University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.

Vernon rode on with his new companion, Rawlins—whom
he soon discovered to be quite a social,
good-humoured fellow—with a speed which was intended
to make up for lost time. It was his desire
to reach and cross the ferry over the Chitta-Loosa
before sunset, in order that he might find lodgings
on the opposite side at a conveniently early hour. But
this purpose, when expressed, was discouraged by
his companion.

“It will be quite dark before you can get across
the ferry,—which is more a ferry and a half than a
ferry; mighty bad crossing and a strange up and
down, in and out, turning and twisting contrivance
as ever you did see,—and then, when you're across,
it's a chance if you find any place to stay at, that can
be called a place at all, under seven or eight miles.
But if you'll go with me to old Billy Badger's to-night—he's
only two miles from the ferry—you can
take an early start in the morning, and have a whole

day before you. Billy Badger's a crumpy, stiff sort
of a person—a raal, true-believing Methodist, that
preaches himself when the parson don't come, and
to my way of thinking, makes a deuced sight the
best prayer of any among them. He's rather strange
in his ways, to be sure, but you'll be heartily welcome.
He'll give you a good supper, but you must
swallow the long grace that goes before it; and if
one happens to be mighty hungry, it's a great trying
of the patience. I've been a-bothered by it more
than once before, but it's no use. Nothing can stop
him when he once begins, and I do think if the house
was a fire, he'd sooner let it burn awhile than cut
the prayer off in the middle. Now, I'm used to it
myself and don't mind it so much, but I think it only
right, when I ax a man to another's house, that I
should tell him what he's to look for.”

“A good rule,” said Vernon; “and without saying
whether I will go with you or not, let me know
whether Mr. Badger is in the habit of receiving
company.”

“Sure he is; he has 'em at all times and of all
characters. Why, his house is something of a thoroughfare,
you see; being so near the ferry, and
folks a-travelling jist like you, and coming up late
in the day, are mighty apt to go to old Billy's to
spend the night.”

“But that must give him a great deal of trouble,
if he keeps no public house.”

“Not a bit, or if it does, he don't mind it in consideration
of the good company, and somebody to
talk to. Though he's a gruff and grumpy sort of
person, he's mighty fond of a confabulation, and so
long as you'll listen, and even if you wont listen, he'll
still talk on, exhorting, as it were, and mighty airnest.
When he once gits hold of the flesh and the devil,
there's no telling how long he'll hold on. It's no

trifle that'll make him let go; and you'll see the
blood git up into his face, and the veins grow big on
his forehead, and the foam will come out and stand
in his mouth-corners long before he'll think you've
had enough. He never asks how you like the thing,
for he always concludes that he knows best what's
good for every body; and as for disagreeing with
him, when once you set eyes on him, you'll see for
yourself that that's out of the question. I tell you,
sir, Mr. Vernon, he looks like all the Laws and the
Prophets; and he speaks as if he stood on a high
place, and we were all put below to listen to him.”

“A stern old man—a very judge in Israel—from
your description.”

“The very thing, Mr. Vernon; but then he's
really kind as any man alive, though, for that matter,
he haint the knack of showing it kindly. He'll
help you up from the road with the look of the same
fellow that knocked you down; and bind up your
wounds with as sour a face all the while, as if his
own bowie-knife had made them. He'll talk to you
as if he thought you a rogue, just at the very time
when he's lending you a cool hundred; and when
he's helping you to the best on his table, he'll be
grumbling something about the indulgences of the
flesh, and the profligacies of appetite, and all that
sort of thing; so, unless you set out to find a bundle
of contradictions in every thing he does and says,
there's no telling how to take him.”

“I've met with such a character before,” said
Vernon; “it is neither unusual nor unnatural, and
only indicates a predominating self-esteem, that asserts
its superiority by eccentricities of thought and
manner. The eccentricities of men arise, mostly,
from an undue estimate of their own importance,
which flatters itself by the surprises it continually
effects, by means of novelty and strangeness,

in the minds of the observers. So long as these eccentricities
hurt nobody, people are content to laugh
or wonder at them; when they exceed this limit, the
owner ceases to be a fool, and is locked up as a
madman. Has this old gentleman a family.”

“He has a son who is nothing like him—a sly,
cautious fellow, that I don't know whether to like or
dislike—he's neither one thing nor t'other, and, to
speak a truth, one reason against my liking him may
be that he don't seem to like me.”

“A good and sufficient reason. There are some
love-verses which maintain this philosophy in strong
and proper language:—

Has the old gentleman no other family?”

“Yes,” replied the other with a hesitating tone.
“He's got a niece—a mighty fine girl, named Rachel,
out of the Scriptures; the young man his son
is named out of the Scriptures, too,—they call him
Gideon,—though, I'm thinking that his name is
all that he ever got out of the Holy Book, or ever
will get. There's something wrong about him, I
reckon.”

“But Rachel, there's nothing wrong about her—
you don't dislike Rachel, do you, Mr. Rawlins? for,
if you do, I shall begin to wonder why it is you
visit the family.”

“Ah, Mr. Vernon, you're a keen one. You must
be a lawyer, I'm thinking. But you say right,
there's nothing wrong about Rachel, and if the truth
is to be told, I may as well tell it at once—I do like
Rachel. I think—though I don't count her so pretty
as some that I've seen and could mention—I think
she is about the finest and best. She's so sweet-tempered,

and so modest and good; and then, she
has a great deal more sense, and a power of larning,
more than ever I expect to cram into this bigger
noddle of mine. I confess to you, Mr. Vernon, I do
like Rachel.”

The frankness of the rustic lover, had already
placed the parties on the most friendly footing. His
confession increased the respect which the lawyer
had begun to entertain for him. He replied playfully—

“And reasoning, Mr. Rawlins, from what you
have said of Gideon, I presume, one of your best arguments
for liking Rachel is found in her liking
you. Is it not so?—you love each other.”

There is, perhaps, nothing so likely to win the
heart of a young lover, as to seek his confidence on
the subject nearest to his affections. The interest
we betray in his passion saves him from the fear of
ridicule—an always prevalent fear with the tribe of
passionates,—and that sinking fulness of heart which
distinguishes the lover, must find some friendly bosom
into which to pour its hopes, its fears, its tumultuous
and joyous expectancies. The words of Vernon unsealed
the fountain, and took the stone from its lips.
After that, Rawlins had no farther concealments.
He grasped the hand of his companion, and, warning
him the while to secrecy,—a caution which was
rather insisted upon by the respect which he had
for the maiden, than because of any desire on his
own part to maintain, as a secret, a fact which was
so full to him of triumph as well as joy—he told him
that he had been successful in persuading Rachel to
regard him as the properest man in the country.
His courtship, from the beginning, underwent developement
in all its details, with a more circumstantial
distinctness than even that of Othello, though it did
not appear that the affections of Rachel were secured

for her lover through a like medium. The judgment
of Rawlins deferred to that of the maiden of
his heart. He studiously insisted upon her mental
superiority, and spoke in the becoming language of
that humility which acknowledges the favour of fortune
in his conquests, and assumes no share of the
merit to himself.

“I will go with you to-night, Mr. Rawlins, and
see this lady.”

“Do, that's a friend, Mr. Vernon; it does me good
when a man of sense and education talks with Rachel.
She's mighty sweet-spoken and smart; has a
whole closet-full of books; and sends to Natchy for
more whenever she can get a chance. Now, other
men would much rather have a wife to work and
mend for them, and would count it mighty idle to
see 'em poking over books; but I'm not that sort of
man. I'd want my wife to talk respectably, jist the
same as if she lived in a big city like Orleans; for
if a man's poor as Job's turkey to-day, it's no reason
he should be poor to-morrow. In this country, a man
may git rich in double quick time, if he's only constant
and sober to his business; and if the Lord
spares me, Mr. Vernon, I'm bent on making my
children men of substance and education. If I had
no learning myself—and, like most of our people,
seven months time would cover every hour of schooling
I ever had,—I know the good of learning, and
my children will have enough to do them good,
whether I live or die, if so be their mother's able to
give it them; and I'd sooner have my wife teaching
her children to read and write, than darning stockings,
or mending breeches, or doing any of that sort
of business, which a nigger girl can do that never
had any education at all.”

It amused Vernon to hear his companion counting
his chickens with so much complacency, and making

his arrangements how to train them, even before
they were hatched. He smiled with an expression
of that humour upon his countenance which formed
no small portion of his character.

“Of course, Mr. Rawlins, you have consulted
with Rachel on this subject; you have told her your
plans at length.”

“To be sure I have. Do you think I'd keep such
a matter from her? No, no, sir, as God's my judge
there ain't any thing in my bosom that I've kept
from her ears, since that moment when she said `yes'
to my asking. It was only last week—I go to see
her about once a week, Mr. Vernon—it was only
last week I tried to get her to say, if she had a son,
which she would like best to have him, a lawyer or
a doctor; and it was a great worry to me to get her
to talk about the matter at all, and what she did say
was as much as to say, `have your own way about
it,' for it came to as little. Now, Mr. Vernon, I
know that there's nothing so troublesome in families
as a difference between man and wife about these
things, and I wanted to put the matter out of all
danger of dispute. It was strange to me that Rachel,
who can talk so well about most matters, and give
me so much good advice when I want it, shouldn't
be willing to tell me her real notions.”

“Perhaps she thought there was time enough a
year or two hence for the consideration of the
subject. You, on the other hand, I perceive, are for
taking time by the forelock. You prefer being quick
to being slow. She, too, might have been thinking
of girl children, only; who, of course, can neither be
doctors nor lawyers.”

“Well, that's true, there may be something in
that, Mr. Vernon, but then, again, you know it's an
equal chance that we should have boys as well as
girls. I was going to tell her that, but she broke off

suddenly, because she thought she heard the old man
calling her from the house.”

The unsophisticated lover impressed Vernon
favourably as regarded both himself and mistress,
by the naturalness with which he detailed his own
secret thoughts and desires, and the manners of the
damsel. That Rachel was more thoughtful than
her lover, and quite as good a tactician, he had no
sort of doubt from the chapter of developements
which had been made by the former. How long
Rawlins would have gone on in a narrative which
was too pleasing to his heart and fancies to suffer
the obtrusion of other thoughts and objects on his
mind, it would be difficult to say. He was checked
by an abrupt inquiry of Vernon, and brought back
to the more earthly objects of humanity, with some
slowness and a little reluctance.

“Hear you those dogs? there are several beagles
—do you hunt much in this neighbourhood, Mr.
Rawlins?”

“Beagles! I don't hear any, Mr. Vernon.”

“I have heard them for the last twenty minutes,
but the truth is, Mr. Rawlins, when a man's in love
he hears nothing and sees little that does not concern
his mistress. This is your condition. For the last
half hour we have talked of nothing else, and you
have heard nothing that did not call for an answer
about her. Now I have heard the baying of these
beagles beside and before us, as if scattered, and
crossing on false scents. Who keeps a pack about
here?”

“A pack of beagles! I don't think there's such a
thing in the county, Mr. Vernon. There's one or
two here and there in different places—there's some
two or three I know of, but no more. John Herne
—he's something of a hunter, and has several dogs,
but only one hound, and that's but a poor affair,

Macartney, the Scotchman, that lives on the edge
of Atala, he has one, but he don't hunt. Ned Mabry,
the chap that would have mauled you this morning,
if you had let him, he has two, and both of them
fine pups, but he's not the man to think of deer
hunting to-day. Besides him, I can't call to mind
another man in our neighbourhood that keeps a
beagle.”

“That is strange, for I have certainly heard
several at different points of the compass within this
hour. Hark! hear you not now?”

“Yes, that's a beagle, but it sounds mighty faint,
and may be, after all, from a tongue that you never
hear close, and the dog that owns it ain't so easy to
be seen. You know there's a story in these parts of
a ghost-dog that haunts the woods about the Big
Black; they call him the white dog of Chitta-Loosa,
and old folks tell strange things about him, how he
let his master be murdered, and now has nothing to
do but to run through the woods constantly looking
after him. He is said to keep in the swamp of the
Big Black, and you hear him always just as evening
is coming on, as if he was calling to his master, and
was making moan that another night was near at
hand, and he hadn't yet found him. There's a-many
sounds in these woods, and sights too, I've heard
them tell of, that you'll hear without knowing
where they come from, or who they belong to.
People about here don't mind them much now, since
they've got a little used to them; but when I first
came on the Big Black, it made my heart beat
mighty quick, I tell you, and made me clap long
spurs to my horse, to hear them; and even now, I
catch myself saying my prayers, without knowing
when I begin, to find myself belated on the edge of
the swamp, nobody with me, and on a sudden hear

a whisper close at my elbow, and may be a laugh
and a clapping of the hands behind me.”

“But why should you think this any thing more
than ordinary. This whispering, and laughing, and
clapping,—nay, this baying of dogs,—may all be the
work of men.”

“No men, no men, Mr. Vernon!—I'm a man
myself, and can answer that. I'm a stout man,
sound in wind and limb, six feet in stocking foot, and
able to swing a cotton bag, and that's a-much for
any body to do. Besides, I'm not afraid of any
fellow that ever I saw yet, that had no better help
than flesh and blood, broad shoulders, and solid
muscle, can give him; and when I've turned and
challenged them that made these noises, and put into
the swamps after them—and I've a keen nose, and
a quick eye among the bushes, Mr. Vernon—and
after all could find nothing to lay a finger on, why
then it was time to think of saying one's prayers,
and using one's spurs. Now, don't you go to think
from what I'm saying that I'm easily frightened with
ghosts and images. I'm frightened at nothing I can
see and feel; but when a body can neither see nor
feel—when eyes and hands fail, what's to be done?
Am I to stand then, waiting what's to come? No, no,
I'm clear for clean heels without waiting for orders.
I asked Rachel if it was right for me to run in such
cases, and she clearly agreed it was. Well, when
our counts come to the same ending, there's nothing
more to be said about it, and run's the word for me.
A ghost that I can see, or a man that I can feel, will
never make me stir my ankles faster than I choose;
but I don't think it's any shame to use one's trotters
when he can make no use of his other limbs.”

“Give your horse a light spur now, Mr. Rawlins,”
said Vernon, gravely, “and let us ride on a little
faster. These beagles seem to increase in number,

and I can distinguish the baying of no less than three
from several quarters. If there be so few in the
county as you assert, then are these noises the more
mysterious, and they must have some object. Now,
as I am one of those who will not easily believe in
your white dog of the Chitta-Loosa, or in the ghost
of a dog at all, I am persuaded that what we hear
are the voices of real flesh and blood beings, whether
of hounds or men. If they are voices of men, they
imitate well, and must have some leading object for
acquiring the practice; if they are those of beagles,
then may we get a glimpse of a close chase, and,
perhaps, join in a pursuit, which I am very fond of.
A pistol bullet may bring down a deer at a small
distance, and I have known a man get a shot near
enough to enable him to do business with a pistol. I
will have mine in readiness.”

“I will not fail you, Mr. Vernon,” said the other,
in suppressed accents, and bringing his horse more
closely to the side of his companion. “It's jist as
well to have your pistols ready, if we are to seek for
these hounds you speak of, for, to tell you a truth, it
has been for a long time my notion that there were
men at the bottom of some of these noises of dogs; not
that there are not other noises of the woods that could
never have been made by any man—that I'll swear
for—and if you know'd half as much of our country
and the swamps as I do, you'd be for thinking like
myself. I could tell you of the strangest things—”

“Not now! not now!” exclaimed Vernon, impatiently,
“but get your pistols out, my good fellow; it
may be a word and a blow with us. I hear one
sound responding to another, and the last did not
seem more than a couple of hundred yards distant,
in that thick branch. Let us ride apart, a rifle's
sight could cover us both.”

Speaking thus, Vernon spurred his horse forward

in a smart canter, while Rawlins, obeying his suggestion,
prepared his weapons, and followed him at
a horse's length behind. They had scarcely increased
their motion, when a sudden clamour reached their
ears in front; a hoarse summons, the voice of a man
in anger, mingled with lower tones, as if in expostulation.
These were followed by a shriek—a repeated
shriek, and the accents of a woman—of woman in
distress! This put a life into the limbs, and a fire into
the hearts of the two young men, which gave them
no time for reflection, and left them in no doubt as
to the course which they should take, and the duty
which lay before them.

“Lord God!” was the somewhat irreverent exclamation
of Rawlins, “Lord God! Mr. Vernon, if it
should be Rachel!”

“It is a woman, Mr. Rawlins!—follow me close
if you be a man. This is no time to loiter.”

“You won't find me backward, by the powers!
I'm at you, and after you. There's no scare in Wat
Rawlins at the push. Lord help us! I'm afeard it's
Rachel. She loves to walk in the woods so, every
afternoon. Git up, you lazy b—h, or I'll knife your
quarters!”

The last speech, warm from the blood, and breaking
out in defiance of all restraint, was addressed to
his horse, which, in his anger, it will be seen that he
made feminine. The animal, though fleet, and now
doing his best, yet lacked the speed of Vernon's, and
the distance, small at first, was increasing fast
between them. The fear that another should do for
the safety of his sweetheart that which he alone
aimed to accomplish, was wormwood to his spirit;
and his apostrophe to his steed was coupled with the
driving and constant application of the spur, until
the flanks of the generous animal soon grew red
under the infliction. The shrieks were renewed—

fast, sharp, imploring,—terminating, at length, in a
long, piercing scream, which grew feeble, at last,
as if from exhaustion; and when it closed, the
thrilling words of Vernon, as he looked behind, and
cried to Rawlins to follow, sent a creeping chill
of terror to the heart of the rustic.

“Push, push, or we shall be too late!”

“I'm here—I'm close! This d—d beast! I hope
it ain't Rachel! Get on, you b—h!—Every thing
stands in the way; the trees, and bushes, and I never
saw the creature so dull before. Get up, you clod-hopping
b—h, or I'll kill you, by all that's certain!
I've always told Rachel about walking out so far,
but she wouldn't mind me, and said there was no
danger; but I knew there was danger, and I said so.
But these women—they won't mind any thing—
they're so obstinate if they're a little smart; and so
—d—n the b—h, she'll stop full short before long,
and want to take a roll in the road.”

There was no good reason to justify this last
apprehension of the excited woodman. The animal
was covering ground with a rapidity which might
have done some credit to Turpin's mare. But a few
seconds had passed since the first alarm, and nothing
but the impatience and the special apprehensions
which had seized him on a sudden in regard to the
woman who was dearest to his heart, could have so
utterly confounded his consciousness and judgment
on all other subjects. To be passed and left behind
by the young lawyer—the citizen—one of a class
for whom the forest-born of our country are very
apt to entertain a very wholesale contempt as
respects the exercise of all those qualities which
require personal strength and agility, and more
especially, in the management of a horse—also
added to his affliction, which, however, was not
destined to endure long. Vernon had already entered

upon the scene of action. The roads crossed—a
large area was formed by the contact of the two
paths—and here the strife was in progress, and
hence the clamour. A single glance at the objects
before him, gave Vernon a correct notion of the
affair. A travelling carriage crossed the road, the
horses being checked and held by a man whose
muffled face, cap drawn over his eyes, coarse
garments, rude manner, not to speak of the pistol in
his grasp, at once declared him to be a ruffian and
an assailant. An old man, the proprietor of the
vehicle, whose white locks and bald head were
uncovered and exposed, lay on the ground beneath
the knee of another ruffian, while a third was busied
in rifling the carriage of its contents. Two females,
one a tall maiden of seventeen or thereabouts, the
other a child of twelve, were on their knees to the
villain who held the old man down, imploring,
seemingly, for mercy; the younger of the two,
clinging to the arm of the assailant, seeking with a
childish pertinacity, and in utter ignorance of any
danger to herself, to push him from his position.
The screams which had alarmed the travellers
arose from these; and they were continued by the
younger of the damsels long after the elder had
deemed it—the first alarm being over—an idle mode
of remedying the misfortune, for the cure of which
she probably meditated other means. Perhaps there
were other apprehensions of womanhood more dreadful
to the pure heart, which made her fearful to offend
the insolence of those to whom neither herself nor
parent—for such was the old man beneath the grasp
of the ruffian—could oppose any powers of defence.
Her efforts were those of prayer, expostulation and
entreaty, until the approach of Vernon, whom she
first beheld, suggested new hopes of rescue; and then
her screams were joined to those of her younger
sister, and gave a new impulse to the movements of
our hero and his companion, who followed close
upon his heels.

There was but little time for reflection—none for
hesitation, and the mood and character of Vernon
were such as to require neither. To assail the
assailants, to rescue the victims, was an instinct that
sent him the nearest way to work; and coming, as
he did, somewhat suddenly upon the robbers, he was
able to effect that which, in a state of greater preparation
on their part, it would have been fatal for
him even to attempt. Their own interest in the
prize, and the clamours of the young women, had
kept them from hearing the tread of the approaching
horsemen; and as they came into the cross-roads
from the opposite track, they were totally unseen
until within thirty yards of the party. It was then
too late to take any of those precautions by which
nothing would have been more easy than to have
shot them down at their approach, without risking
an exchange of bullets. As it was, a single bay of
the beagle—their accustomed signal—was the only
warning which the more busy robbers received
from the companion who held the horses, and who
occupied, with them and the carriage, the upper part
of the road. The ruffian who bestrid the prostrate
gentleman turned about at the signal, only to
receive the bullet of Vernon, unerringly aimed at
his head. He fell prostrate upon the body of the old
man, and his blood and brains covered his face and
garments. In the next moment, the robber in possession
of the carriage fired at Vernon, and was about
to leap with a second pistol upon him, when the
appearance of Rawlins, who made his entrée with a
shout which might have done credit to the lungs of
Stentor, determined the assailant to trust his heels
rather than his weapon; and without giving a look

to his comrade, he darted into the opposite woods,
leaving the carriage between himself and his foes.
He who held the horses, kept his ground until Rawlins
had approached him within a few paces, when,
lifting his weapon, with as deliberate an aim as the
circumstances of his position would allow, he fired,
but ineffectually, at the sturdy woodman. Could the
latter have seen the bitter, nay, venomous, expression
of face which the fellow gave him ere he shot, he
would have congratulated himself, indeed, that it
was not Rachel who had fallen into his hands.
Vernon was the first to pursue the escaping ruffians,
but he had scarcely entered the wood ere he felt
himself growing sick and faint; and then, for the
first time, he found himself wounded in the thigh. He
returned to the scene of action, and with difficulty
alighted from his horse. The old man and his
daughters, whom he had rescued, came about him
to acknowledge and thank him for his services; but
exhaustion, from loss of blood, now overcame him,
and he sunk to the ground with a dim consciousness
while he was falling, that the old man was the very person
whom he sought—the very William Maitland who
had defrauded the bank and involved Carter, to the
loss of so many thousands. But this impression soon
gave place to another, and it seemed to the swooning
youth that the features of the man were at once absorbed
in those of a lovely virgin,—such a vision as
had filled his dreaming fancy the night he slept at
the hovel of Mrs. Yarbers;—a form of chiselled symmetry,
and a face, of the exquisite beauty of which,
the soul, alone, could feel the perfection and the
charm, in those vague and spiritual imaginings
which come to the youthful heart when it first
dreams of love,—which come to it but once, and is
believed by it for ever.