University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
THE WILD GIRL'S CANTER.

We are sorry to admit that Mat Floyd, so recently out of the
halter, showed himself singularly indifferent to the morals of
his present career, and seemed easily reconciled, by the promise
of spoil, to a resumption of the evil practices, which, at one
moment, he had thought to have abandoned for ever, when he
abandoned the party of Lem Watkins. It is probable, indeed,
that with Nelly Floyd beside, to strengthen him in a good resolve,
he would have maintained it — for the time. But Mat
Floyd was one of those frail creatures that need the Mentor
beside them always; and, with whom the escape, for a single
moment, from the guidance of the superior, is almost a certainty
of lapse from good to evil. He was rude, wild, ignorant; not
wanting in good impulses, but terribly susceptible to the bad.
Old Rhodes, as consummate and hardened an old villain, as
ever was born for a halter, easily swayed him in the same direction
with himself, the moment the mad girl — as they all considered
or called her — was gone from sight.

And Nelly Floyd — Harricane Nell — what is the course
which she takes, on leaving the party of outlaws, with whom, it
appears, she could so little assimilate? She rides away as if
with a purpose — as if with a well-considered object in view,
and seemingly as fearless of the route as if it were broad daylight,
and the country everywhere reposed in the arms of peace.

If the most singular fearlessness of character, a masculine
decision, an intense will, and an impulse that always declared
itself without restraint — if these qualities were, in any way,
characteristic of insanity, Nelly Floyd was certainly the mad
creature whom her associates believed or asserted her to be.

But we have our doubts. Nelly was not a mere woman — not,
certainly, an ordinary one; she did not act as is the common
mode with her sex. She did a thousand things from which most
of them would shrink — said a thousand things which would
never have entered the brain of an ordinary woman to conceive,
and never gave herself much concern about that influence
which women usually find so coercive a power—“what my
neighbor thinks.” Public opinion was to her not even a name.
Her mind and heart, eminently just, never seemed to think it
necessary to submit her conduct to any other control than her
own will. This regulated her impulses, and she obeyed them.
Ordinarily, to do this, is to come in conflict with society; and
he or she who comes in conflict with society, naturally incurs
the imputation of being bad or mad. If she errs in moral,
having such impulses and obeying them, the world calls her
bad; where it can take no offence on this head, the epithet is
more indulgent — the woman is simply mad! In either case
she is in a state of outlawry — is an offender; and if she goes
unwhipt of what the world calls justice, it is rather because of
her good fortune than the world's good feeling. All of her
neighbors will agree that she deserves the lash!

Nelly Floyd's infirmity was that of the Arab. Her nature
was untameable through the usual processes. She could be
governed by affection, rather than by coercion; could be held
fettered by the sympathies, but by no other fetters. Coldness
or selfishness revolted her. Her impulses were all unselfish.
Her nature seemed superior to all common cravings. Lacking
most other ties, she loved her horse, Arab fashion — though he,
a mere pony of our swamps, called in common speech, the
“marsh tackey” — was no Arab, yet he might have had Arab
blood in him. Quien sabe? His race is traceable to the
descent of Hernan de Soto, when he sought to conquer Florida,
but where the Floridians conquered him. The stock was
Andalusian, and so, had an Arab origin. And the little beast
of Nelly Floyd, insignificant in size, and not very comely of
outline, had yet some characteristics of the descent. He was
fleet, hardy, never to be tired down, and fed on weeds, wild grasses,
the cane-top, anything — without showing any dissatisfaction
with the owner who could make no better provision for his

wants. Dismissed with a word at evening, he was brought out
of the swamp or marsh at morning, with a whistle. Very free
yet very docile, it needed but a word of Nelly to send him forward
— to restrain his motion — and, when absent, to call him
to her side. She had plaited his mane, as you see them plait
the hair of little girls in heavy links, which hung down, parted
equally on both sides of his neck. She loved to pat and talk
with the animal, and it loved to be patted and to listen; and
the two friends so grew together, that neither was quite satisfied
when the other was out of sight. And these fondnesses bestowed
upon her steed, were among the many proofs which she
gave to those about her, of an idle brain, or a deficient wit.

With the vulgar world all displays of affection are apt to be
held ridiculous. You must show yourself superior to these enfeebling
dispositions. And, if you happen to bestow your sympathies
on the infirm, or those toward whom it can not be supposed
that any policy should incline you, you are guilty of the
sublime in the absurd, showing yourself wasteful and profligate
of arts, which, used toward a superior, may be rendered very
profitable to self.

Oh! believe me, nothing can be more curious than worldly
definitions of the virtues. Enthusiasm; a frank nature; a
disregard of self; charity, love, religion; all these incur, at
some period or other, the imputation of simplicity, eccentricity,
insanity; the three regular degrees of transition in such a
progress. These simple, yet sublime virtues, constituting as
they do, the great essentials for preserving, perpetuating and
elevating human society, are yet, perpetually under the ban of
society: what is call good society ridicules them, as absurd,
weak, silly, childish; while the mulish and ignorant positively
find in them traits of madness — latent, perhaps — showing only
perversity and witlessness for a time, but to be developed by
circumstances; and so, always dangerous.

But our Nelly was yet perpetually affording other proofs to
those around her of this witless mind, this eccentric will, this
dangerous infirmity of brain and blood. We have seen what
has been her recent achievement. Old Rhodes and all his gang
pronounced it the most mad scheme in the world, the attempt
to get Mat Floyd out of the halter, with twenty men to guard

him, by a force of half-a-dozen headed by a girl. He swore a
dozen pledges to extricate the culprit on his way to the swamp,
but never made the attempt; and, but for the determined, and,
as it seemed, desperate will of the wild damsel, Mat Floyd
would have been certainly hung. But Nelly had contrived,
when Rhodes and his party were pursued by Watkins, to get
possession, and to conceal from their search, the whole of that
treasure which was the bone of struggle between the two parties.
While she held this treasure, Rhodes and his fellows
were, perforce, the subjects of her will. They knew that, unless
her will was complied with, they would never see a stiver
of the spoil; and she planned the rescue of her brother, and
effected it, as we have seen.

That, having done this, she should yet restore, of her own
free will, the stolen treasure to the refugees, was an offence that
Rhodes could not forgive. He would have scourged her from
their camp if he had dared, but her strangeness of character exercised
a certain control over even his imagination; and he too,
as well as her sister, was not wholly unprepared to acknowledge
her alleged faculty of second sight. The startling charge which
she had so wildly made against him, of the murder of an angel,
was of very impressive effect, even while he strove to laugh it
off as another proof of her madness. It startled him, as well
because of her discovery of a crime which he had supposed unknown
to all but himself, as by the curious details which she
uttered in respect to the event. The murdered victim, he knew,
had fallen among bushes, which totally concealed him from all
eyes but his own. Had she really beheld his spirit rising above
the bushes, and into the air, wearing the aspect of the murdered
youth, and pointing the eye of Heaven to his murderer? The
superstitious query troubled the thought of old Rhodes that
night, long after all the others were asleep.

It was in the utterance of pretensions such as these, that
Nelly Floyd still more certainly won for herself the imputation
of insanity. Let us do her justice. She herself urged no pretensions
as a seer. The utterance of such revelations as that to
which we refer, was usually made without premeditation. It
was a gush of speech, of which she herself seemed almost unconscious;
and she asserted nothing in behalf of the strange

power which she rather seemed to exercise than to feel. She
was simply, on such occasions, a voice, sending out the mystic
burden in her soul, or of another soul, as if with an impulse
beyond any of her own. That she thus spoke was perhaps a
sufficient reason why she should be held not altogether wise —
somewhat witless — and, perhaps, quite uncanny. Old Rhodes
was divided in his opinions whether to conceive her a mad woman
or a witch. He sometimes considered her a fool, as in the
needless surrender of the treasure to the Florida refugees; but
the shrewdness, sagacity, and forethought, which she perpetually
displayed, made him hesitate about the propriety of this epithet.
He concluded, usually, by elevating her foolish performances
into malignant ones, when he could not call them madness.

There were other proofs of insanity which Nelly Floyd continually
gave to her associates. She had little policy in her
practice. In her speech she lacked prudence. She made no
calculation in respect to the results, to herself, of what she delivered.
She expressed her surprise, her anger, her indignation,
without reserve. She had no measure in her speech when her
strange passions or sentiments found provocation to utterance.
She never scrupled to denounce the crime, the cruelty, the practice,
where it met her disapproval. She called things by plain
English names. With her, a lie was a lie, and she so proclaimed
it. To the villain she would say: “Beware! I see
the halter ready for you!” And she spoke as if she did see it;
and spoke, sometimes, in such a way as to make the wretch
fancy that he saw it too! To Rhodes himself she had always
predicted the halter.

“Beware!” she said repeatedly — “beware, Jeff Rhodes, of
what you do! Beware! You have but a little while — but a
little while! You have nearly reached the end of the lane
where there is no turn. Look up, where you are — look up,
with all your eyes — and you see a gallows. You will hang,
Jeff Rhodes — you will hang!”

These were unpleasant predictions, and they always produced
commotion in the camp. Here, but for her brother, she
would not have remained a moment. But her fears for him kept
her lingering among the outlaws, from whose association she
was ever striving to withdraw him.

“Leave these people, Mat,” she would say; “leave them!
They are all doomed. They will all hang. I see them, one
after another, as they go to the gallows. And Moll will perish
too, but not by such a death. No! — but it will not be more
merciful — her fate. I see you too, Mat — you too, with the
halter about your neck! Oh, come away in time! You will
escape, if you come out from among them. But if you stay, Mat
— if you stay, only a little while longer — you will perish on
the tree. I see it, Mat — I see it! I have long seen it!”

The prediction need not have a supernatural origin. The
lives of the outlaws; the wretched condition of the country;
the summary judgments usually executed by those having the
mere power, irrespective of the laws or of society; the universal
recklessness of human life which naturally follows a condition
of civil war — these as naturally justified the prediction, as a
mere result of human reasoning, as if it had been indicated by
a supernatural finger.

But Nelly Floyd did not speak as one who dealt in the inductive
processes. Her speech was delivered as so much evidence
— as that of one who saw — before whose eyes the future event
was even then looming up with its awful, shadowy aspects.

She was, accordingly, fearfully impressive. She startled and
made her hearers tremble for the moment. A thousand times
had Mat Floyd yielded to her warnings, and pledged himself
to make away from the gang. But the tempter soon again
wound about him with his snares; and he was involved, by his
ready impulses, and his unreasoning blood, and by the habitual
sway of Rhodes and others, in new offences, at the very moment
when he was promising to break away from the past. He
was too weak, with such a training as he had had, to be honest
or resolved; and he, too, after a while, was fain to admit, even
against his own instincts, that Nelly Floyd was a half-crazy woman.
His real feelings taught him otherwise. He felt her
superiority; but his conscience needed that he should declare
her witless, the better to escape her censures, which he could
never otherwise answer.

The reiterated expressions of all about her had, at length, the
effect of forcing upon poor Nelly herself the question of her own
sanity.

Have you ever reflected, dear reader, upon the awful emotions
which such a question must necessarily inspire in a human
bosom, when forced thus upon self-inquest? Can you conceive
its effect upon such a creature as I have described Nelly Floyd
to be — warm, affectionate, enthusiastic, eager, impulsive — having
no conventional resources — aloof, as it were, from all society
— forced to commune only with those whom she must despise
— educated in tastes, habits, feelings, and associations, all
superior to and accordingly inconsistent with her destinies in
life — a just heart, a pure mind, exquisite tastes — a subtle
fancy, a wild impulse, an extraordinary and masculine will, and
an intensity of mood which wrought upon all her faculties, so
that all, in turn, seemed qualities of fire — seemed to glow, to
burn, to elevate — and thus wore perpetually upon the mere
physique, so that she ate but little — scarcely seemed to feel
the want of food — scarcely knew limit to her physical exertion
— rode, ran, rambled, apparently without fatigue, and seemed
to rest only when in motion! Conceive the character of the
girl, then imagine for yourself the effects, upon such a nature,
of such a terrible inquiry.

It was perpetually forced upon her by others, until at length
it became a troubling and ever-present thought to herself. Riding,
walking — ever, except when in exciting action — it was
the one troublesome suggestion of doubt and anxiety. Even as
she rides now — cantering through unfrequented paths, through
great forest-stretches, upward, away from the river and the
swamp, but deep in thickets, which, in the present state of the
population, were almost as safe and silent harborages — she asks,
communing only with herself:—

“Is it true? Am I crazed? Is there insanity in my blood
and brain, as all these people tell me? Are my actions ordered
by no reason? Do I not think as other women, feel as other
women, understand as quickly, and compare and act as justly?
I know not — I know not! My poor head! If I am not already
crazed, they will make me so, if I keep with them any
longer. I must break away from them altogether, though I
leave Mat to his fate. My poor, foolish brother! And he, too
— he so foolish — so easily led away by that villain Rhodes —
he, too, calls me crazy! He sensible, and me crazy! I should

like to ask these people, if 'twere not useless, what they call
wisdom. I can answer for them. With Jeff Rhodes, it is robbery
and murder; and — I'm afraid it's pretty much the same
with the rest! As for Molly Rhodes — but no! let it pass.
She is my sister, but I do not feel it. But Mat Floyd is my
brother. I grow to him, and he, poor, foolish brother, he has
a love for me too, and he knows that what I tell him is right
and true; and yet he calls me foolish! Foolish...... and I
know nothing about the business of men! Men's business! O
God of the bright world, what a business it is to have the name
of reason! Here are a thousand men slain in a great battle,
and the wisdom of man says it is all right and proper. And
God approves, they tell you, and says: `Smite on! — strike —
slay — butcher the creature I have made in my image; do not
faint, but butcher all the day, from the rising to the setting of
the sun!' And the reason for this butchery is, that one party
should rule the other. The right to rule gives the right to
butcher. Oh! this sounds very much like reason and wisdom,
does it? They say so, but I don't see it. And here is one
who crouches beside a bush and shoots down God's angels as
they ride along the highways; and the reason for this is to be
found in the gold which the slain carries in his pocket! No!
it is clear that I can not reason as these people do. Something
in my heart and head tells me that it is all very wrong and very
horrible. And I persuade myself that I think and reason! —
that I do as a right mind should do, and feel according to the
wisdom of a right heart. Ah, if I am mistaken in all this!”

And as she rode, at a smart canter, she continued to soliloquize
after the same fashion. The habit of soliloquizing — frequently
talking with herself — thinking aloud — was one of
those which contributed also to obtain for her the imputation
of insanity. But, without reproaching her for this habit, or admitting
the propriety of this imputation as a consequence of it,
let us take advantage of her spoken thoughts. They will
probably afford us some clues to her own history as well as
character:—

“Is it because I have been schooled differently from my people
— that I have read many books — that I have heard the
speech of those who were rich, and accustomed to better things

than my people — that they showed me higher ways, and kinder
and softer ways, and taught me more gentle feelings, and made
me soft and weak like themselves? That they showed me a
class of people who were not upon the watch always to get the
better of others — to trick and cheat them — to envy the possessions
which they had not — and hate the superiority which they
could not reach!—

“And, surely, Lady Nelson was a very superior woman; and
Bettie Nelson was superior as sweet, and Sherrod Nelson — he
— oh! yes, he was superior! And how beautiful they all were
— loving each other, and speaking the truth, and ready always
to sacrifice their own pleasures and desires to please one another.
And why did they take me and teach me all these
things; and fill me with thoughts and feelings such as do not
belong to my own people? Why? What do they profit me
here? What do they prove me here? — mad, mad, mad!
Mad or very foolish. Oh! was it kind in them to train me to
this?

“And where can Lady Nelson be now? and Bettie — and —
but I must not ask after Sherrod now! What is Sherrod Nelson
to me? He, an officer in the army — the British army.
But where? The last time I heard of them they were all in
Florida — gone — driven out by the people! Why do they not
come back, now that the British are ruling in the country?
Perhaps they never will return. Oh! dear Lady Nelson, how
glad I should be to see you once again — and you, dear little
Bettie — but no! I must not think of him! I must not hope
to see Sherrod any more. To feel for him as I do, and wish
to look on him — that — that — is madness!

“I have looked on him too often. But he never saw me!
No! no! And now he's a captain in the British army, gone,
perhaps, to the West Indies, and fighting with the French!
May the good God save and spare him! May he grow great and
be loved greatly, though he may know nothing of the love which
is felt for him by the poor wild girl of Edisto, whom his mother
took into her own chamber, and taught her in her own child's
books, and made so different from her own people, that they all
consider her mad. Oh! what a life of misery it is!

“But I will not be mad! They shall not drive me to it. I

will leave them for ever. I will see them no more. I will live
quietly with poor old Mother Ford, and help her in the garden,
and help her to spin and weave, and forget that there are books,
and wise, beautiful, sweet people, who have thoughts and manners
not suited to the wild life in these lonesome woods.”

Of these glimpses of her past, which she gives us in this rambling
manner, we know nothing more. Of the Lady Nelson —
in that day in America, it was customary to call the wives of
very wealthy and distinguished persons by this title — of Bettie,
and Sherrod Nelson, we hear from her lips for the first time. But
we can follow these clues sufficiently to form some idea of the
peculiar education of the orphan-girl, in the hands of a liberal,
wealthy, and enlightened patronage.

Nelly Floyd rode on, burying herself more deeply in the
forest than before, yet pursuing, all the while, a little Indian
trail, with which her pony seems quite familiar. She gave him
the reins, and never seemed to regulate or heed his progress,
until he brought her to a little low worm fence, deep in the
woods, surrounding a small log cottage. Seen in the imperfect
light of the stars, it was one of the most humble of fabrics —
at once very small and very rude of construction.

Nelly cantered round the house to its rear — took off a small
sack which she had carried before her — took off saddle and
bridle, then dismissed the horse, in so many words, as if he
understood every syllable:—

“Go now, Aggy, until I want you in the morning.”

And she patted neck and head, and sent the beast off with
a gentle slap, which he seemed to take as a further proof of
affection: for he lifted his ears and head, rubbed his nose
against her cheek, and, with a lively whinny, scampered off
into the well-known thickets.

“He doesn't think me mad,” said the wild girl as she bounded
over the fence, having first laid within it the sack, saddle and
bridle. Taking the former up in her hands, she approached the
hovel, to which she brought, finally, all her trappings, and laid
them down in a very rickety piazza.

The rude little fabric lay in darkness. All was silent. The
girl rapped at the door and called out:—

“It's me, mother. It's Nelly Floyd.”

“Ah, Nelly, I had a-most given you up,” was the salutation
of Mother Ford, within, as she undid the fastenings of the
door. “What kept you so late? You'll git into trouble some
of these nights, when you're a riding in the dark so late.”

“Oh! who's to trouble me, mother?”

“Well, I don't know, but these awful sodgers a skirring about
for plunder all the time, they're not the easiest folks to manage
when you meet 'em. And you a young gal creature too.”

“Oh! never you fear. I'm quick to see, mother, and a sharp
rider; and, little as he is, it takes a quick horse to get ahead
of Aggy. Besides, I've nothing to plunder. I've brought you
a sack of potatoes, mother, as it's pretty hard feeding everywhere
just now.”

“And thank you, too, my child. I'm sometimes hard run
for a bite, and ef 'twa'n't for them Halliday children, I'm afeard
I'd sometimes be in a broad road to starvation. There's a-most
nothing in the garden. The potatoes ha'n't turned out nothing,
and ain't likely to turn out nothing, and the corn kain't be got
ground easy, except when young Halliday gits a chaince to go
to mill. I've been forced to eat big hominy for the last ten
days.”

“And not such bad eating either, mother,” said the girl.
“But I'll work for you, and see if we can't put the garden in
order. I've come to stay with you for awhile, and see what
can be done. I'm strong, you know, and can hoe the corn, and
gather the peas, and do a little spinning and weaving for you,
and ride to mill too, when there's need of it. Between me and
Aggy, we shall get you a good sack of grist before the week's
out.”

“I thank you, my child. I know you're willing, and you're
strong too, but you ain't quite up to the notion of real hard work.
I reckon your book-learning has sp'iled you a little for that.”

“Never you believe it, mother.” And the wild girl could
not but think, at the moment, of the curious horror of book-learning,
and the strong tendency to disparage it, which is a too
common characteristic of the ignorant. Envy, by the way, has
not a little to do with this tendency.

“Never you believe it, mother. It hasn't weakened me in
body, and it hasn't made my mind less willing.”

“But your fingers ain't quite so spry and quick at the labors
of common people.”

“You think not, mother!” and the girl laughed out merrily,
as the memory suddenly flashed over her thought, reminding
her of the dexterity with which, that very night, her hands had
cut down a man from the gallows; an adventure from which all
but herself had shrunk.

“Why what do you laugh at so, Nelly? What tickles you?”

“Oh! nothing, mother; but I wonder what poor Mat Floyd
would say if you were to speak to him so slightingly of my
fingers, and what they can do.”

“Why, what would he say, Nelly, and why do you call him
poor Mat?”

“Ah! don't ask me, mother. Mat's poor enough, and I'm
poor enough, and we're all poor enough, and Heaven knows
whether we shall any of us be any better off than we are. If
we are not worse it will be a mercy! Poor Mat will break my
heart, mother, for I can't get him away from those people.
They are marching him to the gallows, step by step, and the
boy sees nothing. Oh! mother, it's enough to drive me mad.”

“Stay a bit, child, till I fling a few more knots of lightwood
upon the fire, we shall be in the dark presently; and I always
likes to see the face of a person when I'm a speaking to 'em,
or hearing them speak. It seems to enlighten a body as to
the true sense of what the person is a saying. Stay a bit,
Nelly.”

“Let me do it, mother.”

“No, Nelly, it's jest as easy for me.”

But Nelly had already performed the task. She knew where
the lightwood lay, in a box in a corner of the hovel, and in a
moment, the feeble flicker of light in the fireplace, from brands
nearly burned down, was exchanged for a rich, cheering blaze,
such as, in those days when gas was not — good fat lightwood
only could afford. The room — the only one in the cabin —
fairly lightened up in all its recesses, unveils itself, with all its
petty and poor possessions fully to our eyes. Let us look around
us, for, in those days, just such hovels sheltered hundreds
and thousands of those pioneers of civilization, who had been
gradually spreading away from the Atlantic for the Apalachian,

and only stopping short when within sight of the gloomy heights
of the red men of Cherokee. Just such a hovel as that of
Mother Ford, formed house and fortress for the scattered borderers
of the southern interior, from the waters of the Potomac
to those of the Altamaha — from the ranges of Powhatan, to
those of Atta Kulla-Kulla!