University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.

The cupidity of his captors had been considerably
provoked by the dying words of Munro.
They were all of them familiar with the atrocious
murder which, putting a price upon his head, had
driven Creighton, then a distinguished member of
the bar in one of the more civilized portions of the
state, from the pale and consideration of society;
and their anxieties were now entirely addressed to
the new object which the recital they had just heard
had set before them. They had gathered from the
narrative of the dying man some idea of the place
in which they would most probably find him; and
though without a guide to the spot, and altogether
ignorant of its localities, they determined—without
reference to others, who might only subtract
from their own share of the promised reward,
without contributing much, if any aid, which they
might not easily dispense with—at once to attempt
his capture. This was the joint understanding of
the whole party, Ralph Colleton excepted. In substance,
the youth was now free. The evidence
furnished by Munro only needed the recognition of
the proper authorities to make him so; and, until
this had been effected, he remained in a sort of understood
restraint, but without any actual limitations.
Pledging himself that they should suffer
nothing from the indulgence, he mounted the horse

of Munro, whose body was cared for, and took his
course back to the village; while, following the directions
given them, the Guard and jailer pursued
their way to the Wolf's Neck in their search after
Guy Rivers.

The outlaw had been deserted by nearly all his
followers. The note of preparation and pursuit
sounded by the State authorities, had inspired the
depredators with a degree of terror, which the
near approximation of the Guard, in strong numbers,
to their most secluded places, had not a little
tended to increase; and accordingly, at the period
of which we now speak, the outlaw, deserted by all
but one or two of the most adventurous—who were,
however, careful enough of themselves to keep in
no one place long, and cautiously to avoid their
accustomed haunts—remained in his rock, in a
state of gloomy despondency, not usually his characteristic.
Had he been less stubborn—less ready
to defy all chances and all persons, it is not improbable
that Rivers would have taken counsel by
their flight, and removed himself, for a time at least,
from the scene of danger. But his native obstinacy,
and that madness of heart which, as we are
told, seizes first upon those whom God seeks to destroy,
determined him against the judgment of others,
and, in part, against his own, to remain where he
was; probably in the fallacious hope that the storm
would pass over, as, on so many previous occasions,
it had already done, and leave him again
free to his old practices in the same region. A feeling
of pride which made him unwilling to take a
suggestion of fear and flight from the course of
others, had some share in this decision; and, if we
add the vague hungering of his heart towards the
lovely Edith, and possibly the influence of other
pledges, and the imposing consideration of other

duties, we shall not be greatly at a loss in understanding
the injudicious indifference to the contiguous
dangers, which appears to have distinguished
the conduct of the otherwise politic and circumspect
ruffian.

That night, after his return from the village and
the brief dialogue with Chub Williams, as we have
already narrated it, he retired to the deepest cell of
his den, and throwing himself into a seat, covering
his face with his hands, he gave himself up to a
meditation as true in its philosophy as it was humiliating
throughout in its application to himself. Dillon,
his lieutenant, if such a title may be permitted,
in such a place and for such an adjunct—came
to him shortly after his arrival, and in brief terms
with a blunt readiness—which, coming directly
to the point, did not offend the person to whom it
was addressed—demanded to know what he meant
to do with himself.

“We can't stay here long,” said he, “the troops
are gathering all round us. The country's alive
with them, and in a few days we shouldn't be able
to stir from the hollow of a tree without popping
upon some of our hunters. In the Wolf's Neck
they will surely seek us, for, though a very fine
place for us while the country's thin, yet even its
old owners, the wolves, would fly from it when
the horn of the hunter rings through the wood. It
won't be very long before they pierce to the very
`nation,' and then we should have but small chance
of a long grace. Jack Ketch would make mighty
small work of our necks, in his hurry to go to
dinner.”

“And what of all this,—what is all this to me?”
was the strange and rather phlegmatic response
of the outlaw, who did not seem to take in the
full meaning of his officer's speech, and whose

mind, indeed, was at that moment wandering to
far other considerations. Dillon seemed not a little
astounded by this reply, and looked inquiringly into
the face of the speaker, doubting, for a moment,
his accustomed sanity. The stern look which his
glance encountered, directed its expression elsewhere,
and after a moment's pause, he replied—

“Why, captain, you can't have thought of what
I've been saying, or you wouldn't speak as you do.
I think it's a great deal to both you and me, what
I've been telling you; and the sooner you come to
think so too, the better. It's only yesterday afternoon
that I narrowly missed being seen at the forks
by two of the Guard, well mounted, and with rifles.
I had but the crook of the fork in my favour, and
the hollow of the creek at the old ford where it's
been washed away. They're all round us, and I
don't think we're safe here another day. Indeed, I
only come to see if you wouldn't be off with me,
at once, into the `nation.”'

“You are considerate, but must go alone. I
have no apprehensions where I am, and shall not
stir for the present. For yourself, you must determine
as you think proper. I have no further hold
on your service. I release you from the oath.
Make the best of your way into the `nation'—ay, go
yet farther; and, hear me, Dillon, go where you
are unknown—go where you can enter society—
seek for the fireside, where you can have those
who, in the dark hour, will have no wish to desert
you. I have no claim now upon you, and the
sooner you `take the range' the better.”

“And why not go along with me, captain? I
hate to go alone, and hate to leave you where you
are. I shan't think you out of danger while you
stay here; and don't see any reason for you to
do so.”

“Perhaps not, Dillon; but there is reason, or I
should not stay. We may not go together, even if
I were to fly—our paths lie asunder. They may
never more be one. Go you, therefore, and heed
me not; and think of me no more. Make yourself
a home in the Mississippi, or on the Red River,
and get yourself a fireside and family of your own.
These are the things that will keep your heart
warm within you, cheering you in hours that are
dark, like this.”

“And why, captain,” replied the lieutenant,
much affected—“why should you not take the
course which you advise for me? Why not, in
the Arkansas, make yourself a home, and with a
wife—”

“Silence, sir—not a word of that. Why come
you to chafe me here, in my den? Am I to be
haunted for ever with such as you, and with words
like these?”—and the brow of the outlaw blackened
as he spoke, and his white teeth knit together,
fiercely gnashing for an instant, while the foam
worked its way through the occasional aperture
between them. The ebullition of passion, however,
lasted not long, and the outlaw, in a moment,
seemed conscious of its injustice.

“I do you wrong, Dillon—but on this subject I
will have no one speak. I cannot be the man you
would have me; I have been schooled otherwise.
My mother has taught me a different lesson,—her
teachings have doomed me, and these enjoyments
are now all beyond my hope.”

“Your mother!” was the response of Dillon, in
unaffected astonishment.

“Ay, man—my mother. Is there any thing
wonderful in that. She taught me this lesson with
her milk—she sung it in lullabies over my cradle—
she gave it me in the playthings of my boyhood—

her schoolings have made me the morbid, the fierce
criminal, from whose association all the gentler
virtues must always desire to fly. If, in the doom
which may finish my life of doom, I have any
one person to accuse of all, that person is—my
mother!”

“Is this possible?—is it true?—it is strange, very
strange.”

“It is not strange—we see it every day—in
almost every family. She did not tell me to lie—
or to swindle, or to stab—No!—Oh, no! she would
have told me that all these things were bad—but
she taught me to perform them all. She roused
my passions, and not my principles, into activity.
She provoked the one, and suppressed the other.
Did my father reprove my improprieties, she petted
me, and denounced him. She crossed his better
purposes, and defeated all his designs, until, at
last, she made my passions too strong for my government,
not less than hers, and left me, knowing
the true, yet the victim of the false. What is
more—while my intellect, in its calmer hours,
taught me that virtue was the only source of true
felicity, my ungovernable passions set the otherwise
sovereign reason at defiance, and trampled it
under foot. Yes—in that last hour of eternal retribution,
if called upon to denounce or to accuse, I
can point but to one as the author of all—the
weakly fond, misjudging, misguiding woman who
gave me birth. Within the last hour I have been
thinking over all these things. I have been thinking
how I had been cursed in childhood by one
who surely loved me beyond all other things beside.
I can remember how sedulously she encouraged
and prompted my infant passions, uncontrolled
by her reason, and since utterly unrestrainable
by my own. How she stimulated me to

artifices and set me the example herself, by frequently
deceiving my father, and teaching me to
disobey and deceive him. She told me not to lie,
and she lied all day to him, on my account, and to
screen me from his anger. She taught me the
catechism, to say on Sunday, while during the
week she schooled me in almost every possible
form of ingenuity to violate all its precepts. She
bribed me to do my duty, and hence my duty could
only be done under the stimulating promise of a reward.
She taught me that God was superior to
all, and that he required obedience to certain laws,
yet, as she hourly violated those laws herself in my
behalf, I was taught to regard myself as far superior
to him. Had she not done all this, I had not
been here and thus: I had been what now I dare
not think on.—It is all her work. The greatest
enemy my life has ever known has been my
mother.”

“This is a horrible thought, captain, yet I cannot
but think it true.”

“It is true—I have analyzed my own history,
and the causes of my character and fortunes now,
and I charge it all upon her. From one influence
I have traced another, until I have the sweeping
amount of twenty years of crime and sorrow, and a
life of hate, and probably a death of ignominy, all
owing to the first ten years of my infant education,
where the only teacher that I knew was the
woman who gave me birth. But this concerns not
you. In my calm mood, Dillon, you have the
fruit of my reason—to abide its dictate I should
fly with you—but I suffer from my mother's teachings
even in this. My passions—my pride—my
fierce hope, the creature of a maddening passion,
will not let me fly, and I stay, though I stay alone,

with a throat bare for the knife of the butcher, or
the halter of the hangman. I will not fly.”

“And I will stay with you. I can dare something
too, captain, and you shall not say, that when
the worst comes to the worst, Tom Dillon was the
man to back out. I will not go either, and whatever
is the chance, you shall not be alone.”

Rivers, for a moment, seemed touched by the
devotion of his follower, and spoke not for a brief
interval; but suddenly the expression of his eye
was changed, and he spoke briefly and sternly.

“You shall not stay with me, sir. What, am I
so low as this, that I may not be permitted to be
alone when I will? Will my subordinates fly in
my face, and presume to disobey my commands?
Go, Dillon—have I not said that you must fly—
that I no longer need your services? Why linger
you, then, where you are no longer needed? I have
that to perform which requires me to be alone,
and I have no further time to spare you. Go—
away!”

“Do you speak in earnest, captain?” inquired
the lieutenant, doubtingly, and with an expression
of countenance of the most equivocal and uncertain
character.

“Am I so fond of trifling, that my officer asks
me such a question?”—was the stern response.

“Then I am your officer still—you will go with
me, or I shall remain.”

“Neither, Dillon. The time is past for such an
arrangement. You are discharged from my service,
and from your oath. The club has no further
existence. Go—be a happy—a better man, in another
part of the world. You have some of the
weaknesses of your better nature still in you. You
had no mother to change them into scorn, and
strife, and bitterness. Go—you may be a better

man, and have something, therefore, for which to
live. I have not—my heart can know no change.
It is no longer under the guidance of reason. It
is quite ungovernable now. There was a time
when—but why prate of this?—it is too late to
think of, and only maddens the more. Besides, it
makes not any thing with you, and would detain
you without a purpose. Linger no longer, Dillon
—speed to the west, and, at some future day, perhaps
you shall see me when you least expect, and
perhaps least desire it.”

The manner of the outlaw was firm and commanding,
and Dillon did not scruple long to recognise
its requisitions. The parting was brief, though
the subordinate was truly affected. He would
have lingered still, but Rivers waved him off with
a farewell, whose emphasis was effectual, and, in
a few moments, the latter sat once more alone.
His mood was that of one disappointed in all
things, and, consequently, displeased and discontented
with all things—querulously so. In addition
to this temper, which was common to him, his
spirit, at this time, laboured under a heavy feeling
of despondency, and its gloomy sullenness was
perhaps something lighter to himself while Dillon
remained with him. We have seen the manner in
which he had hurried that personage away. He
had scarcely been gone, however, when the inconsistent
and variable temper of the outlaw found
utterance in the following soliloquy.

“Ay, thus it is—they all desert me; and this is
human feeling. They all fly the darkness, and this
is human courage. They love themselves only, or
you, only while you need no love; and this is human
sympathy. I need all of these, yet I get
none; and when I most need, and most desire, and
most seek to obtain, I am the least provided. These

are the fruits which I have sown, however—
should I shrink to gather them? Yet, there is one
—but one of all, whom no reproach of mine could
drive away, or make indifferent to my fate. But I
will see her no more. Strange madness! The
creature, who, of all the world, most loves me, and
is most deserving of my love, I banish from my soul
as from my sight.—And this is another fruit of my
education—another curse that came with a mother
—this wilful love of the perilous and the passionate
—this scorn of the gentle and the soft—this fondness
for the fierce contradiction—this indifference to
the thing easily won—this thirst after the forbidden.
Poor Ellen—so gentle, so resigned, and so
fond of her destroyer—but I will not see her again.
I must not—she must not stand in the way of my
anxiety to conquer that pride which had ventured
to hate or to despise me. I shall see Munro, and
he shall lose no time in this matter. Yet, what can
he be after—he should have been here before this
—it now wants but little to the morning, and yet I
have not slept.”

Thus, striding to and fro in his apartment, the
outlaw soliloquized at intervals. Throwing himself
at length upon a rude couch that stood in
the corner, he had disposed himself as it were
for slumber, when the noise as of a falling rock
attracted his attention, and without pausing, he
cautiously took his way to the entrance, with a
view to ascertaining the cause. He was not easily
surprised, and the knowledge of surrounding danger
made him doubly observant, and more than
ever watchful.

Let us now return to the party which had pursued
the fugitives, and which, after the death of
the landlord, had, as we have already narrated,
adopting the design suggested by his dying words,

had immediately set forth in search of the notorious
outlaw, and of the reward put upon his head.
Having already some general idea of the whereabouts
of the fugitive, and the directions given by
Munro having been of the most specific character,
they found little difficulty, after a moderate ride of
some four or five miles, in striking upon the path
directly leading to the Wolf's Neck. At this time,
fortunately for their object, they were encountered
suddenly by our old acquaintance, Chub Williams,
whom, but a little before, we had seen separating
from the individual in whose pursuit they were
now engaged. The deformed, for a while, rode
alongside of the party, without seeming to recognise
their existence, singing all the while a strange
woodland melody of the time and region,—probably
the production of some wayfaring village
wit:—

“'Spose you reckon I don't see you, riding 'longside
of me, and saying nothing, but listening to my
song. I'm singing for my own self, and you oughtn't
to listen—I didn't ax you, and I'd like to know what
you're doing so nigh Chub's house.”

“Why, where's your house, Chub?” asked one
of the party.

“You aint looking for it—is you? cause you
can't think to find it a-looking down. I lives in
the tree top when weather's good like to-night, and,
when it aint, I go into the hollow. I've a better
house than Guy Rivers—he don't take the tree at
all, no how.”

“And where is his house, Chub?” was the
common inquiry of all the party. The dwarf looked
at them for a few moments without speech, then
with a whisper and a gesture significant of caution,
replied—

“If you're looking for Guy—'tain't so easy to
find him if he don't want to be found, and you
must speak softly if you hunt him whether or no.
He's a bad man, that Guy—mother said so—and
he lives a long way under the ground.”

“And can't you show us where, Chub? We will
give you money for your service.”

“Hain't you got 'tatoes? Chub's hungry—hain't
eat nothing to-night. Guy Rivers has plenty to
eat, but he cursed Chub's mother.”

“Well, show us where he is, and we'll give you
plenty to eat. Plenty of potatoes and corn,” was
the promise of the party.

“And build up Chub's house that the fire burnt?
Chub lives in the tree now. Guy Rivers' man
burnt Chub's house, 'cause he said Chub was
saucy.”

“Yes, my boy, we'll build up your house, and
give you a plenty to go upon for a year. You
shall have potatoes enough for your life time, if
you will show us how to come upon Guy Rivers
to-night. He is a bad fellow, as you say; and we
won't let him trouble you any more, if you'll only
show us where he is to be found.”

“Well—I reckon I can,” was the response, something
more readily given than was the wont of the
speaker. “Chub and Guy talked together to-night,
and Guy wanted Chub to go into his house in Wolf's
Neck; but it's a dark place, and Chub's afeared in
the dark.”

“But you mustn't be afraid now. We shall be
here and follow you close—so there will be no
danger. All that we ask you to do, is to find out
where he is, and let us know, and if we catch him,
we'll give you all we promised. We'll build the
house, and give you potatoes, and a jug of whiskey.”

“Whiskey too—and build the house again for
Chub's mother—and potatoes? Chub's ready.”

With a sagacity something inconsistent with his
general idiocy, he gave some instructions for the
party which indicated a perfect consciousness of
the somewhat dangerous undertaking which they
had in view; and, according to his directions,
the troopers having reached a certain point contiguous
to Wolf's Neck, were made to dismount by
their idiot guide, and having fastened his, with
their horses, in the shade of a small clump of
brushwood, he bade them follow him with cautious
tread along the margin of the road, studiously
avoiding, as they did so, the dry leaves and withered
branches and every movement productive of unnecessary
noise. Sometimes, proceeding with the
singularly rapid motion which belonged to him,
they lost sight of him at moments, and preparing
for this, he had advised them of the route to follow,
by breaking a bush on such occasions, and leaving
it at every point in the path in which a difficulty
might be anticipated to occur. The great extent
of the rocky cavities generally styled the Wolf's
Neck, diverging, as some of its ramifications did, to
various and remote points from the centre, rendered

such precaution necessary, since those on the outside
could not well discover in many cases in
which cavities were below, any external indications
of the fact. Having now brought them to
positions which gave them a commanding view of
various points at the same moment, Chub instructed
them to place themselves out of sight, and
to await the result of the experiment he was about
to try, to determine, without any risk to himself,
the precise position of the outlaw at that moment.
Accordingly, arming himself with a rock, scarcely
smaller than his head, he contrived to secure it
about his person, while, with the rapidity of a
squirrel, he ascended a tree overlooking, like the
others, the dwelling of the fugitive. Having first
carefully ensconced himself within the sheltering
branches, which he had so chosen as effectually to
conceal him, he plunged the stone from his high
perch in such a manner as to determine for it a
rolling course down the declivity of the hill, even
after it had fairly struck the earth. The stone did
its duty precisely as required, and the pursuing
party had the satisfaction, as we have already
narrated, to behold the object of their aim emerge
from the cave, and closely scrutinize the scene
around him. As if satisfied that the cause of the
disturbance was purely occasional, and was not
the effect of design, Rivers returned to his den, and
again throwing himself upon the couch of his inner
apartment, appeared disposed to yield himself up
to sleep. Having allowed some little time to
elapse after the re-ingress of the outlaw, his hunters
descended from their several points of observation,
and proceeded to arrange the circumstances
of his capture. In this matter Chub could help
them but little. He could describe, in some particulars,
such of the interior as he had, perforce,
been enabled to see on a former occasion, but beyond
this he could do nothing; and he was resolute
not to hazard himself in entering the dominion
of a personage, so fearful as Guy Rivers had been
represented by his mother to his uncouth imagination.
Accordingly, he staid without, closely
gathered up into a lump, behind a tree, while the
more determined Georgians penetrated with cautious
pace into the dark avenue known in the
earlier days of the colony as a retreat for the
wolves when they infested that portion of the
country, and hence distinguished by the appellation
of the Wolf's Neck. For some time they groped
onward in great uncertainty as to their course,
but a crevice in the wall, at one point, gave them
a glimmer of the moonlight, which, falling obliquely
upon the side of the cavern, pointed out to their
eyes another passage, diverging from that in which
they were. They followed its course, until their
further progress was arrested by a solid wall,
encountering them directly in front. Here they
were at a stand, until one of the party, groping
along the obstruction, placed his hand upon
some drapery, which hung down and yielded to
the pressure, appearing to answer all the purposes
of a curtain. This discovery was important—it
led directly to the chamber of Rivers, in which he
then lay, not asleep, but weary with fatigue, and
exhausted from trying excitements. Heretofore
they had gone on in perfect secrecy. The individual
who had discovered the curtain motioned
to his companions, and raising its folds from the
bottom, listened with suppressed respiration, while
he endeavoured to gather whatever sound of life
might be going on within. Rivers, half asleep, and
enfeebled by exhaustion of one kind or other,
breathed hard and quick—occasionally, a muttered
monosyllable breaking from his lips would indicate
the still restless mind, always at strife with the
weaker clay in which it was imprisoned. Words
might be distinguished, at moments, as his feverish
form was thrown from one side to the other upon
his couch—but such words—they were curses—
imprecations upon himself, upon all, mingled too
with an occasional lamenting—the tribute which
vice invariably pays to virtue—for the high places
from which he had for ever fallen. The Georgian,
who was of powerful frame and great muscular
activity, with a cautious hand, lifting the curtain
sufficiently for that purpose, on hands and knees,
made his way fairly into the apartment. He was
followed in the same manner by one of his companions,
but the imprudent forwardness of the
third desiring admission, who was the jailer Brooks,
was productive of some interruption to their onward
progress. Not stooping as they had done
sufficiently, yet at the same time pressing forward
with no small haste, his head struck the beam
which projected across the entrance and from
which the curtain hung, and he was precipitated
back into the passage through which he had come.
The noise aroused fully the half-dozing man, and
with the energy and decision which was a marked
feature of his character, he sprang forward with
his dirk, and, familiar with all the sinuosities of
his den, in darkness and in light, the chances would
have been, in any other circumstances, something
in his favour. But the very precipitation of the
jailer, while it occasioned the alarm, had the effect,
in one particular, of neutralizing its evil consequences.
The two who had already penetrated the
apartment, had not yet risen from their knees, and
having no thought of such an obstruction, the impediment,
which in that position they offered to
the step the outlaw was about to take, served
their purposes just as well, probably, as the original
design would have done. As he leaped forward
from his couch towards the passage way, his
feet were caught by the Georgian who first entered,
and so great was the impetus of his first awakening
effort, that he was precipitated with a severe
fall over the second; and half stunned, yet still striking
furiously, the dirk of Rivers found a bloodless
sheath in the earthen floor of the cell. In a moment
the two were upon him, and by the mere weight of
their bodies alone, they kept him down. Conscious
of the inutility of such an endeavour, the outlaw,
as soon as he could properly appreciate his situation,
ceased all further struggle; without difficulty
the captors bound him, and he was borne forth in
silent triumph to the entrance of the cave, where
Chub Williams came forward to meet them. The
dwarf now approached the captive with a new
confidence. He felt that his fangs were taken off,
and his survey of the person his mother had taught
him so to dread, was as curious as that which he
would have taken of some foreign monster. As he
continued this survey, Rivers, with a singular degree
of calmness for such a time and such circumstances,
addressed him:—

“So, Chub—this is your work;—you have
brought enemies to my home, and yet I gave bread
to yourself and your mother. Why have you done
this?”

“Guy Rivers cursed Chub's mother—Guy Rivers'
man burnt down Chub's house, and Guy
wanted to shoot Chub on the tree.”

“But didn't I keep the man from shooting you
when you run away from the cave—I would have
been your friend, boy—and I did not curse your
mother. But go—” and half muttering to himself,

and half in the hearing of the boy, he went on, as
it were, in soliloquy—“so wretched, yet so revengeful—desolate,
I would have taken him to my kindness,
as of kin in desolation, and this is the reward.
He has had nothing but kindness from me, and yet
—but I am your prisoner, gentlemen—I am not
unwilling. Lead on.”

Without interruption, they reached the village
of Chestatee at an early hour on the ensuing day,
and Guy Rivers, otherwise Creighton, the outlaw,
was safely locked up in the prison from which his
more fortunate rival Colleton had so recently escaped.
A better provision was now made for the
security of the prison, and a detachment of the
Georgia Guard marching that very day into the
village, totally destroyed any hope of rescue that
the captive might possibly have entertained.