“No danger,” replied Richards, “Cæsar is an old Virginian.”
A shock that made our very ribs crack again, and as nearly as possible threw us backwards out of the gig, came rather opportunely to interrupt this eulogium on Cæsar, who had suddenly reared furiously up on his hind-legs.
“There must be something in the path,” cried Richards. “Let us see what it is.”
We got out, and found a huge walnut-tree lying right across the road. Here was an end to our journey. It was an absolute impossibility to get the gig over the enormous trunk; the boughs, which spread out full twenty yards in every direction, had given Cæsar timely warning of the impediment to our further progress. The road, moreover, was so narrow that it was impossible to turn. There was nothing for it but to back out. Richards began hunting about for a cross-road, where we might turn; I set to work to back the gig. I had no sooner, however, set one foot out of the road, than my cloak was almost torn from my shoulders by a thorn half a yard long. To get through this detestable wilderness with a whole skin, one ought to have been cased in complete armour. I had only just taken my unfortunate garment off this new-fashioned cloak-peg, when Richards returned.
“This is the most infernal wilderness in all the west!” said he. “Neither road nor path, mud up to the ears, and, to add to my enjoyment, I have left one of my boots in the swamp.”
“And, for my part, there are as many holes in my cloak as thorns on that cursed acacia-tree,” replied I by way of consolation.
These were the last words we spoke in any thing like a jesting tone; for we were now wet to the skin: and of all situations, I believe a damp one to be the least favourable to jocularity. I confess a certain partiality for adventures, when they are not carried too far. There is nothing I detest like a monotonous wearisome Quaker’s journey, with every thing as tame, and dull, and uniform, as at a meeting of broad-brims; but to be overtaken by darkness and a deluge in the middle of a maple-swamp, to be unable to go three steps on one side without falling into the Tennessee, with an impenetrable morass and thicket on the other hand, a colossal walnut-tree barring the way in front, and no possibility of turning back—this was, even to my taste, rather too much of an adventure.
“Well, what is to be done now?” said Richards, who had placed himself in a sort of theatrical posture—his bootless foot on the gig-step, the other sticking fast in the mud.
“Take out the horse, and draw the gig back,” suggested I.
Easily said, but rather more difficult to accomplish. We set to work, however, with a will; and pushed, and tugged, and pulled, till at last, after much labour, we got the gig about thirty paces backwards, where the road became wider. We then turned it, and were putting Cæsar into the shafts, when, to our inexpressible delight, a loud hallo was given quite close to us.
Reader, if you were ever at a hard contested election, where you had bet your fifty or a hundred dollars on your favourite candidate, and just when you made sure of losing, and your five senses were almost extinguished by noise, brandy, and tobacco smoke, you heard the result proclaimed that secured you your stake, and a hundred per cent to boot; if you have ever been placed in such circumstances, then, and then only, can you form an idea of the joyful feeling with which we heard that shout. After such a thorough Yankee fashion was it given, that it caused the fog to break for a moment, and roused the obscene inhabitants of the neighbouring swamp from their mud-pillowed slumbers. They set up a screeching, and yelling, and croaking, that was lovely to listen to.
“And now have patience, for Heaven’s sake!” whispered Richards to me, “and hold your tongue for a quarter of an hour, or you will spoil all with this infernal Yankee.”
“Do not be afraid,” replied I; “I am dumb.”
My blood was certainly tolerably cooled by the shower-bath I had had—to say nothing of the prospect of passing the night in this vile hole; and I would willingly have given the tenacious Yankee information concerning the prices of flour and butter in every state of the Union, upon the sole condition that he should afterwards help us out of this reservoir of fever.
It was, as we had at once conjectured, our friend Mr Isaac Shifty, in soul, body, and buttons. In true Connecticut fashion, he stood a couple of minutes close to us without saying a word. It almost looked as if he took a delight in our difficulties, and was in no particular hurry to extricate us from them. For our part, we kept very much on our guard. The cross-grained scarecrow might likely enough have left us to our fate again, if we had said any thing that did not exactly chime in with his queer humour. Richards at last broke silence.
“Bad weather,” said he.
“Well, I don’t know. I shouldn’t say it was though, exactly,” returned the Yankee.
“You have not met the two women you were looking for, have you?”
“No. Guess they’ll have stopped at Florence, with cousin Kate.”
“You are not thinking of going there too, are you?” said Richards.
“No. I’m goin’ home. I thought you were at the ferry by this time.”
“Perhaps we should have been, if your roads were better, and the holes in them filled up with stones instead of walnut-trees,” returned Richards, laughing.
“Guess you ain’t inclined to go to the ferry to-day?”
“Inclined we are, but able we are not,” replied Richards; “and you will acknowledge, my friend, that is a pretty strong reason for not going.”
“Well, so it is,” replied the man sententiously. “It ain’t very agreeable lyin’ out in the swamp; and so, stranger, if you like to go to Bainbridge, you can come with me. Better let me drive, and my mare can follow behind.”
It took at least five minutes before the wearisome, pedantical fellow had finished his arrangements and preparations. At last, to the infinite satisfaction of Richards and myself, we sat three in the gig. After undergoing a questioning and cross-questioning that would have done honour to an experienced diplomatist, we had succeeded in striking up a sort of alliance with Mr Isaac Shifty, and were on our way to one of the hundred famous cities of Alabama—cities which have decidedly not their match in the whole of the United States.
I do not know how it happens, but I am constantly finding myself disappointed in my expectations. I had hoped that the distance between the infernal maple swamp and the place to which we were going, would have borne some sort of relative proportion to the agreeableness of our situation—that is to say, that it would not be very great. It nevertheless appeared to me enormous, and Horace’s impatience during his celebrated walk was trifling compared to mine. Our Yankee, like the Roman babbler, had abundance of time to discourse on fifty different subjects. The first which he brought before our notice was naturally his own worthy person. From the interesting piece of biography with which he favoured us, we learned that he was originally from Connecticut, and that his first occupation had been that of usher in a school; which employment he had, after a short trial, exchanged for the less honourable but more independent one of a pedlar. From that he had risen to be a trader and shop-keeper, and was now, as he modestly informed us, a highly respectable and well-to-do man. He next gave us an account of all the varieties of merchandise in which he dealt, or ever had dealt; intermixing the details with an occasional side-blow at a certain Mr Bursicut, who had dared to set up an opposition store, and whom Providence had punished for his presumption by the loss of sundry dozen knives and forks, and pairs of shoes, upon the Mussel shoals. He then found occasion to talk of the thousand and one mishaps that had occurred upon the aforesaid Mussel shoals; and thence branched off into the various modes of water-carriage which the enlightened inhabitants of Alabama were accustomed to employ. After amusing us for some time with long histories concerning steam-boats and keel-boats, barks and flat-boats, broad-horns, dug-outs, and canoes, he glided into some canal-making scheme, which was to connect the waters of the Tennessee with Heaven knows what others. It was a most monstrous plan—that I remember; but whether the junction was to be made with Raritan bay or Connecticut river, I have clean forgotten. At last we came to the history of Bainbridge—a sure sign, as I thought, with much inward gratulation, that we were approaching the end of our journey; yet the accomplishment of this hope, reasonable as it was, was doomed to be deferred a long time. We had first to listen to the whole history and topographical description of that celebrated city; how it had sprung up in the right corner, he reckoned; and how flourishing and industrious it was; and whether we had not a mind to settle there—because if we had, he, Mr Isaac Shifty, had some almighty fine building land to sell; and how the town already boasted of three taverns, just the right proportion to the ten houses of which Bainbridge consisted. We should find two of the taverns chokeful of people, he said, because there was a canvass going on for the Florence election; as to the third, it was a poor place, hardly habitable indeed.
At the word canvass, Richards and I looked aghast.
“An election coming on!” stammered Richards.
“An election!” repeated I, the words dying away upon my tongue from consternation at this unwelcome news. An election in Alabama, which even in old Kentucky is considered as backwoods! Farewell, supper and sleep, and comfortable bed and clean linen! every thing, in short, which we had flattered ourselves with obtaining, and which we stood so much in need of, after such a hard day’s journey.
Before we had time to make any further enquiries, Cæsar, who had for some time been splashing through a sea of mud, stood suddenly still. The light of a tallow candle, glimmering and flaring through an atmosphere of tobacco-smoke, and the hoarse and confused sounds of many voices, warned us that we had reached the haven. We sprang out of the gig; and whilst Richards was tying Cæsar to a post, I hurried to the door, when I felt myself suddenly seized by the skirt of my cloak.
“Not there—not there! This is the house where you are to stop,” exclaimed Mr Isaac Shifty, pointing anxiously to an adjacent edifice, that looked something between a house and a pigsty.
“Don’t go with him,” whispered I to Richards, heartily glad to be at last independent of the insupportable Yankee, and to be able to vex him a little in my turn. My hand was already on the latch; I opened the door, and we entered.
There sat the burgesses of Bainbridge, with their heels upon the table—those, at least, for whom there were chairs; while those for whom there were none, made shift with tubs, or stood up in various elegant attitudes. There was a prodigious amount of talking, shouting, drinking, and laughing going on; and my first feeling was, that I would rather have been any where else than in that worshipful assembly. Richards, however, stepped boldly forward, in spite of his bootless foot; and luckily the men appeared disposed to be upon their best behaviour with us. They pressed back right and left, forming a lane about a foot wide, enclosed between living palisades, six feet and upwards in height, through which we passed, subjected, as we did so, to a searching inspection. Richards stepped smartly up to the table, then turned round, and confronted the group of half-horse, half-alligator visages there assembled.
“A hurra for old Alabama!” cried he, “and the devil take the Bainbridge roadmaster!”
“Are you mad?” I whispered to him.
“May I be scalped if you don’t soon feel the weight of these five bones upon your carcass, stranger!” growled a voice, proceeding from a sort of mammoth that had just filled itself a half-pint tumbler of Monongahela. Before the double-jointed Goliath put his threat into execution, he swallowed the whisky at a gulp, and then, striding forwards, laid his open hand upon my companion’s shoulder, with a force that threw the poor fellow on one side, and gave him the appearance of being crooked. At the same time the giant stared Richards in the face, with an expression which the natural hardness of his features, and the glimmer of his owl-like eyes, rendered any thing but agreeable.
“The devil take the Bainbridge roadmaster—I repeat it!” cried Richards, half in earnest and half laughing, raising his muddy and bootless foot as he spoke, and placing it on a chair. “See there, men! I may thank him for the loss of my boot. The cursed swamp between here and the ferry was kind enough to pull it off for me.”
The roar of laughter that responded to these words would inevitably have broken the windows, had there been any glass in them. Fortunately the latter luxury was wanting; its place being supplied by fragments of old inexpressibles, and of ci-devant coats and waistcoats.
“Come, lads!” continued Richards, “I mean no offence; but of a surety I have to thank your bad roads for the loss of my boot.”
Richard’s jest, exactly adapted to the society in which we found ourselves, was the most fortunate impromptu that could have been hit upon. It seemed at once to have established us upon a footing of harmony and friendship with the rough backwoodsmen amongst whom we had fallen.
“May I be shot like a Redskin, if that ain’t Mister Richards from Old Virginny, now of the Mississippi,” suddenly exclaimed the same colossus who had so recently had his hand upon Richards’s shoulder, twisting, as he spoke, his wild features into a sort of amicable grin. “May I never taste another drop of rale Monongahela, if you sha’n’t drink a pint with Bob Snags the roadmaster!”
It was the very dignitary whom Richards had insulted with such imminent risk to his shoulder-blade.
“A hurra for old Virginny!” shouted the master of the roads, biting, as he spoke, into a piece of tobacco from that famous state. “Come, mister—come, doctor!” continued the man, offering Richards with one hand a roll of tobacco, with the other a pint glassful of whisky.
“Doctor!” repeated the whole assembly—“a doctor!”
A man possessing power over gin and whisky, and whose word is an indisputable veto against even a smaller, is no unimportant personage in that feverish neighbourhood. In this instance, Richards’s doctorship was of the double utility of delivering us from the threatened pint-glasses, and of causing us to be considered as privileged guests—no small advantage in a backwoods’ tavern, occupied as the headquarters of an electioneering party. Cæsar, however, was the first to derive a positive profit from the discovery. Bob left the room for a minute or two, and we could hear the horse walking into the stable. When the roadmaster returned, he had assumed a patronizing sort of look.
“Mister Richards!” said he confidentially, “Mister Richards! May I be shot if you ain’t continually a sensible man, with more rale blood in your little finger than a horse could swim in. Yes, and I’ll show you that Bob Snags is your friend. I say, doctor, what countryman is your horse?”
“A thorough-bred Virginian,” replied Richards.
“The devil he is!” cried Bob. “Well, doctor, to prove to you that I’m your friend, and that I ain’t forgotten old times, I’ll swop with you without lookin’ at him. May I be shot if I ain’t reg’larly cheatin’ myself. Well, I’m uncommon glad to see you again. Bob Snags has no reason to fear lookin’ a rale gemman in the face. Come, lads, none of yer jimmaky, and slings, and poorgun,5 and suchlike dog’s wash, but ginuine Monongahela—that’s the stuff. Hurra for Old Virginny! Well, doctor, it’s a deal—ain’t it?”
“No, Bob,” said Richards, laughing; “your generosity is so truly Alabamian, that I cannot make up my mind to accept it. For the present, at least, I must keep my Virginian. It is my wife’s saddle-horse.”
“But Swiftfoot,” replied Bob, in a cordial confidential manner—“Swiftfoot is a famous trotter.”
“It won’t do, Bob,” was the answer. “I should not dare show myself at home without Cæsar.”
Bob bit his lips, a little vexed at not being able to make a deal; but another half-pint of whisky, which he poured down as if it had been spring water, seemed to restore him to good humour. Meanwhile my wet clothes were beginning to hang heavy upon me, and to steam in the hot atmosphere in which we were. Bob, who had already cast several side-glances at me, now turned to Richards.
“And who may the mister be?” said he.
The mention of my name and condition, procured me a welcome that I could willingly have dispensed with. After the shake of the hand with which Bob favoured me, I looked at my finger-nails, to see if the blood was not starting from under them. The fellow’s hands were as hard and rough as bear’s paws.
“Very glad that you’re come, boys,” said Bob in a low confidential tone. “I’m just makin’ a try for the next Assembly; and it’s always good, you know, to have somebody to speak to one’s character. How long is it, Mister Richards, since I left Blairsville.”