University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

“Ah, whither away, Fitzhurst?” said Colonel
Bentley to his friend as they met in a fashionable
street of a certain gay metropolis; “you step as if you
were carrying your skirts from a rascally bailiff, and
that's more in character with me than with you.”

“Colonel, how does the world treat you?” rejoined
Fitzhurst, taking the proffered hand of the military
gentleman of the militia,—for the command of a regiment
of such soldiers had given the colonel his
title.

“So, so—merely so, so,” replied the colonel;
“which way are you going, Fitzhurst?”

“I am walking towards the wharf,” replied Fitzhurst,
raising his hand from his side with a letter in it
as he spoke; “I have just received this from my friend,
Howard Pinckney. He has arrived in New York
from England, and I expect him to spend some time
with me before he returns to Charleston.”

“Ah, the gentleman you travelled on the continent
with, whom I have heard you speak of so often and
so highly?”

“The same.”

“Egad, if your account of him be true, he'll make
a sensation among the fair folks—hey?”

“Yes, if he tries; but he writes as if he were worn
out with excitement, and wished to get into some
quiet nook and vegetate awhile. My father, in consequence
of the gout, thinks he will remain in the
country this coming winter. The old gentleman
fears that the temptations of the table at the dinner
parties in town will be too much for him. My aunt
and sister will not of course leave him, and I of
course must not leave them; so if Pinckney has any
wish of imitating those beasts that burrow through the
winter, I can accommodate him with quarters.”

“`Quarters!' that's a military phrase, Fitzhurst,
hey? quartering on the enemy—that's a good tale,
is'n't it? I must quarter somewhere, and as I don't
believe I have an enemy in the world, I must quarter
on my friends. Fitzhurst, I tell you that she-dragon
of an aunt of mine is as close as a money-box that is
only meant to receive and not to yield a cent until
its dissolution, or until it bursts with the hoarding. I
am almost tempted to wish her mortal,—oh! I tell
you, Fitzhurst, I want the trifling matter of a hundred
dollars—can't you let me have it?”

“Yes, colonel, I can accommodate you, and will do
so with pleasure. I must step down to the boat,
which must be in by this time, and will meet you at
the hotel in half an hour.”

“Fitzhurst, I shall be obliged to you.”

“Not at all. Good luck to you till then, colonel,”
replied Fitzhurst, and they parted—the colonel proceeding
directly to the hotel to await the coming of
Fitzhurst, while that gentleman hastened to the
wharf.

Preferring to walk, Fitzhurst had ordered Pompey,
the woolly-headed official of the coach-box, to drive to
the place. There he was, sure enough, propt high up in

his seat, and looking with an air of aristocratic disdain
upon the hacks and hackney-coachmen around. The
hackmen had ordered Pompey not to approximate
too closely to their stand, as they had taken upon
themselves to call the right of way, and he with much
such a feeling as one of the noblesse of the ancient
regime would have entertained if ordered by a mob
of the canaille not to approach them, was holding
back his horses in fear and contempt.

“See here, darkey,” said one of them to him on
observing that there was no one in the coach, “keep
back and wait till your betters are served; you're
sure of your load, old boy, so just wait for it there.
A little walking wont hurt 'em, and if it does I'll bring
'em to you for a small charge.”

“I say, Bob,” called out another hackman to him
who had just spoken, “twig that blackey's wool, will
ye; hang me, if it don't stand out like a turkeycock's
feathers when he's a strutting, and its combed
back as if the feller was a preacher. I took just such
a looking feller the other day, only he had a white
skin on him; dang me, if I know how far—I only
charged him two dollars for the ride, and he poked
the new ordinance at me, and I had to let him off for
fifty cents. I say, Mr. Darkness (to Pompey), what
will you take to take me all about town?”

Pompey disdained to reply. If any one had been
sitting along side of him, he would perhaps have heard
him murmur something about “white poor trash
being below a coloured gentleman's notice.” Nothing
that Pompey said, however, reached the ears of those
around. Pompey was evidently, in the abundance
of his contempt, doing his best to produce the impression
upon the hackmen that not a word of their's fell
upon his ears, and that his eyes fell upon vacancy,
though the latter organs every now and then, by a
sharp glance, betrayed the fear, on the part of their

owner, that the hackmen might play him some
scurvy trick or other.

If they entertained any such designs against Pompey's
peace and dignity, they were deterred from fulfilling
them, for it was at this moment that Mr. Fitzhurst
made his appearance, and Pompey took care to
address him, and ask if he should move any farther
forward. His young master said “No,” and stood in
the crowd, near by, watching the advance of the steamboat,
which, unlike those of the western waters,
could be seen in a near bend of the harbour hurrying
to its place of destination—punctual to the time at
which it was advertised to appear.

Fitzhurst could not but be amused, as the boat was
approaching, with the crowd about him. “Will you
have a Gazette, sir; the last news is in it,” asked a
ragged boy, poking at the same time a newspaper
almost in the face of Fitzhurst. “This is the
Courier,” said another boy, dovetailing himself
between the first vender of news and the person
addressed; “it has all the news of the week, and to-day's
into the bargain, and its only a `levy.”' “This,
sir, is only a penny,” quoth another lad, who, like his
paper, was smaller than either of the others, and had
contrived to get before both of them as Fitzhurst
drew back to avoid the personal contact of the last
supplicant.

“No, no; I want none of them,” said Fitzhurst
good-humouredly.

“Stand aside, boys,” exclaimed a great lubber
gruffly, as he edged the boys away with two large
baskets that he bore on either arm containing cakes
and fruit, by the sale of which he gained his livelihood.
“Stand aside, you're always in the way of gentlemen.”
Then, in a coaxing tone, after he had shoved
the boys aside, he said to Fitzhurst, “Won't you have
some fruit or cakes, sir?” Fitzhurst shook his head.

“Do, sir, they're very cheap;” and, thrusting his
right arm through the handle of the basket which
he carried on that member, so as to enable him
to raise the napkin from the cakes which he
bore in the left-hand basket, he turned his head
in the act, when the smallest boy took the opportunity
slily to slip his hand in and purloin an apple. As soon
as he grasped the forbidden fruit he withdrew it so
suddenly as to strike the arm of the fruitman, who
turned quickly and detected him. Enraged at the
theft, and having his hands occupied, the fruit-vender
drew back his foot to inflict summary vengeance on the
boy. As he kicked at the urchin, a hackman, standing
by, raised his whip, the thong of which he held in his
hand, so that it formed a loop, and caught in it the
foot of the fruitman, who consequently lost his balance
and pitched over on his back, scattering his
fruit and cakes around like the gifts of Ceres—though
certainly not making a free-will offering. On the
first moment of the fellow's confusion at his mishap
the boy made his escape, while the hackmen caught
up hastily sundry of his cakes and apples, to save him
the trouble. The moment he recovered himself they
stood with their hands in their pockets, whistling and
gazing at the steamboat which had now reached the
wharf, as if they were perfectly unconscious of his
misfortune.

Fitzhurst had just time to offer the fellow the only
consolation he could appreciate—a pecuniary consideration
for his loss, when, on glancing towards the
steamboat, which was now rapidly discharging her
passengers, he beheld his friend, Howard Pinckney.