University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.

The necessary documents had come, court was
over in Raymond, and on a cold, frosty morning,
while yet the day only glimmered with a faint redness
through the eastern chinks, Harry Vernon,
booted and spurred, prepared to mount his good
steed, on his journey of adventure. Carter stood
beside him, having given his last instructions. He
was visibly affected with the thought of parting from
one whom he regarded as warmly as he could have
done his own and only child; and this feeling was
much increased, as he beheld the unreluctant and
prompt determination of the youth to undertake and
execute to the best of his abilities, a labour which
involved the prospect of so much fatigue, and, possibly
of so much peril. This last consideration, at the
moment of separation pleaded more strongly in the
old man's mind than any other.

“And yet, Harry, my son,” said he, “when I hear
of this banditti, and behold the audacity with which
they act, I am afraid to let you go. God forbid that
you should risk your life that I might recover or save
a few thousands, which I should be suffered but a few

years to enjoy, and which I need not now. It is not
too late—let William Maitland go, and prosper, if
he may, with his ill-gotten treasures,—why should I
send after him, to possible loss, one that I value so
much more? Why should you take this toil, which
takes you from a profession which you have so
honourably begun; and carries you among the profligate
and the dangerous.”

“Nay, nay, my more than father;” replied the
youth affectionately, “you make the risks too great,
and the matter less important than it is. There is
but little danger, I trust, as I shall manage the pursuit;
and it was only in order to avoid unnecessary
encounters, that I declined accepting the governor's
offers. On this point I shall be well guarded. I
shall proceed slowly, moderately; neither seeking
the crowd, nor yet avoiding it; and only penetrating
into forbidden places, when there are probabilities of
my finding William Maitland within. The loss is
much greater than you think for, since, though you
are liable only for the amount of your bond, yet, in
a moral point of view, you are not free from responsibility
for all the money over that amount, of which
he has robbed the bank. Your readiness to answer
for his honesty, implied in your guarantee for so much
money, induced their trusts; and though they may
demand of you but thirty thousand dollars in law,
in morals you owe it clearly to them to spare no
exertions which shall, in addition, get them back the
other sums for which they have no responsible
guarantee. A moment's reflection, under your own
convictions of what is right, must clearly establish
to your mind this truth. As for my danger—set
your heart at rest, as I shall certainly set mine. I
have a cool, deliberate temper, which will not flare
up at every fool's folly, and I am, I think, sufficiently
under the guidance of prudent thought, to keep from

the heels of any brute in his moment of anger.
Give me your prayers, my dear sir, when I am
gone, and I know not that I shall find or need any
better protection.”

“Yet it is needful, my son, that you have some of
the more carnal engines. You have weapons?”

“Enough, if pistol and bowie-knife can ever be
enough. I have a pair of pistols, and a small but
heavy knife. I doubt if I shall need them.”

“I have then only to repeat what I have said before,
Harry: I have no desire to drive this man to
utter destitution. He has children—the children of
Ellen Taylor, and she in her grave. God forbid that
I should do any thing to make them destitute or
wretched. Let him yield up every thing, and, as I
have told you, I will secure to them the sum of
twenty-five thousand dollars, under such restrictions
as will keep it from his creditors, and from his own
profligacy. I need not say to you, however, that he
is one upon whom you cannot rely; you must have
him in your power; you must keep him in your
power, and the money must be disgorged, before
you sign papers. Avoid, I need scarcely tell you,
all unnecessary exposure of his villany, for her
sake, for the sake of her children, both of whom are
females.”

“You have written, sir, to Mason at Vicksburg?”

“Yes, and to Fleetwood at Benton, and Mercer
at Lexington. They will provide you with funds
when called upon.”

“There is nothing more to be asked,” said the
youth, leaping to his saddle. “I will write to you
at Natchez when necessary. God bless you, my
dear sir, and keep you in health—farewell!”

He did not stop to hear the parting accents,
tremblingly uttered, which the good man sent after
him in blessings. In ten minutes the forest had

shrouded him from sight, and the tearful eyes of
Carter strained after him in vain.

Let us return to Saxon, otherwise Clement Foster,
the outlaw of Alabama. Having satisfied himself,
by personal inquiry, of the condition of Hawkins,
his companion, in Raymond, he left the village at
midnight, and, to verify the Scripture phrase which
denies all rest to the wicked, he rode nearly fifteen
miles at that late hour of the night. His course lay
somewhat across the country in the direction of
Grand Gulf, and came at length to a little farmstead
which stood in a half dilapidated condition at the head
of a turn-out, that is barely perceptible at any
time from the road, and only obvious at night to one
familiar with it. Here he routed up two men, who
proved his confederates, and with whom he conferred
for an hour before retiring to rest. This he did at
length in a shed-room of the hovel, which, it would
seem from the tacit manner in which it was got in
readiness for him, without orders, was reserved for
him especially. Some portions of his conference
with these men, as they may affect this narrative,
should be given to the reader.

“Has Jones come up from Pontchartrain?” demanded
the leader.

He was answered by one of the men in the negative.

“He will then be here to-morrow, but I shall not
wait for him. He must go on as fast as horseflesh
will carry him, and meet me if he can at Brown
Betsy's to-morrow night. You can counsel him to
come sober, if he comes at all, for I wish him to
skulk and follow, and play at point-hazard, perhaps,
with as keen a lawyer as rides the Mississippi circuit.
Be sure and tell him this, that he may drink
his alkalis and purge himself of the gin bottle. It
is a day's purgation; but he must do it while he
goes. He brings your share of the money from the

Atchafalaya business; but, by the Lord Harry,
Stanton, money seems to do you little good. You
are even now in rags.”

“That's because I don't get it by good means, I
suppose,” said the fellow spoken to, in half-sleepy,
half-surly accents.

“What, do you preach too, sirrah! But—go to
bed, and forget not when you waken what I tell you
now. You will also remember it, Drake. The matter
is of more consequence than you think for, and
will swamp us all, if we keep not our eyes open and
our heads clear. To sleep—to sleep.”

At day-dawn, the outlaw was again in motion,
visiting other haunts and dwellings of his fraternity,
that lay in his way, while pursuing an upward
course that carried him along the waters of the
Loosa Chitto or Big Black river. It so happened
that this very course was that taken by Vernon,
though the latter, as his progress was straight-forward,
was necessarily much in advance of the outlaw.

At the time of which we write, this region of
country was very thinly settled. The traveller rode
forty or fifty miles per day, very frequently without
seeing sign of human habitation, and his road
lay through swamps that seemed like vast rivers of
mire, which his horse, with a feeling like his own,
would approach with a footstep most mincing and
deliberate. Travel in such a territory is travail, indeed,
and to one accustomed only to the stage and
steamboat facilities of the Atlantic states, it has the
aspect of something even more afflicting. The
swimming of creeks surcharged by freshets, and
wading through the ooze of a cane-brake, each
plunge into which makes the mire quiver around
the very shoulders of your horse, would be something
of a warning to young couples to stay at

home the first month after marriage, in that neighbourhood,
and not go upon connubial expeditions of
two or three hundred miles, just after the knot has
been safely fastened. Its disruption might be no infrequent
consequence of such a doubtful practice.

To one like Vernon, however, bold, and governed
by a temperament that gloried in a dash of romance,
the occasional perils of such a course were lost altogether
in the novelty of the circumstances; and he
dashed through the creek with a confident spur,
without stopping like more wary adventurers to
probe his footing with a pole, then drive his horse
through the stream, while he “cooned a log” above
it. These little obstructions were not unfrequent in
his route, but they offered no impediment to him.
The duties of life and manhood, opening for the first
time upon his consciousness fairly, were provocative
of that stimulant only, which we are apt to see in
the forward boy, to whom nothing gives so much
delight as being permitted to flourish with the tools
of full-grown men. He had neither father nor mother,
with painful misgivings of himself, to awaken
his own painful thoughts; and, unlike most young
men of his age, his heart remained perfectly uncommitted
to any one of the hundred damsels, who, in
every civilized community, seem always to lie in
waiting for vacant hearts. In short, he had little to
lose of positive possession, whether of wealth or of
affection; he had every thing to gain in both respects.
His income was yet limited, and for ties, he
knew none nearer than that with the worthy Mr.
Carter. His present object was calculated to serve
himself no less than his patron, though the handsome
reward offered by the bank for the recovery of the
lost money, or the delivery of the felon, would never
have moved the proud young lawyer from his chosen
place at the bar, but that the interests of his friend—

his preservation, in fact—absolutely required it. But
this the reader already understands.

The turn of noon was at hand, and as yet our
young traveller had eaten nothing. The thought of
himself made him considerate of his horse, a noble
animal, the gift of Carter some two years before. A
pleasant rising-ground on his right, from the foot of
which a little branch wandered prattling across the
road, suggested all necessary conveniences for refreshment,
the other appliances being forthcoming.

“We will ride, Sylvan, up this hill, which seems
grassy enough to give you a good hour's employment,
and, in the meanwhile, Mrs. Horsey's biscuits
and smoked beef shall answer my purposes. The
good old lady!—how she wondered to find her plate
of biscuits missing, and how she routed the cook
and Tom, the waiter, and the whole household, except
the true thief, touching their loss. I suppose
by this time Carter has told her all about it—the
why and the wherefore. Good old man! If I can
only save him this money, I shall feel that I have
done something to deserve the favour which he has
always shown me. If mind and body can do this
thing, such as I have shall be given without stint or
hesitation to the task,—so heaven prosper me in my
own purposes hereafter.”

This soliloquy was muttered as the youth rode his
horse upon the hill, and led him to a spot where he
might graze freely without wandering. He stripped
him of the saddle and valise, which he placed beside
a log, then seating himself, drew forth his little store
of provisions, the biscuits which had been appropriated
by Carter the night before, to the probable consternation
of his worthy landlady. To have asked
for them, would have been to declare the purpose of
travel which Vernon had in view, and this, once
known to the mother would have been soon known to

son Tom, and through his communicative medium to
every third person, at least, in the little world of
Raymond. The knife of our traveller was already
buried in the smoked beef, when his ear distinguished
a sound not unlike that of an approaching horseman.
The ears of his own steed pricked upward at the
sound, and when it became more distinct, the conscious
animal whinnied as if with the joyful conviction
that he was about to have a companion. Vernon
started to his feet as the horseman came in sight,
and was absolutely dumb with astonishment to recognize
at a single glance the person of our eccentric
friend, Tom Horsey. His horse was well heated
by hard riding, and covered with foam; and he
himself, though chuckling mightily at having found
the object of his search, alighted from his steed with
the air of one whose bones ached with his unwonted
jolting.

“Ah, Harry, Harry—what shall I say to thee,
Harry! Shall I call thee a traitor to friendship—to
heel it before day-peep, and say no word to the fellow
most after thy own heart. `That was the unkindest
cut of all.' I did not think it of thee, Harry! By
the ghost of Garrick, I did not!”

Much annoyed at his pursuit and presence, Vernon
was quite too much surprised at the event, and
too curious to know the cause of the actor's pertinacity,
to express himself as freely, and perhaps as
harshly, as he might otherwise have done.

“Truly, Mr. Horsey, I know not what you mean,
or what you have to complain of. I am surprised
to see you here.”

“You need be; you deserve no such love at my
hands, Harry Monmouth. You should have spoken
out like a man—though you said it in a whisper.
Am I a man to blab? Can't I be trusted, think you?
By Pluto, Harry Vernon, I can be as close as Ben

Carter himself, and the dry cock should never have
heard a syllable. Bah, I am monstrous tired. That
rascally horse goes all one-sided,—he has been ruined
by dad, and will never suit any but a lame man
again. I do think he has dislocated my hip.”

“Your father's horse, Mr. Horsey? How can the
old man do without him? You will surely return
with him immediately.”

“Devil a bit, Harry, devil a bit. He deserves to
lose him for not having a better in the stable, and I
will trade him off the first chance, though I get one
old as Methusaleh.”

“But wherefore are you here, Mr. Horsey? You
do not mean to travel, surely.”

“Do I not? Look at the bags!—Filled, sir—filled
to the muzzle, with my best wardrobe. There's a
Romeo and a Hamlet, two field-officers and a Turk
in that wallet, not to speak of certain inexpressibles,
which will do for a dozen uncertain characters.
But—this is dry work. What's in your flask?”

He did not wait to be answered, but clapped the
bottle, which lay with the bread and beef at Vernon's
feet, to his mouth, and long and fervent was the
draught which he made therefrom.

“Good whisky that, and whisky's an honest
beverage. And now, Harry, a bite of your biscuit.
You will laugh, perhaps, but of a truth, I look upon
Falstaff's proportion of bread and sack, as decidedly
the best for a traveller in winter. `This is a nipping
and an eager air,' and nothing blunts its edge so
well as a good sup of Monongahela. This dough
stuff makes one feel as dry and crusty as itself. But
you do not eat, Vernon.”

“Why truly, sir, I am so surprised to see you
here, that I had almost forgotten that I was hungry.
But, perhaps, you bring me some message from Mr.
Carter?”

“Carter, indeed! Oh, no! I was quite too sly
for that. The moment Jim told me you were off—
for it seems he saw you and Carter go to the stable
by dawn, or, as he swears, before it—I had just risen
to take my antifogmatic; and at the word, I at once
guessed what you were after!—”

“Indeed! And pray what was that?” demanded
Vernon, with some curiosity, interrupting the garrulous
speaker.

“Ah, ha! all in good season, my master. You
thought to blink me, Harry, but you must know I
had a hint of your true business two days before
from some clever chaps in Raymond.”

The wonder of Vernon increased, but the other
suffered him as little time to indulge it as to make
inquiries.

“I tipped Jim the wink—set him to saddle Gray
Bowline, dad's old dot and go one, and fasten him
behind the stable, while I donned my first come atables,
and rammed the rest in dad's old saddle-bags,
where I'll show them to you when you please.
These I handed to the sooty scamp, who will do any
thing for my love—when paid in money—and he got
the nag caparisoned in twenty minutes, and ready
to my heel. Down stairs I went, and—plump!—
met the old lady, my ever venerable mamma, in the
passage-way. `Tom,' says she, `where are you
going so soon?' `Don't ask me, mother,' says I,
looking monstrous hurried, and going fast ahead,
`don't ask me, I beg you;' and off I went. In two
minutes I was on, and off. A few bounds brought
me into the woods, and your track was fresh enough
for the eyes of a young hunter. I heard of you once
by the way, but—your nag goes monstrous fast, if
he goes easy! Mine!—by the petticoats of Ophelia
after her drowning—he has skinned me utterly all
of one side. I have found you, however, my dear

Harry, and I don't value the skinning. We shall
never part again. Skin or no skin under my bends,
I keep up with you though the devil's brimstone
smokes under your horse's tail.”

“Indeed, Mr. Horsey, but there go two words to
that bargain,” replied Vernon, with an air of resoluteness,
and a face of but half-concealed chagrin.

“`Agreed' shall be one of them, Harry,” replied
the unembarrassed actor.

“But how, Mr. Horsey, if I tell you that our
roads lie apart.”

“Impossible!—they do not, Harry—by my soul
they do not! I have the best information on that
subject. As I said before, I know your secret—
your whole plan of operations, and, by all the blessings
of the foot-lights and a fine audience, if you do
not suffer me to join with you in the business and
share profits, I'll run against you. I'll take the morsel
from your mouth,

“What can this witless fellow drive at!” was the
unspoken soliloquy of Vernon, ere he replied to the
speaker. “Can he really know any thing?—it is
scarcely possible. There is some mistake; and I
must sound him cautiously.” Aloud:—

“And what may be this goodly scheme of mine,
Mr. Horsey, in which your mind is so resolutely resolved
to share. I am positively puzzled, and know
not how it is possible that a purely private business—”

“Purely private, you call it. 'Egad, before I'm
done with it, it shall be public enough. You thought
yourself mighty secret in your schemings, and I
confess you did blind me for awhile, and I took it

for granted that you really had no other object in
view than to run the dry course of a lean lawyer,
and jog from court-house to court-house, circuit after
circuit, picking up your pay in corn and bacon, and
getting a bastard fame from speeches as full of
words as Gratiano's, made in cases of trespass,
pounding, black eyes, and bloody noses. I give you
credit, now that I discover your purpose, for being
something bolder, and for an ambition of a more enduring
and ennobling sort. But I can hardly forgive
you, Harry, for keeping a dumb side to me when you
knew my passion. I can be trusted, as you shall
see. You will find me a man after your own heart,
if your heart be open;—a fellow wise enough to
speak only upon cues, though otherwise a born rattler;
and one who, whatever his woolheaded neighbours
may say, can always `tell a hawk from a
handsaw,' in whatever quarter the wind may blow.”

“Puzzle on puzzle!” exclaimed Vernon, now more
than ever convinced that his companion was mad.
“What is it that you really mean, Mr. Horsey?
speak plainly, or I shall suspect you to be a candidate
for bedlam or the calaboose.”

“Bedlam or the calaboose! Come! I don't like
that so well, Harry Vernon. I take it as something
unkind, sir, that you should speak in such fashion.
But, I see how it is; I forgive you; it is natural
enough that you should look on me as one likely to
go between you and the public. But you shall find
me generous. By the powers, Harry, I care not
much where I come in, whether as one, two, or
three, when a friend's fortune and desires are concerned.
You shall go before, and I will follow, or
we will enter side by side, on equal terms, marching
to equal victory. Envious or jealous of rival merit,
I never was and trust never to become, satisfied that
success has twenty thousand hands, and one willing

for every bold, worthy fellow that stands ready and
dares to grasp it. Harry Vernon, I drink to our
joint success.”

The actor repeated his draught, but Vernon began
to be seriously annoyed by the intrusion, and thought
it high time to put an end to it. Never dreaming of
the conjecture which had taken such possession of
his companion's brain, and ignorant, of course, of the
stories which had been told him, he could form no
positive idea of the subject of his ravings, and began
seriously to consider him a fitting inmate for the
calaboose or bedlam, as he had already suggested to
the other's momentary discomfiture. His first movement,
therefore, was to restore his spirit-flask to the
valise, then, assuming what calmness of manner he
could, and taking especial care that while his words
should be inoffensive, they should be to the point at
least, he addressed him in a manner which was intended
to bring his play at cross-purposes to a conclusion.

“You have said a great deal, Mr. Horsey, which
for the life of me I cannot understand. Pray tell
me, without quotation or circumlocution, what it is
you mean—what you intend—and above all what
scheme it is, which you assume that we entertain in
common. I am not peevish nor fretful in my disposition,
yet I am not willing to suffer any trifling or
merriment at my expense.”

“Or, in more legitimate phrase, considering our
purposes,” repeated the actor—

Prithee, my good Hamlet, smooth thy looks, and dismiss
that cloud, full of lightning, that teems in threatening
above thy brows. I mean thee no harm, no
hurt, no offence. I am a fellow, as I tell thee, after
thy own heart, and thou dost wrong thyself no less
than me, to be angry with me. Why wouldst thou
that I should tell thee in plain, point-blank matter,
what is thy business, and what should be mine?—as
if thou wast resolved not to know, and couldst deceive
me any longer. Dost thou not seek Tilton?”

“Tilton!” exclaimed Vernon in profound astonishment,
mingled with something more of good humour
than before, as it now became obvious to him that
Horsey had blundered upon the wrong man, and
knew nothing of his secret, of which he had been in
some little apprehension.

“Ay, Tilton, Tilton, the little lamplighter and
candle-snuffer and letter-carrier for so many years
at C—dwell's. He, who has now set up to be an
actor, a manager, and what not; and is going to
open at Benton, where thou and I—if thy stomach
be not too proud, Harry Vernon, for such companionship,
as I greatly fear me,—will star it together,
to the confusion and admiration of the natives.
There, you have it; and might have saved
me all this trouble by owning to the truth before.
Deny me now if thou canst, my bully rook; thou art
not aiming at Benton,—thou dost not seek for Tilton,
—thou wouldst not leave the dry bones of the law,
for the wit of Mercutio and the marrow of Falconbridge.
In short, thy ambition leads thee not to
emulate the Garricks and the Keans, the Macreadys,
the Forrests, the Coopers, the—”

The unmitigated laughter of Vernon silenced the
actor, whose face of exultation it turned of a sudden
into soberness.

“What do you laugh at, Mr. Vernon, I should like
to know!”

“Who put this silly thought into your head, Mr.
Horsey? Who could have bedevilled you with this
nonsense?”

“Bedevilled!—Silly thought! I see nothing silly
about it, Master Vernon, and wonder that you should.
Do you deny it?”

“Every syllable.”

“What, that you are about to appear on the
stage?”

“I do.”

“You are not going to Benton to join the company?”

“On my soul, I am not.”

“Or wherever the company may act? You go
not to join Tilton?”

“I know nothing of the man.”

“It won't do—that cock won't fight, Harry Vernon,”
responded the other, after a pause. “I have
the matter on good evidence. Deny it as you may,
I believe it; begging your pardon for seeming to
doubt you; but the truth is, that all the circumstances
tell against you. I am sure you are going to join
Tilton, and, my dear fellow, confess the truth; you
will not trust me with your secret, for fear that I
shall blab it to Ben Carter. But, on my honour—”

“Believe what you will, Mr. Horsey,” replied
the other with recovered gravity. “I have no sort
of objection to any strange notion that you may
take into your head; only, I pray that you may not
bother me with the mare's nests that you may discover,
nor challenge my admiration of the eggs.”

“You're angry with me, Harry. Come, my dear
boy, hand out your flask again, and we'll take a sup
of reconciliation.”

“No, sir; I will let you drink no more while you
are with me. You have taken a mouthful too much
already.”

“How, sir, do you mean—”

The swagger of the worthy histrion, who was
not apt to be a braggart, and was in truth a good-meaning

fellow, was cut short by the sudden and
angry interruption of his more solid and resolute
companion:

“Look you, Mr. Horsey, my road lies above, and
yours is below, with your parents. Let us separate.”

“Nay, nay, Harry Vernon; but you are quite
too hard upon me. Don't be vexed with me, because
I am a d—d good-natured fool, that loves good company
too well to quarrel with it. I don't mean to
vex you, but I am resolved, unless you put a bullet
through my cranium, to keep up with you to Benton.
I'd rather lose any thing short of life than lose the
chance of a good engagement. So, whither thou
goest, thither will I go also,—where thou leadest
there will I follow,—at least, until the manager gives
out the casts, and then, Harry, as thou wilt, and the
author pleases.”

This resolution, though it annoyed Vernon, as it
expressed a determination to keep with him whether
he would or not, and might for a while operate
against his objects, was yet expressed in terms and
a manner so very conciliatory, and the poor histrion
seemed so completely to speak from his heart, that
Vernon resolved to bear with him awhile, nothing
doubting, that when the other found, as he was like
to do in another day, that his footsteps did not incline
to the place where the actors had pitched their tents,
he would be very willing to leave him without more
words. He contented himself, therefore, with renewing
his assertion that he had nothing to do with
the players, and that Horsey deceived himself, or
had been grossly misled on the subject of his inclining
to the stage. But the re-asseveration was of no
avail. The faith was infixed too deeply, and with a
chuckle, as he mounted his nag, the enthusiastic
actor replied—

“Oh, what's the use, Harry, my boy, of keeping

up that ball? It must come down sooner or later,
and one would think you would be weary of such a
sport. Let this humour cool—`it is no good humours.'
Look not coldly upon me, for, on my soul,
if thou wilt have it so, thou shalt have the choice of
the cast whatever it may be, and as for little Tilton,
he shall learn as a first lesson, that we shall neither
of us do any thing for him, unless we do it to our
own liking. And now to horse—to horse—

It was scarce possible for Vernon to resist laughter;
certainly, he found it impossible to keep anger
with such a creature; a thing so light, so weak, so
utterly wanting in all those timely calculations of
propriety and good providence, as to make it seem
a sort of brutality to visit upon his faults with harshness.
They took horse together, and while they
rode, the actor seasoned the way and dialogue with
quotations,

Vernon strove at every opportunity to disabuse
his mind of the error which it had adopted in reference
to himself; but his very earnestness seemed
only the more to convince the other to the contrary.
His answer to all such efforts consisted only of a half
laughing rebuke to his companion, who aimed at the
monopoly of the best character, and was jealous of
that interposition and rivalship on his part, which he
studiously assured Vernon, at the same time, should
never annoy him. The latter gave up the effort
which he found so perfectly unavailing, leaving it to
time, the general rectifier of man's mistakes, to put
a conclusion to this.