CHAPTER I.
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We must shift the scene of our story like those of
the drama, to the whereabout of our different characters.
Not long after the Lormans had settled in
their new home, Mr. Bennington, senior, left Perryville,
to attend the sitting of Congress. Mr. Taylor
Davidson, a south-western planter, who had land
claims that required his presence in Washington
city, and who was a friend of Mr. Bennington, had
been spending some weeks with him at Perryville,
on his way up the Ohio, awaiting Mr. Bennington's
departure, that they might proceed together. During
Mr. Davidson's stay in Perryville, he had made the
acquaintance of the Lormans, and had heard Ruth
talk a great deal about Helen Murray, from whom
she had received several letters, portions of which
she had read to him. Mr. Davidson was a single
man, and would be pronounced by a very young
lady, one for instance just “coming out,” as most
decidedly on the list of old bachelors; a lady of Miss
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Judson's age might not think so. Mr. Davidson was
a high-minded, chivalrous southerner, who in his
youth had been in the army, and had served with
honour in our late war with Great Britain. On the
death of his brother, who had left him a handsome
fortune, he had travelled extensively in Europe, and
on his return, purchased a plantation and slaves on
the banks of the Mississippi, where he had resided
since, and accumulated an immense fortune. He
wore his age well, and was a fine-looking man, with
a gentlemanly and distinguished bearing. He was
forcibly impressed with the wit, vivacity, friendliness,
and worldly knowledge of those portions of Helen's
letters, which Ruth read to him, and he laughing
said to her:
“Miss Lorman, you must give me a letter of introduction
to your friend Miss Murray. I am fascinated
by her letters. As I can tell her all about you and
your family, she will give me a kind reception, and
who knows but what I may improve upon it, and induce
her to come west. She is not a very young
lady you tell me, and I, you discover, am not a very
young gentleman. Upon my word, if she is so bewitching
as these letters indicate, and your account
of her proclaims, I fear I shall be no longer heartwhole.
What say you?”
“Helen is said to have great powers of conquest
in that respect,” replied Ruth gaily, “and I have no
doubt, when she sees you, that she will have the
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will. But remember, her motto is conquest, not
exchange.”
When Mr. Bennington left Perryville, Mr. Davidson
accompanied him as far as the city, from which
Ruth had emigrated, with the intention of spending
some weeks there, and then proceeding to Washington.
In a splendid equipage with liveried slaves, he
called at Helen Murray's, and presented his letter of
introduction from Ruth. He was received by Helen
with every attention, and long and earnest were her
inquiries concerning the Lormans. The fact that
Mr. Davidson had seen Ruth Lorman, and spoke of
her in terms of exalted praise, established an intimate
intercourse between Helen and Mr. Davidson,
almost on their first interview, and he soon became
her daily visiter.
After the Lormans emigrated, Henry Beckford
was, if possible, still more attentive than ever to Helen,
who had succeeded in the determination expressed to
Ruth Lorman. Henry had addressed her, and she
had half consentingly rejected him, uttering the no,
which is said in most instances to mean yes. In
this instance, it was but to allure farther, that the no
might be more decided, after deeper protestations,
and burning, recorded, written vows. Her first hesitating
rejection, after a coolness on Henry's part of
a few days, drew from him, for his vanity whispered
it was all that was wanted, more eager and abundant
proofs of his attachment, among which were no
small quantity of gilt-edged notes, on various
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coloured satin paper, where green was avoided, and blue
most used. The lady's replies were as non-committal,
as any politician's in answer to a committee
of his fellow-citizens, asking for his opinions, could
possibly be. At last Henry, suspecting that she
might show the correspondence, alluded, in one of
his letters, to certain passages between them, which
he coloured in such a way, that if she should show
it, it would appear that she had given him great encouragement,
which he thought would prevent the
exposure. She returned the letter, with a few cold
lines written crossways on the part, saying, she did
not know what he could possibly mean in writing to
her in that way—that he had applied to his imagination
instead of his memory—and that she desired
their correspondence might drop. This brought
Henry to seek a personal interview with her. Burning
with rage, which he determined to suppress, that
he might win her, and vent it, he proceeded to Mr.
Murray's, not without many conflicting feelings as
to whether he ought to go, and what he should say
if he went. Henry found Helen in the midst of a
fascinating tête-à-tête with Mr. Davidson, that gentleman's
splendid equipage standing before the door,
and in full view from the window. Helen introduced
the gentlemen to each other, and with her accustomed
courtesy, which did not bate a jot in self-possession,
after hoping that Mr. Beckford was well,
and requesting him to be seated, she resumed the
thread of her conversation with Mr. Davidson.
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“And so you think I would like the far south, Mr.
Davidson?” she said.
“Indeed I do, Miss Murray,” Mr. Davidson replied,
“and I know the far south would like you.
What could persuade you to visit us?”
“An eloquent tongue, perhaps, sir.”
“Ah, me! I have now the deep regret, that I am
not eloquent. Could I persuade you, it would be with
me as the eloquent Irish barrister said it was with
him when the audience applauded him—`not the advocate—
but the theme.' Does not Miss Lorman give
you glowing pictures of the west? we of the south
beat them in every thing but hills.”
“Yes, Ruth does give me a glowing account of
Perryville. But she sighs for home, I have no doubt,”
and Helen ran her fingers over the piano that stood
near her, and warbled a verse of `sweet home.'
“There must be all sorts of folks there, to use one of
their expressions. But remind me of it, I will show
you one of Ruth's letters some of these days.”
“Show letters, Miss Murray,” exclaimed Henry,
in a tone of reprehension.
“Yes, Mr. Beckford, show letters when they come
from a guileless girl, for there can be no harm in
them. And I hold, though perhaps it may startle a
gentleman of your plain dealing, that though it might,
at first blush, seem like a breach of confidence, that
one may show the letters of an artful or a foolish
man, to prevent others from being the tools of his
artifice, or his folly. As for love-letters, there is
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nothing new in them—and perhaps I could prove it—they
are stereotyped stuff, for which there is no copy-right
secured, and any one may publish them. There, Mr.
Davidson, have I not spoken like a blue-stocking?”
Mr. Davidson bowed and smiled.
“But do you approve the sentiment, Mr. Davidson?”
asked Henry, as if struck with horror.
“I must not condemn it, if Miss Murray utters it,”
replied Mr. Davidson, “for I am practising, sir, all
the powers of which I am master, to induce Miss
Murray to wend westward, and see Miss Lorman.
By-the-by, Miss Murray wonders that some one has
not persuaded the fair Ruth to say to him, what her
namesake said on a certain occasion in the good
book.”
“I opine, sir, that has been done,” said Helen.
“Are you in earnest?” asked Mr. Davidson. “I
hope he is a clever fellow, for our broad land does
not contain a lovelier or worthier lady.”
“In earnest, sir, downright earnest,” replied Helen.
“And he is a clever fellow—I know him well,
and can vouch for him.”
Henry Beckford believed that Ruth was pleased
with himself, from what her mother had told him
at their last interview; and feeling that he had acted
unjustifiably towards her, though he fed his vanity
upon the idea that he had outrivalled Ralph and
won her regard, he was careful never to speak of
her to Helen Murray. Helen, who felt deep indignation
against Henry for his conduct towards
Ruth, never spoke of her to him, while she was
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winding her meshes round him; for she felt that if
she did there would be a fire in her eye not at all
consistent with her purposes.
Henry looked foolish at first, as if he thought himself
was meant; but when Helen concluded her remark
in a tone of evident earnestness, he inquired,
in great surprise,
“Who is he, Miss Helen, if it is a fair question?”
“Fair as the lady herself, sir,” replied Helen, “or
the gentleman to whose fairness you must be a willing
witness—your cousin, Mr. Ralph Beckford.”
“Ralph Beckford!” exclaimed Henry, with a
doubting laugh. “Miss Murray, I assure you from
my own personal knowledge, you never were so
much mistaken in your life. You know I used to
be very intimate there—”
“Master Henry, let me assure you, sir, that the
flattering unction that has fed your vanity is all
mere moonshine, sir. You thought you had obtained
Ruth's heart, Master Henry Beckford, and
that, like an idle, vicious boy, when tired of his toy,
you had cast it from you, not caring if you broke it;
but it was garnered up by another, and never gave
you one throb except of indignation and of pity.”
“Miss Murray, you use strange language,” exclaimed
Henry, in unfeigned astonishment and chagrin.
“You provoke it, Master Henry; but I'll drop it,
but with this assurance to you, that Ruth Lorman is
now engaged to your cousin Ralph Beckford, and
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that when he leaves college they will be married.
You never gave Ruth the least heartache, except for
the effect of your deception upon her mother.”
“I thought that you claimed Ralph,” said Henry,
starting at the latter part of the sentence, and speaking
quickly, so as to exclude it, as it were, from his
own ears.
“No, sir, you are mistaken again. I never had
any claims upon your cousin—he has no vanity in
that way. In this regard, cousins though you be,
there is no relationship between you. I assure you,
Master Henry, I never had, I repeat, any claims
upon your cousin, except upon his friendship, and
that I would not resign for the love of any man in
Christendom. So you observe, sir, I have no idea
of love or matrimony.”
Mr. Davidson, anxious to turn a conversation, of
which he did not know well what to make, and
which he saw was giving increasing chargin and
passion to Henry, said:
“Ah! is that your determination; then of what
avail, Miss Murray, would be the powerful eloquence
of which we have been speaking?”
“You must remember, Mr. Davidson, that I have
not yet listened to that powerful eloquence. But
come, I see your horses prancing in the street—you
invited me to ride, I believe, sir?”
“I did,” replied Mr. Davidson; “allow me, Miss
Murray—Mr. Beckford, will you not accompany
us?”
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Ere Henry could reply, Helen said,
“No, Mr. Davidson, Master Henry is too fond of
proverbs and too mindful of their injunctions not to
remember what makes bad company. I quoted the
proverb to him before, when he, Ralph, and I used
to visit Ruth.”
So saying, she took Mr. Davidson's arm, and
bowing to Henry, said,
“Mr. Beckford, you see I do not stand on ceremony
with you.”
“I have been made fully aware of that fact, to-day,
Miss Murray, and allow me to say, that it has
been so much in contrast with previous occasions,
that I know not how to take it. To a gentleman, I
could have replied—to a lady, I must be silent.”
“There, sir, you do me and my sex injustice;
with the tongue you are aware we are said to be
matchless—it is our peculiar weapon. Upon my
word, sir, I attributed your silence to a fear of the
odds. Good morning, sir.”
Helen and her gallant had by this time reached
the carriage, and ere Henry could reply, for he had
left the room with them, Helen had entered it, and
was addressing some remark to Mr. Davidson, as
if totally unconscious of Henry's existence.
“Upon my word, you are a strange lady,” said
Mr. Davidson to Helen, as the carriage drove off,
alluding of course to the conversation between her
and Henry.
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“Things often seem strange to lookers-on, Mr.
Davidson, because they do not know the reasons
therefor. I understand all the depths and shallows
of Master Henry; and when he provokes me, I let
him see that I do—that's all.”
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CHAPTER II.
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With no enviable feelings Henry Beckford glanced
after the carriage as it drove off. “By heaven,” he
muttered to himself, through his teeth, pulling at the
same moment his hat over his brows, “she has
brought me to this pass to laugh at and scorn me.
Now, when the whole town knows how long I have
been her servant, almost her slave—they will say
her very slave—she treats me in this manner. I
boasted to our set at our last supper of my success
with her, and now, damnation! I shall have their
taunts—I must bear all this—her scorn and their
laughter, as well as—as—yes, yes, I love her as well
as hate her. And, if my love brings nothing but this
wormwood, I'll make that wormwood a bitter drug
for her. I will, I must be revenged. Her conduct
is insufferable—`Master Henry,'—I'll master her
yet. She has, with the most cold-blooded malice,
coquetted me, and now this dashing southerner has
come, she spurns me as though I were a dog, whose
fawning molested her. Her devilish spirit and her
unbridled, unlicensed tongue unman me. The
miser's son, my virtuous cousin! she `would rather
have his friendship, than the love of any man in
Christendom,' and therefore I could see she `had no
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idea of love or matrimony'—a most gentle hint that
I am flung. And that puritanical little Ruth, she
received my attentions all the while so demurely,
and was engaged to Mr. Ralph—how she deceived
her mother!—this pink of all the virtues!—I am
fooled, bamboozled, deceived at every point—and
nothing accursed ever happens to me, but the name
of this cousin of mine comes in like the evil word—
damn him.
“I'll see Helen Murray again, alone,—I'll see her
and know what she means. It may be that she is
provoked at my letter—`Master Henry!'—oh, that
I were her master!”
With these reflections presenting themselves to
his mind in a thousand different hues, Henry Beckford
betook himself to the house of a frail, fair, false
one, whom he flattered himself with the belief he had
himself betrayed—a belief which she was at no pains
to contradict—and over whom he was in the habit
of tyrannizing whenever he felt in an ill humour, and
dared not vent his spleen where it originated.
In a quarrel of considerable duration with this
Dulcinea, in which Henry was not sparing of the
most abusive epithets, on their being retorted on him,
he struck the poor girl—woman though she was—
repeatedly with his fist and rattan, and left her with
the express injunction that she should not attend the
theatre that night, and repaired to his lodgings to
arrange his toilet, resolving to visit Helen Murray,
and endeavour to see her alone.
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Alone, a few hours after, he found Helen. She
had a book in her hand, from which she did not raise
her eye, until Henry had entered the room and
twice said:
“Good afternoon, Miss Murray.”
“Ah! Mr. Beckford! Good afternoon, sir;” and
she shut the book with her finger between the leaves
where she had been reading, placing the volume
edgewise on her lap, and resting her hands on it.
Henry, with an embarrassed air, took a seat at some
distance from her, while she calmly patted her
fingers against the book, and glanced over her dress
and at her guard-chain and watch, as if to see that
her habiliments were all properly adjusted.
“I hope you had a pleasant ride,” said Henry in
a slightly satirical tone.
“Delightful, most delightful, Mr. Beckford—I regretted
exceedingly that your strict adherence to the
truth of proverbs prevented you from accompanying
us.”
Henry bit his lip, and then said:
“You made me aware, Miss, that you had motives
for wishing me to break the proverb so plainly, that,
if you threw your bait at all as you rode out, Mr.
Davidson must have caught the idea—old birds—as
you love proverbs so, Miss Murray—are not to be
caught by chaff.”
Helen laughed. “That is very true, Master
Henry, it is proverbially true, but is there anything
in your experience, sir, that leads you to believe that
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young ones may be caught by it? As for myself, I
have arrived at that age when I can tell the chaff
from the grain, but I am not old enough yet to do it
at a glance; however, when I do find it is chaff, I
never mistake it for grain again.”
“Miss Helen,” said Henry, after an internal
struggle, drawing his chair close to the lady's, “let
us away with this—I did not come here to battle
words with you—I wish to know explicitly—after
what has passed between us, I think I have a right
to know—what this means.”
“Means, sir! just what I have said, sir—that
though I do not put myself down on the list of the
aged, I have at least arrived at that age—the age
of discretion I take it to be—when I am not to
be caught by chaff. But away with this; Master
Henry, go you to the theatre to-night?”
“Master Henry! you have resumed that phrase,
Miss Murray, after having dropped it for a long
time. But there is no away with this. Have you
not, Miss Murray, given me encouragement?—did
you not mean to give me encouragement?”
“Encouragement! in what respect?”
“In my suit.”
“O! in your suit. Why, Mr. Beckford, I received
your attentions as those of a gallant young
gentleman who, having plenty of leisure upon his
hands, was kind enough to bestow some of it upon
me.”
“But, Miss Helen, what when you saw that I was
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serious, and confessed my attachment to you, and
reiterated it?”
“O! sir, even then I thought you but practising
to keep your hand in, that you might make a dead
shot in some other quarter—up in Fourth street, for
instance!” alluding to the street in which Miss
Wraxall lived.
“But you are now convinced that I am serious?”
asked Henry.
“Seriously, if I am, Mr. Beckford, I can make you
no other return than I have made you—my acknowledgment
of the honour you would do me,
with my regrets that I must decline it.”
“May I ask, Miss Helen, have I a rival who
has caused this determination on your part?”
“You question me closely, Mr. Beckford, and remember
I answer from courtesy, and not that I acknowledge
the right of any one to question me.
No, sir, my feelings are unengaged, if I know them;
but you know it is said we women never know our
own minds.”
“May I then not hope, Miss Helen, by a continued
perseverance, to merit a return for the long affection
I have borne you. Reflect, Miss Murray, before
you answer, do reflect. This attachment has
not been the impulse of a day with me, it has been
a part of my being now for many years.”
“We can scarcely be said to have been acquainted
so long, Mr. Beckford,” interrupted Miss Murray,
“one of us at least does not number many years. I
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am sure, although I am the older, I should be angry
with any one who imputed many years even of existence
to me.”
“I discover, Miss Murray,” exclaimed Henry, in a
tone of anger which he could not suppress, “that
you are determined to make a jest of me.”
“Make a jest of you! No, sir—there is but one
step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and when
you attempted to date the affection of one so young
as yourself, by alleging that it included many years—
and I all the while its object—I felt that you had
taken the step.”
“Well, Madam, you have brothers,” exclaimed
Henry, with a threatening brow, unable any longer
to control his temper under the lady's taunts, “and
as you are a woman, and I must not revenge in you
the injuries I have received from you, what step do
you think I should take next?”
“Any step you please, sir—the way to my front
door, is as plain as any other—and you have stepped
it often—I hope it will hereafter be, Master Henry,
like the passage of the Styx, returnless.”
“Do you think, Madam—I ask you, do you think
I will bear this?” exclaimed Henry, starting up from
his chair in a furious passion.
“Certainly, Master Henry, I think you have a spirit
of endurance that can bear a much more taunting
tongue than mine, and without the least restiveness,
were it a man's. But away with all this rhodomontade,
and listen to me, sir. Did you dare for a
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passing moment to entertain the thought that I would
dream of marrying you—you who make such a public
boast of evil habits—you whose passion for the
card table has already impaired your fortune—you
who are given to such company that no modest woman
can think of it without loathing—you who
make a boast of the betrayal of a poor wretch—a
woman, sir—whose greatest folly is that she loved
you, and whose greatest vice is that she trusted you.
Did you think that I, brought up in the strict discipline
of Quaker rule, knowing these things of you,
which I am informed you have been at some trouble
to make public—did you think—no, sir, you never
thought it. And did I not know, too, of your conduct
to the Lormans—that Mrs. Lorman died of a
quantity of laudanum, taken by her after a friendly
visit from you, in which you wantonly destroyed the
hope which you had been at some pains to raise—
the hope that your intentions were serious towards
Ruth, and that in marrying her you would lift them
in the world again. Not even to have saved her
family from that bitter poverty would Ruth have
married you—you who, when her stepmother's attentions
led you to believe that you had won Ruth, and
outrivalled Ralph, at once forsook them, and did
not even attend the funeral which you yourself had
caused. After what I have said, you need not be
assured, Mr. Beckford, that I never entertained the
remotest idea of marrying you—I met you, sir, in
fashionable society, which esteems you from
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appearance highly, and I was willing, as a belle there, to
receive your attentions. I also was intimate with
your mother, and could not therefore reject the courtesies
of her son. I will be frank with you: the wit
and the superior mind which your conversation displayed,
made me often a pleased listener to you.
But as for marrying,” here Helen shook her head
gravely, and continued, “many a gentleman mistakes
for encouragement from a lady, what was
only meant as a slave to his feelings. Construe, I
pray you, Mr. Beckford, whatever in my conduct
may have seemed as such, by such motives. And,
sir, I hope we may still continue, as the world goes,
friends.”
“Friends, Miss Murray,” exclaimed Henry, in a
rage, “after such language as you have just used to
me—friends!”
“Then, foes, if it so please you, Master Henry,”
exclaimed Helen, rising with that proud dignity
which sat upon her so well, “it seems to be your
fate to war upon women—foes, if it so please you,
sir—suffer me to say, though, that my Quaker notions
are not so strict, as to let me entertain my
avowed enemy in my own house.”
Henry bowed, haughtily stopped, as if to say something,
and then, without speaking, left the house.
Helen threw herself upon the sofa. “That language,”
said she to herself, “was hardly justifiable.
But how many boasts he has made of having won
me at last! And in what language has he made
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them? I wonder, will he pick a quarrel with my
brothers? No he has not the courage, for he knows
they have, and he cannot stand the consequences.
Now, if they were right down sober Quakers, how
valiant he would be! I startled him with Ruth's love
for Ralph. How the coxcomb's comb was cut!
Heigh-ho! This Mr. Davidson is certainly a marvellous
proper man. Alas! but he is aged. I wish I
could meet with some right down romantic fellow,
like Ralph Beckford, fall in love with him, and have
him at my feet. Vanity, saith the preacher, all is
vanity.”
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CHAPTER III.
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Twilight was just coming on, when Henry left
Helen Murray. He hurried gloomily to his room, at
the hotel, and, filling himself a large glass of brandy,
he drank it, and threw himself upon his bed. In
many incoherent exclamations and curses, he vowed
vengeance on Helen Murray; and he struck his
clenched first against his brow in mortification and
rage, when he reflected, that the story would get
abroad, and all his boasting prove falsehoods. Again
he arose and drank, and again threw himself upon
the bed, with passions still more inflamed. Sometime
after night had set in, and after having swallowed
several other potations, which did not permit
him to be entirely his own master, he rang violently
for his servant, bid him brush his coat, and proceeded
to the theatre.
The first objects that met Henry's eye, on his entrance,
were Helen Murray and Mr. Davidson,
seated together. Helen was dressed with regal display,
and was in her best spirits; for while conversing
in the liveliest manner, she would acknowledge,
in some distant box, the salutation of a beau, with
her blandest smile; or gaily comment on the passing
scene, to those beside her. She sat in conscious
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beauty, the admitted star of attraction to the most
fashionable men of the city. Unseen, through the
aperture in an opposite box door, Henry stood and
watched her, until maddened with jealousy, rage,
and the draughts he had taken, he had almost resolved
to enter the box and seat himself beside her.
Finding, when he made the attempt, that his courage
failed him, he proceeded upstairs to the bar-room, to
drink again. Here he met a number of his acquaintances—
Stansbury, Wraxall, and others.
“Something is the matter with Beckford,” said
Stansbury, in a whisper to Wraxall; “he has been
both drinking deep and playing deep, I expect.”
Wraxall scrutinized him as he advanced towards
them, and said:
“Yes, he is in for it. Beckford,” he continued
aloud, as Henry approached them, “where have you
been all day? Is this your first appearance? That
rich planter is below, what's his name?—with the
Murray, breezing her in fine style. I'll swear to it,
he understands the creature.”
“Damn the creatures,” exclaimed Henry, “come,
let's drink. Are there any `birds of paradise' upstairs?”
alluding to those of the sex who there do
congregate.
“Yes, a plenty of them,” replied Wraxall; “and
I see your lady fair among the rest.”
“What,” exclaimed Henry, “is she there? Come,
drink—give me brandy, waiter;” and Henry took a
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deep dráught; and taking an arm of each of his companions,
he went up into the third tier.
“Beckford,” said Wraxall, as they passed up the
steps, “do you intend to let that planter take the
Murray?”
“He'll take her if he can get her, I suppose,” said
Henry; “and he may for me.”
“Sour grapes, Hal! sour grapes,” said Stansbury.
“I don't understand you, sir,” said Henry, angrily
releasing his arm from Stansbury's.
“Don't understand?” ejaculated both Wraxall
and Stansbury, “ha! ha! ha! You are dull to-night,
Beckford,” continued Wraxall.
“What do you mean by this, gentlemen?” asked
Henry, facing both alternately, as they reached the
top of the steps.
“Ha! ha!” laughed Wraxall.
“Mean,” said Stansbury; “Don't be provoked,
Hal, accidents will happen; Brummel himself was
not always successful. By gad, they do say though,
that she flung you sky high—and she shows your
letters to prove it.”
Henry turned away his face to hide his shame
and rage, and he beheld the girl of whom we spoke
enter the bar-room. Glad of a harmless object to
vent his rage on, and forgetful where he was, in the
mad, maudlin moment, and with whom he was
about quarrelling in the third tier of a theatre, Henry
-- 035 --
[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]
grasped his rattan, and stepping up to her, said, in a
menacing tone—
“Did I not tell you not to come here to-night?”
“Don't strike me,” said the girl, in evident alarm;
“just come here, I'll tell you—”
“Did I not order you not to come here,” reiterated
Henry.
“Beckford,” said Stansbury, laying his hand on
his shoulder, and speaking in a whisper, “don't
strike her here and expose yourself; you have been
drinking—let's go below.”
But Henry shook him off, and bid him mind his
own business. By this time a crowd, attracted by
his loud voice, had gathered in the room. Unmindful
of it, Henry again asked, in a tone louder than
before,
“Did I not order you not to come here?”
“Henry Beckford,” at last exclaimed the girl, “I
am not your slave, to be ordered about by you.
And now, once for all, I won't stand it. You have
beat me already to-day; and now you may go your
way and I will go mine.”
“But you shall stand it,” exclaimed Henry. And
he sprang at her furiously, and struck her repeatedly
over the face and shoulders.
The girl was beautiful, and the crowd instantly
called out “Shame! shame!” and hissed. Regardless
of them, Henry was about repeating his blows,
when she felt hastily in her pocket, and the next
moment, before any one could arrest her arm, she
-- 036 --
[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]
exclaimed, “I will stand it no longer,” and discharged
a pistol full at the breast of Henry Beckford.
“She has shot me, Stansbury, help! she has shot
me!” exclaimed Henry, as he fell back and was
caught by Stansbury, who stood immediately behind
him.
Amidst the confusion that instantly occurred,
Stansbury, Wraxall, and some others of Henry's
friends, with great difficulty bore him out of the
theatre. He fainted from loss of blood, or from
pain, before they could get him into a hack. He
recovered a few minutes after they had placed him
in it; and after looking around unconsciously, and
inquiring where he was, he requested them to drive
him to his lodgings at the hotel, and send for his
mother and a physician.
Meanwhile, a great excitement prevailed at the
theatre. Many of those above stairs hurried below,
to be out of harm's way; while many of those below
hurried above, to see what was the matter.
Groups of young men stood in the lobbies, boxes,
and bar-rooms, discussing the case.
The news soon reached the fashionables below,
in the shape of a rumour that a man had attempted
to beat a girl, and that she had killed him on the
spot, and that there had been a general row in consequence
thereof. It soon came in a more authentic
shape, and at last Henry Beckford's name, with the
particulars pretty much as they happened, reached
-- 037 --
[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]
the ears of Helen Murray, through the channel of a
“damn'd good-natured friend,” of Henry's, who was
giving himself much trouble to inform their mutual
acquaintances of the fact.
“Mercy! is it possible!” exclaimed Helen, while
a pang of self-reproach darted through her bosom.
“Do, Mr. Davidson, be so kind as to learn for me
if Mr. Beckford is much hurt. Mr. Townsend (their
informant) will be my guardian until you return.”
Mr. Davidson instantly complied, but returned in
a few minutes, saying, all he could learn was, that
Mr. Beckford had been shot, and that he had fainted
as his friends were placing him in the hack, but that
they had driven off with him—taken Henry to his
lodgings, he supposed—and the result of an examination
of the wound by a physician was not known.
“This has shocked me so much, Mr. Davidson,”
said Helen, “that if my carriage is at the door I
will return home, and send and inquire how Mr.
Beckford is. O! how it will distress his poor mother
and his father.”
Mr. Davidson observed, that but a moment before
he had seen Miss Murray's carriage, at the door.
He conducted her to it, and in a few minutes she
was at home. She immediately sent a servant, first
to Henry's father's, and then to his lodgings, to inquire
how he was. The servant returned from the
latter place, and informed her that the doctor had
just examined the wound, and pronounced it a very
dangerous one.
-- 038 --
CHAPTER IV.
[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]
Luckily the ball did not enter directly the breast
of Henry, but tended upwards—otherwise it would
have killed him on the spot. It entered the left
breast, above the heart, and passed within an inch
or two of it. The patient did not suffer much pain
at first, but the excited state of his system threw him
into an alarming fever, during which he raved incoherently
of Helen Murray—alternately imploring
her regard, and imprecating her neglect—but generally
speaking of her in the bitterest language. Sometimes
he raved against Ralph and Ruth; and often
against the girl with the vilest epithets. Stansbury
was very attentive to him, and did much to relieve
his mother, who watched by his bedside constantly.
The girl had been taken into custody the night of
the misdeed, and was confined in jail to await her
trial at the sitting of the court, if Henry should then
be well enough to appear as a witness against her.
Henry recovered very slowly; and, on hearing that
she was in jail, though he felt deeply revengeful
towards her, yet fearful of the exposure of his treatment
of her, which would take place on her trial,
he was extremely anxious that the affair should be
hushed up. The public prints had already been filled
with exaggerated accounts of the transaction, in
-- 039 --
[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]
which his name had been introduced in no very flattering
manner. During his long convalescence his
mind had dwelt upon the subject, until he had become
morbidly alive to the shame and degradation which
he thought must attach to his character. At last,
he never thought of Helen Murray, Ruth, or Ralph,
but an imprecation rose to his lips; and a desire of
revenge, particularly on the former, burned in his
heart: for he held her the chief cause of all the evil
that had befallen him.
The attorney for the commonwealth was determined
to present the case to the grand jury; and
Henry discovered there was no other way for him
to prevent the trial than by absenting himself; for
he was aware if he did not appear against the girl
she could not be tried. As he grew stronger the
determination was fixed in his mind not to appear
against her; not, as we have said, on her account,
but on his own. He therefore resolved, as the time
was fast approaching when the criminal court would
sit, and of course a grand jury be summoned, to quit
the city. The odium which had already attached
to his conduct would have induced him to do this,
while the fear of the exposure of a trial, in which he
was aware he would be sternly crossed-examined
as a witness, and his conduct commented on by the
counsel for the accused in most censurable terms,
he felt was more than he could brook, if it were possible
to avoid it. Added to this, all his previous
recklessness and dissipation—which the world at
-- 040 --
[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]
first were disposed to look over as much as possible,
for his father's sake—were now dwelt upon, and
even hinted at in the public prints in a tone of censure
stronger than the apologies had been previously
indulgent. Besides, he had represented the case to
his father in a way so as to reflect the least possible
blame on himself; and he knew well the testimony
on the stand would not sustain this representation,
which he himself there would be compelled to make
more compatible with facts—as other witnesses
would appear, whom he could not contradict without
involving fearfully the question of his own
veracity.
Henry's father, who was deeply wounded by
the event; had made it his earnest request to the
State's attorney that the matter should be dropped—
and he had stated to him his son's account of the
transaction: to which the attorney replied, that if
the woman had acted so outrageously as Henry
represented, the necessity for her punishment was
increased. Henry was not a little startled when his
father repeated the prosecuting attorney's remark
to him; but, after a moment of embarrassment, he
replied, that he could not see a woman who had
stood to him in the relation of the girl punished, and
sooner than she should be he would quit the city.
His father remained silent, but it was apparent he
wished his son to do so; and Henry, in the course
of conversation, asked him to which portion of the
country he had better go. His father replied, to
-- 041 --
[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]
the west, and that, perhaps, he might find it to his
advantage permanently to settle there—saying he
could give him letters of introduction to almost any
portion of it—as he was himself extensively acquainted
in the west and south-west.
Henry, when he had resolved on leaving the city,
had an indefinable wish to wend westward, for he
entertained a vague hope, by so doing, that he could
be revenged in some way on Ralph and Ruth; and he
was a living proof of the truth of the old maxim—
“that those whom we have injured we hate.”
Affecting to be entirely guided by his father's
advice, he accordingly departed westward, intending
to descend the Ohio and the Mississippi, and
stop on his way down at Perryville.
-- 042 --
CHAPTER V.
[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]
One of the most frequent inquirers after the Lormans,
and how they liked the west, was our early
acquaintance, Hearty Coil. Whenever Hearty saw
Mr. Solomon Beckford, he was sure to put question
upon question to him concerning the far way western
country; and he had been often heard to say,
after one of their talks, that if Mrs. Coil could be persuaded—
now Parlot's wife was dead, and the family
a kind of broke up—he would go there. To this the
old miser was disposed to persuade him, for he
thought, as Hearty would have to sell his little farm
to do so, he might get it very cheap, and in this way
remunerate himself for the carryall, which he had
been compelled to mend at his own expense.
Hearty, too, had done sundry jobs of pruning
trees, and doctoring horses for Mr. Murray, and
when he called for payment, he frequently saw Helen,
who never failed to amuse herself by a long chat
with him, in which the Lormans, and the west, and
what Hearty could do there, formed the principal
topics.
“Do you know, Hearty,” said Helen to him one
day, “that I think it likely I shall go west some of
these days, just to pay Ruth a visit.”
“And by the living jingoes, Miss Murray,”
-- 043 --
[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]
exclaimed Hearty, “that's just what Hearty would like
to be a-doing himself. A sweet, neat lady is Miss
Ruth, and I'm told by all accounts, it's a sweet, neat
country, only the trees wants pruning; and I'll be
sworn, there's many of their horses would be the
better of skilful doctoring. Old Beckford, miser
though he is, and though he loves cents more than I
do dollars, is a good adviser, and he's a-thinking it's
about the best thing I could do—ha, ha, ha! I tucked
him in for that mourning suit after all. I got a week's
good wear out of it, and never paid him the first
cent.”
Flattered with the expectation of being a lady in
the land, and fond of novelty, and having caught the
spirit of emigration from the Lormans, and their
accounts of Perryville, Mrs. Coil was easily persuaded
by her husband to emigrate there; for the
“great west” is to many of the people of the eastern
and middle states, what the United States are to the
people of the “old country.” And it is nothing
marvellous to meet in a village, in the west, three or
four families from the same neighbourhood. It is
quite natural, that if one neighbour has emigrated
and done well, that those whom he has left, when
smitten with the love of change, perhaps, from the
accounts which the emigrant has himself given, in
seeking to better their condition, should locate where
he had bettered his; as well from the fact, that his
success seems to give them assurances of prosperity,
as in the hope, that in fixing their abiding place by
-- 044 --
[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]
some one from “home,” it will make the location
wear a familiar face to them. Therefore, often in
our western cities, towns, villages, and even farming
settlements, the dramatis personæ of fact are grouped
together, as if placed there by the poetic arrangement
of fiction.
When Hearty made up his mind to emigrate to
Perryville, Mr. Solomon Beckford was much disappointed
in not becoming the purchaser of Hearty's
little farm at half price, with the cost for the repair
of the carryall deducted, for Helen Murray's father
purchased it, giving Hearty considerably more than
its full value for it.
“Friends and neighbours all,” said Hearty, as he
stood on the steps of a country grocery in his neighbourhood,
with a number of his acquaintances and
neighbours around him,—“the thing's settled—Mrs.
Coil give her consent long ago, and I've got every-thing
in readiness; we are off for the great big west,
now in a day or two. I will let you hear from me.
I will write to Moran the keeper of the grocery, and
he will give you the information. That is, I mean
to say, that I will get Miss Ruth to put it down, as I
am a kind of crampt about the fingers; though I
writ Parlot's wife's obituary notice, I mean, that first
one that the rascally printers destroyed, it was much
more amplified than this other. I'll get her to put it
down, but I will speak every word of it, and I'll tell
her exactly what to say. It's a great country, that
great big west. Jim Bunce is there, and he has a
-- 045 --
[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]
distillery as big as the meeting house; think how the
fellow is up in the world. I know it will be for the
betterment of my family circle. I don't know what
I shall follow: you know I can turn my hand to any
thing—most any thing.”
“Hearty, you must let us know all about the
hunting thar,” said a great, big, lazy-looking fellow,
who stood in the group leaning on his rifle; “it's
monstrous thin, no hunting at all here; it's making
game to try to get game in these parts nowadays.”
“Yes, Snodgrass, you may depend on me; there's
plenty of game there, man; only think of the fish
there must be in their big rivers—and their woods,
they stretch as far as from here to where you can
think, and they are full of every-thing, from a deer
to a duck, and from a duck to nothing at all. You
shall hear from me all,” continued Hearty, theatrically
waving his hand.
A few days after this conversation, Hearty, with
four good horses hitched to a substantial wagon,
and with Mrs. Coil, and his little family circle well
packed up in it, departed for the west, intending to
journey in this way to Wheeling, and then to dispose
of the wagon and horses there, and descend the
river.
We will not trace the journey of Hearty Coil, but
precede him to Perryville, to notice the arrival of
Henry Beckford there. The Lormans were surprised
at seeing him. Mr. Lorman was delighted, for
Ruth had never told him—not wishing to give him
-- 046 --
[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]
unnecessary pain—of what she held the reason of
her stepmother's taking the laudanum which caused
her death. Her father, therefore, was still under the
impression which his wife had been careful to plant
in his mind, that Henry was pleased with Ruth.
Amidst his tribulations and trials at his wife's death,
the question had more than once entered his mind,
why Henry did not make known his intentions plainly;
but then he reflected, that though he might be attached
to Ruth, yet there were degrees in attachment,
and Henry's might not have arrived at the
point of confession. Latterly, after the death of his
wife, when Henry discontinued his visits, Mr. Lorman,
when amid the press of his many cares, he
thought on the subject, received the impression, that
perhaps he had been mistaken—or that perhaps Henry
had been taught to believe, in some way or other,
that Ruth preferred Ralph to himself, and had therefore
made a silent withdrawal, or waited other opportunities
of wooing her. To this latter conclusion, his
mind speedily came, on the arrival of Henry at Perryville,
for Mr. Lorman could not perceive what
earthly motive had brought him there, but attachment
to Ruth. Ruth, on the contrary, felt a foreboding
of ill, while she wondered that Helen Murray,
from whom she had not received a letter for some
time, had not written to her, and said something of
Henry. The news of Henry's adventures at the
theatre had not yet reached Perryville. Helen Murray
had written to Ruth but once after the arrival
-- 047 --
[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]
of Mr. Davidson, in her city, and then she wrote at
length, and spoke in raptures of Mr. Davidson. Helen
had sat down since several times, to write Ruth
concerning Henry's adventures, but she was taken
off by some one calling; and as Hearty Coil had,
when she last saw him, informed her he would positively
start for Perryville the ensuing week; she concluded
to wait, and write by him, as it was her intention
to make him the bearer of several valuable
presents to Ruth.
“And so, Mr. Beckford, you have brought me no
letter from Helen?” exclaimed Ruth, in a tone of deep
disappointment.
“Ay, I did not mention that I had not seen her for
some time before I left. The truth is, that an unfortunate
creature in the theatre, who was insane from
intoxication, alas! a woman, too, gave me, as I stood
in the crowd, amidst many others, so severe a wound
from a pistol, that I have been dangerously ill. Did
not Miss Murray mention it in any of her letters to
you, Miss Ruth?”
“No, she did not, sir,” replied Ruth, much surprised.
“Well, I had supposed that ere this, you had received
awful accounts of my mishaps, construed into
misdeeds. The wildest and most exaggerated stories
were flying over town concerning it. And, as Miss
Murray, you know, is given to a little severity, I supposed,
long before this, she had cooked up for your
edification, no very flattering account to myself, of
-- 048 --
[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]
my adventures. I lay very long ill, and when I recovered,
not wishing the poor wretch to be sent to
the penitentiary on my account, I absented myself
to prevent appearing, which I must have done, had
I remained, and in that event, she would have inevitably
been convicted. Having resolved on absence,
I knew no place where I could be relieved of its tedium,
better than this place now.”
A smile broke over Mr. Lorman's countenance,
and after musing a moment, he apologized to Henry
on the score of business, and left the room. Henry
having heard from Helen of the relation existing between
Ralph and Ruth, was extremely desirous to
discover if it was a fact, but he knew not well how
to introduce the subject, as he also had been made
aware, from the same source, that Ruth attributed
the suicidal death of her stepmother, to his conduct.
He hoped Ruth would mention his cousin, and give
him an opportunity of “pumping” her, but he could
not but perceive that she evidently avoided naming
Ralph, and that her conduct towards himself, was
constrained and embarrassed. He saw plainly a
sense of politeness, and not of pleasure, led her to
make an effort to entertain him, and after the most
disagreeable tête-à-tête he had ever held, with the
exception of some lately with Helen; he arose and
left, with more bitter feelings, if possible, against
Ruth and his cousin, than he had ever yet entertained.
-- 049 --
CHAPTER VI.
[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]
Introduoed by Ruth to the Benningtons, Henry
soon became intimate with them. He created quite
a stir in the town, and appeared willing, nay, solicitous
of extending his acquaintance in it. Dr. Cake
and Miss Judson were soon also numbered among
his familiars, and those who had known Henry in
other scenes, would have wondered by what kind
of alchymy he took to those worthies—perhaps it
was for want of excitement, and for something to
amuse him. After William Bennington's explanation
of the affair of Dr. Cake's letter to Miss Judson,
that lady had expressed herself sorry of the mistake
under which she had acted, and hoped that Mr.
Bennington would say so to Dr. Cake. On hearing
this, and burning for a triumph over Wickelmous,
who had circulated through Perryville that the Judson
family had, in extremity, when himself was away,
sent for Cake, and discarded him almost instantly for
want of skill, and moved, maybe, by other motives,
in which the virtues and person of the amiable Elizabeth
were more concerned, the Doctor immediately
concluded a truce with her, and an intercourse
was soon established between them of the
most amicable nature. In truth, having once been
-- 050 --
[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]
slightly feverish since the affair of the letter, Miss
Judson had sent for Doctor Cake, and he had been
so fortunate as to administer a cooling medicine
to her, which produced an almost instantaneous
happy effect. None of the Judson household had
been indisposed since that time, and it was shrewdly
suspected by the Perryville gossips, that if any
should be thereafter, Doctor Wickelmous would not
be the physician called in. Dr. Cake, though he
was prudent enough not to display it, bore no goodwill
to the Lormans; perhaps from the impression
that there might have been some trickery in the
matter of the letter on Ruth's part, or from the natural
feeling that we like not those who even innocently
have been the cause of casting ridicule upon us. It
certainly could not have been, in the Doctor's case,
a proof of the maxim that love rejected turns to
hate. Be that as it may, the result was the same,
and we will not stop to inquire whether it was sympathy
or not, but merely mention the fact, that Dr.
Cake's dislike of the Lormans was largely shared by
Miss Elizabeth Judson. These two were the only
ones in Perryville who did not bear the Lormans the
kindliest feelings, and they were restrained by their
popularity, from saying aught against them.
Very soon Henry's visits grew less frequent to
Lorman's, and in proportion as they decreased there,
they increased at Mr. Bennington's. He and William
Bennington became inseparables. Miss Bennington
staid more at home, not that she was less
-- 051 --
[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]
cordial with Ruth when they met, but Miss Catharine's
household duties appeared to be more urgent.
William Bennington still visited Ruth as often as
formerly, but oftener went unaccompanied by his
sister, and his attentions were evidently more marked.
Thus weeks wore away, and Henry's popularity
was increasing in the town of Perryville. Mr. Lorman,
in the meantime, had gone down the river with
his brother, the Captain, in some speculation or other,
and Ruth was consequently much confined to the
house, there being nobody about it but herself,
to take charge of the family and direct the servants.
For the two last weeks she had not been to
Perryville, not even to attend the church on Sunday.
She wondered why for the last four or five days she
had not seen Miss Bennington or her brother, but
she reflected that the autumnal rains had set in,
which might have prevented their visits; in fact,
Miss Bennington had so sent her word.
Sometimes, when Ruth was sitting alone with
William Bennington, it would occur to her there
might be something serious in his attentions, but not
having anything like even a just estimate of her own
attractions, she would discharge such a passing
thought from her bosom, with a self-reproof for
having had it. And she blushed when she remembered
her own vanity, and reflected that the rains
had kept William Bennington away. Ruth was not
the least of a coquette, and it would have given her
real pain to think she must inflict it on another. Her
-- 052 --
[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]
affections were wholly and solely given to Ralph.
Absence had, if possible, increased their intensity,
and the greatest pleasure she had in the world
was in reading Ralph's letters, and in looking over
the many little tokens of his regard which he had
given her. She slept with his letters under her pillow,
and the last thing at night, just before she commended
her spirit to the Father of all mercies, and
the first thing in the morning, after she had expressed
her thankfulness that she was permitted to see another
day, was to read and re-read them.
Ralph was still at college; he had even spent his
first vacation there, and as the life he lead was a
monotonous one, his letters to Ruth contained few
incidents, but they breathed and burned with deep,
strong and devoted expressions of affection. They
might be said to be a history of the heart's emotions
under the tenderest passion. By a finesse, which
lovers at least will pardon, Ralph's letters to Ruth
came enclosed in those of Helen Murray, to whom
Ralph sent them, for knowing that Mr. Lorman did
not like him after what his father had said to that
gentleman of him, he was fearful to arouse against
himself the father's influence over the daughter's
mind. To this arrangement Ruth, not without
many compunctions of filial duty, consented, and her
letters were conveyed to Ralph through the same
channel. This prevented the lovers from hearing
from each other as often as under a direct communication
they would have done, but they consoled
-- 053 --
[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]
themselves by believing that to them the long intervals
that elapsed in their correspondence, was in
some measure made up by its interrupted security.
Ruth repeatedly in her letters to Ralph expressed the
wish that their communications might be direct, as
she thought their present mode of interchanging their
sentiments involved duplicity, but she was always
overruled by Ralph, who implored her, by the love
between them, to write to him through the same
channel as formerly. He said, that not only might
Miss Murray feel offended if her friendly aid, after
being resorted to so long, was rejected, but that he
feared the prejudices of her father against himself
might give her uneasiness, and that her father would,
in all probability, write to his father on the subject.
This would be very much to his injury, as his
father would not only be harsh to him on that account,
but might be induced to stop what little supplies
he might otherwise be disposed to send him,
and also combine with her father to prevent their
marriage. These arguments prevailed with Ruth.
Not having been to church for the last two weeks,
nor even into town, as we have said, Ruth, on the
coming Sabbath, resolved to be present at divine
worship. Attended by a servant girl, she took her
way to church, and entered it just as the preacher
was ascending the sacred desk. When the service
was over, as Ruth passed out of the front door, it
occurred to her that many of the congregation gazed
at her very hard. Miss Judson, who used to be the
-- 054 --
[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]
very first to greet her, when they met, with gross
compliments, brushed directly by her so rudely as
almost to push her from the path. Then turning,
Miss Elizabeth looked Ruth full in the face—tossed
off her head with a disdainful air—but without
deigning otherwise to notice her. While Ruth was
wondering upon this conduct, Dr. Cake passed by
her also without the least recognition. On turning
round, Ruth beheld Henry looking at her with so
evil an eye that it made her start. At this moment
little Billy came up to his sister, sobbing, with his
Sunday clothes all torn, and his face and hands all
covered with blood.
“Billy! Billy! what has happened to you!” said
Ruth, “you have been a bad boy! Why did you
not wait and come to church with me?”
“'Cause I did wait,” said Billy. “I was playing
by the barn when you come away.”
“What's the matter with you, Billy? What have
you been doing?”
“Why,” said Billy, through his tears, “that Sam
Ferret that stays in Mr. Judson's store, said that you
were bad before you left home, and that people here
wouldn't come to see you. And I jumped on him
and beat him, though he is a bigger boy 'an me.
Yes,” continued little Billy, facing Henry, and
shaking his little fist at him, “and when I'm a man
I'll beat you, too; for you are always bringing harm
on sister Ruth: and Jim Ferret says you told Miss
Judson this, and it's a story.”
-- 055 --
[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]
Henry looked as if he wished the earth would
open and swallow him.
A deep sense that she had been calumniated and
injured so pressed upon Ruth that she could scarcely
control her emotions. Her father and uncle were
both away, and she felt like one forlorn. At this
moment, Miss Bennington and her brother, who had
seen and heard all that passed, amidst many others,
for there was quite a crowd about the church,
advanced and greeted her with their accustomed
kindness. Unable any longer to control her feelings,
Ruth took the proffered hand of each and burst into
tears.
A number of the young Kentuckians around cast
ominous glances at Henry, which might speedily
have turned to something more than frowns, had
not, at this very instant, our friend of other scenes,
Hearty Coil, made his appearance, wet as a river
god, and bearing in his arms a child, wet as himself,
and nearly frightened to death.
Hearty, with his “family circle,” had just arrived
at Perryville. As the steamer which bore them
rounded to at the landing, a little boy, the son of
one of the most respectable citizens of Perryville,
Mr. Moore, in attempting to get upon the boat ahead
of his companions, and while there was a considerable
space between it and the wharf, fell overboard.
At the moment the child fell in, the hands bearing
the lines leaped on shore and hauled the boat close
to it, so that the person of the child, when it arose
-- 056 --
[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]
to the surface, was hidden from the view, so that
there was great fear that he would be drowned.
There was evidently much risk to any one, under
the circumstances, who might attempt to save it.
Hearty was standing on the guards, an eager gazer
at Perryville, when the child fell in. Calling out
there was a child overboard, and to throw him a
rope, Hearty leaped in to the rescue. He disappeared
under the side of the boat, between it and
the shore; and, after a fearful suspense, of such
duration that the crowd thought that both were
lost, Hearty appeared, like Cassius from the Tiber,
bearing the fainting child in his arms. A dozen
hands were outstretched to help him to the shore,
and a loud shout welcomed him. Cassius was not
prouder of his burden that was Coil of his. Many
of the bystanders knew the boy, and exclaimed it
was Mr. Moore's.
“Then, by the Powers,” said Hearty, “show me
the way, till I take him to his bereaved parents,—
no, by Jingoes, they're not bereaved yet, for the
little fellow is alive and kicking.”
“This way, this way,” exclaimed many of the
crowd, and several of them led the way to Mr.
Moore's house, which was a few doors beyond the
church. The rest of the crowd followed after
Hearty, while Mrs. Coil and the family circle
brought up the rear. The mother of the child was
just leaving the church; and the little fellow, who
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had entirely recovered his senses ere they reached
it, exclaimed, on beholding her,
“O! there's my mother! there's my mother!—
take me to her.”
The mother, hearing the accents of her child and
seeing his condition, sprang towards him, and Hearty
placed him in her arms.
“Are you hearty, Madam?” said Coil. “The
little fellow's wet, Madam, but that's all.”
A few words served to explain the event, to the
agitated parent, and she clasped her child to her
bosom, and overwhelmed his preserver with thanks.
As Coil looked round on the crowd, he beheld
Ruth.
“By the Powers,” he exclaimed, “if this a'n't
Miss Ruth!” and then making his best bow, he continued,
“and are you hearty?—O, but I am glad to
see you.”
Ruth shook Hearty cordially by the hand, and
welcomed his wife and family, who, by this time,
had pushed their way through the throng that were
gazing on and wondering. When Henry saw Hearty
he stepped aside, but not before the quick eye of the
latter discovered him.
“Ah, by the Powers!” exclaimed Hearty, “there's
Mister Henry, `Master Henry,' as Miss Murray—
a'n't she a witty lady and beautiful—calls him. Who
the devil expected to see him here?”
Hearty was so excited at seeing Ruth, and with
the rescue of the child, that he talked on, though
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among strangers, with even more than his usual
want of caution, notwithstanding Ruth, who felt
very awkwardly, tried to check him by telling him
that he must come to see her, and giving him the
direction.
“Did you bring me no letters?” she asked.
“To be sure I did,” replied he; “bless your soul
and body, to be sure I did, Miss Ruth. You'll see
the news there, all about this Mr. Beckford too. He
beat a poor girl in the theatre, by the Powers—she
was once a respectable woman, and it's his fault if
she is not respectable now—he beat her, I tell you,
in the theatre, and she just out pistol and shot him.
He's skulking about here, I suppose, for some evil;
you know he liked to have killed me one day, when
I was on my own side of the road—and he has
never paid for the carryall from that day to this;
old Miser Beckford nearly pestered me to death
about it. You see it's all truth what I tell you. I've
got it in black and white in the newspapers, and
Miss Murray has writ whole letters of the transaction
to you. I knew the poor girl well when she
was respectable,” continued Hearty, glancing quickly
at Mrs. Coil, for she was given to jealousy, and
thought Hearty irresistible with the sex.
It was in vain Ruth tried to stop Hearty; for he
was so fond of hearing himself talk, and of addressing
his fellow-citizens, as he had been a candidate
for office, that when he once got a-going he considered
any question put to him apart from the main
-- 059 --
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matter, as a stump speaker would an interruption
from the crowd—an artifice to snap the thread of
his discourse. He therefore went on and spoke out
his speech, his rescue of the child having added no
small degree to his self-consequence among strangers,
as he felt it made him a marked man; and the
sight of Henry Beckford had raised his bile—for
Hearty never could forgive him the awful cast he
got from the carryall by his wilful transgression of
the law, together with the rent in his inexpressibles,
which he never thought of without shame.
“Yes,” said Hearty, “what I tell you is a known
and printed fact; and, by the Powers, if he had fell
into the water—being he is so fond of proverbs, as
Miss Murray says,—and I had been by, I would ha'
left him to the proverb to save him.”
Ruth had, while Hearty continued speaking with
his eye cast rather on Henry than herself, partly
got through the crowd. Miss Bennington and her
brother, who had recovered somewhat from the bewilderment
of the scene, pressed Ruth to go home
and dine with them; but she was obliged to decline
in consequence of there being no one but the servants
with the children.
“Then allow me to be your escort,” said William,
and Ruth, anxious to escape from the crowd,
took his arm and passed on, telling Hearty and his
wife they must come as soon as possible and see her,
and that as soon as she got home, she would send a
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black boy down to the boat to show them the way,
and help them with their baggage.
William and Ruth walked on in silence for some
distance, when William asked—
“Miss Ruth, then it was no joke what you told me
to tell Dr. Cake?”
“What I told you to tell Dr. Cake!” said Ruth,
surprised.
“Yes, you remember, when I took the letter he
addressed to you, I told you I would say to him you
were engaged?”
Ruth blushed, “O! yes, I remember,” she said.
“Is it true?” said William in a subdued voice.
“Excuse me, it is not idle curiosity, Miss Lorman.
If it is a fact, I would know it, for it will prevent me
from involving my feelings hopelessly.”
“Mr. Bennington,” said Ruth, looking up into William's
face confidingly, but blushing deeply, “I am
most grateful for what you have said, most grateful!
doubly so from what has transpired to-day, for I
now feel if I have enemies here, I have friends also.
But I believe it is true.”
William, after a few moments' silence, in which he
seemed to be struggling with his feelings, asked Ruth
who Hearty was, and, to turn the conversation, she
gave him a long account of that worthy.
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CHAPTER VII.
[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]
“Brother,” said Miss Bennington to her brother
the next morning, entering the parlour with much
embarrassment, and taking a seat by his side, “what
do you think of Mr. Beckford?”
“Sister, what do you think of him?” replied her
brother, reiterating her question.
“Why I was disposed to like him very much, he
has been very attentive to me, you know; and construing
his manner and language, as a country girl
like myself would construe it, I should say that he
had made love to me—addressed me. But what do
you think of him, brother? Is he the circulator of
these slanders against Ruth Lorman? I don't believe
one word of them. If I thought he would slander a
woman in such a way, and such a woman, I would
cast him off, though he were bound to me by my
heart-strings.”
“Sister, I told him, on our first acquaintance, how
much I liked Miss Ruth, and of course he would be
cautious in speaking against her to me. But I have
heard him darkly hint against her in, I thought, an
ungentlemanly manner—you observe these few days
we have not been so intimate, and he has plainly
-- 062 --
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told me that Miss Ruth was engaged to a cousin of
his, and that his cousin would rue the bargain.”
“Do you think, brother, there ever was an attachment
existing between Ruth and Mr. Beckford? her
father once hinted to me that he thought Mr. Beckford
had come out here to court her. If he had,
there has been a misunderstanding between them, for
Mr. Beckford scarcely ever now goes to see Ruth,
and—”
“It may be,” interrupted her brother, “that his
cousin has cut him out—and hence the unfrequency
of his visits and his dislike of Ruth. I can hardly
believe he is the author of these slanders, and yet
I know not who could have originated them but
himself. You overheard what Billy said was the
cause of his fight with Judson's boy, and also what
that man said, who saved the child?”
“I did; but, brother, I cannot believe it.”
“Well, sister, one brought up a gentleman, as Mr.
Beckford has been, with so respectable and distinguished
a father, would hardly do so villanous a
thing. I have it! Miss Ruth, it appears, from what
that man said, has received letters from her friend of
whom she talks so much, giving an account of some
discreditable transactions in which Mr. Beckford has
been engaged; it even appears it has got into the
public prints, and that the papers containing the account
have been sent to Miss Ruth. Go see her,
and if it is necessary, tell her why you are interested,
and as your friend—though she might not feel
-- 063 --
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disposed to gratify a mere curiosity, if you asked
on that score—yet upon the other, I have no doubt
she will follow the golden rule with you.”
Miss Bennington took her brother's advice, called
on Ruth, and told her frankly why she wished to
know Henry's character. Ruth hesitated at first
from saying anything against Henry Beckford; but
when she reflected, that Miss Bennington's affections
would probably be jeopardized by her silence, she
unreservedly told her all she herself knew of Henry;
showed her Helen Murray's letters which related to
him, and the newspapers which contained an account
of the events in the theatre, with comments upon
Henry's conduct and character.
That afternoon, Henry called on Miss Bennington,
and she begged leave to decline the further
honour of his visits: thus, in trying to blast the good
character of another—a woman, too, who never injured
him, his own bad character was brought to
light.
On the evening of this very day, Miss Elizabeth
Judson, arrayed in her most bewitching habiliments,
and with her best cup of tea, in her brother's best
china, in her best room, was entertaining Doctor
Cake; who exhibited his Sunday's depth of collar,
and breadth of frill. Washington stood behind Miss
Elizabeth's chair, with his livery jacket on and his
“knotted and combined locks,” combed out as much
as their woolly nature would allow.
Mr. Judson had just left the table for his store; for
-- 064 --
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in the fall he kept open at night. He gave a dry
cough as he shut the door, and looked at his sister
and the Doctor, with a penetrating eye.
Left together, Miss Judson gently dallied with her
spoon; while the doctor caught a glance of himself
in a glass opposite, and sagaciously said:
“I say, indeed, Miss Judson, as you truly said
before supper, this is a very uncertain world.”
Miss Judson simpered as she replied: “Indeed,
Doctor Cake, I never was thought censorious, nor
would I be for the world—it is unbecoming a lady;
but there are some things, particularly where our
own sex are concerned, which the gentlest heart
must frown on—Wash-ing-ton, hand me Doctor
Cake's cup—do, Doctor, take another cup—you
will think nothing of my brother's leaving the table,
in his French-leave way—he is so submersed in business—
custom presses so upon him, tha—”
“Oh! I beg—I say, Miss Judson—I beg you will
make no apologies—I understand it perfectly—I have
often, I say, reflected, that I myself might be
thought not the best bred man in the world, because
sometimes, even when with my friends, I am compelled
to leave; some case, I say—some patient occurring
to me, who requires my immediate attention.
A heart open to the claims of humanity, Miss
Judson, I say, can never be closed to such considerations.
Yes, another cup, if you please, Miss;
indeed, you make such excellent tea, that you tempt
me excessively; I say, it is not every body, Miss
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Judson, that can make good tea—one must be naturally
a chemist, that makes good tea.”
“I forgot, Doctor,” said the lady; “do you like
much sweetening—much sugar and milk—much
cream?”
“If you please, Miss Judson, I believe I have a
sweet tooth in my head. I declare to you—I say,
tea is very reviving; it is a gentle, and the genteelest
stimulant; and, in my judgment, I say, much
better than the feverish excitement of alcohol. But,
alas! such tea as this, Miss Judson, suffer me to say,
I say, is a rarity, indeed. Have you any particular
way of making your tea? If you have, I should
like to learn it, and give it to my landlady.”
“Why, perhaps I have rather a particular way,
Doctor, that is, I may say, I am particular. I make
the water first boiling hot; I then scald the tea-kettle
with it well; but not to let it stay in any very
long time. Then I throw the water all out, and instantly
put in the quantity of tea I mean to use; on
that I pour the water, boiling hot, but not much of
it—not so much as most folks. And after it has
drawn awhile, I pour in a quantity more of boiling
water—and the tea is made.”
“An excellent mode, I say, Miss Judson; my
knowledge of chemistry instantly suggests to me an
excellent mode. You are aware of the fact, that
the used tea leaves are, I say, a capital article to
throw over your carpet previous to sweeping it; they
are a great cleanser.”
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[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]
“Oh! yes, I have tried it often, and on this very
carpet, Doctor.”
“I suspected as much, I say, I assure you, Miss
Judson; and I rejoice, I say, that you are setting a
good example, in our town, as to taste in furniture.”
“Yes, Doctor,” said Miss Judson, with dignity,
“and I hope you will attribute to me a taste in other
things; that, I mean, of setting a good example as to
who we shall, and who we shan't admit into good
society in Perryville.”
“I say, Miss Judson, do me the honour to believe
that I gave you full credit; I knew, I say, that this
Miss Perfection would be cut dead by the good society
in Perryville. Yesterday, when we were
speaking of this report before we went to church—
and I got it as direct as you did, I suspect—you
may remember, I say, that I told you the Bennington's
had given her up. I say, you know I said, that
when I asked him about them on Saturday last in a
knowing way, he took the hint, I say, and there being
several bystanders by, and as he did not like to
speak out, knowing I could take a hint too, he just
said that the rain had prevented him for several days
from visiting Miss Lorman. I guess, I say, Miss
Judson, she will find that these rains will last for
some time, and that it never rains, but, I say, it
pours—ha, ha, ha!”
“He, he, he!” gently echoed Miss Judson, “I declare,
Doctor Cake, you are too severe. Yes, the
Bennington's could stand it no longer—I told Miss
-- 067 --
[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]
Bennington of it on Saturday. Her brother had told
me they had not been there, on account of the rain;
and I didn't see her speak to my lady in church yesterday,
did you?”
“Oh no, Miss Judson, I say, oh no; she came out
of the church on Sunday, and nobody spoke to her;
you passed her right by, I say, without speaking,
and I followed immediately after you, and followed
suit, and joined you. You tripped along so lightly and
so quickly that, I say, I declare, Miss Judson, I had
hard work to overtake you.”
“Yes, I always was accounted a good walker,”
replied Miss Elizabeth, complacently bowing to the
doctor, “but isn't it wonderful, that after she kept
herself locked up at home for two weeks after this
exposure, that she should have had the impudence
to brazen it out, and to look so modest doing it.
Only to think of it, she had to leave home on account
of her bad conduct, and she comes out here,
and sets up for a pattern of goodness; gracious,
what an abominable abandoned world. She, truly,
Doctor Cake, shrunk with shame, when I gave her a
look as I passed her yesterday. Have you heard
anything about her to-day, Doctor Cake?”
“No, I say, I have not, Miss Judson; I have been
all day from town, in the country, I say, Miss Judson,
on professional business. Farmer Cobb's wife,
I say, Mr. Cobb's lady was in a delicate way”—
here Miss Judson inclined her head over the teapot,
and blushed a blush—“and I had,” continued the
-- 068 --
[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]
Doctor, “to give her every moment of my attention.
I say, Miss Judson, it was a very difficult case, a
dangerous one.”
“I hope she is better,” said Miss Judson.
“She is as well as can be expected. I say, Miss
Judson, she has presented the farmer—Mrs. Cobb, I
say, has presented her husband with three bouncing
boys, I say, and, I say, she is as well as can be expected.”
“Gracious,” ejaculated Miss Judson. “Washington
remove the tea things. Doctor Cake, do take a
seat on the sofa.”
-- 069 --
CHAPTER VIII.
[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]
Mrs. Bongarden, the wife of the postmaster of
Perryville, was the most intimate gossip of Miss Judson;
and, as Miss Elizabeth had not seen her since
Sunday, which seemed quite a long time, she forthwith,
after breakfast the next morning, repaired
to her house. The mail of Perryville not being
very large, the post-office establishment was on a
scale accordingly. Mr. Bongarden kept what is
called a country store—consisting of a small assortment
of almost every kind of goods. A couple of
shelves in it comprised the post-office. In a little
room behind the shop, that commanded a view of
it, Mrs. Bongarden was in the habit of locating
herself. There she could overhear all the news and
rumours of news of every sort discussed by the
boisterous politicians and wise men of the place—
among whom her husband was a leading character,
and as fond of the current slanders and wonders as
herself. His memory and imagination, however,
comprised a wider range than his rib's—as not only
politics in general, but the secrets of the white house
in particular, occupied his attention, as much, or
more, than all Perryville together. Yet Perryville
was not excluded entirely from his mind's eye, but
occupied a place in it like a sunny spot in a large
-- 070 --
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landscape. This worthy often stood beside his front
door (if he had stood in it, it would have been to
the entire exclusion of customers—his frame was of
such expansion,) with the idlest and wisest of his
townsmen about him—one of these phrases, strange
as it may appear, often includes the other—for while
the industrious have enough to do to attend to their
own business, the idle turn philanthropists—immediately
have a great increase of wisdom—see
where things go wrong when nobody else sees
it—and devote themselves to the public. While
Mr. Bongarden, then, was engaged with this portion
of the Perryvillians, beside his store door, his good
lady would be often employed with their similars,
of her sex, in the little room aforesaid. Many were
the marvels heard and told there. Thus, Miss Judson,
though she had been but a short time in Perryville—
enlightened if not honoured by the acquaintance
of Mrs. Bongarden—became advised of every body's
business, character and conduct in the place. Being
childless, Mrs. Bongarden seemed still to preserve
the habitudes and feelings of the unmarried of her
sex of her own or Miss Judson's age; for, if there
was a young girl, particularly if she was handsome,
guilty of displaying the least of the budding proportions
of her bust, or of romping the least with the
young men, or of glancing over on the men's side
at meeting, the prophecies of this lady of the end
the damsel would come to were awful to hear.
The friendship between these two ladies was of
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so unreserved a character that one, not knowing its
strength, might suppose sometimes, did one overhear
them, that there was a little female malice in the
manner in which each would communicate to the
other certain hearsays and insinuations about her—
alleging it was quite public.
Mr. Bongarden had obtained his office through
the influence of Mr. Bennington, and he looked up
to him as his chief prop and support: therefore,
whatever the Benningtons did the Bongardens upheld;
and, if they could get any inklings of what
they intended to do, they were sure to start upon
the anticipated track in full cry.
When the slanders against Ruth were first circulated
in Perryville, Mrs. Bongarden, knowing Ruth's
intimacy with the Benningtons, stoutly maintained
her cause; but when she came to learn, from Miss
Judson, on Saturday, that Miss Bennington had not
visited Ruth for some time—Miss Judson alleging
that she was told so by William Bennington, as
also, she affirmed, was Dr. Cake—the postmistress
took the other tack. In her anxiety to show that
what was said against Ruth was true (so foul a
slander that we will not repeat it—nor is it necessary,)
she let Miss Judson into the result of certain
prying inspections of the mail bag, by which
Mrs. Bongarden asserted she could corroborate the
opinions of the Benningtons.
On Sunday, Mrs. Bongarden had repaired to
church; and when, to her surprise, after an absence
-- 072 --
[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]
of two weeks, Ruth made her appearance there, the
postmistress thought she read shame and guilt in her
face!
Mrs. Bongarden could scarcely keep her indignant
eye from Ruth during the service; but when
the church was out, and she saw what transpired at
the door with Billy, and the friendliness of the Benningtons
to Ruth, her mind underwent a sudden
change, and she felt somewhat angered with her
good friend Miss Judson, for misrepresenting the
opinion of the Benningtons to her. As Mrs. Bongarden
had not seen Miss Judson since church time
on Sunday, she believed that Miss Elizabeth was
aware of the fight between Billy and her brother's
boy, of the cause of it, and of the conduct of the
Benningtons. Mrs. Bongarden knew Miss Judson
was at church, and she fancied Miss Elizabeth had
overheard and seen what had there transpired. She
concluded that as Miss Judson was one of the first
to circulate the slander, she was not much disposed
to appear. The feelings of Mrs. Bongarden towards
her friend Miss Judson, proved one of the maxims
of Rochefoucault, which says, “that there is something
in the adversity of our best friends which does
not displease us.”
Dropping her veil before she reached the knot of
talkers at Mrs. Bongarden's front door, and tripping
by them with a short, noiseless, and rather hurried
step, as if she would escape observation, Miss Judson
passed through the shop and entered the room
-- 073 --
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where sat Mrs. Bongarden, who eyed her quickly
and keenly for a moment, but when she met her eye,
the postmistress said, with great softness,
“O! Miss Elizabeth, do take a seat.”
“Mrs. Bongarden,” exclaimed Miss Judson, throwing
back her veil and seating herself, “it seems an
age since I have seen you. Do tell us all the news—
I was not out yesterday at all; I haven't been out
since church on Sunday morning; I haven't seen a
soul but Dr. Cake—he took tea with us last night;
I was prejudiced at first against the Doctor in the
foolish matter of that letter that made such a talk—
I wish every body would mind their own business—
and gave the mean tattlers of this town such sport;
but now I have got to like the Doctor very much.
Mr. Beckford agrees with me exactly about the
Doctor.”
“So do I,” replied Mrs. Bongarden; “but the
Doctor, though, is a very odd man—how wide he
wears his pantaloons, when every body who cares
about dress at all—I mean these young fry—wear
their's tight.”
“I know it, my dear Mrs. Bongarden; but don't
you like the wide pantaloons? how much more genteel.
I declare, those tight things shock me—I never
know where to look when I see a man with them
on.”
Mrs. Bongarden laughed. “You don't remember
the time when they wore buckskins?”
-- 074 --
[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]
“O! no, indeed; but I've heard my grandmother
speak of them.”
“I don't say that I remember them either; but if
you had seen that stranger that arrived yesterday
you would have seen them.”
“A stranger yesterday! Who is he?”
“Didn't you see him at church?” inquired Mrs.
Bongarden, eyeing Miss Judson sharply.
“No, my dear Mrs. Bongarden; I left church immediately
service was over. Doctor Cake joined
me; and as we crossed the street below I heard him
say that people still seemed to stay about. Was it
about this stranger?”
“He is from the same place that Miss Lorman
is,” said Mrs. Bongarden.
“Ah, is he!” exclaimed Miss Judson, her eye
flashing with satisfaction; “then we shall have
everything corroborated. She'll—Miss Prue 'll have
to quit Perryville. For my part, I can say that I
never could abide her on the face of the earth. I
am glad to know, too, that the good society of the
place set their faces against her.”
Mrs. Bongarden gave a quick cough, and then
said, “Well, when I come to think of it, I believe it
all downright slander.”
“Downright slander! gracious, how you talk, my
dear Mrs. Bongarden. It's downright truth—you
had no doubt of it on Saturday.”
“But I come to think of it—”
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“Come to think of it!” exclaimed Miss Judson, in
somewhat of a heat, for she held that the condescension
necessary to the maintenance of their acquaintance
came from herself, a point which Mrs. Bongarden
would not have been disposed at all to acknowledge;
“come to think of it! Why, I tell you—
in confidence between us two—that Mr. Beckford
hinted plainly the whole affair to me. Shameful,
shameful was her conduct, and the Benningtons have
given her up long ago.”
“As to the Bennington's giving her up or no, that
don't concern me, Miss Judson; this is a free country,
and I thank Providence, that I do what I choose.
But I can tell you the Benningtons haven't give her
up.”
“But I tell you they have,” exclaimed Miss Judson,
“I can tell you they have. What did I tell you
concerning what William Bennington said to me?
and didn't he say the same and more to Doctor
Cake?”
“Tell me this,” said Mrs. Bongarden, bridling up;
“do you know who whipped your boy, Jim, on Sunday?”
“Yes, he was playing on Sunday out on the Common.
I give it to him, myself, for the subbath-breaking—
a severe chastisement—and his mother came
right straight the next day, and took him away. That's
what I hate your slave states for—the apprentices
where I came from, get punished as the niggers do
here, and they do twice as much work. As I was
-- 076 --
[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]
saying, he was playing out on the common with the
boys, and he got into a fight with one of them about
his ball. I made him tell me everything that happened.
I was abused by his mother, as if I had
been a drab in the streets. That's the way Jim got
whipped.”
“That's not the way Jim got whipped, Miss Judson;
he threw up to Miss Ruth's brother what has
been said against her—to that little boy. Jim said he
heard you say it.”
“Me say it!” exclaimed Miss Judson, in evident
alarm.
“Yes, you say it, Miss Judson,” reiterated Mrs.
Bongarden, her tone growing firmer, as the other
quailed, “you say it, and little Lorman beat him for
it. Why, my dear Miss Judson, did you not know,”
continued Mrs. Bongarden, in a tone of incredulous
surprise, “that little Lorman told his sister every
word that your Jim said—told it at the church door—
and how he had whipped Jim—and how Jim said
that he heard you say it.”
“Mrs. Bongarden!” exclaimed Miss Judson, alarmed,
but assuming dignity, “I cannot suffer you to
make sport of me.”
“Make sport of you, indeed, I make no sport of
you. It's heaven's own truth. And Miss Ruth—poor
thing, was deeply hurt—and just then the Benningtons—
William and his sister—I saw them myself—
spoke to her so kindly, that it touched her, so that
she bursted into tears. And that very stranger in the
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buckskins, that saved Mrs. Moore's child's life, was
here this very morning, to inquire for letters, and I
inquired of him about Miss Ruth, and he said that
she was one of the very first ladies in the land where
she came from—that her father owned a great estate,
and lent money to his friends—got cheated and lost
it! Poor thing, I pity her.”
“Poor thing, you pity her,” echoed Miss Judson,
unable to control her temper, when she remembered
how completely Mrs. Bongarden had agreed with
her on Saturday, “I pity you, Mrs. Bongarden.”
“Pity me,” retorted Mrs. Bongarden, “do keep
your pity, Miss Judson, till I ask for it; charity begins
at home. Yes, I pitied her, and I went up myself
and shook hands with her, and told her she
shouldn't mind such filthy slanders.”
“Filthy slanders! do you mean that for me, Mrs.
Bongarden?”
“If the cap fits you, you may wear it, Miss Judson,”
replied Mrs. Bongarden, with a toss of the
head. “And you had better not try it on.”
“Better not try it on!” exclaimed Miss Judson,
rising from her chair, and advancing towards her
particular friend; “what did you say to me last Saturday,
in this very room, about that woman.”
“That woman,” replied Mrs. Bongarden, “why I
said that old Shrew's daughter—the crier—would
come to shame, and I say so still—`that woman!'—
Miss Lorman is a lady, and I expect it will be proved
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in a court of justice yet, when some persons will
suffer.”
“Proved in a court of justice, yet,” ejaculated
Miss Judson, in increased alarm, but determined to
hold her own, “do you mean me, Mrs. Bongarden?
I can tell you, Madam, you are the person who will
suffer. What did you tell me about the letters you
peeped into?” Here it was Mrs. Bongarden's turn
to be frightened, which Miss Judson perceived, and
took advantage of, continuing, “yes, the letters you
peeped into, opened to peep into. It's a hanging matter,
or, at least, it's penitentiary. Didn't you tell me
that letters came to Ruth Lorman in an envylope—
in a man's hand?—and didn't you say that the envylopes
were from a woman, who wrote as if she was
no better than she should be—that it was full of make
game, and light conversation?—didn't you, I say, tell
me so, last Saturday, in this very room?”
Mrs. Bongarden knew the assertion of Miss Judson
to be a fact, but she felt, nevertheless, strongly
disposed to “deny the corn.” After a moment's reflection,
it occurred to her, that at the time there
was no one by but Miss Judson, and as the opening
of the letter was an offence against the law, which
would not only subject herself and husband to loss
of place and character, but to punishment, she determined
flatly to deny it.
“Woman!” exclaimed Mrs. Bongarden, jumping
up from her chair, and shaking her clenched hand
fearfully near Miss Judson's face, “I allow no
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person to use no such language to me; it's an abominable
lie; and I'll have you up for slander in no
time.”
Mr. Bongarden, hearing the voice of his wife in its
highest tones, and in such language, quickly entered
the store, followed most unceremoniously by the
parties with whom he had been conversing. Miss
Judson, in a rage at the language used by Mrs. Bongarden,
reiterated the charge circumstantially before
Mr. Bongarden, and his company, and then
flung herself out of the shop in a most towering
passion.
The whole of Perryville was astir for several
days, with the war waged between these belligerants
of the softer sex. Each sallied out immediately
after the quarrel, to get the advantage of telling
her story first, and thereby making a favourable impression
on her own side. Twice they met in the
progress of that day's peregrinations, at the houses
of mutual acquaintances; the first time in sullen silence,
when each nearly staid the day in trying to
outset the other! The second time, Miss Judson had
arrived first at the house of Mrs. Moore, the lady
whose child Hearty Coil saved, and with whom Mrs.
Bongarden had been acquainted several years, and
whom, she of course, regarded as more friendly to
herself than to Miss Judson, who had been in Perryville
but a few weeks. As the postmistress entered
the room, which she did unceremoniously, she heard
Miss Judson making the accusation against her, of
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opening the letters, nor did Miss Elizabeth think
proper to stop, though her quondam particular friend
stood before her face to face. On the contrary she
ejaculated with nervous emphasis:
“Here she is now, and I tell it to her face.”
Mrs. Bongarden couldn't stand this to her teeth,
and, forgetful of all consequences, in the paroxysm of
her fury she flew at Miss Judson, and tore from her
virgin bust her best lace cape, that had cost seven
dollars. Miss Judson could not be expected to abide
this assault without resistance, and she accordingly
clenched instantly with her delicate fingers, the new
gipsy bonnet of Mrs. Bongarden, which, in a trice,
was beyond casting any improper reflections upon
the torn condition of the cape. Blows and scratches
were given and received between the parties too
numerous to mention; though it may be stated that
Miss Judson received the most blows, and Mrs. Bongarden
the most scratches. Mrs. Moore, frightened
to death, screamed for assistance, when Doctor
Cake and William Bennington, who chanced to
meet at the door, rushed in at the cry, and not
without considerable difficulty, parted the combatants.
It is not to be denied, and perhaps ought not
to be asserted, that Doctor Cake hereby saw more
of the charms of Miss Elizabeth than he ever expected
to see, unless he contemplated committing
matrimony with her. As William Bennington
scanned the tattered condition of the combatants,
who still frowned fierce defiance, and Mrs. Moore,
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panting with fright, and pitching violently to and fro
in a huge rocking chair, into which she had, after
the entrance of the gentlemen, hysterically thrown
herself, he burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.
This had evidently more effect than any expostulation
which had been used, for Mrs. Bongarden
hastily adjusted her hair, and snatched up her bonnet,
while Miss Judson, glancing towards Doctor
Cake, whose presence she now first actually recognised,
impulsively drew her silk gown over her
shoulders, and darted into the back room, to adjust
her dress, but within ear-shot of whatever Mrs. Bongarden
might say. The postmistress finding her
toilet almost as much disarranged as Miss Judson's,
and being, as we have said, though married, a lady of
very maidenly notions, felt herself, however much
she might desire to state her cause of grievance,
compelled in modesty to retire. Accordingly, she
was about to enter the room where Miss Judson was,
when Mrs. Moore started from the rocking chair,
and begging in mercy that she would not go near
Miss Judson, led her up stairs. As Mrs. Moore took
Mrs. Bongarden up stairs, Miss Judson closed the
door between her and the gentlemen, when silence
prevailed for several minutes, which Doctor Cake
interrupted in a suppressed voice, saying:
“I say, Mr. Bennington—Mr. Bennington, I say,
this is a most extraordinary case.”
“That's a fact, Doctor,” replied William, after
another hearty laugh; “as a Kentuckian, I am
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thankful that one of the ladies is from the Jerseys,
freshly imported—from the land of steady habits—
and the other is a Pennsylvania-born, and a legitimate
descendant—so her husband asserts—from a
race of Dutch burgomasters. Were they Kentuckians,
we should have this scene reported, and see
it in print, perhaps embellished with an engraving,
as the way in which the ladies of Kentucky—ladies,
Doctor—settled their differences.”
Here Mrs. Moore entered the room, and William
Bennington begged her for mercy's sake to keep the
ladies in separate rooms, and not to let them get together
on any account.
Mrs. Moore implored the gentlemen not to leave
her. William Bennington said he must go, while
Dr. Cake, who was burning to know the particulars,
said he would remain with Mrs. Moore, at the same
time observing to her:
“I say, Mrs. Moore, you should compose yourself—
I say—my dear madam—I am not your
physician, but I may say to you as a friend, that
your frame—I say—is of such a delicate nature,
that—”
Now Mrs. Moore was a lady given to hysterics,
and Doctor Cake knew it.
“Oh, Doctor!” she exclaimed, “I feel wretched;
my poor frame can't stand these repeated shocks—
my child on Sunday nearly drowned, and this to-day—
it is too much for me.”
Doctor Cake felt Mrs. Moore's pulse, and said if
-- 083 --
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she had any one whom she could send to the apothecary's,
he could give her a harmless prescription that
would be of infinite service to her.
“Do, Doctor, call my servant-girl for me—she is
in the yard.”
The Doctor proceeded with alacrity to call the
girl, saying to himself as he went out:
“Another patient—I must contrive to throw
Wickelmous out of this family too. I say, I shall
have a damned time of it now, in keeping fair
weather with Mrs. Bongarden and Miss Judson—
but, I say—I must not take sides.”
The Doctor soon entered with the girl, and despatched
her for the prescription, which Mrs. Moore
took, much to her relief.
As neither Mrs. Bongarden or Miss Judson could
make their appearance in the street in the present
condition of their features and wardrobe, Mrs.
Moore was obliged to invite them to stay with her
until dark, in their respective rooms, between which,
during a long afternoon, she most impartially distributed
her visits. Nor is it to be wondered, that after
the ding-dong and clatter of their respective stories
each time retold, that Mrs. Moore was confined to
her bed with nervous disorders, and that Doctor
Cake, after having administered so much to her
satisfaction in the first instance, was retained as her
physician.
In the meantime the characters of Mrs. Bongarden
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and Miss Judson, in the mortal contest which they
continued to wage, shared the fate of the two Kilkenny
cats, who got into a fight, and mutually annihilated
each other; at least, neither left of the other
aught but the tail.
-- 085 --
CHAPTER IX.
[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]
Hearty Coil's rescue of the child had made him
almost instantaneously popular in Perryville. He
took some trouble, or rather Mrs. Coil took much, in
insisting that her husband should take more, to avoid
his nickname of “Hearty,” and make current his
proper one of M'Murdock; vociferating, if she had
ever thought he would “ever have taken up with
such an abominable name as Hearty, that she never
would have taken up with him.” She held in as
much detestation that cognomen applied to her husband,
as did Miss Judson the abbreviation of Lizzy,
from the fraternal, or any other lips. Mrs. Coil had
got reconciled to the nickname among her old neighbours;
but among one of the resolutions of amendment
and correction, which she had determined to
put in operation on their emigration, was the restoration
of the proper appellation to her spouse. The
misfortune was, that Mrs. Coil herself had acquired
the habit of calling Mr. Coil, Hearty, whenever she
was excited and forgot herself; and the consequence
was, notwithstanding her resolution, that on the very
day herself and family arrived at Perryville, when
her husband saved Mrs. Moore's child, in her fear
for his safety, and in the excitement afterwards, she
repeatedly addressed him by that reprobated name.
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Thus, when the affair was talked of in Perryville,
and the stranger's name asked, it was immediately
replied, that his wife called him “Hearty.” Ruth,
too, at the church door, had so named him; and
little Billy told all the boys in town, who naturally
marvelled over the risk that their playmate, young
Moore, had run, that he knew the man who saved
him, Hearty Coil, before he came to Perryville.
Thus Mrs. Coil's efforts were frustrated, and the name
of Hearty became as much fixed in their new abode
upon her husband, as it was in their old one. Cromwell
was not better known by the title of “Old
Noll,” or General Jackson by that of “Old Hickory,”
than was Coil in the sphere of his acquaintance—
more limited than that of the two worthies abovementioned,
but, nevertheless, the world to him—by
that of Hearty.
Mr. Moore, solicitous of making some return to
the preserver of his child, made inquiries as to the
manner in which he might assist him; and as the
keeper of “The General Boon Hotel,” a house
owned by Mr. Moore, was about to enter into some
other business, Hearty thought he would like to succeed
him; for he was a boarder there and saw what
an easy life the proprietor led, and was moved,
maybe, by the same considerations that made Jim
Bunce take to distilling. On naming it to Mr. Moore,
that gentleman told him he should have the house;
and all that Hearty now had to do, was to obtain
Mrs. Coil's consent. Mrs. Coil was a shrewd
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woman and shrewish; and before Hearty could obtain
it, he had to make concessions as to who should keep
the keys and the cash, and as to the quantity of
liquor he might take, which placed him in the situation
of our first parent with the forbidden fruit; and
with this difference, that the woman would dissuade
him from evil. Alas! Hearty's own inclinations
were temptations enough; for, notwithstanding Mrs.
Coil assured him, with many asseverations, that so
soon as he got drunk, they should break up tavernkeeping,
it was to be feared, that unless he kept a
brighter eye on himself than he had ever before been
known to keep—and then, too, the tempter was
not always before him—he would be overtaken in
liquor.
“The General Boon Hotel” was considered the
best in Perryville. It was a two story brick building
on the main street, not far from the river; and
its door and windows were rather the worse of
election days and Christmas frolics. A porch with
a broad roof, and with steps as long as itself and
benches all round it, extended the whole length of
the “Hotel” in front. Over it creaked the sign
that bore, what was meant to be, the figure of the
worthy from whom the hotel was named, Daniel
Boon, the celebrated pioneer, the first white man
who ever trod in Kentucky, dressed in a hunting
shirt and moccasins, and in combat with a huge
bear rampant. The bear was in the act of giving
the pioneer a Brobdignagdian hug; and he was
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[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]
avoiding the consequences of their approximation,
by plunging his hunting knife into the side of the
animal, that had its fore paws on his shoulders. The
bear was done with most ferocious looking black
paint; the eyes were portentous, and the mouth
threatened to serve Boon as the whale served Jonah.
Considering that Boon was of Quaker descent, and
as Simon Kenton, one of the last of the race of the
pioneers, who was last year gathered to his fathers,
once told us, quite a Quaker-looking man—considering
this—the traveller could not but be struck with
the buckish habiliments of Boon, which, though of
the backwood's character, had nevertheless a dash
of dandyism about them, which indicated that if their
owner had been in the sphere of Nash, or Brummel,
they would not have lived unrivalled. His hunting
shirt was blue, with flaming red trimmings, represented
in that kind of paint, the flashing red, that a
Dutch vrow loves. His leggings were of a light yellow,
tied with red strings, so long that the fear could
not but arise, that if the real character had appeared
in such, his progress must have been impeded by
the bushes, on which he must have left many a rag
for others to take off—and not have taken the rag
off of the bush himself, as was his wont, and from all
competitors. The pioneer wore upon his head an
immense bear skin cap, which at first sight might
have produced on the bear the notion, that it was
a brother bruin before him. The feet of the figure
were graced with yellow moccasins, spotted with
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[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]
blue and red paint to represent beads. Sam, the
boot-black, affirmed immediately after the artist,
who had thus immortalized the features of the pioneer,
had treated him, and while the painter was
feeling in his pocket for some change to remunerate
him for his assistance in putting up the sign, that the
moccasins were the things that hit his fancy most;
“for,” said Sam, glancing up at the sign as it creaked
in the breeze, and extending his hand towards the
artist at the same moment—“them are mockshins
are the very thing itself; for, Mr. Muskman, when I
look at them are beads on 'em, I think I hear 'em
rattle. And I don't mean, no how, to disparage the
bear; for many's the time I shall be toting my boots
and blacking by in winter days when it's cloudy
and the wind blows, and that are beautiful sign swings
this way and that way, many's the time old Sam 'ill
stop and look at it and think he hears the bear grunt,
'cause the knife sticks him. As for General Boon,
hisself he looks like—thank, you Master Muskman.
Whew, two quarters—sarvant, sir.”
A row of trees had been set out before the General
Boon Hotel, but only two of them remained, and
they were in a very stunted condition, in consequence
of the jerks and bites they had received from
the horses that had been tied to them, and the cuts
and barking from the loiterers around, and leaners
against them. A number of broad flag-stones, not
very regularly laid, were between the house and the
trees, which last were placed in a line, where it was
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[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]
contemplated the curb-stones should be, whenever
this, the main street—which was of ample breadth,
and appeared designed for the “Broadway” of a
great city—should be paved. Two doors opened
on to the porch of the Boon Hotel; one let you into
a passage leading to a room not very large, and, by
a stairway, to the second story, and the other directly
into the bar-room, which contained a large
bar, shaped like a half moon, and placed directly opposite
the door. A few chairs and a couple of small
tables, one of which held an old backgammon-box,
and the other a number of newspapers, that appeared,
from the beer and brandy stains upon them, not
to be the chroniclers of the latest news, comprised
the furniture of this democratic apartment.
Almost every Saturday—for sometimes it was delayed
for want of paper or journeymen to the middle
of the ensuing week—those newspapers above-mentioned,
were augmented by the presence of the “Perryville
Champion,” printed, edited, and published by
Vicesimus Finn, Esq. If the “Champion” did not
wear the motley of the other papers, it nevertheless
was as yellow as the deepest beer-stained one on the
table, but it had a more amalgamated look, being
yellow all over. However, it is proper to say of it,
that the varieties of news were not placed in the
columns with a disregard to their locations, but that
each appeared under their respective captions; as,
for instance, “Foreign News,” “Domestic News,”
&c. Furthermore, the “Poetical Department” was
-- 091 --
[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]
adorned with the figure of a Cupid, whose bow and
quiver were plainly to be seen, and who seemed,
from the attitude, in the act of piercing some heart.
The impression of the arrow, if such was the fact,
did not distinctly appear, nor, in fact, did the figure
of the Cupid; but this gentleman had been so long
shooting his arrows from the head of the “Perryville
Champion,” at the hearts of the maidens of that
good town, in the shape of sonnets, odes, stanzas,
“Lines to —,” &c., that there was no wonder his
weapon was worn out, and that himself, in spite of
his youthful appearance, was old enough to be included
in the list of old bachelors.
Nevertheless, many able articles, both in prose and
poetry, had appeared in the “Champion,” the best of
which were generally supposed to be by William
Bennington. Attributing a power to himself, such
as those veteran moulders of public opinion, Ritchie,
Hammond, Walsh, or Noah, might claim, it was the
custom of Mr. Finn, each Saturday evening after the
“Champion” had appeared, to call for a glass, and
take his seat in the bar-room of the Boon Hotel, and
learnedly to expatiate to the Perryvillians, many of
whom did then and there assemble, upon whatever
topic might arise. Mr. Finn had served his time at
the printing business, and on arriving at age, had
quit it to read law; but finding that the legal profession
did not suit his genius, that is, fill his pockets,
he commenced editor in his native place,—from
which he had been a wanderer for many years—
-- 092 --
[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]
and where, when he was born, and where Perryville
now stands, there were but two houses, one of which
was his father's, who kept the ferry; yet Vicesimus
was not thirty, and was a clever fellow—a little
given to rhodomontade, but of generous and bold
impulses.
It was on the Monday after Hearty's arrival, that
Mr. Moore, on easy terms, made him his tenant.
And as the former proprietor of the General Boon
Hotel had not paid his last quarter's rent, Mr. Moore
had agreed to take in lieu of the cash, furniture, such
as it was, to that amount, so that Hearty had just
to take possession without any trouble of previous
preparation. He determined, however, after a long
consultation with Mrs. Coil, and a profound weighing
and studying of the matter, to change the title of
his establishment from that of The General Boon
Hotel, to the more fashionable one of the Boon
House. On the next Wednesday he was fully installed
landlord of it, where, to this day, the family
circle of the Coils, increasing every year in number,
may be seen playing about the door.
Henry Beckford, on his arrival at Perryville, has
stopped at the General Boon, and after the scene at
the church-door, and his subsequent dismissal by
Miss Bennington, he had visited her but once, and
did not go out much in town. He, however, had
been gunning for the two days past with William
Bennington, who, though he had lost all regard for
and confidence in Henry, could not find it in his
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[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]
heart to drop at once his acquaintance, when he reflected
that Henry was a stranger, whose father was
so distinguished, and friendly to his own parents,
and that he had been so intimate with him. In their
rambles through the woods, Henry observing, from
his previous conversations with William Bennington,
that he could not poison his mind against Ruth,
carefully avoided speaking of her or of any of the
recent events in Perryville that were connected
with her name. The young men in gunning no
longer proceeded together in careless and lively
conversation, their intercourse was restrained, and
each seemed not unwilling to ramble apart from the
other. The feeling, on William's part, proceeded
from his changed opinion of Henry, which he could
not nor would not entirely conceal, while Henry felt
mortified at the result of his suit with Miss Bennington,
and desirous of discovering what had so suddenly
changed her conduct towards him, but he
shrunk from asking. He had several times determined
to wait on Ruth, and ask her if she had made
any communications with regard to himself to Miss
Bennington, but he had not yet screwed his impudence
up to the unblushing effrontery of visiting her,
after what had occurred at the church-door. He
would have done it easily if he had been satisfied of
meeting her alone, but he did not like the probability
of finding William, his sister, or even Coil or his
wife there. Yet he lingered in Perryville with the
determination of seeing Ruth, and questioning her
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[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]
about Helen Murray's letters. He had no idea of
the talk which the scene at the church-door, the remark
of Billy, and the quarrel between Miss Judson
and Mrs. Bongarden had made in Perryville, or that
his name was so very closely connected with the
slanders which these ladies, particularly Miss Judson
had circulated against Ruth. Henry had seen
Hearty, and had held some little conversation with
him, which Hearty seemed so determined to cut
short, that Henry could not prolong it, but he nevertheless
determined to endeavour to learn from him
what was said about his affair at home, and whether
Hearty had spoken of it in Perryville, &c. Hearing
that Hearty was to be his landlord, while he felt a
misgiving, he knew not why, at meeting him hourly,
he reflected that he could insinuate himself into the
good graces of at least Mrs. Coil, and thereby win
upon her husband, for he had not in his heart resigned
his suit with Miss Bennington, and his hatred of
Ruth grew daily more deadly. Henry had no great
passion for Miss Bennington; perhaps, if she had accepted
his addresses, he would have left Perryville
never to return, for he held the wooing an amusement,
and believed the conquest easy; but now that
his vanity had been wounded, and he found the fair
one not as consenting as he deemed, the desire to
succeed increased with its difficulty. Besides, he
he was in utter idleness, away from his former haunts
and acquaintances, feeling perpetually the want of
excitement, with the morbidness which its unsated
-- 095 --
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appetite creates; and as his reflections were not
upon the correction of his vices, but upon the untoward
circumstances which prevented their indulgence,
he naturally hoarded deep and dark schemes
of revenge against those whom he considered the
cause of his misfortunes.
There is a short but pithy poem, by one of our
American bards, which appeared some few years
ago in a neat volume, in which his effusions were
collected, entitled “The Devil a Fishing.” The volume
is by Selleck Osborne, and the piece alluded to
struck us in our boyhood as the best thing in it. It
recounts the various baits with which his Satanic
Majesty fed his hook for the particular fish for which
his palate at any time might have an especial craving.
The subtle fisherman goes on to narrate how he
catches the belle with a ribbon, the lawyer with a
fee, &c. but says he, in conclusion:—
“The idler pleases me the best,
He bites the naked hook.”
Henry Beckford was in the condition to be easily
caught, even by this unbaited hook, for he seemed
determined, notwithstanding his past experience, to
persevere in the indulgence of feelings and the encouragement
of habits, that must plunge him irretrievably
in deeper errors. The shame which he
felt for the past, but made him the more anxious for
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[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]
revenge on those whom his perverted moral sense led
him to believe had brought it on him, while no regrets
for his own conduct, except so far as it had injured
himself, not others, and no resolutions of amendment,
arose to his mind.
-- 097 --
CHAPTER X.
[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]
On being installed landlord of the Boon House,
Hearty gave what is called a house warming, or infare;
or, to speak in more fashionable phraseology,
had a collation served up, to which the friends of the
establishment were invited. Of course it was a day
of jollification to landlord and guest, and as the viands
were given into the bargain, many were the number
who chose this occasion to patronize the Boon
House.
Mrs. Bongarden had called early in the morning
on Mrs. Coil, with an offer of any little thing she
had that Mrs. Coil might want, and with the secret
desire of learning from her who Ruth Lorman was,
and as she knew her to be friendly to Ruth, with the
intention of seizing or making an opportunity of pouring
out the vials of her wrath on Miss Judson. Mrs.
Coil was too careful of her husband's interest and
popularity not to receive Mrs. Bongarden with smiles
and thanks, and while she busied herself with dishing
a huge round of beef, which was to be served in the
bar room cold, at noon, when the friends of the establishment
were to partake of it, she continued to
hold courteous discourse with the postmistress.
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“And so you like our town?” quoth Mrs. Bongarden,
glancing round the room and at Mrs. Coil, with
a scrutinizing eye.
“I am double delighted ma'am,” replied Mrs. Coil.
“After Mr. Lorman moved out here, they wrote
home such accounts that I told Mr. Coil we must
certainly come.”
“You knew Mr. Lorman's family before you
came here?” said the Postmistress.
“Yes, and they used to be the richest people in the
whole country, before they got misfortunate—they
used to be well knowing to some branches of our
family. When persons—respectable persons gets
down in the world—you know, Mrs. Bongarden,
they're got to turn their hands to any thing—
particularly if their family circle is spreading.
M'Murdock, my dear,” continued Mrs. Coil, to one
of her children, her voice at first reined into the gentle,
but growing sterner as she looked at the child,
“put that saucer up, M'Murdock—I tell you, you
will break it—come away from that greasy tub with
your new slip on.”
At this moment, crash went the saucer, and
M'Murdock broke out into a full cry, anticipating
what might be coming.
“Mammy,” he exclaimed, “I couldn't help it; the
floor drawed it right out of my hand.”
“The little wretch,” muttered Mrs. Coil, and then
with a violent effort, restraining herself, she continued,
“No matter, M'Murdock—there now—pick up
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the pieces, and throw them away down the yard, so
that little brother and you won't cut your feet.”
M'Murdock, glad to escape so easily, hurried out
with the pieces gathered up in his slip, in a manner
that would have scandalized Miss Judson.
“Yes, Mrs. Bongarden,” continued Mrs. Coil, turning
to the postmistress, “Mr. Lorman's family was
and is as respectable as any body's family.”
“There now,” exclaimed Mrs. Bongarden, “I told
Miss Judson so, but she scandalizes every body.”
“Miss Judson! I wonder was it her that told all
these abominable lies—that I should say so—on Miss
Ruth.”
“The very person,” said Mrs. Bongarden, emphatically,
“and she says that she heard every word
of it from this handsome Mr. Beckford, who has lately
come to our town.”
“I wonder, good Lord!” exclaimed Mrs. Coil,
“what, he that's from our city, and stays in the Boon
House! my husband always said it—he nearly killed
Mr. Coil, once—he's an awful character. Miss Judson
says it, you tell me, Mrs. Bongarden?”
And Mrs. Bongarden thus appealed to, went into
a long exposition of her own injuries, at the hands
and tongue of Miss Judson, and of what that maiden
said of Ruth, which our readers may be sure was
not mollified in her account. This excited the horror
and indignation of Mrs. Coil, in no ordinary degree.
Meanwhile, the patrons of the Boon House began
to assemble, and Hearty's voice of welcome could
be heard in continual greeting.
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“Are you hearty, gentlemen? walk in—what'll
you take—here's brandy, gin, rum, beer, any thing
you please. Here's some of the best whisky, by the
living jingoes, you ever tasted—it's old rye—and it's
as good as the real Irish, and has pretty much the
flavour, I tell ye. When I drink—and I tell you, gentlemen,
the healthiest man requires it—even those
poor shoats, the temperance people, have to take it
for their health—we must all take it for health—it's
mother's milk to many a man. When I drink, as I
was observing, gentlemen, I take the old rye. But
there's a maxim they say, that first appeared in Latin,
and that says in English, `taste is not to be disputed.
' Well, by jingoes, I dispute no man's taste—
just come up, gentlemen, and help yourselves—and
taste all.”
At this moment entered Mr. Bongarden, puffing
and blowing like one who feared he might be too late
for the fair, yet gathering himself up, and expanding
his rotundity to its full dignity.
“Walk in, Mr. Bongarden,” exclaimed Hearty,
“happy to see you, sir, in the Boon House.”
“Ah, thank you, my good friend, Mr. Coil, thank
you, sir. I was fearful I might be too late, and you
may call me any thing but too late to supper, or a
round of beef like this. Mrs. Bongarden, Mr. Coil,
left me a-reading some letters, fresh from head quarters,”
winking and speaking in an affectedly low
voice, yet loud enough to be heard by every body in
the room; “great things going on at the White House,
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Washington city. Can't be more explicit now, but it
will be out in a few days, and then you will find I am
a prophet. That is, that I sometimes know a thing or
two before hand. Mrs. Bongarden left me a-reading
those letters, saying that she would call over and see
Mrs. Coil, and I began to fear I should get in at the
tail end of the feast. This beef cuts well—thank you,
my friend, I'll take a glass of beer—gentlemen,” addressing
the persons in the room, “I'll give you a
sentiment; fill your glasses, gentlemen. Gentlemen,
the toast which I now propose, I hope, and know
will meet with your approbation.”
All parties filled their glasses; and, while they
were so doing, Mr. Bongarden whispered aside to
Hearty—
“My friend, Mr. Coil, inform me—had you ever
a title: were you ever a colonel or captain?”
“Why, said Hearty, whispering a reply, “I never
was fully made captain. But, by Jingoes, when
they were getting up a maletia company, to use up
the system, they talked of making me commander!”
“Gentlemen,” exclaimed Mr. Bongarden aloud to
the company, who stood expectant, with their glasses
charged, “I propose to you the health of Capting
Hearty Coil, the gallant saver of one of the native
children of Perryville! That act alone entitles him
to our welcome—our grateful welcome! May he
long keep the General Boon—the House—and
never want customers!” This was drunk with loud
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cheers, amidst which Capting Hearty Coil mounted
a chair to return his thanks—
“My new friends and fellow-citizens,” he exclaimed,
with a flourish of the hand, “are you hearty?
Just the same kind of welcome you gave me to your
beautiful city I give you to the Boon House—a
HEARTY welcome!” [The guests took the pun and
shouted uproariously.] “I am as glad to see you
here—and shall always be—as you can possibly be
to see me. As to the jumping in after the child, by
Thunder, that's a mere circumstance! and, my fellow
citizens, Mr. Moore's a gentleman—every inch
of him—and every hair in his head!”
Here there was a loud call for a sentiment from
Capting Coil.
“Gentlemen,” continued Hearty, “my fellow-citizens
and friends, it is a long time since I have
made a public speech; I will therefore conclude—
having expressed my thanks—with the following
sentiment—Here's to the sons of old Kentucky:
may they never—by the living Jingoes—may they
never, never be weaned from—may they never be
too old to love their mothers' milk—old rye!”
Hearty's toast was received with such enthusiastic
applause that, amidst the confusion of the moment
and the whisky, in endeavouring to make a dignified
descent from the chair, it tipped over, and he fell
to the floor of the Boon House, as many had fallen before
him—without the dignity attendant upon Cæsar
at the base of Pompey's statue. Before he could
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get well upon his feet again—and he jumped up
quickly—his little son M'Murdock, his namesake,
jerked him by the coat skirts and said—
“Daddy, mammy wants you—now.”
Instantly, though not willingly, Hearty obeyed the
connubial mandate; for, as he looked round, he saw
his better half peeping through the half-opened door
at him with a prying, suspicious glance.
“Coil—Mr. Coil”—exclaimed his wife, pulling him
through the door, and closing it, “have you been
beastifying yourself?”
“Beastifying myself!” reiterated Hearty, assuming
a look of wonderment and sobriety, “I tell you,
by Thunder, I am as sober as ever was St. Patrick!
My dear wife, I haven't drunk near enough for the
occasion; there is not a man in the Boon House that
is not ahead of me. Come, give me a buss, my
dear, and you'll find out by my breath that I have
scarcely tasted a drop. No, I am determined to
keep duly sober. It would hurt our house, my dear,
you well know, if I were to get in liquor—though
there might be some excuse, by Thunder, in the
occasion! They do say, Mrs. Coil, that your cooking
is tremendous. You see I was just returning
thanks; you heard, my dear, how they drank my
health; they've made a captain of me. I was descending
from a chair—after returning thanks—and,
you know, my dear, you yourself fell off of a chair
once. They are hard to stand on, and, in speaking,
a man forgets what holds him; and I—the chair
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slipped over with me. Your cooking, my dear, by
Jingoes, it does honour to the occasion!”
“I believe the people here do wish us well, Mr.
Coil. And they thought well of the cookery, hey?'
“Tremendious well. Ay, there they're calling
for me!” And Hearty broke away and re-entered
the bar-room.
In his absence there had been an accession to the
guests in the person of a stranger, who was greeted
with warm welcomes by most of those present, and
familiarly called by them Blazeaway. He was a
man of tall and almost gigantic proportions, being
nearly six feet two inches high, and what is not
often seen in men of his height, his limbs were well
knit, and graceful, though his arms seemed rather
too long, and he had a habit of swinging the right
one by his side, while the left was thrust carelessly
in the bosom of his shirt. He was dressed in a full
suit of that domestic cloth called “Kentucky jeans,'
and wore an old slouched hat upon his head, that
evidently had braved all sorts of weather. His coat,
though not worn as an overcoat, was what is generally
called a box coat, having huge pockets at the
sides, with large lappels. The buttons on it were
much better than the quality of the cloth, in the opinion
of the knights of the needle, would demand,
being great pearl ones of the best kind. The stranger
had a handsome foot, and he appeared to be
conscious and proud of it, as it was encased in a
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fine and tight boot, which would have been the
better though from Sam's attentions.
The face of this individual was a very marked
one; and as he wore the rim of his hat turned up in
front, somewhat after the fashion of our forefathers'
cocked beavers, but certainly not with their taste,
his features could be distinctly seen. His forehead,
massive and bold, was shaded with long dark hair
at the temples, where gray, like a party in the minority,
but on the increase, grew daily more prominent.
His eye was a small gray one, that flashed
with good-humour and shrewdness, and indicated
that its possessor had a daring and reckless courage,
that would brave fearlessly any danger. His nose
was straight, with a slight inclination to turn up at
the end, which added much to his look of good-humour
or shrewdness, whenever his features wore
either of those expressions. His mouth was quite
large, but expressive of firmness and decision, displaying,
when he laughed, a remarkably fine set of
teeth, that, from the use of tobacco, had parted with
much of their pearly hue. A thick hickory stick,
in fact, a dray-pin, such as are used in Cincinnati,
projected from one of the pockets of his coat, and
added to the peculiarity of his appearance.
“Blazeaway,” said Mr. Bongarden, as Hearty re-entered
the bar-room, “or rather Mr. Staylor, allow
me to introduce you to the new landlord of the Boon
House—Capting Coil. Capting Coil, Mr. Staylor,
or,” continued Mr. Bongarden, moved to
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facetiousness and familiarity by the good cheer, “be you
known to each other as Blazeaway and Hearty;
and now let's take a drink—blaze away heartily together!”
“Blazeaway,” said Coil, taking the hand of the
person we have described, “that's, by thunder, that's,
I suppose, a nickname like mine of Hearty.”
“You're right, my hearty!” exclaimed Blazeaway,
shaking warmly the hand of Coil, “you're right;
but I had more thought of a burying than a christening
when I got it.”
“And how did you get it?” inquired Hearty.
“Capting Coil,” replied Blazeaway, laying his
hand on the shoulder of the landlord, and speaking
in his free and dashing way, “don't press me—I
am a modest man, but, by Jove! sir, nature meant
me for a great one, only she left me three drinks behind
hand. I never can do or say anything till I
have about six inches of liquor in me.”
“By the living Jingo!” exclaimed Hearty, in a
lively manner, “I am just your way of thinking.
Six inches, hey? Mr. Blazeaway, do ye see, it is a
matter of fact, that there is many a gentleman that's
left three drinks behind hand, when he's born, and
he never has the spunk to push up to a point; he
sees what he thinks he might do, but, by Thunder,
he's afraid of trying. But if a man could always
feel, Mr. Blazeaway, as he does sometimes when he
has three drinks in him, he'd be before hand with
most people. Come, sir, what'll you take?”
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“Anything that's good,” replied Blazeaway. And
while he was drinking, Doctor Cake, who had just
entered the bar-room, after holding a long conversation
with Mrs. Coil shook him by the hand, and asked
him when he left the lower country.
“Three weeks ago, Doctor, and I am now bound
eastward to Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and
all about there. I shouldn't have stopped at Perryville
this time up, but I met Capting Lorman and his
brother, who lives here among you as they told me,
and I promised them to stop and see their folks, and
and give them some letters; the Capting and I are
old friends. I am told that Mr. Davidson—you all
know him here, he's our richest planter, and the
friend of your congressman—they tell me he is going
to bring home a wife with him; he stays long enough
to get a dozen; and I've some business with him
that presses me. I wonder if William Bennington
can tell me any thing about him; I fear it will turn
up that I pass Mr. Davidson on the river; I should
like to see him.”
“Doubtless, I say, Mr. Staylor,” remarked Doctor
Cake, “William Bennington can give you information.
How is the health below?”
“On the mend, Doctor, it a'n't half so bad there
as you think for!”
“Blazeaway,” quoth Mr. Bongarden, “why the
devil do you carry that stick in your pocket?”
“That's an old friend, Mr. Bongarden,” returned
Blazeaway, drawing out the stick, “an old stand-by,
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a friend in need. Last summer, when I was in Cincinnati,
as I was stepping down to the boat one night
to leave, I was beset by three fellows, that I had
quarrelled with once in a gambling house, at New
Orleans, fellows who had come to Cincinnati to
spend the summer. I had nothing but my fists to
defend myself with, and they had knives. You
know there are no stones on the landing at Cincinnati,
it is as clear and clean as this floor. These
chaps came right at me, it was light enough for them
to see a man as tall, and as large as I am, and they
came right at me. I stepped back, not knowing at
first what to do, and I never call for help; I thought
my time had come, as I felt one of their knives in
my arm, but as I stepped back, my foot hit something
that I knew was a stick, I dodged them by stooping,
and as I did it, I picked up this very dray-pin; I felt
like a man at once. When a man knows he has
strength, and feels a weapon in his hand when rascals
run at him, it's quite a different sort of an affair
from dying like a dog. As I seized the pin, I made
an upward blow with it at the fellow who had struck
me, and he fell like a log; the other fellows turned
to run, one started up for Main street, and the other
down to the river. As my way lay towards the
river, I followed the water rat, and made him take
to it; he got beyond his depth in his fright, and I
suppose couldn't swim with his clothes on well, may
be he couldn't swim at all, for he called out loud and
long, and begged hard for help. It was night, as I
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was saying, late too, and if there were any watches
set on board the steamers about, they were asleep,
for the fellow yelled as if he feared his carcass was
a case, and nobody came. So I just laid my old
stand-by down carefully, my dray-pin, and jumped in
and brought the rascal to shore. I took him on my
shoulders—he was nearly gone—up to a coffee-house
on the landing, and after a little rubbing and some
brandy he came to. Some fellows were in there
who called themselves constables, and when they
heard the cause of the fuss, they wanted to insist on
taking him to jail. I thought the fellow had suffered
enough, and if he hadn't, if I choose to let him off,
whose business was it? They talked strong about
taking him, whether I would or no; and one impudent
rascal said they would take me too, and if I
could not give security for my appearance against
the water rat, when the court sat, that I myself
would have to go to jail for safe keeping. I can
stand a good many things, but there are some things
I can't stand. So I just looked at the constables and
I told them, that I would not only go myself free as
I came, but that I would take the fellow with me.
And I just took a good grip of my dray pin, told my
chap to go before, and I dared the best of them, or
all of them to stop me. They were too tired with
their day's work to try it, and so I led my man off.
The fellow, in gratitude, told me all about his companions,
and I discovered that, as I said, they had
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a grudge against me, for a gambling scrape I had
with them in New Orleans.”
“What became of the other two?” inquired Mr.
Bongarden.
“Why,” replied Blazeaway, “as the one who had
run up towards Main street—you know where that
is, it is the street that comes down to the lower part
of the landing—as he was the instigator, I determined
to have him punished. The fellow I took
told me of his haunts, and I went straight back to
the Coffee House, treated the constables, took them
with me, and sure enough we grabbed him, and had
him safe enough in the jail that night. There he
caught vengeance, for they suspected him to be a
fellow who had committed a robbery, and set a house
on fire the night before, and the constables treated
the chain gang—they knew what it was for—and
then thrust this fellow in among them. They nearly
cobbed him to death with their shoes, to make him
tell where the property was—This proceeding is not
according to my notions of things. I say law is law,
and if you put a man in jail to try him according,
why do so. And if you mean to lynch him, lynch
him. To go both, is neither law or justice.”
“The knave may have deserved it,” observed a
legal gentleman by, who was looking out for an
eligible location to settle in, and who was reconnoitring
in Perryville for that purpose, “but I should
certainly be of the opinion that the parties, the constables
I mean, nay the sheriff himself might be made
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to pay a heavy penalty for such a wrong doing.
Are you certain, sir,” addressing Blazeaway, “of
the fact?”
“There's no mistake in it,” replied Blazeaway,
“I saw the marks on the poor devil myself the next
day. I thought it awful hard, any man a stranger
there—you or I, stranger, might be arrested to please
any body or no body, who might accuse us of theft,
and they might get us lynched to find it out, or
lynched to gratify their spites, if they were enemies
of ours, and when they had fed their revenge, we
would get free because we were innocent. I say
such proceedings”—
Here there was an interruption, which will be accounted
for in the next chapter.
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CHAPTER XI.
[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]
Blazeaway was interrupted in the midst of his remark,
by the appearance of Mr. Finn, the editor of
the Perryville Champion, who entered in a great
heat, and mounting one of the chairs, said—
“Gentlemen—Mr. Coil, my respects to you, I
will drink presently. My fellow citizens, there is an
act of injustice about to be perpetrated here, against
which I know every citizen of this town will put his
face, and lift his arm, whether he is a slaveholder
or not.”
“What's the matter?” interrupted several voices,
while all became anxious to hear.
“To be short, gentlemen,” continued Finn, “you
know that when our fellow citizen, Mr. Jackson,
died, he made a will, disinheriting his son Tom, for
his dissipation, and ordering that his farm and slaves
should be sold at auction, and the amount portioned
out among his daughters. The sale is now being
held. Nat, Mr. Jackson's body servant, is just to be
put up, and his brother, a fre man, is here from
Louisville, where Nat's wife lives, and he wants to
buy him, and let him open a shop for himself there,
and live with his wife and family. Nat's a good
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barber, we all know, and a worthy negro; he will
soon in this way be able to pay his brother for himself,
and be a free man. Would you believe it, gentlemen,
Nat's young master, Tom Jackson, hating
him because he was a favourite with his father, has
sworn that Nat shall not be free, and that if it costs
him all he's worth he will buy Nat and keep him a
slave. We all know what kind of a master Tom
Jackson will make under such circumstances, and
we are bound as men, and as Kentuckians to prevent
it.”
“That's a fact!” shouted a dozen voices, and
Finn, discovering he had produced the desired
effect, leaped from the chair and hurried to the place
of sale, followed by Blazeaway and every person
present except Mr. Bongarden, who observed it was
a very long walk to where the auction was held, and
that he had been exercising over much through the
day. He, therefore, sans cérémonie, replenished his
mug with beer, took a handful of crackers and
cheese from the table, and leisurely seated himself
for a chat with Hearty, who was in the act of following
the crowd, notwithstanding, when Mrs. Coil
called him back, and after telling him in no gentle
terms that it was outrageous that he should attempt
to leave the bar, she drew him aside into the back
room, and narrated to him what Mrs. Bongarden had
told her concerning the origin of the slander against
Ruth. Hearty at first was restive beneath the connubial
hand that held his coat, but when he came to
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hear that Henry Beckford was the originator of the
slander, he swore a deep oath, and stood some moments
motionless, though Mrs. Coil had dropped her
hold. At last he exclaimed:
“By Thunder! I'll put an end to his stopping at the
Boon House, and hang me if I don't disgrace him
into the bargain.”
Mrs. Coil whispered to her spouse not to drink too
much, and Hearty, after assuring her, with the
soberest face he could assume, that she might be
entirely easy on that score, re-entered the bar-room.
After silently arranging matters and things in his
bar for a few minutes, Hearty looked towards Mr.
Bongarden, like one whose thoughts had taken another
turn, and asked:
“An' Mr. Bongarden, tell me now, will ye, why
do they call this remarkable-looking person with the
dray-pin—I never saw such a dray-pin in my life
before, in —, where I'm last from, they use iron
ones not half so long as this—why, tell me now, do
they call this person Blazeaway? if it's a fair question.”
“Entirely fair, Capting, entirely fair,” answered
the postmaster, with a dignified move of the head.
“This beer is good,” smacking his lips. “Blazeaway,
you may truly observe, Capting Coil, is a remarkable
person. He has been a flatboat-man, a
pilot, a farmer, and almost everything else—I don't
know what his politics are—and he is neither afraid
of man nor devil. If you were to meet him on at
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the east in your city, Capting Coil, you would find
him a well-dressed, well-looking man. He made
folks stare in Washington City the winter before
last, they tell me. Capting Coil, I assure you I am
informed that he took the President by the hand, and
held a talk with him, and he was no more abashed
and put back than I would have been myself. It is
not every man could do that, Capting, men in public
stations—holding public offices, sir, are expected to
do it—and it's republican that it should be done—it's
democratic, but it takes the leaders, sir, Capting, to
act out the thing. I wish you, Capting Coil, to mark
my prophecy, we shall have news, I mean public
news—I received it privately, myself, sometime
since, but that's neither here nor there—mark my
words, we shall have public news from Washington
City before long!”
“By the Powers! I believe you, Mr. Bongarden,”
exclaimed Hearty, impatient to know more about a
person called by such a singular nickname as Blazeaway,
“but as you were remarking on this Mr.
Blazeaway?”
“Ay, as I was remarking, Capting, he is a remarkable
person. He got the name of Blazeaway
in this way. He now farms it, or rather has large
wooding places down in the lower country, to which
he attends occasionally, acting as pilot, and often
roving up and down the Ohio and Mississippi, partly
for pleasure, and partly for business. Mr. Davidson,
a great planter, and he live near each other, and
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Mr. Davidson has helped him to make a great deal
of money—they live near the town of —.
Staylor, Capting, is well known there, and stands
high. Being a pilot and a river character, he has
many friends among such folks, and is of course
friendly to them—as you know is quite natural—for
I speak from a judgment of myself, I feel friendly towards
every man holding, for instance, a highly responsible
office. Staylor being friendly, as I have
observed, to river characters, and having a particular
friend, the capting of the Kenton, he felt bound
to stand by him. It so happened that the capting of
the Kenton did something to offend the people of—.
What the real offence was, is hard to get
at—some say one thing, some say another. However,
the people got offended, and they swore that
when the capting of the Kenton stopped there on
his way up, they would lynch him.
“Staylor knew all this, for he was at the place—
and he knew how horn mad the people were—and
he determined to save his friend, if he could, and at
every venture. So, as the Kenton drew near the
wharf, he hurried on board and told the capting of
the fuss. The capting was frightened, you may be
sure, and he started steam again and away he went.
The towns-people were so mad that they chartered
another boat and put directly after. They do say
that they had a devil of a chase. Sometimes the
pursuers were so near that they could almost jump
on board the Kenton—and many shots were fired,
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and one killed on the Kenton, and one on the other
boat, and several were badly wounded. But they
had, after all, to give over the chace, and you may
depend they returned mortal mad to home. By the
time they got there, it was suspected who had
advised the capting of the Kenton off. The man
killed was a soldier of a regular company in that
place, and they resolved to bury him with military
honours. Just as the company were leaving the
killed man's house with his corpse some one called
out and said—and every one had heard it before
you know—that Staylor had advised the capting
of the Kenton off, and he was the cause of the
death, and it ought to be revenged on him. Some
one called out, there was Staylor now: for it seems
that he was coming down the hill behind the town,
right into the street where they all were with the
corpse. You know he is a man easily known. One
fellow who had some bullets in his pockets, handed
them out to the company, and proposed that they
should drop them in their guns, and as they passed
by Staylor, let him have them. The capting of the
company and others said, no—fair play—that they
would call on him first to vindicate himself: and
it was agreed on that they should. Sure enough,
when they got up to Staylor they halted, and the
capting stepped out—told him what the report was—
what they had resolved to do if it was true—and
then asked him whether it was true or not—and
what he had to say in his defence. They say that
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Staylor never looked the least daunted. He got
upon the hill side, while the soldiers stood in the
road, facing him, on either side of the corpse, and
he told them what a friend the capting of the Kenton
had been to him—that he had saved his life once
at the risk of his own, when he was beset by an
awful odds. `I've got,' said he, `as sincere a tear
for the man in that coffin as the best of you; he
never did me any harm, and I am sorry for him:
but the capting of the Kenton was my friend;
he saved my life; and I did advise him to leave.'
`And,' said he, throwing his arms wide open, and
facing the soldiers face to face, `if you seek my life
on that account, blaze away!' That's the way he
got the nickname,” continued the postmaster, drawing
a long breath, and taking a deep draught, “but
not a man pretended to fire. Staylor, by their own
invitation, went with them to the funeral; and, when
it was over, they placed him in among them and
escorted him home.”
At this instant the loud talk of persons excited
and the sound of approaching footsteps arrested the
attention of the landlord and his guest; and, in a moment
more, Finn, Blazeaway, and the persons who
had left the Boon House, with many others, entered
it. Blazeaway walked up to the bar, exclaiming—
“The thing was well done and justly. Capting
Coil you have been treating: now we must treat.
Come up, gentlemen, and call for what you want.
“Consider yourselves touched,” said he, making a
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salutation with his glass to the company ere he
drank its contents. “Here, boy, take this,” he continued,
as he offered a stiff glass of the raw material
to a black man, who stood with his hat off just
within the door, “you looked so frightened that I
thought you were going to turn to a white man or
a ghost. Well, you are a free man now, Nat, and
take care of yourself.”
“I will try to, master,” replied the black in a
grateful tone.
“How was it managed?” asked Hearty of Mr.
Finn, who was in the act of taking a glass—“did
the fellow's brother buy him?”
“It was well done, as Mr. Staylor says,” replied
the editor of the Champion—“and I'll maintain it to
be right by press, pen, or pistol, any where. After
I made those few hurried remarks, to your guests,
Capting, stating Nat's case to them—I hope you will
not think anything of my taking your guests from
you, seeing I have returned with them and with
a great accession to their numbers—after I had
briefly stated Nat's case, we all hurried to the place
of auction. There was poor Nat, the black fellow,
frightened to death, and Tom Jackson standing near
him, half drunk and swearing he would buy him,
and nobody else should. He was threatening Nat's
brother with every kind of punishment, if he should
dare to bid for him. The crowd looked on indignantly,
but they had not yet said anything. At last
Nat was put up, and Tom Jackson bid three hundred
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for him. Nat's brother wanted to bid, but he was
afraid of Tom. Mr. Staylor and myself, both at the
same instant, told him to bid and fear nothing; that
he should be protected. At this, Tom Jackson swore
he would kill Nat, if he dared to do it; and went on
in such ruffianly style, that the crowd got round
him, hissing and hooting, and hustled him off. Then
Nat's brother bid four hundred dollars, and Nat
was knocked down to him; as there was nobody
under the circumstances would bid against him.
That the estate might not be the loser by the low
price, the sum of three hundred dollars was raised on
the ground—William Bennington and Mr. Moore,
who can afford it, giving the most; so that a fair
value (seven hundred dollars) was paid for Nat, at
last. Tom Jackson has almost run out his rope; it's
time for him to quit this place, or it will be made too
hot for him.”
“That's a fact; there's no mistake in that,” exclaimed
the bystanders, and they pressed towards
the bar to drink on the invitation of Staylor.
It was not until long after dark on this day, memorable
in the history of Hearty Coil, that the guests
departed. They dropped off lingeringly; in squads
at first, and latterly—those who love good cheer
most, remaining to the last—one by one, till Hearty
and his spouse were left the only remaining occupants
of the bar-room in which they were seated
talking over the events of the day. The landlord
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was desirous of retiring, but though he had full possession
of his tongue, he felt that his limbs would not
do their office without betraying to his spouse how
entirely he had enacted the character of Boniface.
He, therefore, still kept his seat, wishing that Mrs.
Coil would leave the room first, and then he intended
to strengthen himself with another glass, and steal
off to bed. He had, therefore, in profound silence,
(hoping that if the ball of conversation was not kept
up, Mrs. Coil would the sooner depart,) listened to
his lady expatiate upon the sayings and doings of
the day. While the matters stood thus, the door of
the Boon House opened, and Henry Beckford entered
from a gunning excursion, which had occupied him
all day and caused him to encroach upon the night,
in consequence of having stopped at the house of a
farmer, whom he had met in the woods, and who
had invited him to his farm, to take some refreshment.
Hearty, a little testy from the curb which he had
put upon his inclinations, and not certainly more
peaceably disposed from the potations of the day,
glanced at Henry with an angry eye, as he called
up to his mind his own injuries in the affair of the
ride, and those of Ruth Lorman, which were fresh
upon his memory, as Mrs. Coil had narrated them
to him but a few hours before.
Not observing, or indifferent to the state of Hearty's
feelings, Henry said, “he would take a glass of
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brandy and retire;” when Mrs. Coil jumped up in a
flurry, exclaiming:
“Now, I declare, your bed's not made, Mr. Beckford.
Rest a moment till I make it, sir; you know,
under circumstances, we can't get everything right
at first.” And she hastily withdrew to perform the
office.
“Mrs. Coil,” exclaimed Hearty, as his wife shut
the door, “you needn't trouble yourself,” saying
which, Hearty endeavoured to brace himself up
with an air of dignity.
Without noticing Hearty's remark, which did not
reach the ears of Mrs. Coil, Henry said, in a tone of
command, “A glass of brandy and water!”
“By the Powers!” exclaimed Hearty, striking his
fist against his knee, with emphasis, “I'll speak right
out to you, Mr. Beckford, and tell you at once that
you can neither have bed, board, nor lodging, in the
Boon House. I can't stand you. You have played
the rascal at home, and now, by Thunder, you have
come here to play the rascal again; and damn me
if I countenance you. Don't say that I am not a
plain man—I say plumply, damn me if I countenance—”
“You countenance me, you poor, drunken devil!
What do you mean?” And as he spoke, Henry advanced
to the bar to help himself.
“Drunken devil!” repeated Hearty, in a great
passion, jumping up and staggering between Henry
and the bar. “Don't you, by Thunder, attempt to
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take my liquor without my leave. There's a punishment
for theft here, as well as elsewhere; and I'll
let you know, if you go to add stealing to your
low-lived slanders, I'll have you in the penitentiary,
and that won't feel like the Boon House to you, I
can tell you.”
Enraged beyond self-control, Henry caught up
the chair, from which Hearty had just arisen, and
with it struck him to the floor. Notwithstanding
Hearty made no resistance, Henry repeated the
blow, several times, and violently kicked him, as he
lay so insensible from the assault and intoxication
together, that he did not utter a word.
While Henry was thus engaged, the front door of
the bar-room opened, and Blazeaway entered. Advancing
into the room before Henry perceived him,
he caught that worthy by the shoulder with the
gripe of a giant, and jerking him violently away, exclaimed,
“What are you after? You have killed him—
he's dead!”
“Dead drunk!” said Henry, in vain endeavouring
to shake off Blazeaway's hold. “The rascal has
grossly insulted me. Unhand me, sir!”
“We are in a slave state, stranger,” replied Blazeaway,
tightening his hold, “but I'm not a nigger;
and though I am rather a rough man myself, I have
a way of teaching some people manners—so speak
a little softer.”
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So saying, Blazeaway pushed Henry aside, and
lifted up the prostrate landlord. As he did so, Mrs.
Coil re-entered the room.
“I wonder what's the matter with Hearty—with
Mr. Coil?” ejaculated Mrs. Coil.
“Just show me the way to his bed, madam,” replied
Blazeaway; “liquor and this stranger have
been too much for him, I expect. Show us the way,
Madam. Look here, stranger, (to Henry,) you are
not for making off, are you?”
“I am for making off to my room,” replied Henry,
as he lifted the light which Mrs. Coil had placed on
the table.
Supposing the only enemy that Hearty had encountered
was that which the great poet says “men
put in their mouths to steal away their brains,”
Mrs. Coil determined, though with much difficulty
keeping the determination, to hold in her curtain
lecture until returning sobriety should enable her
husband to appreciate its eloquence; yet wishing to
apologise for the aberrations in public which she
did not intend lightly to forgive in private, she remarked,
“Mr. Coil, sir, being as we opened house on this
day, has had to drink with so many of his acquaintances
and friends, that it is no wonder, as he can't
stand a very great deal, that he should be overtaken.
This way, if you please, sir,” and so speaking, Mrs.
Coil held the light, while Blazeaway bore the
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landlord in his arms as easily as Hearty would have
borne one of his children.
Henry lingered sullenly till they had left the room,
and then quickly quaffing another deep draught, he
repaired to his chamber.
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CHAPTER XII.
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On awaking the next morning, though the landlord
of the Boon felt satisfied that he had been more overcome
by his potations of the previous day, than by
the blows of Henry; he nevertheless determined,
particularly in consideration of Mrs. Coil's opinion,
to lay all the consequences of his inability to get to
bed, to the account of the assault and battery. Hearty
was fiercely indignant at the usage he had received,
and as he dressed himself, finding Mrs. Coil was
up before him, and that from the shortening shadows
of the sun, it was wearing fast towards noon, he turned
over in his mind the affair, and convinced himself
that he had been treated most diabolically. His
memory of what he had said to Henry to cause the
the assault was not very distinct, but there were
certain protuberances on his head, not of a phrenological
origin, which satisfied his Eventuality, that the
altercation on Henry's part, had not been confined to
words. Connecting this fact with his previous opinions
of Henry, arising from their meeting on the
road, he soon satisfied himself, that the battery was
made with malice aforethought against his life. Having
the marks of the blows to prove what he resolved
should be his assertions, he bound up his head, put
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on a rueful face, and descended the steps with fewer
misgivings than he else would have had. In fact, he
almost congratulated himself he had been assaulted,
when he thought of his spouse. This, nevertheless,
lessened not at all his designs of retaliation, when he
remembered the assaulter. After taking much more
than his usual time at his toilet, Hearty descended
into the connubial presence.
Resting from her labour of sweeping the room, by
leaning on her broom handle, Mrs. Coil eyed Hearty
as he entered from top to toe, and said:
“This is a pretty time of day for you to get up,
Mr. Coil. I wonder don't you think this is a fine beginning
for the Boon House.”
“Are you knowing to what happened to me last
night, my dear?” asked Hearty, putting his hand pathetically
to his head.
“Knowing! to be sure, I am. You don't think I
was beastified too, Mr. Coil, do you? Knowing! why
I know that you fell off of your chair, and that I got
that big, strange man to take you to your bed.”
“I know, by Thunder, that I was taken to my bed,
my dear; but did you know that I was knocked off
of my chair, and by this Henry Beckford? where is
he? Hang me, if I don't use him worse than I was
going to use him, when that beautiful lady, Miss
Murray, begged so for him that I let him off. Just
feel my head. Do you think a fall made all these
bumps as big as hen's eggs?” continued Hearty,
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taking his handkerchief from his head, and presenting
that member to his wife's inspection.
“As I live,” exclaimed the landlady, “your head
is wonderfully bruised, and your neck is all black and
blue.”
“Where is he?” asked Hearty, in an angrier tone
than he had yet spoken.
“Gone,” replied Mrs. Coil.
“Gone!” echoed Hearty.
“Yes, Mr. Coil, as sure as you are a living,
breathing, bruised man, he's gone. He got up early
this morning, and asked how you were? I didn't
know what had happened—not the beginning of it—
and thinking that you were overcome, and not wishing
people to know it, I told him you were very well,
but worn out from your exercise in entertaining the
friends of the Boon House, at our infare. He studied
awhile, and then went out; after awhile, came back
in a hurry, as if something troubled him—brought
black Sam with him—asked for his bill, paid it right
down, and said, `there was a boat just going to start
at the landing, and he had got letters, and must leave.'
He took Sam up stairs for his trunk, and went right
away.”
“By Thunder! don't that show you, my dear, that
he had a design upon my life, and was afraid of what
might turn up. Knowing, you see, that I was alive,
he thought I'd pour it into him, as I was going to do
on the road, and the cowardly scamp made off. It's
good riddance to bad rubbage, my dear, but he shall
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hear of it. I'll have him put in the Perryville Champion,
and let the public know of him.”
In the meanwhile, Henry was on board of a
steamer, on his way to the south-west. He had
arisen in the morning with many fears, for the extent
of the injury he had inflicted on Hearty, and it's consequences
to himself. On meeting Mrs. Coil, knowing
as Henry did from her manner, when she held
the light to Staylor, that she was not aware of his
assault on her husband, he asked her how Hearty
was, to discover if the landlord had communicated
any thing to her. When he learned Hearty was still
abed and asleep, the fears of a coward's conscience
whispered him, that the worst results might have
taken place. He therefore went forth to the landing,
to inquire if there was any steamboat about to depart
down the river, resolving if there was, to leave
Perryville. Whether Hearty was hurt much or little,
Henry knew there would be danger in staying,
and Perryville now had no attractions for him, as he
had failed both in his schemes of vanity and revenge.
At the landing he found a boat, and on hastening up
to his lodgings for his trunk, he called at the post office,
got several letters, which he did not stop to open,
and returning with his baggage borne by Sam, was
soon on board the steamer, and rapidly leaving Perryville.
His letters were not of a character to comfort
him. The first he opened was from Stansbury, informing
him, that great odium was attached to his
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name from the affair at the theatre, and that Helen
Murray was married to Mr. Davidson, and was soon
to leave her native city with her lord, for his estate
in the south-west. Henry crushed the letter in his
clenched hand, with the wish that he could annihilate
all whose names it contained. He started as his
eye caught the seal of the next letter, for it was
black. He scrutinised the direction; it was in his
mother's hand-writing, but so different from the usual
precision of her pen, he did not at first recognise it.
The letter informed him his father was dead! It
was full of lamentations, evidently from a spirit not
used to suffering, and overwhelmed by the suddenness
of the loss. Mrs. Beckford was a weak woman,
but she loved Mr. Beckford, and the death of
such a husband, during the absence of their only
child, and under the circumstances of his leave-taking,
was calculated to bear down a stronger philosophy
than hers. While conducting a cause of
great moment, Mr. Beckford was taken suddenly ill,
with an affliction resembling apoplexy. He was
borne from the court to his chamber, in a state of
insensibility, and died the next day, without giving
any signs of consciousness. Notwithstanding his
vast practice, he died insolvent, owing to his own
and his wife's extravagance. All these facts Mrs.
Beckford communicated to her son, and she concluded
with repeated requests and solicitations that he
would return home. Subdued, at the moment, by the
news, almost to a resolution of reformation, Henry
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determined to write to his mother from the first post
town at which the boat might stop, expressing his
deep sorrow at the event, his sympathies with her at
their mutual irreparable loss, and his resolution, instantly,
to proceed to New Orleans, and embark on a
packet there, for home. He intended to say to his
mother, that he had business in New Orleans, in relation
to his property, which he had more than two-thirds
lost; and but for that, he would have returned
immediately home on the reception of her letter.
The fact was, he shrunk from appearing among
his old associates, perhaps more so now than before,
for the influence of his father had gone with him,
and not even the consideration of becoming the
comforter of his surviving parent could induce him
directly to return. His heart was selfish to its core,
but he therefore felt not the less these inflictions, he
felt them the more as they all bore heavily on himself.
The steamer, on which Henry had embarked,
was impeded very much on her passage, in consequence
of the injury done to her wheels by the immense
quantity of drift wood afloat, particularly in
the Mississippi. Many boats passed her, and many
days elapsed before they stopped at a town, where
Henry had a sure and direct channel of communication
with his mother. They had passed several
places, from which Henry might have had an opportunity
of writing, had the boat touched there, but
being full freighted, she proceeded past them on her
way, nor did Henry make any interest with the
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[figure description] Page 132.[end figure description]
Captain, which he could easily have done, to have
his letter sent ashore. After the first impression
made by the news of the death of his father had
passed from his mind, his anxiety to write to his
mother decreased daily, nor was it until after the
boat had stopped several hours at Memphis, that
Henry wrote to her, stating his intentions of returning
home by New Orleans, &c.
After he had written his letter, he went on shore
to seek the post-office, and stepped into a tavern to
ask its direction. On casting his eye around the
bar room, he beheld on the table the Perryville
Champion. Attracted by the name, which appeared
in large capitals at the head of the paper, Henry
took it up and glanced over it. The leading article
under the editorial head he instantly discovered to
be an account of his assault on Hearty Coil, given in
the strong, exaggerated language of the editor, from
the mouth of Hearty himself. It wound up by stating
that Henry had surreptitiously left Perryville the
day after the assault, and concluded with copious
extracts from and comments on the accounts given
of his conduct and character before he left home, as
contained in the newspapers.
The bell of the steamboat rang as Henry, with
a burning brow and angry eye, was re-reading for
the third time Mr. Finn's editorial. On hearing it
he sprang to his feet, tore the newspaper together
with his letter to his mother to pieces, and hurried
on board.
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CHAPTER XIII.
[figure description] Page 133.[end figure description]
No one felt the loss of Gladsdown Beckford more
than Ralph. It was to him a blow that seemed to
deprive him of his only friend—of a more than father.
In fact his uncle had almost entirely supported
him at college. What he obtained from his father
was merely an occasional pittance enveloped in
pages of economical advice. But his uncle was all
generosity and kindness to him, and Ralph was about
to pass through college, not only with the reputation
of a highly intellectual man, but with the means of
liberal expenditures in the enjoyment of any rational
and harmless pleasure with his fellow collegians,
when this unforeseen death came over his heart and
hopes.
Ralph heard not at all of his uncle's indisposition.
With a glow of pride he was reading a paragraph
in the newspaper, stating that his uncle had made
one of his ablest arguments in a cause which occupied
public attention, when he received a letter from
his aunt, in frantic terms mentioning the death.
Ralph instantly obtained leave of absence from college,
and hastened home to attend the funeral of his
uncle, and do all in his power to console his aunt.
Mournfully he shook his fellows by the hand, for
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he felt the gates of his alma mater were about to
close on his college career, and the honours which all
had expected he would receive, he knew now were
not for him, for he was satisfied that the increasing
avarice of his father, which grew with his age, would
prevent his return. In the dead of the night, he
sprung with an effort from his restless couch, on
which he had thrown himself in the vain hope of
snatching a little sleep, and gathering his cloak
around him, he hurried into the stage, while the
clouds of the future rolled darkly before him, and
more darkly as he attempted to penetrate the shade.
As he thought of himself and his prospects, he felt
his own to be a disposition unfit for the turmoil and
excitement of life, and full, he thought, of gloomy tendencies
which required a soothing and cheering
spirit to dispel them. Then how natural the vision
of Ruth arose to the mind and heart of Ralph, and
he determined, if he could not return to college with
the same facilities he had enjoyed there under the
patronage of his uncle, and remain until he was of
age, so that he might graduate with honour, when
he would be his own master and receive the little
property due him, he would instantly wend westward,
and seek his fortune where Ruth's was cast.
He pictured to himself Perryville, as Ruth had
described it to him in her letters, and the little farm
on which she lived. He thought he saw Billy playing
by her side, or saying his task to her in the quiet
scene, and he resolved to throw aside ambition and
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worldly strife, and live, he believed, happily, oh!
how happily, with Ruth, the queen of his destiny.
Then the dark thought arose, could it be that fate
had so much happiness in store for him? could his
cup be so full, so overflowing with joy? and gloom
again took possession of his mind. He reverted to
his uncle and all his kindnesses to him; recalled to
memory his form, and voice, and look, when he last
saw him; and, smitten to the heart with the conviction
that he should see him no more, Ralph buried
his head in his cloak, and wept like a woman.
As soon as Ralph reached the city of his birth,
he hurried to the residence of his uncle. The burial
was to take place that afternoon. Ralph found his
aunt in her chamber, stunned by her loss. She wept
bitterly when he entered; and finding his presence
seemed to add to her grief, he left the room, and
passed into that where lay the mortal remains of the
one who had so befriended him. Ralph removed
the lid of the coffin noiselessly, like one who feared
to awaken a sleeper, and yet as he did so, the wish
arose in his breast, almost to its bursting—“Oh! God,
that I could reanimate that clay!” Could he have
done so, he could not have restored the Promethean
heat to a nobler heart, or a manlier brow. The
dark hair, just touched with gray, lay heavily on a
massive forehead, where intellect was stamped, as
with a seal, its impression still lived there so vividly.
In every lineament was written ennobling character,
and vigorous intellect; or rather in their expression
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[figure description] Page 136.[end figure description]
was the proof of what had been there, while the conviction
of what was—the fearful presence and reality
of death—pressed the more heavily on the beholder.
He looked at the lip, on which a smile seemed to
play, and he could hardly realize the fact, that it
would speak to him no more.
“My dear uncle,” said Ralph, as he gazed upon
the features of the dreamless sleeper—“Oh! that
you could speak to me; but I will so live and act,
that if you could, even from the grave, speak, you
would not censure me,”—and he sat down beside
the corpse, he knew not how long; nor was he
conscious of anything, until an attendant roused
him from his gloomy reverie, and led him to his
chamber.
A week or so after the burying, Ralph learned
that his uncle had died insolvent; and that his aunt
was entirely destitute, except what she might receive
from Henry. The information he obtained
from his father, who made loud complaints against
his deceased brother, stating, he had lent him two
thousand dollars but a few weeks previous to his
death, and should never get a single cent of it.
Ralph was astonished to hear of the pecuniary condition
of his uncle, and feeling his deep indebtedness
to him, he determined to do his uttermost to contribute
to the comfort of his aunt. In a few months he
would be of age, and he resolved, if it took every cent
of the property which he would then receive in right
of his mother, to contribute it to the maintenance of
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his aunt. This resolve he communicated to his
father, who, our readers may suppose, was awfully
astonished.
“By dad,” exclaimed the old miser, jumping from
his arm-chair in a passion, “Ralph, you are demented.
Give all the money you have in the world
away to feed your aunt's extravagance—when two
thousand dollars of my money has gone to the devil
the same way!—good God, did you learn this at
college? you never got it from me. I shall never
leave you a cent, Ralph; it would be a sin, a crying
shame to give you money, when I know it would be
squandered. As soon as you are of age, you will
take possession of your property, to give it to your
aunt, hey? Well, do so, sir; and then you may
take possession of yourself and depart from my
house. By dad, I'll turn you out on the common;
and it will be with you—root, hog, or die!”
Ralph could not but smile at the phrase of his
father, ere he replied in his strain,
“I expect, father, I shall root in the western
country.”
“Yes,” retorted the old man, “and you'll die there,
too, of starvation. I see what you are after—you
are at deception again, Ralph—you're for your love
affair with that little vixen, Ruth Lorman, the greatest
little hussy I ever knew! Well, you may live
on love, I can tell you. Bless my soul! every one
that you have anything to do with cheats me.
There's your uncle dead, and the two thousand
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dollars gone with him, yet you are grateful for his support
of you at college. Did it cost two thousand
dollars? wasn't it my money, if it did? and notwithstanding
you are giving your last cent, received, too,
through your mother, whom you pretend to love so
much, to your aunt. Your aunt! Why, Ralph, do
you know that she treated your mother abominably—
yes abominably! She scarcely ever called to see
her, and when she did it was to put extravagant notions
in her head, and create bickerings between us.
Yes, I repeat, every one whom you have anything
to do with, cheats and bamboozles me. The two
thousand's gone I lent your uncle—I never would
have lent it to him if I hadn't thought he was kind
to you. There's old Lorman, knowing you thought
well of him, I lends him a thousand dollars,—that's
just as good, I expect, as an insolvent dead man's
debts, too, I have no doubt. Merciful Providence!
I shall be ruined—have to beg my bread in my old
age yet.”
“Father,” replied Ralph, “you'll have to lose a
good many thousands more, folks think and say,
before you come to that, unless as a matter of
choice.”
“Folks say! Who says?” exclaimed the old miser,
glancing suspiciously round. “Yes, I may be
murdered yet, and all by what folks say. Yes, you
nincompoop, and folks say that you might have
married that beautiful rich lady, Helen Murray, the
daughter of my old friend; but you stood shillyshally
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with a sheep's face upon your shoulders, and now
she has married, for want of a husband, a man old
enough to be the father of both of you, you stultified
know-nothing—I waste words—you must do for
yourself, that's all.”
A week or two previous to the death of his uncle.
Ralph had received a letter from Helen Murray, in
which she jocularly said she had a notion of changing
her name, and she bid him to the bridal. Ralph
hardly knew whether it was jest or earnest, and he
replied in a similar strain. When, after the burial
of his uncle, he inquired after Helen, that he might
pay his respects to her, he learned she was married,
and that the bridal party had gone on a pleasure
jaunt to New York. A few days after this Ralph
received a letter from Mrs. Davidson, stating she
was shocked at seeing the announcement of the
death of his uncle, and making many earnest inquiries
as to what property he had left, and as to
the condition of Mrs. Beckford. Ralph replied, and
fully informed her as to her inquiries.
A few weeks brought the bridal party back, and
Ralph hastened, though in the habiliments of mourning,
to call upon the bride. He thought he had
never seen Helen look half so lovely, yet he could
not but smile at the devotedness of the groom.
If Ralph was much struck by the appearance of
Helen, she was more impressed with his. He had
grown tall and thin; his intellectual brow had expanded,
she thought, and the deep shadow of grief
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upon his features, and his mourning suit, awakened
an interest in her bosom, of which her lord might
have been jealous, had he known its extent.
“Indeed, Ralph,” said the bride, as he took a seat
beside her on the sofa, “I cannot tell you how much
I have been distressed by the death of your uncle.
And your aunt—what will she do? Where is
Henry?”
“In the south-west, I believe,” replied Ralph.
“What is he doing?”
“Indeed, I cannot say,” said Ralph, unwilling to
say anything against his cousin.
“From what I can understand,” said Helen, “he
has not improved. I am told his associations are
becoming worse and worse, and that he is more
reckless than ever. A great part of his fortune is
gone. I fear—I fear Mrs. Beckford will have very
little comfort in him. He was some time in Perryville.
You saw the article in the “Chronicle,” did
you not, recopied from a Perryville paper? Ruth
does not say much about him.”
“When did you hear from Ruth?” inquired Ralph,
quickly.
“A few days since. She is well—unmarried,”
continued Helen, smiling, “as, I suppose, you know.
It is Mr. Davidson's intention to proceed immediately
west. I shall see her, and persuade her to
visit the south-west with me. Come, you must accompany
us.”
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“I would that I could,” exclaimed Ralph; “but I
must not leave my aunt. When do you leave?”
“The day after to-morrow. I wrote to Ruth from
New York. Come, Ralph,—Mr. Beckford—you
must go with us.”
“I need no persuasion, you well know, Mrs. Davidson;
but I am not yet of age. I shall be in a
few months, and I must wait till then to obtain the
possession of some property, to speak candidly, not
egotistically, with which I may assist my aunt, as
you think that Henry will not be able to do so.”
After a long conversation about Ruth and the
west, and after expressing many heartfelt regrets
that he could not now accompany Mrs. Davidson
westward, Ralph took his leave, promising to return
at three, and dine with herself and husband.
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CHAPTER XIV.
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After dinner, when Mrs. Davidson and her mother
had retired, and Mr. Murray had gone to indulge
in a nap, while Ralph and Mr. Davidson were taking
wine together; the latter said, with the frankness of
a true southerner:
“Mr. Beckford, you will excuse me, sir, if with
the impulse of the south, I say to you that, as I adopt
all my lady's partialities, I am anxious to show you
I am your friend. Mrs. Davidson has informed me
of the situation of your aunt, of her son's character,
and of your desire to assist her, as you feel indebted
to her, and your deceased uncle. She has also told
me, that you have certain thoughts that tend westward,”
here Ralph blushed; “you will possess property
I am told, sir, when you arrive at age, which
will be in a few months, and you must suffer me to
make you any advance you wish, until that time.”
Ralph hesitated a moment, was on the eve of politely
rejecting the loan, but he thought of his aunt,
and said, while mingling emotions almost choked
his utterance:
“Mr. Davidson, I thank you, I shall feel deeply
indebted to you for the loan.”
“No indebtedness whatever, Mr. Beckford,” replied
Mr. Davidson, “I have the money idle in the
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south-west; I have enough without its use, it is entirely
at your service. It will be some five or six
weeks before I can obtain all of it, however; I must
write home first. You must come to the south-west,
Mr. Beckford; it is the place for young men. Mrs.
Davidson and myself will stop some time at Perryville,
which,” continued Mr. Davidson with a smile,
“I am told has some attractions for you; it is too
early yet for us to go south, we shall spend the time
there with my friend Mr. Bennington, and my lady
is very desirous of being near her friend, Miss Lorman.
In the interval, you can arrange your business
here, and come to Perryville, and we'll all go to
the south-west together. Mrs. Davidson means to
persuade Miss Lorman to spend the winter with us.
So I offer you great inducements.”
“I feel them, sir,” replied Ralph, “and to show
you that I do, I think I may say, that your kind invitation
will be accepted.”
Here a servant entered, and told Mr. Davidson
that there was a gentleman in the next room who
wished to speak with him.
“Who is he?” asked Mr. Davidson.
“I don't know indeed, sir!” was the reply, “he is
a very tall gentleman, and he says he must see you.
He told me to tell you that his name was Blazeaway.”
“Ah! my old friend Staylor—an original, Mr.
Beckford—show the gentleman in, John.”
John retired, and in a few moments ushered in
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our former acquaintance at Perryville, but the outer
man was much improved. He had thrown aside
his old suit of Kentucky jeans, and appeared in a
blue broadcloth suit from top to toe, which was
made of the best materials, though certainly not put
on with a strict regard to the fashion, though it was
made fashionably. His vest was buttoned awry,
and though a black silk neckcloth enveloped his
neck, it was adjusted very carelessly. Instead of
the dray-pin, that stuck from his coat pocket at Perryville,
he carried in his hand a stout cane, which
was handsomely ornamented, and for which he must
have paid a goodly price.
“Ah, my friend Staylor,” exclaimed Mr. Davidson,
as Staylor entered the room, “I am rejoiced to
see you.”
“And indeed I am rejoiced to see you, Mr. Davidson,”
replied Staylor, advancing quickly and
grasping the proffered hand of Davidson, “and I
give you joy. They tell me you are a-going to take
a madam down to the south-west.”
“Yes, Staylor, I believe so—take a seat. Mr.
Staylor, let me make you acquainted with Mr. Beckford.”
“Happy of your acquaintance, Mr. Beckford,”
exclaimed Staylor, grasping Ralph firmly by the
hand, “and I could not say that to one of your name
that I met in Perryville.”
“Ah, who was that?” asked Ralph, with the conviction
that his cousin was meant.
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“A chap of not much account,” replied Staylor,
“not worth talking about, in fact, Mr. Beckford,
though he is a namesake of yours. Mr. Davidson,
I hope the madam is well.”
“Quite well,” replied Mr. Davidson, “come,
Staylor, I must introduce you to Mrs. Davidson,”
and the speaker led the way to the withdrawingroom,
and made the introduction. Mrs. Davidson
had often heard her husband speak of Staylor, and
she felt pleased to see him. Entertained by the originality
and manliness of his character, she held a
long conversation with him, which not a little delighted
him, during which Ralph rose and took his
leave.
Bitterly Ralph regretted that he could not accompany
Helen and her husband to the west, but he experienced
a gratification in knowing Helen and Ruth
would be together, that somewhat softened the pang,
for he felt assured he would be not the less remembered.
Helen was much impressed with the society of the
west, as she saw it in Cincinnati and Louisville, in
each of which cities she staid several days. A high
and haughty beauty, and the belle of one of our
largest and wealthiest Atlantic cities, she was not
prepared to meet her equals, if not superiors in attraction,
in the west; of which, like many others of
the east, she had received, she knew not why, impressions
of its inferiority.
Showed every attention by the intelligence, fashion
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and beauty of the rival cities of the west, she left
them on her way to Perryville, where she arrived
safe, making the frank confession that she had never
beheld lovelier or more accomplished women, or
nobler or more courteous men.
We will not stop to dwell upon the meeting between
Ruth and Helen, but return to Ralph. After
several weeks spent in almost constant attendance
on his aunt, who had been compelled immediately
on the death of her husband to quit her splendid
mansion, discharge her servants, and take private
and humble lodgings, Ralph received the promised
loan from Mr. Davidson, in a letter postmarked
Perryville, and he instantly contributed all his means
would allow to render Mrs. Beckford comfortable.
She talked to her nephew perpetually of Henry, and
informed him that she had heard but once from her
son since the death of her husband, when he sent her
a small remittance, and said he would return home
by the way of New Orleans.
Mr. Davidson, in his letter to Ralph, painted in
glowing terms the happiness of the friends at Perryville,
and pressed Ralph warmly to join them, and
visit the south-west, whither he informed him Ruth
would accompany his lady. He told Ralph that as
there was now no obstacle in his way, his lady-love
would consider him a recreant from his faith if he
came not. Helen added a postscript, enjoining him
to come, and asserting that Ruth fully expected him.
The post after the reception of Mr. Davidson's letter,
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Ralph received one from Ruth, expressing her happiness
at meeting with Helen, and delicately hinting
that they wanted but the presence of another to
make their happiness complete. Ralph was left to
guess who that other was, but he was not slow in
coming to the conclusion. Ralph determined instantly
to follow them—what lover would not?—and
every moment seemed an age to him, until he put
the determination into execution.
Fearful that if he informed his father of his resolution,
he would throw some obstacle in his way,
Ralph thought it best to write to him on the subject
on the eve of his departure, without having an interview
with him. He accordingly did so, and four
days therefrom he was on the Ohio River, not content
even with the swiftness with which the genius
of Fulton has contrived to bear the traveller on his
way. There was some reason for this, with which
the genius of Fulton had nothing to do. The captain
of the steamer had advertised to depart from
Wheeling at five o'clock on the afternoon of Ralph's
arrival in that place. Ralph, therefore, hurried on
board, expecting to be off at the hour, but he was
kept there until ten o'clock the following morning.
Punctuality Ralph soon discovered to be a virtue
not much practised by western steamboat-men. He
roamed about the boat, in vain endeavouring to dispel
a tendency to low spirits, by listening to the
slang of the crew below, and in conversing with
those around him.
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“I have no particular reason for having the blues,”
thought Ralph to himself; “and, if I had, perhaps I
could call up the energies of my spirit to dispel
them. These sombre, weird spirits that throng upon
us from the vasty deep of feeling and memory are,
it seems to me, of that wayward nature, that, as we
never call them, they, with malice aforethought,
come upon us when we have no particular reason
to expect them—seeming content to leave us, when
we have real troubles, to those troubles' torments—
being satisfied if we are dissatisfied, and never satisfied
when we are not. How we try to be amused
on such occasions, and to be pleased; `but pleasure,'
says Ninon De Enclos, `must come extempore.' In
trying to dispel a sombre image from the mind we
make it, as it were, a reality—an image of stone—
and this accounts for the phrase `heaviness of heart.”'
Ralph was struck with the difference in the construction
of the eastern and western boats. The
eastern boats have their cabins below the deck,
while the western ones have theirs above deck, and
look somewhat like a house afloat upon the water
with a kind of piazza, called the guards, around it.
On the guards, which are protected by a railing, it
is the custom of the travellers to walk or smoke,
instead of on the top of the boat, as is the eastern
custom. The top of the western boats covers in the
cabin, like the roof of a house, and is called the hurricane
deck. It has no railing round it, but nevertheless
passengers frequently promenade there.
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The boat had been under way for several hours.
It was in the afternoon, verging towards night, and
Ralph sat upon the guards, unconsciously watching
the rippling waters, when his attention was attracted
by a person on shore waving a handkerchief at the
end of a stick. In a moment more the speed of the
boat was slackened, and the person who waved the
handkerchief leaped into a canoe, accompanied by
a negro, who seized the paddles and made towards
the steamboat. The negro did not appear well
skilled in the art of propelling the canoe; for he
had scarcely made half a dozen strokes with the
paddle, when the white man beside him took it
from his hands and commenced paddling it himself,
which he did with astonishing speed. In a
few moments he stood on the deck of the steamer.
Throwing a dollar in the canoe to the negro, the
white man gave its bow a shove with his foot with
such violence as to overthrow the negro, who tumbled
into the water.
“Can you swim, Pomp?” exclaimed the stranger.
“Not a stroke!” he continued, as he observed the
negro sink. “Stop steamer!” he cried, throwing
his stick on the deck. He was in the act of leaping
in, when the negro rose to the top of the water, and
adroitly seizing the side of the canoe, succeeded in
getting into it.
“Ha! ha! ha!” roared the stranger, “why, you
black fool, can't you keep balance?”—throwing more
silver to him—“there's something more for a dram.”
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“Good by, Master Staylor!” shouted the negro,
catching a paddle from the bottom of the canoe, as
the one he had floated off.
“Good by, Pomp!” returned Staylor, for it was
that individual, “take care of yourself, old boy, and
thank God you're a nigger, for the devil can't burn
you any blacker than you are.”
As soon as Ralph caught the eye of Staylor he
knew him, notwithstanding his change of dress, for
he appeared in the suit of Kentucky jeans, in which
we first introduced him to our readers, and, instead
of the cane which Ralph had seen in his possession
at Mr. Davidson's, he stooped to the deck of the
steamboat and picked up the identical dray-pin which
he carried in his pocket at Perryville. Ascending
the steps from the lower to the boiler deck,
Staylor caught Ralph, who stood there, by the hand,
with the gripe of a Hercules, exclaiming—
“Mr. Beckford, I am glad to see you; you are
welcome to the west. Hurra for the Ohio! I love her
like a mother. I suppose you didn't know me at first
sight. The fact is, Mr. Beckford, give me, in spite of
your dandies, old clothes and old friends—they set
easy—we are used to them. That suit you saw me
wear, as I never will have but one with me I gave
my brother. He is pretty much my size, but not so
active a man as I am. So I made him a present of
it for taking care of this one, with my dray-pin,
while I was away. I wore it, because”—Staylor was
interrupted by the cabin boy, a little black fellow,
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who seemed a greenhorn, for he pulled Staylor by
the coat, and told him he must go below, meaning
among the deck passengers, evidently supposing that
Staylor, from his dress, had not taken a cabin passage.
“There,” exclaimed Staylor, laughing, “You can
see why I wore a better dress when you saw me. I
had got among a race who judge people, like this
nigger, by appearances. That little rascal,” pointing
towards the boy, “would be worth five hundred
dollars where I came from. I be d—d if I haven't a
scheme in my head, that is as good as any that Clay,
Calhoun, or Webster ever originated.”
“What is that,” asked Ralph.
“Why, to get Pennsylvany to sell all her free
niggers to the south, and to put the proceeds to internal
improvements. Well, as that little black imp
thinks I ought to be among the deck passengers, I
will just go below and look at them.”
So saying, Staylor left Ralph, and descending the
steps proceeded aft. Ralph entered the cabin, and
found the boat had a great number of passengers of
as motley character as could well be described. There
were several dandies among them, lawyers, doctors,
merchants, and merchants' clerks going west, some of
the latter as collectors of debts for their employers.
There sat a solemn looking man reading a Bible, presented
to the steamboat, by the Young Men's Bible
Society—there an individual looking over his accounts—
before the glass stood a fop, cultivating the
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growth of his whiskers, and around the table a group
were seated playing cards. Others were laying listlessly
in their berths, or trying to amuse themselves
by looking through the windows at the scene, which,
from the progress of the boat, was changing continually.
While Ralph was engaged in observing his fellow
passengers, Staylor re-entered the cabin, and taking
off his hat near the door, said in a loud voice, addressthe
company:
“Strangers, I tell you what it is—just listen to me
a moment—there's an old lady down below among
those deck people, who is old enough, and genteel
enough to be the mother of any man in this cabin.
She has a son away down the river, below the mouth,
and word has come to her that he is very sick. The
old lady has raked and scraped all she had in the
world to go to him, and there she is below, not able
to pay her passage in the cabin. The fact is, strangers,
we must raise a collection for her, there's no
mistake in it. If there's any man here that can't afford
to take from his family, why he has a good excuse,
but every other man must give. I go in this
much,” and Staylor took two dollars from his pocket,
held them up to the eye of all, and then dropping them
in his hat, he proceeded to hand it round. “Strangers,”
he continued, “I once heard a preacher, down
the river, preach a charity sermon, and when they
came to take up the collection, as he saw none but
coppers falling into the hat, he told the man that carried
it to hand it to him, and he himself would hand
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it round. So he did, and when a generous chap put
in a bank note, the old fellow called out thankfully,
`thank God for bank notes.' This is as good a cause
as that, strangers, remember the widow and the orphan,
the sick and the needy. A good many of you
are from home; suppose you are taken sick, wouldn't
you like your mother, or your wife to come to you?
Do as you would be done by—so shell out.”
Staylor's impressive manner and appearance, together
with his oddity, had the desired effect, and
every one to whom he handed his hat, gave liberally.
When Staylor reached the man with the Bible, who
had a clerical look, he said:
“Ah! now we shall get something! If ten good
men could save a city, one good man can save a
steamboat: so there's no danger from boilers bursting;”
and he held his hat to the person, who hesitated,
and at last said he would not give any thing.
Staylor scrutinized his dress, which was of the
finest stuff, and asked—
“Stranger, can't you spare it?”
“Yes, I can spare it,” replied the person addressed,
“and would, but I don't know that the
woman is a worthy object.”
“Then, stranger, come below with me and see
for yourself.”
“I cannot now,” replied the stranger, casting his
eye on the Bible, as if he did not wish to be interrupted,
“I am engaged.”
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“Stranger, do you preach the gospel?” inquired
Staylor.
“Yes, I have preached, and do preach.”
“You do, hey; well, if that's a Bible you have in
your hand, I suppose you haven't come to the place
yet concerning the good Samaritan and the High
Priest. Read on. Come, strangers, shell out. Staylor
went the rounds of the boat, and raised a considerable
sum of money, with which he paid the captain
for a cabin passage for the old lady—making
him take much less than the usual charge: for Staylor
remarked to him that he must give in that way.
After the old lady's passage was paid there were
fifteen dollars over, which Staylor counted out on
the table, and said—
“Strangers, if you say so, we'll give this overplus
to the old lady.”
“Agreed! agreed!” they all called out; and Staylor
went below—assisted the old lady, who was a
very respectable looking woman, through the gentlemen's
cabin into the ladies' apartment, and coming
out he said—
“Come, one of you, in with me, till I give her the
money—that you may know all's right. It might
have hurt her feelings to give it to her here before
every body.”
When supper was placed on the table, Staylor
conducted the old lady from the ladies' cabin, and,
handing her a seat at the table, he took one below
her, among the gentleman, nearly opposite to the
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individual who called himself a preacher. As soon
as the bell rang, Staylor, sans cérémonie, thrust his
fork into a cold roast pig and began to carve it.
The preacher looked at him sternly, and, stretching
out his hands over the table, said, “Wait till I ask a
blessing.”
Staylor laid down his knife and fork, folded his
arms deliberately, and eyed the preacher from head
to foot with a look of such withering scorn and contempt
that he arrested the attention of all at table,
while the preacher sank and quailed beneath it.
“Stranger,” at last said Staylor, in a tone correspondent
with his look, “you need give yourself no
trouble, for, by God, your soul's of no account!”
The man could not stand the rebuke: he took a
seat impulsively; called for tea and coffee in the
same breath—glanced round the table, and hastily
rising from his chair, left the cabin.
When the supper was over, Staylor followed Ralph
out on to the guards, and said—
“Mr. Beckford, I know all about that preaching
chap, though he don't know me. I have as much
respect for the cloth, sir, as any other man; it's such
rascals as he that brings disgrace on it. He was once
a lawyer—and couldn't get on at it; he then turned
merchant—failed with pocket full and paid nobody;
got cheated by a keener rogue than himself—and
turned preacher, to live by the Bible, but not according
to it.”
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CHAPTER XV.
[figure description] Page 156.[end figure description]
Staylor took a seat by Ralph as he concluded
his remark about the preacher, and as the shades of
the evening gathered round them, they sat seemingly
each occupied with his own thoughts, but not unconscious
of the pleasure of his companion's company.
Staylor was the first to interrupt the silence, which
he did by remarking:
“I seem lively, I suppose you think, since I have
been on board, but I can't say it's from the heart,
and yet these chaps to-day looked at me as if they
thought I never had a care. I've just parted with
my old mother. Mr. Beckford, and it's touched me
somehow more than I've been touched for years—
she is living with my brother, but, you see, I was
always the favourite. I was the worst, and she
thought more about me, and loved me, maybe, therefore,
the most. She is a pious woman, and I felt
to-day, when she gave me her blessing, that there
was something in it—but I don't know, I'm not lively—
I took several parting-drinks with my brothers,
and when I came aboard—I feel my steam is getting
down now, and I must wood. Come, the least drop
in the world can't hurt you.”
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Ralph assented, and they entered the social hall,
and drank together.
“Capting, come take something,” said Staylor,
addressing that worthy, who at this moment entered
the social hall. The captain said he had no objection—
the decanter was handed to him, and Staylor
drank again to be polite. He pressed Ralph to replenish
his glass, but he refused.
“You're right,” said Staylor, “if you don't want
it don't take it, but I'm one of those kind of men
that can't or won't say no to a good horn. And
yet I never was drunk in my life, that is to say, so
far gone that I couldn't navigate. My brain's never
drunk, but my blood often is. We have a man down
south—we had him, the devil has him now—he was
rich, and had everything around him that was splendid—
but I wouldn't be in his shoes for all his lands.
He treated every body bad about him, his sons bad,
his daughters bad, and it was no wonder then that
he treated his niggers bad. His conscience plagued
him awfully in his old age. It plagued him so that
he couldn't get drunk. I've seen him try to drown
it, till the liquor he had in him would have killed any
other man, but drunk wouldn't come. Capting, when
shall we get to Ballton?”
“In about a half an hour,” replied the Captain—
“the Alexander's there, and I'm told she is going to
give us a race.”
“Is she?” exclaimed Staylor; “she's a fast boat,
but the night promises to be cloudy.”
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Another half-hour brought the steamer to Ballton,
and, as there had been both a race and a religious
convention, one near the town and the other in it,
on this day, the boat obtained a considerable increase
of passengers. The Alexander had her steam up,
determined to test the speed of the boat on which
Ralph and Staylor were, and which, for the sake of
a name, we will call the Turtle. When the Turtle
stopped, as she was known to have much better accommodations
than the other boat, many of the passengers
of the latter left her, and came on board of
the Turtle.
The night had set in, and a hazy mist prevailed,
through which an occasional star glimmered, watery
and indistinct. Here and there heavy clouds were
gathering in the heavens, which seemed to threaten
a storm, but the pilot observed that he would not be
surprised if a wind arose, and the mist and clouds
were dispelled. The Turtle, finding the Alexander
was anxious to leave port before her, so as to be
a-head, rung her bell as soon as she had taken the
wood-boat in tow, and proceeded onward. Ralph
stood on the guards, watching the bustle and confusion
amidst the passengers and the citizens as the
bell rung, the first hurrying to get aboard, and the
last as much hurried to get ashore. The hasty
leave-taking—the more last words called out from
the departing passenger to his friend ashore, and the
injunction not to forget such and such a message,
echoed back, were all over, and the Turtle held her
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way ahead. The Alexander left port but a moment
after her, and came barking on her track, like a
blood-hound from the slip, or like a high-mettled
racer trained for the contest. Just below Ballton
the banks on the river are abrupt and high. Through
the haze to the eye of Ralph they loomed mountainous
and overwhelming, while from the many
short bends in the stream it was constantly seeming
to the beholder as if the boat would dash immediately
against the precipices that often appeared directly
before it as if it dammed up the river, on which the
light from the fires of the steamer cast a strong glare
for a short distance, while beyond the darkness was
deeper from the contrast. The Alexander could
easily have passed the Turtle while the latter had the
wood-boat in tow, had it not been for the narrowness
of the channel in this place. As it was, the Alexander
pressed close behind the Turtle, and her hands
and even passengers called loudly on the latter to
give way, but at this the Turtle threw loose the
lines of the wood-boat, and kept her place ahead,
apparently by her superior speed, for the distance
between them was now increased. Ralph turned to
make some inquiry of Staylor, and found that he
had left his side. After gazing a few moments more
on the scene, Ralph entered the cabin. He found it
crowded with passengers, a number of whom had
clustered round Staylor, who had seated himself on
the end of the table, and, with the front of his hat
cocked up, and the light shining down from the
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suspended lamp on his strong features, he was amusing
them with his remarks. As Ralph looked round,
not seeing the preacher among the number, he inquired
of the Captain where he was.
“Gone!” said the Captain; “he couldn't stand
Staylor,” pointing to him. “I tell you what, he cares
for nobody, he's a caution.”
“Talking about drinking,” said Staylor, to those
about him, I know it's wrong, too much of it I mean;
and I met a temperance society fellow the other day,
and he slyly took me to task about it. Well, I didn't
say much, for when I know I'm wrong, I never say
I'm right; but when we stopped I had my own fun,
for this temperance man eat more than any fellow I
ever met with, eating was meat and drink both to
him. When we got into the stage again, I poked
fun at him all day so hard, that he thought proper to
stop and rest, and take the accommodation line, that
stops at night, and we dashed on in the regular mail
line. Temperance is temperance, and if a man eats
too much, it is just as bad as drinking too much, and
then as to his temperance of temper, he didn't pretend
to it. He had no more chance with us, than a
bob tail bull in fly time; we used him up. Ha, ha,
ha! speaking of drinking, I couldn't but laugh at a
neighbour of mine, who killed himself with hard
drink. He died of mania a potu, I think the doctors
call it; I know it's Latin. Luke didn't think so, he
held it plain English, for I went to see him when he
was on his last legs, stretched out on his bed, and
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just after a fit, when he had been fancying he
walked on his head, and that the bedstead had stolen
his legs, and wanted to walk off with them; and I
said to him, `Well, Luke, how goes?' `Ah Blazeaway,'
says he, `I shall have to go the journey, the doctor
says I've got the pormanteau.' Ha, ha!” laughed
Staylor heartily, and then after a moment of thought
he added: “And he did go the journey, poor fellow,
and many a worse man has gone it before him.'
Yes, as Bobby Burns says, a chap who loved a glass
himself, I say,
With such as he, where'er he be,
May I be saved or damn'd.
and I'll be —” Staylor was just about adding an
emphatic oath, when a personage joined the group
around, much like him who proclaimed himself a
preacher, and who, judging from his garb, might be
a divine or might not. Staylor hesitated, from a
sentiment of respect, to give utterance to the oath.
At this moment the little black cabin boy, who wished
to send Staylor below, passed by from the ladies'
cabin on some errand, and trod on the foot of the
individual whose presence had abated Staylor's sentence.
The man drew back his afflicted member,
and with a tremendous oath, gave the boy a kick
that certainly hastened his speed. At this Staylor
burst out into a horse laugh, and eyeing the man from
head to foot, he nodded his head to and fro, like one
who has caught a new idea; drawing his knees up
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so as to embrace them with both his arms, as he sat
on the table, he exclaimed: “Stranger, I'd give a
fifty dollar bill for your face.”
“What do you mean, sir?” said the stranger,
speaking angrily.
“Mean,” replied Staylor, eyeing him all over, and
laughing, “I mean what I say, I'd give a fifty dollar
bill for your face, for if I had it, I'd make my fortune
selling tracts.”
A loud laugh broke from every one present.
The stranger looked at Staylor, like one who
wished to pick a quarrel, but could not screw his
courage to the sticking point, when he beheld the
huge proportions of his adversary. After gazing at
Staylor a moment irresolutely, he drew his hat over
his brow, and entered the social hall, with no very
social feelings.
“That,” said Staylor, pointing after him, “is one
of your amphibious fellows, there's no telling what
side he's on; he's astraddle of the fence, ready to
serve God or devil, as best suits his pockets; he seesaws
between saint and sinner, determined to take
the strong side. Look at his coat, you can't tell
whether it is methodist or not, or quaker or what-not,
it's shad belly and it a'n't shad belly; his hat has a
broad brim, and a sharp top. Ha, ha, ha! I suspect
he is amphibious in other respects; that while he
pretends to belong to the cold-water society, he
creeps ashore sometimes like an alligator, and lays
down on the sunny side of a distillery. Strangers,
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if there is one thing I scorn in this world more than
another, it is hypocrisy. If I enlisted with the devil
himself, it would be on the agreement, that he should
show his flag, his bloody banner, and I would set up
for ensign myself, that it might float free, so that
people should not be taken under false pretence, come
to us as friends, and find us foes. We go very fast,
don't we?” he continued, getting down from the table;
“how the boat shakes, she puffs like a porpoise.
I expect we are racing it.”
“Racing it!” echoed a nervous, gouty man, on
crutches, who had just come in from the guards;
and who had been hobbling about in a state of inquietude
ever since the boats started; “it's awful,
we have been racing it this hour.”
“We're ahead, a'n't we?” asked Staylor.
“Yes,” replied a one-eyed, hard-featured man,
who entered immediately behind Staylor, and who
appeared to be a “river character,” perhaps belonging
to the boat; “we're ahead, and likely to keep
so; and we will, if it takes all old Dobbin's barrels
of rosom. I'll turn in, anyhow.”
“You are right,” said Staylor, turning to go out
and observing the speaker was one-eyed; “you
must make the most of your time, for I see it takes
you twice as long to sleep, as it does another man.”
“Look here, Mister, do you want to pass an insult?”
exclaimed the one-eyed man, while the Cyclopian
member flashed with all the ire that would have
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beamed from both, had the other been able to do
duty.
“None in the world, stranger,” said Staylor, good
humouredly—“it's only a joke; it's all in your eye.
Come let's drink together.”
“Agreed,” said the one-eyed man; and he and
Staylor proceeded to the bar and drank deeply to
their better acquaintance; when the former quietly
retired to his berth, and the latter walked out on the
guards and stood by Ralph, who had preceded him.
The scene was one likely to live in the memory
of Ralph. Frowning immediately before him, (for
the river here was very winding, and thus the effect
was produced,) was a bold and high cliff, against
which the boat seemed hurrying to its destruction.
The haze had passed off from the bosom of the
river; but here and there dark clouds floated over
the sky, between which the stars appeared cold but
clear; for though the clouds lay in dark masses between
them, the patches of sky were as blue as if
the heavens were cloudless. Just above the peak of
the precipice a new moon floated through cloud and
sky, like a frail bark on the troubled sea; while the
huge forest, on either side of the river, seemed to
form a channel to direct the eye to it. Immediately
before the boat, the light flashed forth fiercely on
the dark bosom of the wave, appearing like a mass
of molten gold, thrown into a sea of lead. As the
river was low, its banks high, with tall trees upon
them, which increased their apparent height, while
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the waves cast back, here and there, the strong reflection
of cloud and sky, it made the heavens appear
much higher and farther off, and struck the beholder,
in connexion with the surrounding scenery,
with sensations of the sublime.
Behind the Turtle, the scene was of a different
character, and Ralph dwelt upon it with fearful interest;
for it was the first time he had ever been a
witness to such a one. The Alexander was not
more than fifteen or twenty feet behind the Turtle,
pressing immediately in her wake. If the Turtle
had run aground, or any accident had happened, to
have stopped her, before the speed of the Alexander
could have been lessened sufficiently to prevent injury,
in all human probability, she would have
dashed, with great violence, against the Turtle.
But what struck Ralph most, was the dark forms
of the fire-men on board the Alexander, as they
moved before the fire, stirring it up and throwing
wood into the furnace. Though the evening was
rather chilly, several of them had, from the heat
and excitement, stripped off their shirts and with
their persons naked to the waist, they were feeding
the fire, which consumed as fast as it was
fed. There was one mammoth negro, who particularly
arrested Ralph's attention. He caught the
large logs of wood up and cast them on the fire,
as easily as a boy would have thrown upon it as
many willow switches. His black form and countenance
glowing in the glare, the energy with which
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he laboured, the muscular power that his naked
chest and arms exhibited, together with the occupation
in which he was engaged, brought to the mind
of Ralph, the idea of one of Satan's devils feeding
the infernal flames. Every now and then, the fire-men
would cast their eyes towards the Turtle; and
if they thought they had gained upon her, they would
give a quick, startling yell; which, from the surrounding
scenery, might well call up fancies of the
past, and almost make the white man think the Indian
was pursuing him in one of his own “fire canoes.”
“She's doing her hardest,” said Staylor to Ralph,
“but I don't think she gains much.”
At this moment the voice of the captain of the
Alexander could be distinctly heard and himself
seen as he leaned over the boiler-deck, and looking
at the hands below, called out in an excited and
angry tone—
“Keep the fires up there, boys! give her all the
steam you can. Mate, get out quick a barrel of
rosin from below, and try them. Keep the steam
up, I tell you!”
“That fellow means to go his death,” exclaimed
Staylor, to the crowd around him; for the passengers,
with various feelings, had gathered on the
guards. “He means to go his death. He has spunk,
any how: I like to see it.” And Staylor, who had
become very much excited at the scene, and with
what he had drunk, exclaimed, calling out to the
crew and passengers of the Alexander, “Good-bye,
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stranger—you can't do it—good-bye. Which way?
are you for Cincinnati? When we have got there,
done our business, and are leaving, we'll mention
you'll be down in a week or two.”
“Make way!” cried out the pilot of the Alexander—
who could be distinctly heard on board the
Turtle,—with an awful oath, “make way—give us
part of the channel, and we'll pass you now.”
“You may have all of the channel,” retorted
Staylor, “behind us; but—”
“We'll have that before you, too,” interrupted the
pilot of the Alexander, “if we have to ride over
you. I'll mash your mouth when I meet you.”
“Ha! ha! ha!—it takes two to play that game,
stranger. Blazeaway is my motto!”
“It's Blazeaway Staylor, from the lower country,”
remarked the pilot to a man standing beside
him, as Staylor's voice rung in their ears, for he had
the lungs of a Stentor, “if they don't beat us it won't
be his fault.”
According to the order of the captain of the
Alexander, the firemen had thrown on the fire a
considerable quantity of rosin, and in a few moments
it emitted a dark, gloomy smoke, in which innumerable
shining sparks flashed like the stars amidst the
clouds above. It was now evident to all that the
Alexander was gaining on the Turtle.
“Where's the capting?” called out Staylor, as he
observed the advance of the other boat. “He must
use rosin, too—they'll be in to us, or pass us, soon if
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we don't. Capting!” he continued, at the top of his
voice, “where the devil is the capting?”
“Here,” replied the captain of the Turtle, who
answered from the roof of the hurricane-deck, where
he stood beside the pilot.
“Capting!” returned Staylor, “a'n't you going to
give us a touch of rosin?”
“No, no!” exclaimed many of the passengers,
whose fears for their safety had become aroused,
“let them pass us.”
“Let them pass us! not without a trial, I hope,”
said Staylor. “Come down, Capting.”
At Staylor's request the Captain descended, when
that worthy grasped him by the shoulder, and pulling
him hastily aside, said—
“The devil, Capting, you are not going to let them
beat you, are you?”
“No,” said the Captain, “I'll be blowed if I am,
let's drink something.”
“Agreed,” replied Staylor, “I'm for a little brandy,
in the way of rosin, myself. They're pressing
hard on us; come, let's be quick.”
They entered the social hall together, and again
drinking heartily, they returned, when the Captain
called out to the firemen to get some rosin. The
order was obeyed, and in a few moments clouds of
smoke, as dark as that of the Alexander, and full of
glittering sparks, were, emitted by the Turtle.
Great excitement prevailed on both boats. The
river was here broader than above, and the
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Alexander had advanced so far that her bow was within
a few feet of the stern of the Turtle, but in turning
so as to enable her to get along side of the latter, she
neccessarily lost some headway, and fell a few feet
behind.
“Keep her in the track,” called out the captain of
the Alexander to his pilot, “and if they won't make
way, go over them.”
“Take care of yourself,” called out the pilot of the
Turtle to him of the Alexander, “mind the law.
If you strike us, I'll shoot you, mister. Tom,” he
continued in a lower voice, speaking to the assistant
pilot, “go into my berth, and bring me my rifle,
prime her anew. If that fellow won't mind the law.
I'll inflict the punishment.”
His assistant obeyed his request, and brought him
the rifle.
“Did you prime her?” asked the pilot.
“Yes,” was the reply.
“Did you try if she was loaded?”
“No, I did not, you didn't tell me.”
“Well, try.”
The assistant tried, and said “she is loaded.”
“Well, put her here, then,” rejoined the pilot,
“just at my right. Fair play is a jewel, and if he
won't give the jewel, he shall take the lead.”
In the meantime, Staylor, who knew all about
steamboats, as he had been for many years a pilot
on the western waters himself, had gone below
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among the firemen, bearing a bottle of whisky and
a glass. He treated them all round.
“Old Virginny never tire,” exclaimed the negroes
after they had drunk.
“That's right, boys,” replied Staylor, “steamboat
men can't do without steam, at least when they're
for going ahead.”
Under her immense press of steam, the Turtle
trembled in every joint. It seemed as if she must
shake to pieces. Intense excitement possessed the
crew, and some of the passengers, but the most of
them were very much frightened. There were several
ladies on board the Turtle, and as the Alexander
pressed so closely to her side, they shrunk in
their cabin, and advancing to the entrance of the
gentlemen's cabin, implored whoever they saw to
beg the captain to race no longer.
“We have done all we could, madam—we have
done all we could, ladies. Come out yourself and
ask the captain,” said the old gentleman on crutches,
“we shall be blown up—merciful Providence, we
shall be blown up!”
Here Staylor entered the cabin, followed by a
number of the passengers, who sought to find in his
cool recklessness security—in the presence of his
courage, trying to abash their fears.
“She's gaining on us,” said Staylor, throwing
himself into a seat, in the stern of the gentlemen's
cabin, where he could look out of the door leading
on to the guards, on the side where the Alexander
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would have to pass them, if she could succeed in doing
so. “She gaining on us, and we have done our
best—the boat shakes like a coward—she quivers too
much. Well, if the other fellow can beat us fairly,
let him do it. Yes,” he continued, looking through
the door at the Alexander, who had got her bows
nearly aside of the wheel house of the Turtle, “she
gains on us amazing. There must have been something
wrong in her machinery at first, and they've
found it out, and righted it. The last time she turned
her bows to pass us, she fell back. Now you see
she's got nearly on to the other side of the river, and
yet has gained. I thought this was a better boat.
She's for taking the start on us at Turner's point, I
see what she's after. You see we have the advantage
of her, because we'll hug the shoulder of the
point, and not have so much water to go over, she
expects to dart ahead there, and she takes the other
side to come on ahead of us, as it's shoal between.
This is a good place for passing, if she has the
speed.”
In a few moments the Turtle reached Turner's
Point, and the other boat had gained on her so much
as to be thought, on the opposite side of the river,
nearly side and side with her.
“Ah!” exclaimed Staylor, as the Turtle was turning
the Point, “now's the time! You see we have
her a little—that's because she has to turn her bows
this way, and that makes her lose ground. Now
she goes it! You see her bows are pointed right at
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us: she's taking too short a turn; but she can't afford
to lose time.”
“She looks as if she was coming right into us!”
exclaimed several of the passengers at once, in great
alarm.
“That's a fact,” replied Staylor, rising from his
chair, and looking through the door, over the heads
of those who stood on the guards, “she comes on
finely.”
“Can't you,” said Ralph to Staylor, “get the
captain to put an end to this; the ladies are terribly
frightened.”
Staylor looked at Ralph with a sarcastic smile, to
see if any of the alarm had communicated to him;
but, discovering by Ralph's tone and features, that
he did not seem to fear much on his own account,
Staylor replied, laying his hand on Ralph's shoulder—
“Wait a moment; if they don't get ahead of us
here they'll give it up. I swear I forgot we had
ladies on board; frightened men never worry me,
but a frightened woman's a different thing: they've
a right to be frightened—and no shame neither—it's
natural to them.”
“My God, she'll be into us!” exclaimed several
of the passengers on the guards opposite the Alexander;
and, as they spoke, they hurried into the cabin
in such haste that some fell and others pitched over
them.
The exclamations, from many voices, of “Stop
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her!” “Do you mean to run us down!” mingled
with the prayers of the women, the imprecations of
the men, and the splash of the water, together with
the noise made by the engines, and the attendant
danger from the approximation of the boats themselves—
for the Turtle was close into the shore, and
could not avoid the contact of the Alexander, if her
pilot should so choose—formed a scene of dread and
dismay seldom surpassed. Many of the females had
rushed into the gentlemen's cabin to obtain that mental
relief which danger finds in companionship, and
clinging to the hope that they would be assisted by
the sterner sex.
The man on crutches, at this crisis, danced about,
in the agony of his fear, upon them, as though they
had endowed him with a power of locomotion beyond
all others.
Staylor looked at him for a moment in a kind of
wonderment, and then said to him, as though he
was calmly making an inquiry—
“You look frightened, stranger?”
“Yes, sir. Oh, my God! I am frightened!—
what's to become of me!”
“That's the question,” replied Staylor, putting a
quid between his teeth, “for the fact is, stranger, if
this boat goes down, the only part of you that ever
gets to shore, will be your sticks!”
At this moment, the glare from the fire of the Alexander,
flashed fearfully through the cabin windows
of the Turtle—the women screamed and covered
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their heads—the men started to their feet, when a
sharp noise like the report of a rifle was heard. A
wild cry was uttered by the crews of both vessels,
and in a moment more, the Alexander came against
the Turtle with such a tremendous crack, that those
on their feet were thrown prostrate on the floor of the
cabin—the suspended lamp was broken to pieces—
and the lights on the tables, and most of the tables
themselves, were thrown on the floor. There was
a moment of awful suspense; “the boldest held his
breath for awhile,” and the next instant, Staylor called
out through the door, “Put out your fire—quick—
let off your steam, you fools.”
Brought somewhat to their senses by Staylor's
voice, many of the passengers, particularly several
gentlemen given to dress, sprang to take charge of
their baggage.
“Here, let's look to the women,” said Staylor, lifting
an unextinguised light from the carpet; but the
gentlemen were too much engaged with themselves.
In the midst of their confusion, the little black cabin
boy darted into the cabin, wringing his hands in the
violence of his fright, and exclaiming:
“The biler'll burst, O! the biler will burst.”
“Here,” said Staylor, addressing the boy with
a voice cool as an undertaker's, but not so mournfully
modulated, “here boy, are you particularly engaged?”
“No, sir,” ejaculated the affrightened urchin.
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“Then,” rejoined Staylor, “while these gentlemen
are taking care of their baggage, do you take care
of mine.”
Struck with his cool self-possession, every one,
notwithstanding the critical situation, turned to look
at Staylor, who put his hand in his pocket, and deliberately
drawing forth a clean sham shirt collar,
he handed it to the black boy, and turning to the one-eyed
man who had been asleep when the boats
struck, and who was huddling his clothes together,
he said:
“Why, stranger, you tumbled from that upper
berth, all in white, like a rat from a meal bin.”
“Who the devil are you,” asked the one-eyed man,
turning his head round to enable his remaining organ
of sight to take a full view of Staylor's person. Before
Staylor could reply, an explosion, loud as the
roar of many pieces of artillery burst upon every ear,
and as it died away, reverberating over the hills and
waters, shrieks, groans and cries arose, that froze
every heart with horror.
Staylor glanced quickly round at his fellow passengers,
and perceiving no one appeared hurt, he
exclaimed:
“We or the other boat has burst its boiler;” he
sprang towards the door and hurried out. In a moment
he discovered from the smoke and cries, that
the accident had happened on board the Alexander,
whose bow had struck, in a slanting manner, the wheel
house of the Turtle, and smashed it into a thousand
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pieces. If the former had hit the latter plumply, she
would, in all probability, have sunk her. As it was,
both boats were much injured, and were jammed together.
Staylor at a leap, lit upon the deck of the
Alexander, and beheld a most appalling sight. Dead,
mangled, burnt and scalded bodies lay around him.
“Pitch me over, Master, for God sake, or give
me water!” exclaimed the Herculean negro fireman,
whom we have described, as in unutterable agony
he lay upon the deck, and not knowing what he did,
tore the flesh from his scalded body by the handful,
like pealings from an onion. As he spoke, he dragged
himself to the edge of the boat, and attempted to
throw himself overboard, when he was prevented by
Staylor.
The scene was too shocking to describe. Five
firemen, two women, a child, and three men, deck
passengers, were scalded to death. Five others
were scalded badly, it was thought mortally, and
nine others were seriously injured. The wounded
were immediately placed in berths, or laid on the
floor of the cabin on beds, and every possible attention
that circumstances would allow was shown to
them; but it was a poor consolation, to the friends of
those who died, to remember that had their lives
been guarded half as well as their wounds were
dressed, the awful accident would not have happened.
Ralph Beckford exerted himself, with true philanthropy,
to the utmost of his power; but the
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recollection of the scene, whenever he thought of it, though
long afterwards, made him shudder in every nerve.
It is marvellous and most melancholy to observe
the reckless disregard of life and limb, which exists
in this and other respects, on the western waters.
It will never be remedied until Congress takes hold
of the subject, and, by severe enactments, makes all
those who have control on such occasions, penally
responsible for all injuries that occur from their carelessness
or ignorance. Justice as well as humanity
demand such enactments: travelling never will be
half as safe on the western waters as it should be,
until they are made.
“Yes,” said one of the hands of the Alexander,
as he assisted in removing the dead body of one of
his companions, “this never would have happened
if it hadn't been for the pilot of the Turtle—he ought
to be strung up for it.”
“Strung up for what?” inquired the pilot of the
Turtle, who stood within hearing, though on the
deck of his own boat, with his arms folded and looking
sullenly on the scene. “Strung up for what?
Blast you, I'd give you a bullet for much.”
“Try it!” replied the fireman—a white man—
speaking fiercely.
“Come,” said Staylor, “there's enough of this.
Did you shoot the pilot of the other boat?”
“I did,” replied the pilot, “and I'll abide by it.
Was he not coming right down on us? didn't I warn
him off often enough?”
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“He would have kept off if you hadn't a shot
him,” replied the fireman, “and I say that you
ought to be taken and given up to justice.”
“Take me, then, if you think so,” replied the
pilot, though his voice evidently faltered a little;
but he continued and addressed Staylor, saying:
“He was coming right down on us; I warned
him off, but he came ahead; and if he meant to
come into us, did I not serve him right? I tell you,
sir, I thought besides that I might save the lives of
our people if I dropped him. He was coming right
into us, and if the Alexander was left to herself, I
thought the tide, as we were going down river,
would keep her off—so it would if she hadn't been
under such headway. What headway she was
under is now plain to every body; for what made
her boiler burst?”
“Stranger,” said Staylor to him, “I don't know
you; there may be some truth in what you say, and
the whole business was in hot blood. I tell you
what, unless you mean to stand a tough time of it,
you had better be off.”
The pilot took the hint; for, half an hour afterwards,
as the alarm and confusion subsided, when
it was talked of among the passengers of both boats
as expedient and proper to arrest and give him up
to justice, it was discovered he had gone ashore, no
one knew where.
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CHAPTER XVI.
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All that night the boats lay together; the Alexander
with her boiler bursted, and of course useless
until another was obtained; and the Turtle unable
to proceed, in consequence of the broken condition
of her wheelhouse and buckets. Few on board of
either boat slept, for the groans of the miserable sufferers
reached every ear and heart. Though Staylor,
by his recklessness, had assisted may be in
bringing on the catastrophe, he was not wanting in
humanity to the afflicted. He and Ralph were the
most active of all in rendering assistance; they
were up all night, giving every aid and comfort in
their power.
There were several dandies on board of the Alexander,
towards whom Staylor entertained an unconquerable
aversion. It seemed not misplaced in this
case, at least with regard to three of them, for they,
as soon as quiet was restored, and there was no more
danger to be apprehended, slily betook themselves
to their berths.
In the morning, without even asking after the
condition of the injured, two of them got up, and
displaying their dressing boxes with great formality
and care, they commenced the duties of their toilet.
Staylor, who had just entered the cabin of the
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Turtle, from the other boat, where he had been engaged
all night, cast his eyes on these gentlemen at
their vocation, and after inspecting them for several
minutes, as if he doubted to what race they belonged,
he called sternly and loudly for the cabin boy. The
urchin soon made his appearance, and Staylor demanded
of him: “Where's the baggage, my baggage,
I gave you last night.”
“Your baggage, master?” ejaculated the boy,
with a look of astonishment.
“Yes, my baggage, you black rascal, if you've
lost my baggage, I'll take your ears off close to
your head. I can't afford to buy baggage for you to
lose.”
“What baggage, Master?” asked the boy, imploringly.
“Why, my indispensable baggage, my clean sham
shirt collar, like that gentleman's!” said Staylor,
pointing to one of the persons we have named, who
at that moment, was adjusting with much precision,
a sham collar round his neck.
“Oh! it's in my other jacket pocket I believe,”
replied the boy, his face brightening up, “I'll get
it, sir.”
“Well,” said Staylor, authoritatively, “be in a
hurry, I want to dress for breakfast.”
As the boy left the cabin to get the collar, Staylor
walked across the floor, with the eyes of all the passengers
turned on him, and picking up a piece of a
mirror, which had been shattered in the night by the
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collision of the boats, he drew a chair between the
two young gentlemen, whose berths, lower ones,
happened to join each other. Each had his dressing
case in his berth, with the glass of it so arranged
that he could view himself. Drawing his chair, as
we have said, between them, Staylor, with affected
nicety, took two pins from the cuff of his old jeans
coat, and with them contrived to fasten the broken
bit of the mirror on the board that formed the partition
between their berths. Having done this, he
called for the cabin boy, with a manner and tone of
affected softness, which was so well acted, that notwithstanding
the gloom that hung over every one
present, there was scarcely an individual, save the
two young gentlemen, who could refrain from laughing.
At this moment, the cabin boy returned with
Staylor's sham in his hand, which was not at all the
smoother from having been mashed in his pocket.
“Ah, waiter,” said Staylor, in a simpering tone,
“that's it. I wish you'd tell those scalded persons
not to groan so, it disturbs my nerves, and I can't
adjust my collar.”
Staylor's satire took, all understood instantly what
he meant, and amidst a roar of laughter, at the objects
of his ridicule, he with great formality, fixed
his sham collar. During the operation, the young
gentlemen put up their dressing cases with looks of
chagrin, that in vain attempted the disdainful, and
left the cabin.
In the course of the morning, not far from the
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bank of the river, on the skirt of a wood, three or
four hundred yards from a shanty, the only human
habitation within several miles, the dead were hastily
interred. No service was said over them. They
were placed in rough square boxes for coffins—the
mother and her child in the same box—and hurriedly
consigned to their mother earth by six of the
firemen, who unceremoniously gave dust to dust.
The passengers, reminded of the frailness of mortality,
shrunk from standing on the damp earth in
the chilly morning, but gathered on the guard of the
Turtle next to the river bank, and there beheld the
interment, while the ladies, muffled in their cloaks and
shawls, looked on it from their cabin windows with
troubled countenances. The mate ordered one of the
hands to cut several gashes in a tree nearest to the
place of burial, that the friends of the dead might
find their remains, if they wished to give them holy
sepulchre. This was all the mark or memorial that
told of their resting-place.
It was not until noon that the Turtle was able to
proceed. Then, her buckets having been mended,
and the wounded from the Alexander placed on
board, whither her passengers had all repaired, she
left her ill-fated companion.
After the boat got under way, in looking round
for Staylor, Ralph was much disappointed to find
he was not aboard. Ralph concluded that Staylor
must have been accidentally left, as he had understood
him to say he was bound for the south-west,
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-- 183 --
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where he lived, near Mr. Davidson, Helen's husband.
With reflections saddened with melancholy Ralph
wandered about the steamer, paying very little attention
to any thing or any body. He thought of
Ruth—of their loves—of the journey she was about
to take with Mrs. Davidson—and his mind became
morbidly alive to the dangers of the way. The
form of Ruth—a scalded and mangled corpse, such
as he had just seen buried—arose to his imagination
so fearfully, that it appeared to be impressed on his
organ of sight. To exclude it from his mind he
threw himself in his berth, and, drawing the curtains,
placed his arm over his brow, and tried to
philosophise with his molancholy. This only made
his fancies more morbid; and, as a heavy rain had
set in, Ralph felt he had the prospect of three or four
as gloomy days before him as he had ever known.
At Portsmouth (Ohio) the Turtle stopped, and
Ralph took passage on board of another boat, called
the Caution, which had just rung her first bell, and
was on the eve of starting. It still rained incessantly,
and continued to do so until after the boat
had passed Cincinnati some hours, when, about ten
o'clock in the morning, the blue sky appeared, here
and there, above; and a brilliant sun, at last, struggled
through the clouds, and, dispersing them, shone
forth in his full splendour.
Ralph took a seat upon the guards, determined to
observe and be amused with the scene around him,
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and to participate in whatever was harmless that
might occur; for he found that sadness, like jealousy,
“makes the meat it feeds on.” When the Caution
was within some ten or twelve miles of a certain
town in Indiana, it was compelled to pass close to
the shore, and Ralph could not but observe the situation
of a wood boat that lay between it and the
Caution.
The lubberly boat alluded to was loaded down
nearly to the water's edge, having in, as was afterwards
ascertained, twelve cords of wood and two
feather beds, together with three lads who were navigating
her. Ralph was standing on the guards
looking at the waves the Caution threw from her as
they rolled in to shore, when he caught a view of
this wood boat. It instantly struck him, inexperienced
as he was in matters of this kind, that the
wood boat would probably be sunk. The Caution
darted by it rapidly, and her waves tossed their
white tops towards it as though they were exulting
in their power to destroy. Ralph thought he saw
the waves leap into the boat, and one of the boys
quit the oar and commence bailing, but while he
gazed to satisfy himself, the boat became the more
indistinct from the distance, until it was lost to view.
At the town the Caution stopped, expecting to be detained
there two or three hours in taking in freight.
While the captain was busy at his duties, a strangelooking
personage, bent nearly double, of the masculine
gender from the dress, entered the steamer.
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It is no exaggeration to say, the bend in the body
aforesaid was so great that the head upon it was not
more than a foot higher from the earth than its hips.
The individual was compelled to turn his head up,
like a terrapin, when he looked you in the face, and,
not to mend the manner of his glance certainly, one
of his eyes, the left one, glanced over the top of his
nose, as if it was taking sight at you from a doublebarrel
gun, while its fellow, as if angry at the obliquity
of its brother, assumed a straight-forward,
steady stare, that did not seem addicted to expressing
the amiable. The owner of these brother
organs, whose form seemed every moment in the
act of making a profound salaam, asked the captain,
in a gentle and flattering voice, that was redolent of
as much courtesy as he could possibly assume, and
which seemed to express great respect for him, “if
he was the captain of the steamer?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the captain.
In a moment the voice and manner of the gentleman
changed, and laying his hand upon the shoulder
of the captain, he said imperatively:
“Then you must go with me right off, for I've
got an instanter forthwith agin you.”
“What do you mean?” said the captain, pushing
him by.
“It's no joke, I tell you,” was the reply, “I'm a
constable, and I've got this forthwith against you,
for sinking a wood boat; and you must go right up
to the magistrate's with me.”
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“As soon as I get my cloak,” said the captain,
turning to enter the cabin for the purpose.
“I know my duty,” replied the organ of the law,
laying his hand on the arm of the captain, with the
intention of making a forcible detainder. The captain,
sans cérémonie, but laughingly, released himself
from his hold, entered the cabin and informed the
passengers of the circumstances, requesting them to
accompany him to the magistrate's, as their testimony
might be needed.
Arrived at the magistrate's office, they beheld
that worthy in his chair of justice, ready to dispense
its dictates. He was a plump, good-natured looking
man; wearing an air of becoming dignity. Knowing
something, from what he had seen in his uncle's
office, of magistrates and law, Ralph advised the
captain to obtain a legal character to see him
through. With the frank and brave impulses
which characterised the captain of the Caution,
who was truly a gentleman, he was for going into
trial, and trusting to the justice of his cause. Ralph
had much difficulty in persuading him to have a
lawyer. However, he at last consented, and Ralph
started to drum one of them up. On inquiring for
the one, who, he was told, was the 'cutest there,
Ralph learned he had but a short time previous quit
the practice, and was then a president of a bank
in the town. He had made quite a fortune in a few
years. Ralph, nevertheless, determined to see him,
as he thought the proceedings on the part of the boat-men
unjustifiable. Escorted by a volunteer, who
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very evidently had been sacrificing to the jolly god,
Ralph entered the bank. There he saw the quondam
lawyer, and hurriedly narrated to him the case. He
said, that he had quit the practice, and Ralph could
not awaken a particle of interest in him, in the case.
Ralph thought, from what he had heard, that on the
Kentucky side, with a Kentuckian, it might have
been done. At last, a lawyer was obtained; a young
member of the bar, but who is esteemed by all his
acquaintances, a man of talents, and chivalrous
bearing. When under the wing of council, the captain
made his appearance at the magisterial bar.
The plaintiff, a tumid, corpulent creature, with here
and there a big drop of perspiration on his forehead,
said he was not ready for trial; and by consent of
all parties, the case was put off for an hour.
At the time appointed, captain, lawyer, and most of
the passengers, stood in the presence of the hooshier
Daniel. There was the plaintiff, with his three boys-boat-men
for witnesses—and a marvellous tale told
they. They averred, that they believed the pilot of
the steamer meant to sink them, and that sink they
did—there could be little doubt of the latter assertion,
for their apparel looked as though it had encountered
the deluge. The first witness, a lad, considered
himself a “river character,” because he had
boated a year when quite a boy, and in the last two
years, had been about a month at it, in the employ
of the plaintiff, in which time, he had three times
assisted in bringing a wood-boat to town from the
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house of his employer, five miles up the river. He
knew, too, the channel the steamboats always took;
and he asserted plumply, that no steamboat, in the
present state of the water, ever held the course of
the Caution, which course was taken, he said, to
sink the wood-boat; and that the crew laughed
heartily when they succeeded. In one part of his
testimony, he swore, that when the boat sunk, she
was fifteen or twenty feet from shore: and he afterwards
said, he jumped to shore when it was sinking!
thereby conveying the opinion, Ralph thought,
to the credulous, that he possessed the boots of the
seven-league-stepping giant. The next witness was
a son of the plaintiff; and when asked of his cunning
in the craft, he made himself appear a perfect Jacob
Faithful, and daddy as old Tom. He said, he knew
as much about wood-boating as the next one; expatiated
upon the loss of the feather-beds—he was
a sleepy looking dog—and maintained that he
wouldn't have got as wet as he was, for two dollars
and a half. His face being scarred, his lawyer asked
him, expecting it was bruised in the mishap, what
harmed it, (and the limb of the law stared with a
foolish face of wonder, that Liston would have envied,)
when the boy replied—“he once had had the
small-pox!” The damages were laid at fifty dollars.
The third witness being very young, though old
enough to tell of that disaster,
“All which he saw, and part of which he was,”
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was not examined by the plaintiff's counsel. The
Captain, Ralph thought, made out a clear case.
The pilot swore that he was keeping the channel,
and that he had good reason to know it, as he had
once been aground near the scene of the sinking.
In speaking of the channel and the direction of the
boat, Ralph was struck with the ease with which
the pilot recounted the landmarks and the names of
the points, and gave descriptions of the bars. This
man too, Ralph was told, would pilot the boat down
to New Orleans, and could describe with accuracy—
as indeed he must from his vocation, the wonder is,
that he kept so many land and water-marks in mind—
every portion of the winding way of the Ohio and
Mississippi.
A farmer, in the neighbourhood of the town, of respectability
and wealth, who was familiar with the
portion of the river spoken of, as he had often navigated
it in his own flat-boats ladened with wheat,
testified that just before the accident occurred, he
was standing on deck, and remarked to some one beside
him, that the pilot knew his business. He
thought the wood-boat was very much overloaded,
and said the track kept by the Caution was the
usual one, to his certain knowledge, as he had often
seen steamboats on it. Other witnesses were called
who testified to the same. The Captain's counsel
made a very able and convincing argument in his
behalf. But the plaintiff's counsel was to be heard,
and of all the orators Ralph thought he had ever
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listened to, in certain qualities of that divine art,
qualities of which we discern nothing in Demosthenes
or Cicero, and which are, of course, modern
improvements, this worthy took the lead. Certain
steamers in plying from Louisville to Cincinnati had,
it seems, at least in the opinion of the good citizens
of this town, committed many outrages on the rights
and privileges of the good people, particularly the
flatboat-men of Indiana. There was prevailing,
therefore a great excitement against them, and the
sanctum of magisterial justice was thronged with a
motley crowd, panting for retributive justice against
all steamboats, which, like Gulliver in the court of the
Lilliputians, without being moved by his good intentions,
had scattered their water to the injury, and
against the dignity of the flatboats. Of this excitement
the plaintiff's lawyer, who seemed after a
fashion a clever enough counsel in both senses of
the word, took a shrewd advantage. He did not
pretend to argue the case at all. He denounced
steamboats as great big, puffed up aristocrats, who
considered all the river theirs, and who held it a mere
circumstance to ride over shoals of little democratic
flatboats. “Yes, sir,” said he, we quote, as above,
his very language, “these big-bellied aristocrats kick
out of their way, our poor son of a — (he said
plainly what may not be written plainly,) of a democratic
wood-boat, without condescending to give
them notice to keep out—but the law, sir, the law,
sir, it's democratic, sir—yes, sir, I say it's
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democratic, and I'll show you, sir, that these puffed up
aristocrats have got to keep out of the way of the
little democrats, and if they sink 'em, sir, they've
got to pay for it.” The Captain's lawyer requested
him to produce the law, and he wound up with a
flourish upon democrats and aristocrats, and started
to his office, like fox-hound from the slip, for it. In
five or ten minutes he returned—all the time silence
reigned, and expectation was on tip-toe—and began
turning over the magistrate's books, to find the book
which it appears some one had abducted from his
office. Ralph thought if folks had purloined his law,
he, by hook or by crook, should obtain some too.
He found not the law in the magistrate's books, and
the opposing lawyer advised him to take out a
search-warrant for it. “I lost the book,” said he,
in reply, “some one's taken it, it's no matter,” and
the magistrate proceeded to give judgment.
After a long exposition of his views of the case,
certainly not so lucid as would have been Marshall's,
he decided that the steamboat was bound either to
have stopped her paddles, and float by the wood boat,
or to have sheered off and passed over the bar, which
the pilot swore he had hugged close to the shore to
avoid, and on which the magistrate believed there
was water enough for the Caution to have passed
over, without any danger of grounding. Therefore,
in the opinion of the magistrate, as the Caution did
not do either of these things—and as the boat was
sunk—but as the captain was not morally in fault,
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he could not give the plaintiff the whole amount of
the damage proven, but decreed that he should pay
twenty dollars.
When the case was decided, Ralph sauntered
through the town, which is beautifully situated, and
rapidly improving. The quay is a very fine one, or
rather will be, as it is not yet finished. It is made
sloping to the water's edge, like that of Cincinnati,
and will be covered with gravel, which it is believed
will form a macadamized landing. The population,
Ralph was informed, is approaching three thousand.
Amused with the incidents of the day which had
whiled him from his melancholy, Ralph rejoiced that
he had attended the trial, and taken an interest in the
scene. The captain having been drawn off from his
duties by the trial, together with most of the crew,
who were in attendance as witnesses, should they be
wanted, the Caution was delayed in consequence
much longer than was expected. It was supposed
she would not be able to start until late on the morning
of the morrow.
The captain and Ralph, therefore, together with
several other passengers, accepted the invitation of
the lawyer of the Caution, a most gentlemanly and
intellectual man, to crack a bottle of champaign with
him.
In the evening they repaired to his house, under
his escort and that of his brother-in-law, and found
he was a husband-bachelor, his lady being absent
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with her child, on a visit to Augusta, Kentucky,
where a year previously they had been married.
This Ralph regretted, as he remembered that one
of his classmates at college, a young buck-eye, had
spoken of her as a most fascinating and accomplished
lady.
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CHAPTER XVII.
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The next morning the crew were busy taking in
the freight of the Caution, which consisted principally
of bacon. Most of the hands were negroes, who
beguiled their task with their accustomed song, in
which all joined in the chorus, as they rolled the
heavy hogshead from the landing on to the steamer,
whose head still towered gallantly above the water,
though her deck was but a few inches from it. Several
of the negroes had their faces fantastically
marked with red paint. There was an Indian among
the firemen, who was a Cherokee, and a good hand,
if kept from the bottle. As the hands took their meals
from the rough boards laid on the bacon barrels, with
which the lower deck was crowded, Ralph, as he
looked over at them, observed the Cherokee was an
enormous feeder. His cheeks were big and flabby,
and his expression stolid and unobservant. Alas for
the red men! how changed their fate! The reflection
is a common-place one, but it struck Ralph none the
less because it has struck others. In the light canoe,
how gallantly this man's tribe has bounded over the
waters, monarch of the wave and wild. And knew
he this? perhaps not—and if he did, his look and
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manner forced the conviction that he would not have
felt it.
Ralph remained on board all the morning of this
day, in lively conversation with several of his fellow
passengers. In the afternoon, he repaired with the
captain's counsel to the magistrate's, where he went
to take the depositions of the pilot and mate, in the
case of the flat-boat, as the captain had appealed to
a higher tribunal; and as his steamer would not be
at this place, in all human probability, at the sitting
of the court, the depositions were obtained to be read
on the trial. After the depositions were taken. Ralph
walked through the town, and greatly to his surprise,
met the brother of a lady whom he had formerly
known, and who had, a year ago, emigrated to this
flourishing place with her brothers, who were engaged
in mercantile operations.
They held a very lively chat until the approaching
twilight warned Ralph to be aboard, as the captain
had said they should leave for Louisville at night.
Accordingly, they left, and, while snug in their
berths, were borne to the chief city of Kentucky.
Speaking merely of appearances, not of her citizens,
Louisville loses in comparison with Cincinnati. The
landing is narrow, muddy, and uneven; but there is a
great bustle of business about it, more so, apparently,
than at the former city; but this may be owing to the
fact that the landing at Louisville, to use a western
phrase, is a mere circumstance to that of Cincinnati,
where, consequently, the operations of business are
more diffused.
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As the Hail Columbia steamer was trying to force
her way through the mud at the entrance of the
canal, in which the boats are transported round the
falls, and as the Caution was to enter it the moment
she got out, and it was not known at what moment
she might succeed, Ralph thought he would step to
a bookstore in sight. He took the precaution of
asking the captain to send for him, should he not be
on board when the Caution was about starting.
Within an hour the captain sent for Ralph. With
a new work under his arm, he hastened on board.
The Hail Columbia had made some demonstrations
of freeing herself from the dominion of mud by the
press of her steam, and the exertions of her crew
with oars, spikes, poles, ropes, &c.; but they proved
so far powerless: she lay but a few feet from where
Ralph last saw her, only emitting an occasional long
breath, like a plethoric man of a hot day, while the
hands were busy unloading to lighten her. From
the deck of the Caution, Ralph for an hour observed
her efforts to come forth, and listened to the crew's
outlandish, odd remarks and jokes upon her. At
last, lumbering from side to side, like a sick elephant,
and creeping like a snail, not as is her wont,
the Hail Columbia passed out of the mouth of the
canal, followed by the General Clarke, which had
come up while the other was struggling to get
through, and had been a half hour astern waiting
her egress. They both dashed into the broad bosom
of the Ohio, the Hail Columbia leading, and made
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for the wharf—then, for a moment, they contended
for the best wharfage, side by side. The Hail Columbia
came so near the Caution, that the hands of
the latter were called to keep her off, while the
Clarke pressed against the former, and it seemed
that the three would be jammed together; but the
Clarke shot ahead, and no damage was done.
The Caution now hurried to the mouth of the
canal, hoping, by a press of steam, to pass the barrier
of mud. She went gallantly to the place where
the Hail Columbia had been so long detained, a host
of idlers watching her, but on reaching it, was as
suddenly stopped as that personage who repaired to
the giant's cave without the magic word. Here
they had, emphatically, a trying time. The boat
was backed, and driven forward with the whole
power of her steam, to stick fast again. Then her
stern was dragged round by ropes affixed to stumps
and logs on the right side of the canal, and the effort
made to force her bow a few feet towards the left
bank, so as to loosen her from the mud. After a
desperate effort, the stern was moved, and then the
same means were applied to the bow, while her
wheels were kept in rapid motion. How powerless!
Like the flutter of a wounded eagle's wing, when
the giant bird is gasping in its last agonies. At last
she moved, and was forced so close to the right
bank, that the efforts of the crew to keep her from
pressing against the jagged stone wall of the canal,—
which certainly is not a model of architectural
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skill—were entirely fruitless. There were several
hands grasping a long pole, and pressing with all their
might against the stones to fend off. Some pressed
with their hands, others with their feet, in many grotesque
attitudes. One Herculean fellow particularly
amused Ralph. He had planted his feet high up the
wall, and with both hands against the railing, and
his head nearly touching them, was shoving off
with all his might. While thus engaged he grunted
forth:
“Hang these canal fellows! they ought to pay us
for going through their canal, and not take pay. If
we pay 'em, why don't they get us through?”
After half an hour of unremitting exertions, the
boat was forced to the other side, and the same labour
renewed in hopes to advance her a few feet, in
which a huge rope was snapped like a pipe stem.
At last she lumbered through without unloading any
of her cargo. But the “winding way” of the canal,
its obstructions, its jagged walls! It is no wonder a
western steamer, with the fiery force within her, impelling
her ahead, and such impediments on both
sides, before and beneath, does not last long. Either
she must yield or they, and therefore it is no marvel
that buckets are broken, and timbers started. It
took the Caution three or four hours to pass through
the canal, and it was one continued struggle with
obstructions. Here the buckets were smashed with
a tremendous crash, there she bounced against a
rock that seemed to have entered the keel, which
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nearly all the time was dragging against the points
of stone with which the canal is built. It was a
source of congratulation to all the passengers, when
the Caution had passed the locks, and was once
more in the Ohio, where she lay by until late the
next morning, to repair the wheels.
Once more she was bounding on the Ohio. A
lovelier sight than the one above him Ralph thought
he had never witnessed. The moon arose like a
virgin queen, who with imperial majesty advances
to her throne, and here and there, in the blue depths
of heaven, the beauties of her court, a beaming star
looked forth. For several melancholy, but not unpleasing
hours, Ralph sat alone on the hurricane
deck, and looked round upon the night. In rippling
sheets of silver the river bounded, and the waves the
steamer threw from her side and left in her track,
seemed like smiles beamed forth by La Belle Revere,
as she welcomed her into her bosom. While far behind,
a melancholy shade spread o'er the waters,
like the parting regret of woman, watching when
her lover's gone. The overhanging banks were
shadowed in the river, in a thousand fantastic
shapes, while the bold bluffs and high woodlands
looked down upon her like a sentinel who watched
and guarded her course. How the past crowded
upon Ralph; nor was it strange that at such an hour
it should come. And her he loved and sought! was
she well? was she all unchanged? had her bright
eye dimmed the least? how touchingly beautiful she
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looked when they parted. And when he should
meet her, would her heart be the same, and her faith
undoubting?
The Caution took on board the next day, a gentleman
who was going south, and who had brought
with him four or five horses, and a little negro boy
to attend them. The little blacky looked wobegone
and worried, and gaped about the steamer, and into
the splendidly furnished cabin like one wonderstricken.
But he soon made the acquaintance of
Antony, the little Dutch cabin boy, and not only became
reconciled but pleased, for in half an hour afterwards,
he was assisting Antony on the guards to
clean the knives, and grinning from ear to ear with
delight and amazement at the account Antony was
giving him of steamboating, and the innumerable fips
he had levied on the passengers. Antony had made
but two trips to New Orleans, and when he first
went on the boat, he was a dull, sheepish boy. Antony
since then had learned a thing or two, and was
conscious of it. His eye, which was much sprightlier
than it had been, betrayed it. His manner of
travelled superiority over the black boy, was just like
that of a gentleman who has taken the grand tour,
towards his neighbour who has never quitted his fireside.
Ralph, who had been observing Antony and
the black boy, was attracted from them by strange
oaths, spoken by some one in a passion, and shouts
of laughter from many voices, from the lower deck.
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He advanced to a part of the upper deck, where he
could see what was going on below, and there beheld
the hands in the act of tying, as he was informed,
one of the deck passengers to the rail, for
presuming, by way of amusement, to heave the lead
and test the depth of the Ohio. They had the amateur
navigator on his knees, with his chest against
the rail and his hands over it, and in not the gentlest
manner, with strong cords, were binding him to it,
while he, uttering imprecations and solicitations in the
same breath, trying now to extricate himself, and
now yielding to their superior force, was every moment
losing his relish for the joke, as theirs increased,
becoming more angry, as he was rendered
less capable of resistance. He at last grew furious,
and made several ineffectual efforts to strike them
with the lead which he held in his bound hand, while
they, nothing fearing or caring, tied him hand and
foot. Ralph was amused the while with an old tar,
who had quit the ocean for the river, because he
liked the grub (alias the food) better on the steamers.
He sat on the rail within five or six feet of the
parties, with an enormous south-wester on his head,
a cap made of tarpaulin, with scarcely any brim before,
but which spread out so amply behind as entirely
to cover the collar of his pea-jacket, and thus
protected his neck and head from the rain, or the
wood, which he has to assist in carrying from the
shore to the boat when the steamer is loading. Jack,
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seemingly a listless spectator, “a looker on in Venice,”
continued slily to hand, unobserved by the
deck passengers, bits of rope to the wrong doers.
As the amateur navigator turned his head first to
one and then to the other, remonstrating, or imprecating,
and latterly vowing unmitigating vengeance,
the old tar, whenever he caught his eye, would instantly
assume a look of most tender commiseration
for his condition. When at last the hands, filled with
fun, left the poor fellow tied, and walked away to
enjoy it, Jack took a seat by him, and expatiated
upon the enormity of any one, but by the captain's
orders, heaving the lead, saying it was a wonder
they had not chucked him into the boiler, or into
the river, or landed him in the woods, and left him
there after an “almighty lynching with the rope's
end.”
“I'd like to loosen you,” said Jack, “but do you
see they might serve me just so if I did.”
“O! no they wouldn't,” replied the bound man in
a low voice, “I wish you would. If you do I'll
treat, stranger, to a certainty.”
“Well,” said Jack, “I'll try,” casting at the same
time a pretended furtive glance at the hands, as if to
see if they were observing him, he proceeded to untie
him. “It shall be done,” he continued, as he unwound
the rope, “but don't say a word about it to
them fellows, if you do, they'll poke you into a treat
for the whole. We can just take the bottle to
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ourselves to-night, when I'm off watch—you can get
the cretur at the bar. These fellows, do you see,
are real alagators, you must let 'em do with you
just as they damn please—but you may depend on
me.”
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CHAPTER XVIII.
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On a clear frosty morning, the Caution arrived at
Perryville. Ralph had been up for some hours in
anxious expectation of reaching it. Before the boat
touched the bank, Ralph leaped on shore with the
hand who carried the line.
A negro, no other than Sam, the boot-black, who
was looking out for a chance of carrying a traveller's
trunk to the Boon House, and thereby earning a
quarter, lifted an old straw hat from his head with
one hand, and drawing the other across his mouth
asked—
“Any baggage, Master?”
“Yes, yes—I've a trunk aboard. Where does
Mr. Lorman live. Do you know Mr. Coil?”
“Mr. Coil?—yes, Master, knows him well—an'
he knows me like a book; he keeps the Boon House—
I tends there 'lection days. Shall I carry your
baggage there, Master?”
“How far is it?”
“Right up there, Master—soon as you get to the
rising you'll see the sign itself—General Boon—
swinging.”
“Here, come show me. Where's Mr. Lorman's?”
“Maybe more 'an a mile off, Master, down the
river.” Sam estimated the distance by the
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remembrance of the walk he had taken there for Dr. Cake,
for which he had only been paid in pills.
“Can I get a horse at Hearty's?”
“Hearty's? O! Mr. Coil's—yes, Master, I 'spect
so.”
“Show me the way there,” said Ralph, walking
hastily before Sam, who followed in a shuffling trot,
saying—
“Soon git there, Master; 'ta'n't far off.”
“Is Mr. Lorman's family well?”
“Yes, Sir, I b'lieve so. That's the Boon House,
Sir,” exclaimed Sam, pointing to it.
“Here,” said Ralph, giving him a piece of money,
“bring my trunk from the boat. Mr. Beckford's
trunk.”
“To the Boon House, Master?”
“Yes, yes!” replied Ralph, as he hurried towards it.
Without observing any person or thing around
him, in his desire to get a speedy conveyance to Mr.
Lorman's, Ralph entered the bar room of the Boon
House, and there beheld Hearty, behind the bar, in
the very act of taking his bitters before breakfast.
“Hearty, my old friend, how are you?” said
Ralph, with emotion, as he advanced towards the
landlord.
“Ay, by the Powers, it is him!” exclaimed the
host of the Boon, placing his glass with emphatic
delight on the bar. “Are ye hearty now, Mr.
Ralph?—We've been expecting—Give us your
hand.” Hearty had left the bar, and grasped
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Ralph's hand. “I'd rather shake your hand, Mr.
Ralph, than any living hand anywhere, bating my
brother's that's dead.”
“How's Mr. Lorman and his family, Hearty?—
Let me have a horse, can you not?”
“What for?”
“To go there.”
“To go there! Ay, by the Powers, you've missed
it;—they're gone!”
“Gone, Hearty!” ejaculated Ralph, throwing himself
in a chair.
“Ahem! ahem! The young gentleman alludes to
the Lormans. They went yesterday, Sir,” remarked
a personage of large proportions, who was seated
in the corner. He proved to be Mr. Bongarden, who
had called in to take his morning bitters with the
landlord. “Yes, they went yesterday. Mr. Davidson
was compelled to go, and they had promised to
visit the lower country with him. Mr. Davidson,
Sir, (addressing Ralph,) to my certain knowledge,
has lately received a great many letters from Washington
City,—I speak knowingly, Sir, for, ahem! I
have the honour, Sir, of being the postmaster of
Perryville,—I don't tell these things publicly, but I
may speak them privately to you and capting Coil—
the capting is my particular friend. As I was observing,
Sir, Mr. Davidson has lately received many
letters from head quarters,—I wish you to observe
gentlemen, that I prophesy something of consequence
will turn up some of these days in the political world.
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As I was observing, in connexion with these letters
from head quarters, Mr. Davidson has received many
letters from the south. Things are not very clear
there. I suspect I know how to put this and that
together. Something will turn up—I say nothing—
but, mark my words, something will turn up, you
may depend upon it, capting Coil, and young gentleman—
I—I myself, Sir, an humble individual in this
community—if I have any honours—any office of
responsibility and trust—I did not seek it—Sir, I
abide by republican principles—it sought me—I myself,
Sir, undertake to prophesy that something new
will —”
Ralph was all worriment at Bongarden's talk, but
he did not like to interrupt him. He looked several
times at Hearty, wondering he was a listener so
long, but he observed him most intently engaged in
mixing a glass of liquor. It was evident Hearty was
paying the postmaster very little attention. Ralph,
notwithstanding his shiness, could not stand the postmaster's
second prophecy. He therefore interrupted
him by asking the landlord—
“When did they go, Hearty?”
“Here,” said Hearty, addressing Ralph in reply,
and handing him the glass he had been mixing; “take
this. You're from a place where they boast of their
drinks. Even Moran thinks he's great shakes at it;
and so he is of a morning, for his hand shakes like
the devil. Here, Mr. Ralph, take this, it will comfort
you—I understand—take this, I want your
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judgment on it. I call it a cocktail of the first water—
yes, and by the Powers, of the first whisky too.”
“Thank you, Hearty, thank you; I have no taste
for liquors in the morning,” said Ralph.
“But I tell you, Mr. Ralph, this will give you a
taste. O! by the Powers, do you remember the
ride we took, when your cousin like to have killt the
pair of us?”
“Where is Henry, Hearty?”
“Gone to the devil, Mr. Ralph.”
“Where is Mr. Lorman, where is Ruth?”
“They're gone the same way, by the Powers.”
“Why, Hearty, I don't understand you, what do
you mean?”
“Mean! why I mean they've all gone down the
river.”
“Ahem! young gentleman,” said the Postmaster,
rising from his chair, and addressing Ralph. “Excuse
me for interrupting you, Capting, but I must go,
I have some letters to write to Washington City.
Young gentleman, you are welcome to our town, I
should be happy, sir, to see you at my store, at the
post-office, of which I have the control. I am the
Postmaster, you have been made aware, sir, and
while you stay in town—What's the gentleman's
name, Capting Coil?”
“Beckford, Mr. Ralph Beckford, he is”—
“While you stay in our city, Mr. Beckford,” continued
the Postmaster, “I shall be happy, sir, to see
you at the post-office. I have there, sir, as you of
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course know—this is a considerable town—I have
there papers from all parts of our country, sir, particularly
from Washington City—and you are welcome,
sir, to call at the post-office, and look over
them while you stay in our city, sir. Good morning,
sir.”
“Good morning, sir,” replied Ralph, rising.
“Ay, my dear sir,” said the Postmaster, as he got
by the door, turning towards Ralph, “are you just
from the east?”
“Yes, sir, directly.”
“Any news there, sir, any political news?”
“None that I heard of, sir,” replied Ralph.
“Ay, is it possible?” said the Postmaster taking a
step towards the door, and then adding—“its strange
how fast, among the initiated, transactions of importance
travel, while the rest of the world, though ever
so intelligent, I cast no reflections, young gentleman—
it's from position, it's from position—remain in
total ignorance. Mark my words, we'll have news
of great matter soon,” and the Postmaster, planting
his cane firmly on the steps of the porch, to assist his
descent, departed.
“Hearty, did Miss Ruth Lorman leave yesterday?”
asked Ralph.
“By the Powers, yesterday! you just missed
them—its a million of pities. They expected you,
but you see Mr. Davidson got letters, and he was
compelled. Never mind, drink your cocktail, and
don't grieve at it. You're welcome to the Boon
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House. You can stay, you see, three or four weeks
in our town, till I show you everything, and make
you acquainted, and then you can follow them, for I
know they'll expect you.”
“What did they say, Hearty?”
“Say! they didn't say anything, that I know of;
but they left letters with young Mr. Bennington.
By the Powers, you'll like him—now I tell you, Mr.
Ralph, this is a whole soul place, you'll like the Kentuckians.
By the Powers, do you remember the
ride we took in the carryall, when we both got spillt
by that chap—Master Henry, as Miss Murray always
called him. I tell you, Mrs. Coil wonders she
didn't take a younger man; she might have had the
pick of all creation. But, you know, there's no accounting
for taste. That puts me in mind of the
cocktail. What do you think of it?”
“I like it, Hearty, very much,” said Ralph;
“Ruth, Miss Lorman was well?”
“Well! to be sure she was, and she was mighty
glad to see Miss—Mrs. Davidson. He's a man that
spends money like dirt, but, by the Powers, he is rather
old.”
“Where can I find Mr. Bennington, Hearty?”
“Why he lives up in the big house you saw to
the right of this, as you came down. You'll see him,
I tell you, Mr. Ralph, time enough. He always stops
in at the Boon House as he goes to the post-office,
and he goes there every morning just after breakfast.
If you go after him, by the Powers, you might find
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him gone, and if you stay here, you'll be sure to find
himself.”
“Hearty, I am a most unlucky fellow!”
“Well, Mr. Ralph, when I look at you, and then at
myself, and find we're so far away from home, I
somehow don't think we're from home at all. I
never—”
“Where is my cousin Henry, Hearty?”
“Now I tell you, Mr. Ralph, if I was you I'd
never call him cousin in all my born days, though
he is your blood relation. You see he like to have
run over you, and, by the Powers, he like to have
done for me—I shall never get over it. You know,
I fell right on my head down that gully, and ever
since that time I never could stand the liquor I did
before—my head must have got cracked in some
way or other to let it in.”
“Why, Hearty, you look very well.”
“O! by Thunder! I feel so, and I look according;
but, you see, since I can't stand the liquor,—so
much of it—and Mrs. Coil being all the time about,
she's so good a soul, and so given up to me, that
most spare odds and ends she comes in and talks,
and she has, seeing, you see, since that tumble that
I can't stand so much, she has a kind of persuaded
me, with sheer kindness and tender words, not to
take so much.”
Hearty's tongue might have run on till it was
tired. Ralph scarcely paid any attention to him,
but sat with his arms folded and head down,
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saddened by the disappointment of not seeing Ruth.
Hearty, however, was interrupted by the entrance
of Dr. Cake, who greeted the landlord, saying:
“Good morning, Captain Coil. I say, how is the
good landlady, this morning?”
“Very well, Doctor—how is it with yourself?”
“I feel a little aguish this morning: these chilly
mornings, I say, predispose the constitution that
way. I say, Captain, if you should feel chilly these
mornings—I say, the least chilly—I have a prescription
that—”
“O! I've felt chilly these two or three mornings,
Doctor; but a little bitters—”
“Ay, I understand—I say, if any of the little ones,
Captain—I mean—Mrs. Coil's well, you say? Good
morning.”
The Doctor proceeded to the porch, and awaiting
a moment till he caught Coil's eye, he beckoned to
him.
Hearty stepped to the side of the Doctor, when
the disciple of Galen drew him to the end of the
porch, and asked—
“Who is that gentleman in there, Captain? He's
a fine-looking young man, I say.”
“Yes; that's the gentleman—I've known him
since he was so high”—holding out his hand about
three feet from the floor. “That's Mr. Beckford,
who is to marry Miss Ruth; and folks say, and, by
the Powers, I believe, he might have got the other.”
“What other, Captain?”
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“Why, Mrs. Davidson to be sure.”
“It a'n't possible! Why she was very rich, I
say, wasn't she?”
“You may say that, Doctor Cake, and tell no
lie.”
“I say, Captain Coil,” remarked the Doctor,
“Miss Ruth is, doubtless, a very fine young lady, I
say—a most superior woman, sir. That unfortunate
affair between Mrs. Bongarden and Miss Judson,
and the talk of that little lying Ferret, that
Miss Lorman's brother fought, I say, that affair
made some of the citizens think Miss Judson and
myself had something to do in those contemptible
reports. But, Captain Coil, I say—I assure you—I
say, sir, on my honour, that I remember once, very
distinctly, I was taking tea with Miss Judson, I say,
before that most unfortunate misunderstanding between
Mrs. Bongarden and her, and we both spoke
in the—I say—most exalted terms of Miss Ruth.
Ferret's boy she whipped most severely with her
own hands for it. You've heard it said he left—I
say—Judson's for a whipping he got. To be sure,
I say, that a little slight circumstance happened—I
say—between Miss Lorman and myself, when she
first came here, that might afterwards have prevented
any sociability between us; but I do think—
though, I say—I have no claims upon Miss Lorman,
yet I do say, that I think Miss Judson and myself
might have been—I say—invited to her house when
her eastern friends were here. It's a matter, I say,
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of no consequence in the world, I say, Captain; for
myself I care nothing—but, sir—I say—Captain
Coil, my principles are such that this aristocracy,
sir—Captain—is inconsistent with the principles of
our government.”
“By jingo, Doctor Cake, I pretend to be a politician;
being once that they nearly made a sheriff
of me; but what's government got to do with inviting
people to your houses?”
“Well, well—I say—Captain, understand me; I
make no complaint. I say, you tell me this gentleman
might have got the other, hey? Well—I say—
there's no accounting for taste.”
“Your right Doctor—you are right, by the Powers,
I said that myself this morning. Come in and try
a cocktail of my invention; made of whisky and
some other things. I'll put it for the fever and ague
against your prescription.”
“Ay—I say—Captain, has it medical qualities?
then I'll try it.”
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CHAPTER XIX.
[figure description] Page 215.[end figure description]
The doctor entered the bar-rom with Hearty;
and while the latter was busily engaged in concocting
the cocktail, the former, pretending to glance
over the “Perryville Champion,” that lay on the
table, cast his eye furtively on Ralph, who had arisen
from his seat, and was walking up and down the
floor.
It occurred to the doctor, after he had entered
the bar-room, that as Ralph was the lover of Ruth,
perhaps, in her letters, she might have mentioned
himself to him. Ralph's moody brow, and the doctor's
own guilty conscience, led him to believe that
if she had, it was not favourably. He, therefore,
drank off the cocktail, certainly without making
any wry faces at the nauseousness of its medicinal
qualities; though he assured Hearty that he was
under the impression it possessed them abundantly,
and hurried out, as he asserted, to see a patient.
“Tell me, Hearty,” said Ralph to the landlord,
after the doctor had left, “what do you know of my
cousin Henry—where is he?”
“Know of him!” said Hearty. Mr. Ralph, you
see, though he is your blood relation, I'll say of him
what I think—and if I was you I wouldn't call him
cousin; for I tell you, that he wanted to abuse Miss
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Ruth and you, here in this very town, just before he
attempted my life the second time. And the thought,
by Thunder, is just come into my head, that the chair
he like to have murdered me with, did as much to
make me weak-headed with respect to liquor, as the
time he run against the carryall and nearly killt me
by that chuck in the gully; besides the shame of the
business. Mr. Ralph,” continued Hearty, after some
hesitancy, “you never heard the ladies speak very
particular of that occasion, did you?”
“Never a word, Hearty, that was not to your
credit.”
“By Thunder, I am glad to hear it.”
“Hearty, you were telling me about Henry.”
“Yes, I was; and he's a fellow whose tricks will
hardly bear telling. He cut from the Boon House
earlier in the morning than you got here, after leaving
me for dead on this floor. He put straight for the
lower country, and he has turned out nothing; and
what is worse, he's turned unto gambling, and the
lowest kind of company. They say he stabbed a
man down there, in a quarrel; and it cost him
pretty much the last of his money to get out of the
scrape.”
“Is it possible!”
“Possible? by Thunder, you don't think he's too
good to do it, do you? Yes, they tell me, he got
into a quarrel with some fellow a-gaming, and dirked
him. That's pretty much all I heard about it; but
I tell you, Mr. Ralph, saving he's your blood
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relation, I believe it. I have heard say—ay! here comes
Mr. Bennington now.”
As Hearty spoke, William Bennington entered
the room. Hearty introduced the young men to
each other.
William greeted Ralph cordially, and told him,
that he had letters for him. “I have business,” said
he, “at my office, you must excuse me at present;
I'll hurry there and send you your letters.”
One of the letters was written jointly by Mr. Davidson
and his lady. Mr. Davidson stated to Ralph,
that imperative business had taken him to the south-west
come weeks earlier than he expected. He regretted
very much himself and lady would not be at
Perryville to meet him; and concluded, by saying,
that, as they were determined to have a visit from
him, to secure to themselves that pleasure, they had
stolen Ruth.—Mrs. Davidson said to him, that she
could not get Ruth to go with her, until she had
told her, that he had promised to visit them; and
she remarked, she held him, both by duty bound and
love, not to stop in Perryville, one moment, after
reading the letter.
The other letter was from Ruth. She informed
him that her father and uncle had gone south, to attend
to a plantation which they had purchased, with
Mr. Davidson's assistance, and which adjoined his.
She said her father wished her to come with Mrs.
Davidson, and see him, which, together with Helen's
pressing invitation, had decided her. She hinted she
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would have had no hesitancy whatever; it would
have been all pleasure to go, if another she might
name had only went with them. But knowing that the
person alluded to was coming, would somewhat relieve
the pain of leaving Perryville, where the only
inducement for her now to remain, would be the
pleasure of meeting him sooner.
“How much more cheerfully,” said Ralph, pressing
the letter to his lips, “Ruth writes, than formerly.
Why there is an archness in the way she mentions
my coming. Yes, bright prospects are opening upon
her father—she is with Helen—and she feels happy!
O! how I do long to see her! She must look better
than when I last saw her—she was then pressed down
with so many cares—so young too, and having to undergo
so many bitter scenes. Ruth, dearest Ruth!
I can scarcely believe that wayward fate has so
much happiness in store for me, as to suffer me to
call you mine!”
Ralph was interrupted in these reflections, by Mr.
Bongarden, the postmaster, who bustled in with a letter
in his hand, and advancing to Ralph, said:
“Ah, my young friend, here you are still, hey?
Well, I'm glad to see you. What is your first name,
if you please, young gentleman?”
“Ralph, sir—Ralph Beckford.”
“Ay, Ralph Beckford. Well, Mr. Beckford, that
was my impression. Our mails, sir, have not been
very regular lately, and I regret, not only as a public
officer—as the postmaster, sir—but I regret it as a
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politician. These are stirring times in politics, sir.
Great excitement prevails, sir. I wish you to mark
my words—something of importance, political importance—
I am exact in what I say, sir—something
of political importance will turn up some of these
days. Did I understand you to say that Ralph was
your name, sir—Ralph Beckford?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Ralph, “that is my name.”
“Well, Mr. Beckford, knowing as I did that your
last name was Beckford, I had the impression, my
young friend, that your first name was Ralph. Upon
my honour, if put upon my oath, I could not tell precisely
why I thought so. But I did most certainly
think so, and it appears that I was right. Yes, sir,
here is a letter for you, I presume—it bears your
name.” The postmaster, with a most courteous bow,
placed the letter in Ralph's hand, and continued:
“No thanks, express no thanks, my young friend,
I am happy to oblige you. Our city, sir, is not quite
large enough yet to have a penny post, but I hope to
live to see it. Strangers, Mr. Ralph Beckford, in
visiting a city like this, do not come to the post-office
nearly as soon as they should. Some affair of consequence
may have happened, political, mercantile,
legal, mechanical, moral or natural, and they know nothing
about it, all for want of calling at the post-office.
And though they get no letters, they learn the
news. I think I may say of myself, sir, without compliment,
that I am not like most public officers; they,
my young friend, hold their duties to be a task, I hold
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mine to be a pleasure. It gives me delight, sir, to
give a gentleman, a traveller, when he is so situated
as not to be able to see the news-papers, and to hear
what's going on in the world—it gives me delight,
sir, real delight, to hold a half an hour's conversation
with him, and give him the run of matters and
things.”
“I feel very much obliged to you indeed, sir,” said
Ralph, who had broken the seal of the letter, but who,
from a sense of courtesy to the postmaster, had not
opened it; “allow me to pay you the postage.”
“That's it, sir,—twenty-five cents. Any thing over,
ahem—the postage is marked on the letter, I believe—
yes, twenty-five cents. My young friend, Mr.
Ralph Beckford, you must call and see me.”
Ralph assured him he would if he remained in
town, and, with a foreboding of ill, he hastily opened
the letter, as the postmaster departed, followed by
Hearty, who said he wanted to have a word with
him.
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CHAPTER XX.
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Ralph's letter was no proof of the truth of presentiments.
He almost leaped for joy on reading it.
It appeared that a rail road, about to go into operation,
was to terminate directly by the property
which he was soon to receive in right of his mother.
The letter was from a celebrated speculator, who
had been a client of Ralph's uncle, and in that way
Ralph slightly knew him. The speculator stated to
Ralph, that on inquiry for him, of his aunt, he was
informed he had departed westward but the day
before. He said that he learned the place of his
destination, and wrote to him instantly. As the property
in question, he remarked, immediately joined a
portion of his own, it would therefore be of more
value to him than to any other person, and he would
consequently give a correspondently higher price for
it. He offered thirty thousand dollars for it, as soon
as Ralph should obtain possession, so as to convey
to him a good title.
“This is a God-send, indeed,” said Ralph, as he
paced the floor with a beaming countenance. “Mr.
and Mrs. Davidson's good opinion of me will remove
any ill impressions that Mr. Lorman may have
against me. I can assist him with this sum, as well
as my aunt. Ruth, dearest Ruth—”
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Ralph was interrupted in his reflections, by the
entrance of Sam, puffing and blowing, with his trunk.
“Master, here's your trunk,” said Sam, “and it's
tarnation heavy. The Captain said he thought you
was a gwine down further with him; the first bell's
rung.”
“Then take the trunk right back, I'll go with
him.”
“You'd better be in a hurry, Master, she was
puffing steam quick.”
“Bring the trunk, then, where's Hearty? no matter,
I can't wait; you must tell him I could not stay
to bid him good-bye.”
“Yes, Master, I will,” said Sam, as he settled
Ralph's trunk upon his shoulder with great alacrity
at the thought of accumulated fees; “I'll tell him it
was untirely onpossible.”
Ralph leaped on board of the boat just as she was
starting, and was soon out of sight of Perryville,
which had not now the magic it once possessed for
him. Nothing of consequence occurred to Ralph
in the first two or three days, and as the boat was
fully freighted, and only stopped to wood, or for a
few minutes to take in a chance passenger, he had
very little opportunity of observation either of the
country or the people.
Ralph was impressed, however, with the view of
the “meeting of the waters,” where the Ohio pours
its waste of waves into the deep and turbid bosom of
the Mississippi. It rained, and heavy clouds were
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driving athwart the heavens. Of course, therefore,
Ralph did not see the confluence as beauty would be
seen in her gala dress. The scene impresses one,
not with the beautiful, but the grand. The Ohio here
rolls a broad tide, as if it was proud of showing the
wealth of waves it contributes to the father of waters.
One could not here appropriately quote Moore's
lines on the fall of Avoco, though the wild of waves
and woods, doubtless, would strike him more than
that scene. On entering the Mississippi, you have a
State to your right and to your left, and a third before
you, while thoughts of what the great west must
be, crowd on your imagination like the innumerable
hosts of heaven, when you attempt to count them.
As the boat on which Ralph was had made so
far a very speedy trip, he had hopes it would overtake
the party from Perryville, as they had only left
that place the day before him.
The next day, towards night, they stopped as usual
to wood, and Ralph went ashore to amuse himself
the while. He had scarcely put his foot upon the
bank, when some one greeted him in a tone of joyful
surprise—
“Why, Ralph—Ralph Beckford!”
He turned, and beheld Mr. Lorman, who was advancing
towards him with extended hands.
“My dear boy, I am glad to see you!” exclaimed
the old gentleman. “I am as glad to see you as
though you were my own son—and I hope you will
soon be as one to me.”
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Ralph, as our readers may suppose, was overjoyed
to see Mr. Lorman.
“Where is Ruth, Mr. Lorman?” he asked. “How
is she?”
“Well, my dear boy, and in that boat which lays
not twenty yards from us. I have been below this,
where I expect to settle, and I was called this way
on some business. Yesterday I was at —, and
on seeing that boat bound down the river, stop, I
went aboard, in hopes of hearing from home, and
so there I found Ruth with all my family, together
with Mr. and Mrs. Davidson. Do you go on board.
I'll step on to your boat and order your baggage to
be taken to ours.”
Ralph took Mr. Lorman at his word, and sprang
with the speed of thought towards the other boat,
which was also wooding. Our readers may be sure
that warm welcomes greeted Ralph—but there was
one who looked on with the feelings of a fiend baffled—
with an intensity of hate and revenge that
almost maddened him—that one was Henry Beckford.
He had entered the boat at a town above, but a
few hours previously, with several of his dissolute
associates, and the first objects that met his eye on
looking into the ladies' cabin, were Mrs. Davidson
and her lord, with Ruth, her father, and the rest of
his family, forming a group of happy faces, and engaged
in lively conversation. Fearful of being recognised,
he hurried to a state-room next to the
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ladies' cabin, which was unoccupied, and which he
instantly took. Through the nearly closed door he
watched, and listened to the talkers.
They hardly would have recognised Henry had
they seen him. His features were bloated and
blotched from intemperance—all traces of their
former beauty had gone. His eye was blood-shot,
his lip livid, and, instead of the easy careless air
that formerly characterized him, he had a bullying
swagger, as if he thought every one near had heard
something against him which he determined to brave.
Even his manner of dress was changed; instead of
the neatness and taste which he formerly displayed
he now exhibited a number of rings upon his fingers,
an immense quantity of gold chain round his neck,
and wore his vest open and affectedly careless, so
as to display it.
Situated as he was, he could overhear every word
that was uttered in the ladies' cabin, as well as observe
the parties. After a pause in the conversation,
Helen said:
“And so, you tell me, Ruth, that the last you
heard of Henry Beckford was that he had stabbed
a man, and with difficulty escaped the consequence?”
“So I have been told,” said Ruth.
“He has not disappointed me in his destiny,” said
Helen, “but I am surprised to learn he had the courage
to stab any one but a woman or a child.”
“That is a severe remark, Helen,” replied Ruth,
“but I fear it is just.”
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Near the state-room in which Henry had placed
himself, were several of his associates playing cards.
The conversation was so loud that they could overhear
it, and at the mention of Henry's name they all
stopped to listen.
“Scissors!” said one of them, as Ruth concluded
her remark, in a whisper to the rest, but which was
so loud that Henry overheard it also; “that's our
Mr. Beckford—our particular friend.”
“Play ahead, Will,—losing one's character is like
losing one's card, a bad business. I wonder who
these women are. Egad, one of them—”
Here the hurried entrance of Ralph turned the
current of the speaker's thoughts. He glanced at
Ralph quickly, and then striking his hand with emphasis
on the table, he said—
“That's a good looking fellow, and that's a good
looking card. Play up.”
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CHAPTER XXI.
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The feelings of Henry Beckford on overhearing
all this, and on the instant seeing his cousin enter,
and the warm greeting they gave him, may be easier
imagined than described. He closed his door, and
tore his hair in an agony of revengeful despair. He
snatched his dagger from his breast, and determined
to rush into the ladies' cabin and deal death to all,
but his purpose failed him. He then plunged the
weapon deep into the side of the berth beside him,
and vowed he would plunge it as deep into the heart
of his cousin. The next moment he drew it out as
if he would strike it into his own bosom, but he had
not the nerve.
“No, no!” said he, unwilling to confess, even to
himself, his cowardly purpose, “why strike myself?
What! have them believe that—have my body
stretched out here under a coroner's inquest—and
have them believe that their happiness drove me to
a suicidal revenge? No—the revenge shall fall upon
them. I will not gratify Helen Murray by such a
deed. She might think it was done for love of her—
love of her, when I hate her even more than the
miser's son. Yes, Murrel and Banks must join me
in this revenge, and then I'll join them, but not till
then.”
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Meanwhile night set in, and Henry still remained
in his state-room. The sky above grew cloudy
and dark, and threatened rain, if not a storm. Henry
looked out upon it through the window with a
congeniality of feeling, and whenever the sound of
the happy voices reached his ear from the cabin, he
would throw his eye that way with the glance of a
demon.
At supper he heard one of his companions ask
loudly “Where Beckford was,” and he overheard
Helen say to Ruth—for they sat at the head of the
table, and near the state-rooms—
“Beckford! he can't mean Master Henry surely.”
“I should not be surprised if he did,” said Ruth.
“Well, if he is here,” rejoined Helen, “I do not
wonder at his not showing his face. He has good
and sufficient reasons therefor, though he had as
many faces as Janus, for each of us could put one
of them to the blush. That's not a wise remark
though, for if he were Janus-faced he could deceive
us.”
When the ladies entered their cabin from the supper
table, with the gentlemen, they had the door of
it closed. On observing it, Henry Beckford threw
a cloak around him, in which to muffle his face,
should Mr. Lorman, Davidson, or his cousin enter
the gentleman's cabin, and entered it himself.
“Beckford,” said one of his associates, “where
have you been?”
“Asleep!” replied Henry, gruffly; and advancing
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to a tall and rather slim man, with a striking, but
bad countenance, he said, “Murrel, step here a moment,
will you? I wish to say a word to you.”
As Henry spoke, he lead the way to the guards
behind the wheel-house, and the person whom he
addressed as Murrel followed him.
“This is a chilly night,” said Murrel, with an
oath, as he closed the door leading to the guards
after him. “What do you want with me?”
“Why, if you expect me to have anything to do
in this scheme of yours, you must assist me in getting
revenge out of persons on board this boat, who
have done me the deepest injuries. You can manage
it for me easily.”
“Well, wait till I get my cloak, and we'll talk
about it.”
As Murrel entered the cabin to get his cloak,
Henry walked along the guards to the door of the
ladies' cabin, which opened on to them, for the purpose
of looking at those against whom he meditated
the most diabolical deeds. He saw them plainly.
Ralph was seated by Ruth with Billy beside his
knee; Mr. Davidson sat by his bride, and Mr. Lorman
was playing with the children. Almost unconsciously
Henry raised his clenched hand to the glass
as he gazed through it. At this moment Ralph arose
from his chair, and Henry started with the fear that
his cousin had seen and recognised him. Henry
stepped so suddenly back that his foot caught in his
cloak, and he pitched against the guards so violently
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as to lose his balance. As he fell overboard he
gave a fearful cry for help; but the wind blew the
cape of his cloak over his face, and amidst the
noise of the wind and the steamer, and in the
darkness, no one heard or saw him. The boat
dashed on her way. Henry's hands became entangled
in his cloak, so that he could not assist himself;
and in a few moments the dark and rapid
waters of the Mississippi rolled over the lifeless
body of Henry Beckford.
Alike unconscious of the fearful revenge Henry
meditated against them, and of his fate, the happy
party were borne upon their way. They soon
reached the place of their destination in safety. Mr.
Lorman, assisted by Mr. Davidson, and with Ralph
a joint purchaser, entered prosperously upon their
plantation, where a few weeks afterwards, Ruth and
Ralph were united.
Though Helen loved her lord, and he doted on
her to idolatry, and threw in her lap princely wealth;
perhaps there were times, as she beheld the deep
and abiding love of Ralph and Ruth, so superior to
all worldly considerations, when a cloud would for
a moment pass over her lovely countenance, a
vague regret may be o'er something of the past,
which she herself could not clearly have defined.
Helen was childless, and she sought in magnificent
entertainments and display, for it suited her husband's
habits, that enjoyment which Ruth found in her
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domestic circle, which promised, like Hearty's, to be a
large one.
Not long after Ruth left Perryville, Dr. Julius Cake
was bound in the silken bonds of Hymen to the amiable
Miss Elizabeth Judson, formerly of —, New
Jersey, as the marriage-notice stated, which was
published in the Perryville Champion. The morning
after the bridal announcement, the bride sent
“Wash-ing-ton” to the Champion-office for several
of the papers containing it. Every one of these
papers Mrs. Bongarden asserted were dropped into
the post-office immediately, directed to —,
New Jersey.
“Yes,” exclaimed Mrs. Bongarden, in speaking
of it to Mrs. Moore, “one of the papers had come
undone, there, I declare to you, Mrs. Moore, you
could see the marriage-notice—stuck under that
picture of a naked boy with an arrow, and marked
all round and round with a pen. I suspect we shall
have some more old maids trotting out here to get
husbands. I wonder who could have writ this
notice! a'n't it foolsome?—`silken bonds,' `amiable
Miss Judson'—I reckon the Doctor—what a fool he
is—will wish he could break his `silken bonds' some
of these days.”
Could there have been any of the spirit of prophecy
in this last remark of Mrs. Bongarden? It
is certain some weeks after his marriage Doctor
Cake was frequently observed to quit his home very
impulsively at different times, and he had been
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overheard asking William Bennington, though he evidently
tried to put the question like one moved
merely by an idle curiosity, upon what grounds
divorces were granted in Kentucky—and whether
an awful wilfulness of temper on the part of a woman,
were good and sufficient reason to break the
bonds. The Doctor said nothing of the texture or
material of the bonds. He could not, of course,
therefore, have alluded to the “silken bonds” that
bound himself to the “amiable Miss Judson,” though
William Bennington was heard to observe, after a
long conversation with the Doctor on this subject—
“That he feared the Doctor's matrimonial cake,
though not all dough, was, like pie-crust, made to
be broken.”
Helen and Ruth, with their lords and the Lormans,
became daily more and more attached to their new
homes. Their chivalrous and friendly neighbours
had greeted them on their arrival with every courtesy,
which ripened almost instantly into the interchange
of the most friendly hospitality—a hospitality
which the writer of these idle pages, though but a
sojourner of a few brief days upon their shores,
can bear testimony is as abundant and free as the
waves of their own mighty river.
THE END.
