 | CHAPTER III. The new purchase, or, Seven and a half years in the far West |  |
3. CHAPTER III.
“Hominem pagina nostra sapit.”
“Our page describes some gentlemen.”
When summoned to the stage by the driver's horn, it
seemed we had lost some way-passengers, room being thus
obtained for the lady of the bonnet; who, however, appeared
wearing the old article, having, with a corrected judgment,
consigned the damaged one to the band-box. So, also,
greater space was found for the French gentleman's foot,
his pedalic appendages in socks of carpet-stuff as to lead
a careless observer, even by day-light, to mistake his feet
for two of the many travelling bags on the floor. Opportunity
also was afforded now of a more judicious disposal of
various rubbing, poking and punching articles, so that, aided
by a good breakfast and a morning cold but bright, we were
soon engaged in a conversation, general, easy and animated.
And now we may properly proceed to introduce the gentlemen
of the party. Please then, reader, notice first that
pleasant-looking personage bowing so profoundly, and evidently
anxious to win your favour. That is—hem!—that is
Robert Carlton, Esq. He takes the opportunity of soliciting
your company not only for the journey but—all the way
through his two volumes. He would also say, it is his purpose
to imitate Julius Cæsar occasionally, and use the third
instead of the first person singular, and to adopt now and
then, too, the regal style, in employing nominative we, possessive
our or ours, objective us. These imitations, it is
supposed, will give a very pleasing variety to the book, enable
the author to utter complimentary things about Mr.
Carlton and his lady with greater freedom, and not run so
hard upon capital I's, or, in technical phrase, not exhaust
the printer's sorts.
This next gentleman is my friend Mr. Smith. Like so
many of the name, he was in all respects a worthy man, and
honoured, at the time, with a high station in the magistracy
of Pittsburgh. Our party shared his liberal hospitality there,
and since that hour we have been quite partial in our regard
of the Smiths, and their relatives the Smythes. Happy
partiality this; for if all classed and sorted under that
grand-common-proper-noun take a corresponding liking for
our author, where will be the limit to the number of copies
and editions?
Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mr. Brown. He was an
had the manners of the best society. At present he was at
the commencement of a tour, to be extended over most of the
United States. Among his oddities, not the least was his
odd person, entitling him to Noah Webster's word, lengthy,—
he appearing alternately all body, when one looked up, and
all legs, when one looked down:—a peculiarity I am led the
more to notice, as I found his elongation very unfavourable
to skiff navigation afterwards on the Ohio river; and indeed
it put us in jeopardy, if not of life, yet of immersion. In
spite of all his reading—(Mr. Boz, however, had not then
published his American notes)—Mr. Brown was remarkably
ignorant of our country, expressing unfeigned surprise that
our road, only twenty miles from Philadelphia, in place of
leading into dark forests filled with wild beasts and naked
savages, did really run amid open farms and smiling scenery,
abounding with domestic animals and civilized agriculturalists.
Pittsburgh was his uliima Thule, beyond which he
expected to find no place, or even something worse. Distinguished,
however, for his agreeable manners and frank
disposition, cheerfully confessing and laughing at his own
mistakes, he became of course a universal favourite.
Col. Wilmar was, however, my beau ideal of a gentleman.
To a manly beauty he had added the qualities of good education
and the grace of many accomplishments. He was
courteous, brave and even chivalrous; his attention to others
resulting from benevolence and not from prudence. Ladies
under his care, (and that, from a knowledge of his character,
was often the case,) were regarded by him more as sisters
having claims on a brother's attentions, than as strangers
committed to his trust. With pleasure we thought such a
specimen of our citizens could be contemplated by Mr.
Brown; and Mr. Carlton rejoiced that he knew one worthy
to live in the land of poetry and dreams: for the colonel
was an inhabitant of the West.
In the last war with Great Britain, Col. Wilmar, then a
very young man, commenced his military career as a volunteer,
and after being actively engaged in many skirmishes
and other warlike enterprises, he served finally as an aid to
Gen. Winchester in the disastrous battle of the river Raisin.
Taken prisoner he escaped the massacre made of his associates
by the Indians, and was then marched to Fort Malden;
whence, after a detention of some months, he was restored
to his home. Here, his military feelings being yet dominant,
he was soon honoured with an important command among
the militia and volunteers of Kentucky—his native State.
When we became, as a party, the sole occupants of the
stage, and, in the ascent of the mountains, had opportunities
for prolonged narratives, among other matters the colonel
gave, at our request, a sketch of his military adventures.
And one story may properly find a place here by way of episode
in the description of my companions.
But hark!—some one hails our driver, and the stage
stops—
“Law! bless my senses, if there aint Jacob in his cart
come out for me at the end of our road!”—was the immediate
exclamation that burst from our heroine. The unexpected
sight of her husband and the thoughts of home,
(where we learned she expected to see “little Peggy,”)
were too powerful for the prudent resolves or secret awe
that had, for the last hour, kept our dame silent; and out
rushed nature's feelings as above described. Nor did the
torrent exhaust itself at one gushing—it paused and then
continued:
“I vow I thought he'd a met one at the tavern in Dowington—but
Jacob's so monstrous afeard of a body's gittin
hurt, that he's staid out here—I do wonder how he left
them all at home?”
In the meantime, Mr. Brown, pleased with her self-satisfaction,
good nature, and forgiving temper, had got out
bonnet, and then aiding its owner to alight; for
which he received a cordial “thankee, sir,” and a pressing
invitation to call and see her and Jacob if ever he should
be travelling that way again.
All that could be heard of the conjugal dialogue was—
“Well I vow, Jacob, who'd a thought of seeing you at our
road!”—to which was answered—“And so, Peggy,”—the
rest being lost in the renewed thunder of our wheels.
Jacob was evidently pleased to receive Peggy safe; and
his calm quaker-like dress and countenance seemed to
look and say, he was by no means the Mercury or chief
speaker in the domestic circle.
Return we to our episode, Col. Wilmar's narrative.
“Among our volunteers was a young man, a tailor I believe,
but in all respects decidedly our best soldier. He
was tall, well proportioned, and fit for any feat of strength
and dexterity; besides, he was observant of every duty, and
ready at any time for either parade or battle. Without
being myself a member of the church, I believe the many
excellences of his brave, benevolent, and self-sacrificing
spirit were owing mainly to religious principles. He was, I
know, a professor of religion.
“In one battle at the Raisin, he was slightly wounded—
a knowledge of which must have led to the tragedy that
followed our capture. Turner, for that was the soldier's
name, did, indeed, try to conceal his wound from the Indians;
and I well know it did not retard his progress: but
unless our captors were determined to avoid even the possibility
of any hinderance, we never could conjecture any
other plausible reason for what followed.
“My friend was in the same division of prisoners with
myself, the assistant surgeon and several of our townsmen;
and at night when we halted, Turner was seated near me at
bread and beef. On my left, and nearly opposite the poor
fellow, I saw, for some time, an Indian who kept his eye
on Turner, with an expression that looked like mischief;
and then I saw the savage, as if by stealth, grasp his tomahawk
and move round without any noise till he came up
immediately behind us. Why, I cannot tell, but perhaps
Turner, too, had noticed all this; he sprang, however,
suddenly to his feet and with the most amazing activity,
arrested the blow of the weapon with his arm, receiving a
deep gash in his shoulder, and thus warding off the blow
from his head. And then, gentlemen, that wounded man
darted upon that Indian, and actually wrested the hatchet
from his hand, and in the next instant raised it to aim a
deadly blow at his enemy's head—ay, gentlemen, I saw
the hatchet tremble in his grasp—I saw, as I think, the
weapon almost descending with its fatal stroke—and yet,
at that very moment, it was stayed—and the next it was
thrown down upon the ground.
“For on the instant our surgeon, who had noticed
the Indians drawing their knives and hatchets for our
massacre, cried out—“Turner! Turner! for God's sake,
don't kill him!”—And then, Turner, our noble, godlike
comrade, comprehending at a glance our danger, looked
up a moment, as if in prayer—flinging, at the same time,
the weapon on the earth. And there he stood!—his arms
calmly folded across his breast, and with such a look of
self-devotion and Christian resignation, until the demon-like
savage having picked up the hatchet, approached his
victim, and buried it, with one terrific blow, deep in his
head!”
A tear trembled in the colonel's eye as he concluded;
and although many years have passed since I heard him
tell this story, I am moved when I think of that godlike
warrior so dying!—but then the story was better told.
Charles Clarence my new found friend was an orphan.
His parents both had died, he being scarcely three years
old, leaving him however, heir nominally to large and valuable
tracts of land. But he succeeded to nothing, at last,
more valuable than a very large mass of useless papers;
unless we except some trinkets indicative of an ancient and
wealthy family: and even these the sole mementos of
departed parents were sacrificed to supply the urgent necessities
of Clarence, when he found himself a deserted boy.
Some relatives did not then know of his existence—and
some only found it out when he did not need either recognition
or assistance. A maternal uncle, however, in the
far South, prevented by sudden death from adopting my
friend as a son, had left him a legacy: and from this he
had been liberally educated, with many interruptions,
however, and many distressing inconveniences, owing to
the interception of his small dividends on some occasions
by dishonest agents.
Still the apparent neglect of some relatives, the want of
a guardian and other seeming evils had been of service to
Clarence in giving stamina to his character, wanting, naturally,
in bone and sinew. Even the interruption of his
studies had led to several voyages and journeys with peril
indeed, to life and health, but with advantage to his mind
and manners. His fondness, too, for adventure was indulged,
and he was rendered thus a more interesting and
instructive companion and friend. Sobered, it is true, by
disappointment and grief, my friend was; yet I found him
now sufficiently sanguine and confident to venture on enterprises
considered praiseworthy, if one succeed, but not
so, if unsuccessful. Indeed but lately had he returned
from a visit to the Falls of Niagara, in which from want
of money, he had been induced to use the vulgar mare
that required only rest and no oats—in other words, with a
knapsack on his back he had, in company with two associates,
also travelled many thousand miles in various directions
and in various capacities, so that he abounded in anecdotes
and incidents, which he could so relate as to make
himself a companion for a journey by no means undesirable.
At this very time Clarence was going to Kentucky on a
very grand adventure:—he was on his way to be married.
When only sixteen years of age he became affianced to a
maiden, whose family shortly after emigrating to the
West, thus, for a long time, had separated the lovers.
But now at the end of seven years, during which the parties
had never met, Clarence was going as he pretended to
see the family; but in reality, reader, to marry his sweet-heart.
Ladies! will you please note this as an offset to
instances of faithlessness in our sex? And were not
these specimens of long cherished love and unbroken faith
worthy the poetical land?
—But what lights in the distance? Oh! that is Lancaster,
and there we eat supper and change stages: excuse
me, then, reader, we have no time to introduce our ladies.
Supper ended, we found a new stage, if by new is understood
another, for old enough it was and a size (?) less
than our old stage;—which after all was nearly a new one.
True, excepting monsieur, we had before stopping let out
all our way passengers; but fortunately on attempting to
get in ourselves now, we discovered enough new way passengers
not only to take the seats of the former ones, but
our seats also—so remarkably accommodating were the
old-fashioned accommodation stages and stage owners!
Alas! for us that night! that it was before the era of
caoutchouc or gum elastic!—stages' bodies of that could
have so easily become, almost at will, a size larger and a
or out! Oh! the cramming—the jamming—the bumping
about of that night! How we practiced the indirect style of
discontent and cowardice, in giving it to the intruders over
the shoulders of stage owners, and agents, and drivers, and
horses! And how that crazy, rattling, rickety, old machine
rolled and pitched and flapped its curtains and walloped
us for the abuse, till we all were quashed, bruised,
and mellowed into a quaking lump of passive, untalking,
sullen victims!
| CHAPTER III. The new purchase, or, Seven and a half years in the far West | |