University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

We were on our way from Philadelphia to Baltimore,
in the beautiful month of May, 1814; our boat
crowded with passengers, the oddest collection you
ever saw, and the British lying not far off in considerable
force; and yet, so assured were we of our ability to
escape, as not even to be kept awake by our dangerous
neighborhood. The war, chess, politics, flirting,
pushpin, tetotum, and jackstraws, (cards being prohibited,)
newspapers and religious tracts, had all been
tried, and all in vain to relieve the insipidity of a
pleasant passage, and keep off the drowsiness that
weighed upon our spirits like the rich overloaded
atmosphere of a spice-island, breathing about a soft
summer sea. Even the huge negroes felt and enjoyed
the delicious warmth, as they lay stretched out, heads
and points, over the piles of split wood, with their fat
shiny faces turned up to the sky, and their broad feet
stiffening in the shadow.

The smooth, steady, uninterrupted motion of our
way—it was like one long continued launch—with
the soft sleepy blue overhead, and the still softer
and sleepier wave underneath, would have been too
much for the wakefulness of any body alive, but a
thief-taker on the scent of his prey—or a reader of
some such book as—as—as I intend this to be.

Yaw—aw—aw! I wonder what o'clock 'tis now?
drawled a man who lay stretched out on no less than
five differen' chairs, in a spot which glowed like the

reflection of a furnace-mouth upon a white-washed
wall; with a yellow handkerchief drawn over his face,
and a hat fixed under his head—Yaw—aw—aw! never
seed sich weather afore since I cum inter the world;
I swan if I did!

The remark was probably intended for me, though
directed to nobody in particular—merely thrown out,
as a lawyer would say—after the manner of people
who want to be familiar without the risk of being
snubbed. I had been dusting the face of my watch a
moment before, and laughing with a pretty little
quakeress, who sat near me, at the perverse ingenuity
of this very man, who had lost his own shadow for
the twentieth time at least, while pursuing it blindfolded,
with his hat pulled over his eyes, and a bandanna
over his mouth. But I told him the hour, nevertheless.

Thee appears to be a stranger in these parts, added
a venerable man, who sat on the other side of the little
quakeress, in a Philadelphia coat and a snuff-colored
beaver; stooping toward me as he spoke, so that a
sprinkle of white hair—the whitest and thinnest I ever
saw, blew athwart her upturned eyes—I could just see
their color through it—they were as like the sky as
any earthly thing could well be—just about as blue,
and just about as clear—starry, with a white mist flying
over them.

I bowed, and was on the point of replying at length,
after the fashion of my country, when there are plenty
of chairs within reach of our arms and legs, like one
of those figures which painters draw from the points
made by five bits of paper, dropped together upon a
table; when a stiff, straight, bony-looking Down

Easter, with a straw hat, high cheek-bones, a nose like
a sun-dial, and the sharpest mouth you ever saw in a
domesticated Yankee, who had been galloping about
the deck for two hours at full speed, with his new coat
sleeves pushed half way up the elbow, (as if he had
just prepared to wash himself) so as to betray
a cotton shirt with linen wristbands, and large brass
sleeve-buttons; his collar turned back, and his shirtbosom
all open to the waist,—made a full stop in front
and addressed me as follows—looking another
way all the time. If he is a stranger in these parts, I
can tell him he'd better have his eye-teeth cut afore
he's much older; if he don't (lowering his voice to a
sort of whistle, and puckering up his mouth into the
oddest of all possible shapes for a mouth, stooping over,
turning up one foot sideways, and beginning to count
the stitches in the shoe,) if he don't shave putty nigh
the grinstun, somebody 't he's ben so ter'ble thick with
'll show him what's what, afore he's done with him—
ketch a weazle asleep, hey? (cocking his eye at me,)
wish his cake dough; if he don't there's none o' me,
that's all.

Pray sir, said I, in no little trepidation, I confess;
for I saw by his look what no mortal would have
gathered from his speech, that I had something to
fear,—Pray, sir, if you mean me, what is the danger
you speak of?

Instead of replying—he blew a long breath, pulled
down his sleeves, pulled 'em up, looked at my watch
and then at the old quaker; shifted his feet; blew another
long breath; and then set off with more energy
than ever—walking away as if he had a wager in view,
swinging the tail of his queer-shaped coat, which he

had now thrown back half off his shoulders, first one
side and then the other, at every step he took; now
fanning himself with all his might, and now shading
his face with a ragged newspaper; treading the deck
as if he would go through whap into the seller, as he
called it, where they keep the sarse aboard-ship; and
flirting a new pocket handkerchief after the manner of
most Americans and of all New-Englanders, now this
way and now that, now drawing it through his hand
and now flourishing it in the breeze, till every thing
was in motion about him—leaves, pamphlets, dust,
ribbons, and newspapers.

A pretty way for a body to keep himself cool, said
I, in what I meant for a confidential whisper to the
dear little creature at my elbow,—who let fall her dark
lashes in a hurry, half averted her face in reply, and
bit her under lip.

Too drowsy by half, thought I, and rather too stiff
on the whole, for hot-weather companionship aboard
a steamboat; and looking at her again, I thought her
eyes did not appear quite so blue, nor altogether so
transparent as they had a few minutes before, when she
was inclined to be more sociable; and turning away
from her in somewhat of a huff, I observed a handsome
young man a little way off lounging over the quarterrail
with his hat off, and a mass of black hair, of unshorn
plumage rather, as black as death, and glossy
with strange brightness-floating off and rising and falling
over his temples at every pitch of the boat, as if
stirred and lifted by a strong sea-breeze. Whether
he saw her, I do not know—nor whether he knew
her—but her eye was upon him, and I could see her
mouth tremble, and the delicate lawn over her young

bosom shiver, as he turned away. And then, happening
to shift my place, I observed the fellow who lay
stretched out his whole length upon half a score of
cane chairs without backs, with his head lifted up
and resting on his elbow—and his face turning after
me—as if instead of being asleep, he had placed
himself there for no purpose on earth but to observe
my motions. I recollected him now—he had stuck to
my side—saying nothing, doing nothing from the first
moment I happened to pull out my watch below; with
all his legs and arms stretched out here and there over
the costly furniture, as if they had been all shipwrecked
together; one leg lying across a superb mahogany
table, another bent over the top of a tilted chair, and
one elbow finding its way slowly—slowly but surely—
through the bottom of a cane-wrought sofa, which he
had contrived to fix up aslant behind him. At this moment
the handkerchief slipped down from his eyes,
and I found him watching me like a cat. At first
I felt rather uneasy; but then, what had I to fear?
The fellow was evidently a down-easter; and therefore,
incapable of any thing that would bring him
within the grasp of the law. Finding that he was observed,
he stretched himself out, gaped like a tame
lioness for half a minute or so, and then turning away,
went to sleep with his back toward me.

A full quarter of an hour after this, when I had entirely
forgotten the man, the handsome stranger, the
little quakeress, and myself—dignity and all, and was
occupied with a strange tumultuous revery, which
came up, and moved before me like a vision of the
future, and which has turned out since to be prophecy—
I heard a bell ring—a slight bustle midships—and then

boat lurched, and all at once we lay motionless
our upon the slope of the sea. Some of our
machinery was out of order for the first time;
and though the greatest exertions were made, on account
of our dear friends, the British, who were all
abroad over the Chesapeake, we lost nearly five hours
by the delay. During this period, the youthful stranger
with the black hair, entered into conversation
with the old quaker, and continued it so long and so
earnestly, that I had the finest opportunity in the world
for surveying his face. I think I never saw a finer mouth,
more luminous eyes, nor a more exalted, intelligent
countenance, take it altogether. Animated, fiery and
changeable—with a dash of haughty seriousness, and
what I should call sorrow in another—a sort of proud
melancholy, that could not bear to be approached or
questioned,—it fixed my attention from the first, and
absolutely fascinated the poor girl; for though the
conversation did not appear to be intended for her,
and was conducted in a very low voice, I could perceive
that she heard it all, and was deeply interested
in the subject, whatever it was. Her half-opened lips,
her eager attitude—her occasional change of color,
and her low suppressed breathing, betrayed her.
Never shall I forget the altered expression of her
sweet sober child-like face! It began to light up
with a look of womanhood, all alive with a new interest
and a new energy. And yet, so far as I could see,
and I had watched them both very narrowly above an
hour, they were strangers to each other; and the
young man did not even look at her, nor she at him.
But there they sat—he talking to the old man as about
a matter of life and death; and she with her face turned
away, and her blue eyes fixed upon the far shore,
as if the agitation of her whole frame, down to the
little finger-ends that were tapping the rail near me,
had been caused by something there.

While I was watching her, with the deepest attention—feeling
toward her, and pitying her, as if she
were a beloved sister, and greatly in need of a brother's
care; the queer fellow who had accosted me before,
and who still kept marching to and fro the whole
length of the deck, and clearing a passage for himself
at every sweep of his coat tail, wide enough to allow
three ordinary men to walk abreast, now made another
stop full before me, and turning toward the father,
while he kept his eye on something overboard—I say!
says he; and having secured our attention, he proceeded—I
say tho'! if he don't sleep with one eye
open as I said afore, which I never like to meddle
with other folks's business, there's a chap taint fur off
'll git a swop out o' his hide yit—slick as a whistle;
I vum if he don't!

You know consider'ble don't ye? said the other,
whom we had all supposed to be asleep for the last
hour; lifting his head quietly off the chair, pulling
away the handkerchief from his mouth, just far enough
to allow a squirt of tobacco spittle to escape through
his shut teeth, and eying the speaker with a good natured
leer Whereupon the first, turning slowly toward
him without appearing at all disconcerted, though
evidently taken by surprise, began to eye him in return,
inch by inch, as if he were taking an inventory of
his features and dress; and having finished the survey,
he puckered up his mouth, flung out one of his huge
feet as far it would go, and then put forth a question,

as usual down-east, by way of reply. There is no
describing his look or manner; both must be left to
the reader's imagination after all, if he has never happened
to see a live Yankee about to engage another at
a game of poke-fun, as they call it where it flourishes
most. Didn't you never hear tell o' them air creuked
sticks they cut away down-east—so creuked they
wun't lay still—hey?

To this something was said, which I did not distinctly
understand, though it appeared to go to the
right place, and set two or three of the bystanders a
laughing.

Wal! retorted the other; you aint long for this
world, I swan! judgin' by your tongue, as they do in
the gab fever.

Not long for this world! retorted his antagonist;
getting under way rather slowly, then drawing himself
out like a portable fishing-rod or a telescope, and
stretching himself up to his full stature—gaping and
throwing both arms abroad as far as he could reach,
like one of anthropophagi after flies—longer 'n yourself
tho' by an inch and a half—and then with a look
which every body followed with his eye, though
nobody ventured to smile, he added—leavin' out noses

Not by two chalks! retorted his antagonist, tapping
the handle of his own visage as he spoke, to show
that he understood him; tho' if you had all the kinks
pulled out o' your carcase, your ears buttoned back,
and a bladder hauled over your mouth accordin' to
law, instead o' that air flashy handercher, you'd be
ever so much longer than ye air now, an' wuth more
too, by a pocky tarnal sight. I'd give as much agin
for ye—with the bristles off.

This was too much for the gravity of my quaker
friends, though the handsome stranger appeared to
enjoy it most. The old man looked up with a smile of
subdued amazement, I laughed till my sides ached,
the fair girl (she proved to be his grand-daughter at
last) sat looking sideways at the two down-easters,
and struggled to suppress her mirth, till the tears
ran down her cheeks; while they interchanged a look
of triumph with certain of the bystanders, and then
separated—one betaking himself more zealously than
ever, and with the most self-satisfied air in the world,
to his journeying fore and aft the deck, pretending not
to know that he was a subject of admiration to every
body near; while the other, as if equally satisfied
with the issue, having folded his large yellow bandanna
into a new shape, threw himself limb by limb
over the five chairs, pretending to fall asleep again
directly, in spite of the attention he received from two
or three mischievous young dogs, who wanted to keep
them in play.

Again the conversation was renewed between the
the stranger and the old man; but in a very low voice
and with a manner that indicated extraordinary interest
in both; and at last I heard the latter say—Thy
notions are now to me, and I should be glad of a
further acquaintance when we arrive at Baltimore—
or if thee should ever come to Philadelphia—what
may I call thy name?

Middleton, sir—

And thy other name?

Gerard, sir—Gerard Middleton; bowing with his
large troubled eyes fixed upon the daughter for the
first time—and looking as if he would look her

through, and read her very heart without being observed
by me or the grandfather. I saw instantly that
they had met before—and yet she stood it bravely—I
will say that for her—bravely, considering her youth
and her gentleness. A mere child in years, and looking
as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth; and yet, there
she sat perfectly still, and suffered him to pore into the
lighted depth of her own dear eyes, without flinching
or trembling or dropping the lids; and then all at once,
when the trial was over, and he withdrew, partially
abashed I thought from the encounter, she recollected
herself, turned away, and blushed to her finger-ends.
The next time I saw her, she was very pale, and her
lashes were wet with tears.

Another bell—to remind us of our passage-money;
and having run forward to see what the matter was, I
did not immediately return; and when I did—but that
will do for another chapter,