 | CHAPTER XIII.
NEW PRINICIPLES DISCUSSED BY OLD LAWS. The kinsmen, or, The black riders of Congaree |  |
13. CHAPTER XIII.
NEW PRINICIPLES DISCUSSED BY OLD LAWS.
The last words of the Chief of the Black Riders, as he
left the presence of the landlord, had put that worthy into
a most unenviable frame of mind. He had counselled
Morton for his own benefit—he himself had no selfish
considerations. He flattered himself that the relation in
which he stood to the parties between which the country
was divided, not to speak of his mutilated condition,
would secure him from danger, no matter which of them
should finally obtain the ascendency. That he should
be still held responsible to his late comrades, though he
no longer engaged in their pursuits and no longer shared
their spoils, was a medium equally new and disquieting in
which he was required to regard the subject. The stern
threat with which Morton concluded left him in little
doubt of the uncertain tenure of that security which he
calculated to find among his old friends; and, at the same
time, awakened in his heart new feelings in reference to
the speaker. Hitherto, from old affinities, and because of
some one of those nameless moral attachments which
incline us favourably to individuals to whom we otherwise
owe nothing, he had been as well disposed towards
Edward Morton as he could have been towards any individual
not absolutely bound to him by blood or interest.
He had seen enough to like in him, to make him solicitous
of his successes, and to lead him, in repeated
instances, as in that which incurred the late rebuke, to
volunteer his suggestions, and to take some pains in
acquiring information which sometimes proved of essential
benefit to the outlaw. It was partly in consequence
private concerns of Morton, which prompted the latter,
naturally enough, to confer with him, with tolerable freedom,
on a number of topics, strictly personal to himself,
and of which the troop knew nothing. Conscious of no
other motive than the good of the outlaw, and not dreaming
of that profounder cunning of the latter, which could
resolve him to adopt the counsel which he yet seemed to
spurn with loathing, the landlord, reasonably enough,
felt indignant at the language with which he had been
addressed; and his indignation was not lessened by the
disquieting doubts of his own safety which the threats of
Morton had suggested. It was just at the moment when
his conclusions were most unfavourable to the outlaw,
that the door of his wigwam was quietly thrown open,
and he beheld, with some surprise, the unexpected face
of our worthy scout, Jack Bannister, peering in upon
him. The latter needed no invitation to enter.
“Well, Isaac Muggs,” said he, as he closed and bolted
the door behind him—“you're without your company
at last. I was a'most afear'd, for your sake in pretic'lar,
that them bloody sculpers was a-going to take up lodging
with you for good and all. I waited a pretty smart
chance to see you cl'ar of them, and I only wish I was
sartin, Muggs, that you was as glad as myself when they
concluded to make a start of it.”
“Ahem!—To be sure I was, friend Supple,” replied
the other with an extra show of satisfaction in his countenance
which did not altogether conceal the evident
hesitation of his first utterance.—“To be sure, I was:
they'd ha' drunk me out of house and home if they had
stopped much longer. A peck of lemons, a'most—more
than two papers of sugar, best Havana, and there's no
measuring the Jamaica, wasted upon them long swallows.
I a'nt glad of their going, Jack, I have a most onnateral
way of thinking on such matters.”
The keen eyes of Supple Jack never once turned from
the countenance of the landlord, as he detailed the consumption
of his guests; and when the latter had finished,
he coolly replied:—
“I'm afear'd, Isaac Muggs, you aint showing clean
hands under the table. That's a sort of talking that don't
stop my eyes, if it stops my ears. Don't I know it
would be mighty onnateral if you wa'n't glad enough to
sell your pecks of lemons and your papers of sugar, and
your gallons of rum, pretic'larly when in place of them
you can count me twenty times their valley in British
gould? No, Muggs, that sort o' talking won't do for me.
Take the cross out of your tongue and be pretic'lar in
what you say, for I'm going to s'arch you mighty close
this time, I tell you.”
“Well but, Supple, you wouldn't have me take nothing
from them that drinks my substance.”
“Who talks any such foolishness but yourself, Muggs?
—I don't. I'm for your taking all you can get out of the
inimy—for it's two ways of distressing them to sell 'em
strong drink and take their gould for it. The man that
drinks punch is always the worse for it; and it don't
better his business to make him pay for it in guineas.
That's not my meaning, Muggs. I'm on another track,
and I'll show you both eends of it before I'm done.”
“Why, Supple, you talks and looks at me suspiciously,”
said the landlord, unable to withstand the keen
inquiring glances of the scout, and was as little able to
conceal his apprehensions lest some serious discovery
had been made to his detriment.
“Look you, Isaac Muggs, do you see that peep-hole
there in the wall—oh, there—jest one side of the window—the
peep-hole in the logs.”
“Yes, I see it,” said the landlord, whose busy fingers
were already engaged in thrusting a wadding of dry moss
into the discovered aperture.
“Well, it's too late to poke at it now, Muggs,” said
the other. “The harm's done already, and I'll let you
know the worst of it. Through that peep-hole last night
I saw what was a going on here among you—and through
that peep-hole, it was this same Polly Longlips”—
tapping his rifle as he spoke—“that went off of her own
liking, and tumbled one big fellow; and was mighty
another.”
“Yes, yes—Polly Longlips was always a famous
shot;” murmured the landlord flatteringly, and moving
to take, in his remaining hand, the object of his eulogium.
But Supple Jack evidently recoiled at so doubtful a
liberty in such dangerous times, and drew the instrument
more completely within the control of his own arm.
“She's a good critter, Muggs, but is sort o' bashful
among strangers; and when she puts up her mouth, it
isn't to be kissed or kiss, I tell you. She's not like other
gals in that pretic'lar. Now, don't think I mistrust you,
Muggs, for 'twould be mighty timorsome was I to be
afeard of any thing you could do with a rifle like her,
having but one arm to go upon. It's only a jealous way
I have, that makes me like to keep my Polly out of the
arms of any other man. It's nateral enough, you know,
to a person that loves his gal.”
“Oh, yes, very natural, Supple; but somehow, it
seems to me as if you did suspicion me, Supple—it
does, I declar'.”
“To be sure I do,” replied the other promptly. “I
suspicions you've been making a little bit of a fool of
yourself; and I've come to show you which eend of the
road will bring you up. You know, Muggs, that I
know all about you—from A to izzard. I can read you
like a book. I reckon you'll allow that I have larn'd
that lesson, if I never larn'd any other.”
“Well, Supple, I reckon I may say you know me
pretty much as well as any other person.”
“Better, better, Muggs!—I know you from the jump,
and I know what more of our boys know, that you did
once ride with these Black—”
“Yes, Supple, but—” and the landlord jumped up
and looked out of the door, and peered, with all his eyes,
as far as possible into the surrounding wood. The scout,
meanwhile, with imperturbable composure, retained the
seat which he had originally taken.
“Don't you be scarey,” said he, when the other had
returned, “I've sarcumvented your whole establishment,
hollows, not to speak of a small ride I took after
your friends—”
“No friends of mine, Supple, no more than any other
people that pay for what they git,” exclaimed the apprehensive
landlord.
“That's the very p'int I'm driving at, Muggs. You
know well enough that if our boys had a guess that you
ever rode with that 'ere troop, it wouldn't be your stump
of an arm that 'd save you from the swinging limb.”
“But I never did hide that I fout on the British side,
Supple!” said the other.
“In the West Indies, Isaac Muggs. That's the story
you told about your hurts, and all that. If you was to
tell them, or if I was to tell them, any other now, that
had the least smell of the truth in it, your shop would be
shut up for ever in this life, and—who knows?—maybe
never opened in the next. Well, now, I'm come here
this blessed day to convart you to rebellion. Through
that very peep-hole, last night, I heard you with my own
ears talking jest as free as the rankest tory in all the
Wateree country.”
“Oh, Lord, Supple, wa'nt that natural enough, when
the house were full of tories?”
“'Twa'nt nateral to an honest man at any time,”
replied the other indignantly; “and let me tell you,
Muggs, the house wa'nt full—only Ned Conway was
here, with his slippery tongue that's a wheedling you,
like a blasted blind booby, Muggs, to your own destruction.
That same fellow will put your neck in the noose
yet, and laugh when you're going up.”
A prediction so confidently spoken, and which tallied
so admirably with the savage threat uttered by the outlaw
at his late departure, drove the blood from the cheeks
of the landlord, and made him heedless of the harsh language
in which the scout had expressed himself. His
apology was thus expressed:
“But 'twas pretty much the same thing, Supple—he
was their captain, you know.”
“Captain! And what does he care about them, and
sarved without each other? It wouldn't be a toss of a
copper, the love that's atween them. He'll let them
hang, and they'll hang him, as soon as it's worth while
for either to do so. Don't I know, Muggs? Don't I
know that they're conniving strong agin him even now,
and don't I calculate that as soon as the Congaree country
gits too hot to hold Rawdon, this Ned Conway will
be the first to kill a colt to 'scape a halter. He'll ride a
horse to death to get to Charlestown, and when there,
he'll sink a ship to git to the West Indies. He knows
his game, and he'll so work it, Isaac Muggs, as to leave
your neck in the collar without waiting to hear the
crack.”
“You're clean mistaken, Supple, for 'twas only this
morning that I cautioned the captain 'bout his men, and
I gin him my counsel to take the back track and find his
way to the seaboard; but he swore he'd never desart the
troop, and he spoke mighty cross to me about it, and
even threatened, if I talked of it another time to him, to
set the troopers on me.”
“More knave he, and more fool you for your pains,”
said the other irreverently; “but this only makes me
the more sartin that he means to finish a bad game by
throwing up his hand. He's made his Jack, and he
don't stop to count,—but look you, Isaac Muggs, all this
tells agin you. Here you're so thick, hand and glove,
with the chief of the Black Riders, that you're advising
him what to do; and by your own words, he makes
out that you're still liable to the laws of the troop. Eh?”
“But that's only what he said, Supple, and its what
was a-worrying me when you come in.”
“Look you, Muggs, it ought to worry you! I'm
mighty serious in this business. I'm going to be mighty
strick with you. I was the one that spoke for you among
our boys, and 'twas only because I showed them that I
had sort o' convarted you from your evil ways, that they
agreed to let you stay here in quiet on the Wateree.
Well, I thought I had convarted you. You remember
that long summer day last August, when Polly Longlips
You was with him in the boat, and helped to put him
across the Wateree. Well, when we was a-burying
him—for he died like a gentleman bred—I had a gift to
ax you sartin questions, and we had a long argyment
about our liberties, and George the Third, and what
business Parlyment had to block up Boston port, and
put stamps on our tea before they let us drink it. Do
you remember all them matters and specifications, Isaac
Muggs?”
“Well, Supple, I can't but say I do. We did have
quite a long argyment when the lieutenant was a dying,
and jest after the burial.”
“No, 'twas all the while we was a-laying in the
trench, for I recollect saying to you when you was a
pitying him all the time, that I was sorry for the poor
man's death, I wasn't sorry that I killed him, and I would
shoot the very next one that come along, jest the same,
for it made the gall bile up in me to see a man that I
had never said a hard word to in all my life, come here,
over the water, a matter, maybe, of a thousand miles, to
force me, at the p'int of the bagnet, to drink stamped
tea. I never did drink the tea, no how. For my own
drinking, I wouldn't give one cup of coffee, well biled,
for all the tea that was ever growed or planted. But,
'twas the freedom of the thing that I was argying for,
and 'twas on the same argyment that I was willing to
fight. Now, that was the time, and them was the specifications
which made us argyfy, and it was only then,
when I thought I had convarted you from your evil
ways, that I tuk on me to answer for your good conduct
to our boys. I spoke to the colonel for you, jest the
same as if I had know'd you for a hundred years. It's
true I did know you, and the mother that bore you, and
a mighty good sort of woman she was; but it was only
after that argyment that I felt a call to speak in your behalf.
Now, Isaac Muggs, I aint conscience-free about
that business. I've had my suspicions a long time that
I spoke a little too much in your favour, and what I heard
last night—and what I seed—makes me fearful that
convarsion, Isaac Muggs; but before I tell you my
mind about the business, I'd jest like to hear from your
own lips what you think about our argyment, and what
you remember, and what you believe.”
The landlord looked utterly bewildered. It was evident
that he had never devoted much time to metaphysics,
and the confusion and disorder of the few words
which he employed in answer, and the utter consternation
of his looks, amply assured the inflexible scout that the
labour of conversion must be entirely gone over again.
“I see, Isaac Muggs, that you're in a mighty bad fix,
and it's a question with me whether I ought raly to give
you a helping hand to git out of it. If I thought you
wanted to git at the truth—”
“Well, Supple, as God's my judge, I sartinly do.”
“I'd go over the argyment agin for your sake, but—”
“I'd thank you mightily, Supple.”
“But 'twon't do to go on forgetting, Muggs. The
thing is to be understood, and if it's once understood, it's
to be believed; and when you say you believe, there's
no dodging after that. There's no saying you're a tory
with tories, and a whig with whigs, jest as it seems needful.
The time's come for every tub to stand on its own
bottom, and them that don't must have a tumble. Now,
there's no axing you to fight for us, Muggs—that's out of
natur', and I'm thinking we have more men now than
we can feed; but we want the truth in your soul, and
we want you to stick to it. If you're ready for that,
and really willing, I'll put it to you in plain argyments
that you can't miss, onless you want to miss 'em; and
you'll never dodge from 'em, if you have only half a
good-sized man's soul in you to go upon. You've only
to say now, whether you'd like to know—”
The landlord cut short the speaker by declaring his
anxiety to be re-enlightened, and Supple Jack rose to
his task with all the calm deliberation of a practised
lecturer. Coiling up a huge quid of tobacco in one jaw,
to prevent its interfering with the argument, he went to
the door.
“I'll jest go out for a bit and hitch `Mossfoot,”'—the
name conferred upon his pony, as every good hunter
has a tender diminutive for the horse he rides and the
gun he shoots—“I'll only go and hitch `Mossfoot'
deeper in the swamp, and out of harm's way for a spell,
and then be back. It's a three minutes' business only.”
He was not long gone, but during that time rapid
transitions of thought and purpose were passing through
the mind of the veteran landlord. Circumstances had
already prepared him to recognize the force of many of
the scout's arguments. The very counsel he had given
to Edward Morton originated in a conviction that the
British cause was going down—that the whigs were
gaining ground upon the tories with every day's movement,
and that it would be impossible for the latter much
longer to maintain themselves. The policy of the publican
usually goes with that of the rising party. He is
not generally a bad political thermometer, and Muggs
was a really good one. Besides, he had been stung by
the contemptuous rejection of his counsel by the chief
whom he was conscious of having served unselfishly,
and alarmed by the threats which had followed his uncalled-for
counsel. The necessity of confirming his
friends among the successful rebels grew singularly obvious
to his intellect, if it had not been so before, in the
brief absence of the scout; and when he returned, the
rapidly quickening intelligence of the worthy landlord
made the eyes of the former brighten with the satisfaction
which a teacher must naturally feel at the wonderful
progress and ready recognition of his doctrines. These
it will not be necessary for us entirely, or even in part,
to follow. The worthy woodman has already given us
a sufficient sample of the sort of philosophy in which he
dealt; and farther argument on the tyranny of forcing
“stamped tea” down the people's throats, “will they,
will they,” may surely be dispensed with. But, flattering
as his success appeared to be at first, Supple Jack
was soon annoyed by some doubts and difficulties which
his convert suggested in the progress of the argument.
Like too many of his neighbours, Isaac Muggs was
This, as the discussion advanced, was goaded
into exercise; and his fears and his policy were
equally forgotten in the desire of present triumph. A
specimen of the manner in which their deliberations
warmed into controversy may be passingly afforded.
“It's agin natur' and reason, and a man's own seven
senses,” said Supple Jack, “to reckon on any man's
right to make laws for another, when he don't live in the
same country with him. I say, King George, living in
England, never had a right to make John Bannister,
living on the Congaree, pay him taxes for tea or any
thing.”
“But it's all the same country, England and America,
Jack Bannister.”
“Jimini!—if that's the how, what makes you give
'em different names, I want to know?”
“Oh, that was only because it happened so,” said the
landlord, doubtfully.
“Well, it so happens that I won't pay George the
Third any more taxes. That's the word for all; and
it's good reason why I shouldn't pay him, when, for all
his trying, he can't make me. Here he's sent his regiments—regiment
after regiment—and the Queen sent her
regiment, and the Prince of Wales his regiment—I
reckon we didn't tear the Prince's regiment all to flinders
at Hanging Rock!—Well, then, there was the
Royal Scotch and the Royal Irish, and the Dutch Hessians;
I suppose they didn't call them royal, 'cause they
couldn't ax in English for what they wanted:—well,
what was the good of it?—all these regiments together
couldn't make poor Jack Bannister, a Congaree boatmen,
drink stamped tea or pay taxes. The regiments, all I've
named and a hundred more, are gone like last autumn's
dry leaves; and the only fighting that's a-going on now,
worth to speak of, is American born `gainst American
born. Wateree facing Wateree—Congaree facing Congaree—Santee
facing Santee—and cutting each other's
throats to fill the pockets of one of the ugliest old men—
for a white man—that ever I looked on. It spiles the
Isaac Muggs, I would ha' gathered you, as Holy Book
has it, even as a hen gathers up her chickens. I'd ha'
taken you 'twixt my legs in time of danger, and seed
you safe through—but you wouldn't! I've tried to
drive reason into your head, but it's no use; you can't
see what's right, and where to look for it. You answer
every thing I say with your eyes sot, and a cross-buttock.
Now, what's to be done? I'm waiting on you
to answer.”
“Swounds, Supple, but you're grown a mighty hasty
man o' late,” replied the landlord, beginning to be sensible
of the imprudence of indulging his vanity at a moment
so perilous to his fortunes. “I'm sure I've tried
my best to see the right and the reason. I've hearn what
you had to say—”
“Only to git some d—d crooked answer ready, that
had jist as much to do with the matter as my great
grand-daughter has. You hearn me, but it wa'n't to see
if the truth was in me; it was only to see if you couldn't
say something after me that would swallow up my saying.
I don't see how you're ever to get wisdom, with
such an onderstanding, unless it's licked into you by
main force of tooth and timber.”
“I could ha' fou't you once, John Bannister, though
you are named Supple Jack,” replied the landlord with
an air of indignant reproach, which, in his own self-absorption,
escaped the notice of the scout.
“It's no bad notion that,” he continued, without heeding
the language of the landlord. “Many's the time, boy
and man, I have fou't with a fellow when we couldn't
find out the right of it, any way; and, as sure as a gun,
if I wan't right I was sartain to be licked. Besides,
Isaac Muggs, it usen to be an old law, when they couldn't
get at the truth any other way, to make a battle, and
cry on God's mercy to help the cause that was right.
By Jimini, I don't see no other way for us. I've given
you all the reason I know on this subject—all that
I can onderstand, I mean—for to confess a truth, there's
a-many reasons for our liberties that I hear spoken, and
all that I know I've told you, and there's more than
enough to make me sartin of the side I take. Now, as
you aint satisfied with any of my reasons, I don't see
how we're to finish the business unless we go back to
the old-time law, and strip to the buff for a fight. You
used to brag of yourself, and you know what I am, so
there's no use to ax about size and weight. If you
speak agreeable to your conscience, and want nothing
better than the truth, then, I don't see but a regular fight
will give it to us; for, as I told you afore, I never yet
did fight on the wrong side, that I didn't come up undermost.”
The scout, in the earnestness with which he entertained
and expressed his own views and wishes, did not
suffer himself to perceive some of the obstacles which
lay in the way of a transaction such as he so deliberately
and seriously proposed. He was equally inaccessible to
the several attempts of his companion to lessen his regards
for a project to which the deficiency of a limb on the
part of one of the disputants seemed to suggest a most
conclusive objection. When, at length, he came to a
pause, the landlord repeated his former reproachful reminiscence
of a period when the challenge of the scout
would not have gone unanswered by defiance. “But
now!” and he lifted the stump of his remaining arm, in
melancholy answer.
“It's well for you to talk big, John Bannister; I know
you're a strong man, and a spry. You wa'n't called
Supple Jack for nothing. But there was a time when
Isaac Muggs wouldn't ha' stopped to measure inches
with you in a fair up and down, hip and hip, hug together.
I could ha' thrown you once, I'm certain. But
what's the chance now with my one arm, in a hug with
a man that's got two. It's true, and I believe it, that
God gives strength in a good cause; but it's quite onreasonable
for me to hope for any help, seeing as how I
can't help myself, no how. I couldn't even come to the
grip, however much I wanted to.”
“Sure enough, Muggs, and I didn't think of that, at
tongue wag so free as your'n had two arms at least to
back it. I'm mighty sorry, Muggs, that you aint, for it's
a great disapp'intment.”
This was spoken with all the chagrin of a man who
was discomfited in his very last hope of triumph.
“Well, you see I aint,” said the other sulkily—“so
there's no more to be said about it.”
“Yes; but you aint come to a right mind yet. It's
cl'ar to me, Isaac Muggs, that one thing or t'other must
be done. You must cut loose from the Black Riders, or
cut loose from us. You knows the risk of the one, and
I can pretty much tell you what's the risk of the other.
Now, there's a notion hits me, and it's one that comes
nateral enough to a man that's fou't, in his time, in a
hundred different ways. One of them ways, when I had
to deal with a fellow that was so cl'ar behind me in
strength that he couldn't match me as we stood, was to
tie a hand behind my back, or a leg to a pine sapling,
and make myself, as it were, a lame man till the fight
was over. Now, look you, Muggs, if it's the truth your
really after, I don't care much if I try that old-fashion
way with you. I'm willing to buckle my right arm to
my back.”
“Swounds, Supple, how you talk. Come, take a
drink.”
“I'll drink when the time comes, Isaac Muggs, and
when it's needful, but just now, when it's the truth I'm
after, I don't suffer no diversions. I stick as close to it,
I tell you, as I does to my inimy;—I don't stop to drink
or rest, 'till it's a-lying fair before me. Now, it's needful
for your sake, Muggs, that you come to a right sense of
the reason in this business. It's needful that you give
up Black Riders, Tories, British, Ned Conway, ugly
faces, and the old sarpent. My conscience is mightily
troubled because I stood for you, and it's needful that you
come to a right understanding afore I leave you. I've
sworn it, Isaac Muggs, by Polly Longlips, as we rode
along together, and Mossfoot pricked up his ears as if he
onderstood it all, and was a witness for us both. Now,
It means death to the inimy—sartin death, at any reasonable
distance. I don't want your life, man;—by the
Hokey, I don't, and that's why I want to put the reason
in you, so that you might say to me at once, that you're
done with these black varmints—for ever. They can
do you no good—they can't help you much longer; and
the time's a-coming, Isaac Muggs, when the Whigs will
sweep this country, along the Wateree, and the Congaree,
and Santee, with a broom of fire, and wo to the skunk,
when that time comes, that can't get clear of the brush—
wo to the 'coon that's caught sticking in his hollow.
There's no reason you shouldn't onderstand the liberty-cause,
and there's every reason why you should. But
as you can't onderstand my argyment—”
“Well, but Supple, you're always in such a hurry!—”
“No hurry—never hurried a man in argyment in all
my life; but when he's so tarnal slow to onderstand—”
“That's it, Supple, I'm a slow man;—but I begin to
see the sense of what you say.”
“Well, that's something like, Muggs, but a good gripe
about the ribs, a small tug upon the hips, partic'larly if
we ax the blessing of Providence upon the argyment,
will be about as good a way as any to help your onderstanding
to a quicker motion. It'll put your slow pace
into a smart canter.”
“Psha, Supple, you're not serious in thinking that
there's any thing in that?”
“Aint I then! By Gum, you don't know me, Isaac
Muggs, if you think as you say. Now, what's to hinder
the truth from coming out in a fair tug between us.
Here we stand, both tall men, most like in height and
breadth, nigh alike in strength by most people's count;
about the same age and pretty much the same experience.
We've had our tugs and tears, both of us, in
every way; though, to be sure, you got the worst of it,
so far as we count the arm;—but as I tie up mine, there's
no difference. Now I say, here we stand on the banks
of the Wateree. Nobody sees us but the great God of
all, that sees every thing in natur'. He's here, the
he sees every thing every where. You believe all that,
don't you, Isaac Muggs, for if you don't believe that,
why, there's no use in talking at all. There's an eend
of the question.”
The landlord, though looking no little mystified, muttered
assent, and this strange teacher of a new, or rather,
reviver of an old faith, proceeded with accustomed
volubility.
“Well, then, here, as we are, we call upon God, and
tell him how we stand. Though, to be sure, as he
knows all, the telling wouldn't be such a needcessity.
But, never mind—we tell him. I say to him, here's
Isaac Muggs—it aint easy for him to understand this
argyment, and unless he onderstands, it's a matter of life
and death to him—you recollect, Muggs, about the oath
I tuk on Polly Longlips.—He wants to l'arn and its
needful to make a sign which 'll come home to his onderstanding
more cl'arly than argyment by man's word of
mouth. Now then we pray—and you must kneel to it
beforehand, Muggs—I'll go aside under one tree and do
you take another; and we'll make a hearty prayer after
the proper sign. If the Lord says I'm right, why you'll
know it mighty soon by the sprawl I'll give you;—but
if I'm wrong, the tumble will be the other way, and I'll
make the confession, though it 'll be a mighty bitter
needcessity, I tell you. But I aint afeard. I'm sartin
that my argyment for our rights is a true argyment, and
I'll say my prayers with that sort of sartinty, that it
would do your heart good if you could only feel about
the same time.”
“If I thought you was serious, Jack Bannister, but
I'm dub'ous about it.”
“Don't be dub'ous. I'm ser'ous as a sarpent. I b'lieve
in God—I b'lieve he'll justify the truth, whenever we
axes him, in airnest, for it! My old mother, God rest
her bones, and bless her sperrit!—she's told me of more
than twenty people, that's tried a wrestle for the truth.
There was one man in partic'lar that she knows in Georgia.
His name was Bostick;—he used to be a drummer
man, a sodger in the same regiment, made an
accusation agin Bostick for stealing a watch-coat, and
the sarcumstances went mighty strong agin Bostick.
But he stood it out, and though he never shot a rifle in
his life before, he staked the truth and his honesty on a
shot; and, by the Hokey, though, as I tell you he never
lifted rifle to his sight before, he put the bullet clean
through the mouth and jaw of the sodger and cut off a
small slice of his tongue, which was, perhaps, as good a
judgment agin a man for false swearing as a rifle-shot
could make. Well, 'twa'n't a month after that when
they found it was an Ingin that had stole the cost, and
so Bostick was shown to be an honest man, by God's
blessing, in every way.”
There was something so conclusive on the subject, in
this, and one or two similar anecdotes, which Supple
Jack told, and which, having heard them from true
believers in his youth, had led to his own adoption of
the experiment, that the landlord, Muggs, offered no further
doubts or objections. The earnestness of his companion
became contagious, and, with far less enthusiasm
of character, he was probably not unwilling—in order to
the proper adoption of a feeling which was growing momently
in favour in his eyes—to resort to the wager of
battle as an easy mode of making a more formal declaration
in behalf of the dominant faction of the state. The
novelty of the suggestion had its recommendation also;
and but few more words were wasted, before the two
went forth to a pleasant and shady grass-plat, which lay
some two hundred yards farther in the hollow of the
wood, in order that the test so solemnly recommended
on such high authority, should be fairly made in the
presence of that High Judge only, whose arbitrament,
without intending any irreverence, was so earnestly invoked
by the simple woodman of Congaree.
| CHAPTER XIII.
NEW PRINICIPLES DISCUSSED BY OLD LAWS. The kinsmen, or, The black riders of Congaree | |