University of Virginia Library

THE JOURNEY.

1. CHAPTER I.

The ordinary causes of seeking new homes in the West
are well known. There, it is sometimes expected, a broken
fortune may be repaired, or one here too narrow, become, by
change of circumstances, ample enough for a growing family,
or a larger ambition. Indolence leads some thither, a distaste
of conventional trammels others; while not a few hope
to find a theatre, where small talents and learning may
figure to better advantage.

But some are led away to the West by poetical inducements.
To persons of tender sensibilities and ardent enthusiasm,
that is a land of beautiful visions; and its gorgeous
clouds, like drapery around the golden sunsets, is a curtain
veiling other and more distant glories. Such persons are
not insensible to worldly advantages, yet they abandon not
the East from the love of gain. They are rather evoked
and charmed away by a potent, if an imaginary spirit, resident
in that world of hoary wilds. From the prairie spreading
its grassy and flowery plains to meet the dim horizon,
from the river rolling a flood across half a continent, from
the forest dark and venerable with the growth of many centuries,

come, with every passing cloud and wind, the words
of resistless invitation; till the enchanted, concealing the
true causes, or pretending others, depart for the West. They
are weary of a prosaic life; they go to find a poetic one.

To much of this day-dreaming spirit is the world indebted
for the author's sojourn of seven and a half years in a part
of what was, at the time of this journey, the Far West.
In early boyhood, Mr. Carlton was no ordinary dreamer:
nay, in the sunshine, as by moonlight, shadows of branching
antlers and flint-headed arrows caused many a darkness in
his path, as visionary deer bounded away before the visionary
hunter. At school a boy of kindred soul occupied the adjacent
seat; and this boy's father had left him, as was then
believed, countless acres of rough mountains and woods
undesecrated by civilized feet. How far away this sylvan
territory may have been, was never asked, but it was near
enough and easy of access to day-dreamers; for we had
actually devised a plan to steal off secretly at some favourable
moment and find a joyous life in that forest elysium.
Before the external eye lay, indeed, Dilworth, his columns
of spelling in dreadful array of single, double and treble
files, surrounded by dog-ears curling up from the four corners
of the dirt-stained page; but the inner eye saw them
not. And if our lips moved, it was not to call over the
names of the detested words; no, it was in mysterious
whispers:—we were wrapt in a vision, and talked of bark
huts and bows and arrows—ay, we were setting dead-falls
and snares, and arranging the most feasible plans for the
woods and the mountains.

Such talks would, indeed, begin, and for a while, continue
so like the inarticulate buzz and hum of an old-fashioned
school-boy “getting by heart,” as to awaken no suspicion
in Master Strap. As enthusiasm, however, kindled, tones
became better defined and words more and more articulate.
Then ensued, first a very ominous and death-like stillness

in all parts of the school-room except ours, and then—the
sudden touch of a wand came that broke a deep spell, and
alas! alas! awoke us to our spelling! Poor children! we
cried then for pain and disappointment! The hour came
when we shed more bitter tears at sorer disappointments,
and in a severer school! Even as I write there is a thrill
of boyhood in my soul, and in despite of philosophy tears
are trembling in my eyes;—as if the man wept for the
crushed hopes of the boy!

Experience may curb our yearning towards the earth, yet
even amidst the longings after immortality and the things
that eye hath not seen, there do remain hungerings and
thirstings after a possible and more perfect mundane state.
At the dawn, therefore, of manhood Mr. Carlton still hoped
to meet in the Far West visions embodied although pictured
now in softer lights and graver colours. Shortly,
then, after our marriage in the first quarter of the present
century, after the honey-moon, indeed, but still within the
“love and cottage” period, Mrs. Carlton was persuaded to
exchange the tasteless and crowded solitude of Philadelphia
for the entrancing and real loneliness of the wilds, and
the promenade of dead brick for the living carpet of the
natural meadow.

Having no immoveables, and our moveables being easily
transmuted into baggage, preparation was speedily made;
and then hands were grasped and cheeks kissed, alas! for
a long adieu:—for when we returned with sober views and
chastened spirits, these, our first and best loved friends,
were sought, but “they were not.”

2. CHAPTER II.

From Philadelphia to Pittsburgh was formerly a journey
of days. Hence, to avoid travelling on the Sabbath it was
arranged by us to set out at three o'clock, A. M., on Monday.
A porter, however, of the stage-office aroused us at one
o'clock; when, hurrying on our garments, we were speedily
following our baggage trundled by the man, in that most
capacious of one-wheeled carriages—an antiquated wheelbarrow.

Arrived at the office, then kept by the Tomlinsons, the
agent affected to consider me and my wife as only one
person, and hence while I paid for two seats, he forced me
to pay for all my wife's baggage as extra;—an imposition
only submitted to, because in running my eye over the names
booked as passengers, while the vexatious record of the
baggage was making, travelling associates were seen written
there who were too delightful to be lsot fora trifle. These
names were Colonel Wilmar of Kentucky and his cousin,
Miss Wilmar, of Philadelphia. In addition were three
strange names booked for Pittsburgh, a Mr. Smith and a
Mr. Brown, and also a name hardly legible, but which, if
I had decyphered correctly, seemed very like Clarence—
strange, indeed, and yet familiar;—surely it had been known
to me once—Clarence?—who could it be?

None of these persons had yet reached the office, (the
stage, however, being ready and waiting only their arrival,)
and when they did come, owing to the dim light of the
room and the bustle of an immediate movement towards the
stage, countenances could not be distinguished; and even
the Wilmars could not have been recognised without the
premonition of the way-bill.

The stages of that day wore no boots. In place of that
leathern convenience, was a cross-barred ornament projecting
in the rear to receive the baggage or at least half of it.
This receptacle was called the “Rack.” Perhaps from
its wonderful adaptation for the utter demolition of what it
received, it was originally named “Wreck;” and this word,
in passing through the ordeal of vulgar pronunciation, where
it was called first “Wrack,” having lost its “W,” remained,
what indeed it so much resembled—the Rack. In binding
Mrs. Carlton's trunk to this curious engine, the porter broke
the rope, and her trunk falling down, the articles within, in
spite of an old lock and a rotten strap, burst from their confinement
and were scattered over the street. The porter
was very prompt in his aid in gathering the articles and
securing the lid, and as some compensation for his blunder
and its consequences, he refused the usual fee of the wheelbarrow
service. Of course he received now thanks for
generosity instead of rebukes for negligence: but on inspecting
afterwards our trunk, the absence of a purse containing
seven dollars and of a silver cup worth twice as
much, awakened suspicions of less honourable cause for the
porter's conduct.

Here then were, at the outset, extortion and theft, and
felt, too, as evils; but there was present a believing spirit
mingling sweetness with the wormwood. Ay! were we
not actually on our way to the land of vision! Surely no
such baseness is there! The sanctity of that Far West is
inviolate!

Inside, our stage was most judiciously filled with three
tiers. The lower tier was composed of saddle-bags, valises,
small trunks and carpet-bags; the second, of human beings
supported upright by an equal squeeze on all sides; and
then, on the condensed laps of the living tier, rested the
third tier, made up of extra cloaks, some band-boxes and
work-baskets, several spare hats in pasteboard cases, half

a dozen canes and umbrellas, and one fowling-piece done
up in green baize. Notwithstanding the great felicity of
this arrangement, the inquietude of the upper and lower
tiers when the stage first started, occasioned in the sentient
tier some inarticulate growling and a little half-smothered
cursing; which crusty symptoms, however, presently yielded
to a good-natured laugh at the perseverance with which Mr.
Brown remained on a French gentleman's foot, through a
misapprehension of a very polite and indirect request not to
stand there—a laugh in which the parties themselves joined.

Our driver had, at the office, seated between two way-passengers
with the curtain behind them dropped, given the
signal, when away dashed the horses; and then commenced
the inconsiderate restlessness of the internal baggage and
the ill-concealed surliness of the passengers. But at the
end of a few squares the stage suddenly stopped at a hotel,
when the door of the vehicle being instantly opened, the
space was filled with the head and shoulders of Mr. Brown,
who began as follows:—

“Ladies and gentlemen, you seem to be full in here, I
suppose it is no use to be looking for my seat in the dark—”

“Sare”—responded, evidently by the accent, a Frenchman,
and in a most complaisant and supplicatory tone—
“Sare, do not you know my foote is under yours?”

“No, sir,”—replied Mr. Brown standing up as well as
he could in the stage, and feeling about for some space.

“Sare, do not you know my foote is under yours?”—
voice higher and quicker.

“No, sir, I don't,”—surprised, but not budging.

“Sare, do you not know my foote is under yours?”—on
the octave, and getting higher and more emphatic.

“O! I beg your pardon, sir,—do you mane I'm raelly
treading on your fut?”—without, however, moving off, but
generously waiting for information.

“Yes! sare! I do!”

“Oh! I beg pardon, sir—raelly I thought I was standing

on a carpet-bag”—when, satisfied he was wrong in his
conjecture, and that it was “raelly the fut,” Mr. Brown instantly
removed the aggravating pressure.

Our friends thus introduced by the “foote” and the “fut”
as the gentleman from France and the gentleman from Ireland,
were welcomed by no inaudible laughter, in which
they also participated, while at the moment the door was
violently slammed, and that instantly followed by a startling
crack of the impatient whip. This was of great advantage
to Mr. Brown, as it helped him to a seat somewhere; although
from some peevish expressions, he must have alighted on
other quarters as well as his own. All outcries and growlings,
however, occasioned by hats and bonnets innocently
dashed into neighbouring faces, or by small trunks unable
to keep their gravity, and elastic sticks and umbrellas that
rubbed angrily against tender ancles or poked smartly into
defenceless backs, all were drowned in the rattling thunder
of the rolling wheels; and the tiers, rather loosely packed
at first, were soon, by the ferocious and determined jerking
and plunging of the vehicle, shaken into one compact quiescent
and democratical mass.

Unsuccessful attempts then came to sustain a general talk
on the weather, the time of reaching the breakfast, the hour
of the night, and the like novel and interesting topics; the
questions being commonly put, and the replies hazarded by
six or eight voices together, and in as many intervals of
pitch, from the grumbled bass to the most tremulous and
piteous treble. To these succeeded equally abortive efforts
to sustain duos and trios, till the whole performance of the
talk remained a solo. This performer, when day peeped
in upon us, proved to be a middle-aged and corpulent lady,
who sang out in a very peculiar and most penetrating tone;
herself both asking and answering, often categorically, but
for the most part in the “guess and may be” style of recitativo.
Encouraged by the silence of the company, the lady

at length in the same lofty strains sang out portions of her
own history, introducing the pleasing variations of “may-be-it-would”
and “may-be-it-would'nt”—“I guessed and he
guessed”—and “says I and says he,” &c. The burden,
however, of the piece was this:—it was her first trip to the
city, although from a little girl she had lived within thirty
miles—but her mother could never spare her—and when
she married Jacob, her and him could never leave home
together, and Jacob, he would never let her go alone by herself,
being “right down sarten she'd never come back again
alive or without some of her bones broken.”

Soon, however, we began to go “slowly and sadly” over
the Schuylkill bridge, when something not unlike snoring
admonished the lady of our seeming inattention, and her
musical narrative suddenly ceased, like the sudden holding
up of a hard rain; and then all were quickly either practising
sleep at random, or with troubled thoughts wandering
to the absent or indulging fitful dreams of the future.

Morning revealed by degrees the incumbents, and in very
imposing attitudes. For instance, there was the Frenchman,—his
head on the Irishman's shoulder, and keeping
pretty tolerable time to the music of the jolting carriage;
while the Irishman revived now and then by a desperate
lurch extra, as in atonement for his fault, made no attempt
to be rid of his burden, but slowly closing his eyes, nodded
away with his own head in the direction of our solo. But
all noddings in this book will be indulged by the classic
reader, who knows well enough:

Fronting myself was a person with hands holding to a
strap pendent from the roof, his head inclined towards his
breast, and his hat fallen off, but intercepted by Col. Wilmar,
his sleeping neighbour. This stranger, on several

elevations of his head, presented a countenance that set me
to recalling past scenes and associates, and I was in a fair
way of making some discovery, when all were fiercely
jerked into wakefulness by a most unnatural and savage
plunge of the stage, followed on the instant, like severe
lightning, by an explosion; the tiers becoming all vocal
with “bless my soul's”—“my goodnesses!”—and vulgar
“ouches!” Above all, however, sounded this pathetic remonstrance
in our talking lady's inimitable style:—“La!
Mister! if you aint nodded agin this here right bran new
bonnit of mine, till I vow if it aint as good as spiled!” To
this no reply was permitted as the horses suddenly halted,
and a venerable and decent landlord having opened the door
of the carriage, requested us to alight, adding that “the
stage breakfasts here.”

The live stock accordingly was unpacked and extricated
from the dead, no important damage being visible, except in
“the bran new bonnit;” and sure enough it was curiously
sloped contrary to nature, with an irregular concave in the front
and suitable enlargements sideways. Sceptics like Hume
would doubtless have raised a query, if the width was entirely
owing to the noddings of the Irish gentleman, or the
very ample rotundity of the cherry-cheeked and good,
humoured face expanded within the bonnet; but Mr. Brown
himself at once admitted his inconsiderate butting as the
cause, and with every appearance of concern he busied
himself with assisting the matron to alight and looking after
her baskets and boxes. This so won on her, that when at
the first opportunity Mr. Brown attempted an apology and
condolence, he was interrupted by her saying—“Oh! never
mind it, Mister, it aint no odds no how, and I guess we can
soon fix it.”

During our ablutions I caught the eye of the young stranger
already named, fixed with an inquiring look on my face;
and then we both, towel in hand, gradually advanced, yet

embarrassed and hesitating as if both recollected the incident,
“you thought it was me and I thought it was you, and
faith its nather of us,” till, arrived at proper distance, he
extended his hand and hazarded the affirmative inquiry:

“If I mistake not this is Robert Carlton!”

My reply showed it was each of us:

“Clarence! Charles Clarence!—is it possible!—is this
you!”

Reader, this Charles Clarence was the identical boy of
the adjacent seat, whose enthusiasm for bark cabins and
forest life, like my own, had beguiled us of many a hateful
lesson, and gained for us many a smart application of birch
and leather in parts left defenceless by scant patterns of
primitive roundabouts!

Shortly after this, in the parlour of the Warren tavern, a
general introduction took place among the Pittsburgh travellers:
viz. Mr. Brown, Mr. Smith, Col. Wilmar and Miss
Wilmar, Mr. Clarence and Mr. and Mrs. Carlton; who all,
in due season, shall be more particularly introduced to our
readers, as the Party. At present we must obey the signal
for breakfast; that meal being really prepared for the passengers,
although, by metonomy, it was in old times said to
be for the stage.

3. CHAPTER III.

When summoned to the stage by the driver's horn, it
seemed we had lost some way-passengers, room being thus
obtained for the lady of the bonnet; who, however, appeared
wearing the old article, having, with a corrected judgment,
consigned the damaged one to the band-box. So, also,
greater space was found for the French gentleman's foot,

who had, from apprehension of cold or from gout, so encased
his pedalic appendages in socks of carpet-stuff as to lead
a careless observer, even by day-light, to mistake his feet
for two of the many travelling bags on the floor. Opportunity
also was afforded now of a more judicious disposal of
various rubbing, poking and punching articles, so that, aided
by a good breakfast and a morning cold but bright, we were
soon engaged in a conversation, general, easy and animated.

And now we may properly proceed to introduce the gentlemen
of the party. Please then, reader, notice first that
pleasant-looking personage bowing so profoundly, and evidently
anxious to win your favour. That is—hem!—that is
Robert Carlton, Esq. He takes the opportunity of soliciting
your company not only for the journey but—all the way
through his two volumes. He would also say, it is his purpose
to imitate Julius Cæsar occasionally, and use the third
instead of the first person singular, and to adopt now and
then, too, the regal style, in employing nominative we, possessive
our or ours, objective us. These imitations, it is
supposed, will give a very pleasing variety to the book, enable
the author to utter complimentary things about Mr.
Carlton and his lady with greater freedom, and not run so
hard upon capital I's, or, in technical phrase, not exhaust
the printer's sorts.

This next gentleman is my friend Mr. Smith. Like so
many of the name, he was in all respects a worthy man, and
honoured, at the time, with a high station in the magistracy
of Pittsburgh. Our party shared his liberal hospitality there,
and since that hour we have been quite partial in our regard
of the Smiths, and their relatives the Smythes. Happy
partiality this; for if all classed and sorted under that
grand-common-proper-noun take a corresponding liking for
our author, where will be the limit to the number of copies
and editions?

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mr. Brown. He was an

Irish gentleman, had travelled extensively in Europe, and
had the manners of the best society. At present he was at
the commencement of a tour, to be extended over most of the
United States. Among his oddities, not the least was his
odd person, entitling him to Noah Webster's word, lengthy,—
he appearing alternately all body, when one looked up, and
all legs, when one looked down:—a peculiarity I am led the
more to notice, as I found his elongation very unfavourable
to skiff navigation afterwards on the Ohio river; and indeed
it put us in jeopardy, if not of life, yet of immersion. In
spite of all his reading—(Mr. Boz, however, had not then
published his American notes)—Mr. Brown was remarkably
ignorant of our country, expressing unfeigned surprise that
our road, only twenty miles from Philadelphia, in place of
leading into dark forests filled with wild beasts and naked
savages, did really run amid open farms and smiling scenery,
abounding with domestic animals and civilized agriculturalists.
Pittsburgh was his uliima Thule, beyond which he
expected to find no place, or even something worse. Distinguished,
however, for his agreeable manners and frank
disposition, cheerfully confessing and laughing at his own
mistakes, he became of course a universal favourite.

Col. Wilmar was, however, my beau ideal of a gentleman.
To a manly beauty he had added the qualities of good education
and the grace of many accomplishments. He was
courteous, brave and even chivalrous; his attention to others
resulting from benevolence and not from prudence. Ladies
under his care, (and that, from a knowledge of his character,
was often the case,) were regarded by him more as sisters
having claims on a brother's attentions, than as strangers
committed to his trust. With pleasure we thought such a
specimen of our citizens could be contemplated by Mr.
Brown; and Mr. Carlton rejoiced that he knew one worthy
to live in the land of poetry and dreams: for the colonel
was an inhabitant of the West.

In the last war with Great Britain, Col. Wilmar, then a
very young man, commenced his military career as a volunteer,
and after being actively engaged in many skirmishes
and other warlike enterprises, he served finally as an aid to
Gen. Winchester in the disastrous battle of the river Raisin.
Taken prisoner he escaped the massacre made of his associates
by the Indians, and was then marched to Fort Malden;
whence, after a detention of some months, he was restored
to his home. Here, his military feelings being yet dominant,
he was soon honoured with an important command among
the militia and volunteers of Kentucky—his native State.

When we became, as a party, the sole occupants of the
stage, and, in the ascent of the mountains, had opportunities
for prolonged narratives, among other matters the colonel
gave, at our request, a sketch of his military adventures.
And one story may properly find a place here by way of episode
in the description of my companions.

But hark!—some one hails our driver, and the stage
stops—

“Law! bless my senses, if there aint Jacob in his cart
come out for me at the end of our road!”—was the immediate
exclamation that burst from our heroine. The unexpected
sight of her husband and the thoughts of home,
(where we learned she expected to see “little Peggy,”)
were too powerful for the prudent resolves or secret awe
that had, for the last hour, kept our dame silent; and out
rushed nature's feelings as above described. Nor did the
torrent exhaust itself at one gushing—it paused and then
continued:

“I vow I thought he'd a met one at the tavern in Dowington—but
Jacob's so monstrous afeard of a body's gittin
hurt, that he's staid out here—I do wonder how he left
them all at home?”

In the meantime, Mr. Brown, pleased with her self-satisfaction,
good nature, and forgiving temper, had got out

and stood receiving first the band-box containing the pummelled
bonnet, and then aiding its owner to alight; for
which he received a cordial “thankee, sir,” and a pressing
invitation to call and see her and Jacob if ever he should
be travelling that way again.

All that could be heard of the conjugal dialogue was—
“Well I vow, Jacob, who'd a thought of seeing you at our
road!”—to which was answered—“And so, Peggy,”—the
rest being lost in the renewed thunder of our wheels.
Jacob was evidently pleased to receive Peggy safe; and
his calm quaker-like dress and countenance seemed to
look and say, he was by no means the Mercury or chief
speaker in the domestic circle.

Return we to our episode, Col. Wilmar's narrative.

“Among our volunteers was a young man, a tailor I believe,
but in all respects decidedly our best soldier. He
was tall, well proportioned, and fit for any feat of strength
and dexterity; besides, he was observant of every duty, and
ready at any time for either parade or battle. Without
being myself a member of the church, I believe the many
excellences of his brave, benevolent, and self-sacrificing
spirit were owing mainly to religious principles. He was, I
know, a professor of religion.

“In one battle at the Raisin, he was slightly wounded—
a knowledge of which must have led to the tragedy that
followed our capture. Turner, for that was the soldier's
name, did, indeed, try to conceal his wound from the Indians;
and I well know it did not retard his progress: but
unless our captors were determined to avoid even the possibility
of any hinderance, we never could conjecture any
other plausible reason for what followed.

“My friend was in the same division of prisoners with
myself, the assistant surgeon and several of our townsmen;
and at night when we halted, Turner was seated near me at

the fire in the woods, while the Indians dealt us out a little
bread and beef. On my left, and nearly opposite the poor
fellow, I saw, for some time, an Indian who kept his eye
on Turner, with an expression that looked like mischief;
and then I saw the savage, as if by stealth, grasp his tomahawk
and move round without any noise till he came up
immediately behind us. Why, I cannot tell, but perhaps
Turner, too, had noticed all this; he sprang, however,
suddenly to his feet and with the most amazing activity,
arrested the blow of the weapon with his arm, receiving a
deep gash in his shoulder, and thus warding off the blow
from his head. And then, gentlemen, that wounded man
darted upon that Indian, and actually wrested the hatchet
from his hand, and in the next instant raised it to aim a
deadly blow at his enemy's head—ay, gentlemen, I saw
the hatchet tremble in his grasp—I saw, as I think, the
weapon almost descending with its fatal stroke—and yet,
at that very moment, it was stayed—and the next it was
thrown down upon the ground.

“For on the instant our surgeon, who had noticed
the Indians drawing their knives and hatchets for our
massacre, cried out—“Turner! Turner! for God's sake,
don't kill him!”—And then, Turner, our noble, godlike
comrade, comprehending at a glance our danger, looked
up a moment, as if in prayer—flinging, at the same time,
the weapon on the earth. And there he stood!—his arms
calmly folded across his breast, and with such a look of
self-devotion and Christian resignation, until the demon-like
savage having picked up the hatchet, approached his
victim, and buried it, with one terrific blow, deep in his
head!”

A tear trembled in the colonel's eye as he concluded;
and although many years have passed since I heard him
tell this story, I am moved when I think of that godlike
warrior so dying!—but then the story was better told.

Charles Clarence my new found friend was an orphan.
His parents both had died, he being scarcely three years
old, leaving him however, heir nominally to large and valuable
tracts of land. But he succeeded to nothing, at last,
more valuable than a very large mass of useless papers;
unless we except some trinkets indicative of an ancient and
wealthy family: and even these the sole mementos of
departed parents were sacrificed to supply the urgent necessities
of Clarence, when he found himself a deserted boy.
Some relatives did not then know of his existence—and
some only found it out when he did not need either recognition
or assistance. A maternal uncle, however, in the
far South, prevented by sudden death from adopting my
friend as a son, had left him a legacy: and from this he
had been liberally educated, with many interruptions,
however, and many distressing inconveniences, owing to
the interception of his small dividends on some occasions
by dishonest agents.

Still the apparent neglect of some relatives, the want of
a guardian and other seeming evils had been of service to
Clarence in giving stamina to his character, wanting, naturally,
in bone and sinew. Even the interruption of his
studies had led to several voyages and journeys with peril
indeed, to life and health, but with advantage to his mind
and manners. His fondness, too, for adventure was indulged,
and he was rendered thus a more interesting and
instructive companion and friend. Sobered, it is true, by
disappointment and grief, my friend was; yet I found him
now sufficiently sanguine and confident to venture on enterprises
considered praiseworthy, if one succeed, but not
so, if unsuccessful. Indeed but lately had he returned
from a visit to the Falls of Niagara, in which from want
of money, he had been induced to use the vulgar mare
that required only rest and no oats—in other words, with a
knapsack on his back he had, in company with two associates,

made a tour of three hundred miles on foot. He had
also travelled many thousand miles in various directions
and in various capacities, so that he abounded in anecdotes
and incidents, which he could so relate as to make
himself a companion for a journey by no means undesirable.

At this very time Clarence was going to Kentucky on a
very grand adventure:—he was on his way to be married.
When only sixteen years of age he became affianced to a
maiden, whose family shortly after emigrating to the
West, thus, for a long time, had separated the lovers.
But now at the end of seven years, during which the parties
had never met, Clarence was going as he pretended to
see the family; but in reality, reader, to marry his sweet-heart.
Ladies! will you please note this as an offset to
instances of faithlessness in our sex? And were not
these specimens of long cherished love and unbroken faith
worthy the poetical land?

—But what lights in the distance? Oh! that is Lancaster,
and there we eat supper and change stages: excuse
me, then, reader, we have no time to introduce our ladies.

Supper ended, we found a new stage, if by new is understood
another, for old enough it was and a size (?) less
than our old stage;—which after all was nearly a new one.
True, excepting monsieur, we had before stopping let out
all our way passengers; but fortunately on attempting to
get in ourselves now, we discovered enough new way passengers
not only to take the seats of the former ones, but
our seats also—so remarkably accommodating were the
old-fashioned accommodation stages and stage owners!
Alas! for us that night! that it was before the era of
caoutchouc or gum elastic!—stages' bodies of that could
have so easily become, almost at will, a size larger and a

size less, expanding and contracting as passengers got in
or out! Oh! the cramming—the jamming—the bumping
about of that night! How we practiced the indirect style of
discontent and cowardice, in giving it to the intruders over
the shoulders of stage owners, and agents, and drivers, and
horses! And how that crazy, rattling, rickety, old machine
rolled and pitched and flapped its curtains and walloped
us for the abuse, till we all were quashed, bruised,
and mellowed into a quaking lump of passive, untalking,
sullen victims!

4. CHAPTER IV.

Dashed away from the hotel the stage with such vengeance
and mischief in the speed that the shops ran backward
in alarm and lights streamed mere ribbons of fire, as
when urchins whirl an ignited stick! Discontent, therefore,
found a present alleviation in the belief that such driving,
by landing us in Harrisburg speedily, would soon terminate
our discomforts. But the winged horses, once beyond
Lancaster, turned again into hoofy quadrupeds moving nearly
three miles per hour! And then the watering places!
—the warming places!—the letting out places!—the letting
in places!—the grog stations!—and above all! the
post-offices!—and oh! the marvellous multiplication of
extra drivers!—and extra driver's friends!—and extra
hostlers!—it was like the sudden increase of bugs that
wait for the darkness before they take wing! And then the
flavour of the stable considerately tempered with the smell
of ginsling and apple whiskey!—both odours occasionally
overpowered by the fragrance of cigars bought six for a
penny!

At first, so decided a growl arose from the imprisoned
travellers whenever a cigar was lighted, that the smoking
tobacco was at once cast away; but the rising of the numberless
other gases, soon taught us “of two evils to bear
the least,” and the cigars were finally tolerated to the last
puff.

And then the talk on the driver's seat!—how interesting
and refreshing!—For instance, the colloquies about Jake!
and Ike! and Nance! and Poll! The talk, too, first about
the horses, and then the talk with the horses; on which latter
occasions the four legged people were kindly addressed
by their Christian names and complimented with an encomiastic
flourish and cut of the lash. To these favours the
answer was commonly an audible and impatient swing of
horse tails; sometimes, however, it came in form of a
sudden and malicious, dislocating jerk of the stage; and
sometimes, I am sorry to add, the answer was altogether
disrespectful, indicating an indulged and pampered favourite.

Within the den, the ominous pop, at irregular intervals,
(but not like angel's visits in the number and length,) and
the smell of fresh brandy, intimated dealings with evil spirits,
and that some carried bacchanalian pocket pistols—more
fatal even and much nastier than the powder and bullet
machines used in other murders and suicides. Olfactories
were regaled also with essence of peppermint, spicy gingerbread,
and unctuous cold sausage; such and other delicacies
being used by different inmates to beguile hunger
and tedium.

At length a jew pedlar with a design of selling the article
as well as gratifying a musical penchant, exhibited—
not to our eyes, it was an Egyptian night within—but to
our ears, a musical snuff box, if not enchanting yet certainly
enchanted, as it possessed the art of self-winding, to
judge from the endless and merciless repetitions and alternations
of the Copenhagen Waltz and Yankee Doodle. Its

tinkling, however, was ultimately drowned by a more
powerful musician on the driver's seat. This was an extra
driver, so wrought up by the pedlar's box, that his feelings
could be no longer controlled, but suddenly exploded
with the most startling effect in the following exquisite lyric
or ballad. Perhaps the words were not extempore, yet
from the variations of the wondrous hum-drum fitted to
them, and the prolongation and shortening of notes, and a
peculiar slurry way to bring in several syllables to one note,
it may be supposed our songster chose not to halt or stump
from any defect of memory.

The performance, rapturously encored ex animo by the
drivers and some cognate spirits within, but mischievously,
it is to be feared, by Mr. Carlton, Col. Wilmar and the
gentlemen of the party, was handsomely repeated and then
succeeded by other poems and tunes equally affecting, but
which we shall not record.

So passed that memorable night, till at long, very long
last we reached the suburbs of Harrisburgh. Here, whether
the horses smelled oats, or the road was better, or
the driver would eradicate doubts about his team, expressed
by us every half mile lately, here we commenced going
not like thunder but certainly in thunder and earthquake,
till in a few moments the carriage stopped at the hotel.
And this was where the stage was to sleep—but, alas! it
lacked now only one hour of the time when we must proceed
on our journey anew! The vehicle, however, disgorged
its cramming over the pavement; and then, how
all the people, with countless bags, boxes, cloaks, sticks,
umbrellas, baskets, bandboxes, hatboxes, valises, &c., &c.,
had been or could be again stowed in that humming-bird's
nest of a stage, seemed to require a nice geometrical calculation.
Pack the inhabitants of our globe stage-fashion
by means of dishonest agents and greedy owners, and be
assured, a less number of acres would serve for our accommodation
than is generally supposed.

It was arranged now that our two ladies should share
one bed at 25 cents, and take each 12½ cents worth of
sleep in an hour, the gentlemen to snooze gratuitously on the
settees in the bar room; and it is wonderful how much
sleep can be accomplished in a short time if it be done by
the job! Oh! it seemed cruelty to summon us from that
deep repose to renew the journey; yet, as all our innumerable
way passengers but one had swarmed off, we had more
room, and so were able to nurse the ladies during the day
into some uneasy slumbers and to sleep off hand ourselves,
or in other words, without a rest. Pshaw.

5. CHAPTER V.

We left Chambersburgh in good spirits after a comfortable
night's rest, the sole occupants of the stage too;
and by a rare chance we remained sole occupants during
the remainder of our journey. And “though we say it that
should'nt” never was a more agreeable party in all respects
than ours—the present company, viz., the reader and the
author excepted. Among other excellencies, none of the
party chewed tobacco, smoked tobacco, spit tobacco, drank
alcoholic liquors, or used profane language—evils that may
be separated, but which still are often united. Of course
no one took snuff, all being then greatly too young for
powdered tobacco: that very appropriately belongs to “the
sere and yellow leaf” time.

Not long after sun-rise we were at the ascent of the grand
mountain—a frowning rampart shutting by its rocky wall
from the east that world beyond! From the base to the
apex the road here ascends about four miles; which ascent
the gentlemen resolved to walk up:—a feat usually achieved
at the first mountain, especially if the first one has ever seen.
To be sure people afterwards will walk when politely requested
by a good natured driver, out of pity to the poor
brute horses: but—(shame on his poetry and romance,)
Mr. Carlton having in subsequent years passed and repassed
the mountains twenty-four times, used to remain in
the stage and sleep up the ascents! Yet not infrequently
would he be musing on the past, and recalling with smiles
and tears, that delightful party and that delightful walk on
that sweet morning, and all the glorious visions and castle
buildings of that entrancing day!—gone, gone, “like the
baseless fabric of a dream!”

We soon left the stage behind us, and sometimes out of

sight and hearing. Then, under pretext of concern for the
ladies, but really I fear to have a pretext for resting, we
called a halt, where we could sit on a rock and blow, till
the noise of wheels and the sight of a bonnet peeping from
the stage gave us liberty to proceed; or rather took away the
excuse for sitting still. At the same time the bonnet would
disappear, lest it should be construed as a token of fear—
robbery in those times not only of solitary travellers but of
whole stage companies often happening. However we had
a host in Col. Wilmar, and even thought with a peculiar
thrill of the poetry of an attack from bandits;—although
when in after years we encountered the danger it was not
so poetical as romance writers make it, but simply a very
disagreeable affair better to read about than transact.

The time of the present journey was late in April, the
nights being often very cold, but the days only moderately
cool and sometimes even warm. Snow was yet in spots
near the summit of the mountains, although in places lying
towards the south and east vegetation was in rapid progress:
so that nothing could be more in unison with our feelings
than the renovated world amid the Alleghanies. Hope was
springing so fresh and green from the decayed hope of boyhood!
and nature so budding forth from the deadness of
winter! But alas! if buds and flowers burst forth, they die
again and soon! And renovated hope is renewed only for
blighting.

We stood now on the pinnacle of the great Cove mountain
and were gazing on the mingled grandeur and beauty
of the scene. Few are unmoved by the view from that
top; as for myself I was ravished. Was I not on the dividing
ridge between two worlds—the worn and faded
East, the new and magic West? And yet I now felt and
painfully felt, that we were bidding adieu to home and entering
on the untried: still, hope was superior to fear, and
I was eager to pass those other peaks, some near as if they

might be touched and glorious with the new sunbeams, and
some sinking down away off till the dim outline of the farthest
visible tops melted into blue and hazy distance!
Years after I stood on that pinnacle alone and the two
worlds were seen again—but no hopes swelled then into
visions of glory, at sight of the dim peaks; no consolations
awaited me in my native valleys of the East! Death had
made East and West alike to me a wilderness! Poor
Clarence! did he ever stand again, where I noticed him
standing that morning? How buoyant his heart! and so
melted with tender thoughts, so raptured with imaginings!
Could it be?—after years of separation—is he now hastening
to one dearer to him than the whole world beside!
Will they know one another? Both have changed from
childhood to maturity—but why so speak? Our lovers
ever thought each the other unchanged in size, in look, in
voice; and when they did meet at last, they shed tears, for
while both were in all respects improved, both were altered,
and they were no more to love as boy and girl, but as man
and woman! Clarence saw no dark spectres in the bright
visions of that morning!

Upon Smith, long ago the scenes of that other life
opened; and doubtless they were of an undying glory,
for—

But here comes the stage to hurry us onward; and so
the bustle of life interrupts serious meditations with the
whirl of cares and enterprises.

We were all once more seated in the vehicle, which
instantly darted upon the descent with a velocity alarming,
and yet exhilarating to persons unused to the style of a
mountain driver. The danger is with due care less, indeed,
than the appearance; yet the sight of places where
wagons and stages are said to have tumbled gigantic
somersets over miniature precipices, will force one involuntarily
to say in a supplicatory tone to Jehu,—“Take

care driver, here's where that stage went over, and poor
Mr. Bounce was killed!” To this caution Jehu replies—
“Oh! no danger—besides he want killed—he only smashed
his ribs 'gin that rock there, and got his arm broke;”
and then to quiet our fears, he sends forth his endless
lash to play a curve or two around the ears of the prancing
leaders, and with a pistol-like crack that kindles the
fire of the team to fury; and away they all bound making
the log crowning the rampart of wall tremble and start
from its place as the wheels spin round within eight
inches of the dreaded brink.

Thundering down thus, our stage dashed up the small
stones as if they leaped from a volcano, and awaked the
echoes of the grim rocks and the woody caverns: while
ill-stifled “Oh! my's!” and a tendency of the ladies to
counteract, by opposite motions, the natural bias of the
stage body for the sidewary declivity, were consoled with
the usual asseverations—“O don't be afraid—no danger—
no danger!” But when the horses, on approaching a
sudden turn of the road, seemed, in order to secure a good
offing, to shy off towards the deep valley, and nothing
could be seen over the tips of their erect and quivering
ears, save blue sky and points of tall trees, then the
ladies, spite of rebukes and consolations—(and one at
least of the gentlemen)—would stand tip-toeish, labouring,
indeed, to keep a kind of smile on the lips, but with an
irrepressible “good gracious—me!” look out of the eyes.
And—

—But oh! what a beautiful village below us! How
neat and regular the houses! See! there's one spun and
woven—like a Dutch woman's petticoat!—yes, petticoat
is the word—only the stripes of the petticoat do not run
horizontally, and those of the house do. I declare if
there are not brick houses! and stone ones!—and how
the smoke curls up to us—we can smell breakfast! What

noiseless streets! what green meadows! Did you ever
see any thing so picture like—so like patchwork! It
would be so pleasant to live in that nice, quiet, snug,
picturesque village! Mr. Smith, what place is it? Mr.
Smith smiling, replied—“McConnel'stown.” McConnel'stown!
oh! what a beauty—there it is hid—no—
there—look through there—where?—there—no 'tis gone!

We soon had reached the valley three miles below the
point of descent; and as Jehu said it was done at the rate
of twelve miles to the hour, the reader being skilled in the
modern knowledges, can calculate our time for himself.
“There is the town,” said Mr. Smith. Yes! there it was
sure enough, as it had never budged from its site since we
had first spied it; but—

“Quantum mutatus ab illo!”

“What a fall! was there! my countrymen!”

Is that jumble of curious frame, brick, log, and stone
habitations our picture—town! Ay! truly, there is the petticoat-house,
with a petticoat as a curtain before the door,
and an old hat or so in the glassless sash, and fire light
gleaming between the logs. There! the door opens to
see us pass—just see the children—one, two, three—nine
at least, and one in very deed at the breast!—but how
dirty and uncombed! Did you ever see such a set as the
scamps lounging about that tavern?—and one reeling off
drunk, the morning so fresh yet! See! that duck puddle
and swine wallow full of vile looking mud and water—
certainly it must be sickly here, “Driver, what noise is
that?” “Dogs fighting.” Dreadful!—Mr. Smith what
are you laughing at?” “Oh, nothing—only I should not
like to live here as well as some ladies and gentlemen.”
And yet, reader, while a near view had dispelled the illusion
of a distant prospect, good and excellent, and even
learned and talented people lived there, and yet live in
McConnel'stown.

At all events we shall have a good breakfast at this fine
looking stage-house. But whether we had arrived too
soon, or the folks usually began preparation after counting
the number of mouths, or the wood was green, or we most
vulgarly hungry and sharp set, very long was it, very long
indeed, before we were summoned. And then the
breakfast! Perhaps it was all accidental, but the coffee (?)
was a libel on diluted soot, made by nurses to cure a baby's
colic: the tea (?)—for we had representatives of both beverages—the
tea, was a perfect imitation of a decoction of
clover hay, with which in boyhood we nursed the tender
little calves, prematurely abstracted from the dams, the
silly innocents believing all the while that the finger in
the mouth was a teat! Eggs, too!—it may have been
unlike Chesterfield—but it certainly was not without hazard
to put them in the mouth before putting them to the
nose:—the oval delicacies mostly remained this morning
to feast such as prefer eggs ripe. Ay! but here comes a
monster of a sausage coiled up like a great greasy eel!
Such often in spite of being over-grown or over-stuffed are
yet palatable: this rascal, however, had rebelled against
the cook, and salamander-like, had passed the fiery ordeal
unscorched. Hot rolls came, a novelty then, but much like
biscuits in parts of the Far West, viz., a composition of
oak bark on the outside, and hot putty within—the true
article for invalids and dyspeptics. We had also bread
and butter, and cold cabbage and potatoes, like oysters,
some fried and some in the shell; and green pickles so
bountifully supplied with salt as to have refused vinegar—
and beets—and saltsellars in the shape of glass hats—and
a mustard pot like a salve-box, with a bone spoon glued in
by a potent cement of a red-brown-yellow colour—and a
light-green bottle of vinegar dammed up by a strong twisted
wadding of brown paper.

Reader, what more could we wish?

“Nothing.”

Let us go then to a new chapter.

6. CHAPTER VI.

In imitation of the ingenious Greek, with his specimen
brick, we have given bits of our roads, drivers and so forth,
to stand for the whole of such matters: but as the reader,
unless he skips, must have something to cheat him of the
tedium during the remaining journey, we shall here give
parts of conversations, after we had abandoned walks up
mountains and dreams on their summits.

“I shall never forget that spot,” said Col. Wilmar, one
day.

“Why, Colonel?”

“I was so near shooting a fellow we mistook for a highwayman.”

“Indeed! why how was that?”

“My wife,” proceeded the Colonel, in answer, “is a native
of the South. Directly after our marriage, we sailed
for Philadelphia, there spending some weeks prior to our
going home to Lexington. When the visit was over, having
purchased a carriage, we prevailed on our cousin, the
sister of Miss Wilmar here, to go with us to the West:
and then set out, the two ladies and myself, with a hired
coachman. I need hardly say I then travelled with weapons,
and as we entered the mountainous country, a brace
of pistols was kept loaded usually in a pocket of the carriage.
Perhaps I may with propriety add, that we were

worth robbing and that our travelling `fixins' excited some
interest along the road—the fact is, I was just married,
and you all know what young fellows do in the way of
extra then. Hence I do confess I felt more anxiety than
I chose to exhibit, and looked upon it as more than possible
that we might light on disagreeable company.

“The road was most execrable, except an occasional
section of the turnpike then making and partially completed.
We naturally, therefore, entered on any chance
section of this new road not only in good spirits from the
exchange, but with a kind of confidence as to our safety;
—for I believe one looks out for bad fellows in bad roads
and places more than in the good ones. Well, just off
there—you see where that old road ran—that deep narrow
gulley—there we emerged into a piece of superb turnpike;
or, in fact, we were compelled to take it, an impediment
being manifestly placed in the old road to turn travellers
into the new:—and as I knew the turnpike would give
out in a mile or two, I ordered the coachman to go ahead
as fast as possible. This he did for about half a mile,
when suddenly a loud and gruff voice called out—`Stop!'
—which order was obeyed by our coachman in an instant.

“With a hand instinctively on a pistol, I looked out of
the carriage-window,—and there, fronting the horses stood
a stout fellow with a formidable sledge hammer, raised, as
in the very act of knocking down a horse;—while several
other rough chaps advanced towards us with bludgeons
and axes from the side of the road!

“Drawing the pistol from the pocket, as I spoke, I demanded—`What
do you mean?'

“`A dollar for trav'lin the new road—and buggur your
eyes if you'll git on till you pay—and blast my soul if
your man tries it, if I don't let drive at a horse's head.'

“To lean out—cock the pistol, and level straight at the
fellow's head, was the work of a moment—and I then said

—`Out of the road, you rascal!—only shake that sledge
again, and I'll shoot you dead on the spot.'

“The instant I spoke my wife threw an arm around my
neck, and my cousin hung on my other arm, and both
screamed out—“Oh! colonel, don't kill him—oh! don't!”
—and then to the fellow—“Oh! do! do! do! go away!
—he'll kill you!—oh! go!” “How far the gang had designed
to proceed, I was then doubtful—nor do I know, if
the ladies would not have destroyed the accuracy of my
aim—yet, when that fellow caught sight of the muzzle directed
at his head, and heard the frantic cries of the ladies,
he dropped the sledge hammer as if his arms were para-lyzed;
and the whole company suddenly, but quickly,
retreating, our driver went ahead. The ladies had interfered
involuntarily from instinctive horror at seeing a
sudden and violent death, and partly for fear the leader's
fall would be the signal for our massacre—but then I had
you know, the other pistol; and beside I depended on a
stout dirk, worn under my vest, and some little on the alarm
of the gang and the assistance of the driver. That, however,
is the adventure.”

“Had you made no resistance,” observed Mr. Smith,
“you would at least have paid a dollar and perhaps have
been insulted with foul language: but the fellows were
not robbers in the worst sense. A number of workmen, it
was said, had been defrauded of their wages, and to make
up the losses, they decoyed passengers into the turnpike
and then exacted toll. Your affair, by the way, colonel,
reminds me of a narrow escape I once made in returning
from New Orleans —”

“Ay!—what was it?”

“I had gone,” resumed Mr. Smith, “down the river with
a load of produce, and having turned both cargo and boat
into bills and cash, I was obliged to venture back alone.
Accordingly, I bought a fine horse, provided weapons, and

stowed my money and a few articles of apparel into my
saddle-bags, which at night were put under my head and
made fast round my person with a strap. One day,
when I had nearly reached the state of Tennessee, I
found myself at sunset, by some miscalculation or wrong
direction, about fifteen miles from the intended halting-place,
but was prevented from camping out by coming unexpectedly
on a two story log-house lately built, and of
course, for a tavern. The landlord took my saddle-bags
and led the way into the house, where a couple of suspicious-looking
men were standing near the fire. I called for
something to eat, and pretty quick after supper I took up
my plunder, under pretence of being very sleepy, and went
up to a small room furnished with only one bed; but I did
not really intend to go to bed, for the conviction kept haunting
me, that some attempt would be made on my property
—may be on my life. Of course, I barricaded the door as
well as possible, and, without noise, examined my pistols—
and got out my dirk—and after a while blew out the light
and made a noise as if getting into bed—but I only sat on
the edge and waited the result.

“Between one and two hours after, I heard other persons
enter the house below; and then, amidst a sort of premeditated
bustle, I could plain enough distinguish a lower
tone, a gentler stepping up and down, and once or twice a
very cautious attempt or two to open my door, till at last
the landlord came up and hailed me—

“`Hullow! stranger in thare?'

“`Well! hullow!—what's wanting?'

“`Won't you take in another traveller?—all's full but
you.'

“`No—there's only one bed in here, and that's a
plaguy narrow one.'

“The landlord, after some unavailing entreaty, went
away, but soon returned with the pretended traveller; and

although they meant I should believe only two persons
were outside, I knew from the whispering there were
more, and that confirmed me in my suspicions of mischief.

“The traveller, however, now opened the conference:

“`Hullow! I say, mister, in thare, won't you 'commodate?'

“`Gentlemen,' said I, in a decided tone, `nobody can
come into this room to-night with my consent.'

“`Well, d—n me, then, if I won't come in whether you
like it or no:—I've as much right to half a bed as you or
any other man.'

“`If you attempt it, stranger, you may take what comes.'

“The only answer was a long strain at the door—till at
last the door was forced a little open, and the rascal got his
whole hand in and would soon have worked in all his arm;
when, with a single thrust, I dashed my dirk right through
his hand and pinned him that way to the door-cheek.

“He screamed out, you may be sure, in agony; but it
was in vain, I held him fixed as fate: and when the others
found it impossible either to relieve him or get at me, they
willingly agreed and with the most solemn and energetic
promises to let me alone if I would release their comrade.
I took them at their word and drew out the dirk, and strange
as it may seem, the fellows kept their promise—and although,
for a day or two I travelled in fear of an ambuscade,
I was never molested, and by the Divine favour,
reached home not long after in safety.”

“Mr. Clarence,” said Miss Wilmar, “I have heard that
you had some alarming adventures in the South, and as we
are quite in the robber vein to-day, may we not hear a story
from you?”

“It would be difficult, Miss Wilmar,” replied Clarence,
“to refuse after such an invitation: but only one part of
the story to which you probably allude is certainly true—
that I was pretty well scared; when possibly there was

no good reason for alarm. However, here is the adventure,
and you can judge of probabilities for yourselves.

“On my last visit to South Carolina, being sick of sea-sickness,
I determined, winter as it was and contrary to
advice, to return to Philadelphia by land:—in which mode
of travelling, however, if the endless and deep lagoons, and
bayous, and swamps of the lower or coast-road, are considered,
there was nearly as much of navigation and hazard
of wrecking and drowning as in the other way, by sea.
Indeed, more than once our narrow triangular stage, with
its two horses, harnessed tandem, did really float a moment:—and
by night as by day, did we ford the middle of
submerged roads between drains and ditches, where the
water must have been four or five feet deep.

“From Charleston we had not only a new but a new
order of stage, which though crowded at starting, lost, by
the time we reached Georgetown, all the passengers but
myself and two others. These unfortunately were slave-dealers,
and of that very sort that John Randolph, or my
friend here the colonel, would not have greatly scrupled
to shoot down like any other blood-thirsty brutes. Their
diversion often was, to entice dogs near the stage and then
to fire pistol-balls at them—usually, however, without effect,
owing to the motion of the stage and the sagacity of the
dogs. Of all wretches, these were superlatively pre-eminent
in profanity: and this I once had the temerity to tell
them, but with no good result. Had the ancient persecutors
chained Christians to such reprobates, the torture to a
good and pious man would have been the most exquisitely
fiendish—if the tormenters could have cursed all the time
like these demons.

“Just before leaving Georgetown, I was not a little
alarmed, on their learning that I was going North, by an
abrupt query if I had not Philadelphia or New-York
money: and then, as this could not be denied nor even
evaded, by their immediate offer to give me Virginia paper

for it all and at an enormous premium in my favour. From
their whole manner I conjectured their Virginia notes were
counterfeit; which, added to their open and reckless wickedness,
rendered me uneasy and disposed to interpret their
subsequent conduct in accordance with my fears.

“Late at night in a violent storm of snow and sleet we
left Georgetown. The driver, pretending it was solely for
our comfort, had, in order to carry food for his horses,
crowded the stage body even above the seats with corn-blades,
like a farm-wagon with a load of fodder. I, slender
and powerless, of course kept still, but the two did not
hush down to their muttering state of quiescence till after
the usual tempest of raving curses; and then we all three
crawled in and mixed ourselves with the fodder as we best
could. Within an hour the driver lay back, and with the
reins somehow secured in his hands went to sleep—at all
events, his hat was over his eyes and he snored. And
then the men-stealers, supposing me to be asleep also, began
a whispering and rather inarticulate colloquy, in which
I at length clearly distinguished the ominous words—
`Cut his throat!'

“Good gracious! Mr. Clarence, and were you not
greatly terrified?”

“Yes, greatly at first; but keeping wide awake and listening
with my mouth open, I ascertained that the scoundrels
did verily intend to cut a throat, although not mine:—
it was the throat of a poor slave that had just given them
the slip. Yet dreading lest men who could coolly resolve
to cut one throat for revenge, might cut another for money,
I squeezed nearer the driver, and whenever he snored, I
nestled and moved about in the fodder till it waked him. So
passed most of the night, till shortly before day-break, we
halted on the edge of a river—perhaps the Pedee—where
the driver said our journey was at an end till to-morrow;
as the other contractor had failed to be there with his

stage! At the same time he pointed to a miserable and
solitary hut on the bank, where we should be well accommodated
till the stage arrived! And so I had before me a
very agreeable prospect—twenty-four hours with my precious
associates—almost alone—in the woods—and on the
bank of a deep and rapid stream! But the fury of these
fellows, when the driver's meaning was fully comprehended!—(who
had, at first, uttered himself in a saucy and indistinct
mutter, as he untackled his team and we crawled
out of the hay-mow)—it baffles description! And yet,
even in the very tempest height and rage of their godless
words, up stepped my imperturbable man of the whip, and
with the most invincible gravity and assurance demanded,
with outstretched and open palm, twenty-five cents each!

“`Twenty-five damnations!—what for?'—roared one of
them in unaffected surprise.

“`What for?'—echoed and mimicked the driver, as if
amazed at a silly question—`What for!!'—why, the nice
bed I made you last night out of that 'are fodder thare!

“This matchless impudence, fun or earnest—it was in
fact a little of both—was so preposterously ridiculous to me
at least, that I laughed fairly out in spite of fear and chagrin;
nor was the laughter abated by the attitude and
amazement of the two slavers. Figure them accosted by
the driver with his demand in the very midst of outrageous
cursings and frantic gestures—the pause—the call for explanation—it
given;—and there the wretches standing a
few seconds speechless, not from fear, but dumb with a
madness that was really unutterable! But then, when
they could speak, out came the unholy torrent as if the
prince of darkness had become incarnate and was spouting
forth brimstone and blasphemy? And all this time my
wonderful driver, cool, grave, unflinching—(on his guard
evidently, and he was a very athletic fellow)—kept at suitable
intervals repeating the demand for twenty-five cents

each for the fodder bed! till our heroes closed their proane
exhibition, by consigning driver—stage—horses—fodder—contractors—and
all the Carolinas and the whole pine
barren world to the swearer's own diabolical father, and his
red-hot furnaces, and finally hoping and praying that they
themselves might be dammed three or four times over—
`if ever they travelled that road again!' To all this Satanic
rhetoric my nonpareil of impudence only replied, and
with the most astonishing coolness—`We never expect
nobody to travel this way but once!'

“This ended the affair—our heroes were used up.

“At the hut however we found a man who gave us a few
sweet potatoes and some rice, and then offered to take us
over the river in a scow, that we might get to the stage-house
about two miles across the opposite forest. Here
then was a situation any thing but pleasant: and the behaviour
of the chaps, after we were left alone in the woods,
did not render it any more so. Among other things, they
lagged behind together—seemingly engaged, whenever I
looked around, in an earnest and low conversation, their
eyes occasionally on me—then they would come up on
each side of me—one going ahead as if to reconnoitre—
till at last they evidently had resolved on something of
which I suspected I was the subject, and advanced to execute
it—when, unexpectedly to my great relief, a negro
man, the first and the only person we met that morning,
came in sight, driving a horse and cart! I hurried up to
the poor negro, and learned that a plantation was on our
left, and that the stage-tavern was scarcely half-a-mile distant.
After this the slavers' conduct was less alarming
towards me; yet I never felt at ease till we reached
Fayetteville, where they took another road into Virginia
and left me sole occupant of the stage.

“This, Miss Wilmar, is, I confess,” continued Clarence,
“not a very tragic conclusion—but I had rather be here to

tell the story as it was, than to have Carlton here to tell it in
a book as it might have been; and yet perhaps the rascals
only meant to terrify me as did the wag, on meeting a traveller—”

“How was that, Mr. Clarence?”

Before Clarence could reply, Mr. Brown exclaimed—
“Look there!—look there!” and below us, in the meadows
bordering the Juniatta, was a hunted deer bounding away
for life! The timid creature ere long leaped into the water,
swam some hundred feet down the stream, and emerging
speeded away to the mountain. No pursuers were in sight,
and from appearances the poor creature escaped for that
time: it certainly had our wishes in its favour. This incident
naturally introduced stories about hunting and Indians,
with numberless episodial remarks on dogs, rifles, shot-guns,
tomahawks and the like; so that when the shadows of the
mountain began at the decline of day to darken the valleys,
and silence and thoughtfulness pervaded the party, fancy
easily brought back the red-man to his ancient haunts and
made robbers crouch in ambush in every thicket and behind
every tree. Yet we reached our lodging place in safety,
where, late at night, we severally retired to bed; and then,
if the day had brought Mr. Carlton and his amiable wife no
danger, they were destined to find a somewhat curious adventure
at night. And this we shall contribute to the chapter
as our share of its accidents.

Our sleeping room was on the first floor, and opened by
three windows into a piazza; which circumstances, together
with the stories just narrated to the reader and other matters
of the sort, inclined us to examine the fastenings before
going to bed. The bolts were faultless, but the shutters or
slappers were so warped and swollen that no efforts could
induce them to come together and be bolted; hence, our
only course was to jump into bed, and if any thing happened,
to do like children—put our heads under the covers. In

about an hour I was cautiously awakened by Mrs. Carlton,
who whispered in a low and agitated voice —

“Oh! my dear!—what's that?—listen!”

Instead of pulling up the bed-clothes, I sat up to listen;
and strange—a solemn and peculiar and thrilling note was
filling the room, swelling and dying away, and changing now
to one spot and then to another! What could it be? The
sound resembled nothing I had ever heard except once, and
that was in a theatrical scene, in which a huge iron wheel
turned at the touch of a magician and slowly raised the
heavy trap door of an enchanted cavern. I sprang out of
bed and began a search—yet all in vain—I felt along the
walls, crawled under the bed, poked my head up the chimney,
and even ventured into the closets—and all the while that
mysterious noise playing as wild and frightful as ever! At
last I pushed open the shutters and looked into the piazza;
still nothing was visible either there or within the room,
while the strange tones swelled louder than ever!

Puzzled, but less alarmed, we at last retreated to bed—I
say we, for Mrs. C. had been trotting after me during the
whole search, being too cowardly to stay in bed alone even
with the covers over her head,—we retreated to bed, and
after a while I, at least, fell asleep; but soon I was suddenly
and violently awakened by my good lady, who in attempting
to leap away from something on her side, had in extra
activity accomplished too much, and landed clear over me
and out of bed entirely on the floor!

“Why, Eliza!—Eliza!—what?—what is the matter?!”

“Oh! Robert!—listen!” said my wife; in bed again,
however, and be assured, on the safe side.

A basin of water we knew stood near Mrs. Carlton's side
of the bed, and on a small table:—and now into that basin,
drop by drop, something was trickling! Could it be blood
from some crack in the floor over us! With Mrs. C. clinging
to me, I went to the table, and seizing the basin, carried it

hastily to a window, and pushing open its shutter, we plainly
perceived by the dim light that blood it really was—not—

“Well, what was it, then?”

Reader! it was a little mouse dead enough now, but
which, having by accident tumbled into the water, had, by its
struggles for life, caused what to us then seemed like the
trickling down of some liquid or fluid substance.

Day now dawning, and Mrs. C. being willing to stay
alone, I went into the yard to discover the cause of the
mysterious music, satisfied that it lay there somewhere;
and no sooner did I reach the corner of the house than I
was fortunate enough to catch the very ghost in the act of
performing on the extraordinary instrument that had puzzled
us with its strange noise. Against the house had been
nailed part of an iron hoop to support a wooden spout; but
the spout had rotted away and fallen down, and the projecting
hoop was alone. This iron had on it some saline substance
pleasant to the taste of a quiet old cow; and there
stood the matron-like quadruped licking away with very
correct time at the hoop, and whenever her tongue finished
a stroke, and according to its intensity, the instrument vibrated,
and thus discoursed the wondrous music of the
enchanter's wheel and trap! Indeed, I even tried the performance
myself—(not with my tongue)—and succeeded,
my wife says, and she is a judge of music, succeeded as
well as the cow herself. And so, dear reader, if this is
not “a cock and bull story”—it most certainly is—a mouse
and a cow one.

Adventures, like misfortunes, are sometimes in clusters.
The next morning after the descent from some mountain,
as our stage was entering a small village, we were met by
a noble-looking young man, mounted on a spirited horse,
scarcely broken, and certainly not “bridle-wise”—and met
exactly on the middle of a bridge. This bridge crossed a
stream not ordinarily wide or deep, but swollen by melting

snows it now was foaming and thundering along almost a
river: it was truly formidable.

The horse, as we met, stopped, and with ears erect and
pointed, with nostrils dilated, and eyes fierce and staring,
he answered every effort to urge him forward only with
trembling and fitful starting; while the horseman himself
sat indifferent to consequences, and with ease and grace.
The man and horse were one. At length the rider unable
to compel the creature to pass us, attempted to wheel—when,
instead of obeying the bridle, the spirited animal reared,
and at one superb bound cleared the barrier of the bridge,
and both rider and horse in an instant disappeared under
the foaming waters. But scarcely had fright among us
uttered its exclamations, when up rose that horse, and up
rose, too, seated on his back, that rider,—ay—seated as
though he had never moved and the whole performance had
been done expressly for exhibition! In a few moments the
horseman landed below the bridge, then galloping across
the meadow he passed the fence at a flying leap, and advancing
to the stage now over the bridge, this matchless
rider taking off his hat and bowing to the party, asked, as
if the affair had not been purely accidental:—

“Gentlemen! which of you can do that?”

We most heartily congratulated him on his miraculous
preservation, and, as he rode gallantly off, gave him three
loud cheers for his unsurpassed coolness and intrepidity.

Reader! it is yet a long way to Pittsburgh, and I cannot
get you properly there without telling my own robber story—
a pet adventure;—or without we skip—but I should like to
tell the story—

“Well, Mr. Carlton, we should very much like to hear
the story—but, perhaps, just now we had better—skip.”

Skip it is, then, and all the way to—Pittsburgh.

7. CHAPTER VII.

And be assured, reader, it is not “all smoke” you now
see—there is some fire here too. This black place reminds
us of the iron-age—of Jupiter too, and Vulcan and Mount
ætna. Virgil would here have found Cyclops and pounders
of red-hot thunderbolts sonorous enough to set at work in
his musical hexameters. And some here make tubes of
iron, with alternate and spiral “lands and furrows,” better
by far to shoot than Milton's grand and unpatent blunderbusses;
into which his heroic devils put unscientifically
more powder than probably all burned—but that was before
the Lyceum age.

Whenever that soot-cloud is driven before a wind, long
streets are revealed lined with well-built and commodious
dwellings, with here and there a stately mansion, and even
the dusky palace belonging to some lord of coal-pits and
ore-beds.

Hark! how enterprise and industry are raging away!—
while steam and water-power shake the hills to their very
foundation!—and every spot is in a ferment with innumerable
workmen as busy, and as dingy too, as the pragmatical
insects in Virgil's poetic ant-hill! Every breeze is redolent
with nameless odours of factories and work-shops; and the
ear is stunned by the ceaseless uproar from clatter and clang
of cog and wheel—the harsh grating of countless rasps and
files—the ringing of a thousand anvils—the spiteful clickings

of enormous shears biting rods of iron into nails—the
sissing of hot-tongs in water—and the deep earthquaking
bass of forge-hammers teaching rude masses how to assume
the first forms of organic and civilized metal!

Mr. Brown said he was not yet fully awake, but that he
was in a dream amid scenes of Birmingham and Sheffield;
and that instead of astonishing the natives, the natives had
surprised and astonished him.

Why do some speak disparagingly of Pittsburgh complexion?
Is it ordinarily seen? The citizens move enveloped
in cloud—like æneas entering Carthage—and
hence are known rather by their voice than their face.
Their voice is immutable, but their face changes hourly:
hence if the people here are loud talkers, it arises from
the fact just alluded to, and because loud talking is necessary
to cry down the din of a myriad mingled noises.

In very civilized districts, ladies owe their sweet looks
to what is put on their faces; in this Cyclopean city, sweet
looks are owing to what is taken off their faces. Instead,
therefore, of advising bachelors before popping the question,
to catch the inamorata “in the suds,” we advise to
catch her in the soot. If beautiful, then let Cœlebs bless
himself, for he has a gem which water, unlike its baleful
effect on some faces, will only wash brighter and brighter.

As to hearts and manners, if our Mr. Smith be a correct
specimen, go reader, live in Pittsburgh. He was a Christian
gentleman: and in those two words is condensed all
praise. When, as was necessary, our party proceeded on
the voyage without this friend, so great was the vacancy,
we seemed alone—alas! he is no more!