University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.

With the dawn of the day following, the traveller,
Wilson, with his two daughters, prepared to resume
their journey. The impatience of this gentleman
seemed to grow with each moment of delay,
and the protracted exhortations of the hospitable
Methodist, who proved no less liberal of his counsel
than he had shown himself of his meat, contributed
to heat his impatience into fever. Still, though perhaps
rather from the promptings of his eldest daughter
than the instigations of his own heart, he took
some pains to assure himself of the favourable condition
of the young man who had been wounded in
succouring him; and did not resolve upon his journey,
or, at least, did not commence his visible preparations
for it, until he learned from the sober report
of Badger, and the no less credible, but less solemn
statements of Rawlins, that Vernon's hurts were not
such as could detain him more than a day in his
chamber. This ascertained, he bade adieu to Zion's
Hill and his friendly entertainers, and by the time
the sun had fairly purpled the green tops of the
forest, he was speeding fast along the by-road which
conducted to Badger's, and which he had taken the

night before with so much unwillingness, and so little
grace. It was some hours after his departure, before
Vernon awakened from the deep sleep into
which he had been thrown by the opiate which had
been given him the night before. Nor could he be
said to have awakened to perfect consciousness, because
he awakened to the light. The stupifying effect
of the laudanum benumbed his energies, and
seemed to confuse his faculties of thought and observation.
A sort of dreamy consciousness of what
had taken place, in which all things floated incoherently
and indistinctly before his mental vision,
disturbed the certainty of his conceptions; and it was
only by the aid of Rawlins, who sat beside his couch
when his eyes opened, that he recovered the knowledge
of the events which had taken place the afternoon
before. The stiffness of his wounded limb, and
a trembling and slightly sore sensation about the
spots which were hurt, confirmed so much of the
particulars as related to his own interest in the conflict;
and, gradually he was reminded of other circumstances,
which it seemed to him no less important
that he should know. He had an indistinct recollection
of a bright vision of beauty which had hung for
a few moments above his eyes—a vision such as had
been vouchsafed him more than once before, in a
dream no less sweet and inspiriting, though scarcely
so distinct as that which had been more recent.
Then came the passing consciousness that had possessed
him in the moment when he swooned away,
of his having found the person of the escaping criminal
whom he sought on the part of his benefactor.
With this returning conviction, his faculties
grew more assured and industrious, and, cautiously
concealing his great interest in the issue of his inquiry,
he proceeded to examine his companion on
the subject of the party rescued. This examination
tended somewhat to confirm the impression which
he had received the evening before, that William
Maitland actually stood before him, in the person of
the man whom he had rescued; the description of
his person, as given him by Rawlins, strengthened
this belief. The mere difference of name was a
small and trivial obstacle, and one readily overcome
by a reference to the ease with which a name might
be changed, where the party was unknown; and the
obvious policy of one flying from justice, to effect
this change in order to avoid detection. The greater
objection to his conviction lay in the two daughters,
by whom Wilson was accompanied. The elder was
already a woman grown,—the other, nearly in her
teens, and the description of Carter had led him to
expect mere children in the daughters of Maitland.
This difficulty, upon reflection, seemed, to the sanguine
mind of Vernon, scarcely less trivial than that
of the name. Carter spoke of the children as he had
known them, and probably with some reference to
his own greater age; and as Vernon threw back
his thoughts to the period when Maitland practised
his treachery upon his friend, and married Ellen
Taylor, the probabilities gained strength, as he found
that, allowing them to have had children within a reasonable
space of time after marriage, those children
might very well be sixteen or seventeen, the apparent
age of the eldest daughter of the traveller. But if
this conclusion gave him pleasure in one respect, as
it satisfied him that the means of retrieving the fortunes
and the credit of his patron were almost in his
grasp, he, singularly enough, felt some reluctance to
pursue them, when he thought of the misery and disgrace
which exposure of the father would bring upon
the lovely woman, his daughter, whose first glance
had so impressed itself upon his fancy. The matter
would have seemed easy enough to provide for the
children, as such, who, at the tender years of childhood,
could not well have been conscious of the
shame which would necessarily follow the detection
of the father. But the case became wonderfully different
and difficult when the child was a woman—
and such a woman,—having, without doubt, sensibilities
keen and quickening, such as are proper to
her sex; and a consciousness of shame corresponding
with that intelligence, which, without any other
knowledge than lay in his own endowing fancy, he
assumed, must belong to such lovely and speaking
features, as those which looked down upon him in
his moments of lapsing consciousness. How could
he pursue, without relenting, the father of such a
woman? how could he, as the stern minister of justice—in
fact, the sheriff's agent, with a special power
to place fetters upon his limbs—how could he drag that
old man, felon though he was, from the presence of
that daughter? He felt that she would rise between
him and his victim—the rebuking, the imploring, the
preserving angel;—that her tears would be his reproach;
her sorrows, his sentence of condemnation;
and he felt, even then, that her hate to the oppressor
of her father, would be a something beyond his best
ability to bear. But when, on the other hand, he
thought of Carter—his patron, his only father,—the
sterner commands of duty—the earnest voice of soliciting
gratitude—spoke another language to his
better judgment.

“I must do my duty,” he murmured to himself
as he strove feebly to rise from the couch; “it must
be done. Rawlins, my good fellow, help me to put
myself in trim, for I feel very stiff and stupid. I
must get up: I must see this gentleman.”

“What gentleman?” said Rawlins.

“Mr. Wilson; the gentleman we helped yesterday.

Did you not tell me that he came with us—
that he brought me here?”

“Ay, but he cleared out by sunrise this morning.
He was in a monstrous hurry to be off, and would
have gone before daylight, if 'twasn't for that angel
creature, his daughter. She told him mighty plain
that 'twouldn't do for them to go till they know'd
that you were safe.”

“Ha! Did she say that?”

“I heard her with my own ears, though she didn't
know I was nigh. I was coming in at the entry
door leading to the shed, and her back was to me
all the time. She said a good deal more which I
couldn't make out, but I understood enough to see
that she was blaming him for his hard-hearted way
of making thanks for the help he got from us—not
to speak of my help in the business, for it was mostly
yours. Yet she didn't leave me out, she spoke to
me herself about it, and told me how her father
owed every thing to us, and how I must tell you this
when you got better. Well, they waited, as she said
they must, till Billy Badger felt your pulse, and
looked at your face—and he looked long enough, and
felt long enough to have answered for all the sick
men in Massissippi. When he told them that you'd
do well enough without any more doctoring, I never
saw a girl more relieved. She didn't say any thing
then, but tied the bonnet on her sister, and went jist
as the old gentleman told her; but I saw a big drop
in her eyes as she was going, and her last words
were to me, remembering me to tell you what she
said, and how sorry she was that her father's business
made him hurry away, so that he couldn't say
for himself how much they thanked you. She's a
most notable fine girl, I'm thinking, as ever I looked
upon.”

Vernon derived a greater degree of gratification
from this detail of his companion, than the long, rambling
sentences of Rawlins were usually apt to afford
him. But though he lingered over the narrative
with a silent pleasure, he did not forego his purpose
of rising from his couch of inactivity, and of pursuing
the task which he had too deliberately and resolutely
undertaken to forego without shame. The
rapid haste of Wilson tended to confirm him in the
belief that it was Maitland that he pursued; and
when he recollected the liberal and large extent of
the commission which had been entrusted to his
hands, the discretion which it empowered him to exercise
in the case of the absconding criminal, and
the ease with which, under its indulgent privileges,
he might obtain his object without any public exposure
of the victim—nay, even without a revelation
of the crime to the innocent daughter of the criminal,—he
found himself strengthened for the duty, and
eager once more for its resumption. But he rose
with some increase of pain. The limb which, in his
quiescent state, was tolerably easy, now throbbed
painfully with the weight and pressure of his frame
upon it, and having, with the assistance of his friend
Rawlins, reached the hall where the family was assembled,
he found himself compelled to appropriate
the calico-covered sofa to its whole extent, in the
hope to regain that position of quiet, which he had
found before in his couch. In this effort, and while
enjoying the returning ease which it brought him,
he was no doubt greatly strengthened and assisted
by the consoling review of his situation, and the circumstances
attending it, which his ghostly landlord,
in his own measured manner, presented to his mind.
According to this venerable elder, his hurt was a
subject of self-congratulation, which should not be
suffered to escape his own commentary. He was

one of those, who, regarding evils as masked benefits,
looked upon Vernon as particularly fortunate
in the favour of Providence, and rated the extent of
his good by the degree of dissatisfaction and impatience
which the victim displayed beneath it. Having
exhausted all the proverbial forms of biblical and
mere moral expression on the subject, he proceeded
to a display of his own experience; and, if his judgment
might have been regarded as equally valuable
with his faith, it would have appeared convincing
enough to his hearers, that he had never yet suffered
an affliction which had not in its ultimate consequences
been a real blessing, infinitely beyond any other,
which, in its absence, might have fallen to his lot.
His voluminous history, fortunately for Vernon, had
its own interest, apart from the savoury Christian
deductions which the narrator never failed to make
from all its leading details; and if the youth was not
greatly enlightened and strengthened in moral respects
by what he heard, he was certainly edified,
amused, and sometimes excited, by adventures on
“field and flood,” in forest and prairie, in which, like
one half of the settlers of Mississippi, William
Badger had proved the possession of a manly soul
and strength, contending with savage beasts and
forests, and not unfrequently with more savage men.
But for these details, which gave action and vitality
to the old man's prosing, Vernon might have made
his retreat in utter desperation; but he bore it with
becoming fortitude, until relieved by more exciting
details, which put a stop to those of the Methodist,
and sent all parties to new subjects of cogitation and
remark.

The dinner hour had arrived, and the family had
already taken their places around the table; Rachel
presiding, opposite to the uncle; on one hand, Rawlins,
on the other, Gideon Badger, as demure, while

in the presence of the father, as the most worthy of
the congregation. Vernon was indulged with a
small table beside the sofa on which he lay, upon
which was placed some thin soup and a few well-boiled
fragments of chicken, such being thought the
least hurtful diet for an invalid. William Badger
had already commenced that interminable grace before
meat, which Rawlins, after the fashion of his
own wit, had styled “the dinner cooler,” when a
bustle was heard at the door, as of one about to
enter, and the tones of a voice which Rawlins immediately
recognised as that of Edward Mabry, the
youth, whose fight with, and pursuit of, young Horsey,
has already been recorded.

“It's Edward Mabry,” said Rawlins, looking up
from his plate as he perceived from the pause which
William Badger made in his grace that the interruption
had reached his ears. But, as if resolved that
no intrusion ought to put a stop to the wholesome
preliminary service in which he was engaged, with
a devotedness which most persons of good appetite
would have preferred paying to the dinner itself, he
resumed his prayer just where it had been arrested:
“—Thy divine countenance, oh Lord Jesus
Christ, and sanctify to us the food which is now
before us—” and so he proceeded to the end without
farther notice of the events going on around him,
though, in the meanwhile, Edward Mabry, with more
haste than was consistent, either with the solemn
visage, rigid habits, or grave ceremony of the host,
rushed into the apartment. His audacity did not
venture to go farther when he found in what manner
the venerable elder was engaged; and standing
apart, with hat in hand, he waited, breathless and
impatient, until the grace, which seemed to expand
even beyond its ordinary limits, was brought to the

conclusion. The “amen” was scarcely uttered before
the torrent burst its barriers.

“Mr. Badger, Mr. Badger,” said the young man,
“I come for a warrant—take up a villain—enough
to hang him—shall do it. Must grant a warrant,
and send Harvey out this very evening. Only sorry
I didn't come to you before. But it's not too late—
never too late to hang a rascal, and a warrant this
evening will answer—a warrant to Harvey. I'm
ready to swear ag'in him any moment.”

“A warrant, Ned!” exclaimed Rawlins.

“A warrant!” echoed Gideon Badger, with rather
more nervousness than the occasion seemed to call
for; and even the usually composed maiden, Rachel
Morrison, could not forbear the like exclamation.

“A warrant!”

“Ay, a warrant!—a warrant against John Yarbers,
Mr. Badger,—he's a villain, a thief,—he's the
man that helped to run Jo Watson's horse, and I can
prove that he put him in the hands of Bill Munson,
the fellow that got off last month from deputy
Nichols. I'm ready to take my affidavy to it.”

The methodical lips of William Badger at length
parted. His face put on new terrors, his words
were stern, and the tone threatening.

“Young man,” he said, regarding the disfigured
visage of the intruder rather than the tale which he
told, “young man, you have been fighting.”

The youth muttered some hasty words, in which
“honour,”—“insolent fellow,”—“had to fight,” were
strangely jumbled up with other less significant syllables,
but the ascetic elder cut short the worthless
pretext in a fashion of his own.

“Edward Mabry, have I not repeatedly counselled
you against this brutal and blackguard practice?
Have I not repeatedly told you that I care

not to see you in my dwelling so long as you
cannot forbear the rending and gouging of your
neighbours?”

“I come about business, Mr. Badger,” said the
other, sulkily, “I come about business; I come to
you as a justice, I don't come as a visiter.”

“And I speak to you as a justice; and had I
caught you, sir, in the brutal act, I should, as a justice,
have had you taken and punished; though, to
be sure, you seem to have had something more than
your usual share of punishment already. God has
seen fit to send you a foe who could imprint on you
those marks which you are but too apt to put upon
the faces of others; upon faces, Edward Mabry,
made after God's own blessed image. It is his
image that you tear, and bruise, and gouge, with a
most miserable propensity to sin. But sit you down
—why stand you in waiting when the meat is sanctified
and ready? Sit you down and partake with
us, young man, though it grieves and sickens me to
behold you in this condition. Rachel, set a plate.”

“I'm not hungry,” replied the youth, with no
abatement of his sullenness, for the reference which
Badger had made to the superiority of his enemy
had irritated an old sore—“I'm not hungry, I thank
God, Mr. Badger, since if I was, I could not sit
down at a man's table when he don't wish to see me
in his house.”

“There is hope of you,” was the cool reply of the
Methodist, “so long as you have the grace to thank
God for any thing. Sit you down, I say, whether
hungry or not, and wait on those who are. As a
magistrate, I will hear your statement, and take your
oath if need be, when we have dined; but I warn
you, Edward Mabry, that an oath is a serious and
solemn invocation; the Lord is spiritually present
when it is taken; it is an awful, and soul-binding,

and soul-responsible assurance. Beware, then, that
you swear not against your neighbour, unless with a
perfect certainty, so far as the blindness of human
sense and judgment may admit of certainty, that
what you say is the truth. But sit you down and
eat. Gideon Badger, help Edward Mabry to some
of the chicken which is before you. Eat, Walter
Rawlins.—And so, Edward Mabry, you are certain
that it was Yarbers who run the horse?”

“Caught him a-doing it, sir. But that aint all;
there's another business more serious. I have a
strong notion I can prove he's been talking insurrection
stuff among the niggers.”

“That is a dreadful crime, Edward Mabry, and
I could wish that you spoke not such suspicions
aloud, until you have strong proof of their truth. If
I remember rightly, it is now near a month since
Joseph Watson recovered the horse which had been
stolen.”

“Yes, sir, about a month.”

“Ah! and you knew the fact at the time. You
knew when the robbery was committed.”

“'Twas I caught Yarbers with the animal, making
tracks for Vicksburg.”

“And wherefore have you kept this thing hidden
so long, Edward Mabry? Why have you foreborne
to bring this evildoer to punishment before this?
And why is it, that, having suppressed the truth so
long, you now declare it in the unbecoming language
of human passion? Answer me these questions,
Edward Mabry, for something of my conduct will
depend upon the explanation which you may now
give of yours.”

These were home questions, and the effort to
answer them only involved the speaker in all the
meshes of a seemingly inextricable confusion. It
was only by piecemeal, and after the most Socratic

examination, that the keen, searching, old Methodist
obtained all the facts, and came to the conclusion,
that, but for a quarrel between the parties, the horse-stealing,
and other offences of John Yarbers, might
have been buried in utter oblivion, so far as the
testimony of Edward Mabry was concerned. In
brief, the party was soon apprised that Mabry,
whose attachment to Mary Stinson was, like most
attachments of country lovers, known to all the
neighbourhood, had, after fruitlessly pursuing the
actor to the river without overtaking him, returned
with a double feeling of wrath and mortification to
his own home. From thence he had gone, early the
next morning, to the house of Yarbers, and there
had pressed his claim, in the absence of the latter,
to the hand of his daughter-in-law. He had done
this quite as much in anger as in love, being resolved
to bring the matter to a close, as he found himself
unable to bear the continual anxiety and passionate
strifes to which his position exposed him: and he did
not, in fact, believe that he was entirely wanting in
attraction to the eyes of the damsel. But he made
his application at the worst possible moment. The
calculating mother and uncalculating daughter had
but too recently parted with the gay and attractive
actor, and he met with a flat rejection from both,
the terms of which, on the part of Mrs. Yarbers,
were uttered in a manner no ways complimentary
to the pride and vanity of the suitor. Burning
with indignation, he rushed from the house, only
to encounter John Yarbers at the entrance. To him
he breathed, without stint or limit, the indignation
which he felt; and his rage was complete when the
husband simply and civilly confessed that he had no
power to alter the decision of his wife. Yarbers
was rather nonchalant in his treatment of Mabry,
for he had just before had the assurance of the master-spirit,
Saxon, that the thing should be settled in
such a manner as to save him harmless; but he
begged Mabry to wait awhile longer, and concluded
—having a reference to some crude and half-digested
plan of Saxon—by recommending that Mabry
should contrive to get himself made colonel; a vacancy
then existing in the regiment by the death of
the late celebrated Colonel Quillinan. To the raging
Mabry, this seemed little less than downright mockery;
and without farther exchange of words, he put
spurs to his horse, and took the road to the house of
the justice of Zion's Hill. The progress of the visiter
in this quarter, has so far been narrated. Taking
the magistrate apart, Walter Rawlins ventured to
excuse Mabry's suppression of the facts so long, by
taking upon himself a portion of the blame.

“As the thing's out, now, Mr. Badger, though to
my thinking it had been better in for a while longer,
even though John Yarbers got quite off, why, I may
as well up and tell you, sir, that I advised Ned Mabry
to keep the matter quiet.”

“And, pray, what may have been your reasons,
Walter Rawlins, for thus seeking to screen the
criminal from the hands of justice?”

“Only that the hands of justice might get a good
gripe when she tried for it,” was the prompt reply
of the woodman. Then, proceeding with some
rapidity, as he saw that his farther treatment of the
figure was regarded with a grave countenance by
the Methodist, he went on to give certain reasons
and facts for the policy which he had pursued.

“You must know, Mr. Badger, that there are
more persons than John Yarbers concerned in this
trade of horse-stealing, and it isn't the one mare of
Joe Watson that's been cleared out by 'em in my
time. We happen to know of many horses that's
been lost to their owners, that John Yarbers found a

claim in; and we sort o' concluded—me, and Tom
Coleman, Jack Andrews, and Ned Mabry, here—
that, as we knew all that any did know, and as that
wasn't enough to clinch any but John Yarbers, that
we'd say nothing for a while, and only keep a sharp
look out and be in readiness to find out the rest. We
all considered Yarbers to be a poor shoat, that only
did as others told him. We had suspicions of three
other men that took the horses after Yarbers had
run 'em to the river, and carried 'em on from hand
to hand, till they got 'em where they could sell 'em
without danger of being known; and we thought by
keeping quiet about Yarbers, and watching him
close, that we might get on a trail that would lead
us to the other rascals. Yarbers don't dream to this
day that any body but Ned Mabry knows about his
rascality. Ned caught him with the horse hobbled;
and his liking for Yarbers' wife's daughter made
him very willing to say nothing, till now, about the
dad. He told me only because we were so friendly,
and he knew I could keep a close mouth over any
secret.”

“You have done wrong; you should have brought
this man to justice. The law is the terror to evil-doers,
and they should be made to feel it. And who,
Walter Rawlins, are the men of whom you have
suspicions?”

“Well, Squire, I can't tell you that, seeing that
I've made a promise not to do so until there's a good
chance to clinch 'em, and we get good witnesses.
I'm sort of dubious it'll be a mighty tough business
whenever the time comes.”

“And what, Walter Rawlins, may be the reason
of this fear?” said the magistrate, with increasing
severity of tone and solemnity of look, his self-esteem
being grievously disturbed by the refusal of

the woodman to confide in him the extent of his
knowledge.

“Because, Squire, we've good reasons for thinking
these rascals are backed by a great number that
pass for honest men and good Christians; and up to
this time, Squire, we're at a loss to say which is
which among our acquaintance and those that put
on religion, and talk very good things at meeting.
Every now and then there's a robbery, now on this,
and now on the other side of the Big Black, but at
all times too mighty nigh us not to make it very
strange of the sort of folks that live about. There
was Dick Coby robbed of his watch and all he had,
coming from Benton a week ago, by two men in
disguise; and there was the beating that Harvey got
up by Doak's stand, about the same time, by other
men in disguise, while he was on his way to sarve
your warrant; then, again, this attack on the old
gentleman, Mr. Wilson, here, as I may say, in sight
of Zion's Hill;—why, Squire, you can't shut your eyes
to the thing. It's clear as noonday that there's a
gang of rascals that stand by each other, and aint
afraid of the worst that can be done to them. Besides,
I'm somehow thinking, Squire, that there's
nothing you can do, or any magistrate, that they
won't get wind of, in a mighty short time after they
do it.”

Rawlins did not confine himself to this brief array
of circumstances to establish the probability of the
faith that was in him. He proceeded to the detail of
other events, some of which were known to the
magistrate and others new; but the accumulation of
facts had the effect of convincing and startling the
Methodist, when, one by one, as they occurred, they
would have made little impression, and that of little
duration, upon his mind.

“Verily, Walter Rawlins, thou hast shown me
these things in stronger lights than they have come
to me before. It is a shame and a discredit to me,
as a magistrate under the appointment of man, and
no less as a humble follower of Christ Jesus, that
these things should be suffered to go on around me.
It were well to get the young men together, and bestir
ourselves in the examination of this swamp
which is beside us; for that, according to my thought
no less than thine, must be the place in which these
villains harbour. How many young men canst thou
muster at blowing of the horn?”

“Well, Squire, I reckon there may be ten or
thereabouts,” returned the woodman, muttering their
names over to himself, and counting upon his fingers
as he spoke.

“Ten!—ten only! Why, Walter, either I lose my
arithmetic, or you have never yet found yours. By
what rule can you count? Instead of ten, there
may be twenty, nay, thirty, mustered by the horn
blowing.”

“Yes, Squire, but it aint by horn blowing that I
would bring together the men for such a business as
this. Some of the men that would come at horn
blowing would be more likely to help the rascals
than to hurt them; and if I could tell you some of
the suspicionable names that I know on, you'd look
green again.”

“I cannot say, Walter Rawlins, that I altogether
understand you when you speak of my looking green
again; but, at all events, I will look farther and immediately
into this business. I will confer with this
young man, Vernon, who speaks sensibly on most
subjects, and he hath shown himself bold enough to
be a leader in any strife that may follow, and is
surely not to be suspected of any connexion with
these outlaws of whom you speak. If he will go forth

with us, it were something; for thou and thy ten
men would go but a little way to compass all the
points of the swamp, and beleaguer those who harbour
therein. The canebrake were, alone, a sufficient
protection. But let us seek these other youths.
We have already five in this dwelling, counting myself
and Gideon Badger with the rest, and I trust in
God that when the hour of evil strife shall come,
there will be fifty rather than ten willing to gather
together for the good of the covenant.”