Guy Rivers Part 7

"The blood's in him--the Yankee will be Yankee still," was the muttered speech of the lawyer, as he prepared to encounter the returning rioters.

CHAPTER VII.

THE YANKEE OUTWITS THE LAWYER.

It was at this moment that Forrester entered the tavern-hall; curious to know the result of the trial, from which his attendance upon Ralph had unavoidably detained him. The actors of the drama were in better humor than before, and uproarious mirth had succeeded to ferocity. They were all in the very excess of self-glorification; for, though somewhat disappointed of their design, and defrauded of the catastrophe, they had nevertheless done much, according to their own judgment, and enough, perhaps, in that of the reader, for the purposes of justice. The work of mischief had been fully consummated; and though, to their notion, still somewhat incomplete from the escape of the pedler himself, they were in great part satisfied--some few among them, indeed--and among these our quondam friend Forrester may be included--were not sorry that Bunce had escaped the application of the personal tests which had been contemplated for his benefit; for, however willing, it was somewhat doubtful whether they could have been altogether able to save him from the hands of those having a less scrupulous regard to humanity.

The sudden appearance of Forrester revived the spirit of the transaction, now beginning somewhat to decline, as several voices undertook to give him an account of its progress. The lawyer was in his happiest mood, as things, so far, had all turned out as he expected. His voice was loudest, and his oratory more decidedly effective than ever.

The prospect before him was also of so seductive a character, that he yielded more than was his wont to the influences of the bottle-G.o.d: who stood little iron-hooped keg, perched upon a shelf conveniently in the corner.

"Here Cuffee, you thrice-blackened baby of Beelzebub!--why stand you there, arms akimbo, and showing your ivories, when you see we have no whiskey! Bring in the jug, you imp of darkness--touch us the Monongahela, and a fresh tumbler for Mr. Forrester--and, look you, one too for Col. Blundell, seeing he's demolished the other. Quick, you terrapin!"

Cuffee recovered himself in an instant. His hands fell to his sides--his mouth closed intuitively; and the whites of his eyes changing their fixed direction, marshalled his way with a fresh jug, containing two or more quarts, to the rapacious lawyer.

"Ah, you blackguard, that will do--now, Mr. Forrester--now, Col.

Blundell--don't be slow--no backing out, boys--hey, for a long drink to the stock in trade of our friend the pedler."

So spoke Pippin; a wild huzza attested the good humor which the proposition excited. Potation rapidly followed potation, and the jug again demanded replenishing. The company was well drilled in this species of exercise; and each individual claiming caste in such circle, must be well prepared, like the knight-challenger of old tourney, to defy all comers. In the cases of Pippin and Blundell, successive draughts, after the attainment of a certain degree of mental and animal stolidity, seemed rather to fortify than to weaken their defences, and to fit them more perfectly for a due prolongation of the warfare. The appet.i.te, too, like most appet.i.tes, growing from what it fed on, ventured few idle expostulations; gla.s.s after gla.s.s, in rapid succession, fully attested the claim of these two champions to the renown which such exercises in that section of the world had won for them respectively. The subject of conversation, which, in all this time, accompanied their other indulgences, was, very naturally, that of the pedler and his punishment. On this topic, however, a professional not less than personal policy sealed the lips of our lawyer except on those points which admitted of a general remark, without application or even meaning. Though drunk, his policy was that of the courts; and the practice of the sessions had served him well, in his own person, to give the lie to the "_in vino veritas_" of the proverb.

Things were in this condition when the company found increase in the person of the landlord, who now made his appearance; and, as we intend that he shall be no unimportant auxiliary in the action of our story, it may be prudent for a few moments to dwell upon the details of his outward man, and severally to describe his features. We have him before us in that large, dark, and somewhat heavy person, who sidles awkwardly into the apartment, as if only conscious in part of the true uses of his legs and arms. He leans at this moment over the shoulders of one of the company, and, while whispering in his ears, at the same time, with an upward glance, surveys the whole. His lowering eyes, almost shut in and partially concealed by his scowling and bushy eyebrows, are of a quick gray, stern, and penetrating in their general expression, yet, when narrowly observed, putting on an air of vacancy, if not stupidity, that furnishes a perfect blind to the lurking meaning within. His nose is large, yet not disproportionately so; his head well made, though a phrenologist might object to a strong animal preponderance in the rear; his mouth bold and finely curved, is rigid however in its compression, and the lips, at times almost woven together, are largely indicative of ferocity; they are pale in color, and dingily so, yet his flushed cheek and brow bear striking evidence of a something too frequent revel; his hair, thin and scattered, is of a dark brown complexion and sprinkled with gray; his neck is so very short that a single black handkerchief, wrapped loosely about it, removes all seeming distinction between itself and the adjoining shoulders--the latter being round and uprising, forming a socket, into which the former appears to fall as into a designated place. As if more effectually to complete the unfavorable impression of such an outline, an ugly scar, partly across the cheek, and slightly impairing the integrity of the left nostril, gives to his whole look a sinister expression, calculated to defeat entirely any neutralizing or less objectionable feature. His form--to conclude the picture--is constructed with singular power; and though not symmetrical, is far from ungainly. When impelled by some stirring motive, his carriage is easy, without seeming effort, and his huge frame throws aside the sluggishness which at other times invests it, putting on a habit of animated exercise, which changes the entire appearance of the man.

Such was Walter, or, as he was there more familiarly termed Wat Munro.

He took his seat with the company, with the ease of one who neither doubted nor deliberated upon the footing which he claimed among them. He was not merely the publican of his profession, but better fitted indeed for perhaps any other avocation, as may possibly be discovered in the progress of our narrative. To his wife, a good quiet sort of body, who, as Forrester phrased it, did not dare to say the soul was her own, he deputed the whole domestic management of the tavern; while he would be gone, n.o.body could say where or why, for weeks and more at a time, away from bar and hostel, in different portions of the country. None ventured to inquire into a matter that was still sufficiently mysterious to arouse curiosity; people living with and about him generally entertaining a degree of respect, amounting almost to vulgar awe, for his person and presence, which prevented much inquiry into his doings.

Some few, however, more bold than the rest, spoke in terms of suspicion; but the number of this cla.s.s was inconsiderable, and they themselves felt that the risk which they incurred was not so unimportant as to permit of their going much out of the way to trace the doubtful features in his life.

As we have already stated, he took his place along with his guests; the bottles and gla.s.ses were replenished, the story of the pedler again told, and each individual once more busied in describing his own exploits. The lawyer, immersed in visions of grog and glory, rhapsodized perpetually and clapped his hands. Blundell, drunkenly happy, at every discharge of the current humor, made an abortive attempt to chuckle, the ineffectual halloo gurgling away in the abysses of his mighty throat; until, at length, his head settled down supinely upon his breast, his eyes were closed, and the hour of his victory had gone by; though, even then, his huge jaws opening at intervals for the outward pa.s.sage of something which by courtesy might be considered a laugh, attested the still anxious struggles of the inward spirit, battling with the weaknesses of the flesh.

The example of a leader like Blundell had a most pernicious effect upon the uprightness of the greater part of the company. Having the sanction of authority, several others, the minor spirits it is true, settled down under their chairs without a struggle. The survivors made some lugubrious efforts at a triumph over their less stubborn companions, but the laborious and husky laugh was but a poor apology for the proper performance of this feat. Munro, who to his other qualities added those of a st.u.r.dy _bon-vivant_, together with Forrester, and a few who still girt in the lawyer as the prince of the small jest, discharged their witticisms upon the staggering condition of affairs; not forgetting in their a.s.saults the disputatious civilian himself. That worthy, we regret to add, though still unwilling to yield, and still striving to retort, had nevertheless suffered considerable loss of equilibrium. His speeches were more than ever confused, and it was remarked that his eyes danced about hazily, with a most ineffectual expression. He looked about, however, with a stupid gaze of self-satisfaction; but his laugh and language, forming a strange and most unseemly coalition, degenerated at last into a dolorous sniffle, indicating the rapid departure of the few mental and animal holdfasts which had lingered with him so long. While thus reduced, his few surviving senses were at once called into acute activity by the appearance of a sooty little negro, who thrust into his hands a misshapen fold of dirty paper, which a near examination made out to take the form of a letter.

"Why, what the d----l, d----d sort of fist is this you've given me, you bird of blackness! where got you this vile scrawl?--faugh! you've had it in your jaws, you raven, have you not?"

The terrified urchin retreated a few paces while answering the inquiry.

"No, ma.s.s lawyer--de pedler--da him gib um to me so. I bring um straight as he gib um."

"The pedler! why, where is he?--what the devil can he have to write about?" was the universal exclamation.

"The pedler!" said the lawyer, and his sobriety grew strengthened at the thought of business; he called to the waiter and whispered in his ears--

"Hark ye, cuffee; go bring out the pedler's horse, saddle him with my saddle which lies in the gallery, bring him to the tree, and, look ye, make no noise about it, you scoundrel, as you value your ears."

Cuffee was gone on his mission--and the whole a.s.sembly aroused by the name of the pedler and the mysterious influence of the communication upon the lawyer, gathered, with inquiries of impatience, around him.

Finding him slow, they clamored for the contents of the epistle, and the route of the writer--neither of which did he seem desirous to communicate. His evasions and unwillingness were all in vain, and he was at length compelled to undertake the perusal of the scrawl; a task he would most gladly have avoided in their presence. He was in doubt and fear. What could the pedler have to communicate, on paper, which might not have been left over for their interview? His mind was troubled, and, pushing the crowd away from immediately about him, he tore open the envelope and began the perusal--proceeding with a measured gait, the result as well of the "d.a.m.ned cramp hand" as of the still foggy intellect and unsettled vision of the reader. But as the characters and their signification became more clear and obvious to his gaze, his features grew more and more sobered and intelligent--a blankness overspread his face--his hands trembled, and finally, his apprehensions, whatever they might have been, having seemingly undergone full confirmation, he crumpled the villanous scrawl in his hands, and dashing it to the floor in a rage, roared out in quick succession volley after volley of invective and denunciation upon the thrice-blasted head of the pedler. The provocation must have been great, no doubt, to impart such animation at such a time to the man of law; and the curiosity of one of the revellers getting the better of his scruples in such matters--if, indeed, scruples of any kind abode in such a section--prompting him to seize upon the epistle thus pregnant with mortal matter, in this way the whole secret became public property. As, therefore, we shall violate no confidence, and shock no decorum, we proceed to read it aloud for the benefit of all:--

"DEAR LAWYER: I guess I am pretty safe now from the _regilators_, and, saving my trouble of mind, well enough, and nothing to complain about. Your animal goes as slick as grease, and carried me in no time out of reach of rifle-shot--so you see it's only right to thank G.o.d, and you, lawyer, for if you hadn't lent me the nag, I guess it would have been a sore chance for me in the hands of them savages and beasts of prey.

"I've been thinking, lawyer, as I driv along, about what you said to me, and I guess it's no more than right and reasonable I should take the law on 'em; and so I put the case in your hands, to make the most on it; and seeing that the damages, as you say, may be over five hundred dollars, why, I don't see but the money is jest as good in my hands as theirs, for so it ought to be. The bill of particulars I will send you by post. In the meanwhile, you may say, having something to go upon, that the whole comes to five hundred and fifty dollars or thereabouts, for, with a little calculation and figering, I guess it won't be hard to bring it up to that. This don't count the vally of the cart, for, as I made it myself, it didn't cost me much; but, if you put it in the bill, which I guess you ought to, put it down for twenty dollars more--seeing that, if I can't trade for one somehow, I shall have to give something like that for another.

"And now, lawyer, there's one thing--I don't like to be in the reach of them 'ere regilators, and guess 'twouldn't be altogether the wisest to stop short of fifteen miles to-night: so, therefore, you see, it won't be in my way, no how, to let you have your nag, which is a main fine one, and goes slick as a whistle--pretty much as if he and the wagon was made for one another; but this, I guess, will be no difference to you, seeing that you can pay yourself his vally out of the damages. I'm willing to allow you one hundred dollars for him, though he a'n't worth so much, no how; and the balance of the money you can send to me, or my brother, in the town of Meriden, in the state of Connecticut. So no more, dear lawyer, at this writing, from

"Your very humble sarvant "to command, &c."

The dismay of the attorney was only exceeded by the chagrin with which he perceived his exposure, and antic.i.p.ated the odium in consequence. He leaped about the hall, among the company, in a restless paroxysm--now denouncing the pedler, now deprecating their dissatisfaction at finding out the double game which he had been playing. The trick of the runaway almost gave him a degree of favor in their eyes, which did not find much diminution when Pippin, rushing forth from the apartment, encountered a new trial in the horse left him by the pedler; the miserable beast being completely ruined, unable to move a step, and more dead than alive.

CHAPTER VIII.

NEW FRIENDS IN STRANGE PLACES.

Ralph opened his eyes at a moderately late hour on the ensuing morning, and found Forrester in close attendance. He felt himself somewhat sore from his bruises in falling, but the wound gave him little concern.

Indeed, he was scarcely conscious of it. He had slept well, and was not unwilling to enter into the explanatory conversation which the woodman began. From him he learned the manner and situation in which he had been found, and was furnished with a partial history of his present whereabouts. In return, he gave a particular account of the a.s.sault made upon him in the wood, and of his escape; all of which, already known to the reader, will call for no additional details. In reply to the unscrupulous inquiry of Forrester, the youth, with as little hesitation, declared himself to be a native of the neighboring state of South Carolina, born in one of its middle districts, and now on his way to Tennessee. He concluded with giving his name.

"Colleton, Colleton," repeated the other, as if reviving some recollection of old time--"why, 'squire, I once knew a whole family of that name in Carolina. I'm from Carolina myself, you must know. There was an old codger--a fine, hearty buck--old Ralph Colleton--Colonel Ralph, as they used to call him. He did have a power of money, and a smart chance of lands and field-n.i.g.g.e.rs; but they did say he was going behindhand, for he didn't know how to keep what he had. He was always buying, and living large; but that can't last for ever. I saw him first at a muster. I was then just eighteen, and went out with the rest, for the first time. Maybe, 'squire, I didn't take the rag off the bush that day. I belonged to Captain Williams's troop, called the 'Bush-Whackers.'

We were all fine-looking fellows, though I say it myself. I was no chicken, I tell you. From that day, Mark Forrester wrote himself down '_man_' And well he might, 'squire, and no small one neither. Six feet in stocking-foot, sound in wind and limb--could outrun, outjump, outwrestle, outfight, and outdo anyhow, any lad of my inches in the whole district. There was Tom Foster, that for five long years counted himself c.o.c.k of the walk, and crowed like a chicken whenever he came out upon the ground. You never saw Tom, I reckon, for he went off to Mississippi after I sowed him up. He couldn't stand it any longer, since it was no use, I licked him in sich short order: he wasn't a mouthful.

After that, the whole ground was mine; n.o.body could stand before me, 'squire; though now the case may be different, for Sumter's a destrict, 'squire, that a'n't slow at raising game chickens."

At the close of this rambling harangue, Mark Forrester, as we may now be permitted to call him, looked down upon his own person with no small share of complacency. He was still, doubtless, all the man he boasted himself to have been; his person, as we have already briefly described it, offering, as well from its bulk and well-distributed muscle as from its perfect symmetry, a fine model for the statuary. After the indulgence of a few moments in this harmless egotism, he returned to the point, as if but now recollected, from which he set out.

"Well, then, Master Colleton, as I was saying, 'twas at this same muster that I first saw the 'squire. He was a monstrous clever old buck now, I tell you. Why, he thought no more of money than if it growed in his plantation--he almost throwed it away for the people to scramble after.

That very day, when the muster was over, he called all the boys up to Eben Garratt's tavern, and told old Eben to set the right stuff afloat, and put the whole score down to him. Maybe old Eben didn't take him at his word. Eben was a cunning chap, quite Yankee-like, and would skin his shadow for a saddle-back, I reckon, if he could catch it. I tell you what, when the crop went to town, the old 'squire must have had a mighty smart chance to pay; for, whatever people might say of old Eben, he knew how to calculate from your pocket into his with monstrous sartainty.

Well, as I was saying, 'squire, I shouldn't be afraid to go you a a little bet that old Ralph Colleton is some kin of your'n. You're both of the same stock, I reckon."

"You are right in your conjecture," replied the youth; "the person of whom you speak was indeed a near relative of mine--he was no other than my father."

"There, now--I could have said as much, for you look for all the world as if you had come out of his own mouth. There is a trick of the eye which I never saw in any but you two; and even if you had not told me your name, I should have made pretty much the same calculation about you. The old 'squire, if I rightly recollect, was something stiff in his way, and some people did say he was proud, and carried himself rather high; but, for my part, I never saw any difference 'twixt him and most of our Carolina gentlemen, who, you know, generally walk pretty high in the collar, and have no two ways about them. For that matter, however, I couldn't well judge then; I may have been something too young to say, for certain, what was what, at that time of my life."

"You are not even now so far advanced in years, Mr. Forrester, that you speak of your youth as of a season so very remote. What, I pray, may be your age? We may ask, without offence, such a question of men: the case where the other s.e.x is concerned is, you are aware, something different."

The youth seemed studiously desirous of changing the direction of the dialogue.

"Man or woman, I see, for my part, no harm in the question. But do call me Forrester, or Mark Forrester, whichever pleases you best, and not mister, as you just now called me. I go by no other name. Mister is a great word, and moves people quite too far off from one another. I never have any concern with a man that I have to mister and sir. I call them 'squire because that's a t.i.tle the law gives them; and when I speak to you, I say 'squire, or Master Colleton. You may be a 'squire yourself, but whether you are or are not, it makes no difference, for you get the name from your father, who is. Then, ag'in, I call you master--because, you see, you are but a youth, and have a long run to overtake my years, few as you may think them. Besides, master is a friendly word, and comes easy to the tongue. I never, for my part, could see the sense in mister, except when people go out to fight, when it's necessary to do everything a little the politest; and, then, it smells of long shot and cold business, 'squire. 'Tisn't, to my mind, a good word among friends."

The youth smiled slightly at the distinction drawn with such nicety by his companion, between words which he had hitherto been taught to conceive synonymous, or nearly so; and the reasons, such as they were, by which the woodman sustained his free use of the one to the utter rejection of the other. He did not think it important, however, to make up an issue on the point, though dissenting from the logic of his companion; and contented himself simply with a repet.i.tion of the question in which it had originated.

"Why, I take shame to answer you rightly, 'squire, seeing I am no wiser and no better than I am; but the whole secret of the matter lies in the handle of this little hatchet, and this I made out of a live-oak sapling some sixteen years ago--It's much less worn than I, yet I am twice its age, I reckon."

"You are now then about thirty-two?"

"Ay, just thirty-two. It don't take much calculating to make out that.

My own schooling, though little enough for a large man, is more than enough to keep me from wanting help at such easy arithmetic."