University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

While the uproarious controversy was in progress
between the Alabamian and his Irish opponent in the
tavern-hall, Vernon, through the considerateness and
care of Saxon, was conveyed to an inner apartment
in a state of insensibility. The outlaw had his unexpressed
objects in this disposition of the youth, and
his connexion with the constables readily enabled him
to make such arrangements as left him in his sole
custody. A public assurance which he gave them
in the bar-room, that he would be answerable for the
forthcoming of the prisoner whenever they might
demand him, not only satisfied the worthy emissaries
of the law, but won golden opinions for the outlaw
from the unreflecting spectators. They did not, with
a single exception, remark the strangeness of such a
proceeding; nor wonder, as well they might, how it
was that a stranger's assurance, and one who appeared
to have been the companion of the traveller,
should be taken as good security for the temporary
release of the same person charged with a crime so
heinous. The more acute Alabamian saw this matter
in its true light, and was not the less curious

though he said nothing on the subject. As for the
constables, the reader, who knows already what they
are, will not be surprised at the ready complaisance
which they yielded to the will of the outlaw. They
were very well satisfied to exchange the tedious
watch over the prisoner for the livelier bustle of the
tavern-hall. There they soon joined the revellers,
and gave themselves up to that perfect recklessness
of good order and morality, which, in no little degree,
tended to confirm the growing suspicion in the
mind of the Alabamian that there was something
wrong in their proceedings. A sudden regard for
Vernon had been the fruit of the first moment of
their meeting; as he saw, or fancied he saw, even
through the reserve which is usually the accompaniment
of superior endowments and education, a
frankness of manner and character in the youth,
which, while resembling, was grateful to his own.
These first loves, or favourable impressions, are
very common to a forest country such as ours,
where no long time is allowed for the formation of
intimacies, and where the instincts of blood are
always more active than the slow and cautious approaches
of reason and philosophy. He assisted,
we may state, to carry the insensible form of the
youth into the chamber, and having ascertained that
Lucchesa was not without its physician, he despatched
one of the urchins that lingered at the
tavern-door, to require his assistance; a task which
the boy readily undertook with the tempting reward
of a fip-penny-piece before him. This done, Jamison
returned to his controversy with the Irishman, which
he made subservient to the occult purposes of inquiry
which lay at the bottom of his mind. He
plied the whisky flagon with an industry which
he took pains to make appear as the consequence of
his own love for the living beverage; and he soon
had occasion to congratulate himself on the discovery
of one or two facts, which, though subordinate
in importance, were yet of a character to confirm
him in his suspicions. He soon discovered, in
the first place, that his Irish adversary, in one or two
unwitting speeches, was an old acquaintance of the
constables; and, from the modes of speech and the
sort of anecdote in which the latter freely dealt, he
was easily led to infer that, however honest they
might be at this writing, they had certainly, at some
past period not so very remote, been very exemplary
picaroons. That their morals were not such
as should entitle them to the selection of a devout
magistrate such as Judge Nawls had been described
to be, was sufficiently clear from the facility with
which they threw aside that starched semblance of
decency which they had just before put on in the
assumption of a character, and in the performance
of duties, far other than those to which they had
been sworn. They soon forgot the commands of
their leader, who was too busy elsewhere to heed
their behaviour, and hear their riotous uproar; as,
in the person of Dennis O'Dougherty they recognised
a well known Jack Pudding of their gang; and the
renewal of sundry old jokes at his expense, did more
than any thing beside to convey to the mind of the
acute and unsuspected Alabamian, the extent and
sort of intimacy which had before subsisted between
them. Their presence brought no little increase of
merriment to the carousing party. The fun had
been about to decline till their appearance. A renewal
of mirth was the necessary consequence of
the arrival of such old proficients, and the replenishing
of the flagon furnished an equal supply of the
pabulum so necessary for the fervour of village wit,
and the otherwise costive humour of a country population.
Our friend Jamison, speaking from his soul,
cried, “d—n the expense,” at every hearty summons
to the company to refill—a summons not less grateful
than imperative, and one never to be disputed
among men, no less social in character than docile
in obedience to the lawful authority. Leaving these
good companions for awhile, let us seek the chamber
to which Vernon had been carried.

This was a little low shed-room containing two
beds, a single chair, a broken mirror, and a couple
of rude coloured pictures, such as good taste was
willing to take, without scruple, during the war of
1815, at the hands of patriotism. Never did native
genius effect a more rascally portraiture of humanity.
One of the pictures represented the battle of New
Orleans; the other a scalping-scene at the massacre
of Fort Mimms, on the Tensaw. In the former,
Packenham might have been seen going through the
air like one of his own congreves, as blazing red,
certainly, and describing pretty much the same sort
of curve when at the moment of declension. His
head nearly touched his heels, and the grapeshot
might have been seen just about to bury their hissing
hot bodies in the gaping wounds, from which the
blood was already streaming, in pretty much the
same volume as would issue from the sudden opening
of a water-plug in the streets of Philadelphia.
A complete display of pyrotechnics—a shower of fire
—encircled him, and formed the only light, lurid and
sulphurous still, which the artist permitted on the
British side of the business. In this he strove hard
to accomplish the clair obscur with the utmost practical
nicety. The rest of the battle was a chaos of
heads, legs, and arms; horses kicking without bodies;
men running without feet, and wheeling cannon
just as busy advancing and receding, though never a
man was left standing at the drag-ropes. Here
imagination had done much towards the achievement

of that desideratum in all her works, the vague,
twilight, picturesque, and imperfect dimness, which
denotes every thing that is not beheld, and makes
equivocal whatever is distinct. But the amor patriæ
was predominant in the display of the American lines
—there all was clear, effulgent, and imposing. Still
and stern the Kentuckians and Tennesseeans, stood
upon the terraces. Never were attitudes more perfect.
Even those who knelt for the purpose of better aim,
were drawn with wonderful exactitude and majesty.
Here was truth. The eyes ranged the tube with a
mathematical exactness. Had you taken the instruments
in hand, and separated the lines between the
eyes, the drop, and the British, you would have seen
in an instant how certain was their defeat. Every
muzzle covered its man—every bullet had its special
commission; and our artist had made it a matter
sufficiently clear, without reference to any dull history,
that the American victory arose from no other
cause than the excellent aim of the riflemen. The
whole story was told at a glance; and when you recollect
that the artillery was managed with similar
nicety, you have no sort of difficulty in accounting
for all the havoc of that bloody field. But the whole
powers of the artist were concentrated around the
form of the hero of that day. General Jackson was
surrounded with a thousand natural glories. The
sun rose over his left shoulder, and his epaulet, reflecting
his light upon surrounding objects, was almost
as bright, and quite as large, as himself. “Bombs
bursting in air” surrounded him with halos of falling
stars that became tributary, in like manner, to the
awful distinctness of his face and figure. There he
stood,

His portrait was true, as all the portraits of very

great men must be true, even when most imperfect.
There were the same thin pale cheeks, the raised
cheek-bones, thin compressed lips, keen eyes, high
narrow forehead, and raised hair—the head, for the
greater perfection of the portrait, having been left
uncovered, in defiance of smoke and flame, bombs
and rockets, crackers and carcasses. But the terrors
of expression in his face were the wonders of
the performance. Even had the riflemen been
utterly wanting to the battle, you would have seen
that these were enough for the victory. There was
not a wrinkle in the old warrior's brow that did
not look like a two-edged sword. His mouth was
pursed up to seem a seam—the lines forming to a
common centre, the appearance of which led you to
expect a sudden expansion, no less great than the
undue contraction, from which triple hail and thunder
was to issue. His beard, too—for the general,
if the artist may be considered good authority in a
particular so perfectly domestic, had not shaved for
seven days—his very beard, too, like that of old
Giaffar, “curled in ire,” as he waved a sword twice
his own length, and pointing to Packenham's whizzing
and whirling carcass, seemed disposed to thrust
it—very unnecessarily, it would seem—into the aperture
made so voluminously large already by the
grapeshot aforesaid. Language fails to do justice
to this terrific picture—go to Lucchesa, reader, and
see for yourself. We forbear that of the massacre
at Fort Mimms, in order that nothing may be anticipated.
Like that of the battle, it is a painting
sui generis. Never were scalps taken from skulls
with more terrible felicity of execution than in this
picture. At Raymond court-house you will see
another, by the same artist, in which a muse more
moral than she of history has been invoked;—Justice
with her scales very properly presides over the
hall of justice. It is rather awkward, indeed, that
one scale should be lower than the other, but this
difference simply suggests a play of the fancy, and
cannot subject the painter to the imputation of any
serious want of discrimination. Certainly, we shall
venture to incur no risk, in this brief passage, of
indulging in false and superficial analysis.

Strange to say, the merits of these pictures entirely
escaped the notice of Saxon. Whether he
had seen them before, or, as is quite probable, entertained
no taste for the fine arts—a deficiency quite
too general in our country, and quite too common
among all people whose habits are wandering
to make it likely that any rebuke will be of
service for a hundred years to come—one thing is
certain, that he never gave so much as a glance to
the panels in which these gorgeous performances
had been set on high. His eye and thought was upon
the young man alone, who lay insensible upon the
couch; and, under the pretence of restoring him to
consciousness, the outlaw, so soon as all other persons
had retired from the chamber, very coolly proceeded
to unbutton the vest and bosom of his patient,
and explore the contents of a thin gause-like
handkerchief which encircled his waist, and which
he untied with the dexterity of an old proficient in
all such practices, without disturbing the position of,
or removing the handkerchief from, the body. A
few moments sufficed to enabled him to disengage
from the folds of the handkerchief a small packet
which lay on the right side of the youth. This
he transferred with all speed to his own bosom;
and, folding a newspaper in like bulk and form, he
deposited it in place of the papers appropriated, retied
the handkerchief, rebuttoned the shirt and vest;
and all this without disturbing the wounded man
and before the arrival of the physician;—an event,
however, which occurred the moment after.

Dr. Saunders was rather a clever young man, who
had received a license to practice but a few months
before, and was no less modest than well-informed.
He examined the hurt of Vernon with the assistance
of the Alabamian who, on the arrival of the physician,
left the company without, and with the anxiety
of an old friend awaited the result. Vernon had over-tasked
himself. The wound in his thigh which had
bled so copiously was irritated by the hard riding
of the day. He had ridden rapidly in order to
overtake the carriage of Wilson, and had overcome
a distance of more than forty miles. The excitement
following previous events, and the anticipation
of those before him, had also contributed to the irritation
of his system; and, when arrested for so heinous
an offence as that of murder, and the murder,
too, of his late companion, it is not improbable that
fever would have followed his mental suffering even
without the additional injury which he received
from the unmeasured blow of the Irishman. The
patient's consciousness returned while the examination
of the physician was going on. He started,
and with an instinctive movement which betrayed
the deep interest which he had at stake, he threw off
the intrusive hands about him, and his own were
thrust into his bosom and not withdrawn until he
assured himself of the safety of the secret deposit
which he had bound around his body. With anxiety
and agitation heightened by fever, he turned to the
two attendants, and demanded what was meant by
their familiarities. The matter was soon explained,
the doctor announced himself, and coming slowly
to a recollection of what had taken place in the
tavern, Vernon quietly submitted himself to his hands.

Meanwhile, in the possession of his prize and
anxious for its examination, Saxon availed himself
of the coming of the physician to retire to another

apartment. There, in secret, he unfolded the packet,
the contents of which had the instant effect of clouding
his brow with anger, and sending the blood into
his cheeks.

“It is then true,—it is as I thought and feared!
This is then only another Hurdis—another spy, self-appointed,
for our destruction. He has played his
game admirably, but not perfectly. Not well
enough for success, but so well as to make it necessary
that we should silence him for ever. It is
needful for our own safety that we do this—we can
spare no longer—his doom is written.”

He conned the papers closely; one of which, a
blank commission with the signature of Governor
R—, he tore into fragments and flung into the
fireplace. The others comprised a brief narration
of his own doings as Clem Foster in Alabama; copies
of affidavits sworn to in that state, and a list
of names,—a copy of which had been given to
Rawlins by Vernon the night before,—of suspected
persons in Mississippi. These called for the more
serious attention of the outlaw.

“These must fly,” he muttered, as he looked over,
and pencilled off, a portion of the list,—“the neighbourhood
is closely settled and will soon be too hot
to hold them; but they may stave off danger here
on the Big Black for a year or two more. Still it
will be as well to warn off some of the more black
and crooked—fellows who cannot even look honest,
may well run in advance of the danger. But Cane
Castle will hide all their vices, and that is as far as
they need go for the present. This agent of his
Excellency—would he had come himself—once
fairly salted, and we shall have no trouble for some
time to come. There are few in Mississippi prepared
to take his place, and manage his cards so
cunningly as almost to blind so old a stager as myself.

His game's up—and there's an end of it.
Nawls will send him to Vicksburg, and the `beagles'
will take him by the way. Then follows his
execution, in terrorem, for the benefit of our own
doubtful and soft-hearted fellows in the swamp.
He will die by our laws—he has assumed the toils
of the spy—he incurs its dangers; and our own require
that we should show no mercy. And now
for a little more hypocrisy. I would know why he
seeks this traveller, Wilson,—and the hurry of Wilson
to leave old Badger's, is no less curious. I must
sound him on these subjects.”

With exemplary composure he proceeded to the
apartment of Vernon which was still occupied by
the physician and the Alabamian, and placing himself
on one side of the patient, congratulated him
on his improved looks and restoration. The compliment
was a very suspicious one, for, by this time,
our hero felt himself seriously ill—he could not
mistake the heat of his frame; the bounding quickness
of his pulse; the parching thirst which assailed
him; the soreness of his head, and the painful throbbing
of his wounded thigh. These were evidences,
even if the physician had been absent, sufficient to
make him aware of his true condition.

“I thank you,” he said, “but I am not better. I
feel ill—seriously ill; and this painful accusation,
this troublesome arrest! So strange, so sudden and
startling:—I trust, gentlemen”—looking round as
he spoke—“I trust that you believe me guiltless of
this crime—nay, it must be so,—the officers are
gone,—they have been convinced of their mistake,
I suppose.”

“Mistake!” said Saxon, with an incredulous expression—“what
mistake, Mr. Vernon?”

“Why, sir, mistake of facts or of person. Did
they not arrest me for murder—the murder of
Horsey, poor fellow?”

“Yes, sir, but if it be a mistake, it is one of those
mistakes that they continue obstinately to persist in.
They are in the adjoining hall. It was on my
pledge that you should be forthcoming that they
consented to leave you in privacy until you might
be recovered from your injuries.”

“I thank you, sir, again I thank you,” replied
Vernon—“it is due to the kindness of your interposition,
and to the attention of these gentlemen,
that I should assure you, that I am wholly
guiltless of the crime which is charged against me,
—that, so far from seeking to harm the unfortunate
young man, whose fate I have heard of for the first
time from this proceeding, I should feel myself
bound by every duty and feeling to succour and to
save him. He is a wild, hairbrained, but worthy
youth, whose family is good, and whose old father
has treated me with kindness. That I may be suspected
is, perhaps, not so strange:—we travelled together
and separated suddenly—he, taking the lower
road for Benton at the forks, and I, the upper,
which, with some delays and interruptions, has led
me here. That he may have fallen a victim to
some wanton assassin is, perhaps, little surprising
in a neighbourhood in which crime is said to be so
frequent; but that I should be seriously held to answer
for his death is a matter too idle to annoy me
much or make me apprehensive of its consequences.
I have no sort of doubt, gentlemen, that an examination
before the magistrate will result in my immediate
discharge from arrest.”

The company unanimously expressed their hopes
that such might be the result; and Jamison loudly
declared his conviction of it.

“The truth's in your face, Mr. Vernon,—I saw
it from the first, and that made me so willing to
give Paddy O'Rafferty or O'Dougherty, or whatever

O' it may be, an ugly hoist, for the liberty he
took with you, bringing you soon to an acquaintance,
all on one side, between your head and his
shillelah. He'll not do it again, I'm thinking, not
while Dick Jamison is bystanding. I know well
enough you'll get out of this scrape, so cheer up,
Mr. Vernon. I'll see you out of the mire while I've
got any footing to stand on, and when I ha'n't, why
I'll walk the bog with you. D—e, but I like your
face, and there's no telling what I'll do and say for
a fellow I like. I'll run, ride, talk and fight for my
friend; and when he's a stranger like myself in a
new place, that's the very time that I can't desert him.
So count upon Dick Jamison while the breath's in
him.”

The expressive eye of Vernon made an acknowledgment
to the hearty volunteer, which his lips did
not articulate; and his hand freely returned the
pressure which the latter gave him as he concluded
his characteristic speech. The sympathies of the
stranger, however rudely expressed, were grateful to
the youth in the feeling of discontent and depression
which was natural to his condition; and the
unstudied frankness of his utterance was only an
additional proof that his sentiments came from the
fellow's heart. The reflections of Vernon's mind
were no ways cheering at this moment. His course,
upon which he had entered with so much confidence
and hope, had been attended with disasters
from the beginning, produced, not through his own
measures or management, but by influences entirely
foreign. Pursued by Horsey and annoyed by his
prying curiosity—scarcely freed from him, before
suffering in an encounter into which he was forced
by a sense of duty which no honourable mind could
shrink from; and now, arrested and suffering for
the alleged murder of the man whose presence

was so perfectly unsought and so undesirable:—these
continuous events seemed to hold forth auguries the
most inauspicious to that adventure which had been
undertaken with so much hope. The voice of kindness
came to him, therefore, at the moment of his
despondency, with an influence to be remembered;
and he felt that he was not altogether desolate
while the sturdy Alabamian was beside his couch.
The truth, which was declared by his frank utterance,
and denoted in the manly and not-to-be mistaken expression
of his features, won instant confidence from
our hero; and remembering one of his leading objects,
he thought to himself, “here is another ally—here is
another to join with me in the strifes that may follow
any pursuit of this banditti.”

The wounds upon Vernon's thigh were re-dressed
—the irritation of the part soothed by the application
of external dressings; his head, which had suffered
a severe contusion, was properly bandaged,
a nostrum given intended to lessen the fever, in
the attainment of which object, a vein was also
opened. This done, Doctor Saunders proceeded
to silence the worthy Alabamian, whose tongue was
one of those habitually restless ones, which, suspended
in the roof of his mouth, rather than the
gap of his throat, are for ever wagging from side to
side in the fruitless hope of finding a place of rest.

“We must leave our patient in quiet, gentlemen—
his fever is high—his mind is not at ease, and the
necessity of the case must be my apology for insisting
upon his being left to himself.”

“I will but say to the officers that I yield him to
their custody,” said Saxon, leading the way to the
bar-room.

“They cannot remove him,” said the physician.

“That is for them to determine,” was the reply of
the outlaw.

“It will be an unnecessary and wanton cruelty if
they do. The young man cannot escape if he
would. He is really too feeble. They may watch
him, and be at hand, but must not intrude upon him.”

“I'll be d—d if they do!” was the asseveration
of the Alabamian, glad of an opportunity to use
the instrument upon which the interdict of the
physician, while in the chamber of the patient, sat
with a very unpleasant weight. The keen eye of
Saxon surveyed him for an instant with no very
pleasant expression, but he said nothing; while the
other proceeded to declare that, law or no law, he
would see that none but himself should approach
the sick man's chamber, and “as for taking him
out,” he continued, “until he's willing to go himself,
let me see any one try it, and if he don't bear a
hickory, his mother never bore a fool.”

The arrival of another party suggested, however,
a new plan of arrangements. This was no other
than the traveller whom Vernon had pursued—
certainly, with no sort of apprehension on the part
of the former, that such had been the case. Old
Wilson entered with timid, trembling footsteps—
a cautious tread, as if walking upon eggs—and a
furtive glance thrown from side to side as the different
groups of the bar-room met his eyes, which
denoted either a very suspicious temper, or one
strangely unused to the devil-may-care freedoms of a
public tavern. As he advanced he encountered the
three persons who had just emerged from the passageway
into the public hall, and whose more respectable
appearance, in garb and manner, than that
of the persons generally by whom the tavern was
filled, naturally prompted the visiter to address his
inquiry to them.

“Gentlemen, I would like to know—sorry to stop

you—but is there not a young gentleman here by
the name of Vernon?”

“There is,” answered Jamison, who already assumed
the entire representation of his new friend.

“Can I be suffered to see and speak with him?”
inquired Wilson.

“I am afraid not,” replied the physician. “Mr.
Vernon has suffered some serious hurts which have
brought on fever. Even the noise of this bar-room
is unfavourable to him in his present situation.
His mind is very much excited, and inclines to wander.
I would prefer that he should not be disturbed.”

There was some eagerness in the expression of
Wilson's face, and in his manner, as he replied—

“I have heard of his hurts, sir, and as I partly
know him, and believe him to be a worthy young
man, I came to propose that he might be taken to
my house, while his illness lasted. It will be more
quiet than he can possibly find it here, and—”

“You, perhaps, have not heard of the accusation
against him?” was the remark of Saxon.

“And what the d—l has that to do with the gentleman's
offer, I'd like to know?” was the fierce demand
of the Alabamian. “I'm sure nobody who
knows Vernon would think him guilty of the thing
after his own lips had told 'em he hadn't done it.”

Jamison spoke for his new friend as sturdily as if
they had been intimate a thousand years. His manner
startled and somewhat aroused the outlaw. This
might be seen in the kindling and flashing of his eye,
and in the sudden glow that flushed his cheek; but
however much he might have been moved to resent
it, there were other considerations, much more
strong, that counselled forbearance; and the reply
of Mr. Wilson to his inquiry, interposed, as it were,

between himself and the man who had shown himself
so susceptible of provocation.

“I have heard of the charge to which you allude,
and which, I think with the gentleman here, must be
quite groundless. It was the rumour which reached
me of his arrest, and of his illness, but a little time
ago, by which I was informed that he was in my
neighbourhood; and the thought that he might be
removed with advantage to my dwelling—”

“This is an offer not to be disregarded,” said the
physician, interrupting him; “and if the officers
would permit his removal—”

“Permit it—they must, and be d—d to them.
Look you, men, this here prisoner of yours—he's in
a d—d bad way, and will be worse, unless you let
us carry him to the old gentleman's house. See
you, I'll be bail for his coming whenever he's able to
see the justice; or you can stay here, and keep on
the look-out for him, and for me too if you choose,
for I won't budge till the lad gets better. What do
you say, you man-catching rascals, to being civil for
awhile—it'll be nothing out of your pockets, I can
tell you, while Dick Jamison has any thing in his.”

The constables, at whose approach Mr. Wilson
might have been seen to shrink with some trepidation,
were not disposed to consent so readily. They
hemmed and hawed awhile—muttered together as if
in consultation—spoke aloud of their duties and the
great risk and responsibility, and, from their delay
and reluctance, were rousing up the choler of the irritable
Alabamian to a new outbreak of ferocious
friendship, when Saxon, to whom they looked entirely
for their cue, quietly remarked—

“It appears to me that the officers cannot refuse
so reasonable an arrangement. They can keep as
close a watch over the prisoner at the house of Mr.
Wilson as at the tavern, and the doctor's opinion that

the young man cannot fly in his present situation,
and should be free from noise, ought to satisfy them
without any other security; though, if they need any
other, I'm ready to become bound in bail along with
this gentleman.”

“Will you?” said Jamison; “well, d—me, you're
a better fellow than I thought you, after all—so
give's a shake of your paw, and let there be peace
between us. Well, what do you say, you sharks in
fresh water, have you got your senses yet?”

“Faith, we must let the jontleman off the hook,
since ye all says it,” began the Irishman, when
interrupted, no less by the stern expressive looks of
Saxon, than by the sudden burst of his former opponent.

“Hillo! Dennis! and what the d—l have you got
to do in the business, my lad? Shut up, you little
old fellow—you have no right to speak at all until
you are fairly married into a new family. Get you
gone to Polly Whitesides, and let her give you a
brush up before you dip your oar into another's navigation.”

And, with these words, the now good-humoured
rowdy clapped his open hand as an effectual stopper
on the widely distended jaws of the only half-sober
son of St. Patrick, whose brain was just in that condition
of fermentation when he could understand
that he had blundered, though in what respect, he
did not hope to divine, until he had taken an added
supply of the “crather,” or utterly freed himself from
the control of that which he had already swallowed.