University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.

The party was received very cordially, though
with great solemnity, by the sober Methodist. He
descended from his steps to the carriage; freely
welcomed the proprietor; commanded all care for
the wounded man; bade his servants in attendance;
had refreshments served, and though, in these respects,
exhibiting the essentials of a most solid and
earnest hospitality, he never yet unbent a muscle of
his hard countenance, nor modulated to softness the
harsh accents of a voice, stern, cold, slow, emphatic,
and measuredly monotonous. He listened to the unusual
narrative of their escape, with the same composure
as he would have heard the complaints of his
niece, Rachel, who had pricked her finger with a
needle; and his congratulations to the party on their
escape, were uttered with very much like the manner
which he employed when saying grace before the
morning meal. A matter-of-fact face received every
circumstance, and requited all the wonders which
he heard; and nothing in the world could be more
mortifying to the enthusiastic temperament, than the
repulsive and chilling expression of a countenance

that seemed to be set on high, as a sort of moral
scarecrow, to rebuke the intrusive passions; the fervid
temperament; the glowing and impatient zeal,
that burns, and swells, and bounds, and is never so
angry as when it encounters the high fences which
prudence sets up to restrain its roving and incursive
propensities. William Badger had no sympathy with
the enthusiasm that dilates readily at every impulse.
His enthusiasm was all religious; his zeal, deep, earnest,
and perpetually glowing, was restrained by that
decorum alone, which is the fruit of intense veneration.
To speak fast, seemed to his mind to indulge
in levity; to utter promptly his feelings, might be to
do injustice to his own judgment, to the governing
providence of God, or to the rights and interests of
others. It may be added, that, with a temperament
sanguine in the extreme; a mind free, full and active;
an intense self-esteem, and that disposition to
sway which is, perhaps, a natural attribute of such a
character, his impetuosity of disposition was simply
methodized and more completely systematized and
made equal from the external restraints put upon it.
“I have seen him in a roaring passion,” said Rawlins
to his companion, “when he didn't know what
he said or did, and swore like a Massissippi boatman;
and yet one word came out after another jist
as slowly as if he was making his morning prayer.
He's a most strange man, that same Billy Badger;
but he means always to do right, even when he's
most wrong; and if you'll let him alone, when he's
most wrong, he'll come right after a season; but I
do think he'd not suffer the angel Gabriel to set him
right, or show him that he was wrong, one minute
before he was willing to see it for himself.”

The first care of all parties was to see into the
condition and render assistance to the wounded man.
He was conveyed into a quiet chamber, and Badger

himself attended chiefly to his hurts. An inspection
of them showed him to have been wounded by two
balls, both of which had fortunately struck fleshy
parts of the thigh, and the swooning had been occasioned
by the loss of blood, and not in consequence
of any serious causes of exhaustion. When the venerable
elder had satisfied himself of these facts, he
made very light, in his solemn manner, of the danger,
and assured the anxious Rawlins that the youth
would scarcely feel his hurts in a day or two. The
balls not having lodged, but, having cut the flesh in
two parallel spots, some two inches apart, it was
easy to dress the wounds, which had already ceased
to pour forth those free streams which, at first, had
threatened to exhaust the fountains of life within him,
and might have done so, but for the timely bandaging
that Rawlins had made both below and above
the places which were hurt. Badger, who asked no
counsel of those around him, administered a sleeping
draught to the patient, which silenced the groans,
at moments escaping feebly from his lips, and set
him to sleep so soundly that there was but little
prospect,—according to the woodman,—of his hearing
any of the long sermon that night. To do Mr.
Wilson all manner of justice, we may say, that he
showed no lack of interest in the situation of the
young man. He watched beside him until Badger
had declared his perfect conviction of his safety, and
then left him only to quiet the becoming anxiety of
another, whose solicitude in his fate, which might
have seemed improper under other circumstances,
found its sufficient justification in her gratitude. Virginia
Wilson felt a strange beating at her heart, and
trembled with a new sentiment of pleasure, as she
listened to these tidings. Was there any thing singular
in the fact that she retired that instant to the
chamber which had been assigned herself and younger
sister, and shed in secret those tears which it might
have puzzled her to explain why she shed at all. Yet
such was the case, and those tears, it may be added,
were no less sweetly strange to her own heart, than
they would have been surprising to any other not
perfectly conscious of their source.

Meanwhile, Mr. Wilson and our friend Rawlins
were compelled to undergo the protracted examination
of the Methodist, on the subject of the late adventure;
the circumstances of which seemed to
awaken in him no less curiosity than concern.

“Evil is abroad in the world,” he said, beginning
to sermonize at the conclusion of his examination;
“there is no place altogether secure from the dominion
of Satan; but that here, so nigh unto Zion,
where I have, for the space of two blessed years,
striven to uphold the work and the worship of our
heavenly father; that sin should so boldly demean
herself, seems to be as passing strange, as it is sad.
But, marvel ye not, Walter Rawlins, at what I am
about to say to you; and regard it not as unbecoming
in one who preaches peace on earth and goodwill
to all men, if I declare to you that we must all
arise, and put on the armour of strife, yea, the very
armour of man, and gird upon our thighs the carnal
weapons of human wrath. The traveller must not
be stricken down upon the highway without summons
of eternity, without warning to prepare for
death in season. We must go forth in seeking for
these bloody men; we must put them to defiance,
and as they have not hearkened to our words of
prayer and peace, neither have they given heed to
the forbearance of our own example, then must we
use against them the same weapons which they are
so ready to use against the wayfaring man, and we
must smite them hip and thigh to their utter undoing.

If they will not hearken to the imploring angel; if
they will not heed the promise of the forgiving angel;
nor incline their hearts to the prayers of the righteous,
God will commission the destroying angel,
even as he hath commissioned him against the Amalekite
and the Assyrian of old, until there be none
left to tell the story of their undeserving, and their
heaped-up bones alone shall remain to declare their
sudden punishment, in warning to the other tribes of
evildoers which shall follow them. Truly, it grieves
me, that here, within sight of the Hill of Zion, which
I had thought to set apart as a spot where evil should
not have foothold or countenance, such deeds should
be done as shall make the traveller tremble to approach,
even when he comes on the sabbath, seeking
crumbs of comfort from the Lord. My heart is full
of shame within me, that I should have fought the
good fight with so feeble an arm, and should have
gone into the battle with a spirit waxing faint in the
hour when there is most need of performance. Here,
Mr. Wilson, with the Lord's favour, did I pitch my
tent, at a time when the land around me was in possession
of the heathen, though even then decreed for
the heritage of the believing. Well may I declare
that it was like unto a desert, where the dews of
heavenly bounty never fell, or if they fell, which were
drunk up without profit to earth or heaven by the
thirsty, but unimproving lands. Since that time, the
heathen hath sunk away from the broad possession of
the land, and hath given place to a people, which, if
they be not yet holy, were yet better favoured of
God with the true lights of righteousness. Many, I
am glad to declare, have had the fountains of life to
spring up within their hearts, with a streaming which
shall never fail; but as thou seest, there are many
still who grope in the ways of darkness, and fight
under the banners of the mighty sinner who first
made all to sin. These robbers who have assailed,
with design, perchance, to slay—”

The harangue which, temperately begun, promised
to be of interminable dimensions, was here cut short
by the interruption of one who had entered without
being seen by the elder. This was his own son,
Gideon, a youth of twenty years or thereabouts,
whom Rawlins had already described as a “sly fellow,
having something wrong about him,” and one
whom he did not like. The youth was a proper-looking
youth enough; but his keen, quick eye, the lively
play of temper about his mouth, the sudden transition
of expression in his glance, his studious methodism
in garb and accent, so much at variance with the natural
characteristics of his countenance and manner,
would have impressed a close spectator with a conviction
of the perfect felicity of Rawlins' brief, but comprehensive
description. He sat demurely in the seat
which he had taken at entrance, immediately behind
his father; his hands were clasped upon his knees,
his legs drawn up, and half inclined beneath his
chair, his eyes cast down upon the floor even while
he spoke. His interruption arose quite as much, if
the truth was known, from his impatience at a sort
of exhortation, in which, whatever might be the case
with the traveller, his experienced ears found little
of novelty; and though, in what he said, he fancied
he should gratify the amour propre of the veteran religionist,
his aim was, perhaps, simply to suppress a
discourse, of which the reader has probably had quite
as much as himself, and may thank him for the interruption.

“It may be, sir, that you are doing some injustice
to your own labours, and to the character of the
goodly neighbourhood in which we live. I am of
the opinion, sir, that these robbers must be strangers

in these parts, the outcasts from other states and
cities, men of desperate hope and fortune, who rove
the country like raging lions seeking whom they
shall devour, and none of whom have ever hearkened
to your voice, or to the wholesome preaching of any
of God's servants. I cannot think that any of those
whom we are accustomed to behold at Zion's Hill,
hearkening to the word, will ever be found in the
evil ways of these wretched robbers.”

The lurking tribute to the old man's vanity which
was contained in this speech, did not do away with
the impertinence of the interruption. The father,
slowly and without a word, when he first heard the
voice of the son, wheeled his chair about so that he
might face the speaker. He heard him patiently to
the end, and then answered him in grave, stern
accents.

“And what know you, Gideon Badger, of the
hearts of men, even though they be neighbours unto
Zion's Hill? And what know you of these robbers,
of whom you speak so readily, that you should
venture to hope—ay, sir, I say, to hope—that all or
even any of those who hearken to God's word in
this place, are free from the damnable leprosy of
sin? There is a great presumption in thy thoughts,
Gideon Badger, which should be chastened by prayer,
by the prayer of an anguished spirit, that knows
its own presumption, and can find no check to chasten
it but that which is the free gift of God himself.
When thou speakest so freely of the goodness of thy
neighbours, I greatly fear thou speakest a vain thing.
There are many among them, whom I fear lack
overmuch the becoming humility of God's servants,
and need the visitation of the Saviour in their secret
places, before they will hold up clean hands and pure
hearts in the sight of their heavenly Maker. Nay,
more, Gideon Badger, it is thy practice to seek and

commune with some of those of whom but little that
is good may be spoken. There is that idle man who
lives by taking the innocent fish that swim to and
fro in the Chitta-Loosa, which, though it bears a name
of the heathen, is yet no less a river of the Lord—
he whom they call Weston, whose blacksmith craft
were of great profit to him would he pursue it, is
another of whom it were well if thou hadst less
knowledge—”

Here the old man experienced another interruption,
but this time from no less a person than our
friend Rawlins.

“He will have no more knowledge of Weston,”
said the woodman, “than he has already, and that I
can give you now, since Weston was the very man
who was shot down by Mr. Vernon:—he sat on the
top of the old gentleman, there, Mr. Wilson, with
pistol out, and another loaded in his breast, when
Vernon tumbled him. Here are the pistols which I
took from him, here's his knife, and these nick-nacks
also came out of his pocket. His carcass lies in the
cross-roads at this moment, where any body who
wants, can have it for the carriage.”

This revelation startled the Methodist out of something
of his equanimity. He half rose from his seat
while Rawlins spoke, but instantly resuming it, as if
conscious of improper precipitancy of movement, he
sat quietly, without farther motion, until the tale was
finished; his eyes meanwhile wandering, with obvious
anxiety in their glance, from the speaker to his
son, and from him again to the speaker. When the
latter had finished his statement, and thrown down
upon a table the arms and other articles which he
had taken from the slain robber, the old man spoke,
but his voice and manner had resumed all their
deliberateness.

“Walter Rawlins, this is a dreadful tale which

thou tellest, and I tremble to hear it, as I cannot
doubt that thou tellest me the truth.”

“True as gospel, Mr. Badger, if eyes don't cheat
one in the business.”

“Make no irreverent comparisons, young man,
between such truth which thou tellest, on the authority
of thy mortal sight, and that wondrous truth of
the gospel which comes of the sight of God. Thy
truth hath its use and its value, and I question it not,
but the truth of eternity is another thing from the truth
of time, and God strengthen the poor eyes that see
but the one, that they be not blinded with the outer
brightness and perfection of the other. Truly, I
make no doubt that thou hast seen this wretched
man, Weston, in the condition which thou describest,
though it is a sinful scorn of God's best work
on earth to leave the frame even of the wicked man
to rot above the earth, a prey to the carrion birds
and beasts who prowl by night for food. His burial
must be seen to, his proper burial; and we shall
commit him to his final resting-place, with a prayer
for mercy, though cut off in the very acting of his
miserable crime. Gideon Badger, Gideon Badger,
my son, give thanks to God this night that my timely
warning to thee against this man severed the association
between ye, else it might have ripened into an intimacy
with the same sins on thy part, and may have
been followed by a death to thee no less sudden than
it has been to him, a death without repentance and
without hope. Truly, thy tidings, Walter Rawlins,
are full of terror. This is an awful visitation. In
the midst of life we are in death. We know not the
hour, yet we must obey the summons, however sudden.
This miserable creature—well that he hath no
parent to sorrow for his sudden smiting, and his
unatoned sins; he hath no hope of sympathy and
sorrow from us—the law of God and the law of

man command us otherwise. We are called upon
to exult in the death of the evildoer, to rejoice in
the downfall of sin,—but we must put the dead out
of our sight. Earth to earth, dust to dust; and it
differs not though the earth be that of the sinner.
We are all sinners, even when we are best; redeemed
through grace and mercy, and not because of our
own righteousness. Let us go forth and put our
brother in sin into the grave, with a prayer for
mercy to him and to ourselves. Order you the hands
together, Gideon Badger, and bid them provide themselves
with torches. Let Timothy and Ephraim
bring pick and spade, that we may not waste precious
time.”

Gideon Badger went slowly to the performance
of this duty, and some time elapsed before the party
was in readiness. Leaving his guests in charge of
his niece, Rachel, of whom the garrulous Walter
Rawlins has permitted us to know something already,
Mr. Badger mounted his steed, a heavy, English-built
animal, sturdy, and slow, and solemn, like himself,
and set forth with all the phlegmatic deliberation
of manner which distinguished the ancient puritan
going forth to battle. There were not wanting other
matters to strengthen this similitude. He carried a
pair of wide-mouthed iron horse-pistols at his saddle-bow,
a pair which he had borne with him into battle
when, in his younger days, he followed the banner
of Andrew Jackson, among the mounted men of
Coffee's brigade, and went down from Tennessee to
the fierce and close combats on the Tallapoosa.
Nor did he forget to take with him on this occasion
the knotted hickory, a massive club, almost of the
thickness of his wrist, which, as the supposed characteristic
of a hero whom he regarded with a large
degree of veneration, he had made his own inseparable

companion, not simply in times of danger, but
on all occasions.

“And danger,” said the old Methodist, defending
the propriety of this practice, “is even like sin, a
thing of all occasions. The man of wisdom borrows
his lessons from the Christian, and goes armed and
ready at all times for the enemy. There is no telling
at what moment we may meet with him, nor in what
shape; whether he shall appear as the wild beast of
the wilderness, or as the wretched robber, seeking
for your substance. Therefore, I say to you, be ye
always ready.”

He was attended by his son Gideon, and Walter
Rawlins, both equally well armed with himself, and
followed by some six or eight negro men, his entire
force of males, some of them bearing lightwood
torches, and the rest, the necessary implements for
breaking the mould, and preparing the place of interment.
They traversed the path in silence and
without interruption, but, to the astonishment of all,
the dead robber was no where to be found. The
traces of the conflict were numerous—the blood lay
in clotted masses on the sand and leaves; but neither
on the spot where he had been described as having
fallen, nor in the immediately contiguous bushes of
the forest, could they find traces of his mode of disappearance.

“How know you that his wounds were death-wounds,
Walter Rawlins?” demanded the Methodist.
“May it not be that he hath feigned death while ye
were present, having no serious hurt, and hath stolen
away from the place of battle, the moment ye had
all gone from sight?”

“If he did,” replied Rawlins with a hearty laugh,
“he was able to do with less brains than any man I
ever heard tell of before. But there's no danger of
that; his skull was crunched by the bullet, and a

piece of it was wanting—clean blown off,—as large
as a table-spoon. Besides, I felt at his heart more
than once, while I was searching his pockets, for I
didn't want that a dead man even should open his
eyes and catch me stripping him. The beat was all
gone out of his breast, before I come up from chasing
his brother rascals.”

“Verily, Walter, thou couldst not have chased
them to a great distance, for they have surely returned
to his assistance, and it is by their help that
he hath been taken away.”

“Like enough, sir; but I did give 'em a chase,
and a mighty close one for the time I took about it.
I wasn't going to run 'em fifty miles, when dark was
coming on, and my company was waiting for me in
the open road. Besides there was little chance, if I
didn't tree 'em at the first jump, that I should find
'em, me one only, in a close thicket like that. That
canebrake would hide a hundred rascals from the
most honest nose among us all.”

“It needs not that we should speak longer in
this idle fashion: thou hast too great a vanity of thy
speech, Walter Rawlins. It is a sin in youth to multiply
words, having neither experience nor thinking
to make them stable and of fitting effect. Thou
shouldst better prefer to hear the language of wisdom,
in the counsels of age. Years must pass over thee,
and thou must clothe thyself in holiest meditation,
even as with a shrouding garment, which shall wrap
thee in from all worldly shows and affinities, before
it will be thy right, or in any wise becoming in thee,
to speak freely in the presence of men, or confidently
among their counsels. I will speak more to thee
of this subject on the way homeward. Turn thy
horse, therefore, which improperly crosseth the path,
so that I may advance before thee. It is, perhaps,
well that we are not required to perform this awful

ceremony of committing dust to dust. Let the dead
bury the dead; these are the written words, which
truly signify that the wicked should take upon themselves
the task of putting their fellow-sinners from
sight. Yet, young men, the ceremony of human
burial is not an unfitting spectacle for the young and
erring like yourselves, and had these wretched people
left to us the task of committing their slain comrade
to the earth, I should have striven to fill your minds
with the goodly workings of religious truth. Ye
should have had ample premonition of the fate of
wickedness, so that your hearts might have been
touched in season, and your souls warned with a
righteous fear, which should have moved you in all
haste to fly from the wrath which is to come. Nay,
there is yet time for this, and, God willing, young
men, this shall be the subject of our evening exhortation,
ere we seek our rest this night.”

An audible groan burst from the lips of Gideon
Badger, which the father ascribed naturally enough
to the solemn and sad course of meditation which
his words had inspired in the breast of the youth.
The less rigid mind of Walter Rawlins referred it to
a more simple, and perhaps, equally natural cause
—the terror which such a threat was always calculated
to awaken in his own bosom, seemed quite sufficient
to justify the audibly expressed tribulation of
Gideon. If he suspected the latter of a little hypocrisy,
he gave him credit, at least, for a certain degree of
sympathy with himself in the unfavourable estimate
which he had made of the elder's solemn outpourings,
—the chief objection to which, in his mind, consisted
in the fact that they occupied time which could be
much more pleasantly disposed of, in communion
with one whose discourse, if less saintly, was far
more sweet, and whose periods were uttered with
less elaborate lips, and closed sometimes with far
more pleasant emphasis.

“But if the disappearance of this slain robber relieves
us of one duty, Walter Rawlins,” continued
the old man in a different strain of thought, “it
seems to impress upon us the necessity of other duties,
no less painful, and perhaps, more full of trouble
and danger. It is clear that the companions of this
robber bear the name of legion—they are many,
since they attack the traveller in troops and squadrons—they
are bold, since they attack him in the
broad daylight, and near unto the very foot of Zion's
hill—nor, doth their boldness appear less remarkable
from the fact that they have scarcely been driven
from their prey, with the loss of one slain from their
number, before they return to the spot and carry him
away in safety. This conduct betokeneth the insolence
of numbers. Doubtless, they came hither after
your departure with a force increased sufficiently to
enable them to avenge their loss. The madness of
wickedness would not stop even at the wanton and
useless repetition of their crime. All this calleth
loudly for exertion among the true peacemakers, the
righteous, and well-wishing among mankind, and for
the suppression of these evildoers, the neighbours
must be stirred up into activity and wrath. Rumours
have reached me before this, of a gathering
of evil men along this heathen river; and now, when
it cometh so nearly to our own doors, it behoveth
me as a magistrate under an earthly ruler, no less
than as one commissioned by the Most High, to
search into this sin, with keen eyes and a sleepless
spirit. Of this we must have speech and counsel to-morrow,
giving our prayerful application to the Lord
Jesus ere we lie down to-night, that the right wisdom
may fill our understandings, so that we fall upon
the fitting purpose, and take our way along the only
path. Bid the hands follow, Gideon Badger—they
loiter idly with their torches, and their voices swell

into unruly sounds that are scarcely seemly in this
solemn hour.”

They had scarcely gone from sight, when three
men, well armed, emerged from the edge of the
swamp thicket.

“By the Dog Shadow of Loosa-Chitta,” said one
whose voice announced no other person than our old
acquaintance, Saxon, “Badger deals in no small shot;
he's a hundred pounder parson, and I shall owe him
large acknowledgments, when next I find it needful
to become ghostly and unctuous. That Gideon is a
precious rascal; he groaned most piteously, as if no
river could wash the salt savour and the true leaven
out of him. Yet you tell me he scampered off
rather fast, Burritt?”

“Ay, as fast as two slender shanks could carry a
small body and a frightened heart. We put him at
the easiest business, only to hold the horses, while
Weston grappled the old man, and I looked for the
cash. With the first sound of the enemy, he was
off.”

“And had this old man any cash?”

“I'm afraid not, or he hid it too snugly for us to
find it in a hurry. The watch was all I brought off,
and that I pulled from the daughter's side almost
without her knowing it.”

“Well, say nothing reproachfully of Gideon;
coward or not, he is of too much use to us, while his
father lives, to suffer us to complain of his little deficiencies.
The old man is no coward, that is clear,
and would go as heartily into a fight, as he goes into
a sermon. He would fight like a bull-dog. The
young fellow who gave Weston his quietus—you
are sure you shot him?”

“If aim was ever good, mine was upon his breast-button.”

“Well, it is, perhaps, quite as well that it is all

over. If he's dead, it's one out of the way that I
suspect would have been very troublesome to us; if
not, as old Badger would tell you, you have not the
heavier sin to answer for. But, dead or alive, it is
still important that we should see what papers he
carries; we must see what beagles are down in the
Governor's catalogue. Gideon may get these papers
without much risk, and when there's no danger, there
will be little fear. We must summon him to-night.”