University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.

I was certainly about to pursue, with sufficient
audacity, a career, which, with sufficient audacity,
I had begun. The romance of the thing was still
uppermost in my mind. The truth is, that youth,
unaccustomed to trials of its own, is not always
persuaded of the realness of danger. There is
always a hazy indistinctness about the wild events
of which it reads or hears, which, touched by the
warm rays of an unrestrained imagination, becomes
a glory in its sight, and effectually hides
from view the cloud and storm from which it has
arisen. I was moving forward as one in a dream.
Accustomed to a life of security, and to the even
progress of the day, unbroken by anything unusual,
and secure from any evils which are not
common every where to life, I could not and did
not yield my belief to the strange stories which I
heard. That they were commended to my fancy,
was natural enough, as they came clothed with
the hues of the picturesque and novel. But that
they were real, actual, living and daily ocurring
things—that here, in America—in our matter of
fact, monotonous, prosaic day,—there were bonafide
brigands, such as we read of in Italy,—was
a matter not so easy to be brought within the
compass of belief. Thinking from my feelings, I

judged the affair of the fellow with whom I had
just parted, to have been some clever practical
joke of some dare-devils, exaggerated by his unmanly
terrors, and hereafter to be explained when
the trick had been sufficiently played. Then the
robbery had been committed by women. Only
think of my being bid to stand by my own little
incognita! The fancy made me laugh outright,
and I felt very certain that, in such an event, I
should take to her arms, with the full purpose of
using my own. I did not actually wish to encounter
her in the character of a footpad, but I
felt that such an event would not be entirely without
its pleasant accompaniments. A wrestle
with her did not seem an affair to inspire terror;
and, laughing at the conceit, I dashed forward,
muttering from Dick, the apprentice,—

Filled with such pleasant musings, I had ridden
probably three quarters of an hour, after parting
with the Collector, and in this time I had overcome
an interval of four miles—not more,—for
the road, originally an Indian trail, was broken by
numerous bottoms,—mucky places, of which the
reader will form a sufficient idea from the distich
written with coal, upon the blaze of a tree,
which stood fronting a place of similar character.
called Cane Tructa, through which I once had to
pass:

The citizen would only need to gaze upon such
a spot and acknowledge the same necessity, to
feel the force and propriety of such an inscription.
The poet was worthy of the subject, and that is
no mean praise. I had gone through some three
or four of these miry gulphs, which the most
reverent nature would be very apt, involuntarily,
to liken to the infernal regions, Acheron and
Styx—though none of them was so bad as Cane-Tructa,—and
had at length emerged upon a high
and beautiful knoll of green, the sloping edges of
which were fringed with dense barriers of cane,
their feathery tops waving gently, like the plumes
of so many gigantic warriors,—and was advancing,
in an easy lope, into an area, about two
hundred yards round, on which trees seemed
never to have grown,—when my horse suddenly
stopped short, and shyed half round, while his
elevated head and ears attested some occasion of
alarm. I raised my eyes, and discovered—directly
on the path in front, squat upon a log, the butt
end of which was thrust out from the opposite
forest,—a man in a grey overcoat, with slouched
hat, and a huge rifle which lay directly across his
thighs. The suddenness of the encounter a little
staggered me; but, remembering my fanciful
philosophies, and the ludicrous plight of the Collector,
I soon recovered myself, and determined
promptly to yield myself to any mirthfulness

which the mischievous nature of men, in such
situations, might be disposed to practice. But as
soon as I got nigh enough to notice the exact
features of the man before me, I arrived at
the conclusion, instinctively, that he was no amateur.
He was one of those men, whom we know
at a glance, as persons of downright, serious business,—who
never laugh,—who know nothing in
life but its necessities,—and regard all things and
all persons, with that hard-favoured earnestness,
which looks directly and only to the most
slavish calls, whether of a hunger that needs, or
an appetite which lusts. He neither moved limb
nor muscle as I approached, yet I could see that
his eyes observed me keenly. The reader will
be pleased to remember that I am of the sanguine
temperament—a temperament which acts promptly,
without much reflection, from a spontaneity,
the result, it would seem, of a corresponding and
equal activity of mind and feeling. The truth is,
such persons think with as much rapidity as they
move, and if rightly trained to habitually just
thinking, their impulsive movements are very apt
to be quite as correct in their tendencies as if they
were made under the most deliberate exercise of
thought and will. This is said to account for my
conduct on the present occasion. It did not appear
to me that I thought at all of what I should do.
But the resolution and the performance were one.
As I approached the stranger slowly, I threw my
left leg over, so as to sit entirely upon the right,
thus facing him fully as I drew nigh. This is a
favorite mode in the Southern country of sitting
a horse, when the rider meets with a friend, or
with any one in whom he has confidence, or
with whom he is disposed to linger and converse.
It shows that there is no trepidation and no
desire of flight. Sitting thus, I approached
the fellow, and stopped my horse directly before
him. He looked up at me with a savage
sort of inquiry in his glance, as if to say “what
next?” I did not suffer him, however, to put the
question in words, but proceeded in the following
manner:

“I have but one question, stranger, before I
begin, and that is, `am I safe here from a sheriff?'
Be quick and tell me, for I must ride until I am.”

“And what makes you afraid of a sheriff?”

“You're not one, I hope?”

“Rather guess not.”

“Very well! Now then—do you ever see one
here?”

“No! They take root here but never grow.
A deputy came here once, from somewhere below;
they planted him, but he never come up.”

“Good! I need go no farther then;” said I,
dropping from my horse, and taking a seat beside
him on the log.

“Whar' are you from?” he asked.

“Tennessee.”

“What's brought you here?”

“This!” said I, jerking my horse's bridle as I

spoke. The fellow glowered upon me, with looks
that showed he was no joker, as he responded —

“You mean to say you come on him?”

“Not exactly, though I did come on him. But
the horse caused my coming here. I made a
swap, giving that nag, which you see is a fine
one, with a fellow at muster, who traded me a
creature that had spavin. We didn't see it at
first, for he was warmed with riding. But going
off from muster I stopped at a friend's house,
where I sat an hour. Meanwhile the horse had
cooled off, and was as stiff in her joints as if
they were made of ridge poles. I had got on a
mile farther, hardly able to get along, when who
should come by but Backus, the fellow I had
swapped with. When I saw my own fine animal
that he was riding, and felt that I could hardly
hobble along with the one I rode, I got down
and stopped him, jerked him from the beast, and
we got to blows. Somehow he got a knife in
him, and I got my horse back. People would
have it 'twas my knife did the mischief, and there
was an inquest, and a warrant—and all that sort
of thing,—and so I sloped—but look you,—you're
sure you're not a sheriff or a deputy?”

“And if I was?”

I grappled him by the throat in an instant, and
drew my dirk, which flourished in his eyes before
he could say “Jack Robinson!”

“Hold off, stranger!” he exclaimed, grasping
my arm. “I'm no sheriff—and no deputy. D—n

the breed,—I'm just as much afraid of 'em as
you.”

“Well you spoke in time!” I said, with a half
subdued fierceness of look—“it's no time to play
with a man when his neck's in a plough line.”

It required no small effort, I assure you, to
compose my muscles and carry on this game
without laughter. But I felt that it was now necessary.
If my neck was not absolutely in a
halter, it was very clear to me that my life was
not in a state of absolute security. One glance
at the ruffian at my side, had served to dissipate
all my romantic fancies.