University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.
THE NIGHT-DRIVE.

Campbell.

The sun had entirely set before Archer's gallant
team had whisked the shooting wagon over the summit
of the first ridge beyond the scene of their quickly-repaired
accident.

There was still, however, a lingering crimson flush
on the western sky, against which the broad-backed
mountains stood out erect, massive in purple majesty
as if they had perpendicular ramparts of granite. High
overhead, the stars were twinkling clear and bright in
the dark azure vault, up which the thread-like crescent
of the young moon was climbing, with one large lustrous
planet at her side.

The atmosphere was pure and breathless, and so still
that not a sound of any kind was to be heard, except
the quick clatter of the hoofs on the frozen road, and
the slight rumbling noise of the well-built carriage.

About a mile distant from the broken bridge, the

by road which crossed it entered a broader and more
beaten way, lying at right angles, or nearly so, to its
previous course, and running through a glen of the
same character with that through which the travellers
had been journeying, though somewhat wider, and
watered by what might be called a river.

In order to reach this valley, the road they had been
following, which hitherto had wound in and out among
the hills, through twenty little dells and basins, crossing
at most but the lower spurs of the wooded ranges, here
breasted by the main western ridge, scaled it boldly in
a series of steep zigzags, partly scarped in the hill-side,
partly supported by piles and breastworks of
timber.

The branches of the trees crossed overhead, forming
a roof like that of a gothic aisle; and, as is usual, the
frosts of autumn had taken much less hold on the foliage
where the upland soil was dry, although rich, than
it had done in the sour and watery swamps of the
valley.

Not a ray, therefore, penetrated the dense canopy of
boughs, and the road was as dark as a closed room at
midnight.

Harry was laughing and talking merrily as they left
the line of the valley, and, to say the truth, took no note
of the darkness so long as the road continued straight.
But after it had ascended, perhaps a hundred yards in
a right line, there was a sharp and awkward angle.

The leaders, as is usually the case, tried to turn too
quickly, and as the side of the road to which they were
bearing was that which fell abruptly down into the valley,
Harry met them with a firm hand, holding them to the
hill, though unable to see a foot in front of the wheels.

Luckily, at this moment, the fore wheels rose over a
little mound, plunged down on the other side, and were
followed by the hind wheels, with the same uneasy jerking
motion. The next instant, Archer pulled up the
horses, backed them the least in the world, and they
stood motionless, with their traces slackened, and the
vehicle prevented from backing down hill by the jog, as
it is called, or little gully, made to prevent the wintry
rains from washing the steep roads, as is generally the
case in those mountain regions.

“Tim!” exclaimed Harry, quickly, almost before
the wagon bad become motionless.

“Ay! ay! sur,” answered the sharp-witted Yorkshireman.
But to Tom Draw's huge amazement, and
something, he it added, to that of his master likewise,
the short sonorous response came from the heads of the
horses, and not, as both had expected, from the back
seat of the dog-cart.

“Tim, we must have the lamps,” said Harry, well
knowing that in the nil admirari lies half the secret of
being well and promptly served. “The road is as dark as a black dog's mouth. I cannot see the gray
wheeler's ears, let alone the leader's.”

“Ay's warrant it,” replied the groom. “Ay kenned
that varra weel, afore at you quit t' valley. Soa thinks
ay to mysen, there's be a fash enow, wi' t' leaders, an'
ay'll be needed at t' heads on 'em laike. Soa I joost
slipped out ahint t' wagon, and well it is, ay wot, ay
thought on't, for t' leaders wud hae been doon t' bank
in anoother minnit.”

“Quite right, Tim, quite right!” said his master,
approvingly. “I was thinking of something else, or I
would have lighted up before we got into the woods.
Now look alive, man; you have got candles in the
lamps, I hope?”

“Ay! ay! sur; two i' t' great lamp unner t' foot-board,
and one in each of t' others. Boot t' matches
are i' t' tool-chest, yonner. Now, Measter Forester,
gin you'll please joost joomp out, an' stand to t' leaders
whaile ay get 'em, we'll have laight enoof enow.”

“Good Lord! jump out, indeed! I shall break my
neck, and go head-over-heels down the crags,” he responded,
half in fun, half in earnest, and with a sort of
dolorous tone, that showed he was far from being sure
that his words would not be realized.

“Get out on the off-side, Frank, between the wagon
and the hill; you'll do well enough there. That is it.”

“What you say right is perfectly true, Harry,” replied
Frank, scrambling out of the bearskins, in which
he was rolled up so snugly, and making for the horses'
heads, which he reached in a minute. “But what the

plague have you done with old Tom? I haven't heard
a word—no, not an oath, even—since we stopped.
Punch him in the ribs, Harry.”

“No! no!” shouted the fat man, lustily. “Don't
you dew that—don't you dew that, I say. I swan, I'll
fix you, little Wax-skin, when we gits to Jake's.”

“Oh! you're awake now, are you?” replied the
other, laughing. “Was he asleep, Harry?”

“I rather think not, Frank,” answered Archer, “for
I have heard a noise for the last ten minutes, not quite
so loud as Niagara, it is true, but about as loud as
Paterson Falls, I should say—a constant, gurgling fall,
as if of a good strong river; and there's a devil of a
smell of rum here now.”

“ 'Taint rum,” responded the fat man, indignantly,
“it's good old apple-jack. Little Wax-skin, there, would
give his eyes for a sup of it. That's good; there comes
the lamps,” he added, as Timothy, after bustling about,
and jingling for some minutes in the tool-chest, made
his appearance with a small glass lanthorn, and some
matches, by aid of which he soon lighted the lamps;
and these, with their strong magnifying-glasses, made
the whole road as clear as day, and cast a broad white
glare upward upon the many-coloured leaves, which
formed the vault overhead.

“Don't put it out, Tim,” said his master, “we'll
blow a cloud directly. That will do, Frank, lad. Just
turn their noses into the road again, and then jump in

and make yourself comfortable. The big cigar-case is
under your seat, there; just hand it out and help yourself,
and then pass it forward; I have not one left in
my pouch.”

“Now, then!” he added, after a minute's pause, during
which three Manilla cheroots were kindled, and a
rich odour of the Indian weed diffused through the
cold still atmosphere.

“All's right!” responded Timothy, and sprang in a
moment into his seat, just as Archer, gathering his reins,
and reaching his whip from the socket, uttered a low
soft whistle, and a “Get away, lads!”

There was a rattling of bars, a clash of hoofs, and a
pebble or two flew high into the air; and then, without
more ado, the four fleet horses were in merry motion.

The clear light flashed along the road, silvered the
mossy bolls of the huge trees, and cast strange wavering
sheets of alternate shade and lustre through the deep
forest-aisles. Several times, as they were whirled along
at ten miles an hour, a heavy flapping of huge wings,
and a wild dolorous screech from some tall tree, announced
that their lamps had aroused some large night-bird
from its slumbers; and once, just as they cleared
the woods and issued into an open field on the mountain's
brow, a long protracted howl rose fearfully into
the silence, not, as it would seem, above fifty yards behind
them.

“What in the devil's name is that?” said Frank,

hastily, laying his hand almost instinctively on the but
of one of the long duelling-pistols, a brace of which, in
leathern holsters, were attached to each seat ready for
instant service.

“Yon's a varra oogly noise, is yon!” exclaimed Timothy,
astonished, which by the way was for him a
rare state of mind.

“I swan that's a wolf!” shouted Fat Tom, answering
the question and the observation at the moment of their
utterance. For all three spoke simultaneously.

“A woll, is it?” said Forester, quietly removing his
hand from the weapon, for be knew the habits of the animal,
though he had never seen one, too well to anticipate
any danger. “I did not know you had any of the varmints
here.”

“A wolf!” exclaimed Timothy, making a plunge
under the bearskins for his master's rifle; “heart aloive!
we's be all eaten oop i' noa time.”

“Nonsense, Tim,” replied Harry, laughing, “there's
no danger. Wolves never meddle with men here nowadays.
But I did not think there were any left in this
quarter.”

“Nor I nuther,” interposed old Tom, scratching his
head and cogitating. “Nor there aint been none hereaway
these six or eight year. We're a goin' to have a hard
winter now, I reckon. Leastwise they say hard weather
to the norrad brings down the tarnal critters this away.
But I'm right glad to hear him howl, hows'ever.”

“Glad! why the deuce are you glad, Tom?” asked
Harry. And this again was rather an unusual occurrence;
for so well did Archer understand the bent of the
fat worthy's genius, that he but rarely asked an explanation.

“'Caze when you hears a wolf howl, Aircher,” he
made answer, “you may be sure game is either very
plenty or very scace, one or other. Now it aint nohow
possible as that chap should be druv by hunger to make
that 'ere dismal screechin', for everybody here knows
that the woods is full o'possums and rabbits. So it must
be 'caze deers is plenty that he's hollering; that's why
I says I'm glad, Aircher. I'd a thought, too, you'd have
had sense enough to a knowed it.”

“May it not be that it's because possum's plenty that
he's `Kollering'?” asked Frank slyly.

“No!” answered Tom very gruffly, as he inhaled a
long puff of smoke, and blew it out again slowly. “No,
and you knows it.”

“Indeed I do not, Tom,” replied Frank, with a laugh
which he vainly endeavoured to stifle. “I know nothing
about wolves nor possums either. Do tell us.”

“You lie, boy! you dew know. And you'll raise no
foolin' out o'me, I can tell you. So quit. Now, Timothy,
git out your old bull's horn and blow up. Them
lights as you see down yonder is at Jake's, and I can
see by the way they're a fixin' and manœuvrin' that
they're a gittin' things fixed to go to bed torights. Put

on, Harry! put on, boy; it's all good road now, though
it be's down hill a leetle.”

It certainly was down hill a little, for the road lay at
an angle of some forty-five degrees. Yet Harry took
the old Trojan at his word, and put the nags along, and,
holding them well in hand, it was with the jingling of
trace and curb-chains, the clatter of the bars, rattling
against the wheelers' houghs, and the roll of the rapid
wheels, that they thundered down the slope; while loud
above all the din rose the clear mellow notes of Tim
Matlock's well known bugle, making the gorges of the
Blue Hills to resound with the unusual cadences of “God
save the king.”

As they came wheeling round the angle, into the
broader valley, they passed a foaming mill-dam, barring
the little river, overhung by a dozen large weeping willows,
the foliage of which was still full and verdant.
A large, calm pool, reflecting the bright starry skies
and the dark tufted masses of the precipitous hill which
walled its further side, lay close to the left hand of the
road, and was but slightly separated from it by a rough
fence of unbarked cedar poles from the mountain. On
the right, all the level space between the road and the
other hill, not exceeding fifty yards in width, was covered
with a beautiful second-growth of oak, hickory, and
maple, overhanging a thick underwood of cranberry
and wintergreens, interspersed with the glossy leaves of
the calmia, the azalia, and the rhododendron.

Among this rich woodland was the little tavern, to
which they were bound, nestled so closely that its existence
might have remained unsuspected until the traveller
was almost in front of its long, low, Dutch portico,
formed by a projection of the shingled eaves, and of its
stately signpost.

Harry, however, knew the locale right well, and had
his horses in hand; and as he shaved the trunk of a
huge chesnut, which formed the boundary post of the
little green before the door, he pulled up instantly, amid
the light of a dozen candles and lanthorns; for the well-known
sound of his key-bugle had roused all the inhabitants,
and it was in the midst of a deafening shout of
cacophonous laughter, and of “Ky! Masser Harrys!”
announcing half the company, at least, to be Dutch
negroes, that the friends jumped to the ground, their
night-drive pleasantly concluded.