Charlemont; Or, The Pride of the Village Part 38

"You'll promise me, Ned?"

"Sure as a snag in the forehead of a Mississippi steamer. Depend upon me."

"But there must be no quarrelling with Stevens either, Ned."

"Look you, gran'pa, if I'm to quarrel with Stevens or anybody else, 'twouldn't be your pistols in my pocket that would make me set on, and 'twouldn't be the want of 'em that would make me stop. When it's my cue to fight, look you, I won't need any prompter, in the shape of friend or pistol. Now THAT speech is from one of your poets, pretty near, and ought to convince you that you may as well lend the puppies and say no more about it. If you don't you'll only compel me to carry my rifle, and that'll be something worse to an enemy, and something heavier for me.

Come, come, gran'pa, don't be too scrupulous in your old age. YOUR HAVING them is a sufficient excuse for MY HAVING them too. It shows that they ought to be had."

"You're logic-chopping this morning, Ned--see that you don't get to man-chopping in the afternoon. You shall have the pistols, but do not use them rashly. I have kept them simply for defence against invasion; not for the purpose of quarrel, or revenge."

"And you've kept them mighty well, gran'pa," replied the young man, as he contemplated with an eye of anxious admiration, the polish of the steel barrels, the nice carving of the handles, and the fantastic but graceful inlay of the silver-mounting and setting. The old man regarded him with a smile.

"Yes, Ned, I've kept them well. They have never taken life, though they have been repeatedly tried upon bull's eye and tree-bark. If you will promise me not to use them to-day, Ned, you shall have them."

"Take 'em back, gran'pa."

"Why?"

"Why, I'd feel the meanest in the world to have a weapon, and not use it when there's a need to do so; and I'm half afraid that the temptation of having such beautiful puppies for myself--twin-puppies, I may say--having just the same look out of the eyes, and just the same spots and marks, and, I reckon, just the same way of giving tongue--I'm half afraid, I say, that to get to be the owner of them, might tempt me to stand quiet and let a chap wink at me--maybe laugh outright--may be suck in his breath, and give a phew-phew-whistle just while I'm pa.s.sing! No!

no! gran'pa, take back your words, or take back your puppies. Won't risk to carry both. I'd sooner take Patsy Rifle, with all her weight, and no terms at all."

"Pshaw, Ned, you're a fool."

"That's no news, gran'pa, to you or me. But it don't alter the case. Put up your puppies."

"No, Ned; you shall have them on your own terms. Take 'em as they are. I give them to you."

"And I may shoot anybody I please this afternoon, gran'pa?"

"Ay, ay, Ned--; anybody--"

Thus far the old man, when he stopped himself, changed his manner, which was that of playful good-humor, to that of gravity, while his tones underwent a corresponding change--

"But, Ned, my son, while I leave it to your discretion, I yet beg you to proceed cautiously--seek no strife, avoid it--go not into the crowd--keep from them where you see them drinking, and do not use these or any weapons for any trifling provocation. Nothing but the last necessity of self-preservation justifies the taking of life."

"Gran'pa--thank you--you've touched me in the very midst of my tender-place, by this handsome present. One of these puppies I'll name after you, and I'll notch it on the b.u.t.t. The other I'll call Bill Hinkley, and I won't notch that. Yours, I'll call my pacific puppy, and I'll use it only for peace-making purposes. The other I'll call my bull-pup, and him I'll use for baiting and b.u.t.ting, and goring. But, as you beg, I promise you I'll keep 'em both out of mischief as long as I can. Be certain sure that it won't be my having the pups that'll make me get into a skrimmage a bit the sooner; for I never was the man to ask whether my dogs were at hand before I could say the word, 'set-on!' It's a sort of nature in a man that don't stop to look after his weapons, but naturally expects to find 'em any how, when his blood's up, and there's a necessity to do."

This long speech and strong a.s.surance of his pacific nature and purposes, did not prevent the speaker from making, while he spoke, certain dextrous uses of the instrument's which were given into his hands. Right and left were equally busy; one muzzle was addressed to the candle upon the mantelpiece, the other pursued the ambulatory movements of a great black spider upon the wall. The old man surveyed him with an irrepressible smile. Suddenly interrupting himself the youth exclaimed:--

"Are they loaded, gran'pa?"

He was answered in the negative.

"Because, if they were," said he, "and that great black spider was Brother Stevens, I'd show you in the twinkle of a musquito, how I'd put a finish to his morning's work. But I'd use the bull-pup, gran'pa--see, this one--the pacific one I'd empty upon him with powder only, as a sort of feu de joie--and then I'd set up the song--what's it? ah! Te Deum. A black spider always puts me in mind of a rascal."

CHAPTER x.x.x.

THE FOX IN THE TRAP.

The youth barely stopped to swallow his breakfast, when he set off from the village. He managed his movements with considerable caution; and, fetching a circuit from an opposite quarter, after having ridden some five miles out of his way, pa.s.sed into the road which he suspected that Stevens would pursue. We do not care to show the detailed processes by which he arrived at this conclusion. The reader may take for granted that he had heard from some way-side farmer, that a stranger rode by his cottage once a week, wearing such and such breeches, and mounted upon a nag of a certain color and with certain qualities. Enough to say, that Ned Hinkley was tolerably certain of his route and man.

He sped on accordingly--did not once hesitate at turns, right or left, forks and crossroads, but keeping an inflexible course, he placed himself at such a point on the road as to leave it no longer doubtful, should Stevens pa.s.s, of the place which usually brought him up. Here he dismounted, hurried his horse, out of sight and hearing, into the woods, and choosing a position for himself, with some nicety, along the road-side, put himself in close cover, where, stretching his frame at length, he commenced the difficult labor of cooling his impatience with his cogitations.

But cogitating, with a fellow of his blood, rather whets impatience.

He was monstrous restiff. At his fishing pond, with a trout to hook, he would have lain for hours, as patient as philosophy itself, and as inflexible as the solid rock over which he brooded. But without an angle at his hand, how could he keep quiet? Not by thinking, surely; and, least of all, by thinking about that person for whom his hostility was so active. Thinking of Stevens, by a natural a.s.sociation, reminded him of the pistols which Calvert had given him. Nothing could be more natural than to draw them from his bosom. Again and again he examined them in fascinated contemplation. He had already charged them, and he amused himself by thinking of the mischief he could do, by a single touch upon the trigger, to a poor little wood-rat, that once or twice ran along a decaying log some five steps from his feet. But his object being secrecy, the rat brushed his whiskers in safety. Still he amused himself by aiming at this and other objects, until suddenly reminded of the very important difference which he had promised Calvert to make between the pistols in his future use of them. With this recollection he drew out his knife, and laid the weapons before him.

"This," said he, after a careful examination, in which he fancied he discovered some slight difference between them in the hang of the trigger--"this shall be my bull-pup--this my peace-maker!"

The latter was marked accordingly with a "P," carved rudely enough by one whose hand was much more practised in slitting the weasand of a buck, than in cutting out, with crayon, or Italian crow-quill, the ungainly forms of the Roman alphabet. Ned Hinkley shook his head with some misgiving when the work was done; as he could not but see that he had somewhat impaired the beauty of the peacemaker's b.u.t.t by the hang-dog looking initial which he had grafted upon it. But when he recollected the subordinate uses to which this "puppy" was to be put, and considered how unlikely, in his case, it would be exposed to sight in comparison with its more masculine brother, he grew partially reconciled to an evil which was now, indeed, irreparable.

It does not require that we should bother the reader with the numberless thoughts and fancies which bothered our spy, in the three mortal hours in which he kept his watch. Nothing but the hope that he should ultimately be compensated to the utmost by a full discovery of all that he sought to know, could possibly have sustained him during the trying ordeal. At every new spasm of impatience which he felt, he drew up his legs, shifted from one side to the other and growled out some small thunder in the shape of a threat that "it would be only so much the worse for him when the time came!" HIM--meaning Stevens.

At last Stevens came. He watched the progress of his enemy with keen eyes; and, with his "bull-pup" in his hand, which a sort of instinct made him keep in the direction of the highway, he followed his form upon the road. When he was out of sight and hearing, the spy jumped to his feet. The game, he felt, was secure now--in one respect at least.

"He's for Ellisland. That was no bad guess then. He might have been for Fergus, or Jonesboro', or Debarre, but there's no turn now in the clear track to Ellisland. He's there for certain."

Ned Hinkley carefully restored his pistols to his bosom and b.u.t.toned up.

He was mounted in a few moments, and pressing slowly forward in pursuit.

He had his own plans which we will not attempt to fathom; but we fear we shall be compelled to admit that he was not sufficiently a gentleman to scruple at turning scout in a time of peace (though, with him, by the way, and thus he justified, he is in pursuit of an enemy, and consequently is at war), and dodging about, under cover, spying out the secrets of the land, and not very fastidious in listening to conversation that does not exactly concern him. We fear that there is some such flaw in the character of Ned Hinkley, though, otherwise, a good, hardy fellow--with a rough and tumble sort of good nature, which, having bloodied your nose, would put a knife-handle down your back, and apply a handful of cobwebs to the nasal extremity in order to arrest the haemorrhage. We are sorry that there is such a defect in his character; but we did not put it there. We should prefer that he should be perfect--the reader will believe us--but there are grave lamentations enough over the failures of humanity to render our homilies unnecessary.

Ned Hinkley was not a gentleman, and the only thing to be said in his behalf, is, that he was modest enough to make pretensions to the character. As he once said in a row the company muster:--

"I'm blackguard enough, on this occasion, to whip e'er a gentleman among you!"

Without any dream of such a spectre at his heels to disturb his imagination, Alfred Stevens was pursuing his way toward Ellisland, at that easy travelling gait, which is the best for man and beast, vulgarly called a "dog-trot." Some very fine and fanciful people insist upon calling it a "jog-trot." We beg leave, in this place, to set them right. Every trot is a jog, and so, for that matter, is every canter. A dog-trot takes its name from the even motion of the smaller quadruped, when it is seized with no particular mania, and is yet disposed to go stubbornly forward. It is in more cla.s.sical dialect, the festina lente motion. It is regularly forward, and therefore fast--it never puts the animal out of breath, and is therefore slow. n.o.body ever saw a dog practice this gait, with a tin canister at his tail, and a huddle of schoolboys at his heels. No! it is THE travelling motion, considering equally the health of all parties, and the necessity of getting on.

In this desire, Ned Hinkley pressed too closely on the heels of Stevens.

He once nearly overhauled him; and falling back, he subdued his speed, to what, in the same semi-figurative language, he styled "the puppy-trot." Observing these respective gaits, Brother Stevens rode into Ellisland at a moderately late dinner-hour, and the pursuer followed at an unspeakable, but not great, distance behind him. We will, henceforward, after a brief glance at Ellisland, confine ourselves more particularly to the progress of Brother Stevens.

Ellisland was one of those little villages to which geographers scarcely accord a place upon the maps. It is not honored with a dot in any map that we have ever seen of Kentucky. But, for all this, it is a place!

Some day the name will be changed into Acarnania or Etolia, Epirus or Scandinavia, and then be sure you shall hear of it. Already, the village lawyers--there are two of them--have been discussing the propriety of a change to something cla.s.sical; and we do not doubt that, before long, their stupidity will become infectious. Under these circ.u.mstances Ellisland will catch a name that will stick. At present you would probably never hear of the place, were it not necessary to our purposes and those of Brother Stevens.

It has its tavern and blacksmith shop--its church--the meanest fabric in the village--its postoffice and public well and trough. There is also a rack pro bono publico, but as it is in front of the tavern, the owner of that establishment has not wholly succeeded in convincing the people that it was put there with simple reference to the public convenience.

The tavern-keeper is, politically, a quadrupled personage. He combines the four offices of post-master, justice of the peace, town council, and publican; and is considered a monstrous small person with all. The truth is, reader--this aside--he has been democrat and whig, alternately, every second year of his political life. His present politics, being loco-foco, are in Ellisland considered contra bonos mores. It is hoped that he will be dismissed from office, and a memorial to that effect is in preparation; but the days of Harrison--"and Tyler too"--have not yet come round, and Jerry Sunderland, who knows what his enemies are driving at, whirls his coat-skirts, and snaps his fingers, in scorn of all their machinations. He has a friend at Washington, who spoons in the back parlor of the white-house--in other words, is a member o f the kitchen-cabinet, of which, be it said, en pa.s.sant, there never was a president of the United States yet entirely without one--and--there never will be! So much for politics and Ellisland.

There was some crowd in the village on the day of Brother Stevens's arrival. Sat.u.r.day is a well known day in the western and southern country for making a village gathering; and when Brother Stevens, having hitched his horse at the public rack, pushed his way to the postoffice, he had no small crowd to set aside. He had just deposited his letters, received others in return, answered some ten or fifteen questions which Jerry Sunderland, P. M., Q. U., N. P., M. C., publican and sinner--such were all deservedly his t.i.tles--had thought it necessary to address to him, when he was suddenly startled by a familiar tap upon the shoulder; such a tap as leads the recipient to imagine that he is about to be honored with the affectionate salutation of some John Doe or Richard Roe of the law. Stevens turned with some feeling of annoyance, if not misgiving, and met the arch, smiling, and very complacent visage of a tall, slender young gentleman in black bushy whiskers and a green coat, who seized him by the hand and shook it heartily, while a chuckling half-suppressed laughter gurgling in his throat, for a moment, forbade the attempt to speak. Stevens seemed disquieted and looked around him suspiciously.

"What! you here, Ben?"

"Ay, you see me! You didn't expect to see me, Warham---"