University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

We had spent a merry night of it. Our stars had paled their
not ineffectual fires, only in the daylight; and while Dan Phœbus
was yet rising, “jocund on the misty mountain's top,” I was busy
in adjusting my foot in the stirrup and mounting my good steed
“Priam,” to find my way by a close cut, and through narrow
Indian trails, to my lodgings in the little town of C.—,on the very
borders of Mississippi. There were a dozen of us, all merry
larks, half mad with wine and laughter, and the ride of seven
miles proved a short one. In less than two hours, I was snugly
snoozing in my own sheets, and dreaming of the twin daughters
of old Hansford Owens.

Well might one dream of such precious damsels. Verily, they
seemed, all of a sudden, to have become a part of my existence.
They filled my thoughts, excited my imagination, and,—if it be
not an impertinence to say any thing of the heart of a roving lad
of eighteen,—then were they at the very bottom of mine.—Both of
them, let me say,—for they were twins, and were endowed with
equal rights by nature. I was not yet prepared to say what was
the difference, if any, between their claims. One was fair, the
other brown; one pensive, the other merry as the cricket of
Venus. Susannah was meek as became an Elder's daughter;
Emmeline so mischievous, that she might well have worried the

meekest of the saints in the calendar from his propriety and position.
I confess, though I thought constantly of Susannah, I always
looked after Emmeline the first. She was the brunette—
one of your flashing, sparkling, effervescing beauties,—perpetually
running over with exultation—brimfull of passionate fancies
that tripped, on tiptoe, half winged, through her thoughts. She
was a creature to make your blood bound in your bosom,—to
take you entirely off your feet, and fancy, for the moment, that
your heels are quite as much entitled to dominion as your head.
Lovely too,—brilliant, if not absolutely perfect in features—she
kept you always in a sort of sunlight. She sung well, talked
well, danced well—was always in air—seemed never herself to
lack repose, and, it must be confessed, seldom suffered it to any
body else. Her dancing was the crowning grace and glory. She
was no Taglioni—not an Ellsler—I do not pretend that. But she
was a born artiste. Every motion was a study. Every look
was life. Her form subsided into the sweetest luxuriance of attitude,
and rose into motion with some such exquisite buoyancy,
as would become Venus issuing from the foam. Her very affectations
were so naturally worn, that you at length looked for them
as essential to her charm. I confess—but no! Why should I
do any thing so foolish?

Susannah was a very different creature. She was a fair girl
—rather pale, perhaps, when her features were in repose. She
had rich soft flaxen hair, and dark blue eyes. She looked rather
than spoke. Her words were few, her glances many. She was
not necessarily silent in silence. On the contrary, her very silence
had frequently a significance, taken with her looks, that
needed no help from speech. She seemed to look through you at
a glance, yet there was a liquid sweetness in her gaze, that disarmed
it of all annoyance. If Emmeline was the glory of the
sunlight—Susannah was the sovereign of the shade. If the song
of the one filled you with exultation, that of the other awakened
all your tenderness. If Emmeline was the creature for the
dance,—Susannah was the wooing, beguiling Egeria, who could
snatch you from yourself in the moments of respite and repose.
For my part, I felt that I could spend all my mornings with the
former, and all my evenings with the latter. Susannah with her

large, blue, tearful eyes, and few, murmuring and always gentle
accents, shone out upon me at nightfall, as that last star that
watches in the vault of night for the coming of the sapphire dawn.

So much for the damsels. And all these fancies, not to say
feelings, were the fruit of but three short days acquaintance with
their objects. But these were days when thoughts travel merrily
and fast—when all that concerns the fancies and the affections,
are caught up in a moment, as if the mind were nothing but a
congeries of instincts, and the sensibilities, with a thousand delicate
antennæ, were ever on the grasp for prey.

Squire Owens was a planter of tolerable condition. He was a
widower, with these two lovely and lovable daughters—no more.
But, bless you! Mine was no calculating heart. Very far from
it. Neither the wealth of the father, nor the beauty of the girls,
had yet prompted me to think of marriage. Life was pleasant
enough as it was. Why burden it? Let well enough alone, say
I. I had no wish to be happier. A wife never entered my
thoughts. What might have come of being often with such damsels,
there's no telling; but just then, it was quite enough to
dance with Emmeline, and muse with Susannah, and—vive la
bagatelle!

I need say nothing more of my dreams, since the reader sufficiently
knows the subject. I slept late that day, and only rose in
time for dinner, which, in that almost primitive region, took place
at 12 o'clock, M. I had no appetite. A herring and soda water
might have sufficed, but these were matters foreign to the manor.
I endured the day and headache together, as well as I could,
slept soundly that night, with now the most ravishing fancies of
Emmeline, and now the pleasantest dreams of Susannah, one or
other of whom still usurped the place of a bright particular star in
my most capacious fancy. Truth is, in those heydey days, my
innocent heart never saw any terrors in polygamy. I rose a new
man, refreshed and very eager for a start. I barely swallowed
breakfast when Priam was at the door. While I was about to
mount, with thoughts filled with the meek beauties of Susannah,
—I was arrested by the approach of no less a person than Ephraim
Strong, the village blacksmith.

“You're guine to ride, I see.”

“Yes.”

“To Squire Owens, I reckon.”

“Right.”

“Well, keep a sharp look out on the road, for there's news
come down that the famous Archy Dargan has broke Hamilton
gaol.”

“And who's Archy Dargan?”

“What! don't know Archy? Why, he's the madman that's
been shut up there, it's now guine on two years.”

“A madman, eh?”

“Yes, and a mighty sevagerous one at that. He's the cunningest
white man going. Talks like a book, and knows how to
get out of a scrape,—is jest as sensible as any man for a time,
but, sudden, he takes a start, like a shying horse, and before you
knows where you are, his heels are in your jaw. Once he blazes
out, it's knife or gun, hatchet or hickory—any thing he can lay
hands on. He's kill'd two men already, and cut another's throat
a'most to killing. He's an ugly chap to meet on the road, so look
out right and left.”

“What sort of man is he?”

“In looks?”

“Yes!”

“Well, I reckon, he's about your heft. He's young and tallish,
with a fair skin, brown hair, and a mighty quick keen blue eye,
that never looks steddily nowhere. Look sharp for him. The
sheriff with his `spose-you-come-and-take-us'—is out after him,
but he's mighty cute to dodge, and had the start some twelve hours
afore they missed him.”