 | The wigwam and the cabin |  |
SERGEANT BARNACLE,
OR THE RAFTSMAN OF THE EDISTO.
1. CHAPTER I.
Short be the shrift and sure the cord.
—Scott.
The pretty little settlement of Orangeburg, in South Carolina,
was an old and flourishing establishment before the Revolution.
It was settled, as well as the contiguous country, by successive
troops of German Palatines, who brought with them all the sober
industry, and regular perseverance, characteristic of their country.
They carried the cultivation of indigo in Carolina to a degree
of perfection, on which they prospered, thriving, without
much state, and growing great in wealth, without provoking the attention
of their neighbours to the fact. To this day their descendants
maintain some of these characteristics, and, in a time
of much cry and little wool, when it is no longer matter of mortification
for a vain people to confess a want of money, they are
said to respond to the “I O U,” of their more needy acquaintance,
by knocking the head out of a flour barrel, and unveiling a
world of specie, which would renovate the credit of many a
mammoth bank. The good old people, their ancestors, were
thrifty in other respects; clean and comfortable in their houses;
raising abundance of pigs and poultry; rich in numerous children,
whom they reared up in good works and godliness, with
quite as much concern, to say no more, as they addressed to
worldly objects. They lived well—knew what surprising moral
benefits accure from a due attention to creature comforts; and,
if they spent little money upon foreign luxuries, it was only because
they had learned to domesticate so many of their own.
world in it. Frank hospitality, and the simple sorts of merriment
which delight, without impairing the unsophisticated nature,
were enjoyed among them in full perfection; and, from Four
Holes to Poplar Springs, they were emphatically one and the
same, and a very happy people.
Our present business lies in this region, at a period which we
may state in round numbers, as just five years before the Revolution.
The ferment of that event, as we all know, had even then
begun—the dispute and the debate, and the partial preparation—
but the details and the angry feeling had been slow in reaching
our quiet farmers along the Upper Edisto. The people were not
good English scholars, preserving, as they did in many places,
the integrity of the unbroken German. Here and there, it had
suffered an English cross, and, in other places, particularly in the
village, the English began to assert the ascendancy. But of
newspapers they saw nothing, unless it were the venerable South
Carolina Gazette, which did little more than tell them of the
births, marriages and deaths in the royal family, and, at melancholy
intervals, of the arrival in Charleston of some broad-bottomed
lugger from Bremen, or other kindred ports in Faderland.
The events which furnished materials to the village publican and
politician, were of a sort not to extend their influence beyond
their own ten-mile horizon. Their world was very much around
them, and their most foreign thoughts and fancies still had a
savour of each man's stable-yard. They never interfered in the
slightest degree with the concerns of Russia or Constantinople, and
I verily believe that if they had happened to have heard that
the Great Mogul were on his last legs, and knew the secret of
his cure, they would have hesitated so long before advising him
of its nature, that the remedy would come too late to be of any
service. And this, understand me, not because of any lack of
Christian bowels, but simply because of a native modesty, which
made them reluctant to meddle with any matters which did not
obviously and immediately concern themselves. They were,
certainly, sadly deficient in that spirit of modern philanthropy
which seems disposed to meddle with nothing else. Their hopes
and fears, strifes and excitements, were all local. At worst a
neighbours touching a boundary line, or cattle pound, which ended
in an arbitration and a feast, in which cherry and domestic
grape—by no means the simple juice of either—did the duty of
peacemakers, and were thrice blessed accordingly. Sometimes
—a more serious matter—the tall lad of one household would fail
to make the proper impression upon the laughing damsel of another,
and this would produce a temporary family estrangement,
until Time, that great consoler, would furnish to the injured
heart of the sufferer, that sovereignest of all emollients—indifference!
Beyond such as these, which are of occurrence in the
best regulated and least sophisticated of all communities, there
were precious few troubles among our people of the North Edisto,
which they could not easily overcome.
But the affair which I am about to relate, was an exception to
the uniform harmlessness and simplicity of events among them,
and the better to make the reader understand it, I must take him
with me this pleasant October evening, to a snug farm-house in
the Forks of Edisto—a part of the country thus distinguished, as
it lies in the crotch formed by the gradual approach of the two
branches of Edisto river, a few miles above the spot of their final
junction. Our farmer's name is Cole. He is not rich, but not
poor—one of those substantial, comfortable men of the world,
who has just enough to know what to do with it, and just
little enough to fancy that if he could get more he should
know what to do with that also. His farm, consisting of five or
six hundred acres, is a competence, but a small part of which is
cleared and in cultivation. He has but two slaves, but he has
two strapping sons, one of twelve, the other of fourteen, who
work with the slaves, and upon whom, equally with them, he bestows
the horse-whip when needed, with as bountiful a hand as
he bestows the hommony. But if he counts but precious little
of gold and silver among his treasures, he has some treasures
which, in those days of simplicity, were considered by many to
be much more precious than any gold or silver. Like Jephthah,
Judge of Israel, he has a daughter—nay, for that matter, he has
two of them, and one of them, the eldest, is to be married this
very evening. Philip Cole was no Judge of Israel, but he loved
love. The eyes of the lads brightened, and their mouths watered
at the bare mention of their names, and the sight of them generally
produced such a commotion in the hearts of the surrounding
swains, that, as I have heard averred a hundred times by
tradition, they could, on such occasions, scarcely keep their feet.
Keep their feet they could not, on such nights as the present,
when they were not only permitted to see the lasses, but to dance
it with them merrily. Dorothy Cole, the eldest, was as fine a specimen
of feminine mortality, as ever blossomed in the eyes of
love; rather plumpish, but so well made, so complete, so brightly
eyed, and so rosily cheeked, that he must be a cold critic indeed,
who should stop to look for flaws—to say, here something might
be pared off, and here something might be added. Such fine
women were never made for such foolish persons. But Margaret,
the younger, a girl of sixteen, was unexceptionable. She was
her sister in miniature. She was beautiful, and faultless in her
beauty, and so graceful, so playful, so pleasantly arch, and tenderly
mischievous—so delightful, in short, in all her ways, that
in looking upon her you ceased to remember that Eve had fallen
—you still thought of her in Eden, the queen of its world of
flowers, as innocent and beautiful as the very last budding rose
amongst them. At all events, this was the opinion of every body
for ten miles round, from Frank Leichenstein, the foreign gentleman—a
German on his travels—to Barnacle Sam, otherwise
Samuel Moore, a plain raftsman of the Edisto.
The occasion, though one of gaiety, which brought the company
together, was also one of gloom. On this night the fair
Dorothy would cease to be a belle. All hopes, of all but one,
were cut off by her lately expressed preference for a farmer
from a neighbouring district, and the young men assembled to
witness nuptials which many of them looked on with envy and
regret. But they bore, as well as they might, with the mortification
which they felt. Love does not often kill in modern
periods, and some little extra phlegm may be allowed to a community
with an origin such as ours. The first ebullitions of public
dissatisfaction had pretty well worn off before the night of the
wedding, and, if the beauty of the bride, when she stood up that
flame in the breasts of any present, its violence was duly overcome
in the reflection that the event was now beyond recall, and
regrets utterly unavailing. The frolic which succeeded, the
good cheer, the uproar, and the presence of numerous other
damsels, all in their best, helped in no small degree to lessen the
discontent and displeasure of the disappointed. Besides, there
was the remaining sister, Margaret, a host in herself, and so gay,
and so good-natured, so ready to dance and sing, and so successful
in the invention of new modes of passing time merrily, that,
before the bride disappeared for the night, she was half chagrined
to discover that nobody—unless her new-made husband—now
looked to where she stood. Her sway was at an end with the
hopes of her host of lovers.
2. CHAPTER II.
The revels were kept up pretty late. What with the ceremony,
the supper, the dancing, and the sundry by-plays which are common
to all such proceedings, time passed away without the proper
consciousness of any of the parties. But all persons present
were not equally successful or equally happy. It was found, after
a while, that though Margaret Cole smiled, and talked, and played,
and danced with every body, there was yet one young fellow
who got rather the largest share of her favours. What rendered
this discovery particularly distressing was the fact that he was a
stranger and a citizen. His name was Wilson Hurst, a genteel
looking youth, who had recently made his appearance in the
neighbourhood, and was engaged in the very respectable business
of a country store. He sold calicoes and ribbons, and combs,
and dimity, and the thousand other neat, nice matters, in which
the thoughts and affections of young damsels are supposed to be
quite too much interested. He was no hobnail, no coarse unmannered
clown; but carried himself with an air of decided ton, as
if he knew his position, and was resolute to make it known to
all around him. His manner was calculated to offend the more
rustic of the assembly, who are always, in every country, rather
jealous of the citizen; and the high head which he carried, the
petty airs of fashion which he assumed, and his singular success
with the belle of the Forks, all combined to render the conceited
young fellow decidedly odious among the male part of the assembly.
A little knot of these might have been seen, toward the
small hours, in earnest discussion of this subject, while sitting in
the piazza they observed the movements of the unconscious pair,
through a half opened window. We will not listen at present to
their remarks, which we may take for granted were sufficiently
bitter; but turn with them to the entrance, where they have discovered
a new arrival. This was a large man, seemingly rather
the narrow avenue which led to the house.
“It's Barnacle Sam!” said one.
“I reckon,” was the reply of another.
“It's he, by thunder!” said a third, “wonder what he'll say
to see Margaret and this city chap? He's just in time for it.
They're mighty close.”
“Reckon he'll bile up again. Jest be quiet now, till he comes.”
From all this we may gather that the person approaching is an
admirer of the fair Margaret. His proximity prevented all further
discussion of this delicate subject, and the speakers at once
surrounded the new comer.
“Well, my lads, how goes it?” demanded this person, in a
clear, manly accent, as he extended a hand to each. “Not too
late, I reckon, for a fling on the floor; but I had to work hard for
it, I reckon. Left Charleston yesterday when the sun was on the
turn; but I swore I'd be in time for one dash with Margaret.”
“Reckon you've walked for nothing, then,” said one with a
significant shake of the head to his fellows.
“For nothing! and why do you think so?”
“Well, I don't know, but I reckon Margaret's better satisfied
to sit down jest now. She don't seem much inclined to foot it
with any of us.”
“That's strange for Margaret,” said the new comer; “but I'll
see how my chance stands, if so be the fiddle has a word to say
in my behalf. She aint sick, fellows?”
“Never was better—but go in and try your luck.”
“To be sure I will. It'll be bad luck, indeed, when I set my
heart on a thing, and walk a matter of seventy miles after it, if I
couldn't get it then, and for no reason that I can see; so here
goes.”
With these words, the speaker passed into the house, and was
soon seen by his companions—who now resumed their places by
the window—in conversation with the damsel. There was a
frank, manly something in the appearance, the face, carriage and
language of this fellow, that, in spite of a somewhat rude exterior
and coarse clothing, insensibly commanded one's respect. It was
very evident that those with whom he had spoken, had accorded
may say, in this place, that he was a very general favourite. He
was generous and good natured, bold, yet inoffensive, and so
liberal that, though one of the most industrious fellows in the
world, and constantly busy, he had long since found that his
resources never enabled him to lay by a copper against a rainy
day. Add to these moral qualities, that he was really a fine
looking fellow, large and well made, with a deep florid complexion,
black hair, good forehead and fine teeth, and we shall wonder to
find that he was not entirely successful with the sex. That he
was not an economist, and was a little over the frontier line of
forty, were perhaps objections, and then he had a plain, direct
way of speaking out his mind, which was calculated, sometimes,
to disturb the equanimity of the very smoothest temper.
It was perceived by his companions that Margaret answered
him with some evident annoyance and embarrassment, while they
beheld, with increasing aversion, the supercilious air of the
stranger youth, the curl of his lips, the simpering, half-scornful
smile which they wore, while their comrade was urging his
claims to the hand of the capricious beauty. The application of
the worthy raftsman—for such was the business of Barnacle Sam
—proved unavailing. The maiden declined dancing, pleading
fatigue. The poor fellow said that he too was fatigued, “tired
down, Miss Margaret, with a walk of seventy miles, only to have
the pleasure of dancing with you.” The maiden was inexorable,
and he turned off to rejoin his companions. The immoderate
laughter in which Margaret and the stranger youth indulged,
immediately after Barnacle Sam's withdrawal, was assumed by
his companions to be at his expense. This was also the secret
feeling of the disappointed suitor, but the generous fellow disclaimed
any such conviction, and, though mortified to the very
heart, he studiously said every thing in his power to excuse the
capricious girl to those around him. She had danced with several
of them, the hour was late, and her fatigue was natural enough.
But the malice of his comrades determined upon a test which
should invalidate all these pleas and excuses. The fiddle was
again put in requisition, and a Virginia reel was resolved upon.
Scarcely were the parties summoned to the floor, before Margaret
walked out into the woods, with his big heart ready to break.
It was generally understood that he was fond of Margaret, but
how fond, nobody but himself could know. She, too, had been
supposed willing to encourage him, and, though by no means a
vain fellow, he was yet very strongly impressed with the belief
that he was quite as near to her affections as any man he knew.
His chagrin and disappointment may be imagined; but a lonely
walk in the woods enabled him to come back to the cottage, to
which he was drawn by a painful sort of fascination, with a face
somewhat calmed, and with feelings, which, if not subdued, were
kept in proper silence and subjection. He was a strong-souled
fellow, who had no small passions. He did not flare up and make
a fuss, as is the wont of a peevish nature, but the feeling and
the pain were the deeper in due proportion to the degree of
restraint which he put upon them. His return to the cottage was
the signal to his companions to renew their assaults upon his temper.
They found a singular satisfaction in making a hitherto
successful suitor partake of their own frequent mortifications.
But they did not confine their efforts to this single object. They
were anxious that Barnacle Sam should be brought to pluck a
quarrel with the stranger, whose conceited airs had so ruffled the
feathers of self-esteem in all of their crests. They dilated accordingly
on all the real or supposed insolences of the new comer
—his obvious triumph—his certain success—and that unbearable
volley of merriment, which, in conjunction with Margaret Cole,
he had discharged at the retreating and baffled applicant for her
hand. Poor Barnacle bore with all these attempts with great
difficulty. He felt the force of their suggestions the more readily,
because the same thoughts and fancies had already been traversing
his own brain. He was not insensible to the seeming indignity
which the unbecoming mirth of the parties had betrayed on
his retiring from the field, and more than once a struggling devil
in his heart rose up to encourage and enforce the suggestions
made by his companions. But love was stronger in his soul than
hate, and served to keep down the suggestions of anger. He
truly loved the girl, and though he felt very much like trouncing the
account.
“No! no! my lads,” said he, finally, “Margaret's her own
mistress, and may do as she pleases. She's a good girl and
a kind one, and if her head's turned just now by this stranger,
let's give her time to get it back in the right place. She'll come
right, I reckon, before long. As for him, I see no fun in licking
him, for that's a thing to be done just as soon as said. If he
crosses me, it'll do then—but so long as she seems to have a liking
for him, so long I'll keep my hands off him, if so be he'll
let me.”
“Well,” said one of his comrades, “I never thought the time
would come when Barnacle Sam would take so much from any
man.”
“Oh hush! Peter Stahlen; you know I take nothing that I
don't choose to take. All that know me, know what I am, and
they'll all think rightly in the matter; and those that don't know
me may think just what they please. So good night, my lads.
I'll take another turn in the woods to freshen me.”
3. CHAPTER III.
We pass over much of the minor matter in this history. We
forbear the various details, the visitings and wanderings, the doings
of the several parties, and the scandal which necessarily kept
all tongues busy for a season. The hope so confidently expressed
by Barnacle Sam, that the head of his beauty, which had been
turned by the stranger, would recover its former sensible position after
certain days, did not promise to be soon realized. On the contrary,
every succeeding week seemed to bring the maiden and her
city lover more frequently together; to strengthen his assurance,
and increase his influence over her heart. All his leisure time
was consumed either at her dwelling or in rambles with her
alone, hither and thither, to the equal disquieting of maid and
bachelor. They, however, had eyes for nobody but one another
—lived, as it were, only in each other's regards, and, after a
month of the busiest idleness in which he had ever been engaged,
Barnacle Sam, in very despair, resumed his labours on the river
by taking charge of a very large fleet of rafts. The previous interval
had been spent in a sort of gentlemanly watch upon the heart
and proceedings of the fair Margaret. The result was such as to
put the coup de grace to all his own fond aspirations. But this effect
was not brought about but at great expense of pride and feeling.
His heart was sore and soured. His temper underwent a change.
He was moody and irritable—kept aloof from his companions,
and discouraged and repulsed them when they approached him.
It was a mutual relief to them and himself when he launched upon
the river in his old vocation. But his vocation, like that of
Othello, was fairly gone. He performed his duties punctually,
carried his charge in safety to the city, and evinced, in its management,
quite as much skill and courage as before. But his
performances were now mechanical—therefore carried on doggedly,
and with no portion of his former spirit. There was now
no catch of song, no famous shout or whistle, to be heard by the farmer
the headlands. There was no more friendly chat with the
wayfarer—no more kind, queer word, such as had made him the
favourite of all parties before. His eye was now averted—his
countenance troubled—his words few—his whole deportment, as
well as his nature, had undergone a change; and folks pointed
to the caprice of Margaret Cole as the true source of all his misfortunes.
It is, perhaps, her worst reproach that she seemed to
behold them with little concern or commiseration, and, exulting in
the consciousness of a new conquest over a person who seemed to
rate himself very much above his country neighbours, she suffered
herself to speak of the melancholy which had seized upon the
soul of her former lover with a degree of scorn and irreverence
which tended very much to wean from her the regard of the most
intimate and friendly among her own sex.
Months passed away in this manner, and but little of our raftsman
was to be seen. Meanwhile, the manner of Wilson Hurst
became more assured and confident. In his deportment toward
Margaret Cole there was now something of a lordly condescension,
while, in hers, people were struck with a new expression of
timidity and dependence, amounting almost to suffering and grief.
Her face became pale, her eye restless and anxious, and her step
less buoyant. In her father's house she no longer seemed at
home. Her time, when not passed with her lover, was wasted
in the woods, and at her return the traces of tears were still to be
seen upon her cheeks. Suspicion grew active, scandal busied
herself, and the young women, her former associates, were the
first to declare themselves not satisfied with the existing condition
of things. Their interest in the case soon superseded their
charity;
Except an erring sister's shame.”
the bruit reached the ears of her simple, unsuspecting parents.
The father was, when roused, a coarse and harsh old man. Margaret
was his favourite, but it was Margaret in her glory, not
Margaret in her shame. His vanity was stung, and in the interview
soon discovered sufficient cause of provocation, was totally without
the restraints of policy or humanity.
A traditionary account—over which we confess there hangs
some doubt—is given of the events that followed. There were
guests in the dwelling of the farmer, and the poor girl was conducted
to a neighbouring outhouse, probably the barn. There,
amid the denunciations of the father, the reproaches of the mother,
and the sobs, tears and agonies of the victim, a full acknowledgment
was extorted of her wretched state. But she preserved
one secret, which no violence could make her deliver. She
withheld the name of him to whom she owed all her misfortunes.
It is true, this name was not wanting to inform any to whom her
history was known, by whom the injury was done; but of all
certainty on this head, derived from her own confession, they
were wholly deprived. Sitting on the bare floor, in a state of
comparative stupor, which might have tended somewhat to blunt
and disarm the nicer sensibilities, she bore, in silence, the torrent
of bitter and brutal invective which followed her developments.
With a head drooping to the ground, eyes now tearless, hands
folded upon her lap—self-abandoned, as it were—she was suffered
to remain. Her parents left her and returned to the dwelling,
having closed the door, without locking it, behind them. What
were their plans may not be said; but, whatever they were, they
were defeated by the subsequent steps taken, in her desperation
of soul, by the deserted and dishonoured damsel.
4. CHAPTER IV.
We still continue to report the tradition, though it does not appear
that the subsequent statements of the affair were derived from
any acknowledged witness. It appears that, after the night had
set in, Margaret Cole fled from the barn in which she had been
left by her parents. She was seen, in this proceeding, by her little
brother, a lad of eight years old. Catching him by the arm
as they met, she exclaimed—“Oh, Billy, don't tell, don't tell, if
you love me!” The child kept the secret until her flight was
known, and the alarm which it occasioned awakened his own apprehensions.
He described her as looking and speaking very
wildly; so much so as to frighten him. The hue and cry was
raised, but she was not found for several hours after, and then—
but we must not anticipate.
It appears—and we still take up the legend without being able
to show the authorities—it appears that, as soon as she could
hope for concealment, under cover of the night, she took her way
through unfrequented paths in the forest, running and walking,
toward the store of Wilson Hurst. This person, it appears, kept
his store on the road-side, some four miles from the village of
Orangeburg, the exact spot on which it stood being now only conjectured.
A shed-room, adjoining the store, he occupied as his
chamber. To this shed-room she came a little after midnight,
and tapping beneath the window, she aroused the inmate. He
rose, came to the window, and, without opening it, demanded who
was there. Her voice soon informed him, and the pleading, pitiful,
agonizing tones, broken and incoherent, told him all her painful
story. She related the confession which she had made to her
parents, and implored him at once to take her in, and fulfil those
promises by which he had beguiled her to her ruin. The night
was a cold and cheerless one in February—her chattering teeth
appealed to his humanity, even if her condition had not invoked
his justice. Will it be believed that the wretch refused her?
by her friends, prepared to take advantage of his confessions;
and, under this persuasion, he denied her asseverations
—told her she was mad—mocked at her pleadings, and finally
withdrew once more, as if to his couch and slumbers.
We may fancy what were the feelings of the unhappy woman.
It is not denied to imagination, however it may be to speech, to
conjecture the terrible despair, the mortal agony swelling in her
soul, as she listened to the cold-blooded and fiendish answer to
her poor heart's broken prayer for justice and commiseration.
What an icy shaft must have gone through her soul, to hearken
to such words of falsehood, mockery and scorn, from those lips
which had once pleaded in her ears with all the artful eloquence
of love—and how she must have cowered to the earth, as if the
mountains themselves were falling upon her as she heard his retiring
footsteps—he going to seek those slumbers which she has
never more to seek or find. That was death—the worst death—
the final death of the last hope in her doomed and desolated heart.
But one groan escaped her—one gasping sigh—the utterance, we
may suppose, of her last hope, as it surrendered up the ghost—
and then, all was silence!
5. CHAPTER V.
That one groan spoke more keenly to the conscience of the
miserable wretch within than did all her pleadings. The deep,
midnight silence which succeeded was conclusive of the despair
of the wretched girl. It not only said that she was alone, abandoned
of all others—but that she was abandoned by herself. The
very forbearance of the usual reproaches—her entire submission
to her fate—stung and goaded the base deceiver, by compelling
his own reflections, on his career and conduct, to supply the place
of hers. He was young, and, therefore, not entirely reckless.
He felt that he lacked manliness—that courage which enables a
man to do right from feeling, even where, in matters of principle,
he does not appreciate the supremacy of virtue. Some miserable
fears that her friends might still be in lurking, and, as he could
not conjecture the desperation of a big heart, full of feeling, bursting
with otherwise unutterable emotions, he flattered himself with
the feeble conclusion, that, disappointed in her attempts upon him,
the poor deluded victim had returned home as she came. Still,
his conscience did not suffer him to sleep. He had his doubts.
She might be still in the neighbourhood—she might be swooning
under his window. He rose. We may not divine his intentions.
It may have been—and we hope so for the sake of man and humanity—it
may have been that he rose repentant, and determined
to take the poor victim to his arms, and do all the justice to her
love and sufferings that it yet lay in his power to do. He went
to the window, and leant his ear down to listen. Nothing reached
him but the deep soughing of the wind through the branches, but
even this more than once startled him with such a resemblance
to human moaning that he shuddered at his place of watch. His
window was one of those unglazed openings in the wall, such as
are common in the humbler cottages of a country where the cold
is seldom of long duration, and where the hardy habits of the people
render them comparatively careless of those agents of comfort
by a single shutter, and fastened by a small iron hook within.
Gradually, as he became encouraged by the silence, he raised
this hook, and, still grasping it, suffered the window to expand so
as to enable him to take into his glance, little by little, the prospect
before him. The moon was now rising above the trees, and
shedding a ghastly light upon the unshadowed places around.
The night was growing colder, and in the chill under which his
own frame shivered, he thought of poor Margaret and her cheerless
walk that night. He looked down for her immediately beneath
the window, but she was not there, and for a few moments
his eyes failed to discover any object beyond the ordinary shrubs
and trees. But as his vision became more and more accustomed
to the indistinct outlines and shadowy glimpses under which, in
that doubtful light, objects naturally presented themselves, he
shuddered to behold a whitish form gleaming fitfully, as if waving
in the wind, from a little clump of woods not forty yards from
the house. He recoiled, closed the window with trembling
hands, and got down upon his knees—but it was to cower, not to
pray—and he did not remain in this position for more than a second.
He then dressed himself, with hands that trembled too much
to allow him, without much delay, to perform this ordinary office.
Then he hurried into his shop—opened the door, which he as instantly
bolted again, then returned to his chamber—half undressed
himself, as if again about to seek his bed—resumed his garments,
re-opened the window, and gazed once more upon the indistinct
white outline which had inspired all his terrors. How long he
thus stood gazing, how many were his movements of incertitude,
what were his thoughts and what his purposes, may not be said—
may scarcely be conjectured. It is very certain that every effort
which he made to go forth and examine more closely the object
of his sight and apprehensions, utterly failed—yet a dreadful fascination
bound him to the window. If he fled to the interior and
shut his eyes, it was only for a moment. He still returned to the
spot, and gazed, and gazed, until the awful ghost of the unhappy
girl spoke out audibly, to his ears, and filled his soul with the
most unmitigated horrors.
6. CHAPTER VI.
But the sound of horses' feet, and hurrying voices, aroused him
to the exercise of his leading instinct—that of self-preservation.
His senses seemed to return to him instantly under the pressure of
merely human fears. He hurried to the opposite apartment, silently
unclosed the outer door, and stealing off under cover of the woods,
was soon shrouded from sight in their impenetrable shadows.
But the same fascination which had previously led him to the fatal
window, now conducted him into that part of the forest which contained
the cruel spectacle by which his eyes had been fixed and
fastened. Here, himself concealed, crouching in the thicket, he
beheld the arrival of a motley crowd—white and black—old Cole,
with all the neighbours whom he could collect around him and
gather in his progress. He saw them pass, without noticing, the
object of their search and his own attention—surround his dwelling—heard
them shout his name, and finally force their way into
the premises. Torches were seen to glare through the seams
and apertures of the house, and, at length, as if the examination
had been in vain, the party reappeared without. They gathered
in a group in front of the dwelling, and seemed to be in consultation.
While they were yet in debate, the hoofs of a single horse,
at full speed, were heard beating the frozen ground, and another
person was added to the party. It did not need the shout with
which this new comer was received by all, to announce to the
skulking fugitive that, in the tall, massive form that now alighted
among the rest, he beheld the noble fellow whose love had been
rejected by Margaret for his own—Barnacle Sam. It is remarkable
that, up to this moment, a doubt of his own security had not
troubled the mind of Hurst; but, absorbed by the fearful spectacle
which, though still unseen by the rest, was yet ever waving
before his own spell-bound eyes, he had foregone all farther considerations
of his own safety. But the appearance of this man,
of whose character, by this time, he had full knowledge, had dis
shuddering and looking back the while, he silently rose to his feet,
and stealing off with as much haste as a proper caution would
justify, he made his way to one of the landings on the river, where
he found a canoe, with which he put off to the opposite side. For
the present, we leave him to his own course and conscience, and
return to the group which we left behind us, and which, by this
time, has realized all the horrors natural to a full discovery of the
truth.
The poor girl was found suspended, as we have already in part
described, to the arm of a tree, but a little removed from the dwelling
of her guilty lover, the swinging boughs of which had been
used commonly for fastening horses. A common handkerchief,
torn in two, and lengthened by the union of the parts, provided the
fatal means of death for the unhappy creature. Her mode of procedure
had been otherwise quite as simple as successful. She had
mounted the stump of a tree which had been left as a horse-block,
and which enabled her to reach the bough over which the kerchief
was thrown. This adjusted, she swung from the stump, and passed
in a few moments—with what remorse, what agonies, what fears,
and what struggles, we will not say—from the vexing world of
time to the doubtful empire of eternity! We dare not condemn
the poor heart, so young, so feeble, so wronged, and, doubtless, so
distraught! Peace to her spirit!
It would be idle to attempt to describe the tumult, the wild uproar
and storm of rage, which, among that friendly group, seemed
for a season to make them even forgetful of their grief.
Their sorrow seemed swallowed up in fury. Barnacle Sam
was alone silent. His hand it was that took down the lifeless
body from the accursed tree—upon his manly bosom it was borne.
He spoke but once on the occasion, in reply to those who proposed
to carry it to the house of the betrayer. “No! not there! not
there!” was all he said, in tones low—almost whispered—yet so
distinctly heard, so deeply felt, that the noisy rage of those around
him was subdued to silence in the sterner grief which they expressed.
And while the noble fellow bore away the victim, with arms
as fond, and a solicitude as tender, as if the lifeless form could still
feel, and the cold defrauded heart could still respond to love, the
and watched the consuming blaze with as much delight as
they would have felt had its proprietor been involved within its
flaming perils. Such, certainly, had he been found, would have
been the sudden, and perhaps deserved judgment to which their
hands would have consigned him. They searched the woods for
him, but in vain. They renewed the search for him by daylight,
and traced his footsteps to the river. The surrounding country
was aroused, but, prompted by his fears, and favoured by his fortune,
he had got so completely the start of his enemies that he
eluded all pursuit; and time, that dulls even the spirit of revenge,
at length served to lessen the interest of the event in the minds
of most of the survivors. Months went by, years followed—the
old man Cole and his wife sunk into the grave; hurried prematurely,
it was thought, by the dreadful history we have given; and of all
that group, assembled on the fatal night we have just described,
but one person seemed to keep its terrible aspect forever fresh before
his eyes—and that was Barnacle Sam.
He was a changed man. If the previous desertion and caprice
of the wretched Margaret, who had paid so heavy a penalty for
the girlish injustice which she had inflicted on his manly heart,
had made him morose and melancholy, her miserable fate increased
this change in a far more surprising degree. He still, it is
true, continued the business of a raftsman, but, had it not been for
his known trustworthiness, his best friends and admirers would
have certainly ceased altogether to give him employment. He
was now the creature of a moodiness which they did not scruple
to pronounce madness. He disdained all sort of conference with
those about him, on ordinary concerns, and devoting himself to the
Bible, he drew from its mystic, and to him unfathomable, resources,
constant subjects of declamation and discussion. Its thousand
dark prophecies became unfolded to his mind. He denounced the
threatened wrath of undesignated ages as already at the door—
called upon the people to fly, and shouted wildly in invocation of
the storm. Sometimes, these moods would disappear, and, at such
times, he would pass through the crowd with drooping head and
hands, the humbled and resigned victim to a sentence which seemed
destined for his utter annihilation. The change in his physical
long and massive, suddenly became white as snow; and though
his face still retained a partial fulness, there were long lines and
heavy seams upon his cheeks, which denoted a more than common
struggle of the inner life with the cares, the doubts, and the
agonies of a troubled and vexing existence. After the lapse of a
year, the more violent paroxysms of his mood disappeared, and
gave place to a settled gloom, which was not less significant than
his former condition of an alienated mind. He was still devoted
to religion—that is to say, to that study of religious topics, which,
among ignorant or thoughtless people, is too apt to be mistaken
for religion. But it was not of its peace, its diffusing calm, its
holy promise, that he read and studied. His favourite themes
were to be found among the terrible judgments, the fierce vengeances,
the unexampled woes, inflicted, or predicted, in the prophetic
books of the Old Testament. The language of the prophets,
when they denounced wrath, he made his own language; and
when his soul was roused with any one of these subjects, and
stimulated by surrounding events, he would look the Jeremiah that
he spoke—his eyes glancing with the frenzy of a flaming spirit—
his lips quivering with his deep emotions—his hands and arms
spread abroad, as if the phials of wrath were in them ready to be
emptied—his foot advanced, as if he were then dispensing judgment—his
white hair streaming to the wind, with that meteor-likeness
which was once supposed to be prophetic of “change,
perplexing monarchs.” At other times, going down upon his
rafts, or sitting in the door of his little cabin, you would see him
with the Bible on his knee—his eyes lifted in abstraction, but his
mouth working, as if he then busied himself in calculation of those
wondrous problems, contained in the “times and half times,” the
elucidation of which, it is supposed, will give us the final limit
accorded to this exercise of our human toil in the works of the
devil.
7. CHAPTER VII.
It was while his mind was thus occupied, that the ferment of
colonial patriotism drew to a head. The Revolution was begun,
and the clamours of war and the rattle of arms resounded through
the land. Such an outbreak was the very event to accord with
the humours of our morbid raftsman. Gradually, his mind had
grasped the objects and nature of the issue, not as an event simply
calculated to work out the regeneration of a decaying and impaired
government, but as a sort of purging process, the great beginning
of the end, in fact, by which the whole world was to be again
made new. The exaggerated forms of rhetoric in which the orators
of the time naturally spoke, and in which all stump orators are apt to speak, when liberty and the rights of man are the
themes—and what themes, in their hands, do not swell into these?
—happily chimed in with the chaotic fancies and confused thoughts
which filled the brain of Barnacle Sam. In conveying his rafts
to Charleston, he took every opportunity of hearing the great orators
of that city—Gadsden, Rutledge, Drayton and others—and
imbued with what he had heard, coupling it, in singular union,
with what he had read—he proceeded to propound to his wondering
companions, along the road and river, the equally exciting
doctrines of patriotism and religion. In this way, to a certain
extent, he really proved an auxiliary of no mean importance to a
cause, to which, in Carolina, there was an opposition not less serious
and determined, as it was based upon a natural and not discreditable
principle. Instead now of avoiding the people, and of
dispensing his thoughts among them only when they chanced to
meet, Barnacle Sam now sought them out in their cabins. Returning
from the city after the disposal of his rafts, his course
lay, on foot, a matter of seventy miles through the country. On
this route he loitered and lingered, went into by-places, and sought
in lonely nooks, and “every bosky bower,” “from side to side,”
the rustics of whom he either knew or heard. His own history,
he was generally received with open hands and that sympathy,
which was naturally educed wherever his misfortunes were understood.
His familiarity with the Bible, his exemplary life, his
habits of self-denial, his imposing manner, his known fearlessness
of heart; these were all so many credentials to the favour of a
simple and unsophisticated people. But we need dwell on this
head no longer. Enough, in this place, to say that, on the first
threat of the invader against the shores of Carolina, Barnacle
Sam leapt from his rafts, and arrayed himself with the regiment
of William Thompson, for the defence of Sullivan's Island. Of
his valour, when the day of trial came, as little need be said.
The important part which Thompson's riflemen had to play at the
eastern end of Sullivan's Island, while Moultrie was rending
with iron hail the British fleet in front, is recorded in another
history. That battle saved Carolina for two years, but, in the interregnum
which followed, our worthy raftsman was not idle.
Sometimes on the river with his rafts, earning the penny which
was necessary to his wants, he was more frequently engaged in
stirring up the people of the humbler classes, by his own peculiar
modes of argument, rousing them to wrath, in order, as he conclusively
showed from Holy Writ, that they might “escape from
the wrath to come.” This logic cost many a tory his life; and,
what with rafting, preaching and fighting, Barnacle Sam was as
busy a prophet as ever sallied forth with short scrip and heavy
sandal on the business of better people than himself.
During the same period of repose in Carolina from the absolute
pressure of foreign war, and from the immediate presence
of the foreign enemy, the city of Charleston was doing a peculiar
and flourishing business. The British fleets covering all the
coast, from St. Augustine to Martha's Vineyard, all commerce by
sea was cut off, and a line of wagons from South, and through
North Carolina, to Virginia and Pennsylvania, enabled the enterprising
merchants of Charleston to snap their fingers at the
blockading squadrons. The business carried on in this way,
though a tedious, was yet a thriving one; and it gave many a
grievous pang to patriotism, in the case of many a swelling
tradesman, when the final investment of the Southern States compelled
from principle, to this unhappy turn in the affairs of local
trade. It happened on one occasion, just before the British army
was ordered to the South, that General Huger, then in command
of a fine regiment of cavalry, somewhere near Lenud's Ferry on
the Santee, received intelligence which led him to suspect the
fidelity of a certain caravan of wagons which had left the city
some ten or twelve days before, and was then considerably advanced
on the road to North Carolina. The intelligence which
caused this suspicion, was brought to him by no less a person
than our friend Barnacle Sam, who was just returning from one
of his ordinary trips down the Edisto. A detachment of twenty
men was immediately ordered to overtake the wagons and sift
them thoroughly, and under the guidance of Barnacle, the detachment
immediately set off. The wagons, eleven in number,
were overhauled after three days' hard riding, and subjected to
as close a scrutiny as was thought necessary by the vigilant officer
in command. But it did not appear that the intelligence
communicated by the raftsman received any confirmation. If
there were treasonable letters, they were concealed securely, or
seasonably destroyed by those to whom they were entrusted; and
the search being over, and night being at hand, the troops and
the persons of the caravan, in great mutual good humour, agreed
to encamp together for the night. Fires were kindled, the wagons
wheeled about, the horses were haltered and fed, and all
things being arranged against surprise, the company broke up into
compact groups around the several fires for supper and for sleep.
The partisan and the wagoner squatted, foot to foot, in circles the
most equal and sociable, and the rice and bacon having been
washed down by copious draughts of rum and sugar, of which
commodities the Carolinas had a copious supply at the time of the
invasion—nothing less could follow but the tale and the song,
the jest and the merry cackle, natural enough to hearty fellows,
under such circumstances of equal freedom and creature comfort.
As might be guessed from his character, as we have described it,
Barnacle Sam took no part in this sort of merriment. He mixed
with none of the several groups, but, with his back against a tree,
with crossed hands, and chin upon his breast, he lay soundly
upon memory, which is supposed to be equally sweet and bitter.
In this position he lay, not mingling with any of the parties, perhaps
unseen of any, and certainly not yielding himself in any
way to the influences which made them temporarily happy. He
was in a very lonely and far removed land of his own. He had
not supped, neither had he drank, neither had he thirsted, nor
hungered, while others indulged. It was one peculiarity of his
mental infirmities that he seemed, whenever greatly excited by
his own moods, to suffer from none of the animal wants of nature.
His position, however, was not removed from that of the
rest. Had his mind been less absorbed in its own thoughts
—had he willed to hear—he might have been the possessor
of all the good jokes, the glees and every thoughtless or
merry word, which delighted those around him. He lay between
two groups, a few feet only from one, in deep shadow,
which was only fitfully removed as some one of those around
the fire bent forward or writhed about, and thus suffered the
ruddy glare to glisten upon his drooping head or broad manly
bosom. One of these groups—and that nearest him—was composed
entirely of young men. These had necessarily found each
other out, and, by a natural attraction, had got together in the
same circle. Removed from the restraints and presence of their
elders, and after the indulgence of frequent draughts from the
potent beverage, of which there was always a supply adequate to
the purposes of evil, their conversation soon became licentious;
and, from the irreverent jest, they soon gave way to the obscene
story. At length, as one step in vice, naturally and inevitably,—unless promptly resisted—impels another—the thoughtless reprobates
began to boast of their several experiences in sin. Each
strove to outdo his neighbour in the assertion of his prowess, and
while some would magnify the number of their achievements,
others would dilate in their details, and all, at the expense of poor,
dependent woman. It would be difficult to say—nor is it important—at
what particular moment, or from what particular circumstance,
Barnacle Sam was induced to give any attention to
what was going on. The key-note which opened in his own soul
all its dreadful remembrances of horror, was no doubt to be found
which effectually commanded his continued attention, even though
it was yielded with loathing and against the stomach of his sense.
He listened with head no longer drooping, eyes no longer shut,
thought no longer in that far and foreign world of memory.
Memory, indeed, was beginning to recover and have a present
life and occupation. Barnacle Sam was listening to accents
which were not unfamiliar to his ear. He heard one of the
speakers, whose back was turned upon him, engaged in the narrative
of his own triumphs, and every syllable which he uttered was
the echo of a dreadful tale, too truly told already. The story
was not the same—not identical in all its particulars—with that
of poor Margaret Cole; but it was her story. The name of the
victim was not given—and the incidents were so stated, that,
without altering the results, all those portions were altered which
might have placed the speaker in a particularly base or odious
position. He had conquered, he had denied his victim the only
remedy in his power—for was he to confide in a virtue, which he
had been able to overcome?—and she had perished by her own
hands. This was the substance of his story; but this was not
enough for the profligate, unless he could show how superior were
his arts of conquest, how lordly his sway, how indifferent his
love, to the misery which it could occasion; a loud and hearty
laugh followed, and, in the midst of the uproar, while every tongue
was conceding the palm of superiority to the narrator, and his
soul was swelling with the applause for which his wretched vanity
had sacrificed decency and truth, a heavy hand was laid upon
his shoulder, and his eyes, turning round upon the intruder, encountered
those of Barnacle Sam!
“Well, what do you want?” demanded the person addressed.
It was evident that he did not recognize the intruder. How could
he? His own mother could not have known the features of Barnacle
Sam, so changed as he was, from what he had been, by wo
and misery.
“You! I want you! You are wanted, come with me!”
The other hesitated and trembled. The eye of the raftsman
was upon him. It was the eye of his master—the eye of fate.
It was not in his power to resist it. It moved him whither it
was stationary for an instant, and the hand of Barnacle Sam
rested upon his wrist. The touch appeared to smite him to the
bone. He shuddered, and it was noted that his other arm was
extended, as if in appeal to the group from which he had risen.
Another look of his fate fixed him. He shrunk under the full,
fierce, compelling glance of the other. He shrunk, but went
forward in silence, while the hand of the latter was still slightly
pressed upon his wrist.
8. CHAPTER VIII.
Never was mesmeric fascination more complete. The raftsman
seemed to have full confidence in his powers of compulsion,
for he retained his grasp upon the wrist of the profligate, but a
single moment after they had gone from the company.
“Come! Follow!” said the conductor, when a few moments
more had elapsed, finding the other beginning to falter.
“Where must I go? Who wants me?” demanded the criminal,
with a feeble show of resolution.
“Where must you go—who wants you; oh! man of little
faith—does the soldier ask of the officer such a question—does
the sinner of his judge? of what use to ask, Wilson Hurst, when
the duty must be done—when there is no excuse and no appeal.
Come!”
“Wilson Hurst! Who is it calls me by that name? I will
go no farther.”
The raftsman who had turned to proceed, again paused, and
stooping, fixed his keen eyes upon those of the speaker so closely
that their mutual eyebrows must have met. The night was star-lighted,
and the glances from the eyes of Barnacle Sam flashed
upon the gaze of his subject, with a red energy like that of
Mars. “Come!” he said, even while he looked. “Come, miserable
man, the judgment is given, the day of favour is past, and
lo! the night cometh—the night is here.”
“Oh, now I know you, now I know you—Barnacle Sam!” exclaimed
Hurst, falling upon his knees. “Have mercy upon me
—have mercy upon me!”
“It is a good prayer,” said the other, “a good prayer—the
only prayer for a sinner, but do not address it to me. To the
Judge, man, to the Almighty Judge himself! Pray, pray! I will
give you time. Pour out your heart like water. Let it run upon
the thirsty ground. The contrite heart is blessed though it be
In the misery of the sinner is the mercy of the Judge.”
“And will you spare me? Will you let me go if I pray?”
demanded the prostrate and wretched criminal with eagerness.
“How can I? I, too, am a sinner. I am not the judge. I
am but the officer commanded to do the will of God. He has
spoken this command in mine ears by day and by night. He has
commanded me at all hours. I have sought for thee, Wilson
Hurst, for seven weary years along the Edisto, and the Congaree
and Santee, the Ashley, and other rivers. It has pleased God to
weary me with toil in this search, that I might the better understand
how hard it is for the sinner to serve him as he should be
served! `For l thy God am a jealous God!' He knew how
little I could be trusted, and he forced me upon a longer search
and upon greater toils. I have wearied and I have prayed; I have
toiled and I have travelled; and it is now, at last, that I have seen
the expected sign, in a dream, even in a vision of the night. Oh,
Father Almighty, I rejoice, I bless thee, that thou hast seen fit to
bring my labours to a close—that I have at length found this
favour in thy sight. Weary have been my watches, long have
I prayed. I glad me that I have not watched and prayed vainly,
and that the hour of my deliverance is at hand. Wilson Hurst,
be speedy with thy prayers. It is not commanded that I shall
cut thee off suddenly and without a sign. Humble thyself with
speed, make thyself acceptable before the Redeemer of souls, for
thy hour is at hand.”
“What mean you?” gasped the other
“Judgment! Death!” And, as he spoke, the raftsman looked
steadfastly to the tree overhead, and extended his arm as if to
grasp the branches. The thought which was in his mind was
immediately comprehended by the instinct of the guilty man. He
immediately turned to fly. The glimmering light from the fires
of the encampment could still be seen fitfully flaring through
the forest.
“Whither would you go?” demanded the raftsman, laying his
hand upon the shoulder of the victim. “Do you hope to fly from
the wrath of God, Wilson Hurst? Foolish man, waste not the
moments which are precious. Busy thyself in prayer. Thou
thee, now, on this very expedition, after, as I have told thee, after
a weary toil in search of thee for a space of seven years. Thou
hast had all that time for repentance while I have been tasked
vainly to seek thee even for the same period of time. But late,
as I went out from the city, there met me one near Dorchester,
who bade me set forth in pursuit of the wagon-train for the north,
but I heeded not his words, and that night, in a vision, I was yet
farther commanded. In my weak mind and erring faith, methought
I was to search among these wagons for a traitor to the
good cause of the colony. Little did I think to meet with thee,
Wilson Hurst. But when I heard thy own lips openly denounce
thy sins; when I heard thee boastful of thy cruel deed to her
who was the sweetest child that ever Satan robbed from God's
blessed vineyard—then did I see the purpose for which I was sent
—then did I understand that my search was at an end, and that
the final judgment was gone forth against thee. Prepare thyself,
Wilson Hurst, for thy hour is at hand.”
“I will not. You are mad! I will fight, I will halloo to our
people,” said the criminal, with more energetic accents and a
greater show of determination. The other replied with a coolness
which was equally singular and startling.
“I have sometimes thought that I was mad; but now, that the
Lord hath so unexpectedly delivered thee into my hands, I know
that I am not. Thou may'st fight, and thou may'st halloo, but I
cannot think that these will help thee against the positive commandment
of the Lord. Even the strength of a horse avails not
against him for the safety of those whom he hath condemned.
Prepare thee, then, Wilson Hurst, for thy hour is almost up.”
He laid his hand upon the shoulder of the criminal as he spoke.
The latter, meanwhile, had drawn a large knife from his pocket,
and though Barnacle Sam had distinguished the movement and
suspected the object, he made no effort to defeat it.
“Thou art armed,” said he, releasing, as he spoke, his hold
upon the shoulder of Hurst. “Now, shalt thou see how certainly
the Lord hath delivered thee into my hands, for I will not strive
against thee until thou hast striven. Use thy weapon upon me.
Lo! I stand unmoved before thee! Strike boldly and see what
and I am sent this hour to execute God's vengeance against
thee.”
The wretch took the speaker at his word, struck with tolerable
boldness and force, twice, thrice upon the breast of the raftsman,
who stood utterly unmoved, and suffering no wound, no hurt of
any sort. The baffled criminal dropped his weapon, and screamed
in feeble and husky accents for help. In his tremour and timidity,
he had, after drawing the knife from his pocket, utterly
forgotten to unclasp the blade. He had struck with the blunted
handle of the weapon, and the result which was due to so simple
and natural a cause, appeared to his cowardly soul and excited
imagination as miraculous. It was not less so to the mind of Barnacle
Sam.
“Did I not tell thee! Look here, Wilson Hurst, look on this,
and see how slight a thing in the hand of Providence may yield
defence against the deadly weapon. This is the handkerchief by
which poor Margaret Cole perished. It has been in my bosom
from the hour I took her body from the tree. It has guarded my
life against thy steel, though I kept it not for this. God has commanded
me to use it in carrying out his judgment upon thee.”
He slipt it over the neck of the criminal as he spoke these
words. The other, feebly struggling, sunk upon his knees. His
nerves had utterly failed him. The coward heart, still more enfeebled
by the coward conscience, served completely to paralyze the
common instinct of self-defence. He had no strength, no manhood.
His muscles had no tension, and even the voice of supplication
died away, in sounds of a faint and husky terror in his
throat—a half-stifled moan, a gurgling breath—and—
9. CHAPTER IX.
When Barnacle Sam returned to the encampment he was
alone. He immediately sought the conductor of the wagons, and,
without apprising him of his object, led him to the place of final
conference between himself and Hurst. The miserable man was
found suspended to a tree, life utterly extinct, the body already stiff
and cold. The horror of the conductor almost deprived him of utterance.
“Who has done this?” he asked.
“The hand of God, by the hand of his servant, which I am!
The judgment of Heaven is satisfied. The evil thing is removed
from among us, and we may now go on our way in peace. I
have brought thee hither that thou may'st see for thyself, and be
a witness to my work which is here ended. For seven weary
years have I striven in this object. Father, I thank thee, that at
the last thou hast been pleased to command that I should behold
it finished!”
These latter words were spoken while he was upon his knees,
at the very feet of the hanging man. The conductor, availing
himself of the utter absorption in prayer of the other, stole away
to the encampment, half-apprehensive that he himself might be
made to taste of the same sharp judgment which had been administered
to his companion. The encampment was soon roused,
and the wagoners hurried in high excitement to the scene. They
found Barnacle Sam still upon his knees. The sight of their
comrade suspended from the tree, enkindled all their anger. They
laid violent hands upon his executioner. He offered no resistance,
but showed no apprehension. To what lengths their fury would
have carried them may only be conjectured, but they had found
a rope, had fitted the noose, and in a few moments more they
would, in all probability, have run up the offender to the same
tree from which they had cut down his victim, when the timely
appearance of the troopers saved him from such a fate. The
esprit de corps came in seasonably for his preservation. It was
that Barnacle Sam avowed his handiwork—“He is one of us,”
said the troopers; and the slightest movement of the others toward
hostility was resented with a handling so rough, as made it only
a becoming prudence to bear with their loss and abuses as they
best might. The wonder of all was, as they examined the body
of the victim, how it was possible for the executioner to effect his
purpose. Hurst was a man of middle size, rather stoutly built,
and in tolerably good case. He would have weighed about one
hundred and thirty. Barnacle Sam was of powerful frame and
great muscle, tall and stout, yet it seemed impossible, unless endued
with superhuman strength, that, unaided, he could have
achieved his purpose; and some of the troopers charitably surmised
that the wagoner had committed suicide; while the wagoners,
in turn, hurried to the conclusion that the executioner had
found assistance among the troopers. Both parties overlooked
the preternatural strength accruing, in such a case, from the excited
moral and mental condition of the survivor. They were not
philosophers enough to see that, believing himself engaged upon
the work of God, the enthusiast was really in possession of attributes,
the work of a morbid imagination, which seemed almost to
justify his pretensions to a communion with the superior world.
Besides, they assumed a struggle on the part of the victim. They
did not conjecture the influence of that spell by which the dominant
spirit had coerced the inferior, and made it docile as the
squirrel which the fascination of the snake brings to its very jaws,
in spite of all the instincts which teach it to know how fatal is the
enemy that lurks beneath the tree. The imbecile Hurst, conscious
as it were of his fate, seems to have so accorded to the
commands of his superior, as to contribute, in some degree, to his
designs. At all events, the deed was done; and Barnacle Sam
never said that the task was a hard one.
It was reserved for an examination of the body to find a full
military justification for the executioner, and to silence the clamours
of the wagoners. A screw bullet was found admirably folded
in the knot of his neck kerchief, which, it seems, was not withdrawn
from his neck when the kerchief of Margaret Cole was
employed for a more deadly purpose. In this bullet was a note
condition of Savannah, evidently from the hands of some one
in that quarter. In a few months after this period Savannah was
in possession of the British.
Barnacle Sam was tried for the murder of Hurst before a civil
tribunal, and acquitted on the score of insanity; a plea put in for
him, in his own spite, and greatly to his mortification. He retired
from sight, for a space after this verdict, and remained quiet
until a necessity arose for greater activity on the part of the patriots
at home. It was then that he was found among the partisans, always
bold and fearless, fighting and suffering manfully to the
close of the war.
It happened, on one occasion, that the somewhat celebrated
Judge Burke, of South Carolina, was dining with a pleasant party
at the village of Orangeburg. The judge was an Irish gentleman
of curious humour, and many eccentricities. He had more
wit than genius, and quite as much courage as wisdom. The
bench, indeed, is understood to have been the reward of his military
services during the Revolution, and his bulls in that situation
are even better remembered than his deeds in the other. But his
blunders were redeemed by his humour, and the bar overlooked
his mistakes in the enjoyment of his eccentricities. On the
present occasion the judge was in excellent mood, and his companions
equally happy, if not equally humorous with himself.
The cloth had been removed, and the wine was in lively circulation,
when the servant announced a stranger, who was no other
than Barnacle Sam. Our ancient was known to the judge and
to several of the company. But they knew him rather as the
brave soldier, the successful scout, the trusty spy and courier,
than as the unsuccessful lover and the agent of God's judgment
against the wrong doer. His reception was kind; and the judge,
taking for granted that he came to get a certificate for bounty
lands, or a pension, or his seven years' pay, or something of that
sort, supposed that he should get rid of him by a prompt compliance
with his application. No such thing. He had come to get
a reversal of that judgment of the court by which he had been
pronounced insane. His acquittal was not an object of his concern.
In bringing his present wish to the knowledge of the
sufficiently performed. It was found that, though by no
means obtrusive or earnest, the good fellow was firm in his application,
and the judge, in one of his best humours, saw no difficulty
in obliging him.
“Be plaised, gentlemen,” said he, “to fill your glasses. Our
revision of the judgment in the case of our excellent friend, Sergeant
Barnacle, shall be no dry joke. Fill your glasses, and be
raisonably ripe for judgment. Sit down, Sergeant Barnacle, sit
down, and be plaised to take a drhap of the crathur, though you
leave no other crathur a drhap. It sames to me, gentlemen of
the jury, that our friend has been hardly dealt with. To be found
guilty of insanity for hanging a tory and a spy—a fellow actually
bearing despatches to the enemy—sames a most extraordinary
judgment; and it is still more extraordinary, let me tell you, that
a person should be suspected of any deficiency of sense who
should lay hands on a successful rival. I think this hanging a
rival out of the way an excellent expadient; and the only mistake
which, it sames to me, our friend Sergeant Barnacle has
made, in this business, was in not having traed him sooner than
he did.”
“I sought him, may it please your honour, but the Lord did not
deliver him into my hands until his hour had come,” was the interruption
of Barnacle Sam.
“Ah! I see! You would have hung him sooner if you could.
Gentlemen of the jury, our friend, the sergeant, has shown that
he would have hung him sooner if he could. The only ground,
then, upon which, it sames to me, that his sanity could have been
suspected, is thus cleared up; and we are made to say that our
worthy friend was not deficient in that sagacity which counsels
us to execute the criminal before he is guilty, under the good old
rule that prevention is better than cure—that it is better to hang
thirty rogues before they are proved so, rayther than to suffer one
good man to come to avil at their hands.”
It is needless to say that the popular court duly concurred with
the judge's humorous reversal of the former decision; and Barnacle
Sam went his way, perfectly satisfied as to the removal of
all stain from his sanity of mind.
| The wigwam and the cabin | |