University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.
The two friends put themselves into disguise. and make preparations
for a career of philanthrophy.

My start of fear made the honest Proteus acquainted
with the discovery, which he distinguished with
a fresh peal of merriment, exclaiming, “Aha, my
cock of the game! you've discovered another old
friend, have you? Happy dog, to be so well provided!
But, I say, you confounded baby,” he added,
“do you know, you came within a hair's breadth of
shooting my brains out.”

“It was not I—it was my friend Dicky Dare,”
said I, sighing to think of his braver spirit and happier
fate. “But, now we talk of it, I should like
to know upon what principles you justify that nefarious
attack?”

“Principles!” quoth Captain Brown, “it is long
since I have sailed in them latitudes, split me! But,
after all, my skilligallee, it was only a bit of a joke:
for there was I on the road, and here came two
cursed cub-headed schoolboys, just run away from
the master, bragging of their money; and so the
devil got into me for a spree, and says I, `Strike,
my hearties!'—And who would have thought of an
unlicked schoolboy firing a pistol in Jack Brown's
face—half blowing his brains out?”

“Perhaps,” said I, “that was a mere joke too,
your accussing me of being the robber?”

“No, hang it,” said Captain Brown, laughing,
“that was quite a serious piece of business; for how
else was I to get out of the jaws of them jackasses,
the wagoners?”

“And pray, Captain Brown,” said I, “allow me
to ask what you did with my horse, Bay Tom?”

“Sold him, hang me,” quoth Captain Brown,
with the utmost coolness—“sold him to a lubber of
a Jerseyman;—and, shiver my timbers,” he added
with energy, “the money was all counterfeit, and
was nigh getting me in limbo in Philadelphia, where
not a rogue of 'em would take it. Nevertheless,”
he continued, “I find it very good here in Virginia
—at a discount!”

By this time, the worthy gentleman, who made
all these confessions with equal frankness and composure,
had completed his disguise, having substituted
for the long-tailed coat he had on, a seaman's
jacket, which he took from a bundle behind him,
and which was, I believe, that identical garment he
had worn at his introduction on the highway. The
coat took the place of the jacket in his bundle; a
handsome cloth cap which he had on his head, was
turned wrong-side out, and converted into a worsted
bonnet; and he looked the sailor to perfection.

Having thus effected his own “transmogrification,”
as he called it, he proposed making some
changes also in my appearance; to which, being
convinced by my fears of their necessity, I reluctantly
consented. They were extremely simple,
and consisted merely in gathering my hair into sundry
tails or queues, which he knotted with ropeyarns,
produced from his stores—in placing on my
head a kind of turban made of a bandanna handkerchief,

instead of my cap, which I found room for in
my pocket—and, finally, in darkening my naturally
tawny complexion, by rubbing my face and hands
with moistened tobacco, a chunk of which he furnished
me for the purpose.

What particular object he had in view in thus
transforming me, and especially in knotting my hair,
I believe he did not know himself; but when the
task was finished, he swore he had “made a man of
me;” though it was my own opinion, as I looked at
myself in the river, the only convenient lookingglass,
that he had made me a scarecrow. I was
ashamed of my appearance, ashamed of my disguise;
but Brown assured me, over and over again, it was
essential to my safety, and I was forced to submit.

This matter finished, we crossed the river, which
was fordable, and proceeded on our adventures,
Brown saying we could complete our arrangements
as well while travelling as while lying at anchor
there on the road, to be boarded all of a sudden by
our enemies.

As I walked along at his side, my faithful friend
began the completion of the arrangements as above
mentioned, by asking me “how I was off in the
lockers?” which question not suiting my comprehension,
he explained it by asking “how much money
I had in my pockets?”

As I had not the greatest confidence in the world
in my comrade's honesty, I felt but little disposed
to put it to any greater temptation than was absolutely
necessary, and therefore replied ambiguously,
that “if he would remember how he himself had
appropriated the contents of my letter of recommendation
to Mr. Bloodmoney, and call to mind the
disasters I had suffered ever since, he might imagine
my funds were light enough.”

“That is, I suppose,” quoth he, “you mean to
say you are as bare as a beggar's platter; and if I
say so too, why there's two of us, that's all; only
there's some of them Jersey counterfeits yet lying
under hatches. But where's the difference? Them
that knows how to fish, never dabbles among herrings
for nothing; and money, my hearty, is just
the same thing as herrings, split me. There's
enough of it scattered about among the lubbers here
along shore; and it will go hard if we don't light
upon some way of grabbing our portion.”

“I give you to understand, as I did before, Captain
Brown,” said I, alarmed at what I deemed a
hint of evil designs upon my integrity, as well as upon
the pockets of the good people of Virginia, “that,
however you may think it a joke to seize upon the
property of other people, I don't; and I won't be
drawn into any kind of swindling or roguery, I assure
you.”

At this, Captain Brown grinned with amiable
contempt, and repeated that he was going to live as
honest a life as any body; “for, shiver his timbers,”
he wanted to know what it felt like. “But,” said
he, in his usual emphatic manner, “we must put on
some kind of character, my skillagallee, hoist some
sort of colours, split me; and if they happen to be
false ones, where's the difference? Since not a lubberly
rascal of us all ever sails under his own bunting.”

With that, he asked me “what I was good for—
what I knew—what I was brought up to?” and I
replied, that I had not yet devoted myself to any
particular study, but that I had some little knowledge
of the languages, the mathematics, and other academic
sciences.

“Hang the languages, and mathematics, and

academy sciences,” quoth the Vandal, contemptuously;
“Can you sing a song, dance a jig, jump on
a tight rope, play hocus-pocus, eat fire, transmogrify
shillings, or any of that sort of thing?”

I was obliged to reply in the negative; upon
which he expressed so much disappointment and
contempt of my ignorance, that I was compelled,
in my defence, to remind him, that I had but just
emerged from my schoolday existence into the life
of manhood—that I had not yet had time to learn
much, and, although about to commence the study
of a profession, when my wanderings began, I had
done little more, as yet, than read a few medical
books in my patron's office.

“Doctor's books?” quoth he, with great animation;
“what, you can play Pilgarlic then? I'll be
hang'd if that won't suit exactly. Nothing better:
we'll set up doctor, and physic the folks, wherever
we catch them.”

I assured him, hastily, “I had not knowledge of
physic sufficient to undertake the part of a practitioner.”

“Oh, never mind the knowledge,” said Captain
Brown, grinning at the happiness of the conceit;
“it's the idea we want, and that will do the business.
And as for being regular doctors, I don't mean no
such thing, sink me: I goes entirely for the quacking
system.”

I gave my friend to understand I had no more appetite
for quacking than for scientific physicking—
that I knew my own incompetency, and knowing it,
was too conscientious to be willing to trifle with the
lives of my fellow-beings, in a medical way; and
was pursuing the argument warmly, when he interrupted
me with sundry oaths, declaring he intended
to do all the physicking himself, and required nothing

more of me than to look wise, while he administered
to the wants of the afflicted, and when appealed
to by him, to reply in certain cabalistic
phrases, which he proceeded to teach me.

“You see, d'ye see,” said he, with the glee of a
schoolboy, setting traps for the neighbours' cats, “I
passes for an old sailor that has seen the world—and
shiver my timbers, I'm just the man that has seen
it, and that knows it; and you passes, my lark,
for one of them wise Injiemen, d'ye see, that
knows all things, an Injun Magi, or Midge-eye, or
whatever you call it, that can make white black, and
black white, and see a blasted heap farther through
a millstone than other people.”

“But,” said I, “I can't make white black, and
black white, nor can I see further through a millstone
than other people.”

“I'll be hang'd if you can't, though,” said Captain
Brown, laughing. “Harkee, my skilligallee, can you
say Holly-golly-wow?”

“Yes,” replied I, repeating the mystic word;
“but I don't know what it means.”

“And Sammy-ram-ram?” quoth Captain Brown.

“Sammy-ram-ram,” said I.

“Bravo!” said Captain Brown, with another explosion
of merriment, “that, will do. Them two
words will make a man of you; and, harkee, my
hearty, they are the only ones you are to speak. You
don't understand English, d'ye see, and speaks only
in your native lingo.”

“But what,” said I, “do holly-golly-wow and
Sammy-ram-ram mean?”

“What do they mean? why, hang me if I know
—nor any body else, for that matter,” quoth Captain
Brown. “All that you have to do is to roll out
the one or the other, when I speaks to you, and with

as much of an owl look as you can, and understand
nothing that's spoke in English; for, you see, d'ye
see, you don't know the language. Yes!” he added,
surveying me with rapture, “with that tobacco-coloured
mug,” (here the gentleman meant my visage,)
“them monkey-tailed streamers,” (here he designated
my dishonoured looks,) “that dishclout turban,”
(meaning the bandanna cap,) “and a small
matter of wise looks, holly-golly-wow, and sammyram-ram
will carry it against the world! But now
for laying in a stock of physic.”

With these words, my accomplished associate
drew from his pocket a twist of tobacco, which, as
he rode slowly along, he bit into sundry small pieces,
suitable for his purpose; and then, commanding me
to pick up some clay from a puddle on the roadside,
he formed of it a number of formidable looking boluses,
in each of which was imbedded a morsel of
tobacco. Of these he gave me some to carry exposed
to the air, that they might dry the sooner; and others
he stowed away in a paper in his cap for the same
purposes, swearing that his head was the hottest part
of his body.

I ventured to express a hope that he had no intention
to administer these highly original pills to
any human being; as, from what little I had learned
of the medicinal powers of tobacco, I feared that
some of them were strong enough to produce very
dangerous consequences.

“The consequences be curst,” said he, with sublime
disregard of all petty contingencies; “that's
the lookout of the patient. However,” he added
more amiably, “I don't think any pill of tobacco
under a pound in weight would stir the stomach of
folks in these latitudes; because how, they eats it,
and it is meat and drink to them.”

Being moved, however, by my remonstrances, he
consented to add a store of less energetic medicaments
to the boluses. He directed me to pick him
up a handful of sand from the road side, which he
wrapped up in paper and deposited in his pocket,
declaring that he had now physic enough to cure all
the diseases that flesh was heir to.

These important preparations completed, he assured
me we were now safe from all danger and
suspicion, and might enter any house or village in
Virginia without fear; which I was the more happy
to believe, as I was now half dead with hunger, and
the night was beginning to close around us. And,
by and by, approaching a little hamlet, consisting of
a tavern, a store, a blacksmith shop, and one or two
scattered cottages, we proceeded up to it without
hesitation, though, on my part, not without some
misgivings, because of a great number of persons,
who, at sight of us, came rushing out the taverndoor.