Guy Rivers a tale of Georgia |
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| 9. | CHAPTER IX. |
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 | CHAPTER IX. Guy Rivers |  |
9. CHAPTER IX.
Cheerly, at ease, and with an appetite
Which, if the sauce be wanting, shall supply
That which it lacks of, so ye note it not?
Fall to, I pray.”
The wilderness should win the city's loss,
Yet know not of its gain.”
In a few days, so much for the good nursing of
Forrester, and of his soi-disant medical attendant,
Colleton was able to descend to the lower apartments
of the tavern. His wound had been slight,
and its treatment fortunate; his bruises were less
manageable, and from these he suffered infinitely
more than from the shot. With a hardy frame, however,
and an impatient spirit, Ralph contrived to
conquer much of the pain and inconvenience which
they gave him, and proving how much in these
matters depends upon the will, to resume his
erect posture as if nothing had occurred. His
exercise, however, was moderated duly, so as not
to irritate anew his fast healing injuries. On this
point, Forrester, who assumed all the offices of
counsellor, was rigid, and it was only after repeated
overtures on the part of the youth, and a lapse of
several days, in all of which his impatience had
been loud, that he permitted him to descend to the
dinner-table of the inn, in compliance with the
clamorous warning of the huge bell which stood
at the entrance.
It was a subject of much doubt and deliberation
in our mind, whether or not to furnish to the
reader a full and dainty detail of the viands spread
out on the present occasion. A supper or dinner
has at all times been a favourite theme for display
among the romancers. They appear to have
seized upon it for portraiture and description,
with as much reckless avidity usually as the
most hungry knight among them might be conjectured
to exhibit towards the real banquet and
the substantials, after the labour of a hard day's
fight for his honour and his mistress. Regarding
such a theme evidently with an eye of great
favour—possibly, as a common passage of arms,
attesting the due degree of skill necessary for permission
to enter upon the lists—there are few
among our ablest writers in this field that have
withheld their whole strength from the subject.
Scott, following the example of Homer, always
feeds his heroes well; and some excellent lessons
might be gleaned from his writings by those over-delicate
novelists, who seldom furnish hero or heroine
with an appetite at all. Cooper keeps his
adventurers well also, and is particular to have
them fully supplied when in the woods and among
the Indians. We cannot say that Bulwer has often
admitted us to a regular dinner-party—Guloseton
is no exception—unless it be among the rogues
associated with one of his heroes, in the stews of
London; but enough for example, in this particular,
as well as authority, may be found in the industriously
plied labours of the thousand and one
followers and rivals of these great leaders in the
field we speak of. Nor have our purely American
writers—a tribe rather servilely dependent, we are
constrained to admit, upon the dicta of European
authority—disdained imitation in this respect.
from sundry of their works—so far as they appear
to have been penned con amore, and under the influence
of a spirit highly susceptible to the operations
of its own fancies—are devoted to this sort
of description. They have dilated with singular
and conscious felicity, linked with a strange viand-like
fascination of style, fitly illustrative of the subject,—upon
the grace of gravies, the cream of custards,
the currency of currants—the fantasies, in
short, of fish, flesh, and fowl alike; and with a
glorious hocus pocus, worthy of the weird sisters
of Macbeth, they have made the whole earth and
every sea contribute their dainty delectabilities,
as indeed they should, to the pleasing of the palate
of that hero, in whose fortunes, as in duty bound,
the whole world must be so much interested. The
compounds and concatenations of Paris—that centre
of soup and civilization—mingled on the same
board with the more solid characteristics of John
Bull's refectory in London, exhibit a more beautiful
national affinity, than, in political matters, we
can ever hope to see take place between them.
To these we may add the almost savage association
of ponderosities and delicacies, in the furnishing
of which the generous purveyor has seemingly
spared neither labour nor expense, though sacrificing,
most grievously we take it, all pretensions
to good taste and a decent propriety, in the choice
and distribution of his various dishes.
It was therefore, as we have already said, with
a deliberation certainly due to, and imperatively
demanded by the subject, that we debated with ourselves
as to what we should do in the furnishing
our hero's dinner-table. What shall we have, landlord—what's
in the larder, most sweet hostess?
Wanting in the Dame Quickly, and the Mistress
and magnificent of all worthies, Sir John Falstaff,
our apprehensions as to the quality of our viands,
by way of recompense for our other deficiencies,
were only reasonable. We dreaded too, lest with
a reference to what we have all this time been
saying, we should not be able to provide our readers
with that kind and quality of repast, to which
it was but fair to infer their appetites had been
accustomed; and, not without much hesitation,
many misgivings, and a close examination into our
right, as good chroniclers, to withhold any thing
however humble in the progress of our story, we
determined upon the seemingly rash step which
in part we have taken. We perfectly well knew,
that in our semi-barbarian region, south of the Potomac,
or, in more familiar phrase, of Mason's and
Dixon's line—we could not cater so widely or so
variously for the dinner-table as in the land of
notions and novelties, where the apples grow ready
baked, in pies of goodly dimensions, and where
Cape Cod, tendering its all bountiful aids and auxiliars,
robs the sea-serpent of those delicate fins for
which, it appears, in just revenge, he has pursued
the smackmen into the very harbours of Yankee
land. Our apprehensions may well be conceived,
therefore, though it passes our ability to describe
them, until, calling a council of war with our
hostess, Mrs. Dorothy Munro,—whom your eye
may perceive doling out sundry capacious plates
of soup from the corpulent vessel beside her,—
we determined, in few words, rather with the
view to the enlightenment than the temptation of
the reader, to set the repast, such as it is, without
further hesitation before him.
The company at the dinner-table was much less
numerous than that assembled in the great hall at
present were not residents, but visiters in the village
from the neighbouring country, who had congregated
there, as is usually the case, on each
Saturday of the week, with the view not less to
the procuring of their necessaries, than the enjoyment
of company. Having attended in the first
place to the ostensible objects of their visit, the village
tavern, in the usual phrase, “brought them
up;” and in social, yet wild carousal, they commonly
spent the residue of the day. It was in
this way that they met their acquaintance—found
society, and obtained the news; objects of primary
importance, at all times, with a people whose insulated
positions, removed from the busy mart
and the stirring crowd, left them no alternative
but to do this or rust altogether. The regular
lodgers of the tavern were not numerous therefore,
and consisted in the main of those labourers in the
diggings who had not yet acquired the means of
establishing a household of their own.
There was little form or ceremony in the proceedings
of the repast. Colleton was introduced
by a few words from the landlord to the landlady,
Mrs. Dorothy aforesaid, and to a young girl, her
niece, who sat beside her. It does not need that we
say much in regard to the former—she interferes
with no heart in our story; but Lucy, her niece,
may not be overlooked so casually. She has not
only attractions in herself which claim our notice,
but occupies no minor interest in the story we propose
to narrate. Her figure was finely formed,
slight and delicate, but neither diminutive nor feeble
—of fair proportion, symmetry, and an ease and
grace of carriage and manners belonging to a far
more refined stage of social organization than that
in which we find her. But this is easily accounted
trouble of dwelling farther upon it now. Her skin,
though slightly tinged by the sun, was beautifully
smooth and fair. Her features might not be held
regular; perhaps not exactly such as in a critical
examination we should call or consider handsome;
but they were attractive nevertheless, strongly
marked, and well defined. Her eyes were darkly
blue; not languishingly so, but on the contrary
rather lively and intelligent in their accustomed expression.
Her mouth, exquisitely chiselled, and
coloured by the deepest blushes of the rose, had a
seductive persuasiveness about it that might readily
win one's own to some unconscious liberties; while
the natural position of the lips, leaving them slightly
parted, gave to the eye an added attraction in the
double range which was displayed beneath of pearl-like
and well-formed teeth; her hair was unconfined,
but short; and rendered the expression of her features
more youthful and girl-like than might have
been the result of its formal arrangement—it was
beautifully glossy, and of a dark brown colour.
Her demeanour was that of maidenly reserve and
a lady-like dignity, a quiet serenity, approaching
—at periods, when any remark calculated to infringe
in the slightest degree upon those precincts
with which feminine delicacy and form have
guarded its possessor—a stern severity of glance,
approving her a creature taught in the true school
of propriety, and chastened with a spirit that slept
not on a watch, always of perilous exposure in one
so young and of her sex. On more than one occasion
did Ralph, in the course of the dinner, remark
the indignant fire flashing from her intelligent
eye, when the rude speech of some untaught boor
assailed a sense finely wrought to appreciate the
proper boundaries to the always adventurous footstep
assured from these occasional glimpses that her education
had been derived from a different influence,
and that her spirit deeply felt and deplored the humiliation
of her present condition and abode.
The dinner-table, to which we now come, and
which two or three negroes have been busily employed
in cumbering with well filled plates and
dishes, was most plentifully furnished; though but
few of its contents could properly be classed
under the head of delicacies. There were eggs
and ham, hot biscuits, hominy, milk, marmalade,
venison, Johnny, or journey cakes, and dried
fruits stewed. These, with the preparatory soup,
formed the chief components of the repast. Every
thing was served up in a style of neatness and
cleanliness, that, after all, was perhaps the best of
all possible recommendations to the feast; and
Ralph soon found himself quite as busily employed
as was consistent with prudence, in the destruction
and overthrow of the tower of biscuits, the pile
of eggs, and such other of the edibles around him
as were least likely to prove injurious to his debilitated
system. The table was not large and the
seats were soon occupied. Villager after villager
had made his appearance and taken his place without
calling for observation; and, indeed, so busily
were all employed, that he who should have made
his entrée at such a time with an emphasis commanding
notice, might, not without reason, have been set
down as truly and indefensibly impertinent. So
might one have thought, not employed in like manner
and surveying the prospect. Forrester alone
contrived to be less selfish than those about him,
and our hero found his attentions at times rather
troublesome and provoking. Whatever in the eye
and estimation of the woodman seemed attractive, he
him to eat, long after the main supplies had been
furnished to the activity of his masticatory members.
Chancing at one of these periods of polite
provision on the part of his quondam friend, to
direct his glance to the opposite extreme of the
table, he was struck with the appearance of a man
whose eyes were fixed upon himself with an expression
which he could neither comprehend nor
tolerate. The look of this man was naturally of a
sinister kind, but now his eyes wore a malignant
aspect, which not only aroused the youth's remark
and indignant retort through the same medium, but
struck him as indicating a feeling of hatred to
himself of a most singular character. Meeting
thus the responsive look of the youth, the stranger
rose hurriedly and left the table, but still lingered
in the room. Ralph was struck with his features,
which it appeared to him he had seen before,
but as the person wore around his cheeks, encompassing
his head, a thick handkerchief, it was impossible
for him to decide well upon them. He
turned to Forrester, who was busily intent upon the
dissection of a chicken, and in a low tone inquired
the name of the stranger. The woodman looked
up and replied—
“Who, that?—that's Guy Rivers—though what
he's got his head tied up for I can't say. I'll ask
him—” and with the word, he at once did so.
In answer to the question, Rivers explained his
bandaging by charging his jaws to have caught cold
rather against his will, and to have swelled somewhat
in consequence—and while making this reply,
our hero again caught his glance, curiously fixed
upon himself, with an expression which again provoked
his surprise, and occasioned a gathering
sternness in the look of fiery indignation which he
left the apartment. The eye of Ralph changed
its direction, and beheld that of the young maiden
observing him closely, with an expression of countenance
so alive with anxiety, that he felt persuaded
she must have beheld the mute intercourse, if so
we may call it, between himself and the person
whose conduct had so ruffled him. The colour
had fled from her cheek, and there was something of
warning in her gaze. The polish and propriety
which had distinguished her conduct so far as he
had seen it, was so different from any thing that he
had been led to expect, and reminded him so
strongly of associations of another region, that,
rising from the table, he approached the place
where she sat, took a chair beside her, and with a
gentleness and ease of manner, the due result of
his own education and of the world he had lived
in, commenced a conversation on trivial and legitimate
topics, and was pleased to find himself encountered
by a modest freedom of opinion, a grace
of manner, and a general intelligence, which promised
him better company than he had looked for.
The villagers had left the apartment, all but Forrester;
who, following Ralph's example, took up
a seat beside him, and sat a pleased listener to a
dialogue in which the intellectual charm was strong
enough, except at very occasional periods, to prevent
him from contributing much. The old lady
sat silently by. She was a trembling, timid body,
thin, pale, and emaciated, who appeared to have
suffered much, and certainly stood in as much awe
of the man whose name she bore as it was well
fitting in such a relationship to permit. She said
as little as Forrester, but seemed equally well
pleased with the attentions and the conversation of
the youth.
“Find you not this place lonesome, Miss Munro?
You have been used, or I mistake much, to a more
cheering, a more civilized region.”
“I have, sir, and sometimes I repine—not so
much at the world I live in, as for the world I have
lost. Had I those about me with whom my earlier
years were passed, the lonely situation and the
little circle would trouble me slightly.”
She uttered these words with a sorrowful voice,
and the moisture gathered around the blue spheres,
which derived additional brightness from its proximity.
The youth, after a passing and commonplace
remark upon the vast difference upon the
heart between moral and physical privations, went
on—
“Perhaps, Miss Munro, with a true knowledge
of all the conditions of life, there may be thought
little philosophy in the tears we shed at such privations.
The fortune that is unavoidable, however,
I have always found the more deplorable for
that very reason. I shall have to watch well, that I
too be not surprised with regrets of a like nature
with your own, since I find myself recurring mentally
to a world which perhaps I shall have little
more to do with.”
Rising from her seat, and leaving the room as
she spoke, with a smile of studied gayety upon her
countenance, full also of earnestness and a significance
of manner that awakened surprise in the
person addressed, the maiden replied—
“Let me suggest, sir, that you observe well the
world you are in; and do not forget, in recurring to
that which you leave, that while deploring the loss of
friends in the one you may be unconscious of the
enemies which surround you in the other. Perhaps,
sir, you will find my philosophy in this particular
the most useful, if not the most agreeable.”
Wondering at her language, which, though of
general remark, and fairly deducible from the conversation,
he could not avoid referring to a peculiar
origin, the youth rose, and bowed with respectful
courtesy as she retired. His eye followed
her form for an instant, while his meditations momentarily
wrapped themselves up more and more
in inextricable mysteries, from which his utmost
ingenuity of thought failed entirely to disentangle
him. In a maze of conjecture he passed from the
room into the passage adjoining, and, taking advantage
of its long range, promenaded with steps, and
a spirit, now moody and uncertain. In a little time
he was joined by Forrester, who seemed solicitous
to divert his mind and relieve his melancholy, by
describing the country round, the pursuits, characters
and conditions of the people—the habits of
the miners, and the productiveness of their employ,
in a manner inartificial and modest, and sometimes
highly entertaining. While engaged in this
way, the eye of Ralph caught the look of
Rivers, again fixed upon him from the doorway
leading into the great hall; and without a moment's
hesitation, with impetuous step, he advanced towards
him, determined on some explanation of that
curious interest which had become offensive; but
when he approached him with this object the individual
sought hastily left the passage. Taking Forrester's
arm, Ralph also left the house, in the hope
to encounter him in the neighbourhood; but failing
in this, they proceeded to examine the village, or
such portions of it as might be surveyed without
too much fatigue to the wounded man—whose
hurts, though superficial, might by imprudence become
troublesome. They rambled till the sun
went down, and at length returned to the tavern.
This building, as we have elsewhere said, was of
seem, rather for a temporary and occasional than a
lasting shelter. Its architecture, compared with
that even of the surrounding log houses of the
country generally, was excessively rude; its parts
were out of all relative proportion, fitted seemingly
by an eye the most indifferent, and certainly
without any, the most distant regard, to square and
compass. It consisted of two stories, the upper
being assigned to the sleeping apartments. Each
floor contained four rooms, accessible all, independently
of one another, by entrances from a great
passage, running both above and below, through
the centre of the structure. In addition to the
main building, a shed in the rear of the main work
afforded four other apartments, rather more closely
constructed and in somewhat better finish than the
rest of the structure: these were in the occupation
of the family exclusively. The logs, in this
work, were barbarously uneven, and hewn only to
a degree barely sufficient to permit of a tolerable
level when placed one upon the other. Morticed
together at the ends, so very loosely had the work
been done, that a timid observer, and one not accustomed
to the survey of such fabrics, might entertain
many misgivings of its security when one
of those severe hurricanes were raging which in
some seasons of the year so dreadfully desolate
the southern and southwestern country. Chimneys
of clay and stone intermixed, of the rudest
fashion, projected from the two ends of the building,
threatening, with the toppling aspect which they
wore, the careless way farer, and leaving it something
more than doubtful whether the oblique and outward
direction which they took was not the result of a wise
precaution against a degree of contiguity with the
fabric they were meant to warm, which, from the
unfavourable to the protracted existence of either.
The interior of the building aptly accorded with
its outline. It was unceiled, and the rude March
winds were only excluded from access through the
interstices between the remotely allied logs, by the
free use of the soft clay easily attainable in all that
range of country. The light on each side of the
building was received through the medium of a
few small windows, one of which only was allotted
to each apartment, and this was generally found to
possess as many, and perhaps as fully secure
modes of fastening as those of the jail opposite—a
precaution referable to the great dread of the Indian
outrages, and which their near neighbourhood
and irresponsible and vicious habits were well calculated
to inspire. The furniture of the hotel
amply accorded with all the other features of the
Chestatee Public. A single large and two small
tables—a few old oaken chairs, of domestic manufacture,
with bottoms made of the ox or deer
skin, tightly drawn over the seat, and either tied
below with small cords or tacked upon the sides—
a broken mirror, that stood ostentatiously over the
mantel, surmounted in turn by a well-smoked picture
of the Washington family, in a tarnished gilt
frame, asserting the Americanism of the proprietor
and place—completed the contents of the great
hall, and was a fair specimen of what might be
found in all the other apartments. The tavern
itself, in reference to the obvious pursuit of many
of those who made it their home, was entitled the
“Golden Egg”—a title made sufficiently notorious
to the spectator, from a huge signboard, elevated
some eight or ten feet above the building itself, bearing
upon a light blue ground a monstrous egg of
the deepest yellow, the effect of which was duly
all round it—the artist, in this way, calculating
no doubt to afford the object so encircled its legitimate
relief. Lest, however, his design in the
painting itself should be at all questionable, he had
taken the wise precaution of showing what he
meant by printing the words “Golden Egg,” in
huge Roman letters beneath it—these, in turn, being
placed above another inscription, running, “Entertainment
for man and horse.”
But the night had now closed in and coffee was
in progress. Ralph took his seat with the rest of
the lodgers of the “Golden Egg,” though without
partaking of the feast. Rivers did not make his
appearance, much to the chagrin of the youth,
who was excessively desirous to account for the
curious observance of this man. He had some notion
besides that the former was not utterly unknown
to him; for though unable to identify him
with any one recollection, his features (what could
be seen of them) were certainly not altogether unfamiliar.
After supper, requesting Forrester's
company in his chamber, he left the company, not
however without a few moments of chat with
Lucy Munro and her aunt, conducted with some
spirit by the former, and seemingly much to the
satisfaction of all. As they left the room, Ralph
spoke:
“I am not now disposed for sleep, Forrester, and
if you please, I should be glad to hear further about
your village and the country at large. Something,
too, I would like to know of this man Rivers,
whose face strikes me as one that I should know,
and whose eyes have been haunting me to-day
rather more frequently than I altogether like, or
shall be willing to submit to. Give me an hour,
talk over these matters together.”
“Well, 'squire, that's just what pleases me now.
I like good company, and 'twill be more satisfaction
to me, I reckon, than to you. As for fatigue,
that's out of the question. Somehow or other, I
never feel fatigued when I've got somebody to talk
to.”
“With such a disposition, I wonder, Forrester,
you have not been more intimate with the young
lady of the house. Miss Lucy seems quite an intelligent
girl, well-behaved and virtuous.”
“Why, 'squire, she is all that; but though modest
and not proud, as you may see, yet she's a
little above my mark. She is book-learned, and I
am not; and she paints, and is a musician too, and
has all the accomplishments. She was an only
child, and her father was quite another sort of person
from his brother who now has her in management.”
“She is an orphan, then?”
“Yes, poor girl, and she feels pretty clearly that
this isn't the sort of country in which she has a
right to live. I like her very well, but, as I say,
she's a little above me; and besides, you must know,
'squire, I'm rather fixed in another quarter.”
They had now reached the chamber of our hero,
and the servant having placed the light and retired,
the parties took seats, and the conversation recommenced.
“I know not how it is, Forrester,” said the youth,
“but there are few men whose looks I so little like,
and whom I would more willingly avoid, than that
man Rivers. What he is I know not—but I dislike
his face. I may be doing wrong to the man,
and injustice to his character; but, really, his eye
strikes me as singularly malicious, almost murderous;
time, it provoked something of a shudder to-day
when it met my own, which I was most heartily
ashamed of, but which I could not well prevent. He
may be, and perhaps you may be able to say,
whether he is a worthy person or not—for my
part, I should only regard him as one to be watched
jealously and carefully avoided. There is something
creepingly malignant in the look which shoots
out from his eyes, like that of the rattlesnake,
when coiled and partially concealed in the brake.
When I looked upon this man's eye, as it somewhat
impertinently singled me out for observation, I almost
felt disposed to lift my heel as if the venomous
reptile were crawling under it.”
“You are not the only one, 'squire, that's afraid
of Guy Rivers.”
“Afraid of him! you mistake me, Forrester; I
fear no man—” replied the youth, somewhat hastily
interrupting the woodman. “I am not apt to
fear, and certainly have no such feeling in relation
to this person. I distrust, and would avoid him,
merely as one, who, while possessing none of the
beauty, may yet have many of the propensities and
some of the poison of the snake to which I likened
him.”
“Well, squire, I didn't use the right word, that's
certain, when I said afraid, you see; because 't'ant
in Carolina and Georgia, and hereabouts that cowards
grow well, or men are apt to get frightened
at trifles. But, as you say, Guy Rivers is not the
man, and everybody here knows it, and keeps
clear of him. None care to say much to him except
when it's a matter of necessity, and then they
say as little as may be. Nobody knows much
about him—he is here to-day and gone to-morrow
—and we never see much of him except when
Munro, and they keep together at all times I
believe; he has money, and knows how to spend
it. Where he gets it, is quite another thing.”
“What can be the source of the intimacy between
himself and Munro? Is he interested in the
hotel?”
“Why, I can't say for that, but I think not. The
fact is, the tavern is nothing to Munro; he don't
care a straw about it, and some among us do
whisper, that he only keeps it a-going as a kind
of cover and apology for other practices. There's
no doubt that they drive some trade together,
though what it is I can't say, and never gave myself
much trouble to inquire. I can tell you what
though, there's no doubt on my mind that he's trying
to get Miss Lucy—they say he's fond of her—
but I know for myself she hates and despises him,
and don't stop to let him see it.”
“She will not have him then, you think?”
“I know she won't if she can help it. But, poor
girl, what can she do? she's at the mercy, as you
may say, of Munro, who is her father's brother—
and he don't care a straw for her likes or dislikes.
If he says the word, I reckon she can have nothing
to say which will help her much out of the difficulty.
I'm sure he wont regard prayers, or tears,
or any of her objections.”
“It's a sad misfortune to be forced into connexion
with one in whom we may not confide—
whom we can have no sympathy with—whom we
cannot love!”
“'Tis so, squire—and that's just her case, and she
hates to see the very face of him, and avoids him
whenever she can do so, without giving offence
to her uncle, who, they say, has spoke to and
threatened her bitterly about the scornful treatment
person, man or woman, can do otherwise than despise
the fellow; for, look you, squire, over and
above his sulky, sour looks, and his haughty conduct,
would you believe it, he wont drink himself,
yet he's always for getting other people drunk. But
that's not all: he's a quarrelsome, spiteful, sore-headed
chap, that wont do as other people. He
never laughs heartily like a man, but always in a
half sniffling sort of manner that actually makes
me sick at my stomach. Then, he never plays and
makes merry along with us, and, if he does, harm is
always sure, somehow or other, to come of it.
When other people dance and frolic, he stands
apart, with a sour scorn in his face, and his black
brows gathering clouds in such a way that he
would put a stop to all sport if people were only
fools enough to mind him. For my part, I take
care to have just as little to say to him as possible,
and he to me, indeed; for he knows me just as
well as I know him, and he knows too that if he
only dared to crook his finger, I'm just the man
that would mount him on the spot.”
Ralph could not exactly comprehend the force
of some of the objections urged by his companion to
the character of Rivers—those, in particular, which
described his aversion to the sports common to the
people, only indicated a severe temper of mind and
habit, and though rather in bad taste, were certainly
not criminal. Still there was enough to confirm
his own hastily formed suspicions of this person,
and to determine him more fully upon a circumspect
habit while in his neighbourhood. He saw
that his dislike and doubt were fully partaken of
by those, who, from circumstance and not choice,
were his associates; and felt satisfied, though as
we have seen, without the knowledge of any one
for his antipathy, that a feeling so general as
Forrester described it, could not be altogether without
foundation. He felt assured, by an innate
prediction of his own spirit, unuttered to his companion,
that, at some period, he should find his anticipations
of this man's guilt fully realized, though,
at that moment, he did not dream that he, himself,
in becoming his victim, should furnish to his own
mind an almost irrefutable argument in support
of that incoherent notion of relative sympathies
and antipathies to which he had already, seemingly,
given himself up.
The dialogue, now diverted to other topics, was
not much longer protracted. The hour grew
late, and the shutting up of the house, and the retiring
of the family below, warned Forrester of
the propriety of making his own retreat to the
little cabin in which he took up his abode. He
shook Ralph's hand warmly, and promising to see
him at an early hour of the morning, took his departure.
A degree of intimacy, rather inconsistent
with our youth's wonted haughtiness of habit, had
sprung up between himself and the woodman, enlivened,
doubtless, on the part of the former, by the
loneliness, and, to him, novel character of his situation.
He was cheerless and melancholy, and the
association of a warm, well-meaning spirit, had
something consolatory in it. He thought too, and
correctly, that in the mind and character of Forrester
he discovered a large degree of sturdy
manly simplicity and a genuine honesty; coloured
deeply with prejudices and without much polish,
it is true, but highly susceptible of improvement,
and by no means stubborn or unreasonable in the
retention of the former. He could not but esteem
the possessor of such characteristics, particularly
his associates; and, without any other assurance
of their possession by Forrester than the sympathies
already referred to, he was not unwilling
to recognise their existence in his person. That
he came from the same part of the world with
himself may also have had its effect—the more
particularly, indeed, as the pride of birth-place
was evidently a consideration with the woodman,
and the praises of Carolina were rung along with
his own, in every variety of change, through almost
all his speeches.
The youth sat musing for some time after the
departure of Forrester. He was evidently employed
in chewing the cud of sweet and bitter
thought, and referring to memories deeply imbued
with the closely associated taste of both
these extremes. After a while, the weakness of
heart got seemingly the mastery, long battled
with; and tearing open his vest, he displayed the
massive gold chain circling his bosom in repeated
folds, upon which hung the small locket containing
Edith's and his own miniature. Looking
over his shoulder, as he gazed upon it, we are
enabled to see the fair features of that sweet young
girl, just entering her womanhood—her blue eyes,
her streaming hair, the cheek delicately pale, yet
enlivened with a southern fire, that seems not improperly
borrowed from the warm eyes that glisten
above it. The ringlets gather in amorous clusters
upon her shoulder, and half obscure a neck and
bosom of the purest and most polished ivory.
The artist had caught from his subject something
of inspiration, and the rounded bust seemed to heave
before the sight, as if impregnated with the subtlest
and sweetest life. The youth carried the
semblance to his lips, and muttered words of love
unison, that, could she have heard to whom they
were seemingly addressed, it might have been
difficult to have determined the difference of signification
between them. Gazing upon it long, and
in silence, a large but solitary tear gathered in his
eye, and finally finding its way through his fingers,
rested upon the lovely features that appeared never
heretofore to have been conscious of such a cloud.
As if there had been something of impiety and pollution
in this blot upon so fair an outline, he hastily
brushed it away; then pressing the features again
to his lips, he hurried the jewelled token again
into his bosom, and prepared himself for those
slumbers upon which we forbear longer to intrude.
| CHAPTER IX. Guy Rivers | |