 | CHAPTER XXIII. Richard Hurdis, or, The avenger of blood : a tale of Alabama |  |
23. CHAPTER XXIII.
As dare with rigor execute the laws;
Her fester'd members must be lanced and tented:
He's a bad surgeon that for pity spares
The part corrupted, till the gangrene spreads,
And all the body perish: He that's merciful
Unto the bad is cruel to the good.
Randolph.
Foster received the tidings of Eberly's flight
with well-affected astonishment. Putting on the
sternest expression of countenance, he looked on me
with suspicion.
“And you were set to watch him, Williams.—
How is this? I fear you have been neglectful—you
have slept upon your watch—I cannot think that
you have had any intelligence with Eberly.”
In answering the speaker, I strove to throw into
my eyes a counselling expression, which it was my
hope to make him comprehend. My answer, shaped
to this object, had the desired effect.
“I have not slept, and you do me only justice,
when you think that I have had no intelligence with
the fugitive. But I have volunteered to pursue him,
even though he should put the Ohio between us.”
The reader will remember, that the phrase here
italicised was employed by Foster himself, in giving
his parting counsels to Eberly. Foster readily remembered
it, and I could detect—so I fancied—in
the tone of voice with which he addressed me in
reply, a conviction that I was privy to his own
partial, and, perhaps, pardonable treachery to his
comrades. In every other respect he seemed unmoved,
and his reply was instantaneous.
“And we accept your offer, Williams—you shall
have the opportunity you seek to prove your fidelity,
and secure the confidence of the club. We are
agreed, Webber, are we not, that Williams shall take
the track of Eberly?”
“Ay—to-morrow, though I care not that he should
strike till the day following, if it be that I conjecture
rightly on one matter.”
“What matter? What is it that you conjecture?”
demanded Foster, suspiciously.
“Why, that Eberly is about to marry Julia Grafton.
It would not surprise me much if the affair
takes place in a day or two.—I think it must be so,
from his present anxiety.”
“He would be a fool, indeed, to think of such
a thing, without our permission,” replied Foster;
`but even if such be the case, wherefore would you
supposing that Williams should get a chance to strike
as we blow.”
“I would have the marriage completed,” was the
answer. “I would have Grafton's pride humbled
by his daughter's union with one whom we should
be able not only to destroy, but dishonor. By all
that is devilish in my heart, Foster, I could risk my
life freely, to tell Grafton all this story, with my
own lips the day after his daughter's nuptials.”
“Well, you hate fervently enough,” said Foster;
“and, perhaps, where one's hand's in, he may as
well thrust away with his whole soul. But this
helps not our purpose. It is agreed, you say, that
Williams goes upon this business?”
“Yes.”
“Then his course must take him at once to Grafton's
neighbourhood.”
“Yes—that is our course too. We meet to-morrow,
you recollect, with Dillon and others, at the
`Blind.' Our beginners must be examined there.”
“But Williams must start before us.”
“No—it needs not” said Webber. “We need
be in no hurry now, since there can be no doubt
that we shall be able to find Eberly at any moment
within the three next days. Williams knows that
he must find him in that time, and if he does not,
send Dillon and Haller on his track, and they find
closest scuttle-hole of Natchy swamp. Let us all
go together to the meeting at the `Blind,' and not
alarm the traitor by pressing the pursuit upon him
in the very moment of his flight. Let him have a
little time—let him marry away, and be happy, if
he can, for a night or two. It will not diminish his
punishment that he has a taste only of wedlock.
Julia Grafton is a sweet girl enough—I could have
taken her myself, and, perhaps, been an honest overseer
of her father's plantation all my life—bowing
respectfully to his high mightiness, and kissing the
rod of his rebuke—had he only looked a willingness
to let me have her. But, as it is—let the game go!
It matters not much who has what we can't have;
and yet I hate Grafton so cursedly, that it gives me
pleasure to think that she is to be the wife of one so
completely in our power, as Edward Eberly—or
Clifton, as we should call him in Grafton Lodge.
Let him swing freely on his gate awhile; and Williams
may take his time. He cannot escape all of
us, though he may escape him.”
“You will instruct Williams then, when he shall
go, and where,” said Foster.
“Yes—that shall be my look out. In the meantime,
let us go to sleep. We have to start early,
and the small hours are beginning—I can tell from
the increasing darkness and the cold. Let us wrap
Williams, I'll wake you in the morning.”
“The sooner the better,” was my reply; “for,
between us, I don't like this putting off. If I am to
go after Eberly, I'd rather start at daylight, and
strike as soon as I get a chance. I hate when I have
such a business on hand, to risk its justice by my
own delay; particularly when delay can be avoided.
Besides, I'm thinking that if Eberly marries this
girl, he will be cunning enough to leave the country.
Ten to one, he's made all his arrangements for an
early start, and will be off on fast horses soon after
the event.”
“That's true,” said the ruffian; “I did not think
of that—you shall start as soon as possible after we
have met our men at the `Blind' to-morrow. We
must meet them there first, for I have business of
importance with one of them that must be seen to;
and you'll have to wait till I can show you the way
to Grafton's, and some few of our hiding places
thereabouts.”
In my eagerness, I had almost told him that I
knew the place well enough, and could find it without
him. My anxiety to be in season to prevent the
nuptials, had nearly blinded me to the great risk of
detection, to which such an avowal must have subjected
me. But I met the inquiring glance of Foster's
eye at this moment, and that brought me to my
triple treachery, and warned me to be duly cautious
of what I uttered. Without farther question or reply,
we broke up for the night; and it seemed to me
that I had scarcely got snugly into my place of rest,
and closed my eyes for an instant, before I was
awakened by Webber, with a summons to set forward.
However wanting in proper rest, for my
partial slumbers of the night had given me no refreshment,
I had too greatly at heart the peace of
Grafton's family, and the safety of the poor girl
Julia, not to leap with alacrity at the summons. Ten
minutes sufficed to set us all in motion, and as the
bright blaze of the sun opened upon us, we were
speeding on at full gallop, some seven of us, at least,
to our place of meeting at the 'Blind.' There had
been, at different periods of the night, full thirty
men in our bivouac in the Sipsy, but they came and
went at all hours, and none remained but those who
had something of the general management of the
rest. Five of these were my companions now.
The other two were Haller and myself. Haller, it
seems, was not so much a counsellor as a trusted underling
or orderly—a fellow sufficiently cunning to
seem wise, and so much of the rogue as to deserve,
even if lacking wisdom, a conspicuous place among
those whose sole aim was dishonesty. But our business
is not with him.
A smart ride of a few hours brought us to our
and forming, with the valley already described
called the “Day Blind,” an hundred natural
hiding places of like form and character. Here I
was within a few miles only of Col. Grafton's residence.
I had passed the dwelling of Matthew
Webber, already so well known to the reader, and
who should be my companion, side by side with
me as I passed it, but Webber himself. I watched
him closely when we came in sight of it, and
though I could see that he regarded it with wistful
attention, yet he was as silent as the grave even on
the subject of his own late proprietorship; and my
position was too nice and ticklish to make any reference
to it, advisable on my part.
When we got to the place of rest, which was about
noon, we found several of the Brotherhood already
assembled, most of whom were instantly taken aside
by Foster, Webber, and one or two others, who ruled
with them, and underwent an examination as to
what they had done or were in preparation to do.
For my part I had nothing to do but saunter about
like many others—lie down on the sunny knolls,
and tumble among the yellow leaves, lacking employment.
This was no pleasurable exercise for one
who had in his heart such an unappeasable anxiety
as was then pervading mine, and which I could
scarce keep from exhibition. Meantime, I could
seeming quite as multiformed and particoloured as
the business was diverse in character in which they
were engaged. While I gazed upon them without
particular interest, my eyes were drawn to a group
of three persons who now approached the valley
from a pass through the two hills that rose before
me. At the distance where I lay, I could not distinguish
features, but there was an air and manner about
them, which, in two of the party, compelled my closest
attention. The horses which they rode seemed
also to be familiar; and with more earnestness of feeling
than I can now describe, or could then account for,
I continued to gaze upon them, as, without approaching
much nigher to where I lay, they continued
their progress forward to where Foster and Webber
were in the habit of receiving their followers. But,
at length, overcome by strange surmises, I sprang to
my feet, and shading my eyes with my hands, endeavoured
to make out the parties. The next moment
they disappeared behind the knoll, and, with
my anxiety still unsubdued, I threw myself again
upon the ground, and strove with my impatience as
well as I could. Perhaps a full hour elapsed when
I saw the three re-emerge from behind the knoll,
and come out into the valley. They were followed
by Foster, who conducted them a little aside, and
the four seated themselves together for a while, on
them and came towards me. He threw himself down
beside me, with an air of weariness.
“Well, Williams, you seem to take the world
easily. Here you lie, stretched at length upon the
ground, as if it had no insects, and looking up to the
skies as if they were never shadowed by a cloud.
For my part I see nothing but insects and worms
along the earth, and nothing but clouds in Heaven.
This comes from the nature of our pursuits, and to
speak a truth, I sometimes see a beauty in virtue
which I have never been able to see in man. I almost
think, if circumstances would let me, that I
would steal away, like poor Eberly, from our comrades,
and try to do a safer and a humbler sort of
business, among better reptiles than we now work
with.”
This speech, if meant to deceive, did not deceive
me.
“You would soon long to return, Foster, to your
present companions and occupations, or I greatly
mistake your temper,” was my reply. “Your ambition
is your prevailing principle—to sway your
leading object—to be great—to have distinction, is
the predominating passion of your heart.”
My reply was intended merely to flatter him and
it had its effect. He paused for an instant, then
said with a smile,
“And you would add, Williams, that, like Milton's
Devil, I am not at all scrupulous as to the sort of
greatness which I aim at, or the quality of the instruments
with which I wrought.”
“And if I did, Foster, I do not see that the imputation
would do you any discredit. Men are pretty
much alike wherever we find them, and there are
virtuous monsters no less than vicious ones. Circumstances
after all, make the chief differences in
the characters of mankind; and many a saint in
white, born in my condition, would have cut many
more throats than it's my hope ever to do. To
rule man is to rule man—any inquiry as to the moral
differences between those you rule and those you
rule by, is a waste of thought, since the times, and
the seasons, the winds and the weather, or a thousand
differences which seem equally unreal and
shadowy, are the true causes of the vices of one class
and the virtues of another. A planter pays his debts
and is liberal if he makes a good crop—he fails in
both respects if his crop fails; and the creditor denounces
him as a rogue, and sells his property under
the hammer of a sheriff, while the church frowns upon
him from the moment he ceases to drop his Mexican
in the charity hat. Saints and devils are pretty much
the same people, if the weather prevails with equal
force in their favour; but when the wind changes
and blights the crop of the one, and ripens that of
benefactor and is blessed by all, while the other is
driven from society as a miserable skunk, whom it
is mere charity to kick out of existence. You should
not bother your head in wishing for better followers
or a dominion less questionable. If you have fifteen
hundred men willing to fight and die for you, and
not minding the laws on the subject, you are a
better and greater man than the governor of Mississippi,
who, do his best, cannot command fifteen
hundred votes. To my mind it is clear that yours
is the greater distinction.”
“That is true; and yet, Williams, what is distinction,
indeed, but a sort of solitude—a dreary eminence,
which, though we may behold many, labouring
at all seasons to scramble up its side, how few
do we see able to occupy it, how much more few the
number to keep it. My eminence, imposing as it may
seem to you, is at best very insecure. I have rivals
—some who seek to restrain me and to crush my
power, by lopping off my best friends at every opportunity
and on the slightest pretences. These I
am bound to save, yet I do so at great peril to myself.
I risk my own rule, nor my rule only—I risk
my life daily, in this connection, by seeking to
save, as I am resolute always to do, the friend, however,
wanting in other respects, who has proved true
to my desires and cause.”
I saw which way these remarks tended; and resolved,
at once, to put a satisfactory conclusion to
the apprehensions which I saw prevailed in the mind
of my companion. He was obliquely seeking to
justify himself for his course in regard to Eberly
which he saw that I knew—and, probably, he was
aiming to discover in how far I might be relied on
in sustaining him in any partisan conflict with the
rivals of whom he spoke. My answer was not
without its art; and it fully answered its intended
purpose.
“You do no more than you should,” was my reply.
“You are bound to succour your friends even
against the laws of your comrades, since they risk
the peril of these laws in serving you. I understand
your difficulty—Indeed, it did not need that
you should declare it to me, in order to make me
know it. I had not been an hour in your camp on
the Sipsy before I saw the secret strife which was
going on; and I may say, Foster, once for all, you
may count upon me to sustain you against any rival
that may be raised up in opposition to your just rule
from among the confederates. Count on me, I say,
to support you against Webber and his clan, for it
strikes me that he is the fellow you have most to
fear.”
“You are right,” he said grasping my hand nervously—you
are quite right, and I admire your
of your personal regard for me. Webber is indeed
the person who is now plotting secretly against me.—
There will be a trial of strength between us in the
council of twelve to-morrow—and I shall defeat him
there, though, by so small a vote that it will tend to
stimulate him to still greater exertions, and to make
him more inveterate in his hostility, which he has
still grace enough to seek to hide.”
He would probably have gone on much farther in
the development of the miserable strife that followed
hard upon his state, but that a movement of my
own interrupted him. My eyes had been for some
time turned watchfully upon the group of three
persons to which I have already called the reader's
attention. They had left the little knoll on which
they seated themselves when Foster first emerged
with them from the place of conference, and had
advanced somewhat farther into the valley, and
consequently rather nearer to my place of repose,
which was half way down one of the hills out of
which it was scooped. This approach enabled me
to observe them better, and as they moved about
among another party, who were pitching quoits,
my eyes gradually distinguished their persons first,
and at length their features. This discovery led
to my interruption of Foster's developments. What
Hurdis in one, and Ben Pickett in another of this
group. With difficulty I kept myself from leaping
upright—my finger was involuntarily extended towards
them.
“What see you?” demanded Foster looking in
the same direction. His demand was a sufficient
warning for me to be cautious, and yet for the life
of me, I could not forbear the question in reply.
“Who are those?”
“What—the pitchers?”
“Yes—yes! and their companions—the lookers
on.”
“One of the pitchers is a fellow named Hatfield
—a close friend of Webber, and one of our most
adroit spies—he is the fellow in green—the other
two are common strikers who will set out on an
expedition to-night. They are exceedingly expert
horse stealers, and the people near Columbus will
hear of them before they are two days older—the
tallest one is named Jones—the other Baker.”
“And how do they incline—towards you or
Webber?” was an indifferent question almost too
indifferently put to answer the purpose of a disguise
to my real curiosity, for which it was intended. I
heard his answer impatiently, and then with lips
that trembled, I demanded—
“And who are the three lookers on? I have not
Sipsy last night?”
“No—they have just come from down the river.
The smaller fellow is one of our keenest emissaries;
and perhaps, one of our bravest men. He has just
brought up the two men who are with him—”
“What! as prisoners?” I exclaimed in my impatience.
“Prisoners indeed! No! What should we do with
prisoners? They belong to us. They are our
men.”
“Why then do you say he brought them up?”
“This is the affair. I have but just finished their
examination. It appears that the large, fat fellow, is
rather a rich young planter some where in Marengo.
He had a brother with whom he had a quarrel.
This brother set off with a companion some weeks
ago for the “Nation,” where they proposed to enter
lands. The elder brother avails himself of this opportunity
to revenge himself for some indignities put
upon him by the younger, and despatches after him
the fellow in homespun whom you see beside him
—his hands in his breeches pockets. Webber, it
appears, about the same time, laid a trap for the two
travellers, one of whom fell into it very nicely—the
other broke off and got away. They pursued, him,
but they must have lost him, but for the timely aid
of the chap in homespun, who, lying in wait, shot
According to our general plan, an emissary
was sent after the murderer, and in securing him,
the secret of the brother was discovered. In this
way, both have been secured, and are now numbered
among our followers.”
I have abridged Foster's narrative, in order to
avoid telling a story twice. Here was a dreadful
discovery. My stupid amazement cannot be described.
I was literally overcome. Foster saw
my astonishment and inquired into its cause. My
reply was, perhaps, a sufficient reason for my astonishment,
though it effectually concealed the true
one.
“Good God! Can this be possible? His own
brother?”
“Even so. Neither you nor I would have done
such a thing, bad as we may be held by well ordered
society. The fellow seems but a poor creature after
all, and could hardly stand during our examination.
Of such creatures, however, we make the most useful,
if not the most daring members. We will let
him go back to Marengo after to-morrow, and be a
pillar of the church, which I think it not improbable
he will instantly join, if, indeed, he be not already
a member. The other fellow, who is called Pickett,
takes to us with a relish, and Webber has found him
a place to squat somewhere on the banks of the Big
Do not forget Williams—and, I am your
friend. We must act together for mutual benefit.
Mum now!”
Webber drew nigh, bringing with him the emissary
who had gone after Pickett and John Hurdis.
They remained with the pitchers, among
whom, I may add, Pickett was, at this time, incorporated,
and working away as lustily as the most expert.
But I had no time allowed me to note either
his, or the labors of John Hurdis. My attention
was instantly challenged by Webber, who, unless
angry, was not a man of many words.
“Get yourself in readiness, Williams—I will set
you on the track in an hour, and show you a part
of the route.”
I proceeded to obey, and it was not long, as may
be conjectured, before I was properly mounted for
that journey which was to eventuate in the rescue
of my friend's child from the cruel sacrifice which
was at hand. Webber and myself set off together.
Foster shook my hand at parting, and his last phrase
was one, which, between us, had a meaning beyond
that which met the ear.
“I trust you will find your man, Williams, though
he even puts the Ohio between us. Let us see you
back soon.”
I was annoyed by the searching stare of the keen
from my countenance from the moment of my introduction
to him; and I am sure that he had some
indistinct remembrance of me, though fortunately
not of a sufficiently strong character to do more than
confuse him. I dreaded discovery every moment,
but, though watching me keenly to the last, with a
most unpleasant pertinacity of stare, he suffered me
to ride away without the utterance of those suspicions
which I looked momently to hear spoken.
| CHAPTER XXIII. Richard Hurdis, or, The avenger of blood : a tale of Alabama | |