 | PETE FEATHERTON. The soldier's bride and other tales |  |
PETE FEATHERTON.
Every country has its superstitions, and will
continue to have them, so long as men are blessed
with lively imaginations, and while any portion of
mankind remain ignorant of the causes of natural
phenomena. That which cannot be reconciled
with experience, will always be attributed to supernatural
influence; and those who know little,
will imagine much more to exist than has ever
been witnessed by their own senses. I am not displeased
with this state of things, for the journey of
life would be dull indeed, if those who travel it
were confined for ever to the beaten highway,
worn smooth by the sober feet of experience. To
turnpikes, for our beasts of burden, I have no objection;
but I cannot consent to the erection of
railways for the mind, even though the architect
be “wisdom, whose ways are pleasant, and whose
stray off into the wilderness which fancy creates,
to recline in fairy bowers, and to listen to the murmurs
of imaginary fountains. When the beaten
road becomes tiresome, there are many sunny
spots where the pilgrim may loiter with advantage
—many shady paths, whose labyrinths may be
traced with delight. The mountain, and the vale,
on whose scenery we gaze enchanted, derive new
charms, when their deep caverns and gloomy recesses
are peopled with imaginary beings.
But above all, the enlivening influenee of fancy
is felt, when it illumines our firesides, giving to the
wings of time, when they grow heavy, a brighter
plumage, and a more sprightly motion. There are
seasons, when the spark of life within us seems to
burn with less than its wonted vigour; the blood
crawls heavily through the veins; the contagious
dullness seizes on our companions, and the sluggish
hours roll painfully along. Something more than a
common impulse is then required to awaken the
indolent mind, and give a new tone to the flagging
spirits. If necromancy draws her magic circle, we
cheerfully enter the ring; if folly shakes her cap
and bells, we are amused; a witch becomes an interesting
personage, and we are even agreeably
surprised by the companionable qualities of a
ghost.
We, who live on the frontier, have little acquaintance
with imaginary beings. These gentry
which not even the charms of a new
country can overcome. A few witches, indeed,
were imported into New England by the fathers;
but were so badly used, that the whole race seems
to have been disgusted with new settlements.
With them, the spirit of adventure expired, and the
weird women of the present day wisely cling to
the soil of the old countries. That we have but
few ghosts will not be deemed a matter of surprise
by those who have observed how miserably destitute
we are of accommodations for such inhabitants.
We have no baronial castles, nor ruined
mansions;—no turrets crowned with ivy, nor ancient
abbeys crumbling into decay; and it would be
a paltry spirit, who would be content to wander in
the forest, by silent rivers and solitary swamps.
It is even imputed to us as a reproach by enlightened
foreigners, that our land is altogether populated
with the living descendants of Adam—
creatures with thews and sinews, who eat when
they are hungry, laugh when they are tickled, and
die when they are done living. The creatures of
romance, say they, exist not in our territory. A
witch, a ghost, or a brownie, perishes in America,
as a serpent is said to die the instant it touches the
uncongenial soil of Ireland. This is true, only in
part. If we have no ghosts, we are not without
miracles. Wonders have happened in these
United States. Mysteries have occurred in the
have transpired on the borders of “the beautiful
stream;” and in order to rescue my country from
undeserved reproach, I shall proceed to narrate an
authentic history, which I received from the lips of
the party principally concerned.
A clear morning had succeeded a stormy night
in December; the snow laid ankle-deep upon the
ground, and glittered on the boughs, while the
bracing air, and the cheerful sunbeams, invigorated
the animal creation, and called forth the tenants of
the forest from their warm lairs and hidden lurking
places.
The inmates of a small cabin on the margin of
the Ohio, were commencing with the sun the business
of the day. A stout, raw-boned forester plied
his keen axe, and, lugging log after log, erected a
pile in the ample hearth, sufficiently large to have
rendered the last honours to the stateliest ox. A
female was paying her morning visit to the cow-yard,
where a numerous herd of cattle claimed her
attention. The plentiful breakfast followed; cornbread,
milk, and venison, crowned the oaken
board, while a tin coffee-pot of ample dimensions
supplied the beverage which is seldom wanting at
the morning repast of the substantial American
peasant.
The breakfast over, Mr. Featherton reached down
a long rifle from the rafters, and commenced certain
preparations, fraught with danger to the brute inhabitants
examined, the screws tightened, the pan wiped, the
flint renewed, and the springs oiled; and the keen
eye of the backwoodsman glittered with an ominous
lustre, as its glance rested on the destructive
engine. His blue-eyed partner, leaning fondly on
her husband's shoulder, essayed those coaxing and
captivating blandishments, which every young wife
so well understands, to detain her husband from
the contemplated sport. Every pretext which her
ingenuity supplied, was urged with affectionate
pertinacity;—the wind whistled bleakly over the
hills, the snow lay deep in the valleys, the deer
would surely not venture abroad in such bitter
cold weather, his toes might be frost-bitten, and
her own hours would be sadly lonesome in his absence.
The young hunter smiled in silence at the
arguments of his bride, for such she was, and continued
his preparations.
He was indeed a person with whom such arguments,
except the last, would not be very likely to
prevail. Pete Featherton, as he was familiarly
called by his acquaintances, was a bold rattling
Kentuckian, of twenty-five, who possessed the characteristic
peculiarities of his countrymen—good
and evil—in a striking degree. His red hair and
sanguine complexion announced an ardent temperament;
his tall form, and bony limbs, indicated an
active frame inured to hardships; his piercing eye
and tall cheek-bones, evinced the keenness and resolution
and social—boastful, credulous, illiterate, and at
times, wonderfully addicted to the marvellous.
He loved his wife, was true to his friends, never
allowed a bottle to pass untasted, nor turned his
back upon a frolic.
He believed that the best qualities of all countries
were centered in Kentucky; but had a whimsical
manner of expressing his national attachment.
He was firmly convinced that the battle of the
Thames was the most sanguinary conflict of the
age, and extolled Colonel J—n as “a severe
colt.” He would admit that Napoleon was a
great genius; but insisted that he was “no part of
a priming” to Henry Clay. When entirely “at
himself,”—to use his own language,—that is to
say, when duly sober, Pete was friendly and rational,
and a better tempered soul never shouldered
a rifle. But let him get a dram too much, and
there was no end to his extravagance. It was then
that he would slap his hands together, spring perpendicularly
into the air with the activity of a
rope dancer, and after uttering a yell, which the
most accomplished Winnebago might be proud to
own, swear that he was the “best man in the country,
and could whip his weight in wild cats!”
and after many other extravagances, conclude that
he could “ride through a crab-apple orchard
on a streak of lightning.”
In addition to this, which one would think was
that he had the best rifle, the prettiest wife, and
the fastest nag in all Kentuck; and that no man
dare say to the contrary. It is but justice to remark,
that there was more truth in this last boast
than is usually found on such occasions, and that
Pete had no small reason to be proud of his horse,
his gun, and his rosy-cheeked companion.
These, however, were the happy moments
which are few and far between; for every poet will
bear us witness from his own experience, that the
human intellect is seldom indulged with those brilliant
inspirations, which gleam over the turbid
stream of existence, as the meteor flashes through
the gloom of the night. When the fit was off,
Pete was as listless a soul as one would see of a
summer's day—strolling about with a grave aspect,
a drawling speech, and a deliberate gait, a stoop of
the shoulders, and a kind of general relaxation of
the whole inward and outward man—in a state of
entire freedom from restraint, reflection, and want,
and without any impulse strong enough to call
forth his manhood—as the panther, with whom he
so often compared himself, when his appetite for
food is sated, sleeps calmly in his lair, or wanders
harmlessly through his native thickets.
It will be readily perceived, that our hunter was
not one who could be turned from his purpose by
the prospect of danger or fatigue; and a few minutes
sufficed to complete his preparations. His
and he was soon accoutred with his quaintly
carved powder horn, pouch, flints, patches, balls
and long knife;—and throwing “Brown Bess,”—
for so he called his rifle—over his shoulder, he
sallied forth.
But in passing a store hard by, which supplied
the country with gunpowder, whiskey and other
necessaries, he was hailed by some of his neighbours,
one of whom challenged him to swap rifles.
Pete was one of those, who would not receive a
challenge without throwing it back. Without the
least intention, therefore, of parting with his favourite
rifle, he continued to banter back—making
offers like a skilful diplomatist, which he knew
would not be accepted, and feigning great eagerness
to accede to any reasonable proposition, while inwardly
resolved to reject all, he magnified the
perfections of Brown Bess.
“She can do any thing but talk,” said he—“If
she had legs, she could hunt by herself. It is a
pleasure to tote her—and I na-ter-ally believe, there
is not a rifle south of Green river, that can throw a
a ball so far, or so true.”
These discussions consumed much time, and
much whiskey—for the rule on such occasions is,
that he who rejects an offer to trade, must treat the
company, and thus every point in the negotiation
costs a pint of spirits.
At length, bidding adieu to his companions, Pete
beneath his active feet, he beat up the coverts, and
traversed all the accustomed haunts of the deer.
He mounted every hill and descended into every
valley—not a thicket escaping the penetrating
glance of his practised eye. Fruitless labour! Not
a deer was to be seen. Pete marvelled at this unusual
circumstance, and was the more surprised
when he began to find, that the woods were less
familiar to him than formerly. He thought he knew
every tree within ten miles of his cabin; but, now,
although he certainly had not wandered so far,
some of the objects around him seemed strange,
while others again were easily recognised; and
there was, altogether, a singular confusion of character
in the scenery, which was partly familiar, and
partly new; or rather, in which the component
parts were separately well known, but were so
mixed up, and changed in relation to each other, as
to baffle even the knowledge of an expert woodsman.
The more he looked, the more he was
bewildered. He came to a stream which had heretofore
rolled to the west; but now its course pointed
to the east; and the shadows of the tall trees,
which, according to Pete's philosophy, ought, at
noon, to fall to the north, all pointed to the south.
He cast his eye upon his own shadow, which had
never deceived him—when, lo! a still more extraordinary
phenomenon presented itself. It was
travelling round him like the shade on a dial,—only
whole compass in the course of a single minute.
It was very evident, too, from the dryness of the
snow, and the brittleness of the twigs, which snapped
off as he brushed his way through the thickets,
that the weather was intensely cold; and yet the
perspiration was rolling in large drops from his
brow. He stopped at a clear spring, and thrusting
his hands into the cold water, attempted to carry a
portion of it to his lips; but the element recoiled
and hissed, as if his hands and lips had been composed
of red hot iron. Pete felt quite puzzled
when he reflected on all these contradictions in
the aspect of nature; and he began to consider
what act of wickedness he had been guilty of, which
could have rendered him so hateful, that the deer
fled, the streams turned back, and the shadows
danced round their centre at his approach.
He began to grow alarmed, and would have
turned back, but was ashamed to betray such weakness,
even to himself; and being naturally bold, he
resolutely kept his way. At last, to his great joy,
he espied the tracks of deer imprinted in the snow
—and, dashing into the trail, with the alacrity of a
well trained hound, he pursued in hopes of overtaking
the game. Presently, he discovered the tracks
of a man, who had struck the same trail in advance
of him, and supposing it to be one of his neighbours,
he quickened his pace, as well to gain a companion
in sport, as to share the spoil of his fellow hunter.
thought he would be willing to give half of what
he was worth, for the bare sight of a human face.
“I don't like the signs, no how,” said he, casting
a rapid glance around him; and then throwing his
eyes downwards at his own shadow, which had
ceased its rotatory motion, and was now swinging
from right to left like a pendulum—“I dont like the
signs, I feel sort o' jubus. But I'll soon see, whether
other people's shadows act the fool like mine.”
Upon further observation, there appeared to be
something peculiar in the human tracks before him,
which were evidently made by a pair of feet, of
which one was larger than the other. As there
was no person in the settlement who was thus deformed,
Pete began to doubt whether it might not
be the Devil, who, in borrowing shoes to conceal
his cloven hoofs, might have got those that were not
fellows. He stopped and scratched his head, as
many a learned philosopher has done, when placed
between the horns of a dilemma less perplexing
than that which now vexed the spirit of our hunter.
It was said long ago—that there is a tide in the
affairs of men, and although our friend Pete had
never seen this sentiment in black and white, yet it
is one of those truths, which are written in the
heart of every reasonable being, and was only copied
by the poet from the great book of nature. It
readily occurred to Pete on this occasion. And as
he had enjoyed through life a tide of success, he reflected
have changed its course, like the brooks he had
crossed, whose waters, for some sinister reason,
seemed to be crawling up-hill. But, again, it occurred
to him, that to turn back, would argue a
want of that courage, which he had been taught to
consider as the chief of the cardinal virtues.
“I can't back out,” said he. “I never was
raised to it, no how;—and if so-be the Devil's
a mind to hunt in this range, he shan't have all the
game.”
He soon overtook the person in advance of him,
who, as he had suspected, was a perfect stranger.
He had halted, and was quietly seated on a log, gazing
at the sun, when Pete approached, and saluted
him with the usual—“How are you, stranger?”
The latter made no reply, but continued to gaze at
the sun, as if totally unconscious that any other
person was present. He was a small, thin, old man,
with a grey beard of about a month's growth, and a
long, sallow, melancholy visage, while a tarnished
suit of snuff-coloured clothes, cut after the quaint
fashion of some religious sect, hung loosely about
his shrivelled person.
Our hunter, somewhat awed, now coughed—
threw the butt end of the gun heavily upon the
ground—and, still failing to elicit any attention,
quietly seated himself on the other end of the same
log, which the stranger occupied. Both remained
silent for some minutes—Pete with open mouth, and
astonishment, and the latter looking at the sun.
“It's a warm day, this,” said Pete, at length;
passing his hand across his brow, as he spoke, and
sweeping off the heavy drops of perspiration that
hung there. But receiving no answer, he began to
get nettled. His native assurance, which had been
damped by the mysterious deportment of the person
who sat before him, revived; and screwing his courage
to the sticking point, he arose, approached the
silent man, and slapping him on the back, exclaimed—
“Well, stranger! don't the sun look mighty droll,
away out there in the north?”
As the heavy hand fell on his shoulder, the stranger
slowly turned his face towards Pete, who recoiled
several paces;—then rising, without paying
our hunter any further attention, he began to pursue
the trail of the deer. Pete prepared to follow,
when the other, turning upon him with a stern
glance, enquired—
“Who are you tracking?”
“Not you,” replied the hunter, whose alarm had
subsided, when the enemy began to retreat; and
whose pride piqued by the abruptness with which
he had been treated, enabled him to assume his
usual boldness of manner.
“What do you trail then?”
“I trail deer.”
“You must not pursue them further, they are
mine.”
The sound of the stranger's voice broke the
spell, which had hung over Pete's natural impudence,
and he now shouted—
“Your deer! That's droll too! Who ever
heard of a man claiming the deer in the woods?”
“Provoke me not,—I tell you they are mine.”
“Well, now,—you're a comical chap! Why,
man! the deer are wild! Thy're jist nateral to the
woods here, the same as the timber. You might
as well say the wolves, and the painters are yours,
and all the rest of the wild varmants.”
“The tracks, you behold here, are those of wild
deer, undoubtedly; but they are mine. I roused
them from their bed, and am driving them to my
home, which is not of this country.”
“Couldn't you take a pack or two of wolves
along?” said Pete, sneeringly. “We can spare
you a small gang. It's mighty wolfy about here.”
“If you follow me any further, it is at your peril!”
said the stranger.
“You don't suppose I'm to be skeered, do you?
You musn't come over them words agin. There's
no back out in none of my breed.”
“I repeat—”
“You had best not repeat,—I allow no man to
repeat in my presence,”—interrupted the irritated
woodsman. “I'm Virginia born, and Kentucky
from any man that ever wore shoe leather.”
“Desist! rash man, from altercation. I despise
your threats.”
“I tell you what, stranger!” said Pete, endeavouring
to imitate the coolness of the other, “as to
the matter of a deer or two—I don't vally them to
the tantamount of this here cud of tobacco; but I'm
not to be backed out of my tracks. So, keep off,
stranger! Don't come fooling about me. I feel
mighty wolfy about the head and shoulders. Keep
off! I say, or you might get hurt.”
With this, the hunter, to use his own language,
“squared himself, and sot his triggers,”—fully determined,
either to hunt the disputed game, or to
be vanquished in combat. To his surprise, the
stranger without appearing to notice his prepararations,
advanced, and blew with his breath upon
his rifle.
“Your gun is charmed!” said he. “From this
time forward, you will kill no deer.” And so saying,
he deliberately resumed his journey.
Pete Featherton remained a moment or two, lost
in confusion. He then thought he would pursue
the stranger, and punish him as well for his threats,
as for the insult intended to his gun; but a little reflection
induced him to change his decision. The
confident manner, in which that mysterious being
had spoken, together with a kind of vague assurance
within his own mind, that the spell had really
quietly “took the back track,” and sauntered homewards.
He had not gone far, before he saw a fine
buck, half concealed among the hazel bushes which
beset his path, and resolving to know at once how
matters stood between Brown Bess and the pretended
conjurer, he took a deliberate aim, fired, and—
away bounded the buck unharmed!
With a heavy heart, our mortified forester re-entered
his dwelling, and replaced his degraded weapon
in its accustomed berth under the rafters.
“You have been long gone,” said his wife;—
“but where is the venison you promised me?”
Pete was constrained to confess he had shot nothing.
“That is strange!” said the lady. “I never
knew you fail before.”
Pete framed twenty excuses. He had felt unwell;
his rifle was out of fix—and there were not many
deer stirring.
Had not Pete been a very young husband, he
would have known, that the vigilant eye of a wife
is not to be deceived by feigned apologies. Mrs.
Featherton saw, that something had happened to
her helpmate, more than he was willing to confess;
and being quite as tenacious as himself, in her reluctance
against being “backed out of her tracks,” she
advanced firmly to her object, and Pete was compelled
to own, “That he believed Brown Bess was
somehow—sort o'—charmed.”
“Now, Mr. Featherton!” said his sprightly bride,
“are you not ashamed to tell me such a tale as that!
Ah, well! I know how it is. You have been down
at the store, shooting at a mark for half pints!”
“No, indeed!” replied the husband emphatically,
“I wish I may be kissed to death, if I've pulled a
trigger for a drop of liquor this day.”
“Well, do now—that's a good dear!—tell me
where you have been, and what has happened? For
never did Pete Featherton, and Brown Bess, fail to
get a venison any day in the year.”
Soothed by this well-timed compliment, and willing,
perhaps, to have the aid of counsel in this trying
emergency, Pete narrated minutely to his wife,
all the particulars of his meeting with the mysterious
stranger. Unfortunately, the good lady was as wonder-struck
as himself, and unable to give any advice.
She simply prescribed bathing his feet, and going to
bed; and Pete, though he could not perceive how
this was to affect his gun, passively submitted.
On the following day, when Pete awoke, the
events which we have described, appeared to him
as a dream; and resolving to know the truth, he
seized his gun, and hastened to the woods. But,
alas! every experiment produced the same vexatious
result. The gun was charmed! and the
hunter stalked harmlessly through the forest. Day
after day, he went forth and returned, with no better
success. The very deer themselves became
sensible of his inoffensiveness, and would raise
or throw back their horns, and bound carelessly
across his path! Day after day, and week after
week, passed without bringing any change; and
Pete began to feel very ridiculously. He could
imagine no situation more miserable than his own.
To walk through the woods, to see the game, to
come within gun-shot of it, and yet to be unable to
kill a deer, seemed to be the ne plus ultra of
human wretchedness. There was a littleness, an
insignificance, attached to the idea of not being
able to kill a deer, which to Pete's mind was
downright disgrace. More than once he was
tempted to throw his gun into the river; but the
excellence of the weapon, and the recollection of
former exploits, as often restrained him; and he
continued to stroll through the woods, firing now
and then at a fat buck, under the hope that the
charm would some time or other expire by its own
limitation; but the fat bucks continued to frisk
fearlessly in his path.
At length, Pete bethought himself of a celebrated
Indian doctor, who lived at no great distance.
An Indian doctor, be it known, is not necessarily
a descendant of the aborigines. The title, it is
true, originates in the confidence which many of
our countrymen repose in the medical skill of the
Indian tribes. But to make an Indian doctor, a
red skin is by no means indispensable. To have
been taught by a savage, to have seen one, or, at
to enable an individual to practise this lucrative
and popular branch of the healing art.
Your Indian doctor is one who practises without a
diploma and without physic; who neither nauseates
the stomach with odious drugs, nor mars the
fair proportions of nature with the sanguinary lancet.
He believes in the sympathy which is supposed
to exist between the body and the mind,
which, like the two arms of a Syphon, always
preserve a corresponding relation to each other;
and the difference between him and the regular
physician is, that they operate at different
points of the same figure—the one practising on
the immaterial spirit, while the other boldly grapples
with the bones and muscle. I cannot determine
which is in the right; but must award to the
Indian doctor at least this advantage, that his art is
the most widely beneficial; for while your doctor
of medicine restores a lost appetite, his rival can,
in addition, recover a strayed or stolen horse. If
the former can bring back the faded lustre of a fair
maiden's cheek, the latter can remove the spell
from a churn, or a rifle.
To a sage of this order, did Pete disclose his
misfortune; and apply for relief. The doctor examined
the gun; and having measured the calibre of
the bore, with the same solemnity with which he
would have felt the pulse of a patient, directed the
applicant to call again. At the appointed time the
pink, the other of a silver hue. The doctor instructed
him to load his piece with one of these
bullets, which he pointed out, and proceed through
the woods to a certain hollow, at the head of
which was a spring. Here he would find a white
fawn, at which he was to shoot. It would be
wounded, but would escape; and he was to pursue
its trail, until he found a buck, which he was to
kill with the other ball. If he accomplished all
this accurately, the charm would be broken.
Pete, who was well acquainted with all the localities,
carefully pursued the route which had
been indicated, treading lightly along, sometimes
elated with the prospect of speedily breaking the
spell—sometimes doubting the skill of the doctor
—and ashamed alternately of his doubts and of his
belief. At length he reached the lonely glen; and
his heart bounded as he beheld the white fawn
quietly grazing by the fountain. The ground was
open; and he was unable to get within his usual
distance, before the fawn raised her head, looked
mournfully around, and snuffed the breeze, as if
conscious of the approach of danger. His heart
palpitated. It was a long shot, and a bad chance;
but he dared not advance from his concealment.
“Luck's a lord,” said he, as he drew up
his gun, and pulled the trigger. The fawn bounded
aloft at the report, and then darted away
through the brush, while the hunter hastened to
blood profusely scattered; and now flushed with
the confidence of success, he stoutly rammed down
the other ball, and pursued the trail of the wounded
fawn. Long did he trace the crimson drops
upon the snow, without beholding the promised
victim. Hill after hill he climbed, vale after vale
he passed—searching every thicket with penetrating
eyes; and he was about to renounce the chase,
the wizard, and the gun, when, lo!—directly in his
path stood a noble buck, with numerous antlers
branching over his fine head!
“Ah, ha! my jolly fellow! I 've found you out
at last!” said the delighted hunter, “you 're the
very chap I 've been looking after. Your blood
shall wipe off the disgrace from my charming Bess,
that never missed fire, burned priming, nor cleared
the mark in her born days, till that vile Yankee
witch cursed her!—Here goes!—”
He shot the buck. His rifle was restored to
favour, and he never again wanted venison.
| PETE FEATHERTON. The soldier's bride and other tales | |