after the examination before
the judge had taken place, and when Macleod had been remanded
to prison, James Grayling started on his journey. His fiery
zeal received additional force at every added moment of delay, and

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

his eager spurring brought him at an early hour after noon, to the
neighbourhood of the spot through which his search was to be
made. When his companions and himself drew nigh, they were
all at a loss in which direction first to proceed. The bay was
one of those massed forests, whose wall of thorns, vines, and close
tenacious shrubs, seemed to defy invasion. To the eye of the
townsman it was so forbidding that he pronounced it absolutely
impenetrable. But James was not to be baffled. He led them
round it, taking the very course which he had pursued the night
when the revelation was made him; he showed them the very
tree at whose foot he had sunk when the supernatural torpor—as
he himself esteemed it—began to fall upon him; he then pointed
out the spot, some twenty steps distant, at which the spectre made
his appearance. To this spot they then proceeded in a body, and
essayed an entrance, but were so discouraged by the difficulties
at the outset that all, James not excepted, concluded that neither
the murderer nor his victim could possibly have found entrance
there.

But, lo! a marvel! Such it seemed, at the first blush, to all the
party. While they stood confounded and indecisive, undetermined
in which way to move, a sudden flight of wings was heard, even
from the centre of the bay, at a little distance above the spot
where they had striven for entrance. They looked up, and beheld
about fifty buzzards—those notorious domestic vultures of
the south—ascending from the interior of the bay, and perching
along upon the branches of the loftier trees by which it was overhung.
Even were the character of these birds less known, the
particular business in which they had just then been engaged, was
betrayed by huge gobbets of flesh which some of them had borne
aloft in their flight, and still continued to rend with beak and bill,
as they tottered upon the branches where they stood. A piercing
scream issued from the lips of James Grayling as he beheld this
sight, and strove to scare the offensive birds from their repast.

“The poor major! the poor major!” was the involuntary and
agonized exclamation of the youth. “Did I ever think he
would come to this!”

The search, thus guided and encouraged, was pressed with renewed
diligence and spirit; and, at length, an opening was found

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

through which it was evident that a body of considerable size had
but recently gone. The branches were broken from the small
shrub trees, and the undergrowth trodden into the earth. They
followed this path, and, as is the case commonly with waste tracts
of this description, the density of the growth diminished sensibly
at every step they took, till they reached a little pond, which,
though circumscribed in area, and full of cypresses, yet proved to
be singularly deep. Indeed, it was an alligator-hole, where, in all
probability, a numerous tribe of these reptiles had their dwelling.
Here, on the edge of the pond, they discovered the object which
had drawn the keen-sighted vultures to their feast, in the body of
a horse, which James Grayling at once identified as that of Major
Spencer. The carcass of the animal was already very much torn
and lacerated. The eyes were plucked out, and the animal completely
disembowelled. Yet, on examination, it was not difficult
to discover the manner of his death. This had been effected by
fire-arms. Two bullets had passed through his skull, just above
the eyes, either of which must have been fatal. The murderer
had led the horse to the spot, and committed the cruel deed where
his body was found. The search was now continued for that of
the owner, but for some time it proved ineffectual. At length, the
keen eyes of James Grayling detected, amidst a heap of moss and
green sedge that rested beside an overthrown tree, whose branches
jutted into the pond, a whitish, but discoloured object, that did
not seem native to the place. Bestriding the fallen tree, he was
enabled to reach this object, which, with a burst of grief, he announced
to the distant party was the hand and arm of his unfortunate
friend, the wristband of the shirt being the conspicuous
object which had first caught his eye. Grasping this, he drew
the corse, which had been thrust beneath the branches of the tree,
to the surface; and, with the assistance of his uncle, it was finally
brought to the dry land. Here it underwent a careful examination.
The head was very much disfigured; the skull was
fractured in several places by repeated blows of some hard instrument,
inflicted chiefly from behind. A closer inspection revealed
a bullet-hole in the abdomen, the first wound, in all probability,
which the unfortunate gentleman received, and by which he was,
perhaps, tumbled from his horse. The blows on the head would

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

seem to have been unnecessary, unless the murderer—whose proceedings
appeared to have been singularly deliberate,—was resolved
upon making “assurance doubly sure.” But, as if the watchful
Providence had meant that nothing should be left doubtful
which might tend to the complete conviction of the criminal, the
constable stumbled upon the butt of the broken pistol which had
been found in Macleod's trunk. This he picked up on the edge
of the pond in which the corse had been discovered, and while
James Grayling and his uncle, Sparkman, were engaged in drawing
it from the water. The place where the fragment was discovered
at once denoted the pistol as the instrument by which the
final blows were inflicted. “'Fore God,” said the judge to the
criminal, as these proofs were submitted on the trial, “you may
be a very innocent man after all, as, by my faith, I do think there
have been many murderers before you; but you ought, nevertheless,
to be hung as an example to all other persons who suffer
such strong proofs of guilt to follow their innocent misdoings.
Gentlemen of the jury, if this person, Macleod or Macnab, didn't
murder Major Spencer, either you or I did; and you must now
decide which of us it is! I say, gentlemen of the jury, either
you, or I, or the prisoner at the bar, murdered this man; and if
you have any doubts which of us it was, it is but justice and mercy
that you should give the prisoner the benefit of your doubts; and
so find your verdict. But, before God, should you find him not
guilty, Mr. Attorney there can scarcely do anything wiser than
to put us all upon trial for the deed.”

The jury, it may be scarcely necessary to add, perhaps under
certain becoming fears of an alternative such as his honour had
suggested, brought in a verdict of “Guilty,” without leaving the
panel; and Macnab, alias Macleod, was hung at White Point,
Charleston, somewhere about the year 178—.

“And here,” said my grandmother, devoutly, “you behold a
proof of God's watchfulness to see that murder should not be hidden,
and that the murderer should not escape. You see that he
sent the spirit of the murdered man—since, by no other mode
could the truth have been revealed—to declare the crime, and to
discover the criminal. But for that ghost, Macnab would have
got off to Scotland, and probably have been living to this very

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

day on the money that he took from the person of the poor major.”

As the old lady finished the ghost story, which, by the way,
she had been tempted to relate for the fiftieth time in order to
combat my father's ridicule of such superstitions, the latter took
up the thread of the narrative.

“Now, my son,” said he, “as you have heard all that your
grandmother has to say on this subject, I will proceed to show
you what you have to believe, and what not. It is true that
Macnab murdered Spencer in the manner related; that James
Grayling made the dicovery and prosecuted the pursuit; found
the body and brought the felon to justice; that Macnab suffered
death, and confessed the crime; alleging that he was moved to
do so, as well because of the money that he suspected Spencer to
have in his possession, as because of the hate which he felt for a
man who had been particularly bold and active in cutting up a
party of Scotch loyalists to which he belonged, on the borders of
North Carolina. But the appearance of the spectre was nothing
more than the work of a quick imagination, added to a shrewd
and correct judgment. James Grayling saw no ghost, in fact,
but such as was in his own mind; and, though the instance was
one of a most remarkable character, one of singular combination,
and well depending circumstances, still, I think it is to be accounted
for by natural and very simple laws.”

The old lady was indignant.

“And how could he see the ghost just on the edge of the same
bay where the murder had been conmitted, and where the body
of the murdered man even then was lying?”

My father did not directly answer the demand, but proceeded
thus:—

“James Grayling, as we know, mother, was a very ardent,
impetuous, sagacious man. He had the sanguine, the race-horse
temperament. He was generous, always prompt and ready, and
one who never went backward. What he did, he did quickly,
boldly, and thoroughly! He never shrank from trouble of any
kind: nay, he rejoiced in the constant encounter with difficulty
and trial; and his was the temper which commands and enthrals
mankind. He felt deeply and intensely whatever occupied his

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

mind, and when he parted from his friend he brooded over little
else than their past communion and the great distance by which
they were to be separated. The dull travelling wagon-gait at
which he himself was compelled to go, was a source of annoyance
to him; and he became sullen, all the day, after the departure
of his friend. When, on the evening of the next day, he
came to the house where it was natural to expect that Major
Spencer would have slept the night before, and he learned the fact
that no one stopped there but the Scotchman, Macnab, we see
that he was struck with the circumstance. He mutters it over
to himself, “Strange, where the major could have gone!” His
mind then naturally reverts to the character of the Scotchman;
to the opinions and suspicions which had been already expressed
of him by his uncle, and felt by himself. They had all, previously,
come to the full conviction that Macnab was, and had always
been, a tory, in spite of his protestations. His mind next, and
very naturally, reverted to the insecurity of the highways; the
general dangers of travelling at that period; the frequency of
crime, and the number of desperate men who were everywhere
to be met with. The very employment in which he was then
engaged, in scouting the woods for the protection of the camp,
was calculated to bring such reflections to his mind. If these
precautions were considered necessary for the safety of persons
so poor, so wanting in those possessions which might prompt cupidity
to crime, how much more necessary were precautions in
the case of a wealthy gentleman like Major Spencer! He then
remembered the conversation with the major at the camp-fire,
when they fancied that the Scotchman was sleeping. How natural
to think then, that he was all the while awake; and, if
awake, he must have heard him speak of the wealth of his companion.
True, the major, with more prudence than himself, denied
that he had any money about him, more than would bear his
expenses to the city; but such an assurance was natural enough
to the lips of a traveller who knew the dangers of the country.
That the man, Macnab, was not a person to be trusted, was the
equal impression of Joel Sparkman and his nephew from the first.
The probabilities were strong that he would rob and perhaps
murder, if he might hope to do so with impunity; and as the

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

youth made the circuit of the bay in the darkness and solemn
stillness of the night, its gloomy depths and mournful shadows,
naturally gave rise to such reflections as would be equally active
in the mind of a youth, and of one somewhat familiar with
the arts and usages of strife. He would see that the spot
was just the one in which a practised partisan would delight to
set an ambush for an unwary foe. There ran the public road,
with a little sweep, around two-thirds of the extent of its dense
and impenetrable thickets. The ambush could lie concealed,
and at ten steps command the bosom of its victim. Here, then,
you perceive that the mind of James Grayling, stimulated by an
active and sagacious judgment, had by gradual and reasonable
stages come to these conclusions: that Major Spencer was an object
to tempt a robber; that the country was full of robbers;
that Macnab was one of them; that this was the very spot in
which a deed of blood could be most easily committed, and
most easily concealed; and, one important fact, that gave strength
and coherence to the whole, that Major Spencer had not reached
a well-known point of destination, while Macnab had.

“With these thoughts, thus closely linked together, the youth
forgets the limits of his watch and his circuit. This fact, alone,
proves how active his imagination had become. It leads him forward,
brooding more and more on the subject, until, in the very
exhaustion of his body, he sinks down beneath a tree. He sinks
down and falls asleep; and in his sleep, what before was plausible
conjecture, becomes fact, and the creative properties of his
imagination give form and vitality to all his fancies. These forms
are bold, broad, and deeply coloured, in due proportion with the
degree of force which they receive from probability. Here, he
sees the image of his friend; but, you will remark—and this
should almost conclusively satisfy any mind that all that he sees
is the work of his imagination,—that, though Spencer tells him
that he is murdered, and by Macnab, he does not tell him how,
in what manner, or with what weapons. Though he sees him
pale and ghostlike, he does not see, nor can he say, where his
wounds are! He sees his pale features distinctly, and his garments
are bloody. Now, had he seen the spectre in the true appearances
of death, as he was subsequently found, he would not

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

have been able to discern his features, which were battered, according
to his own account, almost out of all shape of humanity,
and covered with mud; while his clothes would have streamed
with mud and water, rather than with blood.”

“Ah!” exclaimed the old lady, my grandmother, “it's hard
to make you believe anything that you don't see; you are like
Saint Thomas in the Scriptures; but how do you propose to account
for his knowing that the Scotchman was on board the Falmouth
packet? Answer to that!”

“That is not a more difficult matter than any of the rest.
You forget that in the dialogue which took place between James
and Major Spencer at the camp, the latter told him that he was
about to take passage for Europe in the Falmouth packet, which
then lay in Charleston harbour, and was about to sail. Macnab
heard all that...'

“True enough, and likely enough,” returned the old lady;
“but, though you show that it was Major Spencer's intention to
go to Europe in the Falmouth packet, that will not show that it
was also the intention of the murderer.”

“Yet what more probable, and how natural for James Grayling
to imagine such a thing! In the first place he knew that
Macnab was a Briton; he felt convinced that he was a tory; and
the inference was immediate, that such a person would scarcely
have remained long in a country where such characters laboured
under so much odium, disfranchisement, and constant danger
from popular tumults. The fact that Macnab was compelled to
disguise his true sentiments, and affect those of the people against
whom he fought so vindictively, shows what was his sense of the
danger which he incurred. Now, it is not unlikely that Macnab
was quite as well aware that the Falmouth packet was in Charleston,
and about to sail, as Major Spencer. No doubt he was pursuing
the same journey, with the same object, and had he not
murdered Spencer, they would, very likely, have been fellow-passengers
together to Europe. But, whether he knew the fact
before or not, he probably heard it stated by Spencer while he
seemed to be sleeping; and, even supposing that he did not then
know, it was enough that he found this to be the fact on reaching
the city. It was an after-thought to fly to Europe with his

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

illgotten spoils; and whatever may have appeared a politic course
to the criminal, would be a probable conjecture in the mind of
him by whom he was suspected. The whole story is one of strong
probabilities which happened to be verified; and, if proving anything,
proves only that which we know—that James Grayling was
a man of remarkably sagacious judgment, and quick, daring imagination.
This quality of imagination, by the way, when possessed
very strongly in connexion with shrewd common sense
and well-balanced general faculties, makes that particular kind
of intellect which, because of its promptness and powers of creation
and combination, we call genius. It is genius only which
can make ghosts, and James Grayling was a genius. He never,
my son, saw any other ghosts than those of his own making!”

I heard my father with great patience to the end, though he
seemed very tedious. He had taken a great deal of pains to destroy
one of my greatest sources of pleasure. I need not add
that I continued to believe in the ghost, and, with my grandmother,
to reject the philosophy. It was more easy to believe the one
than to comprehend the other.

p371-054 THE TWO CAMPS. A LEGEND OF THE OLD NORTH STATE. CHAPTER I.

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

It is frequently the case, in the experience of the professional
novelist or tale-writer, that his neighbour comes in to his assistance
when he least seeks, and, perhaps, least desires any succour.
The worthy person, man or woman, however,—probably some excellent
octogenarian whose claims to be heard are based chiefly upon
the fact that he himself no longer possesses the faculty of hearing,—
has some famous incident, some wonderful fact, of which he
has been the eye-witness, or of which he has heard from his great-grandmother,
which he fancies is the very thing to be woven into
song or story. Such is the strong possession which the matter
takes of his brain, that, if the novelist whom he seeks to benefit
does not live within trumpet-distance, he gives him the narrative by
means of post, some three sheets of stiff foolscap, for which the
hapless tale-writer, whose works are selling in cheap editions at
twelve or twenty cents, pays a sum of one dollar sixty-two postage.
Now, it so happens, to increase the evil, that, in ninety-nine cases
in the hundred, the fact thus laboriously stated is not worth a
straw—consisting of some simple deed of violence, some mere
murder, a downright blow with gun-butt or cudgel over the skull,
or a hidden thrust, three inches deep, with dirk or bowie knife,
into the abdomen, or at random among the lower ribs. The man

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

dies and the murderer gets off to Texas, or is prematurely caught
and stops by the way—and still stops by the way! The thing is
fact, no doubt. The narrator saw it himself, or his brother saw
it, or—more solemn, if not more certain testimony still—his grandmother
saw it, long before he had eyes to see at all. The circumstance
is attested by a cloud of witnesses—a truth solemnly
sworn to—and yet, for the purposes of the tale-writer, of no manner
of value. This assertion may somewhat conflict with the
received opinions of many, who, accustomed to find deeds of violence
recorded in almost every work of fiction, from the time of
Homer to the present day, have rushed to the conclusion that this
is all, and overlook that labour of the artist, by which an ordinary
event is made to assume the character of novelty; in other
words, to become an extraordinary event. The least difficult
thing in the world, on the part of the writer of fiction, is to find
the assassin and the bludgeon; the art is to make them appear in
the right place, strike at the right time, and so adapt one fact to
another, as to create mystery, awaken curiosity, inspire doubt as
to the result, and bring about the catastrophe, by processes which
shall be equally natural and unexpected. All that class of sagacious
persons, therefore, who fancy they have found a mare's
nest, when, in fact, they are only gazing at a goose's, are respectfully
counselled that no fact—no tradition—is of any importance to
the artist, unless it embodies certain peculiar characteristics of its
own, or unless it illustrates some history about which curiosity
has already been awakened. A mere brutality, in which John
beats and bruises Ben, and Ben in turn shoots John, putting eleven
slugs, or thereabouts, between his collar-bone and vertebræ—
or, maybe, stabs him under his left pap, or any where you please,
is just as easily conceived by the novelist, without the help of
history. Nay, for that matter, he would perhaps rather not have
any precise facts in his way, in such cases, as then he will be
able to regard the picturesque in the choice of his weapon, and to
put the wounds in such parts of the body, as will better bear the
examination of all persons. I deem it right to throw out this hint,
just at this moment, as well for the benefit of my order as for
my own protection. The times are hard, and the post-office requires
all its dues in hard money. Literary men are not

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

proverbially prepared at all seasons for any unnecessary outlay—
and to be required to make advances for commodities of which
they have on hand, at all times, the greatest abundance, is an injustice
which, it is to be hoped, that this little intimation will
somewhat lessen. We take for granted, therefore, that our professional
brethren will concur with us in saying to the public,
that we are all sufficiently provided with “disastrous chances”
for some time to come—that our “moving accidents by flood and
field” are particularly numerous, and of “hair-breadth 'scapes”
we have enough to last a century. Murders, and such matters,
as they are among the most ordinary events of the day, are decidedly
vulgar; and, for mere cudgelling and bruises, the taste
of the belles-lettres reader, rendered delicate by the monthly
magazines, has voted them equally gross and unnatural.

But, if the character of the materials usually tendered to the
novelist by the incident-mongers, is thus ordinarily worthless as
we describe it, we sometimes are fortunate in finding an individual,
here and there, in the deep forests,—a sort of recluse, hale
and lusty, but white-headed,—who unfolds from his own budget
of experience a rare chronicle, on which we delight to linger.
Such an one breathes life into his deeds. We see them as we
listen to his words. In lieu of the dead body of the fact, we have
its living spirit—subtle, active, breathing and burning, and fresh
in all the provocations and associations of life. Of this sort
was the admirable characteristic narrative of Horse-Shoe Robinson,
which we owe to Kennedy, and for which he was indebted
to the venerable hero of the story. When we say that the subject
of the sketch which follows was drawn from not dissimilar
sources, we must beg our readers not to understand us as inviting
any reference to that able and national story—with which it
is by no means our policy or wish to invite or provoke comparison.

CHAPTER II.

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

There are probably some old persons still living upon the upper
dividing line between North and South Carolina, who still remember
the form and features of the venerable Daniel Nelson.
The old man was still living so late as 1817. At that period he
removed to Mississippi, where, we believe, he died in less than
three months after his change of residence. An old tree does not
bear transplanting easily, and does not long survive it. Daniel
Nelson came from Virginia when a youth. He was one of the
first who settled on the southern borders of North Carolina, or,
at least in that neighbourhood where he afterwards passed the
greatest portion of his days.

At that time the country was not only a forest, but one thickly
settled with Indians. It constituted the favourite hunting-grounds
for several of their tribes. But this circumstance did not discourage
young Nelson. He was then a stalwart youth, broad-chested,
tall, with a fiery eye, and an almost equally fiery soul—certainly
with a very fearless one. His companions, who were few in
number, were like himself. The spirit of old Daniel Boone was
a more common one than is supposed. Adventure gladdened and
excited their hearts,—danger only seemed to provoke their determination,—
and mere hardship was something which their frames
appeared to covet. It was as refreshing to them as drink. Having
seen the country, and struck down some of its game,—tasted
of its bear-meat and buffalo, its deer and turkey,—all, at that
time, in the greatest abundance,—they returned for the one thing
most needful to a brave forester in a new country,—a good, brisk,
fearless wife, who, like the damsel in Scripture, would go whithersoever
went the husband to whom her affections were surrendered.
They had no fear, these bold young hunters, to make a home and
rear an infant family in regions so remote from the secure walks
of civilization. They had met and made an acquaintance and a
sort of friendship with the Indians, and, in the superior vigour of

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

their own frames, their greater courage, and better weapons, they
perhaps had come to form a too contemptuous estimate of the savage.
But they were not beguiled by him into too much confidence.
Their log houses were so constructed as to be fortresses
upon occasion, and they lived not so far removed from one another,
but that the leaguer of one would be sure, in twenty-four
hours, to bring the others to his assistance. Besides, with a stock
of bear-meat and venison always on hand, sufficient for a winter,
either of these fortresses might, upon common calculations, be
maintained for several weeks against any single band of the Indians,
in the small numbers in which they were wont to range together
in those neighbourhoods. In this way these bold pioneers
took possession of the soil, and paved the way for still mightier
generations. Though wandering, and somewhat averse to the tedious
labours of the farm, they were still not wholly unmindful
of its duties; and their open lands grew larger every season, and
increasing comforts annually spoke for the increasing civilization
of the settlers. Corn was in plenty in proportion to the bearmeat,
and the squatters almost grew indifferent to those first apprehensions,
which had made them watch the approaches of the
most friendly Indian as if he had been an enemy. At the end of
five years, in which they had suffered no hurt and but little annoyance
of any sort from their wild neighbours, it would seem as
if this confidence in the security of their situation was not without
sufficient justification.

But, just then, circumstances seemed to threaten an interruption
of this goodly state of things. The Indians were becoming
discontented. Other tribes, more frequently in contact with the
larger settlements of the whites,—wronged by them in trade, or
demoralized by drink,—complained of their sufferings and injuries,
or, as is more probable, were greedy to obtain their treasures,
in bulk, which they were permitted to see, but denied to enjoy, or
only in limited quantity. Their appetites and complaints were
transmitted, by inevitable sympathies, to their brethren of the interior,
and our worthy settlers upon the Haw, were rendered anxious
at signs which warned them of a change in the peaceful relations
which had hitherto existed in all the intercourse between
the differing races. We need not dwell upon or describe these

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

signs, with which, from frequent narratives of like character, our
people are already sufficiently familiar. They were easily understood
by our little colony, and by none more quickly than
Daniel Nelson. They rendered him anxious, it is true, but not
apprehensive; and, like a good husband, while he strove not to
frighten his wife by what he said, he deemed it necessary to prepare
her mind for the worst that might occur. This task over,
he felt somewhat relieved, though, when he took his little girl,
now five years old, upon his knee that evening, and looked upon
his infant boy in the lap of his mother, he felt his anxieties very
much increase; and that very night he resumed a practice which
he had latterly abandoned, but which had been adopted as a
measure of strict precaution, from the very first establishment of
their little settlement. As soon as supper was over, he resumed
his rifle, thrust his couteau de chasse into his belt, and, taking his
horn about his neck, and calling up his trusty dog, Clinch, he
proceeded to scour the woods immediately around his habitation.
This task, performed with the stealthy caution of the hunter, occupied
some time, and, as the night was clear, a bright starlight,
the weather moderate, and his own mood restless, he determined
to strike through the forest to the settlement of Jacob Ransom,
about four miles off, in order to prompt him, and, through him,
others of the neighbourhood, to the continued exercise of a caution
which he now thought necessary. The rest of this night's adventure
we propose to let him tell in his own words, as he has been
heard to relate it a thousand times in his old age, at a period of
life when, with one foot in his grave, to suppose him guilty of
falsehood, or of telling that which he did not himself fervently believe,
would be, among all those who knew him, to suppose the
most impossible and extravagant thing in the world.

CHAPTER III.

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

“Well, my friends,” said the veteran, then seventy, drawing
his figure up to its fullest height, and extending his right arm,
while his left still grasped the muzzle of his ancient rifle, which
he swayed from side to side, the butt resting on the floor—“Well,
my friends, seeing that the night was cl'ar, and there was no
wind, and feeling as how I didn't want for sleep, I called to Clinch
and took the path for Jake Ransom's. I knew that Jake was a
sleepy sort of chap, and if the redskins caught any body napping,
he'd, most likely, be the man. But I confess, 'twarn't so much
for his sake, as for the sake of all,—of my own as well as the
rest;—for, when I thought how soon, if we warn't all together in
the business, I might see, without being able to put in, the long
yellow hair of Betsy and the babies twirling on the thumbs of
some painted devil of the tribe,—I can't tell you how I felt, but
it warn't like a human, though I shivered mightily like one,—
'twas wolfish, as if the hair was turned in and rubbing agin the
very heart within me. I said my prayers, where I stood, looking
up at the stars, and thinking that, after all, all was in the hands
and the marcy of God. This sort o' thinking quieted me, and I
went ahead pretty free, for I knew the track jest as well by night
as by day, though I didn't go so quick, for I was all the time on
the look-out for the enemy. Now, after we reached a place in
the woods where there was a gully and a mighty bad crossing,
there were two roads to get to Jake's—one by the hollows, and
one jest across the hills. I don't know why, but I didn't give
myself time to think, and struck right across the hill, though that
was rather the longest way.

“Howsomedever, on I went, and Clinch pretty close behind me.
The dog was a good dog, with a mighty keen nose to hunt, but
jest then he didn't seem to have the notion for it. The hill was
a sizeable one, a good stretch to foot, and I began to remember,
after awhile, that I had been in the woods from blessed dawn;

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

and that made me see how it was with poor Clinch, and why he
didn't go for'ad; but I was more than half way, and wasn't
guine to turn back till I had said my say to Jake. Well, when I
got to the top of the hill, I stopped, and rubbed my eyes. I had
cause to rub 'em, for what should I see at a distance but a great
fire. At first I was afeard lest it was Jake's house, but I considered,
the next moment, that he lived to the left, and this fire was
cl'ar to the right, and it did seem to me as if 'twas more near to
my own. Here was something to scare a body. But I couldn't
stay there looking, and it warn't now a time to go to Jake's; so
I turned off, and, though Clinch was mighty onwilling, I bolted on
the road to the fire. I say road, but there was no road; but the
trees warn't over-thick, and the land was too poor for undergrowth;
so we got on pretty well, considering. But, what with the tire I
had had, and the scare I felt, it seemed as if I didn't get for'ad a
bit. There was the fire still burning as bright and almost as far
off as ever. When I saw this I stopt and looked at Clinch, and
he stopped and looked at me, but neither of us had any thing
to say. Well, after a moment's thinking, it seemed as if I
shouldn't be much of a man to give up when I had got so far, so
I pushed on. We crossed more than one little hill, then down
and through the hollow, and then up the hill again. At last we
got upon a small mountain the Indians called Nolleehatchie, and
then it seemed as if the fire had come to a stop, for it was now
burning bright, on a little hill below me, and not two hundred
yards in front. It was a regular camp fire, pretty big, and there
was more than a dozen Indians sitting round it. `Well,' says I
to myself, `it's come upon us mighty sudden, and what's to be
done? Not a soul in the settlement knows it but myself, and
nobody's on the watch. They'll be sculped, every human of
them, in their very beds, or, moutbe, waken up in the blaze, to be
shot with arrows as they run.' I was in a cold sweat to think of
it. I didn't know what to think and what to do. I looked round
to Clinch, and the strangest thing of all was to see him sitting
quiet on his haunches, looking at me, and at the stars, and not at
the fire jest before him. Now, Clinch was a famous fine hunting
dog, and jest as good on an Indian trail as any other. He know'd
my ways, and what I wanted, and would give tongue, or keep it

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

still, jest as I axed him. It was sensible enough, jest then, that
he shouldn't bark, but, dang it!—he didn't even seem to see.
Now, there warn't a dog in all the settlement so quick and keen
to show sense as Clinch, even when he didn't say a word;—and
to see him looking as if he didn't know and didn't care what was
a-going on, with his eyes sot in his head and glazed over with
sleep, was, as I may say, very onnatural, jest at that time, in a
dog of any onderstanding. So I looked at him, half angry, and
when he saw me looking at him, he jest stretched himself off, put
his nose on his legs, and went to sleep in 'arnest. I had half a
mind to lay my knife-handle over his head, but I considered better
of it, and though it did seem the strangest thing in the world
that he shouldn't even try to get to the fire, for warm sake, yet I
recollected that dog natur', like human natur', can't stand every
thing, and he hadn't such good reason as I had, to know that the
Indians were no longer friendly to us. Well, there I stood, a
pretty considerable chance, looking, and wondering, and onbeknowing
what to do. I was mighty beflustered. But at last I felt
ashamed to be so oncertain, and then again it was a needcessity
that we should know the worst one time or another, so I determined
to push for'ad. I was no slouch of a hunter, as you may suppose;
so, as I was nearing the camp, I begun sneaking; and,
taking it sometimes on hands and knees, and sometimes flat to the
ground, where there was neither tree nor bush to cover me, I
went ahead, Clinch keeping close behind me, and not showing any
notion of what I was after. It was a slow business, because it
was a ticklish business; but I was a leetle too anxious to be altogether
so careful as a good sneak ought to be, and I went on
rather faster than I would advise any young man to go in a time
of war, when the inimy is in the neighbourhood. Well, as I went,
there was the fire, getting larger and larger every minute, and
there were the Indians round it, getting plainer and plainer.
There was so much smoke that there was no making out, at any
distance, any but their figures, and these, every now and then,
would be so wrapt in the smoke that not more than half of them
could be seen at the same moment. At last I stopped, jest at a
place where I thought I could make out all that I wanted. There
was a sizeable rock before me, and I leaned my elbows on it to look.

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

I reckon I warn't more than thirty yards from the fire. There
were some bushes betwixt us, and what with the bushes and the
smoke, it was several minutes before I could separate man from
man, and see what they were all adoing, and when I did, it was
only for a moment at a time, when a puff of smoke would wrap
them all, and make it as difficult as ever. But when I did contrive
to see clearly, the sight was one to worry me to the core,
for, in the midst of the redskins, I could see a white one, and that
white one a woman. There was no mistake. There were the
Indians, some with their backs, and some with their faces to me;
and there, a little a-one side, but still among them, was a woman.
When the smoke bloke off, I could see her white face, bright
like any star, shining out of the clouds, and looking so pale and
ghastly that my blood cruddled in my veins to think lest she might
be dead from fright. But it couldn't be so, for she was sitting up
and looking about her. But the Indians were motionless. They
jest sat or lay as when I first saw them—doing nothing—saying
nothing, but jest as motionless as the stone under my elbow. I
couldn't stand looking where I was, so I began creeping again,
getting nigher and nigher, until it seemed to me as if I ought to
be able to read every face. But what with the paint and smoke,
I couldn't make out a single Indian. Their figures seemed plain
enough in their buffalo-skins and blankets, but their faces seemed
always in the dark. But it wasn't so with the woman. I could
make her out clearly. She was very young; I reckon not more
than fifteen, and it seemed to me as if I knew her looks very well.
She was very handsome, and her hair was loosed upon her back.
My heart felt strange to see her. I was weak as any child. It
seemed as if I could die for the gal, and yet I hadn't strength enough
to raise my rifle to my shoulder. The weakness kept on me the
more I looked; for every moment seemed to make the poor child
more and more dear to me. But the strangest thing of all was
to see how motionless was every Indian in the camp. Not a word
was spoken—not a limb or finger stirred. There they sat, or lay,
round about the fire, like so many effigies, looking at the gal, and
she looking at them. I never was in such a fix of fear and weakness
in my life. What was I to do? I had got so nigh that I
could have stuck my knife, with a jerk, into the heart of any one

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

of the party, yet I hadn't the soul to lift it; and before I knew
where I was, I cried like a child. But my crying didn't make
'em look about 'em. It only brought my poor dog Clinch leaping
upon me, and whining, as if he wanted to give me consolation.
Hardly knowing what I did, I tried to set him upon the camp,
but the poor fellow didn't seem to understand me; and in my
desperation, for it was a sort of madness growing out of my scare,
I jumped headlong for'ad, jest where I saw the party sitting, willing
to lose my life rather than suffer from such a strange sort of
misery.

CHAPTER IV.

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

“Will you believe me! there were no Indians, no young woman,
no fire! I stood up in the very place where I had seen the
blaze and the smoke, and there was nothing! I looked for'ad
and about me—there was no sign of fire any where. Where I
stood was covered with dry leaves, the same as the rest of the
forest. I was stupefied. I was like a man roused out of sleep
by a strange dream, and seeing nothing. All was dark and silent.
The stars were overhead, but that was all the light I had. I was
more scared than ever, and, as it's a good rule when a man feels
that he can do nothing himself, to look to the great God who can
do every thing, I kneeled down and said my prayers—the second
time that night that I had done the same thing, and the second
time, I reckon, that I had ever done so in the woods. After that
I felt stronger. I felt sure that this sign hadn't been shown to me
for nothing; and while I was turning about, looking and thinking
to turn on the back track for home, Clinch began to prick up his
ears and waken up. I clapped him on his back, and got my
knife ready. It might be a painter that stirred him, for he could
scent that beast a great distance. But, as he showed no fright,
only a sort of quickening, I knew there was nothing to fear. In
a moment he started off, and went boldly ahead. I followed him,
but hadn't gone twenty steps down the hill and into the hollow,
when I heard something like a groan. This quickened me, and
keeping up with the dog, he led me to the foot of the hollow,
where was a sort of pond. Clinch ran right for it, and another
groan set me in the same direction. When I got up to the dog,
he was on the butt-end of an old tree that had fallen, I reckon,
before my time, and was half buried in the water. I jumped on
it, and walked a few steps for'ad, when, what should I see but a
human, half across the log, with his legs hanging in the water,
and his head down. I called Clinch back out of my way, and
went to the spot. The groans were pretty constant. I stooped

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

down and laid my hands upon the person, and, as I felt the hair, I
knew it was an Indian. The head was clammy with blood, so
that my fingers stuck, and when I attempted to turn it, to look at
the face, the groan was deeper than ever; but 'twarn't a time
to suck one's fingers. I took him up, clapped my shoulders to it,
and, fixing my feet firmly on the old tree, which was rather slippery,
I brought the poor fellow out without much trouble. Though
tall, he was not heavy, and was only a boy of fourteen or fifteen.
The wonder was how a lad like that should get into such a fix.
Well, I brought him out and laid him on the dry leaves. His
groans stopped, and I thought he was dead, but I felt his heart,
and it was still warm, and I thought, though I couldn't be sure,
there was a beat under my fingers. What to do was the next
question. It was now pretty late in the night. I had been all
day a-foot, and, though still willing to go, yet the thought of such
a weight on my shoulders made me stagger. But 'twouldn't do
to leave him where he was to perish. I thought, if so be I had a
son in such a fix, what would I think of the stranger who should
go home and wait till daylight to give him help! No, darn my
splinters, said I,—though I had just done my prayers,—if I leave
the lad—and, tightening my girth, I give my whole soul to it, and
hoisted him on my shoulders. My cabin, I reckoned, was good
three miles off. You can guess what trouble I had, and what a
tire under my load, before I got home and laid the poor fellow
down by the fire. I then called up Betsy, and we both set to
work to see if we could stir up the life that was in him. She cut
away his hair, and I washed the blood from his head, which was
chopped to the bone, either with a knife or hatchet. It was a God's
blessing it hadn't gone into his brain, for it was fairly enough
aimed for it, jest above the ear. When we come to open his
clothes, we found another wound in his side. This was done
with a knife, and, I suppose, was pretty deep. He had lost blood
enough, for all his clothes were stiff with it. We knew nothing
much of doctoring, but we had some rum in the cabin, and after
washing his wounds clean with it, and pouring some down his
throat, he began to groan more freely, and by that we knew he
was coming to a nateral feeling. We rubbed his body down with
warm cloths, and after a little while, seeing that he made some

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

signs, I give him water as much as he could drink. This seemed
to do him good, and having done every thing that we thought could
help him, we wrapped him up warmly before the fire, and I
stretched myself off beside him. 'Twould be a long story to tell,
step by step, how he got on. It's enough to say that he didn't
die that bout. We got him on his legs in a short time, doing little
or nothing for him more than we did at first. The lad was a
good lad, though, at first, when he first came to his senses, he was
mighty shy, wouldn't look steadily in our faces, and, I do believe,
if he could have got out of the cabin, would have done so as soon
as he could stagger. But he was too weak to try that, and, meanwhile,
when he saw our kindness, he was softened. By little and
little, he got to play with my little Lucy, who was not quite six
years old; and, after a while, he seemed to be never better pleased
than when they played together. The child, too, after her
first fright, leaned to the lad, and was jest as willing to play with
him as if he had been a cl`ar white like herself. He could say
a few words of English from the beginning, and learnt quickly;
but, though he talked tolerable free for an Indian, yet I could
never get him to tell me how he was wounded, or by whom. His
brow blackened when I spoke of it, and his lips would be shut together,
as if he was ready to fight sooner than to speak. Well,
I didn't push him to know, for I was pretty sure the head of the
truth will be sure to come some time or other, if you once have
it by the tail, provided you don't jerk it off by straining too hard
upon it.

CHAPTER V.

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

“I suppose the lad had been with us a matter of six weeks, getting
better every day, but so slowly that he had not, at the end of
that time, been able to leave the picket. Meanwhile, our troubles
with the Indians were increasing. As yet, there had been no
bloodshed in our quarter, but we heard of murders and sculpings
on every side, and we took for granted that we must have our
turn. We made our preparations, repaired the pickets, laid in
ammunition, and took turns for scouting nightly. At length, the
signs of Indians got to be thick in our parts, though we could see
none. Jake Ransom had come upon one of their camps after
they had left it; and we had reason to apprehend every thing, inasmuch
as the outlyers didn't show themselves, as they used to
do, but prowled about the cabins and went from place to place,
only by night, or by close skulking in the thickets. One evening
after this, I went out as usual to go the rounds, taking Clinch
with me, but I hadn't got far from the gate, when the dog stopped
and gave a low bark;—then I knew there was mischief, so I
turned round quietly, without making any show of scare, and got
back safely, though not a minute too soon. They trailed me to
the gate the moment after I had got it fastened, and were pretty
mad, I reckon, when they found their plan had failed for surprising
me. But for the keen nose of poor Clinch, with all my skill
in scouting,—and it was not small even in that early day,—
they'd 'a had me, and all that was mine, before the sun could
open his eyes to see what they were after. Finding they had
failed in their ambush, they made the woods ring with the warwhoop,
which was a sign that they were guine to give us a
regular siege. At the sound of the whoop, we could see the eyes
of the Indian boy brighten, and his ears prick up, jest like a
hound's when he first gets scent of the deer, or hears the horn of
the hunter. I looked closely at the lad, and was dub'ous what to
do. He moutbe only an enemy in the camp, and while I was

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

fighting in front, he might be cutting the throats of my wife and
children within. I did not tell you that I had picked up his bow
and arrows near the little lake where I had found him, and his
hunting-knife was sticking in his belt when I brought him home.
Whether to take these away from him, was the question. Suppose
I did, a billet of wood would answer pretty near as well.
I thought the matter over while I watched him. Thought runs
mighty quick in time of danger! Well, after turning it over on
every side, I concluded 'twas better to trust him jest as if he had
been a sure friend. I couldn't think, after all we had done for
him, that he'd be false, so I said to him—`Lenatewá!'—'twas so
he called himself—`those are your people!' `Yes!' he answered
slowly, and lifting himself up as if he had been a lord—he
was a stately-looking lad, and carried himself like the son of a
Micco,1 as he was—`Yes, they are the people of Lenatewá—
must he go to them?' and he made the motion of going out. But
I stopped him. I was not willing to lose the security which I
had from his being a sort of prisoner. `No,' said I; `no, Lenatew
á, not to-night. To-morrow will do. To-morrow you can
tell them I am a friend, not an enemy, and they should not
come to burn my wigwam.' `Brother—friend!' said the lad,
advancing with a sort of freedom and taking my hand. He then
went to my wife, and did the same thing,—not regarding she was
a woman,—`Brother—friend!' I watched him closely, watched
his eye and his motions, and I said to Betsy, `The lad is true;
don't be afeard!' But we passed a weary night. Every now
and then we could hear the whoop of the Indians. From the loop-holes
we could see the light of three fires on different sides, by
which we knew that they were prepared to cut off any help that
might come to us from the rest of the settlement. But I didn't
give in or despair. I worked at one thing or another all night,
and though Lenatewá gave me no help, yet he sat quietly, or laid
himself down before the fire, as if he had nothing in the world to
do in the business. Next morning by daylight, I found him already
dressed in the same bloody clothes which he had on when I
found him. He had thrown aside all that I gave him, and though

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

the hunting-shirt and leggins which he now wore, were very
much stained with blood and dirt, he had fixed them about him
with a good deal of care and neatness, as if preparing to see company.
I must tell you that an Indian of good family always has
a nateral sort of grace and dignity which I never saw in a white
man. He was busily engaged looking through one of the loop-holes,
and though I could distinguish nothing, yet it was cl'ar
that he saw something to interest him mightily. I soon found out
that, in spite of all my watchfulness, he had contrived to have some
sort of correspondence and communication with those outside.
This was a wonder to me then, for I did not recollect his bow and
arrows. It seems that he had shot an arrow through one of the
loop-holes, to the end of which he had fastened a tuft of his own
hair. The effect of this was considerable, and to this it was owing
that, for a few hours afterwards, we saw not an Indian. The
arrow was shot at the very peep of day. What they were about,
in the meantime, I can only guess, and the guess was only easy,
after I had known all that was to happen. That they were in
council what to do was cl'ar enough. I was not to know that the
council was like to end in cutting some of their own throats instead
of ours. But when we did see the enemy fairly, they came
out of the woods in two parties, not actually separated, but not
moving together. It seemed as if there was some strife among
them. Their whole number could not be less than forty, and
some eight or ten of these walked apart under the lead of a chief,
a stout, dark-looking fellow, one-half of whose face was painted
black as midnight, with a red circle round both his eyes. The
other party was headed by an old white-headed chief, who couldn't
ha'been less than sixty years—a pretty fellow, you may be sure,
at his time of life, to be looking after sculps of women and children.
While I was kneeling at my loop-hole looking at them,
Lenatewá came to me, and touching me on the arm, pointed to
the old chief, saying—`Micco Lenatewá Glucco,' by which I
guessed he was the father or grandfather of the lad. `Well,' I
said, seeing that the best plan was to get their confidence and
friendship if possible,—`Well, lad, go to your father and tell him
what Daniel Nelson has done for you, and let's have peace. We
can fight, boy, as you see; we have plenty of arms and

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

provisions; and with this rifle, though you may not believe it, I could
pick off your father, the king, and that other chief, who has so
devilled himself up with paint.' `Shoot!' said the lad quickly,
pointing to the chief of whom I had last spoken. `Ah! he is
your enemy then?' The lad nodded his head, and pointed to the
wound on his temple, and that in his side. I now began to see
the true state of the case. `No,' said I; `no, Lenatewá, I will
shoot none. I am for peace. I would do good to the Indians,
and be their friend. Go to your father and tell him so. Go, and
make him be my friend.' The youth caught my hand, placed it on
the top of his head, and exclaimed, `Good!' I then attended him
down to the gate, but, before he left the cabin, he stopped and put
his hand on the head of little Lucy,—and I felt glad, for it seemed
to say, `you shan't be hurt—not a hair of your head!' I let him
out, fastened up, and then hastened to the loop-hole.

CHAPTER VI.

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

“And now came a sight to tarrify. As soon as the Indians
saw the young prince, they set up a general cry. I couldn't tell
whether it was of joy, or what. He went for'ad boldly, though
he was still quite weak, and the king at the head of his party advanced
to meet him. The other and smaller party, headed by
the black chief, whom young Lenatewá had told me to shoot, came
forward also, but very slowly, and it seemed as if they were
doubtful whether to come or go. Their leader looked pretty
much beflustered. But they hadn't time for much study, for, after
the young prince had met his father, and a few words had
passed between them, I saw the finger of Lenatewá point to the
black chief. At this, he lifted up his clenched fists, and worked
his body as if he was talking angrily. Then, sudden, the warwhoop
sounded from the king's party, and the other troop of Indians
began to run, the black chief at their head; but he had not
got twenty steps when a dozen arrows went into him, and he tumbled
for'a'ds, and grappled with the earth. It was all over with
him. His party was scattered on all sides, but were not pursued.
It seemed that all the arrows had been aimed at the one person,
and when he sprawled, there was an end to it: the whole affair
was over in five minutes.

CHAPTER VII.

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

“It was a fortunate affair for us. Lenatewá soon brought the
old Micco to terms of peace. For that matter, he had only consented
to take up the red stick because it was reported by the
black chief—who was the uncle of the young Micco, and had
good reasons for getting him out of the way—that he had been
murdered by the whites. This driv' the old man to desperation,
and brought him down upon us. When he knew the whole truth,
and saw what friends we had been to his son, there was no end
to his thanks and promises. He swore to be my friend while the
sun shone, while the waters run, and while the mountains stood,
and I believe, if the good old man had been spared so long, he
would have been true to his oath. But, while he lived, he kept
it, and so did his son when he succeeded him as Micco Glucco-Year
after year went by, and though there was frequent war between
the Indians and the whites, yet Lenatewá kept it from our
doors. He himself was at war several times with our people, but
never with our settlement. He put his totem on our trees, and
the Indians knew that they were sacred. But, after a space of
eleven years, there was a change. The young prince seemed to
have forgotten our friendship. We now never saw him among
us, and, unfortunately, some of our young men—the young men
of our own settlement—murdered three young warriors of the
Ripparee tribe, who were found on horses stolen from us. I was
very sorry when I heard it, and began to fear the consequences;
and they came upon us when we least looked for it. I had every
reason to think that Lenatewá would still keep the warfare from
my little family, but I did not remember that he was the prince
of a tribe only, and not of the nation. This was a national warfare,
in which the whole Cherokee people were in arms. Many
persons, living still, remember that terrible war, and how the
Carolinians humbled them at last; but there's no telling how
much blood was shed in that war, how many sculps taken, how

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

much misery suffered by young and old, men, women, and children.
Our settlement had become so large and scattered that
we had to build a sizeable blockhouse, which we stored, and to
which we could retreat whenever it was necessary. We took
possession of it on hearing from our scouts that Indian trails had
been seen, and there we put the women and children, under a
strong guard. By day we tended our farms, and only went to
our families at night. We had kept them in this fix for five
weeks or thereabouts, and there was no attack. The Indian signs
disappeared, and we all thought the storm had blown over, and
began to hope and to believe that the old friendship of Lenatewá
had saved us. With this thinking, we began to be less watchful.
The men would stay all night at the farms, and sometimes, in the
day, would carry with them the women, and sometimes some even
the children. I cautioned them agin this, but they mocked me,
and said I was gitting old and scary. I told them, `Wait and
see who'll scare first.' But, I confess, not seeing any Indians in
all my scouting, I began to feel and think like the rest, and to
grow careless. I let Betsy go now and then with me to the farm,
though she kept it from me that she had gone there more than
once with Lucy, without any man protector. Still, as it was only
a short mile and a half from the block, and we could hear of no
Indians, it did not seem so venturesome a thing. One day we
heard of some very large b'ars among the thickets—a famous
range for them, about four miles from the settlement; and a party
of us, Simon Lorris, Hugh Darling, Jake Ransom, William
Harkless, and myself, taking our dogs, set off on the hunt. We
started the b'ar with a rush, and I got the first shot at a mighty big
she b'ar, the largest I had ever seen—lamed the critter slightly,
and dashed into the thickets after her! The others pushed, in another
direction, after the rest, leaving me to finish my work as I
could.

“I had two dogs with me, Clap and Claw, but they were young
things, and couldn't be trusted much in a close brush with a b'ar.
Old Clinch was dead, or he'd ha' made other guess-work with the
varmint. But, hot after the b'ar, I didn't think of the quality of
the dogs till I found myself in a fair wrestle with the brute. I
don't brag, my friends, but that was a fight. I tell you my

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

breath was clean gone, for the b'ar had me about the thin of my
body, and I thought I was doubled up enough to be laid down
without more handling. But my heart was strong when I thought
of Betsy and the children, and I got my knife, with hard jugging —though I couldn't use my arm above my elbow—through the
old critter's hide, and in among her ribs. That only seemed to
make her hug closer, and I reckon I was clean gone, if it hadn't
been that she blowed out before me. I had worked a pretty deep
window in her waist, and then life run out plentiful. Her nose
dropped agin my breast, and then her paws; and when the strain
was gone, I fell down like a sick child, and she fell on top of me.
But she warn't in a humour to do more mischief. She roughed me
once or twice more with her paws, but that was only because she
was at her last kick. There I lay a matter of half an hour, with
the dead b'ar alongside o' me. I was almost as little able to
move as she, and I vomited as if I had taken physic. When I
come to myself and got up, there was no sound of the hunters.
There I was with the two dogs and the b'ar, all alone, and the
sun already long past the turn. My horse, which I had fastened
outside of the thicket, had slipped his bridle, and, I reckoned, had
either strayed off grazing, or had pushed back directly for the
block. These things didn't make me feel much better. But,
though my stomach didn't feel altogether right, and my ribs were
as sore as if I had been sweating under a coating of hickory, I
felt that there was no use and no time to stand there grunting.
But I made out to skin and to cut up the b'ar, and a noble mountain
of fat she made. I took the skin with me, and, covering the
flesh with bark, I whistled off the dogs, after they had eat to fill,
and pushed after my horse. I followed his track for some time,
till I grew fairly tired. He had gone off in a scare and at a full
gallop, and, instead of going home, had dashed down the lower
side of the thicket, then gone aside, to round some of the hills, and
thrown himself out of the track, it moutbe seven miles or more.
When I found this, I saw there was no use to hunt him that day
and afoot, and I had no more to do but turn about, and push as
fast as I could for the block. But this was work enough. By
this time the sun was pretty low, and there was now a good seven
miles, work it how I could, before me. But I was getting over

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

my b'ar-sickness, and though my legs felt weary enough, my
stomach was better, and my heart braver; and, as I was in no
hurry, having the whole night before me, and knowing the way
by night as well as by light, I began to feel cheerful enough, all
things considering. I pushed on slowly, stopping every now and
then for rest, and recovering my strength this way. I had some
parched meal and sugar in my pouch which I ate, and it helped
me mightily. It was my only dinner that day. The evening
got to be very still. I wondered I had seen and heard nothing of
Jake Ransom and the rest, but I didn't feel at all oneasy about
them, thinking that, like all other hunters, they would naterally
follow the game to any distance. But, jest when I was thinking
about them, I heard a gun, then another, and after that all got to
be as quiet as ever. I looked to my own rifle and felt for my
knife, and put forward a little more briskly. I suppose I had
walked an hour after this, when it came on close dark, and I was
still four good miles from the block. The night was cloudy,
there were no stars, and the feeling in the air was damp and oncomfortable.
I began to wish I was safe home, and felt queerish,
almost as bad as I did when the b'ar was 'bracing me; but it
warn't so much the body-sickness as the heart-sickness. I felt as
if something was going wrong. Jest as this feeling was most worrisome,
I stumbled over a human. My blood cruddled, when,
feeling about, I put my hand on his head, and found the sculp
was gone. Then I knew there was mischief. I couldn't make
out who 'twas that was under me, but I reckoned 'twas one of
the hunters. There was nothing to be done but to push for'ad.
I didn't feel any more tire. I felt ready for fight, and when I
thought of our wives and children in the block, and what might
become of them, I got wolfish, though the Lord only knows what
I was minded to do. I can't say I had any raal sensible thoughts
of what was to be done in the business. I didn't trust myself to
think whether the Indians had been to the block yet or no; though
ugly notions came across me when I remembered how we let the
women and children go about to the farms. I was in a complete
fever and agy. I scorched one time and shivered another, but I
pushed on, for there was now no more feeling of tire in my limbs
than if they were made of steel. By this time I had reached

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

that long range of hills where I first saw that strange campfire,
now eleven years gone, that turned out to be a deception, and
it was nateral enough that the thing should come fresh into my
mind, jest at that moment. While I was thinking over the wonder,
and asking myself, as I had done over and often before, what it
possibly could mean, I reached the top of one of the hills, from
which I could see, in daylight, the whole country for a matter of
ten miles or more on every side. What was my surprise, do you
reckon, when there, jest on the very same hill opposite where I
had seen that apparition of a camp, I saw another, and this time
it was a raal one. There was a rousing blaze, and though the
woods and undergrowth were thicker on this than on the other
side, from which I had seen it before, yet I could make out that
there were several figures, and them Indians. It sort o' made
me easier to see the enemy before, and then I could better tell
what I had to do. I was to spy out the camp, see what the reddevils
were thinking to do, and what they had already done. I
was a little better scout and hunter this time than when I made
the same sort o' search before, and I reckoned that I could get
nigh enough to see all that was going on, without stirring up any
dust among 'em. But I had to keep the dogs back. I couldn't
tie 'em up, for they'd howl; so I stripped my hunting-shirt and
put it down for one to guard, and I gave my cap and horn
to another. I knew they'd never leave 'em, for I had l'arned
'em all that sort of business—to watch as well as to fetch and
carry. I then said a sort of short running prayer, and took the
trail. I had to work for'ad slowly. If I had gone on this time
as I did in that first camp transaction, I'd ha' lost my sculp to
a sartainty. Well, to shorten a long business, I tell you that I
got nigh enough, without scare or surprise, to see all that I cared
to see, and a great deal more than I wished to see; and now, for
the first time, I saw the meaning of that sight which I had, eleven
years before, of the camp that come to nothing. I saw that first
sight over again, the Indians round the fire, a young woman in
the middle, and that young woman my own daughter, my child,
my poor, dear Lucy!

CHAPTER VIII.

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

“That was a sight for a father. I can't tell you—and I won't
try—how I felt. But I lay there, resting upon my hands and
knees, jest as if I had been turned into stone with looking. I lay
so for a good half hour, I reckon, without stirring a limb; and you
could only tell that life was in me, by seeing the big drops that
squeezed out of my eyes now and then, and by a sort of shivering
that shook me as you sometimes see the canebrake shaking with
the gust of the pond inside. I tried to pray to God for help, but I
couldn't pray, and as for thinking, that was jest as impossible.
But I could do nothing by looking, and, for that matter, it was
pretty cla'r to me, as I stood, with no help—by myself—one rifle
only and knife—I couldn't do much by moving. I could have
lifted the gun, and in a twinkle- tumbled the best fellow in the
gang, but what good was that guine to do me? I was never fond
of blood-spilling, and if I could have been made sure of my
daughter, I'd ha' been willing that the red devils should have had
leave to live for ever. What was I to do? Go to the block?
Who know'd if it warn't taken, with every soul in it? And
where else was I to look for help? Nowhere, nowhere but to
God! I groaned—I groaned so loud that I was dreadful 'feared
that they'd hear me; but they were too busy among themselves,
eating supper, and poor Lucy in the midst, not eating, but so pale,
and looking so miserable—jest as I had seen her, when she was
only a child—in the same fix, though 'twas only an appearance—
eleven years ago! Well, at last, I turned off. As I couldn't
say what to do, I was too miserable to look, and I went down to
the bottom of the hill and rolled about on the ground, pulling the
hair out of my head and groaning, as if that was to do me any
good. Before I knew where I was, there was a hand on my
shoulder. I jumped up to my feet, and flung my rifle over my
head, meaning to bring the butt down upon the stranger—but his
voice stopped me.

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

“ `Brother,' said he, `me Lenatewá!'

“The way he talked, his soft tones, made me know that the
young prince meant to be friendly, and I gave him my hand; but
the tears gushed out as I did so, and I cried out like a man struck
in the very heart, while I pointed to the hill—`My child, my
child!'

“ `Be man!' said he, `come!' pulling me away.

“ `But, will you save her, Lenatewá?'

“He did not answer instantly, but led me to the little lake, and
pointed to the old tree over which I had borne his lifeless body so
many years ago. By that I knew he meant to tell me, he had not
forgotten what I had done for him; and would do for me all he
could. But this did not satisfy me. I must know how and when
it was to be done, and what was his hope; for I could see from
his caution, and leading me away from the camp, that he did not
command the party, and had no power over them. He then asked
me, if I had not seen the paint of the warriors in the camp. But I
had seen nothing but the fix of my child. He then described the
paint to me, which was his way of showing me that the party on
the hill were his deadly enemies. The paint about their eyes
was that of the great chief, his uncle, who had tried to murder
him years ago, and who had been shot, in my sight, by the party
of his father. The young chief, now in command of the band on
the hill was the son of his uncle, and sworn to revenge the death
of his father upon him, Lenatewá. This he made me onderstand
in a few minutes. And he gave me farther to onderstand, that
there was no way of getting my child from them onless by cunning.
He had but two followers with him, and they were even
then busy in making preparations. But of these preparations he
either would not or could not give me any account; and I had to
wait on him with all the patience I could muster; and no easy
trial it was, for an Indian is the most cool and slow-moving creature
in the world, unless he's actually fighting, and then he's
about the quickest. After awhile, Lenatewá led me round the
hill. We fetched a pretty smart reach, and before I knew where
I was, he led me into a hollow that I had never seen before. Here,
to my surprise, there were no less than twelve or fourteen horses
fastened, that these red devils had stolen from the settlement that

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

very day, and mine was among, them. I did not know it till the
young prince told me.

“ `Him soon move,' said he, pointing to one on the outside,
which a close examination showed me to be my own—`Him soon
move,'—and these words gave me a notion of his plan. But he
did not allow me to have any hand in it—not jest then, at least.
Bidding me keep a watch on the fire above, for the hollow in which
we stood was at the foot of the very hill the Indians had made
their camp on—though the stretch was a long one between—he
pushed for'ad like a shadow, and so slily, so silently, that, though I
thought myself a good deal of a scout before, I saw then that I warn't
fit to hold a splinter to him. In a little time he had unhitched my
horse, and quietly led him farther down the hollow, half round
the hill, and then up the opposite hill. There was very little
noise, the wind was from the camp, and, though they didn't show
any alarm, I was never more scary in my life. I followed Lenatew
á, and found where he had fastened my nag. He had placed
him several hundred yards from the Indians, on his way to the
block; and, where we now stood, owing to the bend of the hollow,
the camp of the Indians was between us and where they had
hitched the stolen horses. When I saw this, I began to guess
something of his plan. Meantime, one after the other, his two
followers came up, and made a long report to him in their own
language. This done, he told me that three of my hunting companions
had been sculped, the other, who was Hugh Darling, had
got off cl'ar, though fired upon twice, and had alarmed the block,
and that my daughter had been made prisoner at the farm to
which she had gone without any company. This made me a little
easier, and Lenatewá then told me what he meant to do. In
course, I had to do something myself towards it. Off he went,
with his two men, leaving me to myself. When I thought they
had got pretty fairly round the hill, I started back for the camp,
trying my best, you may be sure, to move as slily as Lenatewá.
I got within twenty-five yards, I reckon, when I thought it better
to lie by quietly and wait. I could see every head in the huddle,
and my poor child among them, looking whiter than a sheet, beside
their ugly painted skins. Well, I hadn't long to wait, when
there was such an uproar among the stolen horses in the hollow

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

on the opposite side of the hill—such a trampling, such a whinnying
and whickering, you never heard the like. Now, you must know,
that a stolen horse, to an Indian, is jest as precious as a sweet-heart
to a white man; and when the rumpus reached the camp,
there was a rush of every man among them, for his critter.
Every redskin, but one, went over the hill after the horses, and he
jumped up with the rest, but didn't move off. He stood over poor
Lucy with his tomahawk, shaking it above her head, as if guine
to strike every minute. She, poor child—I could see her as plain
as the fire-light, for she sat jest on one side of it—her hands were
clasped together. She was praying, for she must have looked
every minute to be knocked on the head. You may depend, I
found it very hard to keep in. I was a'most biling over, the more
when I saw the red devil making his flourishes, every now and
then, close to the child's ears, with his bloody we'pon. But it
was a needcessity to keep in till the sounds died off pretty much,
so as not to give them any scare this side, till they had dashed
ahead pretty far 'pon the other. I don't know that I waited quite
as long as I ought to, but I waited as long as my feelings would
let me, and then I dropped the sight of my rifle as close as I could
fix it on the breast of the Indian that had the keeping of my child.
I took aim, but I felt I was a little tremorsome, and I stopped. I
know'd I had but one shoot, and if I didn't onbutton him in that
one, it would be a bad shoot for poor Lucy. I didn't fear to hit
her, and I was pretty sure I'd hit him. But it must be a dead
shot to do good, for I know'd if I only hurt him, that he'd sink the
tomahawk in her head with what strength he had left him. I
brought myself to it again, and this time I felt strong. I could
jest hear a little of the hubbub of men and horses afar off. I knew
it was the time, and, resting the side of the muzzle against a tree,
I give him the whole blessing of the bullet. I didn't stop to ask
what luck, but run in, with a sort o' cry, to do the finishing with
the knife. But the thing was done a'ready. The beast was on
his back, and I only had to use the knife in cutting the vines that
fastened the child to the sapling behind her. The brave gal
didn't scream or faint. She could only say, `Oh, my father!'
and I could only say, `Oh! my child!' And what a precious
hug followed; but it was only for a minute. We had no time to

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

waste in hugging. We pushed at once for the place where I had
left the critter, and if the good old nag ever used his four shanks
to any purpose, he did that night. I reckon it was a joyful surprise
to poor Betsy when we broke into the block. She had given
it out for sartin that she'd never see me or the child again, with
a nateral sculp on our heads.

CHAPTER IX.

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

“There's no need to tell you the whole story of this war between
our people and the redskins. It's enough that I tell you
of what happened to us, and our share in it. Of the great affair,
and all the fights and burnings, you'll find enough in the printed
books and newspapers. What I tell you, though you can't find it
in any books, is jest as true, for all that. Of our share in it, the
worst has already been told you. The young chief, Oloschottee—
for that was his name—the cousin and the enemy of Lenatewá,
had command of the Indians that were to surprise our settlements;
and though he didn't altogether do what he expected and intended,
he worked us quite enough of mischief as it was. He soon put
fire to all our farms to draw us out of the block, but finding that
wouldn't do, he left us; for an Indian gets pretty soon tired of a
long siege where there is neither rum nor blood to git drunk on.
His force was too small to trouble us in the block, and so he
drawed off his warriors, and we saw no more of him until the
peace. That followed pretty soon after General Middleton gave
the nation that licking at Echotee,—a licking, I reckon, that they'll
remember long after my day. At that affair Lenatewá got an
ugly bullet in his throat, and if it hadn't been for one of his men,
he'd ha' got a bag'net in his breast. They made a narrow run
with him, head foremost down the hill, with a whole swad of the
mounted men from the low country at their heels. It was some
time after the peace before he got better of his hurt, though the
Indians are naterally more skilful in cures than white men. By
this time we had all gone home to our farms, and had planted and
rebuilt, and begun to forget our troubles, when who should pop
into our cabin one day, but Lenatewá. He had got quite well
of his hurts. He was a monstrous fine-looking fellow, tall and
handsome, and he was dressed in his very best. He wore pantaloons,
like one of us, and his hunting shirt was a raally fine blue,
with a white fringe. He wore no paint, and was quite nice and

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

neat with his person. We all received him as an old friend, and
he stayed with us three days. Then he went, and was gone for
a matter of two weeks, when he came back and stayed with us
another three days. And so, off and on, he came to visit us, until
Betsy said to me one day, `Daniel, that Indian, Lenatewá,
comes here after Lucy. Leave a woman to guess these things.'
After she told me, I recollected that the young prince was quite
watchful of Lucy, and would follow her out into the garden, and
leave us, to walk with her. But then, again, I thought—`What
if he is favourable to my daughter? The fellow's a good fellow;
and a raal, noble-hearted Indian, that's sober, is jest as good, to
my thinking, as any white man in the land.` But Betsy wouldn't
hear to it. `Her daughter never should marry a savage, and a
heathen, and a redskin, while her head was hot:'—and while her
head was so hot, what was I to do? All I could say was this
only, `Don't kick, Betsy, till you're spurred. 'Twill be time
enough to give the young Chief his answer when he asks the
question; and it won't do for us to treat him rudely, when we
consider how much we owe him.' But she was of the mind that
the boot was on the other leg,—that it was he and not us that
owed the debt; and all that I could do couldn't keep her from
showing the lad a sour face of it whenever he came. But he didn't
seem much to mind this, since I was civil and kind to him. Lucy
too, though her mother warned her against him, always treated
him civilly as I told her; though she naterally would do so, for
she couldn't so easily forget that dreadful night when she was a
prisoner in the camp of the enimy, not knowing what to expect,
with an Indian tomahawk over her head, and saved, in great part,
by the cunning and courage of this same Lenatewá. The girl
treated him kindly, and I was not sorry she did so. She walked
and talked with him jest as if they had been brother and sister,
and he was jest as polite to her as if he had been a born Frenchman.

“You may be sure, it was no pleasant sight to my wife to see
them two go out to walk. `Daniel Nelson,' said she, `do you see
and keep an eye on those people. There's no knowing what may
happen. I do believe that Lucy has a liking for that redskin,
and should they run!'—`Psho!' said I,—but that wouldn't do for

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

her, and so she made me watch the young people sure enough.
'Twarn't a business that I was overfond of, you may reckon, but
I was a rough man and didn't know much of woman natur'. I left
the judgment of such things to my wife, and did pretty much what
she told me. Whenever they went out to walk, I followed them,
rifle in hand; but it was only to please Betsy, for if I had seen
the lad running off with the girl, I'm pretty sure, I'd never ha'
been the man to draw trigger upon him. As I said before, Lenatew
á was jest as good a husband as she could have had. But,
poor fellow, the affair was never to come to that. One day, after
he had been with us almost a week, he spoke softly to Lucy,
and she got up, got her bonnet and went out with him. I didn't
see them when they started, for I happened to be in the upper
story,—a place where we didn't so much live, but where we used
to go for shelter and defence whenever any Indians came about
us. `Daniel,' said my wife, and I knew by the quickness and
sharpness of her voice what 'twas she had to tell me. But jest
then I was busy, and, moreover, I didn't altogether like the sort
of business upon which she wanted me to go. The sneaking after
an enimy, in raal warfare, is an onpleasant sort of thing enough;
but this sneaking after one that you think your friend is worse than
running in a fair fight, and always gave me a sheepish feeling
after it. Besides, I didn't fear Lenatewá, and I didn't fear my
daughter. It's true, the girl treated him kindly and sweetly, but
that was owing to the nateral sweetness of her temper, and because
she felt how much sarvice he had been to her and all of
us. So, instead of going out after them, I thought I'd give them
a look through one of the loop-holes. Well, there they went,
walking among the trees, not far from the picket, and no time out
of sight. As I looked at them, I thought to myself, `Would n't
they make a handsome couple!' Both of them were tall and well
made. As for Lucy, there wasn't, for figure, a finer set girl in
all the settlement, and her face was a match for her figure. And
then she was so easy in her motion, so graceful, and walked, or
sate, or danced,—jest, for all the world, as if she was born only
to do the particular thing she was doing. As for Lenatewá, he
was a lad among a thousand. Now, a young Indian warrior,
when he don't drink, is about the noblest-looking creature, as he

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

carries himself in he woods, that God ever did make. So straight,
so proud, so stately, always as if he was doing a great action—
as if he knew the whole world was looking at him. Lenatewa
was pretty much the handsomest and noblest Indian I had ever
seen; and then, I know'd him to be raally so noble. As they
walked together, their heads a little bent downwards, and Lucy's
pretty low, the thought flashed across me that, jest then, he was
telling her all about his feelings; and perhaps, said I to myself,
the girl thinks about it pretty much as I do. Moutbe now, she
likes him better than any body she has ever seen, and what more
nateral? Then I thought, if there is any picture in this life more
sweet and beautiful than two young people jest beginning to feel
love for one another, and walking together in the innocence of
their hearts, under the shady trees,—I've never seen it! I laid
the rifle on my lap, and sat down on the floor and watched 'em
through the loop until I felt the water in my eyes. They walked
backwards and for'ads, not a hundred yards off, and I could see
all their motions, though I couldn't hear their words. An Indian
don't use his hands much generally, but I could see that Lenatew
á was using his,—not a great deal, but as if he felt every
word he was saying. Then I began to think, what was I to do,
if so be he was raally offering to marry Lucy, and she willing!
How was I to do? what was I to say?—how could I refuse him
when I was willing? how could I say `yes,' when Betsy said
`no!'

“Well, in the midst of this thinking, what should I hear but a
loud cry from the child, then a loud yell,—a regular war-whoop,—
sounded right in front, as if it came from Lenatewá himself.
I looked up quickly, for, in thinking, I had lost sight of them, and
was only looking at my rifle; I looked out, and there, in the
twinkle of an eye, there was another sight. I saw my daughter
flat upon the ground, lying like one dead, and Lenatewá staggering
back as if he was mortally hurt; while, pressing fast upon
him, was an Indian warrior, with his tomahawk uplifted, and striking—
once, twice, three times—hard and heavy, right upon the
face and forehead of the young prince. From the black paint on
his face, and the red ring about his eyes, and from his figure and
the eagle feathers in his head, I soon guessed it was Oloschottee,

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

and I then knew it was the old revenge for the killing of his father;
for an Indian never forgets that sort of obligation. Of
course, I didn't stand quiet to see an old friend, like Lenatewá
tumbled in that way, without warning, like a bullock; and there
was my own daughter lying flat, and I wasn't to know that he
hadn't struck her too. It was only one motion for me to draw
sight upon the savage, and another to pull trigger; and I reckon
he dropped jest as soon as the young Chief. I gave one whoop
for all the world as if I was an Indian myself, and run out to the
spot; but Lenatewá had got his discharge from further service.
He warn't exactly dead, but his sense was swimming. He
couldn't say much, and that warn't at all to the purpose. I
could hear him, now and then, making a sort of singing noise,
but that was soon swallowed up in a gurgle and a gasp, and it
was all over. My bullet was quicker in its working than Oloschottee's
hatchet; he was stone dead before I got to him. As for
poor Lucy, she was not hurt, either by bullet or hatchet; but
she had a hurt in the heart, whether from the scare she had, or
because she had more feeling for the young prince than we reckoned,
there's no telling. She warn't much given to smiling after
that. But, whether she loved Lenatewá, we couldn't know, and
I never was the man to ask her. It's sartain she never married,
and she had about as many chances, and good ones, too, as any
girl in our settlement. You've seen her—some among you—
and warn't she a beauty—though I say it myself—the very
flower of the forest!”

p371-088 THE LAST WAGER, OR THE GAMESTER OF THE MISSISSIPPI. CHAPTER I.

—“I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die.”
Shakspeare.

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

Our story will be found to illustrate one of the current commonplaces
of the day. Ever since my Lord Byron, in that poem
of excellently expressed commonplaces, Don Juan, declared that
“truth was stranger than fiction,” every newspaper witling rings
the changes upon the theme, until there is no relief to its dull-toned
dissonance. That truth should frequently be found to be
much stranger than any fiction, is neither so strange nor out of
the course of things; but is just in accordance, if we bestow any
thought upon the matter, with the deliberate convictions of every
reasoning mind. For, what is fiction, but the nice adaptation,
by an artist, of certain ordinary occurrences in life, to a natural
and probable conclusion? It is not the policy of a good artist to
deal much in the merely extravagant. His real success, and the
true secret of it, is to be found in the naturalness of his story, its
general seemliness, and the close resemblance of its events to
those which may or must take place in all instances of individuals
subjected to like influences with those who figure in his narrative.
The naturalness must be that of life as it is, or with life as it is
shown in such picturesque situations as are probable—seemingly
real—and such as harmonize equally with the laws of nature,
and such as the artist has chosen for his guide. Except in stories
of broad extravagance—ghost stories for example—in which

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

the one purpose of the romancer—that of exciting wonder—is declared
at the outset—except in such stories, or in others of the
broad grin—such as are common and extravagant enough among
the frontier raconteurs of the West, it were the very worst policy
in the world for a writer of fiction to deal much in the marvellous.
He would soon wear out the patience of the reader, who would
turn away, with a dissatisfaction almost amounting to disgust, from
any author who should be found too frequently to employ what is
merely possible in human progress. We require as close reasoning,
and deductions as logically drawn, in tale and novel, as
in a case at law or in equity; much more close, indeed, than is
often found to be the case in a Congressional harangue, and a far
more tenacious regard to the interest of the reader than is shown
in the report of a modern secretary. Probability, unstrained,
must be made apparent at every step; and if the merely possible
be used at all, it must be so used only, as, in looking like the
probable, it is made to lose all its ambiguous characteristics.
What we show must not only be the truth, but it must also seem
like the truth; for, as the skill of the artist can sometimes enable
him to make what is false appear true, so it is equally the case,
that a want of skill may transmute the most unquestionable truth
into something that nine persons in ten shall say, when they behold
it, “it looks monstrous like a lie!”

That we are not at liberty to use too freely what is merely possible
in the material brought before us, is a fact more particularly
known to painters, who have often felt the danger of any attempt
to paint the sky as it sometimes appears to them. They dread to
offend the suspicious incredulity of the cold and unobserving citizen.
They see, with equal amazement and delight—but without
daring to delineate—those intenser hues and exquisite gradations
of light and shadow, those elaborate and graceful shapes of cloud,
born of the rainbow—carnation, green and purple, which the sun
sometimes, in fantastic mood, and as if in equal mockery of human
faith and art, makes upon the lovely background of the sky
which he leaves at setting. The beautiful vision gone from sight,
who would believe the poor artist, whatever his accuracy and felicity
of touch and taste, who had endeavoured to transfer, before
it faded, the vanishing glory to his canvass? Who could suppose,

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

and how admit, that there had ever been such a panorama, of
such super-artistical splendour, displayed before his eyes, without
commanding his admiration and fixing his attention? The very
attempt to impose such an exhibition upon him as natural, would
be something of a sarcasm, and a commentary upon the dull eye
and drowsy mind which had failed to discern it for themselves.
Nay, though the artist grappled the dull citizen by the arm at the
very instant, and compelled his gaze upon the glorious vision ere it
melted into the thin gray haze of evening, would he not be apt to
say, “How strange! how very unnatural!” Certainly, it would
be a nature and a truth infinitely more strange than the most
audacious fiction that ever grew up at the touch of the most fantastic
votary of art.

CHAPTER II.

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

The sketch which I propose will scarcely justify this long digression;
and its character will be still less likely to correspond with
the somewhat poetic texture of the introduction. It is simply a
strange narrative of frontier life; one of those narratives in which
a fact will appear very doubtful, unless the artist shall exhibit
such sufficient skill in his elaborations, as to keep its rude points
from offending too greatly the suspicious judgment of the reader.
This is the task before me. The circumstances were picked up,
when, a lad of eighteen, I first wandered over the then dreary and
dangerous wastes of the Mississippi border. Noble, indeed, though
wild and savage, was the aspect of that green forest country, as
yet only slightly smitten by the sharp edges of the ranger's axe.
I travelled along the great Yazoo wilderness, in frequent proximity
with the Choctaw warriors. Most frequently I rode alone.
Sometimes, a wayfarer from the East, solitary with myself, turned
his horse's head, for a few days' space, on the same track with
mine; but, in most cases, my only companion was some sullen
Choctaw, or some still more sullen half-breed, who, emerging suddenly
from some little foot-path, would leave me half in doubt
whether his introduction would be made first with the tomahawk
or the tongue. Very few white men were then settled in the
country; still fewer were stationary. I rode forty and fifty miles
without sign of human habitation, and found my bed and supper
at night most generally in the cabin of the half-breed. But there
was one, and that a remarkable exception to this universal necessity;
and in this exception my story takes its rise. I had at
length reached the borders of the nation, and the turbid waters
of the Mississippi, at no great distance, flowed down towards the
Gulf. The appearances of the white settler, some doubtful
glimmerings of a more civilized region, were beginning to display
themselves. Evening was at hand. The sun was fast waning
along the mellow heights of heaven; and my heart was

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

beginning to sink with the natural sense of loneliness which such a
setting is apt to inspire in the bosom of the youthful wanderer.
It was also a question with me, where I should find my pillow for
the night. My host of the night before, a low, dark-looking white
squatter, either was, or professed to be, too ignorant to give me
any information on this head, which would render the matter one
of reasonable certainty. In this doubtful and somewhat desolate
state of mind, I began to prick my steed forward at a more rapid
pace, to cast my eyes up more frequently to the fading light
among the tree-tops, and, occasionally, to send a furtive glance on
either hand, not altogether assured that my road was as safe as it
was lonely. The question “where shall I find my bed to-night?”
was beginning to be one of serious uncertainty, when I
suddenly caught a glimpse of an opening on my right, a sort of
wagon-path, avenue like, and which reminded me of those dear,
dim passages in my own Carolina, which always promised the
traveller a hot supper and happy conclusion to his wanderings of
the day. Warmed with the notion, and without a farther doubt
or thought, I wheeled my sorrel into the passage, and pressed him
forward with a keener spur. A cheery blast of the horn ahead,
and the dull heavy stroke of an axe immediately after, were so
many urgent entreaties to proceed; and now the bellow of a cow,
and next the smoke above the cottage roof-trees, assured me that
my apprehensions were at an end. In a few seconds I stood before
one of the snuggest little habitations which ever kindled
hope and satisfied hunger.

This was one of those small log-cabins which are common to
the country. Beyond its snug, trim and tidy appearance, there
was nothing about it to distinguish it from its class. The clearing
was small, just sufficient, perhaps, for a full supply of corn
and provisions. But the area in front of the dwelling was cleanly
swept, and the trees were trimmed, and those which had been
left were evergreens, and so like favourite domestics, with such
an air of grace, and good-nature, and venerableness about them,
that one's heart warmed to see them, as at sight of one of “the
old familiar faces.” The aspect of the dwelling within consisted
happily with that without. Every thing was so neat, and snug,
and comfortable.

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

The windows were sashed and glassed, and hung with the
whitest curtains of cotton, with fringes fully a foot deep. The
floors were neatly sanded, the hearth was freshly brightened with
the red ochrous clay of the country, and chairs and tables,
though made of the plainest stuffs, and by a very rude mechanic,
were yet so clean, neat and well-arranged, that the eye involuntarily
surveyed them again and again with a very pleased sensation.
Nor was this all in the shape of unwonted comforts. Some
other matters were considered in this cottage, which are scarcely
even dreamed of in the great majority. In one corner of the
hall stood a hat-stand; in another there were pins for cloaks;
above the fire-place hung a formidable rifle, suspended upon
tenter-hooks made of three monstrous antlers, probably those of
gigantic bucks which had fallen beneath the weapon which they
were now made to sustain. Directly under this instrument, and
the only object beside which had been honoured with a place so
conspicuous, was a pack of ordinary playing cards—not hung or
suspended against the wall, but nailed to it;—driven through and
through with a tenpenny nail, and so fastened to the solid log, the
black head of the nail showing with particular prominence in
contrast with the red spot of the ace of hearts, through which it
had been driven. Of this hereafter. On this pack of cards
hangs my story. It is enough, in this place, to add, that it was
only after supper was fairly over, that my eyes were drawn to
this very unusual sort of chimney decoration.

At the door of the cottage sat a very venerable old man, between
seventy and eighty. His hair was all white, but still thick,
betraying the strength of his constitution and the excellence of
his health. His skin was florid, glowing through his white beard,
which might have been three days old, and his face bore the burden
of very few wrinkles. He had a lively, clear blue eye, and
good-humour played about his mouth in every movement of his
lips. He was evidently one of those fortunate men, whose winters,
if frosty, had always proved kindly. A strong man in his
youth, he was now but little bent with years; and when he stood
up, I was quite ashamed to find he was rather more erect than
myself, and quite as tall. This was the patriarch of the family,
which consisted of three members besides himself. The first of

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

these was his only son, a man thirty-eight or forty years of age,
of whom it will be quite explicit enough to say, that the old man,
in his youth, must very nearly have resembled him. Then, there
was the wife of the son, and her son, a lad now ten years old, a
smart-looking lad enough, but in no wise resembling his male
parent. Instead of the lively, twinkling blue eye of his father, he
had the dark, deep, oriental sad ones of the mother; and his
cheeks were rather pale than rosy, rather thin than full; and his
hair was long, black and silky, in all respects the counterpart of
his mother's. A brief description of this lady may assist us in
our effort to awaken the interest of the reader.

Conducted into the house by the son, and warmly welcomed by
the old man as well as himself, I was about to advance with the
bold dashing self-possession of a young cavalier, confident in his
course, and accustomed to win “golden opinions of all sorts of
people.” But my bold carriage and sanguine temper were suddenly
checked, not chilled, by the appearance of the lady in front
of whom I suddenly stood. She sat beside the fireplace, and was
so very different a looking person from any I had expected to see
in such a region, that the usual audacity of my temperament was
all at once abashed. In place of the good, cheerful, buxom, plain
country housewife whom I looked to see, mending Jacky's breeches,
or knitting the good-man's hose, I found myself confronted by
a dame whose aristocratic, high-bred, highly composed, easy and
placid demeanour, utterly confounded me. Her person was
small, her complexion darkly oriental, her eye flashing with all
the spiritual fires of that region; habitually bright and searching,
even while the expression of her features would have made her
seem utterly emotionless. Never did features, indeed, appear so
thoroughly inflexible. Her beauty,—for she was all beauty,—was
not, however, the result of any regularity of feature. Beauties of her
order, brunette and piquant, are most usually wanting in preciseness,
and mutual dependance and sympathy of outline. They
are beautiful in spite of irregularity, and in consequence of the
paramount exquisiteness of some particular feature. The charm
of the face before me grew out of the piercing, deep-set, and singularly
black eye, and the wonderful vitality about the lips. Never
was mouth so small, or so admirably delineated. There was

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

witchcraft enough in the web of it to make my own lips water.
But I speak like the boy I was then, and am no longer.

Let me not be understood to mean that there was any levity,
any lightness of character betrayed in the expression of those lips.
Very far otherwise. While soft, sweet, beautiful, and full of
life, they were the most sacred and sad-looking forms,—drooping
blossoms of beauty, mourning, as it would seem, because beauty
does not imply immortality; and this expression led me to observe
more closely the character of the eye, the glance of which,
at first, had only seemed to denote the brilliance of the diamond,
shining through an atmosphere of jet. I now discerned that its
intense blaze was not its only character. It was marked with the
weight of tears, that, freezing as they had birth, maintained their
place in defiance of the light to which they were constantly exposed.
It was the brightness of the ice palace, in the Northern
Saga, which, in reflecting the bright glances of Balder, the God
of Day, still gives defiance to the fervour of his beams.

But a truce to these frigid comparisons, which suit any age
but ours. Enough to say that the lady was of a rare and singular
beauty, with a character of face and feature not common
to our country, and with a deportment seldom found in the homely
cabin of the woodman or the squatter. The deep and unequivocal
sadness which marked her looks, intense as it was, did not
affect or impair the heightened aristocratic dignity of her subdued
and perfectly assured manner. To this manner did she seem to
have been born; and, being habitual, it is easy to understand that
she could not be divested of it, except in a very small degree, by
the pressure of any form of affliction. You could see that there
had been affliction, but its effect was simply to confirm that elevated
social tone, familiar to all mental superiority, which seems,
however it may feel, to regard the confession of its griefs as perhaps
something too merely human to be altogether becoming in a
confessedly superior caste. Whether the stream was only frozen
over, or most effectually crystallized, it does not suit our purpose
to inquire. It is, at all events, beyond my present ability to determine
the doubt.

She was introduced to me, by the husband, as Mrs. Rayner. I
afterwards discovered that her Christian name was Rachel; a

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

circumstance that tended to strengthen the impression in my mind
that she might be of Jewish parents. That she was a Christian
herself, I had reason to believe, from her joining freely and devoutly,
and on bended knee, in the devotions of the night. She
spoke seldom, yet looked intelligence throughout the conversation,
which was carried on freely between the old man, the husband,
and myself. When she spoke, her words and accents were
marked by the most singular propriety. There was nothing in
her utterance to lessen the conviction that she was familiar with
the most select circles of city life; and I could see that the husband
listened to her with a marked deference, and, though himself,
evidently, a rough honest backwoodsman, I detected him, in
one or two instances, checking the rude phrase upon his lips, and
substituting for it some other, more natural to the ear of civilization
and society. There was a touching something in the meekness
and quiet deportment of the boy who sat by his mother's
knee in silence, her fingers turning in his hair, while he diligently
pored over some little trophy of juvenile literature, looking
up timidly at moments, and smiling sadly, when he met the deep
earnest gaze of the mother's eyes, as she seemed to forget all
around in the glance at the one object. I need not say that there
was something in this family picture so entirely out of the common
run of my woodland experience in the Southwest, at that
early day, that I felt my curiosity equally excited with my pleasure.
I felt assured that there was something of a story to be
learned, which would amply recompense the listener. The old
patriarch was himself a study—the husband a very noble specimen
of the sturdy, frank, elastic frontier-man—a race too often
confounded with the miserable runagates by whom the first explorations
of the country are begun, but who seldom make the
real axe-marks of the wilderness. You could see at a glance
that he was just the man whom a friend could rely upon and a
foe most fear—frank, ardent, firm, resolute in endurance, patient,
perhaps, and slow to anger, as are all noble-minded persons who
have a just confidence in their own strength; but unyielding
when the field is to be fought, and as cheerful in the moment
of danger as he was good-humoured in that of peace. Every
thing in his look, language and bearing, answered to this

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

description; and I sat down at the supper table beside him that night, as
familiar and as much at my ease as if we had jumped together
from the first moment of existence.

I pass over much of the conversation preceding, and at the
evening repast; for, though interesting enough at the time, particularly
to me, it would only delay us still longer in the approach
to our story. It was after the table had been withdrawn, when
the family were all snugly huddled about the fireplace, and the
dialogue, which had been rather brisk before, had begun to flag,
that I casually looked up over the chimney-place, and discovered,
for the first time, the singular ornament of which I have already
spoken. Doubtful of what I saw, I rose to my feet, and
grasped the object with my fingers. I fancied that some eccentric
forest genius, choosing for his subject one of the great agents
of popular pastime in the West, might have succeeded in a delineation
sufficiently felicitous, as, at a short distance, to baffle
any vision. But, palpable, the real—I had almost said, the living—
things were there, unlike the dagger of Macbeth, as “sensible
to feeling as to sight.” A complete pack of cards, none of
the cleanest, driven through with a tenpenny nail, the ace of
hearts, as before said, being the top card, and very fairly covering
the retinue of its own and the three rival houses. The corners
of the cards were curled, and the ends smoked to partial
blackness. They had evidently been in that situation for several
years. I turned inquiringly to my hosts—

“You have a very singular ornament for your mantleplace,
Mr. Rayner;” was my natural remark, the expression of curiosity
in my face being coupled with an apologetic sort of smile.
But it met with no answering smiles from any of the family.
On the contrary, every face was grave to sadness, and in a moment
more Mrs. Rayner rose and left the room. As soon as she
was gone, her husband remarked as follows:

“Why, yes, sir, it is uncommon; but there's a reason why
it's there, which I'll explain to you after we've gone through prayers.”

By this time the wife had returned, bringing with her the family
Bible, which she now laid upon a stand beside the venerable
elder. He, good old man, with an action that seemed to be

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

perfectly habitual, drew forth the spectacles from the sacred pages,
where they seemed to have been left from the previous evening,
and commenced reading the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, beginning,
“Hear me, your father, O children! and do thereafter, that
ye may be safe.” Then, this being read, we all sunk devoutly
upon our knees, and the patriarch put up as sweet and fervent a
prayer as I should ever wish to listen to. The conceited whipster
of the school might have found his pronunciation vulgar, and
his sentences sometimes deficient in grammatical nicety; but the
thought was there, and the heart, and the ears of perfect wisdom
might well be satisfied with the good sense and the true morality
of all that was spoken. We rose refreshed, and, after a lapse of
a very few moments which were passed in silence, the wife, leading
the little boy by the hand, with a kind nod and courtesy took
her leave, and retired to her chamber. Sweetness and dignity were
most happily blended in her parting movements; but I fancied,
as I caught the glance of her eye, that there had been a freshening
and overflowing there of the deep and still gathering fountains.
Her departure was followed by that of the old man, and
the husband and myself were left alone. It was not long after
this, before he, himself, without waiting for any suggestion of mine,
brought up the subject of the cards, which had been so conspicuously
elevated into a mantel ornament.

CHAPTER III.

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

“Stranger,” said he, “there is a sort of history in those cards
which I am always happy to tell to any young man that's a beginner
in the world like yourself. I consider them as a sort of
Bible, for, when I look at them and remember all that I know
concerning them, I feel as if I was listening to some prime sermon,
or may be, hearing just such a chapter as the old man read
to us out of the good book to-night. It's quite a long history, and
I'll put on a fresh handful of lightwood before I begin.”

The interruption was brief, and soon overcome, and the narrative
of the husband ran as follows:

“It is now,” said he, “going on to twelve years since the circumstances
took place which belong to the story of those cards,
and I will have to carry you back to that time before you can
have a right knowledge of what I want to tell. I was then pretty
much such a looking person as you now see me, for I haven't
undergone much change. I was a little sprightlier, perhaps—
always famous for light-headedness and laughing—fond of fun
and frolic, but never doing any thing out of mischief and bad humour.
The old man, my father, too, was pretty much the same.
We lived here where you find us now, but not quite so snugly
off—not so well settled—rather poor, I may say, though still with
a plentiful supply to live on and keep warm and feel lively.
There was only us two, and we had but two workers, a man and
woman, and they had two children, who could do nothing for us
and precious little for themselves. But we were snug, and
worked steadily, and were comfortable. We didn't make much
money, but we always spent less than we made. We didn't have
very nice food, but we had no physic to take, and no doctor's bills
to pay. We had a great deal to make us happy, and still more
to be thankful for; and I trust in God we were thankful for all
of his blessings. I think we were, for he gave us other blessings;
and for these, stranger, we are trying to be thankful also.

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

“Well, as I was saying, about twelve years ago, one hot day
in August, I rode out a little piece towards the river bluff to see
if any goods had been left for us at the landing. We had heard
the steamboat gun the night before, or something like it, and that,
you know, is the signal to tell us when to look after our plunder.
When I got there I found a lot of things, some for us, and some
for other people. There was a bag of coffee, a keg of sugar,
three sacks of salt, and a box of odds and ends for us. But the
chaps on board the steamboat—which was gone—had thrown
down the stuff any where, and some of the salt was half melted
in a puddle of water. I turned in, and hauled it out of the water,
and piled it up in a dry place. What was wet belonged
chiefly to our neighbours, and the whole of it might have been
lost if I had not got there in season. This kept me a good hour,
and as I had no help, and some of the sacks were large and heavy,
I was pretty nigh tired out when the work was done. So I
took a rest of half an hour more in the shade. The heat was
powerful, and I had pretty nigh been caught by sleep—I don't
know but I did sleep, for in midsummer one's not always sure of
himself in a drowsy moment—when I was suddenly roused up
by a noise most like the halloo of a person in distress. I took the
saddle on the spur, and went off in the quarter that the sound
came from. It so happened that my route homeward lay the
same way, and on the river road, the only public road in the settlement;
and I had only gone two hundred yards or thereabout,
when, in turning an elbow of the path, I came plump upon a
stranger, who happened to be the person whom I heard calling.
He was most certainly in distress. His horse was flat upon his
side, groaning powerfully, and the man was on his knees, rubbing
the creature's legs with a pretty hard hand. A little way behind
him lay a dead rattlesnake, one of the largest I ever did see,
counting twenty-one rattles besides the button; and the sight of
the snake told me the whole story. I jumped down to see what
I could do in the way of help, but I soon discovered that the nag
had the spasms, and was swelled up to her loins. I however cut
into her leg with my knife, just where she was bitten, and when
I had dug out the poisoned flesh, as much as I thought was reasonable,
I got on my horse and rode back to the salt bags at full

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

speed, and brought away a double handful of the salt. I rubbed
it into the animal's wound, I really believe, a few minutes after
she had groaned her last and stiffened out, but I wasn't rubbing
very long. She was about the soonest killed of any creature
that I ever saw snakebit before.

“It was only after I was done with the mare, that I got a fair
look at her owner. He was a small and rather oldish man, with
a great stoop of the shoulders, with a thin face, glossy black
hair, and eyes black too, but shining as bright, I reckon, as those
of the rattlesnake he had killed. They had a most strange and
troublesome brightness, that made me look at them whether
I would or not. His face was very pale, and the wrinkles were
deep, like so many seams, and, as I have said, he was what I
would call a rather oldish man; but still he was very nicely
dressed, and wore a span-new velvet vest, a real English broad-cloth
coat, gold watch with gold seals; and every now and then
he pulled out a snuff-box made like a horn, with a curl at the
end of it, which was also set with a gold rim, and had a cap
of the same precious stuff upon it. He was taking snuff every
moment while I was doctoring his mare, and when the creature
went dead, he offered it to me; but I had always thought it work
enough to feed my mouth, and had no notion of making another
mouth of my nose, so I refused him civilly.

“He didn't seem to be much worried by the death of his
creature, and when I told him how sorry I was on his account,
he answered quickly,

“ `Oh! no matter; you have a good horse; you will let me
have him; you look like a good fellow.'

“I was a little surprised, you may reckon. I looked at the old
man, and then at my creature. He was a good creature; and
as prime an animal as ever stepped in traces; good at any thing,
plough, wagon, or saddle; as easy-going as a girl of sixteen, and
not half so skittish. I had no notion of giving him up to a stranger,
you may be sure, and didn't half like the cool, easy, impudent
manner with which the old man spoke to me. I had no
fears—I didn't think of his taking my nag from me by force—
but, of a sudden, I almost begun to think he might be a wizard,
as we read in Scripture, and hear of from the old people, or

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

mou't be, the old devil himself, and then I didn't well know what
I had to expect. But he soon made the matter clear to me. Perhaps
he saw that I was a little beflustered.

“ `Young man,' says he, `your horse is a fine one. Will you
sell him? I am willing to pay you a fair price—give you his
full value.'

“There was something to consider in that. When did you ever
find a Western man unwilling for a horse-barter? Besides, though
the creature was a really first-rate nag, he was one more than I
wanted. One for the plough, and one for the saddle—as the old
man didn't ride often—was enough for us; and we had three.
But Rainbow—that was his name—was so sleek an animal! He
could a'most do any thing that you'd tell him. I didn't want to
sell him, but I didn't want to keep a mouth too many. You know
a horse that you don't want begins by gnawing through your
pockets, and ends by eating off his own head. That's the say,
at least. But I raised Rainbow, fed him with my own hands,
curried him night and morning myself, and looked upon him as a
sort of younger brother. I hated powerful bad to part with him;
but then there was no reason to keep him when he was of no use.
'Twas a satisfaction, to be sure, to have such a creature; and
'twas a pleasure to cross him, and streak it away, at a brushing
canter, of a bright morning, for a good five miles at a stretch;
but poor people can't afford such pleasures and satisfactions; and
when I thought of the new wagon that we wanted, and such a
smart chance of other things about the farm, I looked at the old
man and thought better of his offer. I said to him, though a little
slowly,

“ `It's a famous fine horse this, stranger.'

“ `I know it,' said he; `I never saw one that better pleased my
eyes. I'll pay you a famous fine price for him.'

“ `What'll you give?' said I.

“ `Pshaw!' said he, `speak out like a man. I'm no baby,
and you are old enough to know better. What's your price?'

“ `He's low,' said I, `at one hundred and seventy dollars.'

“ `He is,' said he, `he's worth more—will you take that?'

“ `Yes.'

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

“ `You shall have it,' he answered, `and I'll throw the dead
horse into the bargain; she was a famous fine animal too, in
her day, and her skin's worth stuffing as a keepsake. You can
stuff it and put it up in your stables, as an example to your other
horses.'

CHAPTER IV.

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

“All the time he was talking, he was counting out the money,
which was almost all in gold. I was a little dub'ous that it
wasn't good money; but I smelt it, and it had no smell of brass,
and I was a leetle ashamed to let on that I didn't know good
money from bad; besides, there was a something about the old
gentleman so much like a gentleman, so easy, and so commanding,
that I couldn't find the heart to doubt or to dispute any thing
he said. And then, every thing about him looked like a gentleman:
his clothes, his hat, the watch he wore, the very dead
horse and her coverings, saddle, bridle, and so forth, all convinced
me that there was nothing of make-believe.

“ `There,' said he, `my good fellow,' putting the money in my
hand, `I reckon you never handled so much gold in your life before.
'

“ `No,' said I, `to tell you the truth, though I've hearn a good
deal of gold, and know it when I see it by what I've hearn, I
never set eyes on a single piece till now.'

“ `May it do your eyes good now, then,' said he; `you look
like a good fellow. Your horse is sound?'

“ `Yes,' said I, `I can answer better for him than I can for
your gold.'

“ `That's good.'

“ `Well!' said I, `I'm not sure that I've dealt fairly with you,
stranger. I've asked you a little more than I've been asking other
people. My price on Rainbow has been only one hundred and
fifty dollars, before.'

“ `And your conscience troubles you. You are an honest fellow,
' said he, `but never mind, my lad, I'll show you a way to
relieve it.'

“With these words he pulled out a buckskin roll from his
pocket, and out of this he tumbled a pack of cards; the very
cards which you see nailed above my fireplace.

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

“ `We'll play for that twenty dollars,' said he, throwing down
two gold pieces on the body of the dead mare, and beginning to
shuffle the cards immediately. Somehow, I did as he did. I put
down two ten dollar pieces along with his. I couldn't help myself.
He seemed to command me. I felt scared—I felt that I
was doing wrong; but he seemed to take every thing so much
as a matter of course, that I hadn't the courage to say `no' to
any thing he did or said.

“ `What do you play?' said he, and he named some twenty
games of cards, some in French, I believe, and some in Spanish,
but no one of which did I know any thing about. He seemed
beflustered.

“ `Do you play any thing at all?' he asked.

“ `Yes—a little of old sledge—that's all.'

“ `Oh! that will do. A common game enough. I wonder I
should have omitted it. Here! you may shuffle them, and we'll
cut for deal.'

“I didn't shuffle, but cut at once. He cut after me, and the
deal fell to him. He took up and then put the cards down again—
put his hand into his pocket, and drew out a little silver box,
about the size of a small snuff-box,—that had in it a good many
little pills of a dark gray gummy look. One of these he swallowed,
then began to deal, his eye growing brighter every moment,
and looking into mine till I felt quite dazzled and strange.
Our table was the belly of the dead horse. He sat on one of the
thighs. I knelt down upon the grass on the opposite side, and
though it pained me, I couldn't take my eyes from him to save
my life. He asked me a great many questions while he was
throwing out the cards—how old I was—what was my name—
what family I had—how far I lived—where I came from—every
thing, indeed, about me, and my way of life, and what I had and
what I knew:—and all this in no time—as fast as I tell it to you.
Then he said, `You are an honest fellow, take up your cards,
and let us see if you are as lucky as you are honest.' It seemed
as if I was, for I beat him. I played a pretty stiff game of old
sledge, or as he called it, `all fours,' for I used to play, as long
as I could remember, with the old man, my father, every night.
Old people like these plays, and it's good for them to play. It

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

keeps 'em lively, keeps them from sleeping too much, and from
drinking. It's good for them, so long as it makes their own fireside
sweet to them. Well! I was lucky. I won the game, and
it worried me mightily when I did so. I didn't touch the money.

“ `I suppose,' said the stranger, `that I must cover those
pieces,' and before I could guess what he was about, he flung
down four other gold pieces, making forty dollars, in the pile
with mine, and began again shuffling the cards. If I was scared
and unhappy before, I was twice as much so now. I could
scarcely breathe, and why, I can't say exactly. It wasn't from
any anxiety about the winning or the losing, for I preferred not
to have the stranger's money: but it was his very indifference
and unconcern that worried and distressed me. It seemed so
unnatural, that I half the time thought that I was dealing with
nothing human: and though I could shuffle, and cut, and play,
yet it seemed to me as if I did it without altogether knowing
why, or how. As luck would have it, I won the second time;
and the third time he pulled out his purse and put down as many
more pieces as lay there. I looked at the growing heap with a
heart that seemed ready to burst. There was eighty dollars before
me, and I felt my face grow red when I caught his eye looking
steadily at mine. I began to feel sort o' desperate, and flung
about the cards like a person in liquor. The old man laughed,
a low chuckle like, that made my blood crawl in my veins, half
frozen, as it were. But, neither his skill and coolness, nor my
fright, altered the luck at all. I again won, and trembled all over,
to see the pile, and to see him take out his purse, and empty every
thing upon it.

“ `Stranger,' said I, `don't think of it; keep your money, and
let me go home.'

“ `Pshaw! said he, `you're a good fellow, and as lucky as you
are good. Why shouldn't you be my heir? I prefer that a good
fellow should win my money if any body. It'll do your sight
good.'

“ `But not my heart, I'm afraid,' was my answer.

“ `That's precisely as you use it,' said he; `money's a good
creature, like every other good creature that God gives us. It's
a good thing to be rich, for a rich man's always able to do good,

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

when a poor man can only wish to do it. Get money, my lad,
and be wise with it; wiser, I trust, than I have been.'

“With these words, he took out his silver box, swallowed another
of the pills, and was busy dealing out the cards in another
moment. I, somehow, was better pleased with him for what he
said. The mention of God convinced me that he wasn't the
devil, and what he said seemed very sensible. But I didn't feel
any more right and happy than before. I only wanted the
strength to refuse him. I couldn't refuse him. I took up the
cards as he threw them, and it did seem to me that I scarcely
saw to make out the spots when I played them. I hardly knew
how the game was played; I didn't count; I couldn't tell what
I made. I only heard him say at the close of the second hand,

“ `The money's yours. You are a lucky fellow.'

“With these words he pushed the gold heap to me, and threw
me the empty purse.

“ `There's something to put it in.'

“ `No!' said I; `no, stranger—I can't take this money.'

“ `Why, pray?'

“ `It's not right. It don't seem to me to be got honestly. I
haven't worked for it.'

“ `Worked, indeed! If nobody used money but those who
worked for it, many a precious fellow would gnaw his finger ends
for a dinner. Put up your money!'

“I pushed it to him, all but the two eagles which I begun
with; but he pushed it back. I got up without touching it.
`Stay,' said he, `you are a good fellow! Sit down again; sit
down.' I sat down. `I can't take that money,' said he, `for it
is yours. According to my way of thinking, it is yours—it is
none of mine. There is only one way in which it may become
mine; only one way in which I could take it or make use of it,
and that is by winning it back. That may be done. I will put
the horse against the gold.'

CHAPTER V.

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

My heart beat quicker than ever when he pointed to Rainbow.
Not that I expected or wished to win him back, for I would only
have taken him back by giving up all the money, or all except
the hundred and fifty dollars; but it now seemed to me as
if I looked on the old man with such feelings as would have made
me consent to almost any thing he wished. I had a strange sort
of pity for him. I considered him a sort of kind-hearted, rich old
madman. I said, `Very well;' and he took another pill out of
his box, and begun again at the cards.

“ `You are a very fortunate fellow,' said he, `and seem a very
good one. I really see no reason why you should not be my heir.
You say you are not married.'

“ `No.'

“ `But you have your sweetheart, I suppose. A lad of twenty-five,
which I suppose is much about your age, is seldom without
one.'

“ `It's not the case with me,' said I. `In these parts we have
mighty few folks and fewer women, and I don't know the girl
among them that's ever seemed to me exactly the one that I should
be willing to make my wife.'

“ `Why, you're not conceited, I hope? You don't think yourself
too fine a fellow for a poor girl, do you?'

“ `No, by no means, stranger; but there's a sort of liking
that one must have before he can think of a wife, and I haven't
seen the woman yet to touch me in the right way.'

“ `You are hard to please, and properly. Marriage is easier
found than lost. A man is too noble an animal to be kept in a
mouse-trap. But there are women—'

“He stopped short. I waited for him to say something more,
but by this time the cards had been distributed, and he was sorting
his hand.

“ `There are women!' he said again, though as if he was

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

talking to himself. There he stopt for a minute, then looking
up, and fixing his bright eyes upon mine, he continued:

“ `Come, Rayner,' said he, good-humouredly. `The cards are
in your hands, and remember to play your best, for that famous
fine horse may become your own again. I warn you, I have a
good hand. What do you do?'

“ `Good or not,' said I, something more boldly, `I will stand
on mine.'

“I had a most excellent hand, being sure of high and low,
with a strong leading hand for game.

“ `Play then!' he answered; and at the word, I clapped down
the ace of hearts, the very ace you see atop of the pack over the
chimney now.

“ `You are a lucky fellow, Rayner,' said he, as he flung down
the Jack upon it, the only heart he held in his hand. The game
ended; I was owner of horse and money. But I jumped to my
feet instantly.

“ `Stranger,' said I, `don't think I'm going to rob you of your
horse or money. I don't exactly know why I played with you
so long, unless it be because you insisted upon it, and I did'nt
wish to disoblige an old gentleman like yourself. Take your
money, and give me my horse; or, if you want the horse, leave
me the hundred and fifty, which is a fair price for him, and put
the rest in your own pocket. I wont't touch a copper more of it.'

“ `You are a good fellow, Rayner, but, with some persons,
younger and rasher persons than myself, your words would be
answered with a bullet. Nay, were I the boy I have been, it would
be dangerous for you to speak, even to me, in such a manner.
Among gentlemen, the obligation to pay up what is lost by cards
is sacred. The loser must deliver, and the winner must receive.
There is your money, and that is your horse again; but I am
not yet done with you. As I said before, you are a good fellow,
and most certainly a lucky one. I like you, though your principles
are scarcely fixed yet—not certain! Still, I like you;
and there's some chance that you will be my heir yet. A few
more trials at the cards must determine that. I suppose you are
not unwilling to give me a chance to win back my losses?'

“I caught at the suggestion.

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

“ `Surely not,' I replied.

“ `Very good,' says he. `Don't suppose that, because you've
emptied my purse, you've cleaned me out quite. I have a diamond
ring and a diamond breastpin yet to stake. They are
worth something more than your horse and your heap of money.
We will place them against your eagles and horse.'

“ `No!' said I quickly. `I'm willing to put down all the
eagles, but not the horse; or I'll put down the horse and all the
money, except the hundred and fifty.'

“ `As you please,' said he, `but, my good fellow, you must
take my word for the ring and breastpin. I do not carry them
with me. I know it's rather awkward to talk of playing a
promised stake against one that we see, but I give you the honour
of a gentleman that the diamonds shall be forthcoming if I
lose.'

“I began to think that what he said was only a sort of comeoff—
but I didn't want his money, and was quite willing that he
should win it back. If he had said, `I'll stake my toothpick
against the money,' I'd have been just as willing, for all that I
now aimed at was to secure my horse or the price of him. I
felt very miserable at the thought of winning the man's money—
such a heap of it! I had never played cards for money in all
my life before, and there's something in the feeling of winning
money, for the first time, that's almost like thieving. As I tell
you, if he had said his toothpick, or any worthless thing, instead
of his diamonds, I'd have been willing. I didn't say so, however,
and I thought his offer to stake diamonds that he couldn't show,
was pretty much like a come-off. But I was willing enough, for
the money seemed to scald my eyes to look upon. He took out
a pencil, the case of which I saw was gold also, and wrote on a
slip of paper, `Good for two brilliants, one a ring, the other a
breastpin, the latter in form of a Maltese cross, both set in gold,
with an inner rim of silver, valued at seven hundred dollars.'
This was signed with two letters only, the initials of his name.
I have the paper now. He bade me read it, and when I did so,
I thought him madder than a March hare; but if I thought so
then, I was more than ever convinced of it, when, a moment
after, and when we were about to play, he spoke to this effect:

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

“ `There's one thing, Rayner. There's a little incumbrance
on these jewels.'

“ `Well, sir,' I said.

“I didn't care a fig for the incumbrance, for I didn't believe a
word of the jewels.

“ `If you win them, you win a woman along with them. You
win a wife.'

“I laughed outright.

“ `Don't laugh,' said he; `you don't see me laugh. I'm serious;
never more so. You are unmarried. You need a wife.
Don't you want one?'

“ `Yes! if I could get a good one—one to my liking.'

“ `You are a good fellow. You deserve a good wife, Rayner;
and such is the very one I propose to give you.'

“ `Ay, ay,' said I; `but will she be to my liking?'

“ `I hope so; I believe so. She has all the qualities which
should command the liking of a sensible and worthy young man.
She, too, is sensible; she is intelligent; she has knowledge; she
has read books; she has accomplishments; she sings like an angel;
plays on several instruments—piano and guitar!'

“ `Piano and guitar!' said I.

“I didn't know what they were. I felt sure that the old fellow
was mad, just out of a hospital, perhaps; but then where did he
get the money and the gold things? I began to think more suspiciously
of him than ever.

“ `Yes, piano and guitar,' said he; `she draws and paints too,
the loveliest pictures—she can make these trees live on canvass;
ah! can she not? Money has not been spared, Rayner, to make
Rachel what she is.'

“ `Rachel—is that her name?' I asked.

“ `Yes, it is.'

“ `What's the other name?'

“ `You shall know, if you win the diamonds.'

“ `Yes—but how old is she? how does she look? is she young
and handsome? I wouldn't want an ugly wife because she happened
to be wise. I've heard that your wise women are generally
too ugly for any thing else than wisdom.'

“ `You are a fool, Rayner, though a good fellow. But Rachel

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

is beautiful and young—not more than seventeen—the proper age
for you. You, I think you say, are twenty-eight. In this climate
a man's wife should always be ten or twelve years younger
than himself—provided he be a sober and healthy man, and if he be
not, he has no business with a wife, nor a wife with him. You
are both sober and healthy. You are a good fellow—I see that. I
like you, Rayner, and for this reason I am willing to risk Rachel on
the cards, playing against you. My loss will probably be her gain,
and this makes me rather regardless how it ends. You shall be
my heir yet.'

“ `Thank you, old gentleman,' said I, beginning to feel a little
bold and saucy, for I now couldn't help thinking that the stranger
was no better than a good-natured madman who had got away
from his friends. `Thank you,' said I. `If Rachel's the girl you
make her out to be, you can't bring her along a day too soon.
But, may I ask, is she your daughter?'

“ `My daughter!' he answered sharply, and with something of
a frown on his face, `do I look like a man to have children?—to
be favoured with such a blessing as a daughter?—a daughter like
Rachel?'

“ `Now,' said I to myself, `his fit's coming on,' and I began to
look about me for a start.

“ `No, Rayner,' he continued, `she is no daughter of mine,
but she is the daughter of a good man and of honourable parents.
You shall have sufficient proof of that. Have you any more
questions?'

“ `No, sir.'

“ `And you will take Rachel as your wife? You have heard
my description of her. If she comes up to it, I ask you, will you
be willing to take her as your wife?'

“I looked at him queerly enough, I reckon. He fixed his
keen black eyes upon me, so that I couldn't look on him without
shutting my own. I didn't know whether to laugh or to run.
But, thinking that he was flighty in the upper story, I concluded
it was best to make a short business of it, and to agree with any
thing that he wished; so I told him freely `yes,' and he reached
out his hand to mine, which he squeezed nervously for a minute,
and then took out his box of pills, swallowed a couple of them,

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

and began dealing out the cards. I had the strangest luck—the
same sort of luck that had kept with me from the start. I won
the diamonds and won Rachel!

“ `Well,' said he, `I'm glad, Rayner, that you are the man-I've
been long looking for an heir to my diamonds. They are
yours—all is yours; and I shall have to be indebted to you for
the loan of the horse, in order to go and bring you your wife.'

“ `Ay,' said I, `stranger, the horse is at your service, and half
of the money too. I never thought to take them from you at the
first; I shouldn't have felt easy in my conscience to have used
the money that I got in this way.'

“ `Pshaw!' said he, gathering up the cards, and wrapping
them in the buckskin wallet from which he had taken them.
`Pshaw, you are a fool. I'll borrow your horse, and a few pieces
to pay my way.'

“ `Help yourself to the rest,' said I, taking, as I spoke, fifteen
of the eagles to myself, and leaving the rest on the dead body of
the horse, where they had been growing from our first commencing
to play.

“ `You are my heir,' he answered, `and behave yourself as
you should. Between persons so related there should be no paltry
money scruples;' and, while he said these words, he stooped
to take the money. I turned away that he shouldn't suppose I
watched him, but I couldn't help laughing at the strange sort of
cunning which he showed in his conceit. Says I to myself, `You
will take precious good care, old fellow, I see that, that I carry
off no more than my own poor hundred and fifty.' But he was
too quick in mounting and riding off to give me much time to
think about it or to change in my disposition. It was only after
he was off, out of sight, and in a full gallop, that, looking round
upon the dead horse, I saw the eagles still there, nearly all of them,
just as I had heaped them up. He had only taken two of them,
just enough, as he said, to bear his necessary expenses.

“I was a little surprised, and was now more sure than ever
that the stranger had lost his wits. I gathered up the money, and
walked home, mighty slowly, thinking all the way of what had
taken place. It seemed more like a strange dream than any thing
else. Was there any man? Had I played old sledge with a

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

stranger? I was almost inclined to doubt; but there was the
dead horse. I went back to look at it, and when I thrust my
hand down into my breeches pocket, I brought it up full of the
precious metal; but was it precious metal? I began to tremble
at this thought. It might be nothing better than brass or copper,
and my horse was gone—gone off at a smart canter. My heart
grew chilled within me at this reflection. I felt wild—scared
half out of my wits, and instead of regarding the old man as a
witless person escaped from his keepers, I now began to consider
him a cunning sharper, who had found one more witless than I
had fancied him.

CHAPTER VI.

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

But such reflections, even if well founded, came too late for
remedy. The old man was gone beyond present reach, and
when I reflected that he had taken two of the gold pieces for his
own expenses, I began to feel a little reassured on the subject of
their value. When I got home, I told my father of the sale of
the horse, and the price, though I took precious good care to say
nothing of the gambling. The old man, though he himself had
taught me to play cards, was mighty strict against all play for
money. I showed him only the fifteen pieces that I got for Rainbow,
and the rest I put away quietly, meaning to spend them by
degrees upon the farm, as chances offered, so as to prevent him
from ever getting at the real truth. I felt myself pretty safe with
regard to the strange gentleman. I never counted on his coming
back to blow me, though, sometimes, when I wasn't thinking, an
odd sort of fear would come over me, and I would feel myself
trembling with the notion that, after all, he might return. I had
heard of rich people having strange ways of throwing away their
money, and taking a liking for poor people like myself; and then,
there was a serious earnest about the strange gentleman, in spite
of all his curiousnesses, that made me a little apprehensive, whenever
the recollection of him came into my head.

“But regular work, day after day, is the best physic for mind
and body; and, after three days had gone by, I almost ceased to
bother myself with the affair. I passed the time so actively that
I didn't think much about any thing. I took a trip down the
river, some eighteen miles, to a wheelwright's, and bought a prime
two-horse wagon, for ninety-five dollars, which made a considerable
hole in the price of Rainbow; and, one thing with another,
the week went by almost without giving me time to count if the
right number of days was in it. Sunday followed, and then
Monday. That Monday I was precious busy. I was always an
industrious man—doing something or other—making this, or

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

mending that. To be doing nothing was always the hardest work
for me. But that Monday I out-worked myself, and I was really
glad when I saw the sun sink suddenly down behind the woods.
I threw down the broad-axe, for I had been hewing out some
door-facings for a new corn-crib and fodder-house, and went
towards the gallery (piazza) where the old man was sitting, and
threw myself, at full-length, along the entrance, just at his feet.
I was mighty tired. My jacket was off, my sleeves rolled up,
my neck open, and the perspiration standing thick on my breast
and forehead. At that very moment, while I was lying in this
condition, who should I see ride into the opening, but the strange
old gentleman. I knew him at a glance, and my heart jumped
up into my mouth as if it was trying to get out of it. Behind
him came another person riding upon a pretty little bay filly.
Though it was darkening fast, I could make out that this other
person was a woman, and I never felt so scared in all my life. I
looked up at my father, and he at me. He saw that I was frightened,
but he hadn't time to ask me a question, and I shouldn't
have had the strength to answer if he had. Up rode the strange
old gentleman, and close behind him came the lady. Though I
was mightily frightened, I looked curiously at her. I could make
out that she was a small and delicate-framed person, but her face
was covered with a thick veil. I could see that she carried
herself well, sat her horse upright like a sort of queen, and when
the old man offered to take her off, yielded herself to him with a
slow but graceful stateliness, not unlike that of a young cedar
bending to the wind.

“For my part, though I could see this, I was never more confounded
in my life. I was completely horror-struck. To see the
old gentleman again was a shocking surprise; but that he should
really bring the lady that I had won, and that she should catch
me in that condition,—my coat off, my breast open, my face
covered with dust and perspiration! If the work made me sweat
before, this surprise increased it. I got up, and made out to get
a few steps towards the strangers. I said something by way of
apology for being caught in that shabby fix; but the old gentleman
stopped me.

“ `Never mind, no apologies, Mr. Rayner. The proofs of

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

labour are always honourable, and if the heart can show that it
works as well as the body, then the labourer is a gentleman.
How are you, and—this is your father?'

“I introduced him to the old man as the person who had bought
Rainbow, and we conducted them into the house.

“ `My ward, Mr. Rayner,' said the stranger, when we had
entered, `this is the young friend of whom I spoke to you.'

“At these words the young lady threw up her veil. I staggered
back at the sight. I won't talk of her beauty, my friend,
for two reasons; one of which is, that I haven't got words to
say what I thought and felt—what I think and feel now. The
other—but I needn't speak of the other reason. This one is
sufficient. The old gentleman looked at me inquiringly, and
then he looked at my father. I could see that there was a little
doubt and anxiety upon his face, but they soon passed away as he
examined the face of my father. There was something so good,
so meek, so benevolent about the looks of the old man, that
nobody could mistrust that all was right in the bottom of his heart.
As for my heart, the strange gentleman seemed to see into it quite
as quickly as into that of my father. He was not so blunt and
abrupt now in his manner of speaking to me as he had been when
we first met. His manner was more dignified and reserved.
There was something very lofty and noble about it, and in speaking
to the lady his voice sunk almost into a whisper.

“ `Mr. Rayner,' said he, looking to my father, `I trust that
you will give my ward a chamber for the night. I have heard
of you, sir, and have made bold to presume on your known benevolence
of character in making this application.'

“ `Our home is a poor one, stranger,' said the old man; `but
such as it is, it is quite at the service of the young lady.'

“ `Good!' said the other; `you are the man after my own
heart. I am known,' he continued, `where men speak of me at
all, as Mr. Eckhardt. My ward is the daughter of a very near
and dear friend. Her name is Herder—Rachel Herder. So
much is necessary for convenience in conversation; and now, sir,
if you can tell Rachel where she is to find her chamber, so that
she may arrange her dress, and get rid of the dust of travel, she
will be very much obliged to you.'

[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]

“All this was soon arranged and attended to, and while the
lady disappeared in our best chamber, Mr. Eckhardt proceeded
to disburthen the horses, on both of which were saddle-bags that
were stuffed almost to bursting. These were brought into the
house, and sent to the chamber after the lady. Then the stranger
sat down with my father, the two old men chatting quite
briskly together, while I stripped the horses of their saddles, and
took them to the stable. When I returned to the house I found
them as free-spoken and good-humoured as if they had been intimate
from the first day of clearing in that country.

CHAPTER VII.

[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]

“You may suppose what my confusion must have been, for I
can't describe it to you. I can only say that I felt pretty much
like a drunken man. Every thing swum around me. I was
certain of nothing; didn't know what to believe, and half the
time really doubted whether I was asleep or awake. But there
were the horses—there was Rainbow. I couldn't mistake him,
and if I had, he didn't mistake me. When he heard my voice as
I led him to the stable, he whinnied with a sort of joy, and pricked
up his ears, and showed his feeling as plainly as if he had a
human voice to speak it in words. And I reckon, too, it was a
more true feeling than many of those that are spoken in words.
I threw my arms round the good creature's neck, and if it hadn't
been for thinking of Rachel Herder, I reckon I should have kissed
him, too, it did me so much good to see him again. But I hadn't
much time for this sort of fondness, and when I remembered the
whole affair between the strange old gentleman, Mr. Eckhardt,
and myself, I was too much worried to think any more of Rainbow.
I couldn't bring myself to believe it true about the diamonds and
the wife; and when I remembered the sight that I had caught,
though a glimpse only, and for a single moment, of the great
beauty of the young lady, I couldn't help thinking that the stranger
was only making merry with me—running his rigs upon a
poor, rough, backwoodsman. But this notion roused up my pride
and feeling. `Not so rough,' says I to myself; `poor it may be,
but not mean; not more rough than honest labour makes a man.
And poor as you please, and rough as you please, when the
heart's right, and the head's no fool's head, the man's man
enough for any woman, though she walks in satin!' With this I
considered that I ought, at least, to make myself rather decent
before I sat down to supper. My cheeks burned me when I
looked at myself and remembered how she had caught me. I
knew that good soft spring water, and my best suit, would turn

[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]

me into quite another sort of looking man; but here again was
difficulty. It was my chamber which my father had given up to
the young lady, and all my clothes were in it. My new coat
and blue pantaloons hung upon pegs behind the door; and all my
shirts were in an old chest of drawers on which the looking-glass
stood; and to get these things without her seeing was impossible.
But it had to be done; so I called up the old negro woman servant
we had, and told her what to do, and sent her for the clothes,
while I waited for them at the back of the house. When she
brought them, I hurried down to the branch (brooklet) and made
a rapid and plentiful use of the waters. I then got in among the
bushes, and made a thorough change in my dress, taking care to
hide the old clothes in the hollow of a gum. I combed my hair
smoothly over the branch, which answered me at the same time
for a looking-glass, and had the effect of making me much more
satisfied with my personal appearance. I needn't blush, my
friend, at my time of life, to say that I thought myself then, and
was, a tolerable comely fellow; and I couldn't help feeling a
sneaking secret notion that the young lady would think so too.
Well, I got in time enough for supper. Mr. Eckhardt looked at
me, as I thought, with real satisfaction. He and my father had
been keeping company all the time I was gone, and I could see,
among other things, that they were mightily pleased with one another.
By and by, supper was brought in, and Rachel Herder
came out of her chamber. If I thought her beautiful before, I
thought her now ten times more so. Once I caught her eyes fixed
upon me, but she turned them away without any flurry or
confusion, and I don't think that I saw her look at me in particular
once again that night. This worried me, I confess. It seemed
to show that she wasn't thinking of me; and, moreover, it
seemed to show that Mr. Eckhardt hadn't said a word to her
about the business; and this made me more ready to believe that
he had only been running his rigs upon me. Yet there was
something about his looks and in his words, whenever he spoke to
me—something so real, serious, earnest, that I couldn't help believing,
after all, that the affair wasn't altogether over. Nor was
it, as you will see directly.

“Supper went forward. You know what a country supper is,

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out here in Mississippi, so it don't need to tell you that cornbread,
and a little eggs and bacon, and a smart bowl of milk, was pretty
much the amount of it. The young lady ate precious little;
took a little milk, I believe, and a corn biscuit. As for me,
I'm very sure I ate still less. My heart was too much in my
mouth to suffer me to put in any thing more; for, whichever
way I thought of the matter, I was worried half to death. If
the old gentleman was serious, it was still a mighty terrifying
thing to have a wife so suddenly forced upon a body,—a wife
that you never saw before and didn't know any thing about; and
if he wasn't serious, it was very hard to lose so lovely a creature,
just too after your heart had been tantalized and tempted by
the promise that she was all for yourself. As I tell you, my
friend, whichever way I could think of it, I was still worried
half to death.

“After supper, Mr. Eckhardt asked me to walk out with him;
so, leaving the young lady with my father,—who, by the way, had
already grown mightily pleased with her,—off we went into the
woods. We hadn't gone very far when the old gentleman spoke,
pretty abruptly:

“ `Well, Rayner, my lad, you've seen the lady whom I intend
as your wife. Does she suit you?'

“ `Why, sir, you're rather quick. I can answer for her beauty:
she's about the beautifullest creature I ever did see, but it's
not beauty altogether that makes a good wife, and I ha'n't had
time yet to judge whether she'll suit me.'

“ `How much time do you want?' said he shortly.

“ `Well, I can't say.'

“ `Will a week or ten days answer?'

“ `That's as it happens,' said I. `Some men you can understand
in an hour, just as if you had been with 'em all your life.
I'm pretty much such a person myself,—but with some you can't
get on so rapidly. You'll be with them a year, and know just
as little of their hearts at the end of it, as you did at the beginning.'

“ `Humph! and whose fault will that be but your own? There's
an eye to see, Rayner, as well as a thing to be seen. It depends
very much upon the seeker whether he shall ever find. But
enough. There's no need in this case for much philosophy.

[figure description] Page 105.[end figure description]

You are easily read, and so is Rachel. A week will answer to
make you both acquainted, and I'll leave her with you for that
time.'

“ `But are you serious?' I asked.

“ `Serious! But your question is natural. I am a man of
few words, Rayner. You see something in my proceedings which
is extraordinary. As the world goes, and acts, and thinks, perhaps
it is; but nothing was ever more deliberate or well advised,
on my part, than this proceeding. Hear me, lad! this lady is a
ward of mine; the daughter of a very dear friend, who gave her
to my trust. I swore to do by her as a father. I am anxious to
do so; but I am an old man, not long for this world,—an erring
man, not always sure of doing right while I am in it. I wish to
find the child a protector,—a good man,—a kind man,—a man
whom I can trust. This has been my desire for some time. I
fancy I have found in you the very person I seek. I am a man
to look keenly, judge quickly, and act in the same manner. As
you yourself have remarked, you are a person easily understood.
I understood you in a little time, and was pleased with what I saw
of you. I have chosen you out as the husband of Rachel. She
knows nothing yet of my purpose. You, I see, have kept your
father in partial ignorance of our adventure. Perhaps you were
right in this case, though, as a general rule, such secrecy between
two persons placed as you are would have been an error. Well,
Rachel shall stay with you a week. I know her so well that I
fancy you will in that time become intimate and remain pleased
with each other—sufficiently pleased to make the rest easy.'

“There was some more talk between us, as we went toward the
house, but this was the substantial part of what was said. Once
I made some remark on the strangeness of such a preference
shown to me, when in the great cities he might have found so
many young men better suited by education for a young lady
whom he represented to be so accomplished; but he had his answer
for this also; and so quickly uttered, and with such a commanding
manner, that, even if I had not been satisfied, I should
still have been silenced.

“ `Your remark is natural. Half the world, having such a
child to dispose of, would have gone to the great city, and have

[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]

preferred a fashionable husband. But I know her heart. It is
her heart, and not her accomplishments, that I wish to provide for.
I want a man, not a dandy,—a frank, noble-hearted citizen, however
plain, not a selfish, sophisticated calculator, who looks for a
wife through the stock market. Enough, my good fellow; no
more words.'

CHAPTER VIII.

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“That very night Mr. Eckhardt contrived, after the young
lady had gone to bed, to let my father know that he would be
pleased if his ward could be suffered to remain in his family for a
few days, until he should cross the river, in order to look after a
man on the west of the Misssisippi, who owed him money. He
was unwilling to carry her with him into so very wild a region.
He made every thing appear so natural to the old man, that he
consented out of hand, just as if it had been the most reasonable
arrangement in the world; and it was only after Mr. Eckhardt
had set out,—which he did by daylight the next morning,—that
my father said to me:

“ `It's very strange, William, now I come to think of it, that
Mr. Eckhardt should leave the young lady in a family where
there's none but men.'

“ `But she's just as safe here, father,' said I, `as if she had fifty
of her own sex about her.'

“ `That's true enough, William,' said the old man, `and if the
child feels herself at home, why there's nothing amiss. I'm
thinking she's about the sweetest-looking creature I ever laid
eyes on.'

“I thought so too, but I said nothing, and followed the old man
into the house, with my feelings getting more and more strange
and worrisome at every moment. I was in the greatest whirl of
expectation—my cheeks a-burning,—my heart as cold as ice, and
leaping up and down, just as scarily as a rabbit's when he's finding
his way through the paling into a garden patch. I felt as if
the business now upon my hands was about the most serious and
trying I had ever undertaken; and it took all my thinking, I tell
you, to bring my courage to the right pitch, so as to steady my
eyes while I spoke to the young lady as she came out to the
breakfast-table. My father had a message to her from Mr. Eckhardt,
telling her of his absence; and though she looked a little

[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]

anxious when she heard that he was already gone, she soon seemed
to become quiet and at ease in her situation. Indeed, for that
matter, she was the most resigned and easy person I ever met in
my life. She seemed quite too gentle ever to complain, and I
may say now, with some certainty, that, whatever might be her
hurts of mind or body, she was the most patient to submit, and
the most easy to be pacified, of all human beings.

“Now, if you know any thing of a man of my description, if
you're any thing of a judge of human nature, you'll readily understand
that, if I was scary and bashful at first, in meeting with
a young and beautiful creature like her, and knowing what I did
know of what was before me, it didn't take very long for the fright
to wear off. The man whose feelings are very quick, gets mightily
confused at first, but give him time, don't hurry him, and he'll
come to his senses pretty soon, and they'll come to him, and they'll
be the sharper and the more steady, from the scare they had at first—
you can't scare them in the same manner a second time. Before
that day was well out, I could sit down and talk with Rachel,
and hear her talk, without growing blind, dumb, and deaf in an
instant. Her mildness gave me encouragement, and when I got
used to the sound of my own voice, just after hers, I then found
out, not only that I had a good deal to say, but that she listened
very patiently, and I think was pleased to hear it. I found her
so mild, so kind, and encouraging, she seemed to take so much
interest in every thing she saw, that I was for showing her every
thing. Our cows, the little dairy, the new wagon, even to
the fields of corn, cotton, and potatoes, were all subjects of examination
one after the other. Then, I could carry her along the
hill slopes, through as pretty a grove, too, as you would wish to
lay eyes on; and down along just such another, even to the river
banks; and we had odd things enough to show, here and there, to
keep up the spirits and have something to talk about. These
rambles we'd take either in the cool of the morning, or towards
sunset in the afternoon; and, sometimes the old man would go
along with us—but, as he couldn't go very far at one time, we
had pretty much the whole chance to ourselves; and what with
talking and walking with Rachel, and thinking about her when I
wasn't with her, I did precious little work that week. To

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shorten a long story, my friend, I now began to think that there was
nothing wrong in my gambling with Mr. Eckhardt, and to agree
in his notion that the loser was always bound to pay, and the winner
to receive. Before he got back, which he did not until
ten days were fully over, I had pretty much concluded that I
should find it the most trying business in nature to have to give up
my winnings. I don't mean the diamonds; for them I had not
seen, and hadn't cared to see; but I mean the incumbrance that
came with them, which, by this time, was more than all the gold
or diamonds, in my sight, that the whole world could show.

CHAPTER IX.

[figure description] Page 110.[end figure description]

“I was now as anxious to see Mr. Eckhardt as I had before
been afraid of his coming. He overstayed his time a little, being
nearer two weeks gone than one. He was a keen-sighted man.
His first words, when we were again alone together, were, `Well,
all's right on your part, Rayner. You are a good fellow—I see
that you will be my heir. You find that what I said of Rachel
is true; and nothing now remains but to see what she will say.
Have you been much together?'

“ `Pretty often. I reckon I've done little else than look after
her since you've been gone.'

“ `What! you hav'n't neglected your business, Rayner?'
said he, with a smile—`the cows, the horses?'

“ `They've had a sort of liberty,' says I.

“ `Bad signs for farming, however good for loving. You must
change your habits when you are married.'

“ `Ah! that's not yet,' said I, with a sigh. `I'm dub'ous, Mr.
Eckhardt, that Miss Rachel won't fancy me so soon as I do her!'

“He looked a little anxious, and didn't answer so quickly as
usual, and my heart felt as heavy then as if it was borne down
by a thousand pounds of lead. It wasn't much lightened when
he answered, with a sort of doubting,—

“ `Rachel,' said he, `has always heeded my counsel. She
knows my love for her—she has every confidence in my judgment.
You, Rayner, have some of those advantages which
young women are apt to admire. You are well made, youthful,
manly, and with a masculine grace and beauty which you owe
to the hunter life. These are qualities to recommend the young
of one sex to the young of the other. You have something more.
You are a sensible youth, with a native delicacy of feeling which,
more than any thing beside, will be apt to strike Rachel. It
struck me. I will not presume to say that you have won either
her eye or her heart—the eye of a woman is easy won at all

[figure description] Page 111.[end figure description]

times, the heart slowly. Perhaps it may be safe to say that hearts
are not often won till after marriage. But, at all events, with
your personal claims, which I think considerable, and the docility
of Rachel, I have hopes that I can bring about an arrangement
which, I confess to you, I regard as greatly important to my
future purposes. We shall see.'

“At that moment I was quite too full of Rachel and my own
hopes, to consider the force of the remark which he last made.
I never troubled myself to ask what his purposes might be, beyond
the single one which we both had in view. When Mr.
Eckhardt met with Rachel, and, indeed, while he spoke with me,
I could observe that there was a gravity, like sadness, in his voice
and manner, which was not usual with him, or at least had not
shown itself in our previous meetings. He hesitated more frequently
in what he had to say. His eye was less settled, though
even brighter than before; and I noted the fact that he took his
pills three times as frequently as ever. Even when he spoke
with a show of jesting or playfulness, I noted that there was a
real sadness in what he looked, and even something of sadness
in what he said, or in his manner of saying it. Nothing but this
seriousness of look and manner kept me from thinking that he
was playing upon my backwoods ignorance, when he was speaking
my own good name and good qualities to my teeth. But
when I doubted and began to suspicion that he was running rigs
upon me, I had only to look into his face and see that he was
talking in the way of downright, matter-of-fact business.

“When he came, Rachel went to him and put her hand in his,
but she didn't speak. Nor did he at first. He only bent down
and kissed her forehead; and so he stood a while, holding her
hand in his, and talking to my father. It was a sight to see them
two. I couldn't stand it. There was something in it, I can't
tell you what, that looked so sadful. I went out and wiped the
water from my eyes. It seemed to me then, as if the old gentleman
was meditating something very distressing, and as if poor
Rachel was half dub'ous of it herself. After a little while, my
father came out and joined me, and we walked off together to the
stable.

“ `William,' says the old man, `these are strange people.

[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]

They seem very sweet, good people; at least the girl seems very
good, and is a very sweet girl; but there's something very
strange and very sorrowful about them.'

“I couldn't say any thing, for my heart was very full, and
the old man went forward.

“ `Now, what's more strange than for him to leave her here
with us? though, to be sure, we wouldn't see her harmed even
to the falling of a hair of her head—and I can answer for you,
Bill, as I can for myself; but it's not every body that will say
for us what we might feel for ourselves, and precious few fathers
would leave an only daughter here, in strange woods, with such
perfect strangers.'

“ `But she's not his daughter,' said I.

“ `It don't matter. It's very clear that he loves her as if she
was his daughter, and I reckon she's never known any other
father. Poor girl!—I'm sure I like her already so much that I
wish he'd leave her here altogether.'

“These last words of my father seemed to untie my tongue,
and I up and told him every syllable of what had taken place
between me and Mr. Eckhardt, from my first meeting with him
the day when I went to the river landing, up to the very moment
when we were talking. I didn't hide any thing, but told the
whole story of the cards, the gold, and the diamonds; and ended
by letting him know that if he should be so sorry to lose Rachel,
now that we both knew so much about her, it would go a mighty
deal harder with me. I told him all that Mr. Eckhardt had said
since his return, and what hopes I had that all would go as he
wished it. But the old man shook his head. He didn't like what
he heard about Mr. Eckhardt's gambling, and was very tight
upon me for letting myself be tempted to deal with him in the
same business. He didn't think the worse of Rachel, of course,
but he looked upon it as a sort of misfortune to be in any way
connected with a gambler.

“We hadn't much longer time for confabulating, for Mr.
Eckhardt now came from the house and joined us. He was a
man who always came jump to the business, whatever it was,
that he had in hand. But he wasn't a rough man, though a quick
one. He had a way of doing the bluntest things without

[figure description] Page 113.[end figure description]

roughing the feelings. When he drew nigh, he took my father's arm
to lead him aside, speaking to me at the same time—`Rayner, go
to Rachel;—I have prepared her to see you. I will explain
every thing to your father, if you have not already done it; and
if you have, I still have something to say.'

“You may reckon I didn't stop to count the tracks after that.
I verily think that I made the door of the house in a hop-skip-and-jump
from the stable. Yet, when I got to the threshold, I stuck—
I stuck fast. I heard a low sweet sort of moaning from within,
and oh! how my heart smote me when I heard it. I thought to
myself, it's so cruel to force this poor girl's inclination. What
can she see in me? That was my question to myself, and it
made me mighty humble, I tell you, when I asked it. But that
very humbleness did me good, and gave me sort of strength. `If
she don't see any thing in me to favour,' was my thought, `at
least I'll show her that I'm not the mean-spirited creature to take
advantage of her necessity;' and when I thought in this manner, I
went forward with a bound, and stood before her. I took her
hand in mine, and said,—but Lord bless me, it's no use to try
and tell you what I said, for I don't know myself. The words
poured from me free enough. My heart was very full. I meant
to speak kindly and humbly, and do the thing generously, and I
reckon that, when the heart means what is right, and has a
straight purpose before it, the tongue can't go very far out of the
way. Nor did mine, if I am to judge of the effects which followed
it. It's enough for me to tell you, that, though the tears
wasn't altogether dried up in Rachel's eyes, her lips began to
smile; she let her hand rest in mine, and she said something, but
what it was, I can't tell you. It's enough to say that she let me
know that she thought that all that had been proposed by Mr.
Eckhardt was for her good and happiness, and she was willing to
consent to whatever he had said. He came in a little while after,
and seemed quite satisfied. He talked, as if he himself was
particularly pleased, but there was a very great earnestness in
his looks that awed and overpowered me. His eyes seemed very
much sunk, even in the short time he had been gone, the wrinkles
seemed to have doubled in number on his face; his form trembled
very much, and I could perceive that he took his pills from the little

[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]

box of silver twice as often as ever. He didn't give himself
or me much time to think over what was to happen, for he hadn't
been ten minutes returned to the house, after the matter was understood
all round, before he said to me in a whisper:

“ `Rayner, my lad, you are a good fellow; suppose you ride
off at once for your parson. You have one, your father tells me,
within a few miles. A smart gallop will bring him back with
you before sunset, and I would see you married to-night. I shall
have to leave you in the morning.'

“Ah! stranger, don't wonder if I made the dust fly after that!
That night we were married.

CHAPTER X.

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“The next morning, just as breakfast was over, Mr. Eckhardt
rose and buttoned his coat.

“ `Rachel, my child,' said he, `I shall now leave you. It will
be perhaps some time before I see you again. For that matter, I
may never see you again. But I have fulfilled my promise to
your dear father. You are the wife of a good man—a gentle
and kind-hearted man. He will make you a good husband, I believe
and hope. You, I know, will make him a good wife. The
seeds of goodness and happiness are here in this cottage—may
they grow to fruits. Kiss me, my child! Kiss me! It may be
for the last time!'

“ `No!' said she; `oh, no!' and she caught and she clung to
him. It was a time to bring tears, stranger, not to talk. There
was a good many words said by all of us, but not much talking.
It was a cry and an exclamation like, with poor Rachel, and
then she sunk off in the arms of Mr. Eckhardt. I was monstrous
frightened; but he carried her into the room and laid her on the
bed. `She will soon get over it,' said he, `and in the mean time
I'll steal away. When she recovers follow me. You will find
me—' He told me where to find him—at the place where
we had played together on the dead horse—but the sentence he
finished in a whisper. Then he stooped and kissed her, gave her
one long look, and his lips moved as if he was speaking a blessing
over her. After this he turned from me hurriedly, as if to
conceal the tear in his eye. But I saw it. It couldn't be concealed.
It was about the largest tear I ever did see in the eye of
a man, but I reckon there was only that one. He was gone before
Rachel come to herself. Till that happened I was about the
most miserable creature on earth. When she opened her eyes
and found that he was already gone, her troubles somewhat softened;
and when I found that, I set off to follow Mr. Eckhardt,
as he had directed me. I found him at the place appointed, but

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he had no horse and no cloak, and didn't appear to have made
any of the usual arrangements for travelling. I expressed my
surprise. `Where's your horse?' I demanded.—`I shall need
none. Besides, I have none. You seem to forget, Rayner, that
the horse is yours.'—`Mine!'—`Yes! you won him!'—`But
you can't mean, sir—' I was beginning to expostulate,
when he put his hand on my mouth. `Say no more, Rayner.
You are a good fellow. The horse is yours, whether you
have him by your skill or my generosity. Did I not tell you that
I intended to make you my heir?'

“I looked bewildered, and felt so, and said, `Well, you don't
intend to leave us then?'—`Yes I do.'—`How do you mean to
go—by water?' Remember, the river was pretty near us, and
though I didn't myself expect any steamboat, yet I thought it
likely he might have heard of one. `Very possible,' he answered,
with something of a smile upon his countenance. He
continued, after a short pause, `It is difficult to say by what conveyance
a man goes when he goes out of the world, Rayner.
The journey I propose to take is no other. Life is an uncertain
business, Rayner. Uncertain as it is, most people seem never to
have enough of it. I am of a different thinking. I have had
only too much. I am neither well in it, nor fit for it, and I shall
leave it. I have made all my arrangements, settled my concerns,
and, as I promised, you shall be my heir.' I began to speak and
expostulate with him, but he stopped me. `Rayner, you are a
good fellow, but you shouldn't interrupt me. As I have but little
time for talking, you should let me enjoy it all. You can
say what you have to say when I am gone, and I promise you I
shall never interrupt you then. You have heard me, you understand
my words.'

“ `I think I do,' was my answer; `you mean to take your
own life!'

“ `True, Rayner! but you speak as if it was yours I were
about to take!'

“I told him I felt almost as bad as if it was, and asked him
why he should think of such a deed.

“ `It's a long story, Rayner, and you would probably understand
it as thoroughly in ten words as in ten thousand. Perhaps

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I should say enough in telling you that I am sick of life, and
that life sickens me. Every moment that I live humbles and degrades
me. I have been the master of three princely fortunes;
and now I have only the means to carry me on my last journey.
I have had the reputation of talents, wit, and wisdom in high
degree, but lack the strength to forbear the companionship of the
basest, and the wit to keep from being the victim of the vilest.
Had I been the only victim, Rayner! But that poor child, now
your wife—the child of a dear relative and friend—entrusted to
my guardianship in the confidence of love, which, at dying, demanded
of me no pledge, but that which it fancied was speaking
through my eyes—that child has been the victim also! Start
not! The child is pure as any angel. It was the robbery of
her fortune of which I speak. I squandered hers with my own.
I did not bring her to beggary, Rayner. No! But I have lived
in perpetual dread that I should do so! Now that she is yours,
I have no such fears. I know that she is safe—that she will do
well—that you will both do well. Do not fancy, my good fellow,
when I tell you this, that I have been seeking in vain for a husband
for the child. The thing is otherwise. Husbands have
sought for her. Men of rank and substance, for whose attentions
the mothers of most daughters would have worked their wits and
fingers to the bone. But if I squandered Rachel's fortune—mark
me—I was resolved that she should not be sacrificed. I resolved
that I would do her justice, at least in that one respect—that she
should never be yielded, if I could help it, to the shallow witling,
the profligate, or the brute—let their social rank and worldly
possessions be what they might. I knew her, and fancied I
could tell what sort of person would suit her. I have found
that person in you—so I believe—and my work is ended. The
labourer knocks off when his work is done, and so will I. There
is one thing, Rayner—'

“He took from his pocket the buckskin roll which contained
his pack of cards.

“ `Do you see these? I will not say that they have been my
bane. I were a fool to say so. My own weakness was my
bane. They were only the unconscious instruments in my
hands, as innocent as the dirk or pistol in the hands of the

[figure description] Page 118.[end figure description]

assassin. But they have their dangers, Rayner; and I would
protect you against them. Take them; I promised you should
be my heir. Take them, but not to play them. Keep them in
your eyes as an omen. Show them to your children as a warning.
Tell them what I have told you; and while you familiarize their
eyes with their forms, familiarize their hearts with their dangers.
There! do not lose sight of them. Leave me now. Farewell!
You see I am at the bottom of my box.'

“He thrust the cards into my hands, and as he spoke, he drew
out his little silver box, and took from it the only pill which remained.
This he swallowed, and then handed me the box also.
I refused to take it. `Pshaw!' said he, `why not? your refusal
to take it can have no effect on my determination! Take it and
leave me!' But I still refused. He turned from me, saying:
`You're a foolish fellow, Rayner;' and walked down the road
leading to the river. I followed him closely. He turned half
round, once or twice, muttered and seemed discontented. I still
kept close with him, and began to expostulate. But he interrupted
me fiercely, and I now perceived that his eyes began to
glisten and to glare very wildly. It had not escaped my observation,
that the last pill which he had taken was greatly larger
than any he had used before; and I then remembered, that before
the marriage ceremony was performed, on the previous
night, he had opened the box more than once, in my presence,
and I noted that it contained a good many. By this time we
reached the banks of the river. He turned full upon me.
`Rayner,' said he, `you're a good fellow, but you must go home
to your wife.'—`It's impossible,' said I, `to leave you.'—`We'll,
see to that,' said he, and he turned towards the river. I took it for
certain he was going to plunge in, and I jumped forward to seize
him, but, just as my arms were extended to embrace him, he
wheeled about and clapped a pistol to my head. I started back,
quickly enough, as you may suppose; and he exclaimed—`Ah!
Rayner, you are a good fellow, but you cannot prevent the
journey. Farewell!' With these words he flung me the pistol,
which I afterwards found was unloaded, and, before I could speak
or think, he sprang from the bluff into the stream. It appeared
to me as if I heard the splash before I saw the motion. I ran up

[figure description] Page 119.[end figure description]

the bluff where he had stood, as soon as I could recover myself,
and saw where the water-rings were spreading in great circles
where he had gone down. I didn't give myself a moment after
that. I could swim like a duck and dive like a serpent, and had
no fear of the water for myself; so in I jumped, and fished about
as long as I could stand it underneath; but I could find nothing
of him. He had given himself up to the currents so entirely,
that they whirled him out of sight in a minute. When I rose and
got to the shore, I saw his hat floating among some bushes on
the other shore. But as for poor Mr. Eckhardt, he was gone,
sure enough, upon his last journey!

“You see our little family. The boy is very much like him
in looks, and I reckon in understanding. He's very thoughtful
and smart. We are happy, stranger, and I don't believe that
Mr. Eckhardt was wrong in his notion that I would make Rachel
happy. She tells me she is, and it makes me happy to believe
her. It makes her sad to see the cards, and sad to hear of them,
but she thinks it best for our boy that he should hear the story
and learn it all by heart; and that makes her patient, and patience
brings a sort of peace along with it that's pretty much like
happiness. I could tell you more, my friend, but it's not needful,
and your eyes look as if they had kept open long enough for
one sitting. So come with me, and let me show you where you
are to lie down!”

These words roused me! I half suspect that I was drowsing
in my chair. I can hardly suppose, dear reader, that you could
be capable of an act of like forgetfulness.

p371-137 THE ARM-CHAIR OF TUSTENUGGEE. A TRADITION OF THE CATAWBA. CHAPTER I.

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The windy month had set in, the leaves were falling, and the light-footed
hunters of Catawba, set forth upon the chase. Little groups
went off in every direction, and before two weeks had elapsed
from the beginning of the campaign, the whole nation was broken
up into parties, each under the guidance of an individual warrior.
The course of the several hunting bands was taken according to
the tastes or habits of these leaders. Some of the Indians were
famous for their skill in hunting the otter, could swim as long
with head under water as himself, and be not far from his
haunches, when he emerged to breathe. These followed the
course of shallow waters and swamps, and thick, dense bays, in
which it was known that he found his favourite haunts. The bear
hunter pushed for the cane brakes and the bee trees; and woe
to the black bear whom he encountered with his paws full of
honeycomb, which he was unwilling to leave behind him. The
active warrior took his way towards the hills, seeking for the
brown wolf and the deer; and, if the truth were known, smiled
with wholesale contempt at the more timorous who desired less
adventurous triumphs. Many set forth in couples only, avoiding
with care all the clamorous of the tribe; and some few, the more
surly or successful—the inveterate bachelors of the nation—were
content to make their forward progress alone. The old men prepared
their traps and nets, the boys their blow guns, and followed
with the squaws slowly, according to the division made by the
hunters among themselves. They carried the blankets and bread

[figure description] Page 121.[end figure description]

stuffs, and camped nightly in noted places, to which, according to
previous arrangement, the hunters might repair at evening and
bring their game. In this way, some of the tribes followed the
course of the Catawba, even to its source. Others darted off
towards the Pacolet and Broad rivers, and there were some, the
most daring and swift of foot, who made nothing of a journey to
the Tiger river, and the rolling mountains of Spartanburg.

There were two warriors who pursued this course. One of
them was named Conattee, and a braver man and more fortunate
hunter never lived. But he had a wife who was a greater scold
than Xantippe. She was the wonder and the terror of the tribe,
and quite as ugly as the one-eyed squaw of Tustenuggee, the
grey demon of Enoree. Her tongue was the signal for “slink-
ing,” among the bold hunters of Turkey-town; and when they
heard it, “now,” said the young women, who sympathised, as all
proper young women will do, with the handsome husband of an
ugly wife, “now,” said they, “we know that poor Conattee has
come home.” The return of the husband, particularly if he
brought no game, was sure to be followed by a storm of that
“dry thunder,” so well known, which never failed to be heard at
the farthest end of the village.

The companion of Conattee on the present expedition was named
Selonee—one of the handsomest lads in the whole nation. He
was tall and straight like a pine tree; had proved his skill and
courage in several expeditions against the Chowannee red sticks,
and had found no young warriors of the Cherokee, though he had
been on the war path against them and had stricken all their posts,
who could circumvent him in stratagem or conquer him in actual
blows. His renown as a hunter was not less great. He had put
to shame the best wolf-takers of the tribe, and the lodge of his
venerable father, Chifonti, was never without meat. There was
no good reason why Conattee, the married man, should be so in-
timate with Selonee, the single—there was no particular sympa-
thy between the two; but, thrown together in sundry expeditions,
they had formed an intimacy, which, strange to say, was neither
denounced nor discouraged by the virago wife of the former. She
who approved of but few of her husband's movements, and still
fewer of his friends and fellowships, forbore all her reproaches

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when Selonee was his companion. She was the meekest, gentlest,
sweetest tempered of all wives whenever the young hunter came
home with her husband; and he, poor man, was consequently,
never so well satisfied as when he brought Selonee with him. It
was on such occasions, only, that the poor Conattee could persuade
himself to regard Macourah as a tolerable personage. How he
came to marry such a creature—such a termagant, and so monstrous
ugly—was a mystery which none of the damsels of Catawba
could elucidate, though the subject was one on which, when
mending the young hunter's mocasins, they expended no small
quantity of conjecture. Conattee, we may be permitted to say,
was still quite popular among them, in spite of his bad taste, and
manifest unavailableness; possibly, for the very reason that his
wife was universally detested; and it will, perhaps, speak something
for their charity, if we pry no deeper into their motives, to
say that the wish was universal among them that the Opitchi Manneyto,
or Black Devil of their belief, would take the virago to
himself, and leave to the poor Conattee some reasonable hope of
being made happy by a more indulgent spouse.

CHAPTER II.

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Well, Conattee and Selonee were out of sight of the smoke of
“Turkey-town,” and, conscious of his freedom as he no longer
heard the accents of domestic authority, the henpecked husband
gave a loose to his spirits, and made ample amends to himself, by
the indulgence of joke and humour, for the sober constraints which
fettered him at home. Selonee joined with him in his merriment,
and the resolve was mutual that they should give the squaws the
slip and not linger in their progress till they had thrown the Tiger
river behind them. To trace their course till they came to the
famous hunting ground which bordered upon the Pacolet, will
scarcely be necessary, since, as they did not stop to hunt by the
way, there were necessarily but few incidents to give interest to
their movements. When they had reached the river, however,
they made for a cove, well known to them on previous seasons,
which lay between the parallel waters of the Pacolet, and a little
stream called the Thicketty—a feeder of the Eswawpuddenah, in
which they had confident hopes of finding the game which they desired.
In former years the spot had been famous as a sheltering place
for herds of wolves; and, with something like the impatience of a
warrior waiting for his foe, the hunters prepared their strongest
shafts and sharpest flints, and set their keen eyes upon the closest
places of the thicket, into which they plunged fearlessly. They
had not proceeded far, before a single boar-wolf, of amazing size,
started up in their path; and, being slightly wounded by the arrow
of Selonee, which glanced first upon some twigs beneath
which he-lay, he darted off with a fearful howl in the direction of
Conattee, whose unobstructed shaft, penetrating the side beneath
the fore shoulders, inflicted a fearful, if not a fatal wound, upon
the now thoroughly enraged beast. He rushed upon Conattee in his
desperation, but the savage was too quick for him; leaping behind
a tree, he avoided the rashing stroke with which the white tusks
threatened him, and by this time was enabled to fit a second arrow

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to his bow. His aim was true, and the stone blade of the shaft
went quivering into the shaggy monster's heart; who, under the
pang of the last convulsion, bounded into the muddy waters of the
Thicketty Creek, to the edge of which the chase had now brought
all the parties. Conattee beheld him plunge furiously forward—
twice—thrice—then rest with his nostrils in the water, as the
current bore him from sight around a little elbow of the creek.
But it was not often that the Indian hunter of those days lost the
game which he had stricken. Conattee stripped to it, threw his
fringed hunting shirt of buckskin on the bank, with his bow and
arrows, his mocasins and leggins beside it, and reserving only his
knife, he called to Selonee, who was approaching him, to keep
them in sight, and plunged into the water in pursuit of his victim.
Selonee gave little heed to the movements of his companion, after
the first two or three vigorous strokes which he beheld him make.
Such a pursuit, as it promised no peril, called for little consideration
from this hardy and fearless race, and Selonee amused himself
by striking into a thick copse which they had not yet traversed,
in search of other sport. There he started the she-wolf,
and found sufficient employment on his own hands to call for all
his attention to himself. When Selonee first came in sight of her,
she was lying on a bed of rushes and leaves, which she had prepared
under the roots of a gigantic Spanish oak. Her cubs, to the
number of five, lay around her, keeping a perfect silence, which
she had no doubt enforced upon them after her own fashion, and
which was rigidly maintained until they saw him. It was then
that the instincts of the fierce beasts could no longer be suppressed,
and they joined at once in a short chopping bark, or cry, at
the stranger, while their little eyes flashed fire, and their red jaws,
thinly sprinkled with the first teeth, were gnashed together with a
show of that ferocious hatred of man, which marks their nature,
but which, fortunately for Selonee, was too feeble at that time to
make his approach to them dangerous. But the dam demanded
greater consideration. With one sweep of her fore-paw she drew
all the young ones behind her, and showing every preparedness
for flight, she began to move backward slowly beneath the over-hanging
limbs of the tree, still keeping her keen, fiery eye fixed
upon the hunter. But Selonee was not disposed to suffer her to

[figure description] Page 125.[end figure description]

get off so easily. The success of Conattee had just given him
sufficient provocation to make him silently resolve that the she-wolf—
who is always more to be dreaded than the male, as, with
nearly all his strength, she has twice his swiftness, and, with her
young about her, more than twice his ferocity—should testify
more completely to his prowess than the victory just obtained by
his companion could possibly speak for his. His eye was fixed upon
hers, and hers, never for a moment, taken from him. It was
his object to divert it, since he well knew, that with his first movement,
she would most probably spring upon him. Without lifting
his bow, which he nevertheless had in readiness, he whistled
shrilly as if to his dog; and answered himself by a correct imitation
of the bark of the Indian cur, the known enemy of the wolf,
and commonly his victim. The keen eye of the angry beast
looked suddenly around as if fearing an assault upon her young
ones from behind. In that moment, the arrow of Selonee was
driven through her neck, and when she leaped forward to the
place where he stood, he was no longer to be seen.

From a tree which he had thrown between them, he watched
her movements and prepared a second shaft. Meanwhile she
made her way back slowly to her young, and before she could
again turn towards him a second arrow had given her another
and severer wound. Still, as Selonee well knew the singular
tenacity of life possessed by these fierce animals, he prudently
changed his position with every shaft, and took especial care to
place himself in the rear of some moderately sized tree, sufficiently
large to shelter him from her claws, yet small enough to
enable him to take free aim around it. Still he did not, at any
time, withdraw more than twenty steps from his enemy. Divided
in her energies by the necessity of keeping near her young, he
was conscious of her inability to pursue him far. Carrying on
the war in this manner he had buried no less than five arrows in
her body, and it was not until his sixth had penetrated her eye,
that he deemed himself safe in the nearer approach which he now
meditated. She had left her cubs, on receiving his last shot, and
was writhing and leaping, blinded, no less than maddened, by the
wound, in a vain endeavour to approach her assailant. It was
now that Selonee determined on a closer conflict. It was the

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great boast of the Catawba warriors to grapple with the wolf, and
while he yet struggled, to tear the quick quivering heart from his
bosom. He placed his bow and arrows behind the tree, and
taking in his left hand a chunk or fragment of a bough, while he
grasped his unsheathed knife in his right, he leapt in among the
cubs, and struck one of them a severe blow upon the head with
the chunk. Its scream, and the confusion among the rest, brought
back the angry dam, and though she could see only imperfectly,
yet, guided by their clamour, she rushed with open jaws upon the
hunter. With keen, quick eyes, and steady resolute nerves, he
waited for her approach, and when she turned her head aside, to
strike him with her sharp teeth, he thrust the pine fragment which
he carried in his left hand, into her extended jaws, and pressing
fast upon her, bore back her haunches to the earth. All this while
the young ones were impotently gnawing at the heels of the warrior,
which had been fearlessly planted in the very midst of them.
But these he did not heed. The larger and fiercer combatant
called for all his attention, and her exertions, quickened by the
spasms of her wounds, rendered necessary all his address and
strength to preserve the advantage he had gained. The fierce
beast had sunk her teeth by this into the wood, and, leaving
it in her jaws, he seized her with the hand, now freed, by the
throat, and, bearing her upward, so as to yield him a plain and
easy stroke at her belly, he drove the deep knife into it, and drew
the blade upwards, until resisted by the bone of the breast. It
was then, while she lay writhing and rolling upon the ground in
the agonies of death, that he tore the heart from the opening he
had made, and hurled it down to the cubs, who seized on it with
avidity. This done, he patted and caressed them, and while they
struggled about him for the meat, he cut a fork in the ears of
each, and putting the slips in his pouch, left the young ones
without further hurt, for the future sport of the hunter. The
dam he scalped, and with this trophy in possession, he pushed
back to the place where he had left the accoutrements of Conattee,
which he found undisturbed in the place where he had
laid them.

CHAPTER III.

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But where was Conattee himself during all this period? Some
hours had elapsed since he had taken the river after the tiger that
he had slain, and it was something surprising to Selonee that he
should have remained absent and without his clothes so long.
The weather was cold and unpleasant, and it could scarce be a
matter of choice with the hunter, however hardy, to suffer all its
biting bleaknesses when his garments were within his reach.
This reflection made Selonee apprehensive that some harm had
happened to his companion. He shouted to him, but received no
answer. Could he have been seized with the cramp while in the
stream, and drowned before he could extricate himself. This
was a danger to which the very best of swimmers is liable at
certain seasons of the year, and in certain conditions of the body.
Selonee reproached himself that he had not waited beside the
stream until the result of Conattee's experiment was known.
The mind of the young hunter was troubled with many fears and
doubts. He went down the bank of the river, and called aloud
with all his lungs, until the woods and waters re-echoed, again
and again, the name of Conattee. He received no other response.
With a mind filled with increasing fears, each more unpleasant
than the last, Selonee plunged into the creek, and struck off for
the opposite shore, at the very point at which the tiger had been
about to turn, under the influence of the current, when Conattee
went in after him. He was soon across, and soon found the
tracks of the hunter in the gray sands upon its margin. He
found, too, to his great delight, the traces made by the carcass of
the tiger—the track was distinct enough from the blood which
dropped from the reeking skin of the beast, and Selonee rejoiced
in the certainty that the traces which he followed would soon lead
him to his friend. But not so. He had scarcely gone fifty yards
into the wood when his tracks failed him at the foot of a crooked,
fallen tree, one of the most gnarled and complicated of all the

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crooked trees of the forest; here all signs disappeared. Conattee
was not only not there, but had left no sort of clue by which to
follow him further. This was the strangest thing of all. The
footprints were distinct enough till he came to the spot where lay
the crooked tree, but there he lost them. He searched the forest
around him, in every direction. Not a copse escaped his search—
not a bay—not a thicket—not an island—and he came back to
the spot where the tiger had been skinned, faint and weary, and
more sorrowful than can well be spoken. At one time he fancied
his friend was drowned, at another, that he was taken prisoner
by the Cherokees. But there were his tracks from the river, and
there were no other tracks than his own. Besides, so far as the
latter supposition was concerned, it was scarcely possible that so
brave and cunning a warrior would suffer himself to be so completely
entrapped and carried off by an enemy, without so much
as being able to give the alarm; and, even had that been the case,
would it be likely that the enemy would have suffered him to pass
without notice. “But,” here the suggestion naturally arose in
the mind of Selonee, “may they not even now be on the track!”
With the suggestion the gallant youth bounded to his feet. “It
is not fat turkey that they seek!” he exclaimed, drawing out an
arrow from the leash that hung upon his shoulders, and fitting it
to his bow, while his busy, glancing eye watched every shadow
in the wood, and his keen, quick ear noted every sound. But
there were no signs of an enemy, and a singular and mournful
stillness hung over the woods. Never was creature more
miserable than Selonee. He called aloud, until his voice grew
hoarse, and his throat sore, upon the name of Conattee. There
was no answer, but the gibing echoes of his own hoarse accents.
Once more he went back to the river, once more he plunged into
its bosom, and with lusty sinews struck out for a thick green island
that lay some quarter of a mile below, to which he thought it not
improbable that the hunter might have wandered in pursuit of
other game. It was a thickly wooded but small island, which he
traversed in an hour. Finding nothing, he made his weary way
back to the spot from which his friend had started on leaving him.
Here he found his clothes where he had hidden them. The
neighbourhood of this region he traversed in like manner with

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the opposite—going over ground, and into places, which it was
scarcely in the verge of physical possibility that his friend's person
could have gone.

The day waned and night came on, and still the persevering
hunter gave not up his search. The midnight found him at the
foot of the tree, where they had parted, exhausted but sleepless,
and suffering bitterly in mind from those apprehensions which
every moment of hopeless search had necessarily helped to
accumulate and strengthen. Day dawned, and his labour was
renewed. The unhappy warrior went resolutely over all the
ground which he had traversed the night before. Once more he
crossed the river, and followed, step by step, the still legible foot
tracks of Conattee. These, he again noted, were all in the opposite
direction to the stream, to which it was evident he had not
returned. But, after reaching the place where lay the fallen
tree, all signs failed. Selonee looked round the crooked tree,
crawled under its sprawling and twisted limbs, broke into the
hollow which was left by its uptorn roots, and again shouted, until
all the echoes gave back his voice, the name of Conattee, imploring
him for an answer if he could hear him and reply. But the
echoes died away, leaving him in a silence that spoke more loudly
to his heart than before, that his quest was hopeless. Yet he
gave it not up until the day had again failed him. That night,
as before, he slept upon the ground. With the dawn, he again
went over it, and with equally bad success. This done, he determined
to return to the camp. He no longer had any spirit to
pursue the sports for which alone he had set forth. His heart
was full of sorrow, his limbs were weary, and he felt none of that
vigorous elasticity which had given him such great renown as a
brave and a hunter, among his own and the neighbouring nations.
He tied the clothes of Conattee upon his shoulders, took his bow
and arrows, now sacred in his sight, along with him, and turned
his eyes homeward. The next day, at noon, he reached the
encampment.

CHAPTER IV.

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The hunters were all in the woods, and none but the squaws
and the papooses left in the encampment. Selonee came within
sight of their back settlements, and seated himself upon a log at
the edge of the forest with his back carefully turned towards the
smoke of the camp. Nobody ventured to approach him while in
this situation; but, at night, when the hunters came dropping in,
one by one, Selonee drew nigh to them. He called them apart
from the women, and then told them his story.

“This is a strange tale which the wolf-chief tells us,” said
one of the old men, with a smile of incredulity.

“It is a true tale, father,” was the reply.

“Conattee was a brave chief!”

“Very brave, father,” said Selonee.

“Had he not eyes to see?”

“The great bird, that rises to the sun, had not better,” was the
reply.

“What painted jay was it that said Conattee was a fool?”

“The painted bird lied, that said so, my father,” was the
response of Selonee.

“And comes Selonee, the wolf-chief, to us, with a tale that
Conattee was blind, and could not see; a coward that could not
strike the she-wolf; a fool that knew not where to set down his
foot; and shall we not say Selonee lies upon his brother, even as
the painted bird that makes a noise in my ears. Selonee has
slain Conattee with his knife. See, it is the blood of Conattee
upon the war-shirt of Selonee.”

“It is the blood of the she-wolf,” cried the young warrior,
with a natural indignation.

“Let Selonee go to the woods behind the lodges, till the chiefs
say what shall be done to Selonee, because of Conattee, whom he
slew.”

“Selonee will go, as Emathla, the wise chief, has commanded,”

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replied the young warrior. “He will wait behind the lodges, till
the chiefs have said what is good to be done to him, and if they
say that he must die because of Conattee, it is well. Selonee
laughs at death. But the blood of Conattee is not upon the warshirt
of Selonee. He has said it is the blood of the wolf's mother.”
With these words the young chief drew forth the skin of the wolf
which he had slain, together with the tips of the ears taken from
the cubs, and leaving them in the place where he had sat, withdrew,
without further speech, from the assembly which was about
to sit in judgment upon his life.

CHAPTER V.

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The consultation that followed was close and earnest. There
was scarcely any doubt in the minds of the chiefs that Conattee
was slain by his companion. He had brought back with him the
arms and all the clothes of the hunter. He was covered with his
blood, as they thought; and the grief which filled his heart and
depressed his countenance, looked, in their eyes, rather like the
expression of guilt than suffering. For a long while did they
consult together. Selonee had friends who were disposed to save
him; but he had enemies also, as merit must have always, and
these were glad of the chance afforded them to put out of their
reach, a rival of whom they were jealous, and a warrior whom
they feared. Unfortunately for Selonee, the laws of the nation
but too well helped the malice of his foes. These laws, as peremptory
as those of the Medes and Persians, held him liable in his
own life for that of the missing hunter; and the only indulgence
that could be accorded to Selonee, and which was obtained for
him, was, that he might be allowed a single moon in which to find
Conattee, and bring him home to his people.

“Will Selonee go seek Conattee—the windy moon is for Selonee—
let him bring Conattee home to his people.” Thus said the
chiefs, when the young warrior was again brought before them.

“Selonee would die to find Conattee,” was the reply.

“He will die if he finds him not!” answered the chief
Emathla.

“It is well!” calmly spoke the young warrior. “Is Selonee
free to go?”

“The windy moon is for Selonee. Will he return to the lodges
if he finds not Conattee?” was the inquiry of Emathla.

“Is Selonee a dog, to fly!” indignantly demanded the warrior.
“Let Emathla send a young warrior on the right and on the left
of Selonee, if he trusts not what is spoken by Selonee.”

“Selonee will go alone, and bring back Conattee.”

CHAPTER VI.

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The confidence thus reposed in one generally esteemed a murderer,
and actually under sentence as such, is customary among
the Indians; nor is it often abused. The loss of caste which
would follow their flight from justice, is much more terrible
among them than any fear of death—which an Indian may avoid,
but not through fear. Their loss of caste among themselves,
apart from the outlawry which follows it, is, in fact, a loss of the
soul. The heaven of the great Manneyto is denied to one under
outlawry of the nation, and such a person is then the known and
chosen slave of the demon, Opitchi-Manneyto. It was held an unnecessary
insult on the part of Emathla, to ask Selonee if he
would return to meet his fate. But Emathla was supposed to favour
the enemies of Selonee.

With such a gloomy alternative before him in the event of his
proving unsuccessful, the young hunter retraced his steps to the
fatal waters where Conattee had disappeared. With a spirit no
less warmly devoted to his friend, than anxious to avoid the disgraceful
doom to which he was destined, the youth spared no pains,
withheld no exertion, overlooked no single spot, and omitted no
art known to the hunter, to trace out the mystery which covered
the fate of Conattee. But days passed of fruitless labour, and the
last faint slender outlines of the moon which had been allotted
him for the search, gleamed forth a sorrowful light upon his path,
as he wearily traced it onward to the temporary lodges of the
tribe.

Once more he resumed his seat before the council and listened
to the doom which was in reserve for him. When the sentence
was pronounced, he untied his arrows, loosened the belt at his
waist, put a fillet around his head, made of the green bark of a
little sapling which he cut in the neighbouring woods, then rising
to his feet, he spoke thus, in language, and with a spirit, becoming
so great a warrior.

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“It is well. The chiefs have spoken, and the wolf-chief does
not tremble. He loves the chase, but he does not weep like a
woman, because it is forbidden that he go after the deer—he loves
to fright the young hares of the Cherokee, but he laments not that
ye say ye can conquer the Cherokee without his help. Fathers,
I have slain the deer and the wolf—my lodge is full of their ears.
I have slain the Cherokee, till the scalps are about my knees
when I walk in the cabin. I go not to the dark valley without
glory—I have had the victories of grey hairs, but there is no grey
hair in my own. I have no more to say—there is a deed for
every arrow that is here. Bid the young men get their bows
ready, let them put a broad stone upon their arrows that may go
soon into the life—I will show my people how to die.”

They led him forth as he commanded, to the place of execution—
a little space behind the encampment, where a hole had been
already dug for his burial. While he went, he recited his victories
to the youths who attended him. To each he gave an arrow
which he was required to keep, and with this arrow, he related
some incident in which he had proved his valour, either in
conflict with some other warrior, or with the wild beasts of the
woods. These deeds, each of them was required to remember and
relate, and show the arrow which was given with the narrative on
occasion of this great state solemnity. In this way, their traditions
are preserved. When he reached the grave, he took his station
before it, the executioners, with their arrows, being already
placed in readiness. The whole tribe had assembled to witness
the execution, the warriors and boys in the foreground, the
squaws behind them. A solemn silence prevailed over the scene,
and a few moments only remained to the victim; when the wife
of Conattee darted forward from the crowd bearing in her hands
a peeled wand, with which, with every appearance of anger, she
struck Selonee over the shoulders, exclaiming as she did so:

“Come, thou dog, thou shalt not die—thou shalt lie in the door-way
of Conattee, and bring venison for his wife. Shall there be
no one to bring meat to my lodge? Thou shalt do this, Selonee—
thou shalt not die.”

A murmur arose from the crowd at these words.

[figure description] Page 135.[end figure description]

“She hath claimed Selonee for her husband, in place of Conattee—
well, she hath the right.”

The enemies of Selonee could not object. The widow had, in
fact, exercised a privilege which is recognized by the Indian laws
almost universally; and the policy by which she was governed
in the present instance, was sufficiently apparent to all the village.
It was evident, now that Conattee was gone, that nobody
could provide for the woman who had no sons, and no male relations,
and who was too execrably ugly, and too notorious as a scold,
to leave it possible that she could ever procure another husband
so inexperienced or so flexible as the one she had lost. Smartly
striking Selonee on his shoulders, she repeated her command
that he should rise and follow her.

“Thou wilt take this dog to thy lodge, that he may hunt thee
venison?” demanded the old chief, Emathla.

“Have I not said?” shouted the scold—“hear you not? The
dog is mine—I bid him follow me.”

“Is there no friendly arrow to seek my heart?” murmured the
young warrior, as, rising slowly from the grave into which he
had previously descended, he prepared to obey the laws of his nation,
in the commands of the woman who claimed him to replace
the husband who was supposed to have died by his hands. Even
the foes of Selonee looked on him with lessened hostility, and the
pity of his friends was greater now than when he stood on the
precipice of death. The young women of the tribe wept bitterly
as they beheld so monstrous a sacrifice. Meanwhile, the exulting
hag, as if conscious of her complete control over the victim,
goaded him forward with repeated strokes of her wand.
She knew that she was hated by all the young women, and she
was delighted to show them a conquest which would have been
a subject of pride to any among them. With this view she led
the captive through their ranks. As they parted mournfully, on
either hand, to suffer the two to pass, Selonee stopped short and
motioned one of the young women who stood at the greatest distance
behind the rest, looking on with eyes which, if they had
no tears, yet gave forth an expression of desolateness more woful
than any tears could have done. With clasped hands, and trembling
as she came, the gentle maiden drew nigh.

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“Was it a dream,” said Selonee sorrowfully, “that told me of
the love of a singing bird, and a green cabin by the trickling
waters? Did I hear a voice that said to me sweetly, wait but a
little, till the green corn breaks the hill, and Medoree will come
to thy cabin and lie by thy side? Tell me, is this thing true,
Medoree?”

“Thou sayest, Selonee—the thing is true,” was the reply of
the maiden, uttered in broken accents that denoted a breaking
heart.

“But they will make Selonee go to the lodge of another woman—
they will put Macourah into the arms of Selonee.”

“Alas! Alas!”

“Wilt thou see this thing, Medoree? Can'st thou look upon
it, then turn away, and going back to thy own lodge, can'st thou
sing a gay song of forgetfulness as thou goest?”

“Forgetfulness!—Ah, Selonee.”

“Thou art the beloved of Selonee, Medoree—thou shalt not
lose him. It would vex thy heart that another should take him
to her lodge!”—

The tears of the damsel flowed freely down her cheeks, and
she sobbed bitterly, but said nothing.

“Take the knife from my belt, Medoree, and put its sharp
tooth into my heart, ere thou sufferest this thing! Wilt thou
not?”

The girl shrunk back with an expression of undisguised horror
in her face.

“I will bless thee, Medoree,” was the continued speech of
the warrior. She turned from him, covering her face with her
hands.

“I cannot do this thing, Selonee—I cannot strike thy heart
with the knife. Go—let the woman have thee. Medoree cannot
kill thee—she will herself die.”

“It is well,” cried the youth, in a voice of mournful self-abandonment,
as he resumed his progress towards the lodge of Macourah.

CHAPTER VI.

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It is now time to return to Conattee, and trace his progress
from the moment when, plunging into the waters, he left the side
of Selonee in pursuit of the wolf, whose dying struggles in the
stream he had beheld. We are already acquainted with his success
in extricating the animal from the water, and possessing himself
of its hide. He had not well done this when he heard a rushing
noise in the woods above him, and fancying that there was a
prospect of other game at hand, and inflated with the hope of adding
to his trophies, though without any weapon but his knife, Conattee
hastened to the spot. When he reached it, however, he
beheld nothing. A gigantic and singularly deformed pine tree,
crooked and most irregular in shape, lay prostrate along the
ground, and formed such an intricate covering above it, that Conattee
deemed it possible that some beast of prey might have
made its den among the recesses of its roots. With this thought,
he crawled under the spreading limbs, and searched all their intricacies.
Emerging from the search, which had been fruitless,
he took a seat upon the trunk of the tree, and spreading out the
wolf's hide before him, proceeded to pare away the particles of
flesh which, in the haste with which he had performed the task
of flaying him, had been suffered to adhere to the skin. But he
had scarcely commenced the operation, when two gigantic limbs
of the fallen tree upon which he sat, curled over his thighs and
bound him to the spot. Other limbs, to his great horror, while he
strove to move, clasped his arms and covered his shoulders. He
strove to cry aloud, but his jaws were grasped before he could
well open them, by other branches; and, with his eyes, which
were suffered to peer through little openings in the bark, he could
see his legs encrusted by like coverings with his other members.
Still seeing, his own person yet escaped his sight. Not a part of
it now remained visible to himself. A bed of green velvet-like
moss rested on his lap. His knees shot out a thorny excrescence;

[figure description] Page 138.[end figure description]

and his hands, flattened to his thighs, were enveloped in as complete
a casing of bark as covered the remainder of the tree around
him. Even his knife and wolf skin, to his great surprise, suffered
in like manner, the bark having contracted them into one of those
huge bulging knobs that so numerously deformed the tree. With
all his thoughts and consciousness remaining, Conattee had yet
lost every faculty of action. When he tried to scream aloud,
his jaws felt the contraction of a pressure upon them, which resisted
all their efforts, while an oppressive thorn growing upon a
wild vine that hung before his face, was brought by every movement
of himself or of the tree into his very mouth. The poor
hunter immediately conceived his situation—he was in the power
of Tustenuggee, the Grey Demon of Enoree. The tree upon
which he sat was one of those magic trees which the tradition of
his people entitled the “Arm-chair of Tustenuggee.” In these
traps for the unwary the wicked demon caught his victim, and
exulted in his miseries. Here he sometimes remained until death
released him; for it was not often that the power into whose
clutches he had fallen, suffered his prey to escape through a sudden
feeling of lenity and good humour. The only hope of Conattee
was that Selonee might suspect his condition; in which
event his rescue was simple and easy enough. It was only to
hew off the limbs, or pare away the bark, and the victim was uncovered
in his primitive integrity. But how improbable that this
discovery should be made. He had no voice to declare his bondage.
He had no capacity for movement by which he might reveal
the truth to his comrade's eyes; and unless some divine instinct
should counsel his friend to an experiment which he would
scarcely think upon, of himself, the poor prisoner felt that he must
die in the miserable bondage into which he had fallen. While
these painful convictions were passing through his mind, he heard
the distant shoutings of Selonee. In a little while he beheld the
youth anxiously seeking him in every quarter, following his trail
at length to the very tree in which he was bound, crawling like
himself beneath its branches, but not sitting like himself to be
caught upon its trunk. Vainly did the poor fellow strive to utter
but a few words, however faintly, apprising the youth of his condition.
The effort died away in the most imperfect breathing,

[figure description] Page 139.[end figure description]

sounding in his own ears like the faint sigh of some budding
flower. With equal ill success did he aim to struggle with his
limbs. He was too tightly grasped, in every part, to stir in the
slightest degree a single member. He saw the fond search, meanwhile,
which his comrade maintained, and his heart yearned the
more in fondness for the youth. But it was with consummate
horror that he saw him depart as night came on. Miserable, indeed,
were his feelings that night. The voice of the Grey Demon
alone kept him company, and he and his one-eyed wife made
merry with his condition, goading him the livelong night with
speeches of cruel gibe and mischievous reflection, such as the
following:

“There is no hope for you, Conattee, till some one takes your
place. Some one must sit in your lap, whom you are willing to
leave behind you, before you can get out of mine,” was the speech
of the Grey Demon, who, perched upon Conattee's shoulders, bent
his huge knotty head over him, while his red eyes looked into the
half-hidden ones of the environed hunter, and glared upon him
with the exultation of the tyrant at last secure of his prey. Night
passed away at length, and, with the dawn, how was the hopeless
heart of Conattee refreshed as he again saw Selonee appear. He
then remembered the words of Tustenuggee, which told him that
he could not escape until some one sat in his lap whom he was
willing to leave behind him. The fancy rose in his mind that
Selonee would do this; but could it be that he would consent to
leave his friend behind him. Life was sweet, and great was the
temptation. At one moment he almost wished that Selonee would
draw nigh and seat himself after his fatigue. As if the young
hunter knew his wish, he drew nigh at that instant; but the better
feelings in Conattee's heart grew strong as he approached, and,
striving to twist and writhe in his bondage, and labouring at the
same time to call out in warning to his friend, he manifested the
noble resolution not to avail himself of his friend's position to relieve
his own; and, as if the warning of Conattee had really
reached the understanding of Selonee, the youth retraced his
steps, and once more hurried away from the place of danger.
With his final departure the fond hopes of the prisoner sunk within
him; and when hour after hour had gone by without the

[figure description] Page 140.[end figure description]

appearance of any of his people, and without any sort of change in his
condition, he gave himself up utterly for lost. The mocks and
jeers of the Grey Demon and his one-eyed squaw filled his ears
all night, and the morning brought him nothing but flat despair.
He resigned himself to his fate with the resolution of one who,
however unwilling he might be to perish in such a manner, had
yet faced death too frequently not to yield him a ready defiance
now.

CHAPTER VII.

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But hope had not utterly departed from the bosom of Selonee.
Perhaps the destiny which had befallen himself had made him
resolve the more earnestly to seek farther into the mystery of that
which hung above the fate of his friend. The day which saw him
enter the cabin of Macourah saw him the most miserable man
alive. The hateful hag, hateful enough as the wife of his friend,
whose ill treatment was notorious, was now doubly hateful to him
as his own wife; and now, when, alone together, she threw aside
the harsh and termagant features which had before distinguished
her deportment, and, assuming others of a more amorous complexion,
threw her arms about the neck of the youth and solicited
his endearments, a loathing sensation of disgust was coupled with
the hate which had previously possessed his mind. Flinging
away from her embrace, he rushed out of the lodge with feelings
of the most unspeakable bitterness and grief, and bending his way
towards the forest, soon lost sight of the encampment of his people.
Selonee was resolved on making another effort for the recovery
of his friend. His resolve went even farther than this. He was
bent never to return to the doom which had been fastened upon
him, and to pursue his way into more distant and unknown forests—
a self-doomed exile—unless he could restore Conattee to the
nation. Steeled against all those ties of love or of country, which
at one time had prevailed in his bosom over all, he now surrendered
himself to friendship or despair. In Catawba, unless he
restored Conattee, he could have no hope; and without Catawba
he had neither hope nor love. On either hand he saw nothing
but misery; but the worst form of misery lay behind him in the
lodge of Macourah. But Macourah was not the person to submit
to such a determination. She was too well satisfied with the exchange
with which fortune had provided her, to suffer its gift to
be lost so easily; and when Selonee darted from the cabin in
such fearful haste, she readily conjectured his determination.

[figure description] Page 142.[end figure description]

She hurried after him with all possible speed, little doubting that
those thunders—could she overtake him—with which she had so
frequently overawed the pliant Conattee, would possess an effect
not less influential upon his more youthful successor. Macourah
was gaunt as a greyhound, and scarcely less fleet of foot. Besides,
she was as tough as a grey-squirrel in his thirteenth year.
She did not despair of overtaking Selonee, provided she suffered
him not to know that she was upon his trail. Her first movements
therefore were marked with caution. Having watched his
first direction, she divined his aim to return to the hunting grounds
where he had lost or slain his companion; and these hunting
grounds were almost as well known to herself as to him. With
a rapidity of movement, and a tenacity of purpose, which could
only be accounted for by a reference to that wild passion which
Selonee had unconsciously inspired in her bosom for himself, she
followed his departing footsteps; and when, the next day, he
heard her shouts behind him, he was absolutely confounded. But
it was with a feeling of surprise and not of dissatisfaction that he
heard her voice. He—good youth—regarding Conattee as one
of the very worthiest of the Catawba warriors, seemed to have
been impressed with an idea that such also was the opinion of his
wife. He little dreamed that she had any real design upon himself;
and believed that, to show her the evidences which were to
be seen, which led to the fate of her husband, might serve to convince
her that not only he was not the murderer, but that Conattee
might not, indeed, be murdered at all. He coolly waited her
approach, therefore, and proceeded to renew his statements, accompanying
his narrative with the expression of the hope which
he entertained of again restoring her husband to herself and the
nation. But she answered his speech only with upbraidings and
entreaties; and when she failed, she proceeded to thump him
lustily with the wand by which she had compelled him to follow
her to the lodge the day before. But Selonee was in no humour
to obey the laws of the nation now. The feeling of degradation
which had followed in his mind, from the moment when he left
the spot where he had stood up for death, having neither fear nor
shame, was too fresh in his consciousness to suffer him to yield a
like acknowledgment to it now; and though sorely tempted to

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pummel the Jezabel in return for the lusty thwacks which she
had already inflicted upon his shoulders, he forbore, in consideration
of his friend, and contented himself with simply setting forward
on his progress, determined to elude her pursuit by an exercise
of all his vigour and elasticity. Selonee was hardy as the
grisly bear, and fleeter than the wild turkey; and Macourah,
virago as she was, soon discovered the difference in the chase
when Selonee put forth his strength and spirit. She followed
with all her pertinacity, quickened as it was by an increase of
fury at that presumption which had ventured to disobey her commands;
but Selonee fled faster than she pursued, and every additional
moment served to increase the space botween them. The
hunter lost her from his heels at length, and deemed himself fortunate
that she was no longer in sight and hearing, when he again
approached the spot where his friend had so mysteriously disappeared.
Here he renewed his search with a painful care and
minuteness, which the imprisoned Conattee all the while beheld.
Once more Selonee crawled beneath those sprawling limbs and
spreading arms that wrapped up in their solid and coarse rinds the
person of the warrior. Once more he emerged from the spot
disappointed and hopeless. This he had hardly done when, to
the great horror of the captive, and the annoyance of Selonee, the
shrill shrieks and screams of the too well-known voice of Macourah
rang through the forests. Selonee dashed forward as he
heard the sounds, and when Macourah reached the spot, which
she did unerringly in following his trail, the youth was already
out of sight.

“I can go no further,” cried the woman—“a curse on him and
a curse on Conattee, since in losing one I have lost both. I am
too faint to follow. As for Selonee, may the one-eyed witch of
Tustenuggee take him for her dog.”

With this delicate imprecation, the virago seated herself in a
state of exhaustion upon the inviting bed of moss which formed
the lap of Conattee. This she had no sooner done, than the
branches relaxed their hold upon the limbs of her husband. The
moment was too precious for delay, and sliding from under her
with an adroitness and strength which were beyond her powers
of prevention, and, indeed, quite too sudden for any effort at

[figure description] Page 144.[end figure description]

resistance, she had the consternation to behold her husband starting
up in full life before her, and, with the instinct of his former condition,
preparing to take to flight. She cried to him, but he fled
the faster—she strove to follow him, but the branches which had
relaxed their hold upon her husband had resumed their contracted
grasp upon her limbs. The brown bark was already forming
above her on every hand, and her tongue, allotted a brief term of
liberty, was alone free to assail him. But she had spoken but
few words when the bark encased her jaws, and the ugly thorn
of the vine which had so distressed Conattee, had taken its place
at their portals.

CHAPTER VIII.

[figure description] Page 145.[end figure description]

The husband looked back but once, when the voice ceased—
then, with a shivering sort of joy that his own doom had undergone
a termination, which he now felt to be doubly fortunate—
he made a wide circuit that he might avoid the fatal neighbourhood,
and pushed on in pursuit of his friend, whom his eyes, even
when he was surrounded in the tree, had followed in his flight.
It was no easy task, however, to overtake Selonee, flying, as he
did, from the supposed pursuit of the termagant. Great however
was the joy of the young warriors when they did encounter, and
long and fervent was their mutual embrace. Conattee described
his misfortunes, and related the manner in which he was taken;
showed how the bark had encased his limbs, and how the intricate
magic had even engrossed his knife and the wolf skin which had
been the trophy of his victory. But Conattee said not a word of
his wife and her entrapment, and Selonee was left in the conviction
that his companion owed his escape from the toils to some
hidden change in the tyrannical mood of Tustenuggee, or the
one-eyed woman, his wife.

“But the skin and the knife, Conattee, let us not leave them,”
said Selonee, “let us go back and extricate them from the tree.”

Conattee showed some reluctance. He soon said, in the words
of Macbeth, which he did not use however as a quotation, “I'll
go no more.” But Selonee, who ascribed this reluctance to very
natural apprehensions of the demon from whose clutches he had
just made his escape, declared his readiness to undertake the adventure
if Conattee would only point out to his eyes the particular
excrescence in which the articles were enclosed. When the
husband perceived that his friend was resolute, he made a merit
of necessity.

“If the thing is to be done,” said he, “why should you have
the risk, I myself will do it. It would be a woman-fear were I
to shrink from the danger. Let us go.”

[figure description] Page 146.[end figure description]

The process of reasoning by which Conattee came to this determination
was a very sudden one, and one, too, that will not be
hard to comprehend by every husband in his situation. It was
his fear that if Selonee undertook the business, an unlucky or
misdirected stroke of his knife might sever a limb, or remove some
portions of the bark which did not merit or need removal. Conattee
trembled at the very idea of the revelations which might
follow such an unhappy result. Strengthening himself, therefore,
with all his energies, he went forward with Selonee to the
spot, and while the latter looked on and witnessed the operation,
he proceeded with a nicety and care which amused and surprised
Selonee, to the excision of the swollen scab upon the tree
in which he had seen his wolf skin encompassed. While he performed
the operation, which he did as cautiously as if it had been
the extraction of a mote from the eye of a virgin; the beldam in
the tree, conscious of all his movements, and at first flattered with
the hope that he was working for her extrication, maintained the
most ceaseless efforts of her tongue and limbs, but without avail.
Her slight breathing, which Conattee knew where to look for,
more like the sighs of an infant zephyr than the efforts of a human
bosom, denoted to his ears an overpowering but fortunately
suppressed volcano within; and his heart leaped with a new joy,
which had been unknown to it for many years before, when he
thought that he was now safe, and, he trusted, for ever, from any
of the tortures which he had been fain to endure patiently so long.
When he had finished the operation by which he had re-obtained
his treasures, he ventured upon an impertinence which spoke
surprisingly for his sudden acquisition of confidence; and looking
up through the little aperture in the bark, from whence he had
seen every thing while in the same situation, and from whence
he concluded she was also suffered to see, he took a peep—a
quick, quizzical and taunting peep, at those eyes which he had
not so dared to offend before. He drew back suddenly from the
contact—so suddenly, indeed, that Selonee, who saw the proceeding,
but had no idea of the truth, thought he had been stung by
some insect, and questioned him accordingly.

“Let us be off, Selonee,” was the hurried answer, “we have
nothing to wait for now.”

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“Yes,” replied Selonee, “and I had forgotten to say to you
that your wife, Macourah, is on her way in search of you. I left
her but a little ways behind, and thought to find her here. I suppose
she is tired, however, and is resting by the way.”

“Let her rest,” said Conattee, “which is an indulgence much
greater than any she ever accorded me. She will find me out
soon enough, without making it needful that I should go in search
of her. Come.”

Selonee kindly suppressed the history of the transactions which
had taken place in the village during the time when the hunter
was supposed to be dead; but Conattee heard the facts from other
quarters, and loved Selonee the better for the sympathy he had
shown, not only in coming again to seek for him, but in not loving
his wife better than he did himself. They returned to the
village, and every body was rejoiced to behold the return of the
hunters. As for the termagant Macourah, nobody but Conattee
knew her fate; and he, like a wise man, kept his secret until
there was no danger of its being made use of to rescue her from
her predicament. Years had passed, and Conattee had found
among the young squaws one that pleased him much better than
the old. He had several children by her, and years and honours
had alike fallen numerously upon his head, when, one day, one of
his own sons, while hunting in the same woods, knocked off one
of the limbs of the Chair of Tustenuggee, and to his great horror
discovered the human arm which they enveloped. This led him
to search farther, and limb after limb became detached under the
unscrupulous action of his hatchet, until the entire but unconnected
members of the old squaw became visible. The lad
knocked about the fragments with little scruple, never dreaming
how near was his relation to the form which he treated with so
little veneration. When he came home to the lodge and told his
story, Selonee looked at Conattee, but said nothing. The whole
truth was at once apparent to his mind. Conattee, though he still
kept his secret, was seized with a sudden fit of piety, and taking
his sons with him, he proceeded to the spot which he well remembered,
and, gathering up the bleached remains, had them carefully
buried in the trenches of the tribe.

It may properly end this story, to say that Selonee wedded the

[figure description] Page 148.[end figure description]

sweet girl who, though willing to die herself to prevent him from
marrying Macourah, yet positively refused to take his life to defeat
the same event. It may be well to state, in addition, that
the only reason Conattee ever had for believing that Selonee had
not kept his secret from every body, was that Medoree, the young
wife of the latter, looked on him with a very decided coolness.
“But, we will see,” muttered Conattee as he felt this conviction.
“Selonee will repent of this confidence, since now it will never be
possible for him to persuade her to take a seat in the Arm-chair
of Tustenuggee. Had he been a wise man he would have kept
his secret, and then there would have been no difficulty in getting
rid of a wicked wife.”

p371-166 THE SNAKE OF THE CABIN. CHAPTER I.

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“They talk,” said the stranger somewhat abruptly, “They
talk of the crimes of wealthy people, and in high life. No doubt
there are very great and many wrong doers among the rich.
People in possession of much wealth, and seeing how greatly it is
worshipped, will very naturally presume upon and abuse its powers;—
but it is not among the rich only, and in the great city,
that these things happen. The same snake, or one very much like
it, winds his way into the wigwam and the cabin—and the poor
silly country girl is as frequently the victim, as the dashing lady
of the city and city fashions. For that matter she is the more
easily liable to imposition, as are all persons who occupy insulated
positions, and see little of the great struggles of busy life.
The planter and the farmer who dwell in the remote interior
find the face of the visitor too interesting, to scrutinize it very
closely. A pleasant deportment, a specious outside, a gentle and
attractive manner, will win their way in our forest world, without
rendering necessary those formal assurances, that rigid introduction,
and those guaranties of well known persons, which the citizen
requires before you partake of his bread and salt. With us,
on the contrary, we confide readily; and the cunning stranger,
whom other communities have expelled with loathing, rendered
cautious and conciliatory by previous defeat, adopts the subtlety
of the snake, and winds his way as artfully as that reptile, when
he comes among us. We have too many sad stories of this sort.
Yours is one of them. This poor girl, Ellen Ramsay, was
abused thus, as I have shown you, by this scoundrel, Stanton.
But finish your narrative. She had a short time of it, and a sad
one, I do not doubt, with a creature so heartless and so vile.”

[figure description] Page 150.[end figure description]

“But a poor eleven months; and the change was too rapid,”
said young Atkins, “not to let us see that she was any thing but
happy. To-day, the gayest of all God's creatures, as much like
a merry bird in spring-time, singing over its young;—to-morrow
as gloomy and miserable as if there was neither song nor sunshine
in God's whole earth.”

“Poor thing!” exclaimed Walter.

“It was the shortest life,” said the other, “to begin so well, that
I ever saw, and the story which you have heard is pretty much
the truth.”

“But the funeral?” said Walter.

“Ah! that was not exactly as you heard it,” was the reply of
Atkins. “I was at the funeral of Ellen Ramsay, as indeed was
very nearly all the village, and I could refer you to twenty who
will tell you the matter just as it occurred. In the first place, it
is not true that any body expected Robert Anderson to be present.
He sent no message of any kind to Stanton. It was very well
known that he was sick—actually in bed, and had been so for
more than a week before the death of Ellen. People almost
thought they might go off together. There was a sort of sympathy
between them, though I don't think, from the hour of her unlucky
marriage, that the eyes of the two ever met, till they met
in the world of spirits—unless it were, indeed, in their dreams.
But they seemed to pine away, both of them, about the same time,
and though he stood it longest, he did not outlast her much.
When she died, as I tell you, he was very feeble and in bed.
Nobody ever expected him to leave it alive, and least of all that
he should leave it then, to stand among the people at her grave.
The circumstances of her marriage with Stanton, were too notorious,
and too much calculated to embitter his feelings and his
peace, to make it likely that he would be present at such a scene.
She had cast him off, slightingly, to give a preference to the more
showy stranger, and she had spoken to him in a manner not soon
to be forgiven by a man of sensibility. But he did forgive—that
I know—and his love for Ellen was unimpaired to the last. She
did not doubt this, when she married Stanton, though she expressed
herself so. That was only to find some excuses to him, if not to
her own conscience, for her conduct. I'm sure she bitterly

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repented of all before very long. She was just the girl to do wrong
in a hurry, and be sorry for it the next minute.”

“But the funeral?” said Walter.

“Ah! true—the funeral. Well, as I was telling you, when
the coffin was brought round to the burial place—you know the
spot, among a thick grove of stunted oaks, and the undergrowth
is always kept down by old Ramsay—who should come out from
behind one of the largest old trees, but Robert Anderson. He
was pale as a ghost, and his limbs trembled and tottered as he
walked, but he came forward as resolutely as if he felt no pain
or weakness. Stanton started when he saw him. He never expected
his presence, I assure you. Every eye saw his agitation
as Robert came forward; and I tell you, there was not a person
present who did not see, as well as myself, that the husband of
the poor girl looked much paler at that moment than her sick
lover. Robert did not seem to see Stanton, or to mind him as he
came forward; indeed, he did not seem to see any body. His
eyes were fixed only on the coffin, which was carried by me,
Ralph Mason, Dick Rawlins, and I think Hiram Barker. He
did not shed a tear, which we all wondered at, for all of us expected
to see him crying like any child, because we knew how
soft-hearted he always was, and how fond he had been of Ellen.
At first, we thought his not crying was because of his anger at
being so ill-treated, which was natural enough; but what he said
afterwards soon did away with that notion. He came close to my
side, and put his hand on the lid of the coffin near the name, and
though he said not a single word to us, we seemed to understand
that he meant we should stop till he read it. We did stop, and
he then read the plate aloud, something in this manner—`Ellen'—
and then he stopped a little as he came to the word `Stanton'—
and you could see a deep red flush grow out upon his cheek and
forehead, and then he grew pale as death—and held upon the
coffin as if to keep himself from falling—then he seemed to muster
up strength, and he read on, in very deliberate and full accents,
as if he had thrown all his resolution into the effort—`Ellen
Stanton!' These words he repeated twice, and then he passed
on to the rest—`Wife of George Stanton, born April 7, 1817.
Died,'—Here he stopped again, poor fellow! as if to catch his

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breath. He only gasped when he tried to go on with the reading.
He could only say—`Died. Died!' and there he stopped like a
man choking. By this time, Stanton came up close to him and
looked at us, as if to say `Why don't you go forward—why do
you suffer him to stop you'—but he said nothing. Robert did not
seem to mind or to notice him, but, with another effort, recovering
his strength and voice, he read on to the end—`Died March 27,
1836—AGED EIGHTEEN YEARS, ELEVEN MONTHS AND NINETEEN
DAYS.' Old John Ramsay by this time came up, and stood between
him and Stanton. He looked up from the coffin, first at
one and then at the other—and said quietly—without any appearance
of anger or passion:”—

“This, Mr. Ramsay, is your daughter, Ellen—she was to have
been my wife—she was engaged to me by her own promise, and
you gave your consent to our marriage. Is not this true, Mr.
Ramsay?”

“True,” said the old man very mildly, but with a deep sigh
that seemed to come from the bottom of his soul;—“but you know,
Robert,—”

Then it was that Robert seemed to lose himself for a moment.
His eye brightened with indignation and his speech came quick.

“I know that she is here!” he exclaimed—“here, in her coffin,
dead to you, your daughter—dead to me, my wife—your Ellen!
my Ellen!—My Ellen—my poor Ellen!” And then he sobbed
bitterly upon the coffin. I believe that most of the persons present—
and all had crowded round us—sobbed too. But I could not
see them, for my own heart was overflowing. The interruption
did not continue long. Robert was the first to recover himself.
He had always a right idea of what was proper; and no doubt,
just then, he felt, that, according to the world's way of thinking,
he was doing wrong in stopping the dead in its last progress to the
place of rest. He raised up his head from the coffin plate, and
said to us, speaking very slowly, for his breath seemed only to
come in sobs, and then after great efforts—

“Do not think, my friends, when I speak of the pledges Ellen
Ramsay made to me, that I am come here to utter any reproaches
of the dead, or to breathe a single syllable of complaint against the
blessed creature, who was always a sweet angel, now looking up

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in heaven. God forbid that I should speak, or that you should
hear, any harm of a woman that I have always looked upon as
the purest and truest-hearted creature under the sun. No!
in telling you of this pledge, I come here only to acquit her of
any wrong, or evil thought, or action, when she ceased to think it
binding upon her. It is to say to you at her grave, for you all
knew that we were to be married, that, as I never gave her any
reason for believing me to be false, or more unworthy of her heart
than when she promised it to me, so, also, I believe that nothing
but some such persuasion could have made her deprive me of it.
While I acquit her, therefore, of having done me any intentional
injustice, I tell you, in the presence of her heavenly spirit, which
knows the truth of what I declare, that she has been abused by
some false slanderer, to do me wrong, and herself wrong, and
to—”

By this time Stanton put in, and stopped whatever more Robert
had to say. He had been getting more and more angry as
Robert went on, and when he came to that solemn part about the
slanderer, and lifted his hands to heaven and looked upward with
the tears just beginning to come into his eyes, as if he did really
see the spirit of Ellen at the moment above him, then Stanton got
quite furious. Those words clinched him in the sore part of his
soul; and he made round the coffin towards where Robert stood,
and doubled his fists, and spoke hoarsely, as if he was about to
choke.

“And who do you mean slandered you to her?” he cried to
Robert, “who! who!”

His face was as black as night, and his features, usually so
soft and pleasing to the eyes of the young women, now looked
rather like those of a devil than of a mortal man. We thought he
would have torn the poor young man to pieces, but Robert did not
seem at all daunted. I suppose if we had not been there, and
had not interfered so quickly, there would have been violence;
and violence upon a frail, dying creature like Robert, would have
been the most shocking cruelty. But Maxcy jumped in between
them, and John Ramsay, Ellen's youngest brother, stepped forward
also, and we all cried “shame,” and this drove Stanton back,
but he still looked furious and threatening, and seemed to wish

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for nothing more than to take Robert by the throat. Nobody
seemed to mind him less than the poor fellow who had most reason
to fear. Robert had a bold and fearless spirit, and there was a
time, before he grew sickly and religious, when he would have
grappled with him for death and life before the altar itself. But
he was now subdued. He did not seem to mind his enemy, or
indeed, any thing, but the coffin on which he hung. He did not,
I really think, hear Stanton speaking at all, though, for a few
moments, the fellow bullied pretty loud, and not a syllable that he
said escaped any body else. His soul seemed to be in the coffin.
His eyes seemed to try to pierce the heavy lid of pine, and the
dark crape, and the shroud; and one would think, from the eager
and satisfied gaze, that he had succeeded in doing so. No doubt
his mind deluded him, and he thought so—for you could hear him
whispering—“Ellen! dear Ellen!” Then he gave way to us,
and reading the plate, he said—“But eighteen—but eighteen.
But—it is all well now! all well!” He suffered us then to go
forward, and followed close, and made no objection, and said no
more words. While we let the coffin down, he stood so nigh, that
the earth shelved with him, and he would have gone in with it,
for he made no resistance, if we had not caught him in our arms
and dragged him from the brink. But we could not soon get him
from the spot. When all was done, he did not seem to mind that
the rest were going, but stood looking down as earnestly as if he
could still read the writing through six feet of earth. Stanton,
too, did not seem willing to go, but we very well knew it was for
no love he had for the poor girl that he wished to remain; and
Maxcy whispered to me that he would bring him off before he
left the ground, for fear he might do some harm to Robert, who
was no fighter, and was too feeble to stand one so strong. This
he did, and after he was gone I tried to get Robert away also. It
was some time before I did so, and then it seemed he went with
me only to get rid of my presence, for he was back at the grave
as soon as night set in, and there he might be found every evening
at the same hour, just about sunset, for several months afterwards—
for he lingered strangely—until they brought him to sleep
besied her. Though sick, and pining away fast, the poor fellow
never let an evening go by, whatever weather it might be,

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without paying the grave a visit; and, one day, perhaps two weeks
after the funeral, old Mrs. Anderson called me into her cottage as
I was riding by, and said she would show me something. She
took me up into her son's room, a little chamber in the loft, and
what should it be but a head-board, that the dying lad had sawed
out with his own hands, from a thick plank, and had smoothed,
and planed, and painted, all in secret, so that he could print on it
an inscription for the poor girl's grave; and you would be surprised
to see how neatly he had worked it all. The poor old woman
cried bitterly all the time, but you could still see how proud
she was of her son. She showed me his books—he had more than
a hundred—and she sighed from the bottom of her heart when she
told me it was the books that has made him sickly.

“But he will read,” she said, “say all I can; though he knows
it's a-doing him no good. `Ah, mother,' he says, when I tell
him about it, `though it may shorten my life to read, it will
shorten my happiness not to read, and I have too little happiness
now left me to be willing to lose any of it.' And when he speaks
so,” said the old woman, “I can't blame him, for I know it's all
true. But I blame myself, Mr. Atkins, for you see it was all of
my doing that he got so many books, and is so fond of them. I
loved to see him learning, and made him read to me so constantly
of an evening, and it did my heart so much good to think that
one day my Robert might be a great lawyer, or a parson, for I
could see how much smarter he was than all the other boys of
the village—and so I never looked at his pale cheeks, and had no
guess how poorly he was getting, till, all of a sudden, he was
laid up, on my hands, and pining away every hour, as you now
see him. Things looked better for a while when he got fond of
Ellen Ramsay, and she of him. But that Stanton, ever since he
came among us, Robert has gone backward, and I shan't wonder
if it's not very long before he wants his own tombstone!”

Poor old woman! I saw in a corner, half hidden behind an
old trunk in the youth's chamber, what it was evident she had
not seen, a head board, the very fellow to that which he had been
making for Ellen!—but I said nothing to her at the time. When
they were found after his death—for he said nothing of them
while he lived—they were both neatly finished, with a simple but

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proper inscription. On his own was but one line above his name.
It was this—


“Mine was wo, but mine is hope.
Robert Anderson.”

“You tell me of a remarkable young man,” said Walter—
“and he was but twenty when he died?”

“No more!”

“We will go and look upon his grave.”

“You will see the head board there, but that for Ellen was
never put up—Stanton would not allow it.”

“Ah! but we shall mend that. I will pluck that scoundrel's
comb. Is the head-board preserved?”

“It is: his mother keeps it in his chamber, standing up beside
his little book-case; but see, yonder is Stanton now. He is on
his way to Ramsay's house. They do not live together. He
boards at a little farm-yard about a mile from the village. They
say that there has been a quarrel between him and his brother-in-law,
young John Ramsay, something about his sister's property.
There are eleven negroes which were owned by young
John and herself, in their own right, from the grand-mother's gift,
which they have suffered the old man to work until now. Stanton
wants a division, and young John tried to persuade him not
to touch them till his death, which must happen before long, he
sharing as before from the crop. But Stanton persists, and the
young fellow did not stop to tell him that he thought him a cruelly
base fellow. This is the report. It is very certain that they are
separate now, and there is a difference between them.”

“Very likely on the score of the negroes. But we will save
them to the old man, and drive him from a spot which he had
made wretched.”

“Can you do this? Are your proofs sufficient?”

“Ample.”

“You are yourself a lawyer?”

“Yes! But I shall have the assistance, if necessary, of Col.
Dawson, whom probably you know.”

“A first rate gentleman, and one of our best lawyers.”

“I bring letters to him—have already seen him on the subject,

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and he concurs with me as to the conclusiveness of my proofs.
Would I had been with you a year ago. Could I have traced
him, this poor girl had not been his victim. I should at least
have driven the snake from this one cabin.”

“Yes, if you had come a year ago, poor Ellen would have
been saved. But nothing could have saved the poor young man.
The rot was in the heart of the tree.”

“Yet!” said the other, putting his hand upon the arm of Atkins—
“though the tree perished, it might have been kept green to
the last. Some hurts might have been spared it. The man
who died in hope, might not have found it necessary to declare, at
the last moment, that he had utterly lived in wo. Yes—a little
year ago, we might have done much for both parties.”

“You will do great good by your coming now. The poor old
man loves his negroes as he does his children. They say he
looks upon the giving up the eleven to be sold, like a breaking up
of the establishment. His son says it will hurry him to the grave.
This was what he said to Stanton, which led to the quarrel.
Stanton sneered at the young man, and he, being pretty passionate,
blazed out at him in a way that pretty soon silenced the fellow.”

“This class of reptiles are all, more or less, cowards. We must
not burn daylight, as, if they consent to a division, the scoundrel
may make off with his share. Let us go forward,” continued
the speaker, with a show of feeling for which Atkins could not
well account—“I long to tread upon the viper—to bruise his
head, and above all to tear the fangs from his jaws. You
will, if Stanton be there, draw the old man aside and introduce
me to him, with some quiet hint of what I may be able
to do.”

“You say you have the papers with you?”

“Ay, ay,—here,”—striking his bosom—“I have here that
which shall confound him! Fear not! I do not deceive you. At
least I cannot deceive myself. I too have wrongs that need
avenging—I and mine! I and mine! Remember, I am Mr.
Jones from Tennessee—I must surprise and confound the fellow,
and would see how the land lies before I declare myself.”

CHAPTER II.

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Young John Ramsay was in the front piazza as they entered
the little farm-yard. He was alone, and pacing the floor in evident
agitation. His brow was dark and discontented, and he met
the salutations of his visitors with the manner of a person who
is ill pleased with any witnesses of his disquiet. But he was
civil, and when Atkins asked after his father, he led the way into
the house, and there they discovered the old man and George
Stanton in close and earnest conversation. Several papers were
before them, and Stanton held the pen in his hand. The tears
stood in old Ramsay's eyes. His thin white hairs, which fell,
glossy and long, upon his shoulders, gave a benign and patriarchal
expression to a face that was otherwise marked with the
characters of benevolence and sensibility. He rose at the appearance
of the visitors. Stanton did not, but looked up with
the air of one vexed at interruption in the most interesting moment.
Young Ramsay, to whom the stranger had been introduced
by Atkins, introduced him in turn to his father, but to his father
only. He gave no look to the spot where Stanton was seated.
Atkins took the old man into another room, leaving the three remaining
in the apartment. Stanton appeared to busy himself
over his papers. Young Ramsay requested the stranger to be
seated, and drew a chair for himself beside him. There was no
conversation. The youth looked down upon the floor, in abstract
contemplation, while the stranger, unobserved by either, employed
himself in a most intense watch of the guilty man. The latter
looked up and met this survey seemingly with indifference. He
too was thinking of matters which led him somewhat from the
present company. He resumed his study of the papers before
him, and scarcely noticed the return of old Ramsay to the room.
His appearance was the signal to the son to go out, and resume
his solitary promenade in the piazza. The old man promptly
approached the stranger, whose hand he took with a cordial

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pressure that proved how well Atkins had conveyed his suggestion.
There was a bright hopefulness in his old eyes, which, had it
been seen by Stanton, might have surprised him, particularly as,
just before, they had been overflowing with tears and clouded
with despondency. He was, however, still too busy in his calculations,
and possibly, in his own hopes, to note any peculiar
change in the aspect or manner of his father-in-law. But when
some minutes had passed, consumed by the old man and the
stranger, in the most common-place conversation—when he heard
the former institute long inquiries into the condition of crops in
Tennessee—the value of grain, the modes of cultivation, the
price of lands and negroes;—the impatient son-in-law began to
show his restiveness. He took up and threw down his papers,
turned from them to the company, from the company to the papers
again, renewed his calculations, again dismissed them, and
still without prompting the visitor to bring to a close a visit seemingly
totally deficient in object and interest, but which, to his
great annoyance, all parties besides himself seemed desirous to
prolong. At length, as with a desperate determination, he turned
to the old man and said—

“Sir—Mr. Ramsay, you are aware of my desire to bring this
business to a close at once.”

The words reached the ears of young Ramsay, who now appeared
at the door.

“Father, pray let it be as this person desires. Give him all
which the law will allow—give him more, if need be, and let
him depart. Make any arrangement about the negroes that you
please, without considering me—only let him leave us in our
homes at peace!”

“I am sorry to disturb the peace of any home,” said Stanton,
“but am yet to know that to claim my rights is doing so. I ask
nothing but what is fair and proper. My wife, if I understand
it, had an equal right with Mr. John Ramsay, the younger, to
certain negroes, eleven in number, namely, Zekiel, Abram, Ben,
Bess, Maria, Susannah, Bob, Harry, Milly, Bainbridge and Nell,
with their increase. This increase makes the number seventeen.
But you have never denied the facts, and I repeat to you the

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proposition which I have already made to you, to divide the property
into two equal parts, thus:”—

Here he read from the strips of paper before him, enumerating
the negroes in two lots—this done, he proceeded:

“I am willing that your son should have the first choice of
these lots. I will take the other. I am prepared to listen to
any other arrangement for a division, rather than be subject
to any delay by a reference to the law. I have no wish to
compel the sale of the property, as that might distress you.”

“Distress!” exclaimed the young man—“spare your sympathy
if you please. I consent to your first arrangement. Nay,
sir, you shall choose, first, of the lots as divided by yourself. My
simple wish now, sir, is to leave you wholly without complaint.”

“But, my son”—began the old man.

“Pray, my father, let it be as I have said. We shall never
have an end of it otherwise. The division is a tolerably equal
one, and if there be any loss it is mine.”

The old man folded his hands upon his lap and looked to the
stranger. He, meanwhile, maintained a keen and eager watch
upon the features of Stanton. It could be seen that his lip quivered
and there was in his eye an expression of exultation and
scorn which, perhaps, none perceived but young Atkins. Stanton,
meanwhile, was again busy with his papers.

“It is admitted also,” the latter continued, “that I have a right
to one half of a tract of uncleared land, lying on the Tombeckbe,
containing six hundred and thirty acres, more or less; to one
half of a small dwelling house in Linden, and to certain household
stuff, crockery, plate and kitchen ware. Upon these I am
prepared to place a low estimate, so that the family may still retain
them, and the value may be given me in negro property. I
value the land, which I am told is quite as good as any in the country,
at $5 an acre—the house and lot at $500—and the plate,
crockery, kitchen ware, etc., at $250 more. I make the total of
my share, at these estimates, to be $2075—we will say $2000—
and I am willing to take in payment of this amount, the four fellows,
Zekiel, Bob, Henry and Ben—named in one lot, or the two
fellows, Abram and Bainbridge, and the two women, Milly and
Maria, with their three children, named in the other parcel.”

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