University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.
MYSELF.

“Away! away! away! three cheers
for freedom! and ho for the sunny
South!”

Such was my mental exclamation, as
I stood on the hurricane deck of one of
the finest and fastest of those grand
“floating palaces” of the West, and beheld
the beautiful city of Louisville,
Kentucky, receding from my view. I
could have shouted aloud for joy—I felt
such ardent exultation. I was just in
the prime of life, full of romance, in
good health, in glorious spirits, and
bound for adventure. I was free, free
as the winds of heaven, to roam wheresoever
my fancy inclined. More than
a month had elapsed since I had bidden
adieu to my friends in the Old Dominion,
and the first keen pang of separation
was now over. Not that I had forgotten
those I had left behind me—oh,
no—memory of them could only cease
with death; but the pain of parting was
beginning to be dulled by absence, and
I felt like enjoying the present with my
whole soul, and trusting to God for the
future. That future! that unrecorded
point of time! shut in by a veil through
which no mortal eye can penetrate!—
could I then have seen it—could I then
have known—But let me not anticipate.

From my youth up, I had longed for
novelty—to travel—to go abroad and
see the world for myself—and now the
great desire of my life was being gratified.
And so it would have been years
before, could I have had my own way;
but I was under age, and my father inexorable.

“Wait, sir!” he would say, whenever
I advanced the proposition: “you
are a boy yet—a foolish bov—and
don't know your own mind. Wait, sir,
till you have attained your majority;
and then you will be your own master,
and can do as you please.”

“And depend upon it, father,” I
would reply, not altogether in the most
amiable mood—“depend upon it, I
shall make good use of my freedom!”

And here, reader, as I trust we are to
make a pleasant pilgrimage together, it
may be as well that you know something
of one who is to be your companion.
I know nothing of you, it is true;
but I see no good reason why you
should be alike ignorant of myself—
more especially as I am extremely anxious
to get into your good graces at the
start. I will not detain you long, for I
abhor a family yarn, spun out to the
length and with the minuteness of the
log of a three years' cruiser; and besides,
we shall have amusement and adventure
enough on our journey, to fully
occupy our time. Without more circumlocution,
consider yourself seized
by the button.

In the first place, let me tell you,
that we in the “Old Dominion,” have
a certain affinity to the moon—insomuch
as, in no small degree, we shine
by reflected light—or, in other words,
our standard of respectability is established
by our ancestors; and as the
great majority of us are all of the “first
families,” the precedence of superiority
is only accorded to the longest lineage.
In this regard, if in no other, I am
about as respectable an acquaintance, of
home production, as you will be likely
to find. I genealogically belong to that
honorable class of individuals, known
as the Cavaliers, who migrated to this
country in the time of Cromwell; and
therefore, when at home, I boast of the
best blood of Old Virginia—though
abroad, I find it just as well to say nothing
about it.

My father inherited the name of Walton,
and, at the death of his father, an
estate worth fifty thousand dollars, exclusive
of blacks enough to work the
plantation—so that in the good things
of this world, it may be said he had a
very fair share at the start. He married
an estimable and accomplished lady,
who bore him three children—two
daughters, and your humble servant.
Alas! to give me life, her own was sacrificed,
and therefore I never enjoyed
the blessing of beholding my lamented
mother. My infancy was taken charge
of by a black nurse; and as I grew in
years and knowledge, my affections
were pretty equally divided between
Old Moll, as we termed her, and my
nearest kin. If I was in trouble, who
so ready to listen to my childish sorrows
as Old Moll? and who so ready
with kind and soothing words? If I
wanted a particular favor of my father,
Old Moll was the medium through
which I obtained it. If I was guilty
of a wrong action, and my father sought
to correct me, you should have seen
Old Moll interpose her black, burly
figure between me and my paternal ancestor,
and beg me off with some such
words as these:

“N-n-now don't, please, Massa
Wal'on, dis time, don't! Little Hal
not well: 'deed and 'deed, he berry
sick, massa!—he cotch eber so much
cold all last night, de poor chile!—
'sides, massa, he got 'flammatory information
of de stomach, de bowels, de
congections; and he neber do so agin,
no more, I pledge you my word 'n
honor, true as gospel!” and seeing the
least relentment on the part of my father,
she would generally establish a
peace, by catching me up into her arms
and beating a hasty retreat from the seat
of war.

I did not always escape unscathed, it
is true; for sometimes the ridiculous
pleadings of Molly made me laugh outright;
and then I generally got the
punishment I deserved. Poor Old
Moll! how I loved her! and even now
I recall her good-natured ebony visage,
with tears in my eyes.

As the reader has doubtless anticipated,
I was christened Henry; but for
a long time I answered to no other appellation
than Hal, generally with the
adjective, little, prefixed; and to this
day, with a stature of nearly six feet,
and a weight of thirteen stone, the elder
citizens of Swansdown would never
think of greeting me save as Little Hal.
Among my playmates and school-fellows,
I was sometimes termed Harry;
but they generally adopted the shortest
nick-name; and as for Henry, I never
heard myself addressed so but once,
and then by a very staid, precise, and
venerable Methodist preacher. For
the matter of being called Henry, I
might as well have been christened
Bartholomew, Nicodemus, or Nebuchadnezzar.

As for my education, it was tolerably
fair, as the world goes. I was never
much of a book-worm; but I could
fence, box, wrestle, dance, run, jump,
ride a horse, shoot a rifle, and play
whist or the fiddle, billiards or the banjo,
with the best of them. I fear the
reader will think none the better of
me for these “vanity-fair” accomplishments;
but I must speak the truth, and
console myself with the reflection, that
if he don't like me as I am, it is a very
easy matter for him to cut my acquaintance.
As to personal appearance, Old
Moll always asseverated, that “young

Massa Wal'on was jest de hamsomest
buck in all Wargin'a,” which was equivalent
to saying in all the world, for her
geographical knowledge extended not
beyond the limits of the Old Dominion.
As I never disputed her on this point
when at home, I see no good reason for
quarrelling with her opinion now that
we are separated.

My twenty-first anniversary, I flatter
my self, was celebrated in a style worthy
of my ancestors and their descendants.
The next day I felt unwell, and kept
my bed; the second I was convalescent,
much to my own delight and Old Moll's,
who, out of pure kindness, would have
killed me in a week with soups and
gruel. My father now called me into
the library, and said:

“Well, Hal, you are free; and at
my banker's, in Richmond, you will
find ten thousand dollars deposited to
your order. Is that satisfactory?”

“It will do for the present,” I answered.

“Well, what do you intend to set
yourself about first?”

“Packing my trunks, paying my
score, and taking leave of my friends.”

“You are determined to go abroad,
then?”

“With your permission.”

“I have no control over you now.
But for what part of the world are you
bound?”

“I have not yet decided.”

“Well, my son, may the good God
watch over, and heaven's blessings attend
you!” and my father walked out
of the library at a quicker pace than
usual.

In a week every thing was prepared
for my journey, and one fine morning
I found myself taking leave of my
friends. The trial was more severe
than I had anticipated—but I was not
one to falter in my resolution. I shook
hands all round, and spoke the parting
words in as strong a voice as I could
command. I felt a choking in my
throat, and I tried to choke it down,
but that only made it worse. My father
hemmed, coughed, tried to sneeze,
and finally ended by applying his handkerchief
to his nasal organ, and muttering
something about having caught a severe
cold. My sisters wept—the blacks
generally blubbered—but as for poor
Old Moll, she yelled outright with hysterical
emotion, and declared her old
heart was “just broke into twenty
hundred pieces,” and that “she'd die
'trait off 'fore de broke of 'nudder
day.”

At last I was off; and the rumble of
the vehicle, that bore me swiftly away
from the scenes of boyhood—from the
scenes that I loved—from home and its
associations—seemed to strike on my
heart like a death knell. I lay back in
the carriage; and now that there were
none to witness my emotion, I gave full
vent to my pent up feelings, and paid
a tribute to the past, and the friends behind
me, in a flood of tears.

On quitting my native land, I took
with me one living remembrancer of
by-gones, in the shape of a stout,
healthy, good-tempered negro servant.
I had selected Tom for several reasons.
In the first place, he was about my
own age, and had long served me as a
valet de chambre; we had become mutually
attached; and though some may
smile to hear the assertion, yet it is no
less true, we loved each other as brothers,
but without overstepping the
nicely drawn line of distinction between
master and slave. In the second place,
Tom was shrewd, intelligent, though
negrofied, and knew exactly how to
humour me. In the third place, he
was not unlike myself, bold, daring,
fearless, and had besides a rich vein of
humor running through his ebony composition.
In the fourth place, like the
lawyer's sixteen reasons, each one of
which was conclusive, I could not do
without him.

And now, having introduced myself
to you, reader, with such little etcetera
as I have deemed proper, if you like
me well enough to accept me for a travelling
companion, rest assured it shall
not be my fault if we do not part friends
at the end of the journey.