University of California Berkeley 
 

 
 
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WESTWARD HO! 
 
 A TALE. 
 
 BY TKB AUTHOR OF "THE DUTCHMAN'S FIRESIDE," 
 &C. &<. &C. 
 
 
 ' Come all you likely lads that has a mind for to range, 
 Into some foreign country, your situation for to change; 
 In seeking some new pleasures we will altogether go, 
 And we'll settle on the banks of the pleasant Ohio. 
 
 Come all you girls from New England that are unmarried yet, 
 O eome along with us, and young husbands you shall get ; 
 For there's all kinds of game besides the buck and doe, 
 To hunt with dog and rifle all on the Ohio." 
 
 Ballad. 
 
 IN TWO'VOLUM^S. ' 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 NEW-YORK: 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY j. & J. HARPER, 
 
 NO. 82 CLIFF-STKEET. 
 
 AND SOLD BY THE PRINCIPAL BOOKSELLERS THROUGHOUT 
 THE UNITED STATES 
 
 1832, 
 
.- 
 
 [Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1832, 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United 
 States for the 'Southern District of New-York.] 
 
TO THE READER. 
 
 THE devotees of sects and parties are exceedingly 
 prone to imagine that every book, whatever may be its 
 nature or object, is intended to operate in favour of or 
 against their cherished doctrines or policy, and to test 
 its opinions and sentiments by that standard alone. 
 Such a rule, applied to fictions more especially, is cal- 
 culated to put a tyrannical restraint on an author in the 
 delineation of characters, as well as in detailing the 
 sentiments and language naturally growing out of their 
 particular habits, manners, and situations. Having 
 conceived a character, it should be his aim to make 
 it act and talk as such a person might naturally 
 be supposed to do in similar circumstances. But we 
 think he ought not to be held responsible for this any 
 farther than probability and the decorums of life are 
 concerned. Neither, as it appears to us, is he justly 
 chargeable with hostility to any particular class, or pro- 
 fession, or sect, if he should happen to exhibit a char- 
 acter for the purpose of exposing their occasional ex- 
 cesses or absurdities. All we conceive a writer justly 
 responsible for, in this point of view, are those senti- 
 ments and opinions he puts forth when he appears in 
 his own proper person, and makes his bow to the reader. 
 Thus, for instance, the little exhibitions of hostility to 
 the Yankees occasionally introduced in the following 
 work are given as characteristic of the feelings and 
 prejudices of those to whom they are ascribed, and not 
 as the sentiments of the author. So also with regard 
 to the scene in Philadelphia, which is simply an exhi- 
 bition of what it is supposed would naturally be the 
 
 997859 
 
4 TO THE READER. 
 
 feelings of a sagacious slave in the situation and under 
 the circumstances described. The author yields to 
 none in respect for the motives of those who are sin- 
 cerely anxious to rid this country of the embarrassments 
 of slavery ; and none more heartily wishes the thing 
 were possible, at a less risk to the happiness of both 
 master and slave. 
 
 The great aim of the author has been to combine an 
 important moral, with the interest of a series of incidents, 
 and sketches of scenery, character, manners, and modes 
 of thought and expression, such as he knows or ima- 
 gines exist, or have existed, in particular portions of 
 the United States. The story professes no connexion 
 with history, and aspires to no special chronological 
 accuracy ; though it is believed that sufficient re- 
 gard has been had to truth in this respect to give 
 it the interest of something like reality. For very 
 many of his ideas of the great Mississippi Valley the 
 author is under particular obligations to the " Recollec- 
 tions" of the Rev. Timothy Flint, which contain by 
 far the most picturesque description of that remarkable 
 region which has ever fallen under his observation. 
 This work has not met its deserts, and he should be 
 highly gratified if this passing notice served in any way 
 to call the public attention to its interesting details. 
 
 New-York, May, 1832. 
 
WESTWARD HO! 
 
WESTWARD HO' 
 
 A TALE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " The dark and bloody ground." 
 
 WHO that hath ears to hear hath not heard of 
 " Old Kentucky/' which, having now arrived at 
 the age of almost forty years, is entitled to assume 
 the honours of a patriarch among the young fry 
 of empires springing up like mushrooms in the 
 vast valley of the great father of waters ? Its 
 early history is a romance ; its growth a miracle ; 
 its soil-a garden ; its women half angel, half he- 
 roine ; and a portion of its men, as hath been 
 credibly asserted, half horse, half alligator ; to 
 which has lately been added a third ingredient, in 
 compliment to those monstrous productions of the 
 genius of Fulton that now float on the rivers of 
 the west", smoking like volcanoes, and scattering 
 showers of fire, to wit, " a small sprinkling of the 
 steamboat." 
 
 Less than seventy years ago there breathed not 
 a single white man within its wide limits. In 
 that short period, which scarcely comprises the 
 life of a single individual, the face of the earth 
 and the face of man have undergone a total change 
 in this land of wonders. The wild exuberance 
 of nature has given place to the rich products of 
 
8 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 human labour ; the wild animals of the forest 
 have be-jii superseded by peaceful flocks and 
 herds ; and the wild Indian has retired before that 
 es tiny .wfrich pursues him everywhere. Nothing 
 but the' rivers, the mountains, and the traditions, 
 remain to attest the truth of the picture given by 
 the early adventurers to this rich, romantic re- 
 
 fion. The nations of hunters, the wandering 
 ings of the woods, who once claimed dominion 
 over the deep, dark forests, and the beasts that 
 inhabited them, and which might be termed, in 
 truth, their only constant occupants, have by de- 
 grees disappeared, after a struggle of half a cen- 
 tury, so keen, so extensive, so bloody and revenge- 
 ful ; so full of peril, suffering, and disasters ; so fatal 
 to the red man and the white, that this smiling, 
 fruitful region, now the abode of almost a mil- 
 lion of prosperous people, obtained, and still re- 
 tains, in the traditions of past times, and in the 
 memory of the old surviving settlers, the omi- 
 nous, melancholy appellation of " THE DARK AND 
 
 BLOODY GROUND." 
 
 The free, daring, and adventurous life of the 
 early settlers in this land of promise, gave to them- 
 selves and their posterity a character of enthusi- 
 asm, vivacity, courage, -hardihood, frankness, and 
 generosity, which in some respects distinguishes 
 them from the rest of mankind. Reared in the 
 midst of dangers, and residing at a distance from 
 each other ; possessing in general large estates 
 and numerous slaves ; seeing few equals, and re- 
 cognising no superiors ; accustomed to think and 
 act for themselves ; their characters have a prim- 
 itive energy, a singularly bold, fresh, and original 
 cast. The settled forms and opinions, which have 
 been adopted without inquiry, and followed as a 
 matter of course by the older states have in a 
 
WESTWARD HO! 9 
 
 great measure given place to a code of their own, 
 originating in their early peculiar situation and 
 circumstances. Their ideas partake of a strong 
 infusion of poetical exaggeration ; they speak on 
 a large scale, and know none of the degrees of 
 comparison but that of the superlative ; their pas- 
 sions are far more in want of the bridle than the 
 spur ; and the popular language of the boatmen 
 is .a singular compound of tropes, figures, and 
 metaphors, all drawn from, or having allusion to, 
 their early modes of life, and the scenes and occu- 
 pations to which they are most accustomed. 
 
 Nurtured in the wilds, in the midst of all the 
 grand features of nature, and familiar with dan- 
 gers, or at least the recent recollection of dangers, 
 accustomed from their youth upwards to hear 
 the surviving pioneers of the west relate the hard- 
 ships and sufferings they encountered, endured, 
 and overcame, when they stood alone in the wil- 
 derness, watched, waylaid, and beset in secret by 
 cunning and revengeful savages, they acquired 
 an habitual consciousness of- the presence of per- 
 petual perils, and learned to look death and tortures 
 in the face without flinching. The result of their 
 peculiar situation, habits, and modes of thinking 
 has been a race of men uniting a fearlessness of 
 danger, a hardy spirit of enterprise, a power of sup- 
 porting fatigues and privations, an independence 
 of thought, which perhaps were never associated 
 with the pursuits and acquirements of civilized 
 life in any other country than the United States. 
 
 This is, indeed, the great peculiarity of that 
 newest of all possible worlds, called the Western 
 Country. Nowhere else will be found that union 
 of apparent incongruities which exists in this re- 
 markable region. Nowhere else do we find in log- 
 
 A O 
 
10 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 cabins, in the midst of primeval forests, and be- 
 yond the reach of all social intercourse, women 
 whose manners were formed in the drawing-room, 
 and men who have figured in the great world as 
 warriors, statesmen, and orators. The tale we are 
 about to relate connects itself with the early his- 
 tory of this vast and growing empire of the west. 
 
 
WESTWARD HO! 11 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A genuine Tuckahoe. 
 
 CtiTHBERT DANGERFIELD, or, as he was com- 
 monly called (for every second man you meet 
 with in this country has a title to a certainty), 
 Colonel Dangerfield, was a Virginia gentleman 
 a regular Tuckahoe whose family originally 
 came over with Captain John Smith " the con- 
 queror," and had resided for several generations 
 on James River, in the neighbourhood of Turkey 
 Island, below the beautiful city of Richmond. 
 His plantation was large enough to have entitled 
 him in Germany to at least half a vote in the diet ; 
 the number of his subjects, alias slaves, equal to 
 those of a Russian boyar ; and his spirit was that 
 of a prince ; taking it for granted that, agreeably 
 to the old mode of comparison, the spirit of a prince 
 is much more liberal than that of a gentleman. 
 
 At the period of which we speak, Turkey Island 
 and the shores of James River, on either side, as 
 far down as James Town, the cradle of our New 
 World, were embellished by the seats of a great 
 number of the ancient gentry of Old Virginia. It 
 was here that the Randolphs, the Byrds, the Pages, 
 the Carters, the Harrisons oif Berkeley and Bran- 
 don, together with divers others equally hospitable, 
 kept open house to all comers, rich and poor ; and 
 no stranger of any pretensions to good breeding 
 ever declined a visit without manifest danger of 
 undergoing a defiance, or laying himself open to 
 
12 WESTWARD HO? 
 
 a suspicion of being a horse-stealer, or a fugitive 
 from justice. Never were they so happy as when 
 their houses were filled with visiters, and it is on 
 record that strangers sometimes forgot themselves 
 while enjoying their hospitality, and fancied them- 
 selves at home. Such was their horror of formal 
 visits and formal invitations, that to this day there 
 is a coolness between two families of these parts, 
 which arose from an ancestor of one of the houses 
 having once left his card at the mansion of the 
 other. It was held a mortal offence to good neigh- 
 bourhood to send notice of a visit, and no man 
 considered himself welcome if he went on an in- 
 vitation. If Randolph of Turkey Island thought 
 his neighbour Dangerfield on the opposite shore 
 delayed his visit too long, he caused the old black 
 herald to sound his horn to summon him to the 
 field or the table ; and the consequence of neglect 
 or disobedience in answering it would have been 
 a mortal feud, enduring even unto the fourth 
 generation. 
 
 Never were there people so rich with so little 
 money. Plenty, nay. profusion, reigned all around 
 them ; yet many lived, as it were, by anticipation. 
 They were almost always beforehand with their 
 means, and the crops of the ensuing year were 
 for the most part mortgaged to supply the de- 
 mand of the present. They feared nothing but a 
 bad season for tobacco, a deed of trust, and a 
 Scotch merchant. They were a high-spirited 
 race, among the best specimens of aristocracy in 
 modern times ; but they have almost all disap- 
 peared from their ancient possessions. Industry 
 and economy, when not counteracted by laws and 
 institutions to prevent their otherwise inevitable 
 result, will always, sooner or later, effect a trans- 
 
WESTWARD HO! 13 
 
 fer of property from the rich to the poor. Here 
 and there, however, one of these ancient lords of 
 the soil still maintains his state along the shores 
 of James River ; and we have yet on our palates 
 the relish of some of the sacred relics of the old 
 Madeira which is still dispensed with open hand 
 at their hospitable boards. 
 
 Colonel Dangerfield was rich in lands and 
 slaves ; but what products of lands or human la- 
 bour can supply the demands of careless prodi- 
 gality, whose perpetual drains will at length con- 
 vert the richest soil into the sands of the desert ? 
 Your tobacco is a sore devourer of the juices of 
 the earth, and too many crops in succession will 
 exhaust it, so that it will be incapable of produc- 
 ing any thing but weeds and sumack for years. 
 The colonel kept open house, and his necessities 
 ran him so hard, that he ran in debt to the Scotch 
 merchant two years in anticipation. To meet 
 these new difficulties, he ran his land still harder, 
 extended his tobacco-fields, repeated his crops on 
 the same soil, until at length it gave up the ghost, 
 and, like an over-cultivated intellect, became in- 
 curably barren. 
 
 The Scotch merchant was reasonably patient 
 for two, or rather three, special reasons. He was 
 on the whole a good-natured and liberal man ex- 
 cept in small matters ; he knew that to press 
 a planter too zealously for the payment of his 
 debts would be to lose the business of all the 
 others, who would rise up and make common 
 cause against such ungentlemanly avidity ; and, 
 moreover, he was aware that, according to the 
 ancient law of the Old Dominion, there was no 
 way of getting hold of real estate except by a deed 
 of trust given voluntarily by the possessor, For 
 
14 WESTWARD IIO! 
 
 these reasons, his patience lasted rather longer 
 than might otherwise have been expected. 
 
 But the patience of a creditor is nothing com- 
 pared with that of a debtor. The one is a mere 
 hack-horse, that breaks down at the nrst heat ; 
 the other a full-blooded racer an Eclipse^ Henry, 
 or a Bonnets of Blue which, like Old Virginia 
 herself, " never tires." The merchant at length 
 got out of patience, and began to hint at a deed 
 of trust, infamous words and outrageous to the 
 ear of a planter ! The colonel challenged the 
 Scotch merchant for insulting him with such a 
 proposal ; but the latter answered, like a reason- 
 able man, that if he would only pay him his 
 money, he would fight him afterwards with great 
 pleasure. But- it was rather more agreeable to a 
 debtor to liquidate his debts with a bullet than for 
 a creditor to be paid after that fashion. From 
 that time forward he dunned the colonel by every 
 post, which, however, in justice to the merchant, 
 ran only once a week. 
 
 Some men don't mind being dunned every day ; 
 they become accustomed to it in time, and attain 
 to an extraordinary dexterity in the invention of 
 excuses. But Colonel Dangerfield was not one 
 of these ; he could not invent a falsehood for the 
 life of him, and, if he could, he would never have 
 condescended to utter one. The situation of his 
 affairs, which gradually grew worse and worse, 
 and the importunities of his creditor, which daily 
 became more pressing, worried him to the soul. 
 He lost his spirits, and, with them, all relish, for 
 social enjoyment; he became moody, testy, ab- 
 stracted, and abstained from all his usual amuse- 
 ments within doors and without. All at once, 
 however, he seemed to rally again. A notice ap- 
 
WESTWARD HO! 15 
 
 peared in the public papers, under the signature 
 of a noted gentleman sportsman, offering to run 
 his imported gray mare Lady Molly Magpie, four 
 mile heats, at the next fall meeting, against all 
 Virginia, for any sum from one to twenty thou- 
 sand pounds, old currency. Colonel Dangerfield 
 pricked up his ears ; he had a famous horse yclept 
 Barebones, who had long reigned lord of the Vir- 
 ginia course, and won him so much money, that 
 he might have paid the Scotch merchant if he 
 had not lost it all in betting on bay fillies, bright 
 sorrels, and three year olds of his own breeding, 
 all of whom had the misfortune to bolt, break 
 down, or be distanced, to his great astonishment 
 and mortification. He determined to accept the 
 challenge, after which, as is usual with all wise 
 men when they have made up their minds, he 
 went to consult his wife on the matter. 
 
 Mrs. Dangerfield was one of the choicest orna- 
 ments of the sex ; a saint in her closet, a matron 
 in the nursery, a lady in her kitchen as well as in 
 her parlour; delicate, sensible, accomplished in 
 all that becomes a woman ; a watchful mistress, 
 a careful, mild, yet firm mother; a wife who, 
 without attempting to govern, aimed only to con- 
 trol the imprudence or overrule the foibles of her 
 husband by modest firmness, in urging arguments 
 better than he could oppose. Nine times in ten 
 the colonel fell into a passion at being thwarted 
 in his wishes or whims, and flounced away in dis- 
 gust ; but he seldom failed to return in due sea- 
 son, and, as Mrs. Dangerfield had the good sense 
 and forbearance to refrain from renewing the sub- 
 ject, would come over to her opinion with some- 
 thing like the following salvo : 
 
 " My dear, upon reflection, I think I did not 
 
16 WESTWARD HO ! 
 
 quite understand you this morning ; you meant 
 so and so." 
 
 " To be sure I did, my dear ; how could you 
 think otherwise ? I agreed with you perfectly." 
 
 " O, well, if that is the case, I shall certainly 
 not oppose you. Do just as you please, my dear." 
 
 " No, just as you please, my dear." 
 
 " Very well, I leave it to you entirely ;" and the 
 affair was amicably adjusted. The colonel was 
 satisfied, or rather he chose to be satisfied, that he 
 had his own way ; and Mrs. Dangerfield was too 
 considerate to undeceive him. 
 
 Having, as we premised, made up his mind to 
 accept the challenge of Lady Molly Magpie, he 
 sought his wife, and apprized her of his resolu- 
 tion. Being a sensible, discreet lady, she of course 
 attempted to dissuade him from carrying it into 
 effect. 
 
 " You know, colonel, that Barebones is getting 
 old ; he is now eight years of age." 
 
 " Seven, only seven, my dear, last grass." 
 
 " Well, that comes to almost the same thing ; 
 it is now the beginning of autumn. But besides 
 this, you remember he faltered and almost broke 
 down in his last contest with Betsey Richards. 
 Everybody said if Betsey had not flown the 
 course he would have been beaten." 
 
 " Then everybody talked like fools," replied the 
 colonel, not a little nettled. 
 
 Mrs. Dangerfield smiled. 
 
 " What everybody says must be true, my dear, 
 according to the old proverb." 
 
 " D n old proverbs ! but the short and the 
 long of the matter is, that I am determined to 
 accept this defiance. It shall never be said I 
 
WESTWARD HO! 17 
 
 flinched from a challenge of old Allen of Clare- 
 mont." 
 
 "But Allen of Claremont has not challenged 
 you, my dear." 
 
 " But he has challenged my horse, and that is 
 just the same thing." 
 
 " The challenge is general." 
 
 " Yes, but I know he meant me. He can't get 
 over being distanced the first heat at the last Jail 
 meeting at Tree Hill, by my three-year-old." And 
 the colonel chuckled mightily at the recollection 
 of his triumph over his old neighbour and rival 
 Allen of Claremont. 
 
 " Well, colonel, if you are determined " 
 
 " I am determined but but yet I want to 
 consult you a little about it." 
 
 " What, when you are determined ?" said Mrs. 
 Dangerfield, a little archly. 
 
 " 1 I I want your opinion, Cornelia," said 
 Colonel Dangerfield ; drawing his chair confiden- 
 tially towards his wife. 
 
 " My opinion is always at your service, my 
 husband, such as it is ; and be assured that what- 
 ever it may want in discretion, is supplied by a 
 desire which is never absent from my heart, 
 that of contributing to your honour and happi- 
 ness." 
 
 " I know it, I know it," cried he, and the dotard 
 kissed her tenderly, though they had been mar- 
 ried almost nine years ! 
 
 " Listen to me," and here his proud spirit hesi- 
 tated for a moment ; " I am in debt more than I 
 have the means of paying." 
 
 " I know it, my dear." 
 
 You know it ! in the name of heaven how 
 

 18 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 came you to know what I have tried all I could 
 to keep secret ?" 
 
 "Affection is both prying and sagacious. I 
 have seen you every week of late receiving letters 
 the handwriting of which I know, and the con- 
 tents of which I know ; for I know that you. my 
 husband, never did any act in your life, save one, 
 that could cause you to shrink from communi- 
 cations from any man living, and exhibit such 
 melancholy feelings on reading them." 
 
 " And yet you never inquired about them ! 
 wonderful woman !" 
 
 " I wished to convince you that a woman can 
 keep her tongue, if she cannot keep a secret," 
 replied the lady, good-humouredly. 
 
 " Well, my dear, I am in debt, deeply in debt ; 
 my crops are mortgaged for three years at least ; 
 the merchant, when I call for farther advances, 
 duns me for those already made. My only chance 
 is upon Barebones, I intend to risk twenty thou- 
 sand at least, and if I win, as no doubt I shall, it 
 will make me a man again." 
 
 " But if you lose ?" 
 
 " No danger of that ; Barebones may defy all 
 Virginia. But if I should lose by any unlucky 
 accident, I shall be no worse off than before. I 
 am already indebted more than I can pay without 
 a miracle." 
 
 " Not so, my husband, I think I can put you 
 in a way of retrieving your affairs without a 
 miracle." 
 
 " Ah ! as how, Cornelia ?" 
 
 "By saving your next three years' crops to pay 
 the Scotch merchant." 
 
 " Save ! impossible !" cried the colonel, in utter 
 astonishment ; " I never heard of such a thing 
 
 
WESTWARD HO! 19 
 
 iu the whole course of my life. How the deuse 
 shall I go about it ?" 
 
 " In" the first place dispose of your race horses." 
 
 " Impossible ! what will Allen of Claremont 
 say to it?" 
 
 " Never mind what he says ; he'll think you 
 wiser than he ever did before. In the next place 
 we must omit our winter's visit to Richmond." 
 
 i Impossible ! what will Mrs. Grundy and all 
 the rest of your old friends say ?" 
 
 " Let them say what they please. I believe 
 one half the miseries of this life originate in our 
 foolish fears of what people will say of us. Let 
 us do right, and let others wonder if they will." 
 
 "Weil, well," said Colonel Dangerfield, shaking 
 his head ; " what next T 
 
 " We must leave oif keeping open house, and 
 treating all comers." 
 
 " I'll be hanged if I do !" cried he, in a rage ; 
 " what, shut up my doors, like a miserable hunks, 
 and turn my back and pretend not to see strangers 
 as they pass ? no, no, that won't do, what will 
 Randolph of Turkey Island say to that ?" 
 
 " Why, what can he say, but that you have 
 changed from an imprudent to a prudent man ?" 
 
 " Prudence ! prudence is a beggarly virtue, and 
 I hate the very name of it. Randolph of Turkey 
 Island swears it is a very aldermanly virtue, and 
 I am of his opinion." 
 
 " It is a cardinal virtue." 
 
 " Yes, but not the virtue of a cardinal ;" and 
 the colonel laughed himself almost into good- 
 humour at this happy turn ; " well, what else ?" 
 
 " We can turn the four carriage horses to the 
 labours of the field, and Use them on Sundays to 
 go to church," 
 
20 WESTWARD HO I 
 
 Now the colonel valued his carriage horses next 
 unto his prime favourite Barebones. They were 
 full brothers and full blooded, and their ancestors, 
 we believe, came over with William the Con- 
 queror. In short, they had a pedigree that might 
 have figured in Ragman's roll, or that of Battle 
 Abbey. The idea of degrading them to the 
 plough overturned all the complacency of spirit 
 engendered by the lucky joke about the cardinal, 
 and the colonel waxed wroth. 
 
 " Yes," exclaimed he, " yes, turn the blood of 
 the Godolphin Arabian to the plough tail, work 
 them to skin and bone, till their sleek glossy coats 
 become like the hair of a Narragansett pacer, and 
 then hitch them to the carriage on Sunday, go to 
 church on a snail's gallop, and have old Allen of 
 Claremont laugh in his sleeve at us. curse me 
 if I ever heard of such an unreasonable woman. 
 No, madam," continued he, with an air and tone 
 of lofty sublimity, " no, madam, never shall it be 
 said that Cuthbert Dangerfield turned a blood 
 horse to a plough's tail, and disgraced his ances- 
 tors, himself, and his posterity. Hear me, Mis- 
 tress Dangerfield ! Barebones shall enter against 
 Molly Magpie, as sure as he has legs to run, and 
 ground to run upon. Old Allen of Claremont 
 shall never have it to say I refused his challenge." 
 And the colonel, according to custom, went to 
 consult with his prime confidant and counsellor, 
 Mr. Ulysses Littlejohn, whom it may be proper 
 to introduce to our readers. 
 
 .This worthy wight was of an unknown relation- 
 ship to Colonel Dangerfield, a sixteenth cousin re- 
 moved, who on the score of his near connexion with 
 the family was considered fully entitled to claim 
 bed and board and maintenance at his hands. He 
 
WESTWARD HO! 21 
 
 had inherited a pretty good estate which he spent 
 like a gentleman, that is to say, by paying no 
 attention to his affairs, and wasting every year 
 more than his income. This is an infallible 
 method ; but it was too slow for Mr. Littlejohn. 
 Finding he was going down hill, he determined 
 to relieve himself by a speculation. Accordingly 
 he borrowed money, and built a mill on a fine 
 stream of water which ran through his estate. 
 This lucky hit would undoubtedly have retrieved 
 his affairs, had not the stream soon after dried up 
 in consequence of the draining of a great marsh 
 about twenty miles off. Ulysses was advised to 
 prosecute the owner of the marsh for this un- 
 neighbourly act. Accordingly he went to law, 
 and everybody prophesied that he was a ruined 
 man. The law, as all know who have had ex- 
 perience in the matter, is as it were a snail with- 
 out legs. They say it actually does move, but it 
 is not always that people can see it without spec- 
 tacles. It is therefore little to be wondered at, 
 that rogues should complain, as we are credibly 
 informed they do, that the law is so sjow they 
 sometimes lose all patience before they are brought 
 to the gallows. Be this as it may, Mr. Littlejohn 
 waited patiently five years, and was rewarded at 
 last by a decision against him. He was obliged 
 to give a deed of trust on, the remainder of his 
 estate to pay a bill, which, if it had been cut into 
 slices, would have made five dozen tailor's mea- 
 sures ; and he was indebted for a mill that had 
 no water to set it going. But he was predestined 
 to happiness in this world in despite of fortune ; 
 everybody pitied him, yet he was the merriest 
 rogue in all the country round, and did more 
 laughing than any ten men in Virginia, we 
 
22 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 mean white men ; for, notwithstanding the ne- 
 groes are so unutterably miserable, it somehow 
 or other happens that they are a hundred times 
 merrier than their masters. 
 
 When the time came to pay the money he had 
 borrowed, he offered his creditor the mill he had 
 built with it. The creditor refused, and Mr. Lit- 
 tlejohn thought him a very unreasonable person. 
 To make an end of the matter, in due time he 
 was obliged to sell his estate, the proceeds of 
 which were just sufficient to pay his debts : and 
 at the age of eight-and-twenty, was left, as the 
 phrase is, high and dry ashore, the most helpless, 
 the most careless, and the most gentlemanly pau- 
 per, that ever broke bread in the house of a six- 
 teenth cousin removed. In proportion as Ulysses 
 grew poor, 'he multiplied his visits to Colonel 
 Dangerfield, whose kindness increased with his 
 poverty? At first he came only to dine, and it 
 was amazing to see the relish with which he 
 drank the colonel's wine, and cracked his jokes as 
 if he had ten thousand a year. By degrees his 
 visits became more frequent, and longer ; he 
 sometimes staid all night ; from this he got to 
 two or three days, and finally, when his estate 
 departed from him, and he had nothing left but a 
 blood horse descended from Flying Childers by 
 the mother's side, he rode over to Powhatan, 
 gave his horse to one blackey, his saddle-bags to 
 another, and quietly took possession of his ac- 
 customed room. No questions were asked, not a 
 word said, every thing was understood ; he was 
 perfectly welcome, and the matter was settled. 
 
 He had now remained upwards of six years an 
 inmate of the family, and durjng all that time 
 had never once talked of going away, that he 
 
 
 
WESTWARD HO! 23 
 
 might be pressed to stay. Nay, what is still more 
 remarkable, he had never been reminded by a 
 look, a hint, a word of unkindness, a neglect 
 of the servants, or an omission of the colonel to 
 ask him to take wine, that he was a beggar and 
 dependant. The blackeys loved Massa Leetle- 
 john, or Massa Lysses, as he was indifferently 
 called, for he made them laugh at his odd jokes ; 
 the children of the house followed him about like 
 pet lambs, for he had a pleasure in levelling him- 
 self to their capacity, shared in their amusements, 
 made them whistles, told them stories, and gained 
 their little hearts, by repressing all pretensions to 
 superior wisdom. Mrs. Dangerfield was always 
 particularly careful to have his room kept in 
 order, his shoes well cleaned, his apparel whole 
 and decent ; and in the season of flowers, you 
 never failed to see a bouquet placed on his table, 
 and a bunch of evergreens in his fireplace. 
 
 As to the colonel, he had become so accustomed 
 to Mr. Littlejohn, that he could not live without. 
 him. His easiness of temper, his pleasing dispo- 
 sition, his cheerful habit of mind, and, above all, 
 his unparalleled knack at killing time, were 
 invaluable qualities in a companion to a country 
 gentleman, who read little, worked less, and was 
 out of the sphere of those city amusements which 
 in a great degree disarm idleness of its leaden 
 sting. Never -man was so expert at getting 
 through a morning as Mr. Ulysses Littlejohn, 
 without doing any earthly thing either for " pos- 
 terity or the immortal gods." Many a time did 
 he and the colonel set forth on horseback for a 
 morning ride, and get no farther than the gate- 
 way, where they stopped peradventure to discuss 
 ,the propriety of a new gate-post or some such 
 
24 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 matter. The colonel loved conversation, but was 
 not very fruitful in suggesting topics, or bringing 
 ideas to bear upon them. When, therefore, he 
 was lucky enough to get hold of a subject, he did 
 not like to part with it in a hurry, any more than 
 a dog does to resign his only bone, let it be ever 
 so bare. He soon tired of a person who never 
 contradicted him, for without something of this 
 sort conversation is a,pt to fall dead to the ground. 
 To do Ulysses justice, though a dependant, he 
 felt his situation so lightly, or rather forgot it so 
 entirely, that he never had the least hesitation in 
 opposing the opinions of the colonel on all occa- 
 sions where he really differed with him. Thus 
 they lived together in perpetual collision, the best 
 friends in the world, for they helped each other 
 to kill time, and Mr. Littlejohn, in addition to 
 his excellence at making indifferent jokes, had a 
 still more invaluable faculty of laughing heartily 
 at a dull one, after the manner of the members 
 of the English parliament. 
 
 The colonel, who, as we premised, departed in 
 wrath from the presence of Mrs. Dangerfield in 
 search of Mr. Littlejohn, found that worthy, loung- 
 ing as was his custom, about the stable ; for there 
 is a singular affinity between an idle man and a 
 horse, at least there was between Ulysses and 
 honest Barebones, who never failed to twinkle his 
 nostrils and utter a most significant chuckle when- 
 ever he received a visit from his friend. 
 
 " How is Barebones to-day, cousin Littlejohn ?" 
 said the colonel. 
 
 " Prime, colonel." 
 
 " Do you know that Mrs. Dangerfield says he 
 would have been beaten at Tree Hill course last 
 year if Betsey Richards had not bolted ?" 
 
 '^ 4. . " > 
 
WESTWARD HO! 26 
 
 If Mr. Littlejohn had not loved and respected 
 Mrs. Dangerfield above all created beings, he 
 would certainly have spoken, as it were, slight- 
 ingly of her knowledge in horseflesh, for this gross 
 slander of his friend ; as it was, he only said, 
 
 " Pooh, colonel ! what can a woman know about 
 these matters ?" 
 
 " Come, come, Ulysses ; no reflections on my 
 wife. I wish I may be shot if she isn't the clev- 
 erest woman in Virginia." 
 
 " Well, I know she is. Heaven forbid that I, 
 who look up to her as an angel down here below, 
 should say any thing in her disparagement. But 
 it's no reflection on a woman to say she knows 
 nothing about horseflesh." 
 
 " I tell you, Lyssy, she knows but every thing. 
 I sometimes think the deuce is in her, for she 
 seems to know more than I do hey !" 
 
 " Why, I've sometimes thought so myself, colo- 
 nel." 
 
 " Then you thought like a goose, Lyssy," re- 
 joined the other, who did not like to have any- 
 body agree with him in this surmise. " But, 
 Lyssy, here, Lyssy," and, beckoning him close, 
 he half- whispered in his ear, 
 
 " I've a great mind to accept old Allen of Clare- 
 mont's challenge, and run Barebones against 
 Molly Magpie, hey, boy ?" 
 
 "Have you?" quoth Littlejohn, in the same 
 tone, rubbing his hands. 
 
 " I'm determined on it." 
 
 " Are you, by gum !" exclaimed the other, in a 
 suppressed voice of delight. 
 
 " Yes ; but but do you -think there is any 
 truth in what Mrs. Dangerfield said about Bare- 
 bones ?" 
 
 VOL, i, B 
 
26 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 " Not a word ; he never was in better condition ; 
 and, to show you I am sincere in my opinion, 
 damme, colonel, if I don't go your halves in the 
 bet." 
 
 " Humph !" said the colonel ; but he did not dis- 
 play as much gratitude at this generous offer as 
 might be expected. 
 
 The result of this conference was a sudden jour- 
 ney of Mr. Littlejohn up to Richmond, and the 
 subsequent appearance in the newspaper of an 
 acceptance of the challenge of Allen of Claremont 
 by Dangerfield of Powhatan, to run Barebones 
 against Molly Magpie at the next October meet- 
 ing" for twenty thousand pounds, play or pay. 
 
27 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Showing how the Gray Mare proved the better Horse 
 in more ways than one. 
 
 ALL the opposition of Mrs. Dangerfield to the 
 whims and freaks of the colonel was preventive. 
 When the thing was past recall, she ceased to 
 allude to it, unless it happened to turn out well, 
 when she never failed to give him due credit and 
 compliment him on his sagacity. When, there- 
 fore, she saw in the public papers the acceptance 
 of the challenge of Allen of Claremont recorded in 
 our last chapter, she knew the matter was decided, 
 and kept her forebodings to herself. She even 
 affected a cheerful confidence in the result, far 
 different from her real anticipations. Should any 
 of our bachelor readers wish to know where to 
 find such a wonder of a woman, \ve will go so far 
 to allay their curiosity as to assure them that 
 there is actually such a one in the land of the liv- 
 ing, and that she resides the Lord knows where ! 
 
 Time rolled on the decisive hour approached 
 (he worthy Mr. Littlejohn for once gathered 
 himself together, cast aside the vis inertia with a 
 mighty effort, and became a most indefatigable 
 attendant on his illustrious friend Barebones, who 
 was petted as never quadruped was petted before, 
 except it might peradventure be a prize ox, a 
 Teeswater bull, or a royal ram from the Rambou- 
 illet flock during the raging of the merino mania. 
 It was now the charming month of October, when 
 
28 WEST'WARD HO! 
 
 the earth and its foliage, the sky, its sun and stars 
 are so often shaded with a thin misty veil, that 
 while it obscures the face of nature, at the same 
 time renders it more touchingly beautiful. All 
 Virginia was in motion, from the alluvial to the 
 primitive formation, from Chesapeake Bay to the 
 Blue Ridge. The high-mettled cavaliers of the 
 " Ancient Dominion" mounted their high-mettled 
 steeds, anticipated the next year's crop of tobacco, 
 and came with pockets richly lined ; and many an 
 ample estate long after rued the racing of that day. 
 Nor must we omit to record that Mrs. Dangerfield 
 took occasion to remind the colonel, that as it was 
 possible he might lose his bet of twenty thousand 
 pounds, his honour required that he should be pre- 
 pared to pay on the spot. He accordingly once 
 more wrote to his old friend the Scotch merchant, 
 offering to give him a deed of trust for his whole es- 
 tate if he would advance the sum of forty thouand 
 pounds. The proposal was accepted, the deed 
 executed, and the inheritance of six generations 
 became subject to the disposition of a stranger. 
 
 At length the day arrived big with the late of 
 Lady Molly Magpie and Barebones, of Allen of 
 Claremont and Dangerfield of Powhatan, and a 
 glorious day it was. Previous to its arrival, Bare- 
 bones had been escorted, with a dignity becoming 
 the high destinies connected with his speed and 
 bottom, to the neighbourhood of the racecourse. 
 The colonel and Mr. Littlejohn rode on either 
 side, while Barebones, richly caparisoned with a 
 gorgeous blanket, and looking through a pair of 
 holes, like an old gentleman through his specta- 
 cles, was led by uncle Pompey, or Pompey Duck- 
 legs, as he was most irreverently nicknamed by 
 the young ebonies, on the score of a pair of little 
 
WESTWARD HO! 29 
 
 bandy drumsticks, by the aid of which he wad- 
 dled along after the fashion of that amphibious 
 bird. Pompey claimed and received this post of 
 honour by virtue of having once had the felicity 
 of belonging to Lord Dunmore, the last royal gov- 
 ernor of Old Virginia. He considered himself as 
 a branch of the aristocracy, often boasted that he 
 was one of the few gentlemen left in the Ancient 
 Dominion, and never failed to lay all the blame of 
 bad crops on the revolution. When he recollected 
 that Molly Magpie was an " imported" horse, and 
 a lady besides, his mind misgave him sorely, for 
 he could scarcely bring himself to believe it pos- 
 sible that any animal foaled on this side the At- 
 lantic had a chance of success against one so high 
 bred and highly descended. " Dem rebel horse 
 no bottom," thought Pompey. Close behind Pom- 
 pey the Great rode Pompey the Little, his grand- 
 son, to whom the conduct of Barebones was to be 
 intrusted in the coming contest between the houses 
 of Clarcmont and Powhatan. He was dressed in 
 a sky-blue jacket, red cap, and pantaloons of the 
 same colour ; and his black face presented a beau- 
 tiful contrast to the ivory teeth which he ever and 
 anon displayed in rows the brightest beauty in 
 the land might have envied, as he recalled to 
 mind the promise of his master, that if he won 
 the race, he would give him his freedom and a 
 hundred a year for life. As thus they walked 
 their horses slowly and majestically along, Pom- 
 pey the Great would ever and anon turn round, 
 shake his fist at Pompey the Little, and exclaim, 
 " You young racksal, you no win dis here race, 
 you disgrace you family mind, I say so." 
 
 The race was to take place precisely at one 
 o'clock, but long before the hour arrived tliQ 
 
30 WESTWARD HO ! 
 
 course was thronged with thousands of people in 
 carriages, on horseback, and on toot, of all grades, 
 sizes, ages, and colours. The day was charming, 
 the air inspiring, and the scene beautiful and ani- 
 mated beyond description. The racecourse was 
 on an elevated table-land, which commanded a 
 view of the city of Richmond, its imposing 1 capi- 
 tol (perhaps the finest situated building in the 
 United States), the turbulent rapids of the majes- 
 tic river foaming and pelting its way among the 
 rocks and islands fast anchored in the waves, and 
 afterwards winding its quiet course at a distance 
 among . the round full-bosomed hills, presented a 
 scene which of itself might occupy the attention 
 for hours. But the animation of the course ren- 
 dered a long abstraction quite impossible. Gal- 
 lant equipages every moment arriving, in which 
 the pride of Virginia, her wives and daughters, 
 displayed their fair and delicate countenances, 
 full-blooded horses champing the bit impatiently, 
 and pawing the ground as if anxious to contest 
 the prize of the day, or scouring the plain in all 
 directions, like the winged Arabs of the desert, 
 communicated indescribable gayety and interest 
 to the scene. But the gayest of the gay, the hap- 
 piest of the happy, the noisiest of the noisy, were 
 the gentlemen of colour, young and old, to whom 
 this was a holyday sanctioned by long prescrip- 
 tion. Such a mortal display of ivory and crooked 
 legs, such ecstatic gambols, such triumphant buf- 
 foonery, such inspiring shouts, such inimitable 
 bursts of laughter never were seen or heard among 
 the grave, reflecting progeny of freedom ; and the 
 spectator might have been tempted to ask himself, 
 " If these are not happy, at least at the present 
 moment, where is happiness to be found T 
 

 WESTWARD HO! 31 
 
 At twelve the champions appeared, and all was 
 hushed. The knowing ones followed Barebones 
 and Molly Magpie around the course, scanning 
 them with a keen and critical eye, and making up 
 their minds to bet on one or the other. The col- 
 oured rout thronged along the way, looking as 
 wise as their betters, and giving their opinions in 
 prophetic whispers, or climbed the trees and fences 
 to witness the coming trial. > Allen of Claremont 
 and Dangerfield of Powhatan met and saluted 
 each other with the dignified courtesy of two 
 knights of chivalry on the eve of a joust in honour 
 of their respective ladies ; and it was singular to 
 observe with what a degree of interest and almost 
 sublimity the ownership of two such famous 
 horses and the large sums at stake invested these 
 two gallant cavaliers. The crowd followed them 
 whithersoever they went, and where they were 
 was the centre of attraction. 
 
 Tap tap tap ! went the drum for the second 
 time, the judges ascended the stand of judg- 
 ment, the horses were brought to the start- 
 ing pole champing and foaming, as if partaking 
 in the feelings of their masters, and equally anx- 
 ious for the event of the struggle. For our part 
 we have no doubt that race horses are perfectly 
 aware of the object for which they are contesting, 
 and share in the triumph of victory. The judges 
 were now standing with stop watches counting 
 the minutes, and a breathless silence preceded the 
 last tap of the drum. It was a scene of almost 
 unequalled excitement, and in spite of all that 
 may be said in disparagement of the sport, we 
 neither blame those that encourage, nor those 
 who partake in its enjoyment, with due mode- 
 ration. 
 
32 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 Tap tap tap ! went the drum for the third 
 time. The riders were mounted, and the yellow 
 cap and green vest of Allen of Claremont ap- 
 peared side by side with the red cap and blue 
 vest of Dangerfield of Powhatan. As Pompey 
 the Great lifted Pompey the Little to the saddle, he 
 repeated for the last time, 
 
 " Now you dem racksal, you no win dis race, 
 you disgrace to you family." 
 
 The signal was given, and the two noble 
 animals went off with a bound, as if they had 
 suddenly been gifted with the wings of the wind. 
 Now Molly Magpie, being the lighter and weaker 
 of the two, gained upon Barebones, as they came 
 to a little descending ground ; and anon Bare- 
 bones shot ahead, as they rose upon the ascent. 
 The first two rounds continued thus alternately 
 in favour of one or the other, the little red cap 
 and the yellow appeared perched in the air, and 
 the riders seemed hardly to touch the horses they 
 rode. A dead and breathless silence held captive 
 the crowd, and Allen and Dangerfield might be 
 seen, each on a little eminence in the centre of 
 the field, watching the, struggle with a steady 
 countenance, and calm determined eye. The 
 third round Barebones decidedly took the lead : 
 first a head, then a neck, then a whole body ap- 
 peared in advance, and by the time they arrived 
 at the goal, Barebones was computed to be ten 
 lengths ahead of Molly Magpie. The assembled 
 multitude shouted " Victory ! Hurrah for Bare- 
 bones !" and as for old Pompey, he scarcely waited 
 for little red cap to be weighed after the heat, 
 when he hugged him in his arms, and pronounced 
 him an honour to his family. 
 
 The second heat was contested with equal ob- 
 
WESTWARD HO 1 . 33 
 
 stinacy, but not with the like result ; Molly Mag- 
 pie came in ahead of Barebones, and the knowing 
 ones began to hedge. Just at the moment of 
 starting for the third and last heat, Allen of Clare- 
 mont exclaimed, in a loud voice, 
 
 " Twenty thousand more on the gray mare !" 
 
 The temptation was irresistible. 
 
 " Done !" cried Dangerfield. 
 
 " Done !" cried Allen ; and at that instant the 
 horses started to decide the fortunes of the house 
 of Powhatan. For the whole of the three rounds 
 you might have covered them both with a blanket, 
 and nobody knew which had won, until the 
 judges, after some consultation, decided in favour 
 of Molly Magpie, by half a head. The same 
 voices that had shouted and huzzaed for Bare- 
 bones now shouted and huzzaed for Molly Mag- 
 pie, such is the instability of popular applause ; 
 and it is recorded that Pompey the Great fought 
 that day six pitched battles with certain gentle- 
 men of colour, who belonged to the faction of 
 the gray-mare. Yet for all this he could not help 
 saying to himself, " Eh ! dem I spect so ; dem 
 rumpublican horse he no hold candle to tudder." 
 
 Dangerfield dined with the sporting club; 
 toasted the winning horse, laughed his laugh, joked 
 his joke, and received the compliments of many 
 a sympathizing cavalier on the speed and bottom 
 of Barebones, the conqueror of a hundred fields, 
 with an air of careless self possession, that might 
 have aspired to the honours of philosophy had 
 the occasion been more worthy. He felt that he 
 was a ruined man, but he was determined no one 
 should penetrate his feelings, most especially 
 Allen of Claremont. 
 
34 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 " If it is inconvenient to yon, colonel," said 
 Allen. 
 
 "O, not in the least," said Dangerfield ; and the 
 debt was paid on the spot. 
 
 'Will yon sell Barebones ?" 
 
 " No. sir," replied the other, and abruptly turned 
 away. 
 
 The next morning the procession which set 
 out with such exulting anticipations, returned 
 home downcast and dejected, with the exception 
 of the colonel, who was determined to present a 
 dignified front to Mrs. Dangerfield. Mr. Little- 
 John, who had not uttered a single word since 
 the loss of the race, rode carelessly on, scarcely 
 holding his bridle, which hung loosely on his 
 horse's mane, and now and then casting his eye 
 with a look of commiseration on his benefactor : 
 old Pompey did nothing but shake his fist at little 
 Pompey ; and even Barebones seemed conscious 
 of his defeat, for he slouched along with his head 
 depressed, and had hardly spirit to brush away 
 the flies with his tail. 
 
WESTWARD HO! 35 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband. 
 
 IP we do not mistake it was Cardinal Richelieu 
 who once boasted that he could make treason or 
 heresy out of any three words in any language ; 
 such is the uncertainty of speech, and the inge- 
 nuity of man in misinterpreting it ! One might 
 suppose that the simple line placed at the head of 
 this chapter could not possibly have afforded any 
 sport to the commentators : and yet it is not so. 
 Some of these have interpreted it as having allu- 
 sion to a kingly crown, which in these troubled 
 days is in truth little else than a crown of thorns. 
 Others, who doubtless belonged to the ancient, if 
 not very honourable order of old bachelors, have 
 ignorantly presumed that the crown here meant 
 is that piece of silver coin bearing on its face the 
 hooked nose of Louis of France, and formerly 
 passing current in these States at eight and ten- 
 pence, and thus attempted to degrade the dignity 
 of the sex down to. that ignoble standard. But 
 l>eshrew their hearts, we say, meaning thereby, 
 may they marry a shrew, and repent this atro- 
 cious blasphemy, in smoky chimneys, and curtain 
 lectures. Who that hath ever known the blessing 
 of a modest, tender, cheerful, sensible helpmate 
 and companion, amid the flowers of youth, the 
 fruits of manhood, and the yellow leaves of de- 
 clining age, but will recognise that the crown 
 alluded to by the inspired writer is the crown of 
 happiness, and not the thorny bauble for which 
 
36 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 i 
 
 men wade tnrough oceans of blood, nor the shin- 
 ing temptation which is so often the price of 
 honour, integrity, and a quiet conscience. 
 
 The rumour of the defeat and discomfiture of 
 Barebones reached Mrs. Dangerfield the eve- 
 ning of the day on which it happened. Nobody 
 knew how it came, or who brought the news, for 
 it may be said of Rumour, that, like the pesti- 
 lence, she walketh in darkness with the speed of 
 thought or anticipation, outstrips the swiftest loco- 
 motive, and leaves all human conveyances be- 
 hind. We have sometimes been almost tempted 
 to believe she possessed the spirit of prophecy, 
 and foretold the future, rather than recorded tlie 
 past. 
 
 Be this as it may, when Colonel Dangerfield, 
 with all the coolness of desperation, apprized his 
 wife of the loss of the race and the ruin of his 
 fortune, she received the information without sur- 
 prise or emotion. The preceding night she had 
 given to her two children the tears and sorrows 
 of a tender mother ; this morning she gave her 
 husband the advice and consolation of a faith- 
 ful wife. She neither complained nor reproached, 
 but looking the present calmly in the face, asked 
 of the colonel a full and fair statement of his 
 affairs. 
 
 " I am a ruined man," said he, firmly, " it is 
 utterly impossible to keep up the establishment 
 any longer." 
 
 "Well, then we must retrench, my dear." 
 
 " Retrenchment will not do ; it is too late now. 
 I would I had taken your advice in time." 
 
 " Well, never mind that now. If we cannot 
 live in our accustomed home, we must find one 
 elsewhere, There is plenty of room in this new 
 
WESTWARD HO! 37 
 
 world of ours, and wherever we are together there 
 will be our home." 
 
 " For God's sake, Cornelia, scold me a little, 
 can't you?" exclaimed Dangerfield, quite over- 
 come. " I have beggared you and the children, 
 and yet you forgive me ! Call me fool, idiot, 
 madman, any thing but villain, and I shall feel 
 somewhat relieved. Come, scold, scold, I say; 
 curse me for destroying your happiness and that 
 of our children." 
 
 "You have not destroyed our happiness," replied 
 Mrs. Dangerfield ; " this" is the talk of custom, 
 the folly of inexperience, which thinks it cannot 
 exist except in one round of the same modes and 
 enjoyments. I, sir, as you well know, passed the 
 early part of my life in poverty, with a parent 
 whose estate was confiscated and name dishon- 
 oured for his attachment to a worthless master. 
 From this situation you chose me, and placed me 
 in the lap of affluence, where every wish has been 
 gratified. Yet I cannot but confess that, saving 
 the enjoyments of a wife and a mother, I am not, 
 I never was, happier than in the midst of pov- 
 erty. My dear Cuthbert, this change of fortune 
 will soon teach you how little, how very little, 
 the blessings of life depend on mere situation. 
 Guilt and remorse are the only lasting sources of 
 misery." 
 
 " And am I not guilty ? and will not my future 
 life be one of bitter compunction ?" 
 
 " No, not guilty, only imprudent the impru- 
 dence of inexperience and want of thought. Do 
 not quarrel with the lessons of experience," added 
 she, with a smile ; " you will be wiser in future." 
 
 " Yes, I shall shujt the door when the steed is 
 stol 
 
88 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 " I wish, my dear, Barebones had been stolen 
 six months ago." 
 
 " Nay, now, Cornelia, don't blame poor Bare 
 bones, now, don't, I beg of you. Damme if he 
 isn't the finest creature in Virginia, and I have a 
 great mind to match him against Allen of Clare- 
 mont for the next spring meeting." 
 
 " O, colonel ! colonel ! what's bred in the bone 
 but I don't abuse Barebones, and I am sure he 
 is the best horse in Virginia; but I hope you 
 won't match him against Molly Magpie again." 
 
 " What a fool I am ! what an egregious ass !" 
 cried the colonel, smiting his forehead, and strid- 
 ing about the room. 
 
 By degrees Mrs. Dangerfield drew her husband 
 into a detail of the state of his affairs, at least so 
 far as he understood them. The truth is, how- 
 ever, he knew no more about the matter than 
 that paragon of ignorance, "the man in the moon." 
 He made himself out to be over head and ears in 
 debt, and that if he turned his plantation and 
 slaves into gold, they would not pay half of what 
 lie owed. Mrs. Dangerfield was astonished, and 
 almost lost her self-possession. She maintained 
 it to be impossible; the colonel insisted it was 
 possible ; and the result of the argument was a 
 determination to send for the Scotch merchant to 
 elucidate the matter. I 
 
 i The conference had scarcely ended when a hor- 
 rible outcry and commotion was heard in the direc- 
 tion of the stables, which were at the distance of 
 about a furlong from the house, and Mrs. Danger- 
 field begged the colonel to go and see what was the 
 matter. Some husbands would have declined, 
 merely because they consider obliging their wives 
 a a proof of being henpecked ; but the eolonel was 
 
WESTWARD HO! 39 
 
 a little crestfallen at the catastrophe of Barebones 
 and the state of his affairs, and obeyed like a dis- 
 creet person. Arriving on the premises, he beheld 
 Pompey the Little tied incontinently to a beam, 
 and Pompey the Great (otherwise called Pompey 
 Ducklegs) belabouring him with a cowskin so lus- 
 tily, that if ever man or boy had a good excuse 
 for roaring like ten thousand bulls o? Bashan, it 
 was that luckless composition of ebony. Between 
 every stroke, which was followed by a roar, the 
 indignant Ducklegs would exclaim : 
 
 "You young racksal you lose he race, eli ! 
 (whack !) You no beat Molly Magpie, eh ! 
 (whack!) You no be free nigger, eh! (whack!) 
 You no get hundred a year, eh ! (whack i) 
 You disgrace you family, you young racksal, eh ! 
 (whack! whack! whack,!)" 
 
 "Pomp," cried the colonel, "how dare you 
 strike any of my slaves without my permission ?" 
 
 " He disgrace he family, massa." * 
 
 " Pshaw ! untie the poor fellow ; he did his 
 best it was not his fault that Barebones lost. 
 Untie him, I say, and never take such a liberty 
 again, sir." 
 
 " Huh ! libbety !" grumbled Pompey Ducklegs, 
 as he obeyed his master, & debbil ! an't he old nig- 
 ger's own flesh and blood, dough he be a disgrace 
 to he family P 
 
40 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Showing that a Gentleman will understand his affairs 
 the better for a little Arithmetic. 
 
 HONOUR and praise to the illustrious Thomas 
 Dilworth, who whilom, in the days of our flagel- 
 lation, used to figure in front of Spelling Book 
 and "Schoolmaster's Assistant" dire, with quill 
 behind his ear, in powdered wig, and most redun- 
 dant chitterling. True it is, that the march of 
 improvement in this stupendous age of self-sharp- 
 ening pencils, silver forks, antibilious pills, Frank- 
 lin gridirons, artificial teeth, artificial flowers, arti- 
 ficial women, and other stupendous improvements, 
 true it is, that this illustrious man hath been el- 
 bowed from the hallowed precincts of practical and 
 impracticable schools we beg pardon, institutes 
 wherein A, B, C is taught classically, and pothooks 
 and hangers perpetrated according to the true 
 principles of trigonometry, true it is, that his 
 Spelling Book hath been superseded by millions 
 of new and improved systems invented by ambi- 
 tious pedagogues for the purpose of picking the 
 pockets of inexperienced parents, and thus bene- 
 fiting the rising generation, that his School- 
 master's Assistant hath given place to the same 
 thing with a different, yea, a more high-sounding 
 name, and that the titlepage consecrated by his 
 powdered pate and sagacious phiz, wherein shone 
 the might of birch, hath been usurped by the effi- 
 gies of other pretenders who learned figures and 
 
WESTWARD HO! 41 
 
 spelling of the immortal gods. " True it is, and 
 pity 'tis 'tis true :" yet if we desert thee for these 
 modern upstarts, O most illustrious Thomas ! may 
 we forget our multiplication table, lose the faculty 
 of calculating compound interest on the money 
 we lend to our dear friends, and all our practical 
 knowledge of subtraction be preserved by the ne- 
 cessity of estimating the diminution of our bank 
 stock. Those only whose knowledge of arithme- 
 tic will enable them to count the innumerable 
 flagellations we received under the auspices of the 
 illustrious Dilworth ere we could be brought to 
 comprehend the virtue of a common denominator, 
 can estimate the value pf this disinterested tribute 
 to his memory. 
 
 The summons despatched to the Scotch n^er- 
 chant was in due time followed by the appearance 
 of that exceedingly methodical person, -who was 
 animated, governed, and impelled, as it were, by 
 the five rules of arithmetic. He reasoned like 
 a member of congress, in figures, and drew his 
 conclusions from profit and loss. It was equally 
 against his conscience to make a losing bar- 
 gain as to take an undue advantage for the 
 purposes of gain. Dangerfield, who had no 
 great good-will towards him (for no man loves 
 his creditor), used to tell a story of Mr. Mac- 
 tabb, which, whether true or not, was somewhat 
 in character. A friend, it seems, proposed to him 
 a shipment of tobacco to Ireland, where its intro- 
 duction was either prohibited or burdened with 
 enormous duties, observing, at the same time, he 
 doubted whether it would be quite right. Mao- 
 tabb took out his pencil, and entered upon a long 
 calculation, at the end of which he exclaimeoj 
 " Right, sir, right, by a balance of five thousand 
 
 
42 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 pounds. " He was, in short, a lover of money ; 
 yet, such are the strange inconsistencies of even 
 the most consummate misers, that though they 
 \vill starve themselves, they sometimes exhibit 
 the most extraordinary traits of generosity. Like 
 pent-up waters, it would seem, when the barrier 
 is once broken through, they flow in a torrent. 
 It was thus with Mactabb, who on more than one 
 occasion had conducted himself with a delicate 
 liberality which seemed little in accord with his 
 general character. 
 
 " Can you tell me how much I owe you, Mr. 
 Mactabb?" asked Colonel Dangerfield, almost 
 afraid to hear the answer. 
 
 Mactabb took out his memorandum-book, where 
 he had calculated the amount to a fraction. It 
 was somewhat more than seventy-five thousand 
 pounds, Virginia currency. 
 
 "No more?" asked the colonel, drawing his 
 breath freely, and rubbing his hands. 
 
 Mactabb lifted his specs from before his eyes, 
 and stared at him in astonishment. 
 - "No more, Colonel Dangerfield! why, how 
 much did you think it was ?" 
 f. "Why, the truth is, sir, I am not good at calcu- 
 lations ; and besides, I don't know how it is, but 
 I either kept no account of your advances, or I 
 have mislaid it. I thought I owed you almost 
 twice that sum." 
 
 " Here is a phenomenon !" thought Mactabb ; 
 " the first man I ever met with who overrated his 
 debts." After a little hesitation, the colonel ad- 
 dressed him again, 
 
 " Mr. Mactabb, you have told me how much I 
 owe you ; I wish you wou)4 go a little farther, 
 and tell me the amount of my debts to other 
 people," 
 
WESTWARD HO! 43 
 
 Mactabb was more astonished than ever; 
 though he had been accustomed to dealing with 
 Virginia planters, he never met with exactly such 
 a one before. 
 
 " That, colonel, is out of my power unless you 
 will show me your accounts, your day-book, jour- 
 nal, leger, statement of bills, notes, bonds, accept- 
 ances, purchases, &c. &c. &c." 
 
 " My what ?" exclaimed the colonel, utterly con- 
 founded ; " I never kept an account in my life." 
 
 " No !" exclaimed Mactabb, more astonished 
 than the colonel : " I don't wonder " and here he 
 checked himself. 
 
 " Mr. Mactabb," said Colonel Dangerfield, in a 
 husky tone, " it is useless to look back except with 
 a view to the future. What is done, is done. I 
 sent for you to learn the amount of your claims 
 upon me, and to say that you are at perfect lib- 
 erty to act on the deed of trust as soon as you 
 please. I can never repay you, and the estate 
 must be sold." 
 
 Sold ! 
 
 Yes sold." 
 
 " Colonel Dangerfield," said the Scotsman, "in- 
 dulge me a few moments. Is there no way of 
 avoiding this painful sacrifice ? I am a man of 
 family myself, sir ; my father has an estate in the 
 highlands of Scotland, which, barren as it is, 
 would break his old heart to part with. Will you 
 to bring the matter to a close will you place 
 your affairs in my hands, and await the result of 
 my inquiries and arrangements ?" 
 
 " It is the very thing I wish ; for I will acknow- 
 ledge myself utterly incapacitated for the task." > 
 
 After gaining all the information possible from 
 Colonel Dangerfield concerning the state of his 
 affairs which was very little, Mactabb departed on 
 
44 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 his errand. There is not much difficulty in find- 
 ing out creditors, and in less than a month he re- 
 turned with tlie requisite information. There 
 Avere a number of considerable demands, but Mac- 
 tabb was the principal creditor. Again the colo- 
 nel was surprised at the result, and again was the 
 honest Scot astonished at finding a man who did 
 not owe half as much as he expected. 
 
 " Let us see/' said Mactabb ; " your estate con- 
 tains how many acres ?" 
 
 " I don't know exactly, but I believe about four- 
 teen thousand." 
 
 " And the amount of your income is " 
 
 " I can't say how much." 
 
 " And the number of slaves " 
 
 " Don't know my overseer can tell." 
 
 " Perhaps we had better call him in ;" and the 
 overseer was accordingly summoned. After re- 
 ceiving the necessary Information, and the two 
 gentlemen being left alone, Mactabb resumed the 
 conversation. 
 
 " Well, Colonel Dangerfield, after all, I don't see 
 that your affairs are so desperate. A few years 
 of saving will set all right again." 
 
 " But I don't know how to save." 
 
 " O, you will soon learn ; necessity is " and 
 here he checked himself. 
 
 " No, I will be sincere with you, Mr. Mactabb ; 
 if I continue here I must live as I have been ac- 
 customed to live. I must accept invitations, and 
 give them ; I must have my equipages, my pack 
 of hounds, my blood horses, and I must keep open 
 house. No, if I cannot hold up my head as I was 
 wont, I am determined to quit this part of the 
 country for ever. Besides, I shall be pestered for 
 debts I cannot pay" 
 
WESTWARD HO! 45 
 
 " Let me be your sole creditor, and I will wait 
 your time." 
 
 " You ? why, I thought you " and the colonel 
 stammered and stopped. 
 
 " I know what you thought me, a miserly old 
 hunks;- and, the Lord forgive me ! so I am, I be- 
 lieve, sometimes : the instinct of money-getting 
 frequently overpowers the inward man ; but I as- 
 sure you, colonel, I am at this moment inclined 
 to do you a service." 
 
 " I thank you, -Mactabb," replied Dangerfield, 
 somewhat suspicious of a design ; " but I fear it 
 is out of your power. The estate must and shall 
 be sold publicly, if no private purchaser can be 
 found." 
 
 " It will then be sacrificed." 
 
 " I cannot help it. Perhaps you will take it off 
 my hands, and pay yourself, with the other cred- 
 itors?" 9 j 
 
 Mactabb felt the old money-getting devil tug- 
 ging at his elbow, and whispering in his ear to 
 accept the offer. For a few moments he listened 
 to the tempter, and felt himself sorely beset by his 
 insinuations. But he said to himself, " Get thee 
 behind me, Satan ;" and the cowardly imp obeyed. 
 
 " What say you, sir," resumed Dangerfield, with 
 a desperate vivacity, " will you take all and pay 
 all ?" 
 
 No, I'll be d d if I do !" Mactabb never 
 swore except when he was going to do a generous 
 action. 
 
 "I thought so," observed the colonel, indig- 
 nantly ; " you expect to make a better bargain at 
 a public sale." 
 
 " There you thought wrong, Colonel Danger- 
 field. I expect to make a better bargain in pri- 
 
 
46 WESTWARD HO ! 
 
 rate for you ; please to attend to me. I still think 
 that the better way would be to keep your estate, 
 and by an inflexible course of economy [the 
 colonel shook his head] well, then, to the other 
 point ; you must make the best sale you can " 
 
 " I know nothing about bargains." 
 
 " More is the pity. Colonel Dangerfield ; a man 
 ignorant of bargaining is always at the mercy of 
 rogues." 
 
 " And a man acquainted with it is very often a 
 rogue himself." 
 
 " Amen tit for tat is all fair. But to the point 
 once more. In few words, and in all sincerity, I 
 will take your estate." 
 
 " Hum !" quoth the colonel, dryly. 
 
 " I will pay your debts." 
 
 " Hum !" still more dryly. 
 
 " I will give you a discharge in full." 
 
 ' l Hum !" as dry as tinder ; " and so the matter 
 is settled at last." 
 
 " Not quite ; there is one condition yet to be 
 complied with ; you must " 
 
 "What a cursed old skinflint!" thought the 
 colonel. 
 
 " You must bind yourself, your heirs, execu 
 tors, and assigns to receive from me the just and 
 full sum of five thousand pounds, Virginia cur- 
 rency, as a balance due you in the settlement 
 of this business." 
 
 " The devil !" exclaimed the colonel, astonished. 
 
 " Do you consent, Colonel Dangerfield ?" 
 
 " Are you in earnest, Mr. Mactabb T 
 
 " I am always in earnest when I make a bar- 
 gain." 
 
 "Well, then, give me your hand, sir; and 
 damme if you are not the prince of tobacco mcr- 
 
WESTWARD HO! 47 
 
 chants. You are a right generous fellow ; and 
 I'll make you a present of Barebones." 
 
 " O, no, no, colonel, don't tempt me to lose my 
 money on a broken-down horse." 
 
 " A broken-down horse, sir ! Do you mean to 
 insult me by insinuating that Barebones is broke 
 down, or that I would give him to you if he was 
 not at this moment able to beat any horse, mare, 
 or gelding in Virginia ?" 
 
 " Except Molly Magpie. 
 
 " No, sir," cried the colonel, in a rage, " not ex 
 cepting Molly Magpie. I'll tell you what, 'Mr. 
 Mactabb, yon may be a judge of tobacco, but 
 you know no more of a horse than old Allen of 
 Claremont ; and more than that, sir, please to un 
 derstand I'm off with my agreement. You shan't 
 have my estate ; you shan't pay my debts ; and 
 damme if I accept your five thousand pounds. 
 Barebones broke down, indeed !" 
 
 It was with some difficulty Mactabb allayed the 
 wrath of the colonel. " A sailor is all one as a 
 piece of his ship," as the old song says, and a Vir 
 ginian is all one as a piece of his horse. He re- 
 alizes the fable of the centaurs he will have a 
 horse if he has nothing else ; and if he cannot 
 procure a pair of spurs, he will fasten a single one 
 to his right heel, justly considering that if you 
 prick one side of a horse along, the other will fol- 
 low of course. Mactabb finally pacified the colo- 
 nel by some adroit allusions to the exploits of 
 Barebones, and the matter was amicably settled. 
 The colonel consented to have his debts paid, and 
 to receive the five thousand pounds. 
 
 "After all I have got a great bargain," said 
 Mactabb, "if I only knew as much about the 
 cultivation of tobacco af of it* quality and 
 value," 
 

 48 * WESTWARD HO! 
 
 " And I have made a good bargain too," said 
 the colonel, with a sigh, " if I only knew as well 
 how to make, as I do about making away with 
 money." 
 
 As the winter was now at hand, it was settled 
 that Colonel Dangerfield should remain where he 
 was until spring ; and after discussing a bottle of 
 Madeira from a vintage which I believe preceded 
 the discovery of that island, Mactabb departed for 
 his residence in the city of Richmond, the abode 
 of hospitable men and bonny lasses. Here he set 
 about arranging the affairs of Colonel Dangerfield 
 with that indefatigable zeal which marked his 
 character. Next to making money it was his 
 greatest pleasure to pay it where it was honestly 
 due, though we are obliged to confess that, on 
 this occasion, tradition says he squeezed some of 
 the colonel's creditors at such a horrible rate, that 
 they did not recover their breath for a week after- 
 wards. Among the greatest sufferers was an hon- 
 est painstaking cobbler, who whilom was wont 
 to officiate for the dingy vassals of Powhatan, 
 from whose bill he victoriously deducted sixpence 
 in the matter of a pair of heeltaps. 
 
 
WESTWARD HOl 49 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 * 
 
 Westward Ho ! 
 
 COLONEL DANGERPIELD felt happier than he 
 had been for many a day, after concluding the 
 arrangement with Mactabb. He was relieved 
 from the load of debt, the heaviest load, except 
 that of sin, that ever fell on the shoulders of man- 
 kind. Besides this, the thing was settled ; and 
 when that is the case none but the weaker minded 
 shrink from the crisis, be it what it may. In the 
 true spirit of conjugal confidence, the colonel 
 sought his wife to communicate with her about 
 the best mode of settling the affair after it was 
 all settled. Mrs. Dangerfield could not help smil- 
 ing at this complimentary appeal : " better late 
 than never," she thought ; and kindly expressed 
 her satisfaction that the thing was no worse. 
 
 " But we must leave this next spring, and whi- 
 ther shall we go ?" said she. 
 
 " O, there is time enough to think of that no 
 use in troubling ourselves before it is necessary. 
 The spring will soon come, Cornelia.' 5 
 
 " Too soon," thought Mrs. Dangerfield, and her 
 naturally sweet voice softened into the most 
 touching pathos. " The spring will soon come, 
 the birds in our copses will soon begin to sing, 
 the flowers in our garden soon begin to bloom, the 
 meadows will be green before we are aware, and 
 and we must be getting ready to go some- 
 where." 
 
 VOL, I,- 
 
50 WESTWARD Ho! 
 
 " Well, well, don't think of it, Cornelia,"- and 
 he came and took her hand, and squeezed it affec- 
 tionately, as we are living souls ! " don't think 
 of it, and forget what a brute I have been." 
 
 Mrs. Dangerfield we are almost afraid to re- 
 cord it ; it is so incredible that we are sure the 
 reader, if he or she hath the least experience in 
 the world, will refuse to credit the whole of this 
 veritable history, on the score of such an outrage 
 i)ii probability Mrs. Dangerfield threw her arms 
 about his neck, kissed him, and, though she did 
 not swear he was no brute, thought so from the 
 bottom of her heart ; and yet the man was her 
 husband ! 
 
 February now came, in this mellow clime the 
 nerald of brighter days and warmer sunshine. The 
 Jttle birds, that come from heaven knows where, 
 all at once appeared, and twittered among the 
 alders that skirted the silent rivulets, which, unseen 
 as they were unheard, were only betrayed in their 
 quiet course by the fresh green grass that marked 
 their meanderings ; the frogs, whose music, harsh 
 as it is, is welcome at such a time, as the sure pre- 
 cursor of the genial season, piped in the ponds 
 the violets just began to peer above the ground in 
 pale-blue clusters ; the dark-brown of the woods 
 gradually changed to an almost imperceptible 
 purple ; the wild geese were heard gabbling their 
 course invisible in the air, from the south to the 
 north; and all nature, animate and inanimate, 
 began to partake in the joyous influence of the 
 season ; all except the family of Colonel Dan- 
 gerfield, to whom the approach of spring was the 
 signal of exile. 
 
 " What can have become of Mactabb, I won- 
 der ?" observed the colonel to his wife one mild 
 
WESTWARD HO! 51 
 
 evening, as they sat at the window watching the 
 quiet course of the river that flowed at a little dis- 
 tance ; " he ought to be here before this." 
 
 " From what you have told me of Mr. Mac- 
 tabb, I am inclined to think he won't come till you 
 send for him. His visit would look as if he came 
 to hurry us away." 
 
 " True ; I had forgot that. I must write to 
 him." 
 
 Accordingly he wrote to Mactabb to prepare all 
 the necessary documents, and bring them as early 
 as possible. He came in a few days, produced 
 his own discharge and those of all the creditors, 
 and the estate of Powhatan was consigned to him 
 for ever. The hand of Colonel Dangerfield trem- 
 bled a little as he signed his name ; but that of 
 his wife, though white and delicate as a snow- 
 drop, was steady as the oak that defies the storm. 
 A dead silence succeeded this painful ceremony. 
 It was at length broken by Mactabb, who, after 
 fumbling in his pocket some time, produced a 
 paper which he handed to the colonel, saying, 
 
 " Here is the balance due on plague take it, 
 what a cough I've got somehow I always catch 
 cold in this confounded month of "February. 
 Here is a draft for five thousand pounds, and 
 
 and may heaven prosper you with it." 
 
 The colonel received it with a silent bow, and 
 
 then another pause ensued. Again it was broken 
 
 by Mactabb. 
 
 " D n it, I will yes, I will I have a right, 
 
 and I will," mumbled he, as it were to himself; 
 
 " Colonel Dangerfield hem will you permit 
 
 will you forgive me if I ask what are your plans 
 
 for the future ?" 
 
62 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 " Good God ! that's true ; we have settled no- 
 thing as yet." 
 
 " Understand me, colonel, I do not wish to 
 hurry you, this house and this estate are yours, 
 to remain as long as you please, the longer the 
 better. But possibly I may aid you with my ad- 
 vice ; I am a man of business, you know, and 
 my experience is heartily at your service." 
 
 " There is no .occasion, sir," replied Dangerfield, 
 coldly, and rather haughtily, for this was the first 
 time of being reminded that he was no longer in 
 his own house. 
 
 " But there is occasion, my dear,' 5 said Mrs. 
 Dangerfield, good-humouredly, " and we shall be 
 thankful for Mr. Mactabb's advice." 
 
 " Well, then, there are two ways of retrieving 
 our fortunes, one by industry and economy, the 
 other by enterprise and daring ; which do you 
 prefer, Colonel Dangerfield?" 
 
 " The latter, undoubtedly. Long habits have 
 incapacitated me for the first, but I believe, I 
 trust, sir, I am still able to venture, to dare, and 
 to suffer, if necessary. That course, however, I 
 confess would be most agreeable to me, which led 
 to a distant sphere of action. 1 cannot live as I 
 and my fathers have been accustomed to live 
 here, and my intention is to go where I am not 
 known." 
 
 " Would you like to go to Kentucky ?" asked 
 Mactabb. 
 
 Mrs. Dangerfield started. 
 
 " What ! the dark and bloody ground, as I have 
 heard it called ?" 
 
 Colonel Dangerfield considered a few moments, 
 and seemed pleased with the suggestion of Mac- 
 tabb. The Scot then informed him that he had 
 
WESTWARD HO! 53 
 
 lately come into the possession of a large tract of, 
 what was represented to be the richest land on 
 Kentucky River, which he had accepted in lieu 
 of a debt. That a company, with which he had 
 associated himself, was going to form a settlement 
 immediately, a number of emigrants having en- 
 tered into an agreement to " start" in the month 
 of March, and rendezvous at Pittsburg, whence 
 they were to descend the Ohio to the rnouth of 
 the Kentucky ; and finally, that if he would take 
 the direction of the adventure, the choice of as 
 much land as he wished was at his service. 
 
 During this detail, Colonel Dangerfield ex- 
 changed glances with his wife, whose counte- 
 nance, like the limpid waters of Lake George, 
 reflected every thing that passed over it. She 
 was thinking of the tales of murder and massacre 
 which constitute the early history of the dark 
 and bloody ground ; the dangers, the loneliness, the 
 privations, her husband, her offspring, and herself 
 must suffer and endure ; the toils Ithat must be 
 encountered ere they could reach their destined 
 home, and the exposures that would follow before 
 they could expect to dwell in safety under their 
 own vine and their own fig-tree. She shuddered 
 as she thought of the future destinies of her 
 children, who had been bred in all the luxurious 
 indulgence of southern habits, and whose every 
 want, and wish, and caprice had been gratified by 
 the willing assiduity of slaves, who never contra- 
 dicted or opposed their most unreasonable desires. 
 But in a few moments the cloud passed away. 
 
 Women, even the most delicately nurtured, and 
 the most apprehensive in their dispositions, love 
 adventure'and excitement in their very hearts. 
 Distant journeys enchant them, and the anticipa- 
 
64 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 tion of novelty is irresistible. Even danger has 
 its charms, and we have more than once seen 
 females whose vivacity was always quickened by 
 its approach. Travelling is much more delightful 
 to them than to the other sex. and the prospect 
 of change a thousand times more seductive, from 
 its contrast with their domestic habits, and the 
 uniformity of their occupations. The name of 
 the Ohio, La Belle Riviere, sounded so charm- 
 ingly, and the prospect of gliding down its smooth 
 and glassy stream, amid endless forests, and vast 
 solitudes of nature, came with a romantic seduc- 
 tion across her imagination, and lighted up her 
 face with a willing smile of acquiescence in the 
 proposed plan. We have been sometimes led to 
 believe that the natives of this land of emigration 
 inherited from their ancestors that fearless wan- 
 dering disposition, which brought them to the 
 western world, and which, operating in a region 
 of boundless space, is, however it may be the 
 subject of ridicule or censure, the habit, or the 
 quality, which has made this country what it is, 
 and will make it what it is destined to become. 
 It is founded in the love of independence, associ- 
 ated with, and supported by courage and enter- 
 prise. Like the young partridge, the American 
 is scarcely hatched, ere he sets out, with the shell 
 still clinging to his downy wing, in search of a 
 new region where he will no longer be a burthen 
 to himself or others. 
 
 Assuredly the attachment to home, the ties of 
 kindred, the chains of custom, and the habits of 
 youth exercise a wholesome influence in softening 
 and humanizing mankind. Yet still they ought 
 never to be indulged at the sacrifice of the higher 
 qualities, and more inflexible duties, of the human 
 
WESTWARD HO! 55 
 
 race. To be a useless idler at the parental fire- 
 side, a burthen on the shoulders of kindred, or a 
 dependant on the kindness or bounty of friends, 
 rather than* burst these ties and attachments, how- 
 ever amiable it may be, sinks us below, far below 
 the level of the generous manly spirit, which 
 scorns the indulgence of such a weakness at such 
 a price, and dashes forth into the stormy ocean of 
 life, trusting to himself and his Maker whether 
 he shall sink or swim. 1 
 
 " What say you, Cornelia?" asked the colonel, 
 who saw her answer in her speaking eye ; " shall 
 we accept the offer, and become the founders of a 
 new empire ?" 
 
 Mrs. Dangerfield replied in something like the 
 choice language of a Scripture matron. 
 
 ." Wheresoever thou goest, there will I go ; 
 wherever thou abidest, there will I also abide ; 
 whatever thou endurest, I will bear my portion 
 of the chastening ; thy hope shall be my hope, 
 thy disappointment my disappointment. I am 
 ready to go with thee, my husband, be it whither 
 it will." 
 
 Mactabb, who had a physiognomy as rough as 
 the outside of 'an oystershell, took occasion to 
 wipe his spectacles, which had become rather dim 
 from their proximity to his eyes. And now they 
 proceeded to settle those little details, which how- 
 ever indispensable both in the ordinary and extra- 
 ordinary affairs of life, are utterly unworthy the 
 dignity of romance, which we maintain, in the 
 very teeth of the musty bookworm critics, is the 
 most dignified, as well as useful of all kinds of 
 writing, if not to the reader, at least to the author. 
 What did Dan Homer get $r his immortal 
 poems ? Did he get a place at court, a pension, 
 
56 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 or a title ? or did he get his pockets filled with 
 ready money? Verily, no, he attained to the 
 honour of keeping a school on a rock, and after- 
 wards, when old and blind, was chosen king of 
 the beggars, the only dignity he ever arrived at 
 during his life. What did Will Shakspeare get 
 for Othello, Macbeth, Richard, and the Midsum- 
 mer Night's Dream? A benefit at the "Red 
 Bull," or some such queer place. What did 
 Otway get for his Venice Preserved ? A crust of 
 bread which choked him. What Milton, for one 
 of the very noblest efforts of human genius? 
 The price of a new suit, and liberty to stay in 
 England without being hanged. What did Locke 
 get for the only analysis of the" human under- 
 standing which the human understanding was 
 ever able to comprehend? Not a vice-chancel- 
 lorship, mastership, or wardenship, but a sentence 
 of expulsion from a most reverend rookery. 
 
 But to return from this digression into which 
 we have been incontinently 'allured, by the glo 
 rious vision of a mighty purse of golden eagles 
 (a species of bird now almost extinct in this 
 hemisphere) flitting before us, and making a 
 music to which that of Pasta and Paganirii is a 
 horrible discord. 
 
 
WESTWARD HO! 57 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Colonel Dangcrfield prepares to found a new Empire. 
 
 KNOWING how cgregiously the gentle and en- 
 lightened reader is an hungered after stirring ad- 
 ventures, bloody feats, and such like delectable 
 ingredients, which, like Cayenne and spices, give 
 a triumphant zest to literary entertainments, and 
 how justly he abhorreth that dull and diabolical 
 fiend called Common Sense, we shall not detain 
 him from the marvellous wonders in store for him 
 a moment longer than is necessary to record a 
 few indispensable preliminaries. 
 
 When it was known that the estate of Powha- 
 tan, with all its live stock, two-legged and four- 
 legged, saving and excepting Barebones, Pompey 
 Ducklegs. Pompey the Little, and the rest of the 
 Pompey family, young and old, amounting to 
 some five-and-forty, had passed away from their 
 ancient owner, there was weeping and gnashing 
 of teeth among the inhabitants of the little village 
 of cabins, where dwelt the slaves of Colonel Dan- 
 gerfield, in the possession of all those enjoyments 
 of which their state is susceptible. They thronged 
 about their master and mistress, begging to be 
 taken with them to " Old Kentuck," where they 
 would cut down the big trees, plant corn, and kill 
 the Indians. The colonel was affected, and Mrs. 
 Dangerfield could not restrain her tears ; but, it 
 being now evening, she directed the inspiring 
 banjo to be twanged by the minstrel of Powhatan, 
 c3 
 
 
58 'WESTWARD HO' 
 
 who, strange to say, was prophetically christened 
 by the name of Orpheus, or Apollo, for, beshrew 
 our memory, we have forgotten which. At that 
 irresistible signal, the light-hearted slaves, the very 
 prototypes of children in their joys, their sorrows, 
 their forgetful ness of the past, their indifference 
 to the future, listened, dried their tears, and soon 
 they were dancing "double trouble" and light Vir- 
 
 g'nia reels, with a triumphant, grotesque gesticu- 
 tion, a zest, an hilarity seasoned by such shouts 
 of laughter as only the echoes of the south repeat 
 to the listening landscapes far and wide. They 
 seemed to be happy, and we hope they were ; for 
 it is little consolation to know, or to believe, that a 
 mode of existence of which millions of beings par- 
 take is inevitably a state of wretchedness. 
 
 To the honour of Colonel Dangerfield it must 
 be recorded, that though Pompey the Little did 
 not win the race, he offered him his freedom on 
 this occasion. 
 
 " I cannot afford to give you money," said he, 
 " but I can give you freedom." 
 
 To the still greater honour of Pompey, he de- 
 clined the offer. 
 
 "Ony don't leave me behind, massa; xiat all 
 nigger want." 
 
 When the great Ducklegs heard this, he for- 
 gave him the loss of the race, and pronounced 
 him decidedly " an honour to he family." 
 
 " But what has become of Mr. Littlejohn all this 
 while ?" the reader may peradventure inquire. 
 
 When the colonel apprized him of the transfer 
 of his property to Mactabb, and the intended emi- 
 gration to Kentucky, he exclaimed, with uncon- 
 trollable emotion, " My G d !" and burst into a 
 passion of tears. 
 
WESTWARD HO 1 . 59 
 
 His benefactor, who had never suspected him 
 of so much feeling before, endeavoured to comfort 
 him, by suggesting a variety of topics of consola- 
 tion. But it was all in vain ; he continued to 
 weep with a degree of convulsive agitation exceed- 
 ingly painful . The long winter, which had frozen 
 his feelings into ice, seemed to have broken up on 
 a sudden, and the pent-up waters flowed forth 
 scorning all restraint. 
 
 " Don't take on so, Ulysses," said the colonel ; 
 " I am not so poor but I can allow you something 
 to live on when I am gone. Mactabb will receive 
 you for a small allowance, and that 1 can spare 
 without difficulty." 
 
 " May the thunder and lightning strike Mactabb 
 and all his race !" cried Littlejohn, suddenly 
 checking his emotion, or rather turning it into 
 another channel. 
 
 " Shame, Littlejohn, shame ! what has Mr. 
 Mactabb done that you should set the thunder and 
 lightning at him ?" 
 
 " He's got Powhatan, d n him !" 
 
 " Well, what of that ? he came by it honestly." 
 
 " I don't believe it. I don't believe it possible 
 for one man to get the estate of another honestly. 
 It stands to reason the Old Boy must help him, 
 more or less !" 
 
 The colonel could not forbear a smile at this the- 
 ory of Mr. Littlejohn. 
 
 " The Old Boy sometimes helps people to get rid 
 of an estate, I believe, as well as to get one. But 
 I'll tell you what, Ulysses, I intend to give you 
 Barebones. I can't bear to sell him." 
 
 " Barebones, colonel ! I wouldn't have him if 
 he carried a packsaddle of guineas ; he's just fit 
 to take a bag of corn to mill, and be hanged to 
 him ! Blame me if I believe in his pedigree." 
 
60 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 " You don't, Mr. Littlejohn ? Let me tell you, 
 sir confound me, sir ! let rne tell you, Mr. Lit- 
 tlejohn," and the colonel spoke between his shut 
 teeth, " that if your pedigree were as undoubted 
 as that of Barebones, you might hold up your 
 head a little higher than you do. Look here, sir," 
 jerking out his pocket-book, " look here, sir," 
 taking out a piece of smokedried paper, " look 
 here, sir," unfolding it, "dam, Kitty Fisher, sir; 
 grandam, Slow and Easy, sir ; great-grandam, 
 Singed Cat, sir; great-great-grandam, Pettitoes, 
 sir ; great-great-great-grandam 'sblood ! Mr. Lit- 
 tlejohn, I expect the next thing you do will be to 
 call me the son of a tinker !" 
 
 A moment after the hand of Mr. Littlejohn was 
 clasped in his own, for he remembered that Ulys- 
 ses was a dependant, and himself his benefactor. 
 
 " Well, well, colonel, I'm sure I didn't mean to 
 affront you ; but that tobacco merchant has put 
 me so out that I hardly know what I say. I beg 
 your pardon for undervaluing poor Barebones." 
 
 This was the first time he had ever begged the 
 colonel's pardon, and he did it now in compliment 
 to his misfortunes. 
 
 " Then you will take the horse ?" 
 
 " No, you had better sell him ; Allen of Clare- 
 mont told me the other day he would give a thou- 
 sand pounds for him." 
 
 " I'd rather shoot him than sell him to Allen of 
 Claremont." 
 
 " Well, then, colonel, do what you please with 
 him, but don't part with me. Take me with you, 
 and I'll work for you, fight for you, die for you, 
 or my name's not Littlejohn." 
 i " If I thought you would be comfortable in the 
 wildernes^ I should like to have you with me," 
 
WESTWARD HO! 61 
 
 " Comfortable ! I shall be happy, colonel ; 
 and I can make myself useful too. You know I 
 am a capital shot a true sportsman." 
 
 " Yes, I know you sometimes wander about all 
 day, and come home half-starved, mud up to the 
 middle, with a bag as empty as when you went 
 forth." 
 
 If his patron had not just parted with his estate, 
 Mr. Littlejohn would have taken this matter up 
 warmly ; but as it was, he replied, with no little 
 appearance of mortification, 
 
 "Ah ! colonel, you will have your joke. But 
 for all this, I'll bet you I shoot the first bear " 
 
 " Done !" said the colonel ; " what is your wa- 
 ger ?" 
 
 " Nothing," said the other ; " I have nothing to 
 lose, now I think of it, but your good-will, and that 
 I would not willingly risk. But take me with 
 you. I never asked any thing of you before, for 
 you never waited for that ; but now I do beg of 
 you to take me with you. because I know I can 
 be of use some way or other." 
 
 " You will be tired of the woods." 
 
 " No, I won't." 
 
 " You will be miserable." 
 
 " And if I am, may I be obliged to work for my 
 bread all my days if you or any other living mor- 
 tal shall know it. I will take care of the horses ; 
 if they stray into the woods I'll be bound I find 
 them. I will watch over the children ; and blame 
 me, if a copper-coloured creature shows his face, 
 if I don't spoil it for him in less than no time. Do 
 let me go." 
 
 " On one condition I will. Promise me, Little- 
 john, that if you get tired, you will tell me so, that 
 I may send you back again," 
 
62 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 + 
 
 " There is no use in it. colonel ; but I do prom- 
 ise. If I should be such a rascal, I'll tell you hon- 
 estly ; and then I hope the first bear I meet will 
 hug me to death." 
 
 It was settled accordingly that he should accom- 
 pany the party ; and Littlejohn forthwith sought 
 his old friend Barebones, to whom he communi- 
 cated the matter, and who received the news with 
 one of his usual significant chuckles, being doubt- 
 less ignorant that this arrangement would for ever 
 separate them in this world. 
 
WESTWARD HO 1 . 63 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " Over the hills and far away" 
 
 THE arrangements of the company contemplated 
 a meeting of the little band of emigrants at Phila- 
 delphia, as a portion of them were to come from the 
 eastAvard; and Colonel Dangerneld accordingly 
 took up his line of march for that beautiful city, 
 unmindful of the dangers he was about to encoun- 
 ter from the non-combatant inhabitants. We pass 
 over the farewell scene ; the sincere though short- 
 lived griefs of the vassals of Powhatan at parting 
 with their good " massa" and kind " missee ;" the 
 thoughtless wonder of the two children; the long, 
 last, lingering, farewell look of the parents, as they 
 stopped the carriage for a moment on the summit 
 of a hill, and gazed their eyes dim at the home 
 they were destined never to visit again. It was a 
 lovely, peaceful scene ; but what is beauty, what 
 is peace, what is every earthly enjoyment but gall 
 and bitterness when we know that we see, and 
 feel, and taste them for the last time ! 
 
 We would willingly linger a little while to de- 
 scribe the abode of Colonel Dangerneld ; but we 
 have a long journey and a long story before us. 
 Description must in future give place to action, 
 and sentiment to adventure. We must be busy, 
 and if we occasionally stop a moment to utter a 
 thought or describe a scene in the course of our 
 wayfaring, it must be brief, for the time is precious. 
 Life is short and romances long. Happy, thrice 
 
64 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 happy is he. and thrice three times wise, who hath 
 time and patience to read them all ! 
 
 The party gave one day to Richmond and their 
 friends. Everybody pitied Mrs. Dangerfield, and 
 yet, perhaps, she was quite as happy as them- 
 selves ; for nothing is more common than such 
 mistakes. Mactabb was with them all day ; and 
 that he gave them his time, which he considered 
 the most precious of all things, was a greater 
 proof of his friendship than even the many neces- 
 sary little articles his foresight had provided for 
 their comfort, and which he insisted on their ac- 
 cepting. Honest Scot ! perhaps thou and I are 
 about to part for ever ; yet in this age of bluster- 
 ing pretence, empty affectation, commonplace cant, 
 and unprincipled prodigality, I will not miss this 
 opportunity of bearing my testimony to thy unpre- 
 tending homely virtues, although, in honest truth, 
 thou hadst of all men I ever saw the most un- 
 promising face for a philanthropist. The colonel 
 presented him with the renowned Barebones, and 
 Mactabb promised on his word that he should 
 never be degraded to any useful occupation. 
 
 Nothing worthy of record occurred in the jour- 
 ney to Philadelphia; but scarcely had Danger- 
 field established himself in a hotel ere Pompey 
 Ducklegs was beleaguered by a well-meaning gen- 
 tleman, who assured him that, if so pleased, 
 he and all the Pompey family were free from 
 that moment. The name of freedom is dear to 
 the heart of man, most especially of the man of 
 colour ; and Pompey was sorely tempted to aban- 
 don his old master. Just then, however, a miser- 
 able, debased, poverty-stricken black man came 
 by, and, stopping opposite the gentleman, begged 
 his charity. 
 
WESTWARD HO! 65 
 
 " Art thou not ashamed, being a freeman, friend, 
 to beg in the streets ? Canst thou get no work ?" 
 
 "I have been a long time sick, and am too 
 weak to work," was the reply. 
 
 " Well, then, corne to my house this afternoon, 
 friend, and I will give thee an order to the hos- 
 pital." 
 
 The pauper passed on without thanking him, 
 and he had scarcely departed when a black wo- 
 man, displaying in her face and clothing all the 
 indications of profligacy and misery, staggered 
 past them, uttering the most disgusting and blas- 
 phemous imprecations. She was followed by a 
 child of the same colour, crying and calling after 
 her in a language as depraved as her own. Close 
 in their rear marched a ferocious bewhiskered 
 caitiff, dark as ebony, gallanted by two peace-offi- 
 cers : he had been guilty of robbing and almost 
 murdering a white woman. 
 
 " Who all dese here people ?" asked Pompey, 
 in a tone of dignified disgust. 
 
 " They are free people of colour, friend ; and 
 thou canst be free likewise if thou wilt." 
 
 " No, tank you," quoth Ducklegs, and departed 
 without ceremony to solicit his master to buy 
 these miserable people and take them to Ken- 
 tucky. 
 
 A few days sufficed to bring together and to 
 complete the preparations of the little band of ad- 
 venturers ; and now they were on their way to 
 Pittsburg, whence they were to descend the 
 Ohio to the place of their final destination. At 
 that time, the region beyond the great Alle- 
 ghany range of mountains, the 'whole of the 
 valley of the Mississippi (which centres within its 
 vast tide the tributary waters of a thousand 
 
66 WESTWARD HO 1 . 
 
 streams, coming, as it were, from the opposite ends 
 of the earth) was denominated the Back Woods. 
 The inhabitant of the Atlantic states looked at 
 the blue outline of these majestic hills, which- are 
 aptly called the back-bone of North America, as 
 the extremest verge of the civilized world of the 
 West. Beyond was all forests, wild beasts, and 
 wild Indians, in their estimation. It was the region 
 of danger, of adventure, and romance, and, to the 
 timid, apprehensive mind, it loomed " that bourne 
 from whence no traveller returns." Indeed, no 
 one at this late period can realize the romantic, the 
 appalling interest which accompanied the emi- 
 grants to this wild and dangerous solitude, or 
 estimate the heroism of those who first dared to 
 encounter its tremendous vicissitudes. 
 
 It was towards the middle of the month of 
 March that they began to ascend the Alleghany 
 Mountains by a slow and painful pace. They 
 had seen them at a great distance for some days, 
 rearing their blue heads, and carrying their wav- 
 ing lines from south to north, as far as the eye 
 could reach, and it seemed to them that they 
 formed the barriers of the world in that direction. 
 Occasionally they encountered one of those " land 
 carracks" called Pittsburg wagons, conducted by 
 a strange original, who lived on the road all his 
 life, and whom we are almost tempted to describe 
 as a new and rare species, which in this age of 
 canals, railroads, and steamboats, will, like the Mis- 
 sissippi boatmen and the mammoth, soon become 
 extinct, and be classed among the fabulous crea- 
 tions of monsters. Sometimes they met a drove 
 of swine, more numerous than the wool-clad war- 
 riojcs pf Trapoban, so disastrous to him of the rue- 
 ful countenance, and of such an original air of 
 
WESTWARD HO! 67 
 
 wildness, such rugged coats, and such a savage 
 grunt, that they seemed to be the representatives 
 of the wild region from which they were emi- 
 grating. Here and there along the road were 
 seen the relics of many a wayfaring catastrophe, 
 broken axletrees, wheels reft of their tire, and 
 other mementoes of disasters dire. Nay, the very 
 signs of the taverns savoured of an approach to 
 new scenes and associations. The Wild Turkey, 
 the Bald Eagle, the Wolf, and the Bear, portrayed 
 in all the horrors of rustic ingenuity, and coloured 
 with an utter disregard of nature and probability, 
 gave shrewd indications that here was to be found 
 entertainment for man and horse. 
 
 At length, descending the last ridge of the Al- 
 leghany, they were greeted with the first view of 
 the valley of the Ohio. We would attempt to de- 
 scribe the vast yet beautiful features of this strik- 
 ing and magnificent display ; but we are not on 
 a picturesque tour, and though we delight to lin- 
 ger in the delicious solitudes of nature, and love 
 to recall their recollection more vividly by describ- 
 ing them, yet time presses, and we must pass on 
 to other scenes. 
 
 On arriving at Pittsburg, Colonel Dangerfield 
 assumed the task of superintending the prepara- 
 tions for embarking on the Ohio. Mr. Littlejohn 
 proffered his assistance with great alacrity, and it 
 was highly amusing to see that professional idler 
 all at once metamorphosed into a rrtost provokjng 
 and inveterate busybody, with the happiest faculty 
 in the world of delaying every thing he undertook 
 to advance, and standing in the way of everybody 
 he aifected to assist. The colonel too was de- 
 plorably deficient in experience of the best means 
 and modes of conducting these modern argonauts ; 
 
68 WESTWARD HO'. 
 
 but, as it happened, fortune had sent him a most 
 efficient coadjutor in the person of one of the 
 party, who had been in Kentucky before, and, as 
 he said, was as much at home there as a prairie- 
 dog;"in his hole. 
 
 His name was Ambrose Bushfield, born in North 
 Carolina, and one of those singular examples of 
 native energy, inborn sagacity, and daring enter- 
 prise with which the early history of every part 
 of the west abounds. Nurtured among the moun- 
 tains of his native state, free as the air he breathed, 
 he grew up tall and straight, and hardy as the 
 trees of the primeval forests, where he passed most 
 of his time in hunting and rural sports of danger 
 and enterprise. He could neither read nor write, 
 yet he was not ignorant or vulgar j and his feel- 
 ings, by some strange freak of nature or combina- 
 tion of circumstances, partook of the character of 
 gentleman in more ways than one. It was said 
 that an early disappointment in love, or, as others 
 affirmed, the discovery that the region he inhab- 
 ited was becoming so populous that he could hear 
 his neighbour's dog bark, drove him some years 
 before lo join his fortunes with Boone, who was 
 then laying the foundation of what will probably 
 some day be one of the richest and most populous 
 empires of the world. 
 
 After encountering a series of dangers and suf- 
 ferings such as nothing but reality can make cred- 
 ible, he was captured by the Indians, who painted 
 him black, and devoted him to the torture. Their 
 intention was to carry him to their village before 
 they proceeded to the last acts of barbarity. In 
 the mean time they amused themselves with 
 placing him bound hand and foot on a half- wild 
 horse they had stolen on the borders of Virginia, 
 
WESTWARD HO! 69 
 
 and setting him adrift, like Mazeppa,* to scamper 
 through the woods full speed, while the savages 
 followed, yelling in horrible triumph. At every 
 Indian village they visited he ran the gauntlet 
 after their fashion, where hundreds of savages 
 placed themselves in parallel rows, armed with 
 clubs jmd whips, with which each one did his best 
 to beat him to the earth before he reached the 
 goal, where, if he arrived, he was entitled by in- 
 flexible custom to exemption from the stake. 
 There is scarcely a possibility that this should 
 ever happen, except by a miracle ; and accord- 
 ingly Bushfield, though he had the strength of a 
 giant and the nerves of a lion, was invariably 
 knocked down before he could gain the sanctuary 
 of the council-house. 
 
 Arriving at their village, preparations were 
 made for burning him ; and the ceremony was 
 about to commence, by marching the wretched 
 victim round the village with shouts and savage 
 yells, with a view to wear down his strength and 
 spirit, so that they might enjoy his fears and ban- 
 quet on his groans. In the course of this circuit 
 they passed the hut of one of those renegade 
 white men whose crimes had banished him from 
 the society of his fellows, arid who had taken 
 refuge among the Indians. His hatred of the 
 whites was that of a fiend ; and among till the 
 cruel enemies, whether man or beast, whom the 
 early emigrants had to encounter, this wretched 
 outcast was the most to be dreaded. On hearing 
 what was going forward, he rushed out of his 
 cabin, like a tiger from his lair, seized the victim 
 round the waist, threw him to the ground with all 
 
 * See " Recollections," of the Reverend Timothy Flint. 
 
70 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 the force of malignant fury, and, placing his knee 
 upon his breast, flourished his knife in triumph. 
 Bushfield recognised in this ruthless recreant 
 one of the early companions of his youth. He 
 called him by name, told him his, and besought 
 Iris good offices. The appeal was not in vain. 
 Wretch as he was, the renegade remembered and 
 yielded to the claims of his boyish associate. He 
 lifted him from the ground, and the recollections 
 of his youthful home, his early attachments ; of 
 what he had been, and what he was, so wrought 
 upon his iron heart, that he embraced Bushfield, 
 and wept while he promised his interposition in 
 his favour.' Such was his influence, that he 
 finally obtained the pardon of the captive, who 
 was permitted to accompany him to his hut. But 
 the renegade, who knew too well the unsteady na- 
 ture of the savages, and the difficulty with which 
 they were brought to relinquish the gratification of 
 torturing a prisoner, advised and assisted Bush- 
 field to make his escape that very night. Accord- 
 ingly he fled, and though obliged to thread a path- 
 less forest of some hundreds of miles without 
 compass or direction except his own sagacity, he 
 finally reached the settlement of his old friend 
 Boone time enough to enjoy the pleasure of aveng- 
 ing his sufferings, by assisting in beating a party 
 of Indians that soon after besieged the little fort 
 of the patriarch of Kentucky. Many years hav- 
 ing elapsed since he left the place of his birth, he 
 determined to pay it a visit ; but finding, as he 
 said, the country become so effeminate and cor- 
 rupt that the men preferred featherbeds to dry 
 leaves, and woollen coverlids to a sky blanket, he 
 was now on his return to spend the remainder of 
 his days in " Old Kentuck," which after all. was 
 
WESTWARD HO! 71 
 
 the only place for a gentleman, though to be sure 
 it was becoming rather too thickly settled. In his 
 person Bushfield was one of those rare speci- 
 mens of men, the united product of pure air, 
 wholesome exercise, warlike habits, and perfect 
 freedom of body and mind. He was upwards of 
 six feet high, perfectly straight, and without an 
 ounce of superfluous flesh in his whole compo- 
 sition. There was a singular ease, one might 
 almost call it gracefulness, in his carriage ; and 
 his dress, which consisted of a buckskin hunting- 
 shirt, a rackoon-skin cap and leggings, was highly 
 picturesque. There was nothing vulgar or dowdy 
 in his appearance or address, which was that of a 
 man who believed himself equal to his fellow-men 
 in any circumstances or situation that called for 
 the exercise of manly vigour or daring enterprise. 
 Divers were the consultations of the colonel 
 with his trusty and efficient counsellor Bushfield 
 on the selection of barks to float them down the 
 Ohio, for verily there was a sufficient variety to 
 puzzle one in the choice. Here was the Alleghany 
 skiiF, the dug-out, formed from a single tree, the 
 piroque, the covered sled, the keel-boat, the flat- 
 boat, and every other boat that the genius of man, 
 Left to its unlimited caprices, or inspired by the 
 fruitful mother of invention, could contrive or 
 bring to maturity. Among these the capacious 
 broad-horn appeared eminently conspicuous, re- 
 sembling a floating house, nearly as broad as it is 
 long, and containing a suite of apartments for 
 almost every animal, from sovereign man to sub- 
 ject cattle, sheep, horses, dogs, and ignoble swine. 
 In its primitive simplicity it hath neither bow nor 
 stern, larboard nor starboard ; and in high spring 
 freshets, as they are called, it is the most convc- 
 
72 WESTWARD HO > 
 
 nient boat in the world, since if it strikes the shore 
 with one horn, it directly wheels round with the 
 current, and away it goes the other end fore- 
 most. 
 
 The colonel and his prime-minister decided at 
 length in favour of the broad-horn, and accord- 
 ingly some of prodigious dimensions were hired, 
 almost large enough to accommodate the mani- 
 fold freight of old Noah's ark. In these were em- 
 barked most of the necessaries for forming a new 
 settlement far in the wilderness, certain domestic 
 animals ecjually indispensable, and the company 
 of emigrants, with the exception of Colonel Dan- 
 gerfield and his family, who had a smaller broad- 
 horn provided for their especial accommodation. 
 The colonel had purchased a quantity of plain and 
 substantial furniture and a small collection of 
 books, among which was a volume of laws, to aid 
 liim in the government of his woodland empire. 
 The river being now rising, and sufficiently high 
 for their purpose, they all embarked one fine sun- 
 shiny morning, and, launching their broad-horns 
 on the ample tide, bade a long adieu to the haunts 
 of civilized man, the enjoyments of civilized life. 
 
 
WESTWARD HO! 73 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " Now fare thee well, dear haunts of social men ! 
 Long may it be ere we shall meet again. 
 Farewell the.village church and tolling bell, 
 Sounding to prayers or rustic fun'ral knell ; 
 The lively fields, where men and herds are seen 
 Sporting or labouring morn and eve between ; 
 The smoke of rural hamlet curling high 
 Above the trees, in peaceful summer sky ; 
 The ploughman's whistle, and the lambkin's bleat, 
 The tinkling music of the herd so sweet, 
 All, all farewell !" 
 
 THE broad-horn in which Colonel Dangerfield 
 and his family embarked on their voyage down 
 the Ohio formed an oblong square, on which was 
 erected a rather rude cabin, containing two rooms 
 sufficiently tight to protect them against the ordi- 
 nary vicissitudes of the weather. The captain and 
 owner of this primitive vessel was a long-sided, 
 weather-beaten oddity, by name Sam Hugg, 
 who was all the way from Mad River, and 
 always, according to his own account, "wide 
 awake and duly sober." His assistants were two 
 men and a lad, whose real or whose nickname 
 was Cherub Spooney, " a smart chance of a boy 
 any how." A large portion of the banks of the 
 Ohio was at that time in a state of nature, yet 
 still of nature in the prime of her beauty. 
 The morning was mild and fair, and the young 
 spring had now put on her robe of whispering 
 leaves. Gigantic sycamores, the growth of ages, 
 and the children of an unexhausted soil; lined the 
 
 VOL, i, D 7 
 
74 WESTWARD HOt 
 
 way on either hand, except occasionally in some 
 receding cove, a little prairie covered with wild 
 flowers varied the scene. Not a living soul ex- 
 cept themselves seemed to breathe, and move, and 
 have a being in this region of repose ; which, not- 
 withstanding, teemed with danger and death. 
 Within the bosom of these eternal forests roamed 
 herds of savage beasts and savage men, who, in- 
 deed, at this moment professed to be at peace with 
 the white man, but whose friendship could not be 
 depended^on from one hour to another. They 
 glided along without noise and without toil, and, 
 to judge from the listless inactivity of the boat- 
 men, one would have set them down as the most 
 indolent of mankind, and their occupation the 
 least laborious and dangerous. 
 
 But perhaps no people on the face of the earth 
 or the waters endured more hardships, encoun- 
 tered more severe toils, or displayed more energy 
 and perseverence in the hour of vicissitude. Many 
 a rude memorial along the banks of the Ohio and 
 Mississippi to this day marks the last resting-place 
 of some worn-out boatman, and attests that here 
 as well as elsewhere life resembles the stream of 
 which the descent is smooth and easy, the ascent 
 a perpetual struggle, ending in disappointment 
 and death. 
 
 As thus they slipped along, the colonel and Mrs. 
 Dangerfield sat watching the ever-changing, mel- 
 ancholy, yet delightful scene, opening at every 
 turn of this the most beautifully serpentine 
 of all the rivers of the west, some new vista 
 of little wild meadows, round forest hills, or 
 abrupt cliffs frowning over the waters. There 
 was something in the scene before them, the 
 anticipation of that which was to come, and 
 
WESTWARD HO! 75 
 
 the memory of those which were past, that 
 called up feelings of melancholy neither altogether 
 painful, nor yet devoid of painful associations. 
 We win not so far undervalue our readers as to 
 suppose them incapable of realizing what these 
 were ; for who is there that has not at some time 
 or other, in youth or manhood, been cut adrift 
 from some long-cherished tie, some favourite spot, 
 some dear enjoyment ? and who is there that has 
 not been reminded bitterly of the past by the 
 very enjoyments of the present moment ? 
 
 No one relished the scene and the occasion so 
 much as Mr. Littlejohn. The quiet, the repose, 
 the freedom from all labour and exertion came 
 over him with a delicious enchantment, and, as 
 he was wont afterwards to say in his old age, laid 
 his soul upon a feather-bed. He scraped acquaint- 
 ance with Captain Hugg r who charmed him with 
 the story of the Indian who found a flint, and 
 travelled three hundred miles to buy a gun for it ; 
 of the attack and discomfiture of the band of rob- 
 bers which once occupied Mason's Cave, and plun- 
 dered the boats as they passed up and down 
 the stream ; and various famous legends of this 
 land of romance and adventure. In the evening 
 he played the fiddle for him delightfully, while 
 the boatman danced Virginia reels on the roof of 
 the broad-horn, and made little Cherub Spooney 
 sing him the song of " The Owl that died of the 
 Whooping-cough," together with divers other har- 
 monious ditties, which, in the quiet of the scene, 
 and when replied to by the echoes of the frown- 
 ing bluffs, were exquisitely toothsome to the ear 
 of Mr. Littlejohn, as well as Pompey Duckiegs, 
 who listened with his mouth wide open, after the 
 
76 WESTWARD HO I 
 
 manner of gentlemen of colour. One of these 
 was so congenial to his taste that he learned it by 
 heart, and long time after used to sing it for Miss 
 Virginia Dangerfield. It ran as follows, and we 
 believe hath never before been stereotyped. 
 
 " Our wives we kiss'd, we journeyed west, 
 
 Over the mountains blue, 
 
 For there we were told there was land to be sold, 
 The like you never knew. 
 
 Over the Alleghany, over the Alleghany, 
 Our horses are good, we've an excellent road 
 Over the Alleghany. 
 
 And we bought us a boat, and set her afloat, 
 
 And down the river we glided, 
 And on every hand we saw excellent land, 
 Where none but the Ingens resided. 
 
 All on the Ohio, boys, 
 
 When the wind is ahead there's no more to be said, 
 All on the Ohio, boys. 
 
 Our neat little bark beats every ark 
 
 That lives on the Ohio, boys ; 
 And along as you float you may shoot from the boat 
 
 Just what kind of game you please, boys ; 
 For there it's no treat to have plenty to eat, 
 There's food on every tree, boys. 
 All on the Ohio, boys, 
 All on the Ohio, boys, 
 
 When the wind's ahead there's no more to be said, 
 We must off with our coats and row, boys." 
 
 It is affirmed that this ditty is in its primitive 
 exuberance nearly as long as the Ohio, and that 
 the boatmen, instead of measuring distances by 
 their pipes, like the ancient Dutchmen of the Man- 
 hadoes, as fame reports ; or as the Mussulmans do 
 by hours, did always calculate the number of 
 miles by the number of its verses. But the fore- 
 going were all that the chanting Cherub Spooney 
 could be prevailed upon to sing, or perhaps all he 
 knew, notwithstanding Captain Sam Hugg threat- 
 
WESTWARD HO! 77 
 
 ened to "drive him like a flash of lightning 
 through a gooseberry-bush" for his refusal. 
 
 " I'll be choked with a saw-log if I do," replied 
 Spooney : and Captain Hugg justly considering 
 that 
 
 The man who sings against his will 
 Had better keep his whistle still, 
 
 refrained from putting his threat into execution, 
 observing, 
 
 " Very well, old fellow ; see if I don't row you 
 up Salt River before you are many days older." 
 
 Late in the still, starry night, as the captain and 
 one Zephi Teal, his first officer, sat watching the 
 course of the broad-horn while she glided along, 
 by the bright beams of a full-moon, the former 
 observed that the river was rising rapidly, and the 
 force of the current increasing. 
 
 " There has been a mighty grist of rain lately 
 up above, and the snows on the mountains must 
 have all melted in a hurry. I reckon we shall 
 have a powerful freshet, Zephi." 
 
 "Yes," said Zephi ; "it's above high-water mark 
 already, and rises like the water in a boiling pot. 
 I never seen it so high but once afore, and that 
 was when Orson Upson's broad-horn was carried 
 clean over the tops of the Button Woods, and Di- 
 vine Goodyear's house floated all the way down to 
 the Big Bend, with the family in it." 
 
 " Whew w w !" whistled Captain Hugg ; " in 
 what year of our Lord was that, Zeph ?" 
 
 "Why, the year you got such a licking from 
 the Yankee pedlar at Pittsburg, I calculate." 
 
 " I'll be shot," exclaimed Hugg, "if any Yankee 
 pedlar that ever stepped 'twixt here and the other 
 side of the end of the yearth ever treed Sam Hugg. 
 
78 WESTWARD HOl 
 
 It's a lie, whoever said it. But did you, in good 
 earnest, see Divine Goodyear's house floating 
 down stream, with the family in it ?" 
 
 " If I didn't may I be rowed up Salt River." 
 
 " I should like to have seen the old sinner ; I 
 dare say he prayed like a horse." 
 
 " Yes, that he did. I heard him snortin ( Now 
 I lay me down to sleep,' as he went past the cove 
 where I had tied my boat to the top of a big tree 
 a hundred foot high." 
 
 Thus they communed together till the first 
 blush of the morning appeared in the east, and 
 the gradual opening of the scene showed the 
 swelling stream rolling down in boiling ed- 
 dies, and its dark-brown surface strewed with the 
 spoils of the earth. The gigantic trees on the 
 bottoms, as they are called in the language of the 
 west, stood midway quivering in the waters, with 
 nothing but the branches visible. The first and 
 second banks of the river had disappeared, and 
 wherever the hills receded from the shore the 
 waters rolled over the earth, sweeping along with 
 them every loose thing on its surface. The pic- 
 ture of the deluge was renewed ; for the solid 
 ground was no longer a place of safety, and the 
 scene was as solitary as that which the world ex- 
 hibited when all that remained of its living myri- 
 ads was sheltered in Noah's ark, floating about at 
 the mercy of a shoreless ocean that tumbled round 
 the ball. 
 
 The accelerated course of the current, and the 
 eddies and whirlpools occasioned by the force of 
 the pent-up or embarrassed waters, rendered the 
 broad-horns somewhat unmanageable ; and then 
 was exhibited the hardy character, the indomi- 
 table energy, the reckless courage of that singular 
 
WESTWARD HO ! 79 
 
 race, which the introduction of the steamboat on 
 the western waters has almost rendered, like the 
 mammoth, traditionary. The labour and the skill 
 required in the management of these unwieldy 
 masses, the ever-watchful and intense attention 
 necessary to keep them from driving out of the 
 strait current of the river into the drowned woods, 
 and suffering shipwreck, cannot be conceived by 
 any person who has not witnessed such a crisis 
 as that we are attempting to sketch with feeble 
 effort. It made Mr. Littlejohn perspire to look at 
 them, and for ever quelled a latent inclination he 
 had recently cherished to become the redoubtable 
 owner and commander of a broad-horn on the 
 beautiful Ohio. 
 
 There is something excitingly sublime in the 
 exhibition of the great phenomena of nature ; the 
 littleness of man derives a self-importance from 
 the consciousness of some remote affinity to the 
 great Being who wields the waters in the palms 
 of his hands, whose nod makes the solid earth to 
 tremble like the aspen-leaf, whose voice is heard 
 in the silent sublimity of speechless nature, and 
 whose will is the soul of the universe. Colonel 
 Dangerfield and his wife sat silently contemplat- 
 ing the scene, with the hands of little Virginia and 
 her brother Leonard locked in their own. There 
 was not room for such a selfish thing as fear, 
 though the turbulent force of the waters and the 
 critical situation of the boats might seem to war- 
 rant the most piercing apprehension. But the 
 sentiment was awe, not fear ; and the deportment 
 of the elder was marked by a sublime self-posses- 
 sion, while that of the young pair exhibited silent 
 wonder. They looked up in the faces .of their 
 parents, and there saw nothing to excite their ap- 
 prehensions. 
 
80 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 It was while hurrying down the river in this 
 manner that they passed the first village they had 
 seen since leaving Pittsburg. It was situated at 
 the junction of another large river with the Ohio, 
 and on a plain about forty feet above the level of 
 the ordinary tide. It was now standing in the 
 midst of a waste of waters, the upper stories and 
 chimneys of the houses alone visible. Boats ap- 
 peared passing and repassing from the higher 
 grounds, which as yet had escaped the inundation, 
 to the drowned village, rescuing women and chil- 
 dren from their perilous situation, whose cries were 
 lost in the uprpar of the mighty waters, or bearing 
 away some of the most valuable or accessible of 
 their furniture. Sometimes, by taking advantage 
 of the eddying whirlpools, they succeeded in the 
 attempt, and returned in safety ; but, at others, 
 the sweeping current would take and whirl them 
 away down the river with irresistible force. 
 
 " Cannot we assist them, captain ?" asked Colo- 
 nel Dangerfield. 
 
 ' No, colonel ; no stopping now for trifles. We 
 must make a straight wake behind us ; for if the 
 horn gets broadside to the current, I wouldn't risk 
 a huckleberry to a persimmon that we don't every 
 soul get treed, and sink to the bottom like gone 
 suckers." 
 
 A large portion of this metaphorical speech was 
 incomprehensible to the colonel, as it will be prob- 
 ably to a majority of our readers. But we trust 
 our work will not be the worse 'for a little mystifi- 
 cation of language, seeing we deal in no other 
 obscurities. 
 
 On the evening of the sixth day the voyagers 
 found a harbour in a deep indenture of the river, 
 where they came to, under the brow of a hill which 
 
WESTWARD HO 1 . 81 
 
 in common times was some distance inland. Here 
 they met a number of boats from various parts of 
 the great Valley of the Mississippi, which had 
 taken shelter from the increasing fury of the inun- 
 dation, and were waiting till it subsided a little. 
 A merrier set of rogues never congregated toge- 
 ther, nor is it possible to describe the medley of 
 characters and amusements exhibited in this out- 
 of-the-way comer of the earth. Fiddling and 
 dancing, gambling and tippling, contests of wit 
 and contests of activity, strength, and bottom; 
 trials of skill in shooting at a mark, and every 
 wild and wayward eccentricity which animal 
 spirits, freed from all restraint of fashion, custom, 
 or prescription, could devise, were all displayed 
 here with a degree of rank primitive luxuriance, 
 such as the same race of man never exhibits but 
 once in the course of its progress from the infancy 
 of society to the period of final corruption and de- 
 cay. They seemed to think that custom was 
 often little better than a reverend error, or, at all 
 events, that new situations authorized new modes 
 of enjoyment. 
 
 In some boats were pigs, sheep, bacon, flour, 
 &c., for New Orleans ; in others cargoes of 
 two legged live stock, going to settle at Bois 
 Brule, or Bob Ruly as they called it ; in others 
 boards and plank ; in others cider and whiskey ; 
 in others Yankee notions of all kinds. Each 
 had a pole sticking up, on which, instead of a 
 sign, he had suspended a sample of his wares, 
 provided they were amenable to such a display, 
 and a complete fair was carried on for the time 
 they remained together. Most of the boats had 
 a fiddle on board, for these people delight in danc- 
 ing and music ; and in one of them was the Rev- 
 
 D3 
 
82 WESTWARD IIO! 
 
 erend Lazarus Snortgrace, whose voice, as lie ex- 
 horted these frolicksome sinners to repentance, 
 towered above the uproar of obstreperous merri- 
 ment which echoed through these vast solitudes. 
 He called himself- one of the ram's horns which 
 blew down the walls of Jericho, and not without 
 special reason, for his lungs were of leather, and 
 his breath inexhaustible. But the greatest curi- 
 osity of this miscellaneous assemblage was a 
 wight from New-England, whose boat contained 
 a complete establishment for the shoeing of horses 
 in all its branches. He was on a trading voyage 
 as far down as New Orleans, and good luck be- 
 friend him say we, for the originality of his enter- 
 prise merits not only fortune but immortality. 
 
 After waiting here a few days, the waters hav- 
 ing sufficiently spent their force to render the 
 navigation safe, the cavalcade of boats prepared 
 to depart on their several ways. Some for the 
 east, some for the west, some for the north, and 
 some for the south. They belonged many of 
 them to places thousands of miles apart ; they 
 had met here by accident, and the chances were a 
 hundred to one that they would never meet again. 
 At the signal of the blowing of the trumpets, 
 which echoed among the recesses of the hills, 
 they set forth, and soon were floating down to- 
 wards the junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi. 
 These trumpets at the time we speak of were of 
 wood, and the tones might be mistaken for those 
 of a French horn, so soft, so mellow in the dis- 
 tance, that we have sometimes been wrought 
 almost to shed tears, at hearing them vibrating of 
 a summer evening among the hills. They are 
 used not only as signals, but for the purpose of 
 ascertaining the position of the boats .in. those 
 
WESTWARD HO! 83 
 
 dense fogs, which at certain seasons are so im- 
 penetrable, that Captain Sam Hugg swore a most 
 original and humorous oath, that he had turned 
 the edge of a razor in attempting to cut through 
 one of them. True it is, as he affirmed " It was 
 a bloody Yankee razor, and not to be wondered 
 at." The sound is echoed from the bank of the 
 river, and the time which elapses indicates to 
 these shrewd observers the distance from shore. 
 Thus Echo, in addition to her other attributes, 
 may justly claim the appellation of the Goddess 
 of the Mississippi Navigators. 
 
 At the point of junction between the Ohio and 
 Kentucky rivers, the fleet of boats separated ; the 
 colonel and his party proceeding up the latter to 
 their destined home, and the others down the 
 former stream, the Lord knows where. And now 
 began the severe toils of the boatmen. The 
 stream was rapid, and the difficulties of ascent in- 
 surmountable to all human skill and perseverance 
 save that of a Kentucky boatman, who everybody 
 knows is amphibious, " half horse, half alligator." 
 They placed their shoulders against the long 
 poles, one end of which was loaded with iron, and 
 making what was called a " reverend set," walked 
 steadily to the stern of the broad-horn, propelling 
 her forward at the same time. Sometimes this 
 course was impracticable from the depth or rapidity 
 of the current, and then came the tug of war. A 
 rope was taken ashore, and fastened to a rock, or 
 stump, or sapling, and by this the boat was 
 dragged along. This process is called cordelleing, 
 and it is inexpressibly slow, tedious, and laborious. 
 More than once they came to a place, where, 
 owing to a sudden angle of the river, or the pro- 
 jecting of some obstacle from the shore, they met 
 
84 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 a current of such irresistible force as to wheel 
 them entirely round, and send them down the 
 stream several hundred yards. 
 
 Nothing could surpass the sad solitude of 
 their voyage. The river pursued its course for 
 the most part through a channel worn out of the 
 limestone rock, perpendicular on either side, and 
 so deep that except at midday the sun never shone 
 on the dark waters. The gloom was increased 
 by vast trees growing on the summit of the 
 rocks, and whose branches overshadowed the 
 abyss. Emerging at length from this twilight 
 cavern, they came to a spot where the strata 
 of rocks disappeared, and a paradise of na- 
 ture opened to their view. It was an open 
 forest of gigantic trees, occupying a rich level 
 which extended a considerable distance on the 
 river. No underwood grew upon these shady 
 meadows, and the whole was one carpet of blos- 
 soms opening to the spring air. 
 
 " Here is the spot," said Bushfield, and so it 
 was, as the colonel found on looking at his map 
 and survey. 
 
 " I'm glad on't," quoth Captain Hugg, " fdr I'll 
 be shot by an Ingen, if this isn't worse than cor- 
 delleing round the old sycamore." 
 
 The turn of the river had made a harbour 
 for boats, and here they came to, landed their car- 
 goes, and without delaying a moment, proceeded 
 under the direction of Bushfield to erect tents and 
 other temporary shelters for the party. The day 
 was spent at these occupations, in which the boat- 
 men willingly assisted, and in which Mr. Little- 
 John distinguished himself by being particularly 
 in the way, or, as Captain Sam said, " By always 
 rowing up stream instead of down." 
 
WESTWARD HO! 85 
 
 "Well, colonel," said that worthy, the next 
 morning, "you're all comfortably settled now, 
 and I think I'll let go the willows, and make 
 tracks for Bob Ruly, where I belong ; so good-by 
 to you, and may you never want plenty of deer, 
 wild turkeys, and whiskey." 
 
 The colonel paid his fare, and gave him a 
 liberal present besides, whereat the captain was so 
 exalted, that he swore there was no backing out 
 in him, " he was a real screamer of a feller." 
 
 The amphibious men now departed, and float- 
 ing down the stream to the music of Cherub 
 Spooney 's favourite air of " The Owl that died of 
 the Whooping-cough," disappeared in a turn of 
 the river. As the echoes of their wooden trumpet 
 gradually died away, our travellers felt that the 
 last link which bound them to the distant world 
 was severed, 8 
 
WESTWARD HO! 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " Now the log hut, erst haunt of sturdy men* 
 Degenerate lot ! becomes the porker's pen ; 
 While stately houses rise on every side, 
 The good man's comfort, and the good dame's pride ; 
 To cultivated fields the forest chang'd, 
 And where the wild beasts, now the tame ones rang'd ; 
 The curling smoke amid the woods was seen ; 
 The village church now whiten'd on the green, 
 And by its side arose the little school, 
 Where rod and reason lusty urchins rule, 
 Whose loud-repeated lessons might be heard, 
 Whene'er along the road a wight appear'd." 
 
 OUR intention is not to detail the particulars of 
 that struggle which, in these rugged regions of 
 nature's empire, ever takes place between the pa- 
 tient industry of man and her wild luxuriance ; 
 nor to trace the progress of a new settlement, from 
 the first wound given to the primeval forest, to the 
 golden harvest-field ; from the rude log-cabin, to 
 the stately double house, and all its ambitions ac- 
 companiments ; which change, in the figurative 
 style of the west, is yclept " throwing off the moc- 
 casins." Suffice it to say, that the traveller who 
 some ten years after the sound of the first axe was 
 heard in these woods chanced to visit it, would 
 have been charmed with the little settlement of 
 Colonel Dangerfield, its rural beauties, and its air 
 of rustic opulence. The smoke rising above the 
 tall trees, the barking of dogs, the crowing of 
 cocks, the tinkling of bells, the strokes of the 
 woodman's axe ; the crash of the falling tree, and 
 
WESTWARD HO! 87 
 
 "! ! 
 
 the long echoes of the hunter's gun would an- 
 nounce to him that he was coming to the abodes 
 of civilized men. He would behold a village ris- 
 ing in the midst of crystal springs, bursting from 
 the sides of little knolls, or from under hoary- 
 rocks ; fields of grain springing up with a luxuri- 
 ance that returned to the labourer a hundredfold, 
 enclosed by log fences, and bristling with girdled 
 trees towering to the skies. Orchards loaded with 
 fruits, gardens full of vegetables and flowers, would 
 next greet him on the spot which a few years be- 
 fore was the abode of the buffalo and wild deer, 
 the hunting-ground of the Indian ; and he might 
 say to himself, " What are all the temporary pri- 
 vations and sufferings of a few short years in the 
 wilderness, ending in rural happiness like this, 
 compared to debts and poverty, degradation and 
 dependence? The enterprising emigrant who 
 comes hither with a few hundred dollars, or per- 
 haps with nothing but a strong arm and a strong 
 heart, soon gains independence for himself and 
 his children. In the crowded haunts of men his 
 genius has no room to exert itself; he is el- 
 bowed aside by those who are on the march 
 before him, or who have already gained possession 
 of advantages of which he cannot partake. But 
 here he has elbow-room, and here it is that spirit 
 and enterprise find their appropriate world." 
 
 Such, or something like them, were in reality 
 the reflections of a traveller who, one fine spring 
 afternoon, when the twilight was lending its mel- 
 low lustre to the smiling landscape, rode into the 
 town of Dangerfieldville, a formidable name assu- 
 redly ; but the colonel had followed the fashion 
 of the west, where, if a man has a name as long 
 as that of Aldibirontiphoskiphornio, it goes hard 
 
88 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 but he will tack a ville to its tail when he lays 
 the foundation of a city which is to become the 
 great mart of the western world. The young 
 man bestrode a blooded horse, which is indispensa- 
 ble in Kentucky to the character of a gentleman, 
 and which horse carried a portmanteau seemingly 
 well rilled with "plunder," on which was strapped 
 a brown camlet cloak with a purple velvet cape, 
 we like to be particular in these matters, in imita- 
 tion of our betters, and which brown camlet 
 cloak with a purple velvet cape was surmounted 
 by a blue, or perhaps it might have been a green, 
 silk umbrella, on which was written in black ink 
 the name of Dudley Rainsford, which we will ven 
 ture to suggest might peradventure have been 
 that of the traveller himself. He wore a gray 
 frock, with covered buttons, and buttoned with a 
 single button, the fourth from the bottom ; a single- 
 breasted vest of buff Marseilles, with two pockets, 
 probably to carry his money in ; a pair of white 
 drilling pantaloons, with a spot of ink on the left 
 leg, a little below the knee ; and a pair of boots, 
 the toes of which were as wide as a broad-horn, 
 and which, to the best of our knowledge and be- 
 lief, were right and left. 
 
 i His horse, which seemed almost worn out with 
 the day's journey, was an iron-gray, about fifteen 
 hands high, with a star of five points in his fore- 
 head, three black feet, and one white one, which, 
 if we mistake not, make four. He had two ears, 
 one on the right, the other on the left side of his 
 head ; a pair of nostrils, one close by the other, 
 and looking for all the world like twins ; a white 
 mane hanging on the right side of his neck ; and 
 two eyes, which looked exactly as if he could see 
 out of them, Just below his right ear was a spot 
 
WESTWARD HO! 89 
 
 of hair rather inclining to white, which might or 
 might not be occasioned by some unaccountable 
 cause ; and, from his slavering a little at the 
 mouth, it might be predicated of him that he had 
 been eating too heartily of red clover. He was 
 guided by a snaffle-bridle with a plated bit, neither 
 very new nor very old ; and his saddle was 
 wrought of the skin of a pig. We hope the reader 
 will not be out of patience with this particular 
 inventory of goods, chattels, accoutrements, &c. 
 (fee. &c. This traveller is destined to be the hero 
 of our tale ; and he must be but an illiterate' per- 
 son who doth not know the fashion of the times 
 requires that a hero should be delineated with the 
 same minute particularity with which we describe 
 a stolen horse, an absconding swindler, or a run- 
 away negro in an advertisement. 
 
 Mr. Rainsford was slowly passing a large man- 
 sion, with a piazza, from one end to the other, and 
 bearing marks of opulence as well as taste, when he 
 was accosted by a voice as follows, in a tone of 
 good-humoured banter, 
 
 " Hullo ! I say, stranger, did you ever happen 
 to see a snail in your travels ?" 
 
 K I rather suspect I have," replied the stranger, 
 stopping his tired horse ; " what then ?" 
 
 " Why, then, I reckon you must have met him ; 
 for you never could have overtook him at that 
 rate, any how." 
 
 The stranger again pricked his horse into a 
 walk, when the man of the long piazza called 
 -wit, * 
 
 " Hullo ! stranger, you're barking up the wrong 
 tree ; .what business have you to pass this house?" 
 
 " What's that to you T replied Mr. Rainsford, 
 rather in a huff at being so unceremoniously in- 
 
90 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 terrogated, and presuming this was some impor- 
 tunate innkeeper who wanted his custom. 
 
 " I'll tell you directly, stranger ; but, first and 
 foremost, let me ask if you ant rather fresh in 
 these parts ; for I can see with half an eye you 
 don't understand trap." 
 
 " Trap ! I won't be trapped by you, I promise 
 you." 
 
 "You won't, eh? we'll see that directly, I 
 reckon. Colonel," said he, calling, to some one 
 within, "colonel, I believe here's an unaccount- 
 able sort of character, for he seems afraid to 
 stop at a gentleman's house when invited in a civil 
 way. Come out, and put the grace of our Lord 
 upon him, for you know you're a justice of peace." 
 
 This address was followed by the appearance 
 of a gentleman rather beyond the middle age, 
 whom we shall not describe, because we hope the 
 reader will recognise him at the first glance as his 
 old acquaintance, Colonel Dangerfield. He ac- 
 costed the traveller politely, and apologized for the 
 detention of his friend Bushfield. 
 
 " I believe you don't know the custom of this 
 village, I may say of the whole country. No 
 traveller passes this or any other house without 
 stopping, unless he can give a good and sufficient 
 reason for such a gross piece of neglect." 
 
 " I wish to find an inn, sir ; can you direct me 
 to one ?" 
 
 " Whew !" cried Bushfield ; "an inn ! wny, 
 every house is an inn here, except that the land- 
 lord don't charge ally thing to his customers. I 
 say, stranger, where did you come from, that you 
 expect to find taverns here in Old Kentuck?" 
 
 " You will alight, and spend the night here, sir, 
 if you please," said Colonel Dangerfield j " I shall 
 
WESTWARD HO 1 . 91 
 
 be proud to receive you, and you will find no 
 public-house within a hundred miles of this in the 
 direction you are going." 
 
 " My good sir, 1 cannot think of imposing on 
 your hospitality. I was recommended here as to 
 a place where I could purchase a good tract of 
 land at a reasonable price ^ for I design to settle 
 in this country if I can be suited, and was looking 
 out for an inn when this gentleman accosted me/' 
 
 " Another new settler !" grumbled Bushfield ; 
 " the country will soon be as full of people as a 
 prairie is of wolves ; there'll be no such thing as 
 turning round in it without hitting some feller's 
 elbow. I must cut dirt soon for some place where 
 there's more room." 
 
 The colonel repeated his invitation with such a 
 frank cordiality, that the stranger at length, on 
 being satisfied that there was no place of public 
 entertainment in the village, accepted it, and, 
 alighting from his horse, was ushered into a large 
 room plainly yet comfortably furnished, and oc- 
 cupied by several persons of both sexes. 
 
 " A stranger," said Colonel Dangerfield. 
 
 ' My name is Rainsford." 
 
 " O, never mind, sir ; the name of stranger is 
 enough for us." 
 
 "Why, where was this genius raised?" said 
 Bushfield to himself; " a wild turkey would know 
 better. Whenever a man goes to tell me his 
 name when he enters my house, I calculate he 
 thinks I suspect him of being a horse-stealer." 
 
 The company rose when the stranger was in- 
 troduced, and the colonel presented him to his 
 wife, who was still a comely and genteel matron, 
 for the feeling of good breeding is independent of 
 the mere forms of fashion ; to his son Leonard, 
 
92 WESTWARD HO 1 . 
 
 now a tall, straight, noble-looking youth ; and to 
 his daughter Virginia, now grown to the full size 
 of graceful womanhood ; not forgetting also Mr. 
 Ulysses Littlejohn, who on the entrance of Rains- 
 ford had risen from three chairs, on one of which 
 he sat, on another reclined his arm, and on the 
 third supported his left leg, after the fashion of 
 Old Virginia, the mother of presidents, and the 
 parent of a mighty state. 
 
 " And so," said Colonel Dangerfield, after a few 
 preliminary compliments, " you are looking for a 
 settlement somewhere in this part of the country?" 
 
 " I came with an intention of residing in it, cer- 
 tainly ; but I fear I am riot qualified for a farmer." 
 
 " Can you cut down a tree as big round as all 
 out doors in less time than you can look at it ?" 
 asked Bushfield. 
 
 " I fear not," said the other, smiling ; " I never 
 attempted to handle an axe but once that I recol- 
 lect, and then I almost cut off my toe." 
 
 " Ah ! you won't do here, unless maybe you 
 can trail a deer, and shoot a bear in a cane-brake 
 so thick that a mustard-seed shot couldn't find the 
 way through it without grazing the bark." 
 
 " I can do neither of these things ; but perhaps 
 I can learn." 
 
 " Learn ! you are too old for that, stranger. A 
 man must begin with the eggshell on him, as the 
 partridges learn to run, and get up before day- 
 light many a year in and year out, before he can 
 get to be worth much I mean in the way of liv- 
 ing in these parts." 
 
 "I have not been accustomed to such enter- 
 prises, nor can I perform such feats," said the 
 young traveller. 
 
 " Then what in the name of old Daniel Boone 
 
VESTWARD HO! 93 
 
 brought you here, stranger?" said Bushfield, 
 bluntly. 
 
 " I scarcely know myself," said the stranger ; 
 and Virginia, who happened to be looking at him 
 at the moment, saw a cloud pass over his face, and 
 detected a long-drawn sigh. 
 
 Tea was now brought in as a treat to the 
 stranger, and the conversation took another turn. 
 
 O 7 
 
94 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A short Retrospect. 
 
 NINE years the number of the Muses, and 
 doubtless for that reason selected by Horace as 
 the period during which every discreet author 
 ought to keep his piece in reserve before he ven- 
 tures to give it to the world, a precept to which 
 we ourselves have paid particular attention in re- 
 spect to this work, nine years had elapsed since 
 Colonel Dangerfield had first pitched his tent in 
 the wilderness. In that time, such is the magic 
 of industry and enterprise directed by the arts 
 of civilized life, a complete change had been 
 in rapid progress, from the wild luxuriance of na- 
 ture to the rich redundant blessings of cultivated 
 fields and comfortable abodes, the plainness of 
 whose outsides was gloriously contrasted by the 
 liberal hospitality within. The first year of his 
 arrival he was only the lord of a wilderness, the 
 possession of which was disputed equally by the 
 wild animals and the red men who hunted them. 
 By degrees, however, the former had become more 
 rare, and the latter had receded before the irre- 
 sistible influence of the " wise white man," who, 
 wheresoever he goes, to whatever region of the 
 earth, whether east or west, north or south, car- 
 ries with him his destiny, which is to civilize the 
 world, and rule it afterwards. 
 
 While the grain was growing luxuriantly in 
 the fields, and the flowers beginning to bloom in 
 
WESTWARD HO! 95 
 
 the garden of Colonel Dangerfield, another and a 
 fairer flower was expanding into rich maturity 
 within his walls. Little Virginia was now a tall 
 girl, straight as one of the high trees of the west- 
 ern forests, though not quite so lofty, and graceful 
 as an Indian maid. She had never seen a supe- 
 rior, nor ever felt the miserable consciousness of 
 inferiority, which is the parent of that affectation 
 which destroys all grace of motion and action, and 
 takes away the dignity of self-possession. A per- 
 son conscious of equality with all around will 
 seldom, if ever, be awkward, embarrassed, or un- 
 graceful. 
 
 Virginia was the only daughter of the patron, 
 the head of the settlement, and by far the most 
 wealthy man within a circuit of a hundred miles. 
 The vast tract of land, for which he had given a 
 few shillings an acre, had increased in value 
 almost a hundredfold, and the owner of Powhatan 
 was now the proprietor of half a dozen townships. 
 There was something, too, in the character and 
 services of Colonel Dangerfield which, independ- 
 ently of his wealth, drew on him the regard and 
 respect of the settlers in this region. He had been 
 their leader in more than one of those Indian 
 wars which preceded the last expiring efforts of 
 the kings of the woods, and which gave to the 
 now fertile fields of Kentucky the poetical name 
 of "the dark and bloody ground." Under the 
 tuition of Bushfield, who still lived, notwithstand- 
 ing his hair-breadth escapes if we had leisure to 
 record them would baffle all the creations of the 
 wildest fancy, he had become an expert and enter- 
 prising woodland warrior ; and the former indo- 
 lence of his character had been strengthened and 
 invigorated by the presence of eternal dangers, as 
 
9G WESTWARD HO! 
 
 well as the necessity of perpetual exertion. Yet 
 still, with all these claims to distinction, which 
 were acknowledged with gratitude, there was iu 
 almost every respect a perfect equality in social 
 intercourse between the different members of the 
 little community. Any airs of superiority on the 
 part of the colonel and his family would have 
 been met by a prompt denial of their claims ;- for 
 they had shared dangers, privations, and suffer- 
 ings together, and these vicissitudes had made 
 all equal. There was no distinction but that 
 of the honest man and the rogue, the brave 
 man and the coward. In no situation, indeed, do 
 we feel the necessity of that union of honest men, 
 which is the beau ideal of the social system, so 
 much as in one of these parent settlements, which 
 the arm of justice and the restraints of the laws 
 have not yet been able to reach. 
 
 Such a state of existence at once entails the ne- 
 cessity of an association among the honest por- 
 tion of the community for the defence of their 
 rights and the punishment of aggressors. Hence 
 originated the institution called the Regulators, 
 formerly common on the remote frontiers, where 
 the influence of the general government was not 
 felt, and where there were as yet no local authori- 
 ties. These were a body of the principal settlers, 
 who combined for the purposes of self-defence, 
 and who became of necessity both the judges and 
 the executors of the forest laws. Horse-stealing 
 was the great crime in those days, and when an 
 occurrence of this kind took place the Regulators . 
 set out in pursuit ; and prompt and severe was 
 the punishment inflicted on the culprit. These 
 associations, so indispensable in a region without 
 laws or magistrates, have been distorted by igno- 
 
 
WESTWARD HO! 97 
 
 rant, or prejudiced, or malicious writers into 
 bands of desperate outlaws, congregated for the 
 purpose of levying black-mail, committing the 
 most wanton outrages, and violating in fact all 
 those rights which it was the first and only object 
 to defend. Without doubt, these conservators of 
 the peace and property of the honest and indus- 
 trious sometimes exceeded the measure of justice, 
 as it might have been safely administered in a 
 regularly organized community ; but it is obvious 
 that, without some such association, the first pio- 
 neers of civilization might have become impracti- 
 cable and dangerous outlaws ; and it is equally 
 obvious that where neither jails, nor guardhouses, 
 nor any of the means of securing criminals exist, 
 punishments must be prompt as well as corpo- 
 real. But we have been diverted from the course 
 of our story by a wish to give a simple explana- 
 tion of what has been so entirely misrepresented. 
 
 The daughter of Colonel Dangerfield had been 
 brought up among the surrounding villagers on 
 the principle of perfect equality, in so far as to 
 recognise their equal claim to an exchange of all 
 the courtesies of social intercourse ; and let it be 
 recollected they were not ignorant people, for 
 it is not the vulgar of our country that seek 
 their fortunes in the west. It is the men of 
 long reaching views ; those who have saga- 
 city to perceive, talent to win the advantages 
 which such a course presents, and fortitude to 
 incur the sacrifices necessary to obtain them. 
 There were among this little band of adventurers 
 men from New-England, Virginia, and elsewhere, 
 who had been educated at colleges, and carried 
 diplomas with them into the wilderness ; and 
 there were women, who, if. not accomplished in 
 
 VOL, i. K 9 
 
98 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 the arts of music, painting, or dancing, were of 
 as cultivated minds, as delicate apprehensions, as 
 pure morals and habits, as ever figured in courtly 
 drawing-rooms, or saw themselves in full-length 
 mirrors. It is true that the vicissitudes of a new 
 and original course of existence, the trials, hard- 
 ships, and dangers of succeeding generations, and 
 the plenty of elbow-room enjoyed by the descend- 
 ants of these emigrants, have somewhat changed 
 the characters of the men, but they have produced 
 a race which, take them all in all, with all their 
 faults and eccentricities, as physical and intellec- 
 tual beings, we do verily believe, are not to be sur- 
 passed by any that ever existed. There is, how- 
 ever, a wild originality, a wayward humour, a 
 blunt sincerity, a plain-spoken freedom, and an in- 
 dependence of thought as well as action, which we 
 have seen produce most ludicrous effects upon a 
 delicate apprehensive dandy, or a self-sufficient 
 gentleman conscious of his individual importance. 
 In short, they are the last men in the world to 
 bow to authority or prescription, in literature, 
 taste, dress, or philosophy ; and will just as readily 
 demur to the despotism of their tailor as to the 
 system of the universe. 
 
 But the women of the west, particularly of Old 
 Kentucky ! How shall we describe them, and 
 most especially our heroine, the tall, graceful,, 
 mild, tender, independent, high-spirited, Virginia 
 Dangerfield ? They are to those of our Atlantic 
 cities, what the wild deer is to the lamb ; both 
 gentle, charming, graceful, and of a most delicate 
 relish ; yet one possessing a character of peculiar 
 wildness, and exhibiting a certain air of careless 
 grace, the product of freedom from restraint ; the 
 other, sweet to the eye and to the imagination 
 
WESTWARD HO! 99 
 
 too, yet not quite so piquant, not quite so so 
 what shall we say, so exquisitely compounded as 
 to distinguish the peculiar charms of both without 
 doing injustice to either ? not quite so much of 
 the venison flavour. The free enjoyment of the 
 air, and of exercise on horseback more especially, 
 to which the women of the west were at that 
 time so constantly accustomed, seems to produce 
 similar effects with the discipline of the boarding 
 school and the drawing-room. The result of 
 each is a graceful deportment; but the first is 
 most graceful, because it is unstudied and free 
 from affectation or mannerism. 
 
 Virginia grew up in the pure air and amid the 
 pure springs of a Kentucky paradise, which every 
 true Kentuckian will swear beats every other 
 paradise that exists, or ever did exist, in this mun- 
 dane terrene. Her eyes were those of a half- 
 tamed fawn, tender and apprehensive, spirited, yet 
 expressing the most perfect gentleness of charac- 
 ter. Her skin was as transparent as the fountains 
 of pure water out of which she drank, and though 
 the general hue of her face was pale, it was de- 
 lightful to see how the blood ran on errands from 
 her heart to her face, when agitated by a sudden 
 impulse. 
 
 The state of the country at the time, and the 
 disinclination of Mrs. Dangerfield to part with 
 her only daughter, had prevented Virginia from 
 acquiring any of the usual accomplishments of 
 young women of her expectations in life ; but 
 her mind was as far from being uncultivated as 
 her manners were from being rustic. We have 
 said that Mrs. Dangerfield was an accomplished 
 woman, by which we meant, of a cultivated mind 
 and graceful manners. Music, dancing, and other 
 E 2 
 
100 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 accomplishments now so common, were in the 
 days of her youth not accessible to the ladies of 
 the United States, especially those who resided in 
 the country. But still the attainment of all the 
 truly ladylike embellishments, those which radi- 
 cally influence the mind and manners, were with- 
 in reach of the wealthy. Mrs. Dangerfield had 
 availed herself of these, and was in all respects 
 what we, old fashioned as we are, should call a 
 perfectly well-bred woman. 
 
 Her example, for ever before Virginia, could not 
 fail of being all powerful' in the formation of her 
 manners, for what magic is like that of the influ- 
 ence of a kind, attentive, sensible, persevering 
 mother, over the early youth of her children. 
 She is the watchful sentinel whose vigilance 
 never sleeps, never relaxes for a single moment. 
 She sees the enemy approaching in ambush afar 
 off, and sounds the alarum to each intruding 
 emissary of mischief. The latent fault, the bud- 
 ding passion, the early wilfulness, the first trans- 
 gression in morals or in manners, is instantly 
 checked by the sleepless monitor; and well and 
 truly may it be said, that not more surely does the 
 child draw its first nourishment from the bosom 
 of its mother, than it receives its first bias of good 
 or evil from her early precepts and example. 
 ' Bred up in this sequestered spot, at a distance 
 from the great whirlpool of life, Virginia knew 
 little of the world except that little portion around 
 her, and what the occasional perusal of a few 
 books afforded. She read little, but thought much, 
 and there is no doubt but that habitual reflection 
 is a richer fountain for the mind than books, and 
 contributes far more to its strength and originality. 
 Without intimate associates of her own age and 
 
WESTWARD HO ! - 
 
 sphere, she passed much of her time alone, and 
 solitude is the nurse of the imagination. Her 
 spirits were naturally lively, yet there were inter- 
 vals when they subsided into quiet repose, or sunk 
 into a temporary abstraction, during which her 
 fancy expatiated in a world of its own creation. 
 
 Leonard Dangerfield was two years older than 
 his sister, and a thrifty young sapling with a little 
 of the outside bark on. He had been sent to one 
 of the new colleges, which had lately sprung up 
 among the girdled trees, yclept cities ; had taken 
 a degree, and was held in the village of Danger- 
 fieldville to be a whole team of a young fellow, 
 who could handle a rifle, make a speech, or tree 
 a rackoon with any he man that ever breathed 
 in all out of doors. 
 
 Master Ulysses Littlejohn still continued his 
 old system of killing time, but complained sorely 
 that he had now nobody to assist him, the colonel 
 being too much occupied in his private and public 
 duties to bear him company. On his first coming 
 to the wilderness he had signalized himself greatly, 
 as he said, by shooting a buffalo, and had lived 
 upon the glory of this achievement ever since. 
 But there were some doubts as to the accuracy 
 of his report, for when Old Pompey went to the 
 spot described by Ulysses to bring home the game, 
 it had disappeared in a miraculous manner. The 
 sage Ducklegs hereupon disbelieved the whole 
 story, and many were the innuendoes he afterwards 
 threw out on the subject of buffaloes running 
 away after they had been shot stone dead, all of 
 which, were received by Master Littlejohn with 
 marked disapprobation. 
 
 " Ducklegs," would he say, " you don't know a 
 B from a buffalo's foot," 
 
102 . WESTWARD HO! 
 
 "Ah, may be so, Massa Leetlejohn ; but old 
 nigger know buffalo from no buffalo for all dat." 
 
 Having renewed the reader's acquaintance with 
 the principal personages, we shall now jog on 
 with our story. 
 
WESTWARD HO! 103 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Chit chat, and all that. 
 
 THE conversation at the tea-table, around 
 which the whole company were seated in a soci- 
 able old-fashioned style, turned on the project of 
 Rainsford forming a settlement in the township 
 bordering on the domains of Colonel Dangerfield. 
 That gentleman gave him the benefit of his ex- 
 perience and advice on the subject, and Littlejohn 
 enjoined him forthwith to lay the foundation of 
 a great city, just at the junction of two streams, 
 both of which might be made navigable by act of 
 congress. But the stranger, though he professed 
 an intention to establish a colony, seemed so indif- 
 ferent about the means, that Bushfield began to 
 suspect he was "playing 'possum',' that is to say 
 enacting the hypocrite, for some purpose or other 
 he could not fathom. 
 
 Colonel Dangerfield also thought it somewhat 
 singular that a man should travel all the way 
 from the seacoast to settle new lands, and be'so 
 indifferent about it. He threw a penetrating 
 glance at the young man, but it was met by a 
 countenance so interesting, so full of melancholy 
 depression, that he felt his heart yearn towards 
 him, and every trace of suspicion vanish from his 
 mind. It was a countenance that seemed familiar 
 with sorrows and suffering, full of anxiety, appre- 
 hension, almost despair. There was something 
 in his voice, too, expressive of hopeless despond- 
 

 104 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 ency, and, when he spoke, it was as though he 
 little cared whether to speak or be silent. 
 
 " You are fatigued," said the colonel, " and don't 
 seem quite well ; had you not better retire, Mr. 
 Rainsford?" 
 
 " O, not at all, sir ; if you permit me, I will 
 remain till your usual hour. Though I have 
 rode far to-day, I am not the least tired." 
 
 And then, as if conscious that he owed his best 
 exertions to repay the hospitality of his host, he 
 rallied himself, and entered into conversation with 
 a spirit, intelligence, and occasionally an eloquence 
 that delighted everybody, most especially Mr. 
 Bushfield, who pronounced him afterwards to be 
 fit for a congress man, if he could only fight as 
 well as he could talk. 
 
 The subject, we need hardly say, was politics ; 
 for we have heard an observing old gentleman 
 affirm, that when you see three men talking to- 
 gether in the United States, it is ten to one the 
 subject is politics, five to one religion, and three 
 to one making a speculation. They were dis- 
 cussing the matter of a new constitution, a species 
 of domestic manufacture exceedingly common, 
 when an old Indian called the Black Warrior 
 came in without ceremony, and took his seat in 
 a corner of the room. Some years previous to 
 the time of which we are speaking, and when the 
 Indians still carried on their depredations upon 
 the new settlements, the Black Warrior had been 
 protected on some occasion by Colonel Danger- 
 field from the fury of a party of white men who 
 had taken him prisoner. When in process of 
 time the irresistible wave of the white population 
 had scattered the remnants of the Indian tribes on 
 the wings of the wind, the Black Warrior, who 
 
 E3 
 
WESTWARD HO! 105 
 
 had become obnoxious to his people by his grati- 
 tude to Colonel Dangerfield, preferred remaining 
 in the vicinity of the village. Here the colonel 
 built him a hut, and administered to his wants so 
 far as was necessary, for he was still an expert 
 hunter, and he and Leonard were often absent a 
 whole day together in the forests, chasing the 
 deer. He was accustomed to come and go at the 
 house of the colonel without ceremony, and it fre- 
 quently happened that he did so without uttering 
 a single word, except a short salutation. At other 
 times he would join in the conversation so far as 
 a single remark, or an assent or dissent. But he 
 was a mail of few words and of imperturbable 
 gravity, as indeed are all his kind, so much so 
 that the good Quakers, who first settled New- 
 Jersey and Pennsylvania, always called them the 
 " sad people." 
 
 It happened that Bushfield, who was a man ca- 
 pable of finding fault with singular discretion, 
 was denouncing the general government for not 
 taking sufficient care to protect the exposed fron- 
 tier from the depredations of the Pottawotomies, 
 the Kickapoos, and other odd-named fellows. 
 
 " If I was President of the United States, I'd 
 make them smell brimstone through a nail-hole." 
 
 " Eh, good !" said the Black Warrior, after wait- 
 ing to see that nobody replied ; for the savages in 
 this respect set an example to the civilized man ; 
 "good! you white men all cowards." 
 
 " What's that you say, you old tan-coloured var- 
 mint T cried Bushfield. 
 
 " Let him say on," said the colonel. 
 
 "I say," continued the Black Warrior, with 
 perfect coolness and indifference, "I say you white 
 men all cowards. Your whole government is 
 
 
106 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 founded in cowardice. You give up your free- 
 dom of action ; you fetter yourselves with laws 
 till you don't know which way to turn, because 
 you can't take care of yourselves ; you give away 
 your money to make roads and bridges, because 
 you are afraid to travel through the woods and 
 swim over rivers ; and you pay taxes for soldiers 
 to come and protect you. Huh! the Indians 
 protect themselves ; they neither give away their 
 money nor their liberty to pay other people for 
 taking care of them." 
 
 Rainsford was quite struck with this new view 
 of the social system, and entered into some little 
 discussion with the old natural philosopher, in the 
 course of which he took occasion to insist upon 
 the superior comforts and conveniences of civil- 
 ized life. 
 
 " Huh yes !" said the Black Warrior, " all your 
 lives are spent in slaving to get things that we 
 have learned to do without. The Indian is the 
 only true gentleman ; the white man is the In- 
 dian's nigger ; he works to make guns and blan- 
 kets for us." 
 
 " Niggers !" cried Bushfield, jumping up in a 
 rage ; " the Kentuckians niggers !" 
 
 The old redskin replied to this only with a sig- 
 nificant " huh !" and, lighting his pipe, departed 
 without ceremony to his hut in the forest. 
 
 "I never see or think of these people but I 
 pity them," said Rainsford. 
 
 " Pity the Ingens ! for what ?" answered Bush- 
 field, warmly ; " I'll tell you what, stranger, if you 
 had lived in Old Kentuck as long as I have, and 
 seen what I have seen, you'd talk other guess, I 
 reckon. When I first remember this country, 
 nobody could sleep of nights for fear of the In- 
 
"WESTWARD HO! 107 
 
 fens, .who were so thick you couldn't see the trees 
 >r them. There isn't a soul in all Kentucky but 
 has lost some one of his kin in the Ingen wars, 
 or had his house burnt over his head by these 
 creturs. When they plough their fields, they 
 every day turn up the bones of their own colour 
 and kin who have been scalped, and tortured, and 
 whipped, and starved by these varmints, that are 
 ten thousand times more bloodthirsty than tigers, 
 and as cunning as 'possums. I, stranger, I am the 
 last of my family and name ; the rest are all gone, 
 and not one of them died by the hand of his 
 Maker. My grandfather fell and was scalped at 
 Old Chilicothe ; my uncle was massacred at Rud- 
 dle's Station, after he had surrendered ; my father 
 lost his life at the Blue Licks, when all Kentucky 
 was in mourning; my two brothers were kid- 
 napped when they were boys, and never heard of 
 afterwards ; and and my mother and sister 
 were burnt up in our house, while all the men 
 Were out to catch a horse-thief, by a party of Shaw- 
 anoes. They barred the doors and windows, and 
 my little sister loaded the gun, which my mother 
 fired as fast as she loaded. They killed two of 
 the varmints ; the others set fire to the house, 
 and and J s ! that any white man should pity 
 an Ingen here on ' the dark and bloody ground !' " 
 There was an energy, a mixture of wild pathos 
 and singularity in this effusion of Bushfield ex- 
 ceedingly affecting, and Rainsford could not help 
 acknowledging, that to judge rightly of the con- 
 duct of mankind in all situations, we should know 
 the necessity under which they laboured, and the 
 provocations to which they were exposed. There 
 are none so virtuous as people out of the reach of 
 temptation, and none so forgiving as those who 
 have no motives for revenge. On retiring to the 
 
,108 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 room prepared for his reception, the young man 
 seated himself at an open window, and indulged 
 in a train of melancholy reflections. The moon 
 rode high in the heavens, and threw her mild 
 lustre over the quiet scene, interrupted only by 
 the distant bowlings of the wild animals of the 
 forest, that sometimes approached near enough 
 to rouse the watchdogs, whose deep-mouthed 
 warnings echoed far and wide. The lofty girdled 
 trees, stripped of their foliage, and bristling the 
 surrounding fields like the tall masts of first rate 
 men-of-war, gave an air of desolation to the land- 
 scape, which was bounded at a distance by a dark 
 wall of gloomy forest. He thought of the past, 
 and it presented nothing but sad realities ; he 
 thought of the future, and it furnished only 
 gloomy forebodings. "Better were it," thought 
 he, " that I should become at once, what I shall be 
 ere long, as sure as the fate which has for three 
 generations hung over my unhappy race will one 
 day be mine. I should then be at least uncon- 
 scious of my miseries ; but now the very antici- 
 pation of what too surely I shall soon be, is a thou- 
 sand times worse than if I really were what I anti- 
 cipate. One year more, and then oh ! gracious 
 Providence ! what shall I be then ?" Uncon- 
 sciously he groaned, in the agony of his spirit ; 
 and Virginia, who was likewise contemplating the 
 scene from an adjoining window, overheard him. 
 Her curiosity and sympathy were both equally 
 excited ; but feeling she was intruding on the sor- 
 rows of a stranger, she quietly retired to her re- 
 pose. Yet she could not sleep for a while, and as 
 she lay wondering what might be the cause of such 
 an expression of suffering, she could hear the 
 stranger pacing to and fro across his chamber for 
 hours. 
 
WESTWARD HO! 109 
 
 CHAPTER XIIL 
 
 The sudden departure of Rainsford, and the mysterious 
 deportment of Master Zeno Paddock. 
 
 THE morning was cheerful and smiling, and 
 Mr. Rainsford appeared at breakfast apparently in 
 good spirits ; but Virginia, who by some newly- 
 awakened impulse began to feel an interest in a 
 young man who groaned and walked his chamber 
 at night, thought she saw in his face the haggard 
 emblems of long suffering. His features J were 
 regular and singularly expressive, but it was not 
 altogether a pleasing expression. The lines of 
 his forehead bore the marks of habitual contrac-| 
 tion ; his complexion was of an ashy hue ; his 
 cheek and eyes somewhat more sunken than be- 
 seemed a man so young ; and the latter exhibited 
 a cast of fearful apprehension, as though they 
 were watching some secret enemy stealing upon 
 him unawares. His person was of the middle 
 size; his limbs well formed; butlhere was nothing 
 of the brisk vigour of youth in his action, which 
 was languid, careless, and dilatory. His voice 
 was musical, but it was the music of melancholy. 
 
 Suspicion is the product of experience ; natu- 
 rally, our race is full of liberal confidence. In 
 the early stages of society there is little temp- 
 tation to fraud, and, consequently, less occasion 
 for apprehension ; for men have little to lose 
 or gain by it, and hence, in proportion to the sim- 
 plicity of manners and modes of life will be the 
 13 
 
110 XVESTWARD HO ! 
 
 extent of confidence and hospitality. Rainsford 
 was accordingly received unquestioned at the 
 house of Colonel Dangerfield, not only because 
 the colonel was liberal, but that in this sequestered 
 region, as there was no temptation to attract 
 rogues, so there had been no examples to create 
 suspicion. 
 
 After breakfast. Colonel Dangerfield proposed 
 taking a ride to view the lands in the neighbour- 
 hood. 
 
 " I feel an interest in your settling among us, 
 and long to see you getting about it. If you be- 
 stir yourself manfully, in two years you will have 
 every thing comfortable about you." 
 
 "Two years !" echoed Rainsford, with a sigh. 
 
 "What, are you so impatient you can't wait 
 two years ? It is but a short time." 
 
 " Too long for me," said the other, apparently 
 entirely abstracted from the scene and the occa- 
 sion. 
 
 As they rode to the spot which was the object 
 of their visit, the colonel spoke of what was ne- 
 cessary to be done in the first stage of a new set- 
 tlement, and entered on a variety of details, such 
 as he thought mjght interest his guest ; but his 
 mind seemed to be wandering to other subjects. 
 Sometimes he did not answer at all, and at others 
 nothing or very little to the purpose. 
 
 " Stranger," said Bushfield, who accompanied 
 them on his way home, he not being a resident in 
 the village of Dangerfieldville, " stranger, you 
 don't seem on the track of what the colonel says. 
 But I'll tell you what, a man that comes to settle 
 in these parts must be wide awake, and rip and 
 tear away like a horse in a cane-brake. But some- 
 how you don't appear to mind what's said to you, 
 
WESTWARD HO! Ill 
 
 any more than my old horse Shavetail, who lost 
 his hearing at the last general training, they fired 
 at such a rate." 
 
 " I believe, indeed, I was guilty of the ill man- 
 ners of thinking of something else ; I am apt to 
 be absent," said Rainsford, with a melancholy 
 smile. 
 
 "What ! you're one of the booky fellers that 
 think of one thing while they are talking about 
 another. There's an old varmint at Frankford 
 Academy, as I heard, that one day cut his fore- 
 finger to a sharp point instead of a pencil, for want 
 of thinking what he was about." 
 
 " What a beautiful country !" exclaimed Rains- 
 ford, as they ascended an eminence which com- 
 manded a vast expanse of all the charming varie- 
 ties of nature ; forests of primeval growth, rich 
 meadows, extensive plains, swelling hills gra- 
 dually rising into mountains, and little rivers 
 winding their way .as if they neither knew nor 
 cared whither they were going ; " what a beau- 
 tiful country is Kentucky !" 
 
 " Beautiful ? it's transcendent! Yes, if Old 
 Kentucky was cut off from all the rest of the 
 earth, she'd be a world within herself," answered 
 Bushfield. 
 
 A spot was selected for the residence of Rains- 
 ford on the bank of a little stream which found 
 its way to the Kentucky River through a rich 
 meadow imbosomed in the hills. 
 
 " 'Tis a little paradise," said he ; " but I fear it 
 is too distant from any other habitation." 
 
 " Distant !" cried Bushfield, " not at all ; why, 
 you and I shall be nigh neighbours. Don't you 
 see that blue mountain yonder ? I live just on the 
 other side, and it's only fifteen miles off." 
 
 
112 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 < That's rather too far for me ; I don't like to 
 be alone." 
 
 " Not like to be alone ! why, where under the 
 sun did you spring from, stranger ? Now, for my 
 part, I don't want any other company than my 
 dog, my rifle, and plenty of game. I never wish 
 to see the smoke of my neighbour's chimney. 
 You'll have a smart chance of company at Daii- 
 gerfieldville, which isn't above six miles off, as 1 
 should calculate." 
 
 After a few minutes' reflection, Mr. Rainsford 
 assented to the location of his house, observing, 
 it was after all, perhaps, of little consequence where 
 he pitched his tent, to the great disgust of Bush- 
 field, who set him down in his own mind as a 
 fellow that hadn't fire enough in him to prevent 
 his being frostbitten in the dog-days. 
 
 According to the custom of the backwoods, the 
 inhabitants of the village turned out the next day, 
 and before the sun was set had built him a stately 
 log house of two rooms and a garret, all neat and 
 complete, and fit for a king. But in these new 
 countries it is much more difficult to furnish than 
 to build a house, and it became necessary to resort 
 to some of the older settlements before his man- 
 sion could be prepared for his reception. 
 
 " You've got a cage, said Mr. Littlejohn, " and 
 now all you want is a bird to sing in it ;" and he 
 looked significantly at the fair Virginia, whose 
 head was full of the groans and perturbed mid- 
 w^tch pacings she had heard the night before. 
 The damsel blushed deeply, wjjile a singularly 
 inexplicable expression passed like a cloud over 
 the face of the young man as he replied, 
 
 " I fear no bird will ever sing in cage of mine, 
 except the screech-owl or the raven," 
 
WESTWARD HO! 113 
 
 "I shall hear you sing another tune before 
 long. Why, what will you do, who have been 
 raised where people stand as thick as canes 
 in a cane-brake, in a house all alone by yourself? 
 Miss Dangerfield shall recommend you to a little 
 bird that sings like a Virginia nightingale." 
 
 " Miss Dangerfield will do no such thing," re- 
 plied Virginia, and left the room in a flurry. 
 
 Rainsford walked forth to the house of one 
 Zeno Paddock,* who officiated in the twofold 
 capacity of schoolmaster and political oracle 
 to young and old of the village of Danger- 
 fieldville. His great ambition was to set up a 
 newspaper, but he could not yet bring the matter 
 about to his satisfaction. Here the young gentle- 
 man staid so long that Mr. Littlejohn wondered 
 what he could have to say to that eternal busy- 
 body, whom he despised from the bottom of his 
 heart, inasmuch as he was not content with attend- 
 ing to his own business, which was bad enough 
 in all conscience, but interfered with that of all 
 his neighbours. There was nothing Ulysses 
 held so cheap as a man who had a decided taste 
 
 * On scanning our work a little more critically, after complet- 
 ing the story, it for the first time occurred to us that the sketch 
 of Zeno Paddock, in his compound character of schoolmaster and 
 editor, might possibly be construed into an attempt to throw ridi- 
 cule on these two classes. We take this opportunity of entirely 
 disclaiming any such purpose ; our object having been simply to 
 portray a character from nature, such as without doubt has ex- 
 isted, and we dare say still exists, in situations similar to that in 
 which we have imagined him. We should be the last in the 
 world to attempt weakening the influence or undermining the 
 respectability of two professions to which the present age owes, 
 and posterity will owe, more, perhaps, than to any others what- 
 ever. Yet still, there certainly are among them persons whose 
 follies and whose ignorance diminish the just influence of the 
 whole ; and to ridicule these is to vindicate, not to undervalue, 
 those who are objects of respect and consideration. 
 
114 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 for any species of employment except that of kill- 
 ing time. Zeno was a huge0evourer of news- 
 papers, and was generally found with one 'iiVlris 
 hand at every interval of leisure. 
 
 One evening, some ten days afterwards, all 
 the family, with the exception of Leonard, who 
 had gone to the state capital to finish the study of 
 the law, was gathered together. Rainsford an- 
 nounced his intention of not taking possession of 
 his new establishment until the ensuing spring, 
 as he should not like to sojourn alone in the wil- 
 derness during the dreary season of winter. The 
 
 guest some time longer. 
 
 Mr. Rainsford appeared much affected. " You 
 have been kind, very kind to me. A stranger, and 
 without the least claim to your hospitality, you 
 have received and entertained me as a son or a 
 brother. But but I do not mean to spend the 
 winter in this part of the world." 
 
 Virginia made a sudden movement of surprise, 
 and the colonel exclaimed, " Indeed ! I am sorry 
 for it." 
 
 " No ; I have thought I never was at New 
 Orleans. I should like to see the banks of the 
 great river Mississippi ; and besides, I can furnish 
 myself with several articles which I confess my 
 house stands wofully in need of. I shall return 
 early in the spring, and then set myself seriously 
 to work, clearing land and raising corn." 
 
 Nothing was said against this arrangement, and 
 in a few days Rainsford was on his way to the 
 Ohio, whence he meant to embark in the first 
 convenient conveyance on his destination. He 
 took leave of the colonel and Mrs. Dangerfield 
 
WESTWARD HO! 115 
 
 with the deepest expressions of obligation ; of 
 Virginia with the frankness of a brother, while 
 she parted from him with the only appearance of 
 affectation she had ever been known to exhibit. 
 She was in the highest spirits, and laughed exces- 
 sively, particularly where there was no occasion. 
 
 "Can I bring you any thing from New Orleans T 
 said he. 
 
 " Let me see O yes, bring me a parrot, or a 
 monkey, or something to amuse me ; for really, 
 Mr. Rainsford, I have been almost tired to death 
 this summer for want of agreeable company. 
 How I should like to be always in a crowd !" 
 This was a great story. 
 
 " There are plenty of paroquets in the woods." 
 
 " Yes, but they are so dull, they don't talk, and 
 what is a parrot or a man that can't speak ?" 
 
 "Well, Miss Dangerfield, I shall certainly attend 
 to your wishes. I will endeavour to find you a 
 suitable companion among the parrots or the 
 monkeys." 
 
 There was something in this little dialogue that 
 grated harshly on the feelings of both, and a 
 pause ensued, which lasted until Rainsford was 
 summoned to proceed on his voyage down the 
 river. 
 
 " Farewell, madam, and farewell, colonel," said 
 he, with deep emotion, " and farewell, Miss Dan- 
 gerfield ;" and his voice assumed a tone of melan- 
 choly kindness. 
 
 "Good-by, Mr. Rainsford," said Virginia; "don't 
 forget the parrot and the monkey." 
 
 Virginia was so merry for at least an hour after 
 his departure, that her mother could not help 
 noticing her extraordinary vivacity. 
 
 " One would think you rejoiced at Mr, Rains- 
 
 
116 tVESTWARD HO! 
 
 ford's going away, and yet i cannot help regretting 
 to lose his society next winter. He was not lively, 
 but sensible and well informed, and when he did 
 talk it was very agreeably." 
 
 " Well, for my part," said the young lady, " I 
 think he was the stupidest young man I ever met 
 with in all my life." 
 
 " My dear Virginia, you must excuse me, but I 
 don't believe one word you have said." 
 
 Virginia laughed, and ran away to the river's 
 side ; .but the boat in which Rainsford embarked 
 had already disappeared in a turn of the river, 
 and she returned home after a long lingering 
 walk, in a mood so quiet and sedate, that she 
 scarcely spoke a word all the rest of the day. 
 
 Hardly had Rainsford departed when Zeno 
 Paddock made his appearance, with a newspaper 
 in his hand, and asked to speak with Colonel 
 Dangerfield in private. Their conference lasted 
 rather longer than was customary with the colo- 
 nel, who generally eschewed the company of 
 Zeno. What was its import he did not think 
 proper to disclose ; but he was observed to be 
 absent and thoughtful all the rest of the day, 
 contrary to his usual habits, for he was a man of 
 great vivacity of character. Zeno marched off 
 with an air of great importance, occasionally 
 stopping to look at his newspaper, and nodding 
 his head significantly as he carefully folded it up 
 and put it in his pocket. 
 
 " I suppose that varlet wanted you to assist 
 him in setting up his newspaper ?" said Little- 
 John, wishing to sound the colonel. 
 
 " It was about a newspaper," replied the other, 
 and taking horse, rode out without asking the 
 company of his friend, 
 
WESTWARD HO 1 . 117 
 
 " There's some mystery in this matter," quoth 
 Littlejohn, and he went to consult Pompey the 
 Great, who still lived in all the dignity of aris- 
 tocracy, and was as tenacious of the honour of 
 the family as ever. 
 
 " I'll tell you what," said Pompey ; " 'spose he 
 want massa to scribe to he paper." 
 
 " Pooh ! nonsense." 
 
 " Well den, 'spose he want to insult him bout 
 Massa Leonard setting up for member of 'sembly." 
 
 " Pish ! do you think he'd consult anybody but 
 me in matters of such consequence ?" 
 
 " Well den, 'spose I dare say it must have 
 bin someting else, hey, Massa Leetlejohn 1 n 
 
 " Pomp, I didn't think you was such an old 
 blockhead." 
 
 " Well den, 'spose you go ax somebody wiser 
 dan me," said the great Ducklegs in a huif, and 
 the two friends parted in no very good-humour 
 with each other, leaving the mystery to be ex- 
 plained by the course of time, and the events it 
 carries in its mighty womb. 
 
118 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A voyage, a story, and a land adventure. 
 
 THE boat in which Rainsford took passage 
 down the Kentucky River was bound on a voyage 
 up the Ohio, and consequently at the junction of 
 the two rivers he shifted himself and his " plun- 
 der," to the first which happened to come by on 
 its way to New Orleans. This proved to be a 
 broad-horn, of which, by a singular coincidence, 
 our old acquaintance Samuel Hugg was captain 
 and owner. Many long years had elapsed since 
 he carried the fortunes of Colonel Dangerfield 
 down the Ohio ; but they had passed over him, 
 as the elements pass over the rugged rock, making 
 it only more rough and hard. He was still 
 as straight and almost as tall as the sycamores 
 that tower along the banks of the western rivers, 
 and his rough vivacity remained undiminished, 
 though he sometimes complained, or rather swore 
 most originally, at the steamboats, which were 
 now just beginning to make their first trials on 
 the western waters, preparatory to the mighty 
 change they have since worked in the destinies 
 of that extensive region. The sagacious mind 
 of Captain Sam foresaw in their success the ruin 
 of his business, and the extinction of the broad- 
 horns on the Ohio and Mississippi, and he often 
 took occasion to call down upon them the judg- 
 ment of snags, sawyers, sandbanks, and bursting 
 of boilers, Nevertheless, he was sometimes 
 
WESTWARD HO! 119 
 
 wrought Upon to confess that the varmints were 
 sweet creturs, and that it was " Transcendent to 
 see them ploughing their way up the Mississippi, 
 as if the d 1 himself kicked 'em on end, any- 
 how. That Daniel Boone is a screamer," would 
 he say ; " she beats the old man himself, and he 
 was no fool, I tell you, I used to know him when 
 he was sixty year old, and then he could beat any 
 man in Old Kentuck shooting at a mark. I re- 
 member I stood once a hundred yards off, and let 
 him shoot a rifle ball at a tin pint mug right on 
 the top of my head, and I wish I may be utterly 
 onswoggled if he didn't tip it off as slick as bear's 
 grease, anyhow. Ah ! there's no such screamers 
 nowadays." 
 
 The captain, as we before observed, was a 
 mighty considerable talker, and in the twilight of 
 the autumnal evening, as they glided silently 
 down the stream, he delighted to tell of his ad- 
 ventures on the waters of the west, which he had 
 navigated for more than forty years. Some of 
 his stories were what are deemed tough, and it re- 
 quired a little extension of one's faith to believe 
 them ; but there was an extravagance about them 
 which at times was not a little amusing, when 
 coupled with a concatenation of phrases that may 
 fairly be called inimitable. We ought not to omit 
 recording that Cherub Spooney, now no longer a 
 smart chance of a boy, but a full-grown man, was 
 still attached to the service of Captain Hugg, and 
 at the time we are speaking of officiated as second 
 to the commander, to whom he considered him- 
 self equal in every respect. Besides Spooney, the 
 crew consisted of two or three new hands, and 
 the invariable appendage of all these boats, a gen- 
 tleman of colour, officiating as cook, and who 
 
120 g WESTWARD HO 1 . 
 
 Captain Sam swore was the knowingest chap he 
 ever knew. " The varmint can't read," would he 
 say, " but I wish I may be split into shingles, if 
 he can't tell what's in a newspaper by only smell- 
 ing it." 
 
 One evening, Rainsford. who found his melan- 
 choly charmed in spite of himself by the interest- 
 ing novelty of his situation, and !he strange 
 language and manners of his companions, sat 
 listening to the conversation of the crew as they 
 were enjoying one of the most beautiful twilights 
 nature ever bestowed upon the earth. There was 
 a silence, a luxurious softness in the aspect and 
 quiet repose of the crystal river, as it glided noise- 
 lessly along between low level banks from which 
 sprung giant trees, that spread their broad limbs 
 like vast umbrellas, that was exquisitely agreeable, 
 and harmonized delightfully with the silence of 
 the earth, which here bore scarce a trace of the 
 labours of man. They were now approaching 
 the junction of the two great rivers, which, rising 
 in distant regions of the world, at length unite 
 their waters in one mighty stream, and journey 
 together to the ocean of oblivion. 
 
 The party was seated on the roof of the broad- 
 horn, which consisted of boards inclining at each 
 end from, the centre, so as to let the rain run off, 
 and singing or telling stories according to custom, 
 aided by the indispensable accompaniment of a 
 competent supply of whiskey, Rainsford had 
 seated himself also upon the roof of the boat, to 
 enjoy ^the scene before him, and was now casting 
 a glance of admiration on either side ; now busy- 
 ing himself in a labyrinth of reflections, which, 
 whether he turned to the past, the present, or the 
 future, were equally fraught with unqualified bit- 
 
WESTWARD HO ! 121 
 
 \ - 
 
 terness. Gradually, however, his attention was 
 arrested by the following extraordinary tale. 
 
 " Well then, captain, if he won't sing, suppose 
 you tell us another story,"' quoth Cherub Spooney. 
 
 " Ay, do now, captain ; tell us the story of the 
 strange cretur you picked up going down the 
 river," said another. 
 
 ' : Ah ! iww do, Massa Cappin Sam," quoth 
 blackey. 
 
 "Well, I'll tell you how it was. We had hauled 
 in the broad-horn close ashore to wood ; wind 
 was up-stream, so we couldn't make much head- 
 way anyhow. Bill told the nigger to cook a few 
 steaks off Clumsy that was^what we called the 
 bear I shot the day before well, while we were 
 a-wooding " 
 
 " That story's as long as the Mississippi/' said 
 one. 
 
 . " Shut pan, and sing dumb, or I'll throw 
 you into the drink," exclaimed Spooney. 
 
 " Why, I heard that story before." 
 
 " Well, supposing you did, I didn't ; go on, 
 captain." 
 
 " Well, as I was saying, Spoon, the nigger " 
 
 " I tink he might call urn gemman of choler," 
 muttered blackey. 
 
 " The nigger went to cook some bear while we 
 were wooding, so that we might have somethin 
 to go upon. When we came back, what kind of 
 a varmint do you think we started in the cane- 
 brake?" 
 
 " I reckon an alligator," said blackey. 
 
 " Hold your tongue, you beauty, or you shall 
 smell brimstone through a nail hole," cried 
 Spooney ; " go ahead, go ahead, captain." 
 
 " Well, as I was saying we started the drollest 
 
 VOL. 1,-F 
 
WESTWARD HO! 
 
 varmint perhaps you ever did see. Its face was 
 covered with hair, like a bull buffalo, all but a 
 little place for his eyes to see through. It looked 
 mighty skeery, as though it thought itself a gone 
 sucker, and calculated we were going to eat it, be- 
 fore we killed it ; but we carried it aboard the broad- 
 horn, and took compassion on the poor thing. I 
 slapped it on the back, and told it to stand up on 
 its hind legs, and I wish I may run on a sawyer 
 if it didn'tTturn out to be a live dandy." 
 
 " Had it a tail T 
 
 " I'll wool lightning out of you, Bill, if you in- 
 terrupt me." 
 
 " That's actionable in New Orleans." 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! whoop ! wake snakes go ahead, 
 go ahead, and don't be so rantankerous," shouted 
 the audience. 
 
 " I swear, if he once gets my tail up, he'll find 
 I'm from the forks of Roaring River, and a bit of 
 a screamer," said Captain Hugg. 
 
 "Well, go ahead go ahead tell us about 
 the dandy ha, ha, ha L. I should like to have 
 seen it when it stood upon its hind legs. What 
 did it say?" 
 
 " Why, I asked what they called such queer 
 things where it came from, and it said Basil ; and 
 that the captain of the steamboat had put it ashore 
 because it insisted on going into the ladies' cabin. 
 Well, some of us called it summer-savory, some 
 catnip, some sweet basil, and we had high fun 
 with the cretur, and laughed till we were tired. 
 And then we set him on a barrel forked eend 
 downwards " 
 
 " Yough ! yough ! yough !" ejaculated blackey, 
 bursting into one of his indescribable laughs. 
 
 " No laughing in the ranks there throw that 
 
WESTWARD HO! 123 
 
 nigger overboard if he laughs before I come to 
 the right place, and then you may all begin. 
 Well, then, I began to ask him all about himself ; 
 and he told me he was a great traveller ; and that 
 he had been so far north, that the north star was 
 south of him. And then he asked me if I knew 
 any thing of navigation and the use of the globes. 
 ' To be sure I do,' said I ; ' aint they made for peo- 
 ple to live on ?' Then he inquired if .1 ever heard 
 of Hershell, or Hisshell, I forget which, and I told 
 him I knew him as well as a squirrel knows" a 
 hickory-nut from an acorn.' ' He's dead,' said the 
 queer cretur. 
 
 " ' No, no,' says I, l that won't do, there's no 
 mistake in Shavetail, you may swear. I saw a 
 pedler with some splendid sausages made of red 
 flannel and turnips go by our house and I changed 
 with him some wooden bacon hams. He, came 
 from Litchfield, where Hershell lived, and didn't 
 say a word about it.' Here he made a note in his 
 book, and I begun to smoke him for one of these 
 fellers that drive a sort of trade of making books 
 about Old Kentuck, and the western country ; so 
 I thought I'd set him barking up the wrong tree 
 a little. And I told him some stories that were 
 enough to set the Mississippi afire ; but he put 
 them all down in his book. One of my men was 
 listening, and he sung out, 'Well, Sam, you do take 
 the rag on the bush, that's sartin ;' and I was fear- 
 ful dandy would find out I was smoking him ; so 
 I jumped up and told Tom a short horse was soon 
 curried, and I'd knock him into a cocked-hat if he 
 said another word. And that broke up the con- 
 versation. 
 
 "Next morning we stopped to wood a little below 
 New-Madrid, and the dandy, who seemed one of the 
 
 F2 
 
124 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 curiousest creturs you ever saw, and was poking 
 his nose everywhere, like a dog smelling out a 
 trail, went with me a little way into a cane-brake, 
 where we met a woman living under a board shed, 
 with four or five children. Dandy asked her if 
 she was all alone she said her husband had gone 
 up to Yellow Banks to look for better land. Then 
 he wanted to know what she had to eat, and she 
 said nothing but sweet pumpkins. ' What, no 
 meat?' said he l No, nothing but sweet pumpkins.' 
 ' Well,' said dandy, ' I never saw any thing half so 
 bad as this in the old countries.' And then he put 
 his hand in his pocket, and gave her a pickalion. 
 Thank you,' said she, * as I am a living woman, 
 I've tasted no meat for the last fortnight nothing 
 but venison and wild turkeys.' c The d 1 you 
 hain't,' said dandy,and wanted to get the pickatlon 
 back again." 
 
 " What a wild goose of a feller, not to know 
 that nothing is called meat in these parts but salt 
 pork and beef. He's a pretty hand to write books 
 of travels," said Spooney. 
 
 " I wish I may be forced to pass the ' old syca- 
 more root' up-stream twice a day, if I'd give the 
 Mississippi Navigator for a whole raft of such 
 creturs. But what did you do with him at last, 
 captain ?"said another. 
 
 " Why, I got tired of making fun of the ring- 
 tail-roarer, and happening to meet the steamboat 
 Daniel Boone, Captain Lansdale, coming down 
 stream, just as she had smashed a broad-horn, and 
 the owner was sitting on the top of it, singing, 
 
 ' Hail, Columbia, happy land, 
 If I ain't ruin'd I'll be 
 
 I t>ersuaded 'the captain to let dandy come aboard 
 
WESTWARD HO! 125 
 
 again, on his promising to keep out of the ladies' 
 cabin. So we shook hands, and I wish I might be 
 smash'd too if I wouldn't sooner hunt such a rac- 
 coon- than the fattest buck that ever broke bread 
 in old Kentuck." 
 
 The next morning the broad-horn arrived at 
 the junction of the two great rivers Ohio and 
 Mississippi, which Rainsford had anticipated with 
 no small degree of impatience. But he found 
 there was nothing to the eye particularly striking. 
 The imagination indeed might dwell on the endless 
 course 0f the two streams here rolling along the 
 collected waters of such vast regions. The union 
 of these mighty rivers was consummated in the 
 midst of a dead solitude. For many miles before 
 it joined the Mississippi, the Ohio glided through 
 a low swampy wilderness, quietly, and with a 
 wave as limpid as the crystal spring, until turn- 
 ing a sharp angle it met the swift torrent of the 
 great father of waters, the " wicked river," as the 
 boatmen called it, and was whirled away by its 
 irresistible impetuosity. It was the union of a 
 gentle, unresisting maiden with a rough and 
 angry giant. The boiling eddies, the turbid waters 
 of the Mississippi, inevitably conjure up the idea of 
 an eternal warfare with the earth ; it tears its banks 
 as it rushes along ; and sometimes, as if impatient 
 of its devious windings, forces itself a passage 
 through a projecting point, making a new channel 
 in one place, and leaving another dry. The chief 
 ambition of a western adventurer is to found a 
 great city on speculation ; and it may be well sup- 
 posed that the junction of these two great rivers 
 did not escape the keen eye of these sagacious 
 people, who may be said to live on futurity. 
 Tradition said that a city had once been founded 
 
126 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 here, consisting of some houses built on piles. 
 But the first rising of the Ohio inundated the sur- 
 rounding region, and discouraged the adventur- 
 ers. Rainsford saw but a single house, standing 
 alone in the vast solitude, and making if possible 
 its loneliness more striking. Its windows were 
 broken, its outside blackened by the weather, and 
 such was its melancholy aspect that Captain Hugg 
 said it always put him in mind of the voice of one 
 crying in the wilderness. 
 
 Launched on the bosom of the swift Mississippi 
 the broad-horn proceeded with an accelerated 
 course, and without stopping, until they arrived 
 near the little town of New-Madrid, where it was 
 necessary to halt for a supply of wood. It was a 
 close sultry day, with scarcely a breath of air 
 stirring, and the atmospliere of a hazy obscurity, 
 which almost always lays a load of languor on 
 the spirits. The birds were sheltered in the deep 
 forests, where they remained panting in silence ; 
 and the few domestic animals to be seen, ventured 
 as far into the rapid stream as they dared, and 
 there stood lashing the insects with their tails, 
 listlessly and languidly, as if the effort was almost 
 beyond their strength. While the argonauts of 
 the broad-horn were gathering drift-wood along 
 the shore, Rainsford, accompanied by Captain 
 Sam, strolled to the confines of the Great Prairie, as 
 it is called, which extends for many miles from 
 the borders of the Mississippi. As they stood ad- 
 miring the rolling expanse of vapours which gave 
 to its vast surface the appearance of the distant 
 ocean in a calm, and coursing with their eyes the 
 dead and noiseless solitude, a distant rumbling 
 sound caught their attention for a moment 
 ceasing for a moment, and in a moment beginning 
 again, apparently nearer than before, It was sue- 
 
WESTWARD HO! 
 
 ceeded by a vast cloud of dust, which all at once 
 obscured the air, and hid from their view the face 
 of the world. 
 
 "Cut dirt, stranger, for your life; there's a 
 whirlwind coming," cried Captain Sam, suiting 
 the action to the word. 
 
 But he had scarcely spoken when the earth 
 opened between them, and they stood rocking to 
 and fro on either side a yawning chasm. The 
 ground rose in waves, like the sea in a storm ; the 
 vast trees that skirted the bare precincts of the 
 endless plain nodded and struck their high heads 
 together with a crash, and lashed each other with 
 their giant limbs ; the earth burst its strong ribs, 
 and rose, and split into vast ravines ; the waters 
 broke through their bounds, and while they formed 
 new lakes, or forced themselves into new chan- 
 nels in some places, in others they left large spaces 
 high and dry. Anon the waves of the firm-fixed 
 earth subsided for a moment, and she lay trem- 
 bling and quivering as in the paroxysm of an 
 ague. 
 
 During this appalling interval, Rainsford and 
 his companion rose from the ground, where they 
 had been thrown by the resistless force of the vi- 
 brations, and instinctively sought refuge they 
 knew not whither. The captain made towards 
 the river, as being his natural element ; while the 
 other climbed one of the lofty trees that skirted 
 the bounds of the interminable plain, from a vague 
 apprehension of the waters, which, as well as the 
 earth, seemed struggling to' free themselves from 
 the fetters of Nature's inflexible laws. He had 
 scarcely done this, when again the same appalling 
 noises approached from another quarter, and again 
 the firm-set earth began to heave and curl itself 
 
128 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 into a sea of waves that seemed to approach from 
 a distance, gathering strength, and rising higher 
 and higher, until they burst, scattering vast vol- 
 umes of water and sand high in the air, and leav- 
 ing the ground seamed with deep chasms, which 
 the traveller still surveys with astonishment and 
 dismay. In a few moments the earth seemed 
 changed into a different element, and to become 
 an ocean. A large portion of the district around 
 was covered with the waters, and the tree on 
 which Rainsford had sought refuge stood rocking 
 to and fro in the midst of them. Darkness, or at 
 least an obscurity, like that of a total eclipse of the 
 sun, came over the world ; and such was the dis- 
 may of all animated nature, that a little bird came 
 and sought refuge in the bosom of the young man, 
 where" it lay quiet and tame in the trance of ter- 
 ror. He could feel its little heart beat against his 
 own, and the communion of sympathy between 
 him and the panting flutterer was not unsoothing 
 in this terrible hour. 
 
 Casting his eye towards the town of New- 
 Madrid, he beheld the houses tottering and tum- 
 bling to pieces, and the people fleeing to and fro 
 in all the desperation of overwhelming terror. 
 Turning to the Mississippi, he suddenly observed 
 it in one particular spot boil up, and overflow its 
 banks, carrying boats and every thing that floated 
 on its surface far over into the fields, where they 
 were left perfect wrecks. Nay, it spared neither 
 the living nor the dead, for all at once he saw the 
 little graveyard of the village, with its mouldering 
 bones and quiet inhabitants, lifted, as it were, from 
 its resting-place, and hurled into the torrent, where 
 it and they were scattered, never to be associated 
 again in time or in eternity. In this situation he 
 
WESTWARD HO? 129 
 
 remained all that day and night, amid a succes- 
 sion of shocks that seemed to threaten the anni- 
 hilation of the whole scheme of nature, and the 
 production of a second chaos. Such was the ex- 
 haustion of his frame, that he could scarcely sup- 
 port himself; and had he not wedged his body in 
 the crotch of the tree, he must have fallen and 
 perished. In the morning the waters around him 
 had gathered into a newly-formed lake at a dis- 
 tance" of a few miles, and the shocks intermitted. 
 The little bird that had lain all night panting in 
 his bosom, apparently revived by the presence of 
 the cheerful morning sun, struggled from its place 
 of refuge, flew away, like the dove from the ark 
 when the waters had subsided, and did not return. 
 Stiff and exhausted, he descended from his perch, 
 and with great labour and difficulty made his way 
 to the town, where he found a few persons who 
 had ventured to return to their homes, or rather 
 the ruins of their homes. Fortunately, these 
 dwelt not in palaces or stately houses, but in cot- 
 tages of logs and clay, and few or no lives had 
 been lost. Many were missing for a time, but 
 they all returned again save one man, who had 
 been left on an island in a lake formed by the 
 convulsions of the earthquake, and whose bones 
 were accidentally found long afterwards. 
 
 Among those who made their appearance dur- 
 ing the day, to the great satisfaction of our hero, 
 was the captain and crew of the broad-horn in 
 which he had taken his passage. The story they 
 told of their translation from the waters to the 
 land was tinged with many wonders and extrava- 
 gances, which, being repeated day after day, and 
 year after year, gradually approached to the in- 
 credible. It was a time and a region of wonders, 
 
 F-3 
 
 .. 
 
130 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 however, and not the least of these was the extra- 
 ordinary abstinence of Captain Sam and his people. 
 They neither swore nor drank whiskey that day, 
 nor during the continuance of the shocks of the 
 earthquake, which lasted with occasional intervals 
 so long, that the people of the neighbourhood got 
 used to it, insomuch that a veritable traveller re- 
 lates, that going ashore near New-Madrid, and 
 visiting the house of an old lady, he was alarmed 
 by certain disagreeable tremblings of the earth ; 
 whereupon she exclaimed, in an encouraging 
 tone, " O, don't be frightened, stranger ; it's only 
 the earthquake." We are sorry to say that the 
 reformation of these worthies lasted no longer 
 than the earthquake, and that they returned in 
 due time to their old habits. Tradition says that 
 this remarkable phenomenon produced a radical 
 reform in the phraseology of Captain Sam Hugg ; 
 for that whereas before he was accustomed to 
 designate himself as " half horse, half alligator, 
 and a little of the steamboat," he ever afterwards 
 added " a small sprinkling of an earthquake" to 
 the former ingredients. 
 
 Rainsford remained in the village of New- 
 Madrid several days, in a state of mind little to be 
 envied. The tremendous and appalling scenes 
 he had encountered, operating on his gloomy, 
 nervous, and apprehensive temperament, had in- 
 creased his propensity to melancholy anticipations. 
 Such dispositions are almost always inclined to 
 fanaticism, and prone to wrest the great phe- 
 nomena of nature from the mysterious universal 
 agents of Providence, to the paltry and miserable 
 instruments of abject superstition. With a vain 
 and impotent presumption, they imagine the wrath 
 of Heaven is roused for the attainment of petty 
 
"WESTWARD HO! 131 
 
 purposes of individual punishment, and exclaim, 
 in the language of the insane interpreter of the 
 Divine will, 
 
 I saw the bolt of heaven launch'd from on high, 
 Mark'd its bright course, and lo ! it kill'd a fly ! 
 
 Under the influence of this delusion, he ima- 
 gined that there was something ominous, some- 
 thing prophetic in the earthquake which had 
 thus arrested his voyage down the river. He 
 viewed it as a distinct indication that he was not 
 permitted to proceed for the purposes he had in 
 view, because these purposes were become unne- 
 cessary by the sure and certain fate that awaited 
 him, and which he now fully persuaded himself 
 was in a swift progress to its final consummation. 
 " To what end." would the fiend whisper to him. 
 ' to what end visit distant scenes ? to what pur- 
 pose enlarge thy mind, or cultivate thy under- 
 standing, or gratify thy curiosity, by contemplat- 
 ing the" vast works of the creation ? or to what 
 purpose set thy house in order, since in a little 
 while^ yea, as sure as the voice of the Deity pro- 
 phesies in the thunder, the whirlwind, and the 
 earthquake, in a little while thou wilt neither be 
 able to enjoy the noble feast of the mind, nor taste 
 the blessings of a peaceful home ?" 
 
 Guided by this dangerous monitor, Rainsford, 
 after lingering about the village, where his nerves 
 and his imagination were irritated and sublimated 
 by the perpetual recurrence of the shocks of the 
 earthquake, for some days, and enduring the har- 
 assing struggle of not being able to make up his 
 mind whether he should proceed to New Orleans 
 or not, at length determined to retrace his steps 
 to the place whence he had departed, and he re^ 
 
132 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 I 
 
 turned unexpectedly to the village of Dangerfield- 
 ville, after an absence of about a month. 
 
 Colonel Dangerfield received him with hospi- 
 table civility, for it was almost a part of his religion 
 to treat every human being as if he had gained a 
 sanctuary when once beneath the shelter of his 
 roof. But Rainsford, whose nerves vibrated to 
 the slightest touch of neglect as well as the slight- 
 est indication of a want of cordiality, saw, or fan- 
 cied he saw, a diminution in the honest warmth 
 with which the colonel had bade him farewell in 
 the manner he received him now. On the part 
 of Mrs. Dangerfield all was kindness and matronly 
 welcome. The young lady met him with a lively 
 nonchalance. 
 
 " You have made a quick voyage and a speedy 
 return," said she ; " well, have you brought me 
 the present you promised ?" 
 
 " I have not been to New Orleans," was the re- 
 ply. " No farther than New Madrid." 
 
 " Well, and what did you see there, any parrots 
 or monkeys T 
 
 " No, I only saw an earthquake." 
 
 " An earthquake !" exclaimed they all, sup- 
 posing he was jesting, as they had not yet heard 
 of it in this remote region, where its effects were 
 not felt. 
 
 " How did it look T asked Virginia. 
 
 " It looked like the last agony of expiring nature 
 as if the Omnipotent had resigned his empire 
 of the universe, and left the rebel elements to 
 struggle for mastery. It looked pray Heaven I 
 may never look upon its like again." 
 
 " Come, come, young man," said the colonel, in 
 rather a severe tone, " no jesting on such subjects. 
 It is unworthy a rational being, as of the Being 
 that created him," 
 
WESTWARD HO! 133 
 
 " Jesting ! as I live, sir, I saw the earth rolling 
 in solid waves, and felt myself tossed on them as 
 if I had been on the sea. I saw the trees rock, 
 and knock their heads against each other till they 
 dashed themselves to pieces. I saw the ground 
 open, and spout out lakes and rivers. And I saw 
 the churchyard, and the graves, and the moulder- 
 ing bones, all lifted up and carried away out of 
 sio;ht. If such are the jestings of the great Ruler 
 of the universe, what must his anger be ?" 
 
 The hearers were overawed by the picture he 
 drew, and the deep seriousness of his tones- con- 
 vinced them he was at least in earnest. Virginia, 
 as she scanned his face, saw in it such a change 
 since they parted, such an expression of haggard 
 terror, and such a pale hue of ill health, that she 
 felt the dews on her eyelashes, and a pang shot 
 through her heart at having sported with the feel- 
 ings of one whom she was sure was labouring 
 under sickness of body or mind. 
 
 Further inquiries produced a more detailed and 
 coherent account of the great phenomenon he had 
 witnessed. But still there was an air of wildness 
 approaching to rhapsody in his manner and lan- 
 guage, which seemed to indicate that his nerves 
 had not yet recovered the shock of such an ap- 
 palling scene, nor his imagination settled down 
 into a state of wholesome repose. The whole of 
 the remainder of the day he was restless and un- 
 quiet; and any sudden jar or noise made him 
 start as if apprehensive of approaching danger. 
 Colonel Dangerfield, as he watched the singulari- 
 ties of his conduct, could not help, recalling to 
 mind the communications of that knowing politi- 
 cian, learned wight, and pestilent busybody, Zeno 
 Paddock, 
 
134 "WESTWARD HO! 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The Author doeth homage to his mother earth, after 
 which he describes a hunting match. 
 
 WINTER, with his hoary beard and fiery pro- 
 boscis, whence hung glittering icicles like jewels 
 from barbarian nose, now stripped the forest of 
 its green leaves, the gardens of their blushing 
 honours, and cast them away like worthless weeds 
 to wither and die, and return like man, and all 
 created nature, to their common mother, earth. 
 There are who complain of the different dispen- 
 sations of Providence to man and the world he in- 
 habits ; that the former knows but one fleeting 
 spring, while the other every revolving year re- 
 news its youthful beauty till the consummation of 
 all things arrives. But beshrew such pestilent 
 humgruffians ! hath not the wise Dispenser of 
 all good things made ample amends by giving us 
 memory to recall our youthful pleasures ; fancy 
 to paint a thousand scenes fairer and more deli- 
 cious than spring e'er offered to the eye of mortals? 
 And last and best of all, hath he not given us 
 Hope, whose glorious visions far exceed all that 
 the May of life ever realized ? The richest gifts 
 showered on the earth ; her diamonds, gold, and 
 carpets of flowers ; her power of renewing all her 
 youthful charms at each revolving year, are 
 nothing to those bestowed on man his reason, 
 and his immortality. 
 
WESTWARD HO! 135 
 
 Yet let us not undervalue our good old mother 
 earth, for good she is, ay, and beautiful too, 
 whether clothed in the eastern magnificence of 
 imperial green, or basking in the glowing gold of 
 summer sunshine, or flaunting like Joseph in the 
 many-coloured coat of autumn, or wrapped in her 
 wintry winding-sheet, she awaits like the just 
 man the hour when she shall arise more glorious 
 for her long sleep. Who can contemplate her 
 smiling valleys, rich meadows, golden harvests, 
 grateful flowers, whispering woods, endless wind- 
 ing rivers, boundless pathless seas, full-bosomed 
 hills, and cloud-capped mountains, without a feel- 
 ing of awful recognition of Infinite Power ? Who 
 can behold the admirable union and aptness with 
 which all these participate in one great end with- 
 out doing homage to Infinite Wisdom ? And who 
 can revel in the balmy air, inhale the breath of 
 the meadows and the flowers, listen to the music 
 of her birds, her brooks, her whispering leaves, 
 her answering echoes, and taste her other boun- 
 teous gifts of all that man can wish or enjoy, 
 without bowing his head in grateful acknow- 
 ledgement of Infinite Mercy? 
 
 Though long divorced from the country , r we 
 have not yet, thank Heaven! quite lost the ru- 
 ral feeling. We can still recall the scenes of early 
 life with a pleasure unalloyed by pining regrets 
 for the past or unmanly fears of the future ; and 
 we often steal a few days from the racket of the 
 noisy town to bury ourselves in the holy quiet 
 of the mountains ; renew once more the sim- 
 ple pleasures of days long past, and be a boy 
 a^ain with our own little boys ; to chase butter- 
 flies and grasshoppers ; attack wasps' nests ; tum- 
 ble on the haycocks; gather chestnuts; ramble 
 
136 WESTWARD HO' 
 
 whole^ mornings without object or end ; and last, 
 and dearest pleasure of all, follow some mountain 
 brook through its romantic rugged solitudes ; and 
 pit our art against the cautious timidity of the 
 speckled monarch of the leaping stream. 
 
 The winter brought with it a cessation of out- 
 door employments, save that of hunting, to the 
 rural inhabitants of the village of Dangerfield- 
 ville, and gathered them, especially of evenings, 
 around the glowing fire, where Master Littlejohn 
 revelled in the luxury of three chairs to his heart's 
 content. Sometimes they made parties to hunt 
 the deer, or the scoundrel bear, whose rugged na- 
 ture and rugged hide make him the scandal of 
 the forest. On these occasions Bushfield was 
 always summoned to take the command, and 
 never conqueror led his army to the field with 
 more eager appetite for glory than our gallant 
 woodman. Rainsford, who by degrees seemed to 
 have in some measure recovered his usual level 
 of mind and spirits, often accompanied them, and 
 always felt the resistless inspiration of the sport. 
 Even Mr. Littlejohn occasionally gathered him- 
 self together, and sallying forth among the rest, 
 rifle in hand. " talked big," as the Black Warrior 
 phrased it, and did marvellously little. It was his 
 invariable custom to place himself in some conve- 
 nient spot, and there await the coming of the deer. 
 If it came, he had his shot and generally missed ; 
 if it came not, he had a most excellent opportu- 
 nity of boasting what he would have done had an 
 opportunity offered. One day when the Black 
 Warrior happened to be on the same station with 
 him, Littlejohn missed a fine fat buck, which came 
 leaping along within ten yards of him. 
 " Huh !" said the red man, " your rifle is be- 
 
WESTWARD HO! 137 
 
 witched, you must go and get some great medicine 
 to cure it." 
 
 " Medicine 1 What, would you have me give 
 my gun a dose of physic ?" 
 
 " I mean great medicine. Something to make 
 him shoot straight. Something Great Spirit give 
 to his good people to keep off bad one." 
 
 " Pooh do you think !the Great Spirit meddles 
 with such nonsense as shooting a deer ?" 
 
 " Yes, Great Spirit meddle with every thing. 
 I go hunting, I shoot, shoot, shoot, no kill any 
 thing, bad spirit won't let (me, deer run away, 
 birds fly away, no hit. Well, I go to conjurer, 
 and he give me great medicine Great Spirit give 
 him, and then when 1 fire, huh ! down drop deer, 
 bird, bear, every thing ; bad spirit gone away. 
 Well, I go fish fish come, nibble, nibble, nibble, 
 no bite, no catch one at all, bad spirit come and 
 say no. Well, I go to conjurer again, and he give 
 me 'nother great medicine. Then I go fish once 
 more, and then, huh ! I catch many as I please. 
 Bad spirit gone again." 
 
 " Now you don't believe this, do you T' 
 
 " Believe ? Indian know so. You white men 
 say, proof of the pudding in the eating. I shoot 
 nothing, I catch no fish, I go get great medicine, 
 den I shoot every thing, never miss. And I 
 get fish, many as I can carry. Huh ! is not all 
 owing to the great medicine ?" 
 
 " I don't believe one word of it." 
 
 " No ! look here." And opening his tobacco- 
 pouch he carefully brought out an eagle's feather. 
 " There, there one great medicine. I leave him 
 home I shoot nothing, I bring with me I never 
 miss. Huh ! You white men think you have 
 all the great medicines, Indian got some too, J3ut 
 hark !" 
 
138 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 And at that moment they heard the sonorous 
 music of the deep-mouthed hounds, echoing far 
 and wide, and approaching the pass they occupied, 
 in full career. Nigher and nigher came their cry, 
 and Littlejohn, who had neglected to reload his 
 rifle, 'set about it immediately. But before the 
 deed was done, the deer, with his antlers thrown 
 back on his neck, and eyes almost starting out of 
 his head with fear, came bounding past like the 
 wind. But the charmed rifle of the Black War- 
 rior arrested his course ; the bullet entered his 
 breast, he sprung his last spring, and fell dead. 
 
 " There you see, great medicine do that." 
 
 " Great fiddlestick," quoth Littlejohn, who was 
 not a little jealous of the success of the Indian. 
 
 A North American Indian, in his primitive state, 
 never betrays the least emotion except when he is 
 drunk. None study dignity and self-possession 
 as he does ; nor is there in the civilized world, 
 or in the courts of eastern despots, a greater slave 
 to 'etiquette. In battle, he strikes down his enemy 
 with graceful deliberation. At the stake, he in- 
 flicts the keenest tortures with the same indiffer- 
 ence he endures them. He never declaims ex- 
 cept when inspired by whiskey. He never inter- 
 rupts another, and he never boasts of his exploits. 
 When he appeals to his tribe for any new dignity, 
 he relates them with an air of indifference, and 
 leaves the audience to say what shall be his re- 
 ward. When the full-blooded Indian means mis- 
 chief, he is silent ; and when the half-breed weeps, 
 beware of him. 
 
 The Black Warrior affected to take no notice 
 of the contemptuous epithet of Littlejohn. The 
 rest of the party now came up, and being satisfied 
 with the sport, and laden with game, returned to 
 the village in triumph. 
 
WESTWARD HO 139 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Rainsford is besieged by the Holy Alliance of Zeno and 
 Judith The former achieves a great discovery. 
 
 THE state of depression under which Rainsford 
 had laboured for some time previous to the period 
 of his introduction to the reader, naturally made 
 him exceedingly sensitive to the slightest appear- 
 ance of neglect, and peculiarly sagacious in detect- 
 ing its first dawnings. Since his return to the 
 village, he fancied that there was a falling off in 
 the cordiality with which he had heretofore uni- 
 formly been treated by Colonel Dangerfield. The 
 rest of the family were, as usual, kind and atten- 
 tive ; but although the colonel never on any occa- 
 sion committed an overt act that distinctly marked 
 a change in his feelings towards his guest, for that 
 was against the canons of Old Virginia and her 
 buxom daughter Kentucky, still there was some- 
 thing wanting, some inexplicable, indescribable 
 little demonstrations of welcome, which the sen- 
 sitive, melancholy stranger felt, but could not ana- 
 lyze. He now seldom or never asked Rainsford 
 to accompany him abroad, and the interest he had 
 heretofore taken in his affairs seemed to have sub- 
 sided into something like indifference. 
 
 " I will no longer^ trespass on his hospitality," 
 said the young man, and sallied once more forth 
 to visit Master Zeno Paddock, with whom he held 
 a long confabulation, the result of which will ap- 
 
140 WESTWARD HOl 
 
 pear anon in all human probability. That same 
 evening he took the opportunity, on some allusion 
 being made to something or other that indicated 
 an understanding on the part of the family of 
 Colonel Dangerfield that he was to spend the rest 
 of the winter with them, to observe, with some 
 little embarrassment, that he was about to remove 
 to Mr. Paddock's, who lived nearly opposite, a dis- 
 tance of two or three hundred yards. 
 
 The ladies expressed surprise, and the elder 
 made some little attempt at remonstrance against 
 this desertion ; the colonel, as if offering a sacri- 
 fice of inclination to old habits, compelled himself 
 to make a few civil speeches ; but they wanted 
 the eloquence of cordiality, and the thing was 
 soon settled that the removal should take place 
 the next morning. Additional melancholy gath- 
 ered in the face of Rainsford after this, and he 
 retired earlier than usual to his room, but not to 
 his repose. Virginia heard him pacing to and 
 fro, and detected, or fancied she detected, the occa- 
 sional murmurs of a sorrowful or discontented 
 spirit. Again her curiosity was excited, her sym- 
 pathy awakened, by the apparent- mystery of his 
 nightly wakefulness ; and her mind grew more 
 and more confirmed in making it the subject of 
 frequent contemplation. 
 
 The next day Mr. Rainsford took possession of 
 his homely lodgings : but the change proved little 
 satisfactory, and instead of finding greater quiet, 
 as well as more perfect freedom from observation 
 and restraint, he was perpetually pestered with 
 the attentions of Zeno Paddock, together with his 
 excellent helpmate Mrs. Judith, whose curiosity 
 vied with that of her husband. The classical 
 academy of Zeno being situated a little distance 
 
WESTWARD HO I- x 141 
 
 in front of his log castle, he caused his tripod of 
 authority to be forthwith removed to the vicinity 
 of a window, which commanded a full view of the 
 chamber of Rainsford, and enabled him to super- 
 intend the motions of that mysterious personage. 
 If he visited Colonel Dangerfield, which he still 
 continued to do occasionally, Master Zeno, as the 
 boys always called him, Avas on nettles till he had 
 an opportunity of questioning him as to what was 
 said, done, thought, and looked on the important 
 occasion ; or if he walked forth into the village, 
 or down by the river-side, or into the neighbouring 
 forest, ten to one Master Zeno left his dominion 
 to the lord of misrule, and sallied out to watch his 
 motions. Often when Rainsford fancied himself 
 alone, he would find his tormentor close behind 
 him, and not unfrequently he seemed to come out 
 of the earth, or to drop from the clouds, so sudden 
 was his appearance. 
 
 Mrs. Judith, who WSKB so ugly that one might 
 be almost tempted to suppose it was her identical 
 self that had cut off the head of Holofernes, and 
 placed it in triumph on her own shoulders, was 
 not a whit more chary of her company at home. 
 She would bring her work, and sit with him, and 
 put as many cross questions as a superlative pet- 
 tifogger does when he wants to confound a simple 
 witness. Indeed, her curiosity passed all human 
 understanding. 
 
 " I am sure you must be melancholy, Mr. Rains- 
 ford," said she, on one of these occasions. 
 
 No." 
 
 "Then I'm sure you are sick. Do let me give 
 you' some horehound or catnip-tea. Now I'm 
 sure you must be sick." 
 
 " No, I'm very well." 
 
142 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 " Then I'm sure you must have something on 
 your mind. O, now I have it, you must be in 
 love ; all young men are in love," and she smiled 
 like a hippopotamus or a sea-lion "an't you, now, 
 Mr.RainsfordJ" 
 
 " No, Mrs. Paddock, I'm not in love," said he, a 
 little impatiently. 
 
 " Well, that's transcendent ; not in love, and 
 been a whole season living with Miss Phiginny 
 Dangerfield ! Well, I vow, that's mighty ! Well 
 then, I suppose where was you raised, Mr. 
 Rainsford ?" 
 
 " She takes me for a blood-horse or a game- 
 chicken, confound her !" thought he. " I was 
 raised, madam, in the house of my father." 
 
 " No, sure ! well, I declare now, I thought so. 
 Where did he tarry, if I may be so bold ?" 
 
 " In the land of the living once," said the young 
 man, with a sigh. 
 
 " Ah ! poor man ! I thought so. When did he 
 die, if I may be so curious ? Pshaw ! I never did 
 see such rotten thread as this i but, as I was say- 
 ing, when did the poor dear old gentleman die ?" 
 sighing and sniffling a little. 
 
 " Before I was born." 
 
 " Well, that's droll, I declare. I wish I had a 
 pair of spectacles. I believe I'm losing my eyes." 
 
 " I wish you would lose your tongue," thought 
 Rainsford. 
 
 " Did he leave a widow ?" 
 
 " Yes, madam, he did." 
 
 " And children besides you ?" 
 
 " Yes, yes, yes ! I had once two brothers." 
 
 " No, sure ! and what has gone with them all ?" 
 
 " They are all dead !" exclaimed Rainsford, 
 whose agitation now became excessive. 
 
WESTWARD HO! 143 
 
 " Dead ! now you don't say as much. I declare 
 it's very droll. What did they all die of?" 
 
 " What I shall die of one day or other !" and 
 the youth covered his face with his hands, while 
 his bosom heaved with strong emotion. 
 
 " Ah ! now don't take on so, now don't," said 
 Mrs. Judith, coaxingly, for she was a good-natured 
 woman, notwithstanding she carried the head of 
 Holofernes on her shoulders ; " don't take on so ; 
 it's dangerous to think too much of these things. 
 1 knew a Mrs. Fudgell once, that got out of her 
 wits on account of an awakening, and killed her 
 own little child, because, as she said afterwards, 
 when she came to herself, a spell before she died, 
 she thought an angel appeared to her, and told 
 her she must do it. ^People often commit murder 
 out of pure dumps, which turns their brains 
 upside down. If you take on so, maybe you'll be 
 tempted to commit murder, and 
 
 " Woman ! woman !" cried Rainsford, " what 
 are you talking of? Do you know have you 
 ever heard but that is impossible ! Some fiend 
 has sent you here to torment me." His counte- 
 nance was pale and haggard, his limbs quivering 
 with the tension of agony, as he seized his hat, 
 and darted out of the room towards the recesses 
 of the forest. 
 
 " He m m ! I reckon, I suspect that all is 
 not right ; I wouldn't have on my mind what that 
 young man has for something !" and she went 
 straight over to the classical academy to tell Zeno 
 all about it. 
 
 But that worthy professor of birchen classics 
 had got the start of her. He had seen Rainsford 
 hurry out of the house and make for the wood ; 
 and, sliding from his three-legged stool, hast- 
 
144 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 ened after him, impelled by an agony of curiosity, 
 leaving his congregation of little boys and girls 
 as it were without a shepherd, to their mischievous 
 divertisements. 
 
 Rainsford buried himself in the obscurity of the 
 forest, and wandered about till his agitation had 
 somewhat subsided. He sat down upon the moul- 
 dering trunk of a majestic tree that had been over- 
 thrown by a whirlwind, and wiped the dew from 
 his cold forehead. 
 
 " To what am I reserved at last ?" said he ; "I 
 carne hither into the wilderness in hope to escape 
 the miserable degrading fate that hangs over me ; 
 to find some place where my name and all that 
 concerns me was unknown ; where the dreadful 
 secret of my life might remain without disclosure 
 till till destiny itself revealed it ! But it pursues 
 me everywhere ; the detestable babbling of this 
 woman discloses it ; the very air I breathe vibrates 
 the chord of agony in my heart, and discloses it. 
 Murder ! that I should ever become a murderer, 
 as that prating woman hinted !" and he groaned 
 in despair as he pronounced the word murderer. 
 
 Just at that moment he heard some one sneeze, 
 and, rushing to the spot from whence it proceeded, 
 encountered the veritable Master Zeno crouching 
 behind a tree. 
 
 " What do you want here ?" cried the young 
 man, seizing him by the collar. 
 
 " I I came to consult you about setting up my 
 newspaper, sir. I was thinking 
 
 " You did ! and I suppose you heard what I 
 said just now ?" 
 
 " Why, I confess, sir, I did hear the last part ; 
 for I assure you I just came up the moment I 
 sneezed," 
 
WESTWARD HO! 145 
 
 "Well, and what did you hear?" 
 
 "Why, sir, I, I thought I'm not sure, but 
 I thought I heard you talking something of 
 escaping a degrading fate ; of finding some place 
 of refuge. I hope you're not tired of my house 
 already. I'm sure my wife and I pay you all the 
 attention in our power, and never leave you alone 
 if we can help it. I really hope " 
 
 "Pooh ! what else did you hear? 55 
 
 " Why, I might be mistaken I dare say I was, 
 but I thought I heard you say something about 
 murder, or murderer, or some such matter. But 
 understand me, sir ; I don't mean to say I believe 
 that is to say my dear sir, what do you think 
 of my plan for setting up a newspaper ?" 
 
 " Look you, Mr. Paddock, you have intruded 
 upon my privacy, and overheard, or at least in 
 part overheard, what I had rather die than have 
 known or even suspected till till it is too late to 
 keep the secret. It will be known too soon for 
 me, but, until then, I would wish you never to 
 say any thing on the subject." 
 
 " O no, sir, by no means ; I promise to keep it 
 a perfect, a most profound secret, that you are a 
 that is to say but what think you, sir, of my 
 plan for setting up a newspaper ?" 
 
 "Why," and Rainsford reflected a moment, 
 " this I think, and tttis I promise you, that if you 
 will solemnly swear 
 
 "What, on the Bible, sir?" 
 
 "No, solemnly pledge your welfare in this 
 world and that which is to come, never to reveal, 
 not even to your wife, not to any living soul or 
 human ear, what you have this day seen and 
 heard ; I will furnish you with the means of es- 
 tablishing a newspaper at once," 
 
146 \FE8TWARD HO ! 
 
 " What ! a Weekly, or a daily ?" 
 
 " Daily or hourly if you please." 
 
 " A daily ! a daily !" cried Zeno, rubbing his 
 hands ; " sir, Mr. Rainsford, I promise you 
 solemnly not to open my lips sleeping or waking, 
 alive or dead, on the subject of the mur I mean 
 on the subject provided you enable me to set up 
 a daily paper, daily sir, daily, I think you 
 said ?" 
 
 " I did, and I'll keep my word ; but if you break 
 yours, if I don't break every bone in your body, 
 nay, drive the breath out of it for ever, say I'm 
 a liar and a coward. Go home, and if I ever 
 catch you dogging me again, I'll shoot you as 
 sure as you're alive ; look here," and he exhibited 
 to the astonished eyes of Master Zeno Paddock a 
 real genuine Joe Manton, that caused the man of 
 letters to make himself scarce in the shortest pos- 
 sible time. 
 
 " Well ! well ! what did you see, what did 
 you hear, what did you do? now do tell me, 
 Zeno, or I shall burst, quick, quick, quick !" ex- 
 claimed Mrs. Judith, running out of breath to 
 meet her lord ; " now do tell me, I promise you 
 I won't whisper a syllable to any living soul." 
 
 " You won't ?" said Zeno, drily. 
 
 " No, not even to Mrs. Tupper." 
 
 " Well, that's right ; and to make sure you'll 
 keep your promise, come here, Judy, a word 
 in your ear ; I didn't hear, see, or do any thing, 
 now don't tell anybody, will you ?" 
 
 Hereupon Mrs. Judith gave her lord and master 
 a most irreverent box on the ear, which caused 
 the bells to ring bob-majors therein. But he reso- 
 lutely kept the secret, having the hope of the 
 newspaper and the fear of Joe Manton before his 
 
WESTWARD HO 1 . 147 
 
 eyes, although sore were the struggles which rent 
 his mind, and the temptations he resisted. So 
 strong was the vocation of our classic to follow 
 Rainsford in his wanderings, that he sometimes 
 caught himself in the very act, and was obliged, 
 as it were, to turn the outward man round by 
 force, and set him going the other way. He con- 
 sidered it not, however, in the bond, to refrain 
 from the inquisition within doors, and made him- 
 self amends for his abstinence by day, by peeping 
 into his low chamber window ten times a night, 
 and listening with all his ears. As for Mrs. 
 Judith, she came to a resolution to drown herself, 
 and was proceeding towards the river for that 
 purpose, when her good angel whispered her that 
 it was out of all nature for a person to keep a 
 secret twenty-four hours, and that either Zeno 
 had nothing to tell, or she would certainly know 
 it in due time. Accordingly she returned home, 
 and like a faithful helpmate set about cooking the 
 good man's supper, which tradition says he ate 
 with singular demonstration of satisfaction, mum- 
 bling between whiles, "A daily! a daily! who'd 
 have thought it ; what a lucky rogue I am," until 
 Mrs. Judith was seized with another acute fit of 
 curiosity, which would have assuredly taken away 
 her breath, had it not luckily set her tongue run- 
 ning like unto a mill-clapper. 
 
 When Master Zeno came to say his prayers, 
 which he did every night, his conscience smote 
 him sorely on the score of keeping such a horri- 
 ble secret as that of which he had just possessed 
 himself. But then his conscience weighed but a 
 scruple or"two, and the temptation to disregard its 
 monitions weighed several pounds. There was 
 the hope of reward and the fear of punishment 
 
148 WESTWARD HO 1 . 
 
 in this world, staked against the long reckoning 
 of the future, and it is scarcely necessary to say 
 which of the scales kicked the beam. Zeno be- 
 haved like a man of honour ; he kept the secret, 
 at the same time that he hinted to everybody in 
 the village, not excepting his loving wife, that he 
 knew enough of a certain person that should be 
 nameless to hang him, as sure as his name was 
 Zeno Paddock, 
 
WESTWARD JIO! 149 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Treating of what follows that which went before. 
 
 THE persecutions of Mrs. Judith frequently 
 drove Rainsford to seek repose, or at least relief, 
 either in rambling through the woods, now show- 
 ing forth all the desolation of winter, or at the 
 fireside of Colonel Dangerfield, where he was 
 always received with welcome by the ladies, and 
 perfect civility by the colonel. Though he gene- 
 rally took his gun with him, it was observed he 
 never brought home any game, and the Black 
 Warrior frequently in his dry way advised him to 
 procure some great medicine to make his rifle 
 shoot straight. Mrs. Judith nearly distracted 
 herself with wondering what under the sun could 
 tempt a man into the forest in the depth of win- 
 ter, except the prospect of killing something ; and 
 Bushfield laughed at him most unmercifully when 
 he came over on a visit to Dangerfieldville. In 
 short, Mr. Rainsford had the rare felicity of setting 
 everybody wondering, and becoming an object of 
 speculation to the whole village. 
 
 But there was one, and the fairest one of all, 
 who felt somewhat more than curiosity about this 
 young man, and that was Virginia Dangerfield. 
 She was a high-spirited, imaginative young 
 maiden, bred up amid the solitudes of nature, or 
 at least without friends or companions of her 
 own age and degree of refinement, and Rainsford 
 was the first youth she had seen since the days 
 
150 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 of her childhood, whose mind and attainments, 
 feelings and pursuits, in any way harmonized 
 with hers. Besides, there was something in the 
 strong vicissitudes of temper he occasionally ex- 
 hibited, such striking contrasts between the mel- 
 ancholy tones of his voice, the pallid hue of his 
 cheek, the dark and gloomy tenor of his senti- 
 ments at times, and the gay, nay, almost wild 
 vivacity he frequently indulged, until it almost 
 approached to an appearance of artificial excite- 
 ment, that was continually calling forth her won- 
 der, her admiration, or her pity. Such a combi- 
 nation, it is generally believed, soon blends into 
 one warmer sentiment in the heart of a young 
 female ; but as yet Virginia only cherished a strong 
 feeling of sympathy towards this young man, 
 blended with a strange, inscrutable, and fearful 
 perception, she scarcely knew how or whence im- 
 bibed, which prevented that entire confidence 
 which is the best foundation of virtuous love. 
 When he was depressed and sad, she felt her 
 heart drawn towards him irresistibly ; but when 
 he broke forth, as he sometimes did, into wild yet 
 eloquent rhapsodies, bordering on incoherence ; 
 when his eyes sparkled and his cheeks glowed 
 with a sort of wayward inspiration, she knew 
 not why, but she could not sympathize with what 
 seemed so unnatural. 
 
 His conduct to her also savoured of the incon- 
 -* sistencies which marked his general deportment. 
 He frequently passed his mornings and evenings 
 during the winter in her society, and in general 
 his conversation was highly intellectual, as well 
 as imaginative ; but at times his mind would 
 seem to fly off suddenly from the subject into a 
 train apparently having no connexion with it. 
 
WESTWARD HO! 151 
 
 and referable to no conceivable concatenation of 
 ideas. For days in succession he would exhibit 
 towards her a course of' the most delicate unob- 
 trusive attentions, which she was tempted to in- 
 terpret as young maidens are wont ; and then, 
 perhaps, without warning, provocation, or appa- 
 rent motive, absent himself voluntarily, or rather 
 studiously avoid her. It is scarcely in human 
 nature not to resent such wayward caprices, and 
 Virginia repaid him, when, with as little seem- 
 ing Reason as he had for absenting himself, he 
 returned again. Thus they went on, half-friends, 
 half-lovers ; at one time cool, at another cordial. 
 In the mean while, Mrs. Judith continued her 
 system of espionage, and almost every day dis- 
 covered something that nearly killed her with 
 the pangs of curiosity. Master Zeno honourably 
 kept his word to Rainsford, saving the exception 
 we hinted at in the Jast chapter; and truth 
 obliges us to disclose the fact, that he encouraged 
 his wife to continue her investigations, by taking 
 every occasion to laugh at her vague suspicions. 
 She was " determined to convince him some day 
 or other, that their lodger had something or other 
 on his conscience that might better not be there." 
 In pursuance^of this praiseworthy resolution, she 
 continued her attentions, and favoured Rainsford 
 with her company so frequently of a morning, 
 and indeed all day, that he was more than once 
 on the point of leaving the village, and remaining 
 until the spring invited him to take possession of 
 his own house. But he knew not whither to go ; 
 he shrunk from the society of the world ; the 
 rivers were all frozen ; travelling without roads 
 through the forest was impracticable to all but an 
 Indian or a backwoodsman ; and besides all this, 
 
152 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 Virginia Dangerfield was such a charming girl, 
 so gentle in her manner towards him, with such 
 wild yet tender eyes, and such a voice ! " Her 
 words fall from her lips as soft and as sweet as 
 the honey trickles from the new honeycomb," 
 said he ; and so saying, he bit his thumb at Mrs. 
 Judith Paddock, and bade defiance to the head of 
 Holofernes. 
 
 One night, when all the village slept, Rainsford 
 was pacing his chamber as was his custom. He 
 managed to keep the foul fiend that haunted his 
 imagination, at bay while the sun shone, and the 
 passing show of the world was exhibiting before 
 his eyes ; but when night and silence came, and 
 when all that charmed him away from himself 
 was absent from his sight, the grinning spectre 
 rose and besieged his pillow the moment he laid 
 down his head. Then it was that the short in- 
 tervals of unreal enjoyment, or. rather of illusive 
 rest, were paid for by hours of sleepless, restless, 
 miserable anticipations. To escape these, he 
 would weary himself by walking back and forth 
 for hours and hours, until, weary and debilitated, 
 he sought a troubled repose, in a sleep to which 
 the habitual contemplation of his waking hours, 
 gave a character of reflected horrors. Occasion- 
 ally he stopped to look out at his window on the 
 dead landscape, commanded by the rising ground 
 on which the village was situated. Not a breath 
 of air was stirring, not a sound was abroad ; no 
 whispering leaves, no chirping insects ; nor katy- 
 did, nor tree-frog, nor any thing that breathed of 
 life, seemed to exist at that moment save himself 
 alone. The earth was wrapped in her white 
 winding-sheet of snow, and reposing in the trance 
 of temporary death, The dark forest which 
 
WESTWARD HO! 153 
 
 bounded the view at a distance seemed to his 
 harassed fancy the utmost verge of the world, 
 the commencement of the region of oblivion, 
 beyond which all is chaos, uncertainty, and of 
 which nothing is assuredly known, until all know- 
 ledge is vain. 
 
 As he stood buried under a mass of thronging 
 incongruities, all at once it seemed that the sun 
 had risen at midnight, and cast his bright morn- 
 ing ray upon the dark woods. A ruddy glare 
 illuminated, not only the trees, but the sky above 
 them, gradually extending higher and higher, and 
 wider and wider, and brightening in its expan- 
 sion, until the ^stars waxed dim and the moon- 
 beams disappeared. The state of his mind in- 
 clined Rainsford to superstitious influences, and, 
 as he watched these appearances in strange and 
 awful perplexity, it occurred to him to look at his 
 watch. It was scarcely one o'clock. It was not 
 the first blush of the morning; and what could 
 it be but some apt and supernatural warning ; 
 some one of those mysterious messages of mighty, 
 changes or individual ills, which, like the long 
 shadows of the trees when the sun declines to the 
 western horizon, stretch far beyond reality, and 
 distance the course of time 1 A single word awoke 
 him from his dream. 
 
 The dismal cry of " Fire !" from a single hoarse 
 voice at once conveyed to his mind the natural 
 solution of the threatening omen. In an instant 
 he was in the grass-grown street which divided 
 the village, and at the same moment saw the 
 flames breaking out from the roof of Colonel Dan- 
 gerfield's mansion, which, being built of pine- 
 wood, burnt almost with the rapidity of tinder. 
 Not a soul was stirring as yet but himself and the 
 
154 WESTWARD HO! . 
 
 person who had given the alarm, and from the 
 total silence within, it was evident that none of 
 the family were as yet awakened. Rainsford's 
 first impulse was to knock violently at the door 
 and call aloud. But it would seem that we miser- 
 able short-sighted mortals never sleep so sound as 
 when the thief is abroad or the house on fire. No 
 one answered, no one appeared, and the flames 
 were gaining strength at every instant. A thought 
 struck him, and running round to the side of the 
 house where Virginia slept, he threw a large stone 
 at her window, which broke two or three panes of 
 glass, and scattered them about the room. The 
 noise awoke her ; she ran to the window, and de- 
 manded what was the matter. 
 
 " For the sake of your life," cried Rainsford, 
 " ask no questions ; the house is on fire, and every 
 soul in it seems dead or asleep. Quick, quick, 
 Virginia, or you are lost I beseech you lose not a 
 moment." 
 
 Virginia disappeared, and Rainsford hastened 
 to receive her at the front door, which he 
 found had been at length opened by Little- 
 john, who stood, as villagers are wont to stand 
 on occasions that so seldom occur, without know- 
 ing what to do, or which way to turn himself. 
 The rest of the family gathered around him, 
 with the exception of Colonel Dangerfield, who 
 had gone the evening before to attend to some 
 magisterial business at the county-town, some 
 twenty miles ofi , and of Virginia, who had not 
 yet made her appearance. 
 
 " Thank God !" exclaimed Rainsford, " you are 
 all safe." Here he looked round, and found Vir- 
 ginia was not there. 
 
 "Where is Miss Pangerfield ?" cried lie, and 
 
WESTWARD HO! 156 
 
 rushed into the house. The chamber of Virginia 
 was at the extremity of the hall of the second 
 story, which ran the whole length of the house ; 
 and Rainsford discovered, to his horror, that the 
 staircase which led to it was in flames. At the 
 head of the stairs he thought he could distinguish 
 a white figure stretched at full length, and 
 apparently insensible. He sprang three steps 
 upwards, but the flames dashed in his face, and 
 sent him back again. Again he made a des- 
 perate effort, but suffocation drove him once more 
 to the foot of the stairs. By this time Mrs. 
 Dangerfield and the rest of the family, with a 
 crowd of villagers, were drawn to the spot, and 
 saw the white victim of the flames lying as be- 
 fore described. The mother was held by force 
 from rushing to her relief, and at length, over- 
 come by her feelings, fainted, and was carried 
 away insensible. At this moment Virginia re- 
 covered sufficient animation to rise, and sufficient 
 recollection to be aware of her situation. A third 
 time Rainsford attempted the ascent, and returned 
 with his hair in a blaze. 
 
 "Fly to your chamber-window- fly fly !" cried 
 he, almost suffocated with heat, smoke, and agi- 
 tation. 
 
 " I cannot fly !" exclaimed Virginia, faintly, and 
 sunk down, to all appearance never to rise again, 
 save when all the human race arise. The flames 
 now approached the fair and gentle victim, whose 
 hours seemed fast drawing to instants of time, and 
 silent dismay and total inaction succeeded the 
 noise and bustle of the preceding scene. 
 
 At the last decisive moment a sudden thought 
 seemed to revive Rainsford from the leaden stupor 
 which his excessive yet; abortiy^ exertions had, 
 
156 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 cast upon his mind and body. Pails of water nad 
 been brought in by the villagers in the vain hope 
 of arresting the progress of the flames, and various 
 articles of household furniture were thrown about 
 the lower entry. Among these was a large dam- 
 ask table-cloth, a relic of the ancient glory of 
 the Dangerfield dynasty, which Rainsford seized, 
 dipped in the water, threw it over his head, 
 darted up the staircase, which yet hung to- 
 gether, and, seizing the lifeless body of Virginia, 
 found his way blindfold down again, with little 
 injury to himself or the young lady, whom he 
 tenderly sheltered under the wet damask, which 
 was almost scorched to a cinder ere he had per- 
 formed the perilous feat. But a few moments 
 were consumed in the transactions we have just 
 related ; and scarcely had the safety of Vir- 
 ginia been achieved, when the roof fell in, and 
 the crowd was obliged to leave the mansion to 
 its fate. 
 
 Virginia was carried by Rainsford, in a state of 
 utter insensibility, to a neighbouring house, whi- 
 ther her mother had been taken, and where she 
 now remained in perfect distraction of mind. The 
 sight of her daughter, however, soon brought her 
 to herself; but it remained doubtful whether Vir- 
 ginia would ever revive. The long time she had 
 remained in her swoon, and the heat and smoke 
 in which she was enveloped, had apparently for 
 ever quenched the vital spark ; and for many an 
 anxious moment all exertions to awaken it only 
 strengthened a conviction that all was vain. 
 Twice did they abandon the attempt, all ex- 
 cept the mother, whose insurmountable affection 
 seemed to produce a prophetic reliance on the 
 eventual triumph of human means, aided by the 
 
WESTWARD HO! 157 
 
 blessing of Omnipotence. She still persisted, and 
 her perseverance was at length rewarded. Slowly, 
 and as if, like Lazarus, she was awaking from the 
 tomb, and casting off the chains of Death himself, 
 Virginia revived to consciousness, and the spell 
 of suspended animation was finally broken. By 
 degrees she came to her recollection, and, casting 
 her eyes towards the smoking ruins, threw her- 
 self into the arms of her mother, exclaiming, "My 
 father can build a new house ; but if I had lost 
 thee, my mother, where should I find another like 
 thee ?" 
 
 14 
 
158 WESTWARD no! 
 
 CHAPTER XYIfl. 
 
 A great discovery of Mrs. Judith Paddock ; to wit, that 
 this is a most scandalous and wicked world. 
 
 THERE are certain conceited moralists, or phi- 
 losophers, if so please ye, and certain affected sen- 
 timentalists, who profess to consider life and all 
 its blessings, a boon not worth receiving, not worth 
 possessing, and not worth our thanks to the great 
 Giver. In the pride of fancied superiority, they 
 pretend to look with calm contempt on the strug- 
 gles, the pursuits, the enjoyments of their fellow- 
 creatures, and to hold themselves aloof from such 
 a petty warfare for petty objects. They under- 
 value the enjoyments, they exaggerate the suffer- 
 ings of the human race, and indirectly impeach 
 the mercy of Providence, in having created count- 
 less millions of human beings only to increase the 
 sum of misery in this world. 
 
 But, for our part, "we hold no communion with 
 such men, whether they are sincere or not ; nor 
 do we believe for one single moment except, 
 peradventure, when suffering a twinge of the 
 tooth-ache that the good-hearted, well-disposed 
 inhabitants of this world, take them by and 
 large, do not on the whole enjoy more than 
 they suffer even here, where it would seem 
 from these philosophers and sentimentalists there 
 is as little distribution of infinite justice as 
 there is dispensation of infinite mercy. What 
 though there arc intervals of sorrow, disap- 
 
WESTWARD HO! 159 
 
 pointment, remorse, agony, if you will, mingled 
 in the cup of existence, that man must be very 
 wretched indeed who, in looking back upon his 
 course, cannot count far more hours of enjoyment 
 than of suffering. We deceive ourselves perpetu- 
 ally, and there is nothing which we exaggerate 
 more than the ordinary calamities of others, until 
 the truth is brought home to ourselves by being 
 placed in the same situation. 
 
 When mankind appear to be plunged in the 
 very waters of bitterness, without hope or conso- 
 lation, they are not, after all, so wretched as might 
 be imagined by the young and inexperienced. 
 Melancholy, grief, nay, even despair can find a 
 strange pleasure in unlimited self-indulgence. 
 The good Being who gives the wound seems to 
 have provided a remedy to soften its pangs, by 
 ordaining that the very grief which dwelleth in 
 the innermost heart should be mixed with some 
 rare ingredients that sweeten or alleviate the bitter 
 draught. In his extremest justice, he seems to 
 remember mercy ; and while he strikes, he spares. 
 Amid clouds and darkness there is still an unex- 
 tinguished light; in storms and tempests there 
 floats a saving plank ; amid the deepest wo there 
 is a sad luxury in giving way without restraint 
 to tears ; in calling to mind again and again the lost 
 object of our affections, summing up the extent 
 of our irretrievable loss, and pouring into our own 
 wounds the balm of our own pity. 
 
 Happiness consists in a quiet series 6*f almost 
 imperceptible enjoyments that make little impres- 
 sion on the memory. Every free breath we draw 
 is an enjoyment ; every thing beautiful in nature 
 or art is a source of enjoyment ; memory, hope, 
 fancy, every faculty of the intellect of man is a 
 
160 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 source of enjoyment ; the flowers, the fruits, the 
 birds, the woods, the waters, the course, the vicis- 
 situdes, and the vast phenomena of nature, cre- 
 ated, regulated, and preserved by the mighty hand 
 of .an omnipotent Being, all are legitimate and 
 ; easonable sources of enjoyment, within the reach 
 of' every rational being. Death is indeed the lot 
 of all, and all should yield a cairn obedience to 
 the law of nature when the hour shall come. But 
 a fretful impatience or an affected contempt of 
 life, is as little allied to philosophy as to religion. 
 Such being our view of the subject, we are ra- 
 ther inclined to admire than to blame Virginia for 
 being grateful to Rainsford for the preservation 
 of a life as yet unstained by guilt or unblighted by 
 suffering. The gift, and the manner of bestow- 
 ing it, touched her to the soul, and, co-operating 
 with former predispositions in his favour, pro- 
 duced a feeling so exquisitely tender, that if it 
 was not love, it certainly was not friendship. 
 Perhaps it partook of both, and in all probability 
 it had more of the former than of the latter. As 
 it was, however, it communicated a touching 
 character to her speech, her actions, and shall 
 we confess it ? to her looks, when she sometimes 
 watched with a newly-awakened interest those 
 sudden changes of temper, those wild sallies of 
 imagination, which she fancied waxed more and 
 more frequent. The inconsistencies of his con- 
 duct also ^became every day more marked, and if 
 he at one time was little less than a lover, he 
 would at another become little less than rude and 
 neglectful. Yet with all this, there was more, far 
 more of the appearance of being irresistibly im- 
 pelled by necessity than of acting under the influ- 
 ence of wanton caprice. It was evident that 
 
WESTWARD HO! 161 
 
 grief, or some feeling allied to it, was at the root 
 of all his eccentricities. 
 
 The morning after the fire a messenger was 
 sent for Colonel Dangerfield, who returned in the 
 evening. In the warmth of his gratitude for the 
 preservation of his daughter, he thanked Rains- 
 ford with all his heart, and for a while every ves- 
 tige of his former coolness disappeared. But 
 though his conduct continued such as would have 
 satisfied a stranger that the young man was a 
 prime favourite, still Rainsford felt that the colo- 
 nel was rather striving to repay an obligation than 
 giving way to a spontaneous feeling of kindness. 
 " He has heard or he suspects the secret reason 
 of my flying from my home," whispered the ap- 
 prehensive conscience of the unfortunate wan- 
 derer ; and his first impulse was to rid him of his 
 presence for ever, by departing as he came. But 
 still he remained spellbound by an influence which 
 every day became stronger, and every hour added 
 something to the burthen he bore. 
 
 A few days sufficed for the erection of a new 
 mansion in the room of that which had been 
 burnt. The good villagers resorted to what, in 
 woodland phrase, is called "log-rolling," which 
 means a combined eflbrt of many to do that which 
 is either difficult or impossible to one. They 
 gathered together and built the colonel a house, 
 but it was a sad falling off from the other ; being 
 simply constructed of logs, after the manner of a 
 primitive settlement ; where, there being no saw- 
 mills, the only resource is to take the whole tree, 
 or " go the whole hog," as they say in " Old Ken- 
 tuck." Nor could they boast much of their fur- 
 niture, great part of that in the old house having 
 been destroyed, But the spring was approaching. 
 
; '! > 
 162 WESTWARD Ho! 
 
 the colonel had ample funds to build and furnish 
 a house equal to the one he had lost, and they 
 were content to wait. Indeed ; we have observed, 
 that not only do people who have the means of any 
 gratification in their power exhibit less eagerness 
 for its enjoyment ; but it is equally true, that those 
 who have once possessed the luxuries of wealth, 
 generally submit to their loss with a much better 
 grace than people who have never known any 
 other state, endure the pressure of poverty. The 
 reason is, that the former have had experience of 
 how little real value are mere superfluities in the 
 cup of happiness, while the latter view them 
 through the exaggerated medium of their ima- 
 gination. 
 
 The family was settled in the new log-palace, 
 and matters going on in the usual jog-trot 
 way, when one morning Mrs. Judith Paddock, 
 having been on the watch for some time, saw the 
 coast clear, and sallied forth across the way to 
 pay a visit to Miss Virginia Dangerfield, whom 
 she found, as she wished, alone. That young lady 
 did not much covet the society of Mrs. Judith, 
 but it was a rule of the house never to refuse 
 either hospitality or politeness to any but the 
 worthless. The good woman was accordingly- 
 received with due kindness, and invited to sit 
 down. For some time she talked of matters and 
 things in general ; then she came to particulars ; 
 condoled with Virginia on the burning of the 
 house ; congratulated her on her escape, and 
 finally uttering a deep sigh, stopped her ever- 
 lasting tongue for a moment. 
 
 " What is the matter, Mrs. Paddock ?" said Vir- 
 ginia. 
 
 " Ah ! heigho ! this is a wicked world." 
 
WESTWARD HO 163 
 
 " It has indeed rather an indifferent reputation, 
 but what induced you to make the remark just 
 now ?" 
 
 " Ah ! heigho !" And here she smoothed her 
 white apron. " It's a scandalous world, a very 
 scandalous world. I could tell such things but 
 I'd rather cut out my tongue than scandalize any 
 human being, not even so much as a nigger." 
 
 Virginia Knew the good Mrs. Judith had some- 
 thing on her mind, but determined not to be 
 accessary to bringing it forth. Perhaps she knew 
 enough of her to know that she would hear it 
 without. Mrs. Judith sighed, and smacked her 
 lips again. 
 
 "Ah ! who'd have thought it, who'd have thought 
 it such a nice young man !" 
 
 "Who, Mrs. Paddock, your husband?" said 
 Virginia, smiling. 
 
 " No, indeed, Miss Phiginny. Ah ! he's an- 
 other guess sort of a man. But what a shocking 
 pity it is. Heigho ! it's a scandalous, a wicked 
 world this." 
 
 " Have you just found that out, Mrs. Pad- 
 dock r 
 
 " No, indeed, I'm not quite such a fool, Miss 
 Phiginny ; but I've found out something else." 
 
 " Ah !" Virginia was just going to ask what, 
 but checked herself, determined to be innocent of 
 every thing except listening. Again Mrs. Judith 
 sighed, and shook her ambrosial curls. 
 
 "Ah ! what a nice young man that Mr. Rains- 
 ford seems to be. I talk to him sometimes for 
 hours, and he don't interrupt me a single word. 
 O ! he's a nice young man. But heigho ! 
 what a wicked world we live in." 
 
 Virginia began to fidget a little, and it was just 
 

 164 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 on the tip of her tongue to inquire what Mrs. 
 Judith meant. But she only blushed. 
 
 " To be sure, he saved your life, they say. But, 
 heigho ! mercy knows, if all I heard is true, it 
 was the least thing he could do to make up for 
 the life he took." 
 
 " What ! woman Mrs. Paddock what do you 
 say ? What are you going to say ?" 
 
 u Ah ! its such a scandalous world heigho ! 
 such a wicked world, that I'd rather not tell what 
 I know, if it wasn't that I think it my bounden 
 duty to you and the colonel." 
 
 Virginia now trembled in spite of herself, and 
 demanded at once all the woman knew. Mrs. 
 Paddock drew her chair closer to her side, and 
 began in an under tone, ever and anon looking 
 around cautiously. 
 
 " You must know, Miss Phiginny, that though 
 I like to find out what is going on here in the vil- 
 lage, its only that I may keep it a secret from 
 everybody. Especially, you know it's my business 
 to know all about people that live in our house, 
 else they might be horse-thieves or murderers;" 
 and she emphasised the word ; " and I be never 
 the better for it. So I think it my duty to keep 
 an eye upon them, and if I see or hear any thing 
 suspicious, why, I follow it up, until, I warrant 
 you, I ferret it out, somehow or other. Well," 
 and here she drew her chair closer to Virginia, 
 who turned pale at this awful preface. "Well. 
 I somehow, I hardly can tell how, for I assure 
 you I never listened at his keyhole, or or 
 peeped, in at his window, I often saw Mr. Rains- 
 ford, if his name is indeed Rainsford, in great 
 distress ; and heard him groan late at night, 
 and walk across the floor. Well, putting odds 
 
WESTWARD no! 165 
 
 and ends together, says I to myself, says I, ' I t 
 that young man hasn't got something on his mind 
 that hadn't ought to be there, my name isn't Ju- 
 dith Squires,' that's my maiden-name, Miss. 'And,' 
 says I, c it's my duty to find it out, that I may keep 
 it a secret' from everybody like, you know.' " 
 
 " Well, well, go on, Mrs. Paddock. Let me 
 know the worst." 
 
 " Ah ! bad enough in all conscience, Miss Phi- 
 ginny. Well, you see, I kindly, you know, turned 
 the conversation upon different sorts of wicked- 
 ness, ah ! this is a wicked world ! just to see 
 if I could find out something from his looks, or 
 words, or actions, you know. Well, I talked 
 about stealing horses ; and how the regulators 
 served a horse-thief once ; they tied him to a tree 
 and whipped him. But I couldn't see any thing 
 that looked like a guilty conscience ; and so an- 
 other time I told him of a man that robbed a trav- 
 eller who was coming to buy land, and had his 
 pocket-book full of money, but he looked as inno- 
 cent-like as a child. And so I went on, talking of 
 all sorts of bad things, without stirring his con- 
 science at all, as I could see. When, one day 
 ah ! this is a wicked world ! one day, it was 
 yesterday three weeks, I believe. Yes, it was 
 yesterday three weeks. I happened to be telling 
 him about Mrs. Fudgell, poor soul, who, you 
 know, went mad with religion, the year before 
 last, and killed her child, you know. Well, if he 
 didn't jump up as if he had been shot, and he 
 cried out, ' What, murder her own child ! Oh 
 God ! Oh God ! that ever I was born for such 
 misery !' and he snatched his hat and ran out 
 of the room as if the sheriff had been after him. 
 Now, putting all these things together, Heigho f 
 
166 WESTWARD HO 1 . 
 
 / 
 
 If this was not such a scandalous world, I should 
 say that Mr. Rainsford had " 
 
 "What?" shrieked Virginia. 
 f " The weight of blood on his conscience. I 
 saw a man hanged once for murder that looked 
 as much like him as two peas." 
 
 The idea was too horrible, and yet there cer- 
 tainly was something in his conduct, altogether 
 strange, mysterious, and inexplicable. But Vir- 
 ginia thrust the grinning fiend suspicion from her 
 with a mighty effort, and looking, with a pale 
 countenance of severity at Mrs. Judith, warned 
 her solemnly against indulging or uttering such 
 ridiculous slanders. She summoned all her 
 powers of reasoning to convince her of the utter 
 improbability of such a man being stained with 
 such a crime ; she held up to her view the cruelty 
 of imputing such deep guilt to a stranger, whose 
 conduct since his residence among them had been 
 kind, benevolent, and praiseworthy, in every re- 
 spect ; and she drew from Mrs. Judith a promise 
 that she would never tell to any other human 
 being what she had just disclosed to her. "As for 
 me," cried Virginia, " I would as soon suspect mv 
 father." 
 
 " Yes, and so would I. But ah ! heigho ! it's 
 a very wicked and scandalous world this." 
 
 Mrs. Judith took her leave, and Virginia re- 
 mained buried in the gloom of a painful] melan- 
 choly revery long after her departure. 
 
WESTWARD HO! 167 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Showing how little reason one generation* hath to laugh 
 at another. 
 
 THE evening of the day on which the forego- 
 ing | interview took place Rainsford spent at the 
 house of Colonel Dangerfield. He was more than 
 usually elevated in the early part of the visit, and 
 surprised as well as charmed them all, with the 
 knowledge and intelligence he displayed. He 
 sketched the manners and fashions of the day 
 with spirit, mingled with no little spice of satire, 
 and^exhibited a perfect knowledge of the subject. 
 It was evident that he had mixed with the great 
 world, and Colonel Dangerfield was pleased at an 
 opportunity of recalling his own recollections of 
 the early part of his life. 
 
 " And is it possible," said Virginia, " that the 
 young children dress like old people, and the old 
 people like young children ?" 
 
 " It is true, I assure you. I have often walked 
 behind a lady in the street, whom I took for one in 
 the bloom of youth, she was so bedizened with 
 flounces and flowers, and quickened my pace to 
 get a sight of her face ; when lo, and behold, it 
 turned out to be that of a grandmother." 
 
 " Well, I suppose the elderly gentlemen are 
 more'discreet ?" 
 
 " Why, I can't say much in their favour. For 
 aught I saw, they were as much inclined to out- 
 rage nature and propriety as the venerable old 
 
1G8 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 ladies. The dandies of threescore were as plenty 
 as the belles of a certain age, and emulated that 
 deportment which, though it constitutes the charm 
 of youth, is the reproach of old age." 
 
 "And the poor little children T 
 
 "Ay, the poor little children, you may well 
 call them. If you could only see the figures 
 their mistaken parents make of them, you'd 
 scarcely know whether they were premature 
 old ladies, or premature young ones. They are 
 absolutely crippled with finery, so that all the 
 grace and vivacity of youth is smothered under a 
 load of many-coloured trumpery, and they waddle 
 along like so many little caricatures of the pigmy 
 race. I declare to you that nothing is more com- 
 mon than to see a little girl of three years old 
 going to school with her hair in papers." 
 
 " O, now I am sure you are jesting ?" 
 
 " No, indeed, Miss Dangerfield, it is quite im- 
 possible for me to do justice to the masquerade 
 figures you see in the fashionable promenade of 
 a fashionable city, at the fashionable hour when 
 the fashionable people are abroad. They seem 
 dressed, not for walking, but for an assembly : they 
 appear to forget that good taste is nothing else 
 than good sense applied to a particular object ; 
 and that every thing which impedes the freedom 
 of the person must be essentially unbecoming 
 and ungraceful." 
 
 " From what you say, dress must be the reign- 
 ing foible of the age." 
 
 " It is indeed, and, what is still worse, it is no 
 longer possible to distinguish people by their dress, 
 for all dress alike, from the mistress to the maid 
 from the parlour to the kitchen," 
 
WESTWARD HO I 169 
 
 "How ridiculous and absurd !" exclaimed Vir- 
 ginia. 
 
 "Why so ridiculous and absurd?" asked the 
 colonel, who had been attending to the conversa- 
 tion without joining in it. 
 
 " Why, my dear father, is it not palpably ridi- 
 culous and absurd for people to dress all alike 
 when their situations are all different ?" 
 
 " Not if they have the means of doing so with- 
 out sacrificing what is of more consequence than 
 outward appearance. If the mistress dress like 
 an opera-dancer, it would be hard to prevent the 
 maid from making a fool of herself too." 
 
 "But, sir," said Rainsford, "ought not every 
 person to dress according to their means and occu- 
 pations ?" 
 
 " O, certainly, always according to their means, 
 and agreeably to their occupations when they are 
 engaged in them. But on Sundays and holydays, 
 when all are gentlemen and ladies, if the indus- 
 trious tradesman, or the industrious man or maid- 
 servant, purchase a suit of broadcloth or a silken 
 gown, faith I don't see that anybody has a right 
 to complain, provided they have the means and 
 the honesty to pay for it." 
 
 " But, sir, to dress in all the preposterous ex- 
 travagance of the fashion !" 
 
 " Well, the fault is in the preposterous extrava- 
 gance of the fashion, and in those who set the 
 example, not those who follow it. The young 
 imitate the elder and wiser, the child copies the 
 parent, and the lower classes always look up to 
 the higher. All these last have to do is to set 
 them a good example, instead of complaining that 
 they follow a bad one." 
 
 " But don't you think the universal propensity 
 
 VOL, i, H 15 
 
170 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 of all classes of people, high and low, in this coun- 
 try, to indulgence of every kind, a great evil ?" 
 
 " Perhaps I do ; but we must bear in mind that 
 superfluity is the parent of extravagance. When 
 civilized people are restricted in their means to 
 the narrow circle of the actual wants of nature, 
 they will necessarily be economical ; but when, 
 by the exercise of any ordinary trade or occupa- 
 tion, they can earn more than this, the surplus 
 constitutes either a fund for saving or a fund for 
 spending. In this country every man can, if he 
 pleases, earn more than is requisite for the pur- 
 poses of mere necessity. It is the boast and the 
 blessing of us all that this is the case. But all 
 sublunary blessings have their drawbacks ; we 
 must take the evil with the good, and compound 
 for a disposition to luxury and extravagance in 
 the lower orders, on the score of the universal 
 diffusion of competency among all classes." 
 
 " I never saw such caricatures," exclaimed Vir- 
 ginia, looking at some milliners' costumes which 
 Rainsford happened to have brought with him 
 as curiosities ; " look here, sir only do look here, 
 mother !" 
 
 Mrs. Dangerfield laughed, as well she might ; 
 and Virginia continued to declare that never was 
 any thing so absurd as the dresses of the little 
 children. 
 
 " Come here, Virginia," said her father, taking 
 her hand, and leading her opposite to where hung 
 a picture, which had been rescued from the flames 
 of the old mansion by the piety of the great Pom- 
 pey Ducklegs, and which exhibited the precise 
 effigies and suits of a little boy and girl in the age 
 of bag wigs, mighty cuffs, high-quartered shoes, 
 hoop petticoats, whalebone stays, ?md lofty head- 
 
WESTWARD HO! 171 
 
 gear ; " look there, Virginia ; and I beg of you to 
 refrain from committing the indecorum of laugh- 
 ing at your grandfather, when I tell you that at 
 the age of twelve years he wore that identical 
 wig, that veritable buckram coat with sheet-iron 
 skirts, that mortal pair of cuffs, those indescribable 
 indispensables, and that most formidable sword of 
 most formidable length. The little girl but don't 
 laugh at her, Virginia ; she was thy great-aunt, 
 and thou art her namesake. She died the year 
 you were born but the subject is a melancholy 
 one. What think you of a young gentleman and 
 lady of fourscore years ago, compared with their 
 successors of the present day ?" 
 
 " Why, really, sir, it seems to me that if the 
 present day has gained nothing, it has lost nothing 
 in the way of dressing little children." 
 
 " You say true, my dear ; those who talk about 
 one age being essentially wiser and better than 
 another talk little less than sheer nonsense. Hu- 
 man nature, while it approaches perfectibility on 
 one hand, recedes from it on the other ; where it 
 gains on the right, it loses on the left, like our 
 great river Mississippi, which tears away its banks 
 only to form a new deposite at its mouth : thus 
 creating a new world in the ocean from the spoils 
 of the old. Every succeeding age is only a new 
 edition of the past." 
 
 " With improvements T said Rainsford. 
 
 " With alterations in the binding rather than 
 the contents, I doubt. And now, my dear, as the 
 vicar of Wakefield said, 'Go help your mother 
 make the goose-pie.' " The young damsel accord- 
 ingly left the room to pursue her domestic avoca- 
 tions. 
 
172 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 " Whoop !" exclaimed a voice without, which 
 they all recognised as that of Busmield. 
 
 " Come in, come in," cried the colonel. 
 
 " Come in ! why, ain't I in ?" exclaimed he, as 
 he entered in a great flurry, and seated himself. 
 " What a race I've had. I'll be goy blamed if I 
 haven't bin trying to catch this squirrel a fair 
 chase, and no favours asked. There we were at 
 rip and tuck, up one tree and down another. He 
 led me a dance all the way from kingdom come 
 till I got just by the village here ; and what do 
 you think? I had to shoot the trifling cretur 
 after all. He got up on the top of the highest 
 tree prehaps you ever did see ; so I let him have 
 it, just for being so obstinate." 
 
 " An excellent shot," said the colonel ; " you've 
 hit him in the eye, I see." 
 
 " O no, it isn't, but I was mad ; no, no, it's a 
 disgraceful shot what I call a full huckleberry 
 below a persimmon ; for when I want the skin of 
 one of these fellers, I always shoot a leetle before 
 his nose, and then the wind of the ball takes the 
 varmint's breath clean away, and I don't hurt the 
 fur." 
 
 " You must have had some practice," said Rains- 
 ford. 
 
 " I'll be goy blamed if you wouldn't think so, if 
 you only knew me as well as I know my old 
 rifle." 
 
 " I should like to go out with you one of these 
 times, if there is good sport in your part of the 
 world." 
 
 " I don't know what you call good sport," cried 
 
 Bushfield^ who had now got on his hpbby, " but 
 
 I 'partly conceit if you had been with me one 
 
 , day last fall you'd have thought so, TMW a deer 
 
WESTWARD HO! 173 
 
 and its fawn across a creek the other side of the 
 mountain, and I wasn't altogether slow in letting 
 fly, I tell you. The ball ranged them both. I 
 had to wade through the creek, and I found the 
 ball had entered in a hollow tree, after going right 
 clean through the two deer, where there was a 
 hive of honey, and the honey was running away 
 like all natur ; so I stooped down to pick up some- 
 thing to stop it, when I put my hand on a rabbit 
 hid under a great toadstool. But somehow or 
 other, coming- across the creek, my trousers had 
 got so full of fish, that one of the buttons burst 
 clean off, and I will agree to be eternally derned 
 if it didn't hit a wild turkey right in the left eye. 
 Whoop ! ain't I a horse?" 
 
 " A whole team, I should think," said Rainsford, 
 highly amused with the eccentric rhodomontade 
 of the woodman. Virginia happening at this mo- 
 ment to enter, he addressed her with a good-hu- 
 moured kind of audacity, 
 
 "You neat little varmint, have you got any 
 thing for supper? for may I be lost in a cane- 
 brake, as I once was when I first came to these 
 parts, if I ain't transcendently hungry. I could 
 eat like all wrath." 
 
 Supper was brought in, and Bushfield made " a 
 most transcendent supper." The company con- 
 tinued sitting round the table enjoying this little 
 social meal, which was once the evening tattoo 
 that brought all the family together, but which 
 is now elbowed out of the circle of domestic econ- 
 omy into drawing-rooms and saloons, and might 
 rather be called the morning breakfast than the 
 evening supper. Virginia, who had a mischievous 
 little female relish for humour, and who could 
 enter into that of Bushfield, which, indeed; though 
 
174 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 odd and extravagant, had nothing in it partaking 
 of vulgarity, took occasion to question him as to 
 the particulars of the story of his being lost in the 
 cane-brake to which he had alluded. 
 
 " Well, I know you want to have a laugh at 
 me ; but howsomever, I don't so much mind being 
 laughed at by a woman, and so I'll tell you the 
 story for all that ; and you may laugh anyhow, 
 as you're not a man. I was out after a bear that 
 had been about my hut several nights, and he led 
 me such a dance ! I wasn't such a keen hand at 
 finding my way then, and at last I got into a cane- 
 brake along the river, where the canes stood so 
 thick, I wish I may be shot if you could put the 
 leetle eend of a small needle between them with- 
 out spectacles. Well, I was ripping and tearing 
 away to get out, but only got deeper and deeper 
 in the plaguy place ; when all at once I heard the 
 queerest noise I ever came across in all my days, 
 though I've heard a pretty considerable variety, 
 and I then thought I knew all the notes of the 
 varmints, from the growl of a bear to the screech 
 of a panther. But I could make nothing of this, 
 and began to keep a sharp look out, which was 
 hardly worth while, for I couldn't see to the end 
 of my eyelashes, the canes were so transcendent 
 close together. Well, I cut and slashed about, 
 and every now and then heard the queer noise ; 
 at last it was so close to me, that I pricked my 
 ears and cocked my gun, to be ready to take keer 
 of myself in case of risk. Well, as 1 kept on rip- 
 ping and tearing about, at last I came smack on 
 the drollest-looking thing, prehaps, you ever laid 
 your eyes on. It sat all in a heap, like the feller 
 that found sixpence apenny in a place, with its 
 head down below its shoulders, and its hair all 
 
WESTWARD HO! 175 
 
 hanging about like the beard of a buffalo bull'. 
 1 Whoop !' said I; and the varmint raised its head, 
 when I wish I may be shot if it didn't- turn out a 
 real he Ingen. 
 
 " ( Hullo !' said I, l what trade are you carrying 
 on here, friend ?' but I must say I had a mind 
 to shoot the feller, though I hadn't then the same 
 cause I have now to hate the varmints. How- 
 ever, I thought I'd first see whether he'd make 
 battle or no ; so I waited to hear what he had to 
 say. But when I spoke to him, all he did was to 
 grin and growl just like a lame bear. ( I say now, 
 stranger,' says I, i what may you be about here V 
 ' R r r r !' said he, and grinned like a mon- 
 key. l Well then,' said I, ' if you don't choose to 
 tell what you're about, maybe, prehaps, you will 
 tell where you happened to come from ?' ' R r 
 r r !' said the varmint again. ' Well then, pre- 
 haps you'll tell me where you are going ?' ' R r 
 r r !' I began to be a little mad, and had a 
 transcendent mind to shoot him ; but somehow 
 or other I held back, until I came up and took 
 hold of his shoulder, and shook him like a bottle 
 of bitters ; when I wish I may be goy blamed if 
 he didn't spring up higher than the top of the 
 cane-brake, and give a great whoop, and scamper 
 off like a flash of lightning. I followed the trail he 
 made ; it led me down to the river. Then I knew 
 where I was, and I was so pleased with the cretur 
 for showing me the way, that, somehow or other 
 kindly, I couldn't harm him, and he got off clear 
 that time, anyhow." 
 
 "I'm glad of that," said Virginia; "it would 
 have been barbarous to hurt the poor creature." 
 
 " I don't know," returned the other ; " for it 
 turned out he was a crazy Ingen, that was let run 
 
176 - WESTWARD HO! 
 
 about by his tribe, because these people have a 
 sort of superstitious respect for such characters. 
 I afterwards heard he got into a white station 
 when the men were away, and murdered two or 
 three women and children. I only wish I had 
 known what was to happen, and may I be eter- 
 nally condemned to live in a big city like Lex- 
 ington if I wouldn't have winged him, if he had 
 been as mad as a buffalo bull that has had a rifle- 
 ball flattened against his forehead." 
 
 No one but Virginia noticed that during the 
 latter part of this story Rainsford laboured under 
 a suppressed agitation, which he strove to conceal 
 with all his might. But when Bushfield came to 
 the catastrophe, the arm which the young man 
 had thrown over the back of her chair trembled so 
 violently as to communicate to it a tremulous mo- 
 tion, which thrilled to her very heart. As if by a 
 violent effort, he rose, and, scarcely bidding good 
 night, departed abruptly. That night Virginia 
 lay for hours thinking of the tale of Mrs. Judith 
 Paddock, and sometimes coming to a conclusion 
 which alternately thrilled her with a dry and 
 parching horror, or wetted her pillow with tears. 
 
HO! 17? 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 '''How sweet in the woodlands" 
 
 THE morning opened brightly, and the sun 
 shone with a newly-awakened warmth that indi- 
 cated f.hd gradual approaches of spring. Its 
 balmy influence chased away the dark shadows 
 which the midnight fancy conjures up in silence 
 and obscurity, and the vague horrors which had 
 beset the pillow of Virginia vanished like spectres 
 at the dawn of day. Few that have traced the 
 map of their own minds but must have been 
 struck with the different views and feelings which 
 govern the different periods of the day, and re- 
 marked how often the decisions of the pillow are 
 reversed by the hurry, the bustle, the excitements, 
 and temptations of the busy, sprightly morning. 
 Imagination is the queen of darkness ; night the 
 season of her despotism. But daylight, by pre- 
 senting a thousand objects to the eye, the hearing, 
 and the touch, restores the empire of the senses, 
 and, from being the sport of fancy, we become 
 the slaves of realities. 
 
 Rainsford did not make his appearance at the 
 house of Colonel Dangerfield for several days 
 after his abrupt exit as recorded in the last chap- 
 ter. He accompanied Bushfield on a visit to his 
 hermitage, under pretence of taking lessons in 
 hunting, but in reality partly to escape the prying 
 curiosity, the sociable visits of Mrs. Judith, and 
 partly from the apprehensive timidity of his mind, 
 
178 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 which suggested to him that he had made him- 
 self conspicuous by his emotions on the occasion 
 to which we have before alluded. 
 
 The habitation of this Indian white man, as the 
 savages called him, was simply a log cabin, the 
 appurtenances of which were barely sufficient for 
 the purposes of eating and sleeping. The forest 
 supplied him with food, such as is considered the 
 most delicate among the disciples of luxury ; the 
 skins of the deer and the bear furnished him with 
 bed and clothing ; his rifle was his purse ; his 
 powder and shot his ready cash ; for they alibrded 
 him the medium of exchange for every thing 
 which they did not themselves enable him to pro- 
 cure in the surrounding forest. Bushfield never 
 rode, it made him so tired, he said ; and Rains- 
 ford was heartily fatigued when they came upon 
 , the solitary cabin, after scouring the woods in 
 their way. His companion was frequently obliged 
 to wait for him, and very often he would have 
 been inevitably lost in the mazes of the trackless 
 wild, had not the Indian whoop of his companion 
 served to recall him from his wanderings. He 
 had been induced to take a rifle with him, but 
 sorely repented his temerity, for its weight wea- 
 ried him at length almost beyond endurance ; be- 
 sides, though they met plenty of game, it so hap- 
 pened that Rainsford always missed, while the 
 other never failed. No man likes to be outdone, 
 even in what he does not value himself upon ; and 
 no man, perhaps, cordially respects another who 
 is totally ignorant of that in which he himself 
 excels. Bushfield sometimes got a little out of 
 patience with Rainsford, and Rainsford often en- 
 vied Bushfield his skill in the rifle. In the crowded 
 city such an accomplishment would have been 
 
WESTWARD HO! 179 
 
 bentath his attention, but in the forest it was held 
 the standard of manhood. 
 
 " Stranger/' said Bushfield, on occasion of the 
 other missing a squirrel which was crouching at 
 the summit of a tree of moderate height, and 
 which had been resigned to him as an easy shot ; 
 " stranger, I reckon you haven't had the advan- 
 tage of being raised in the woods, anyhow : why, 
 I could have brought down that squirrel with both 
 eyes shut, let alone one." 
 
 " No ; I had the misfortune to be brought up 
 in a city, where nobody carries a gun, except the 
 militia." 
 
 " Nobody carry a gun ! why, what do they 
 carry then, a dirk ?" 
 
 " No ; the young gentlemen sometimes carry a 
 switch about as thick as my little finger." 
 
 " A switch ! why, what would they do now, 
 supposing they were to come right face to 
 face with a bear or an Ingen? what a mighty 
 figure they'd cut." 
 
 " Yes ; but there are neither bears nor Indians 
 to fear." 
 
 " Sure that's true enough ; for I remember when 
 I went home to North Carolina, to see the old 
 place, I'll be shot if there wasn't a little varmint 
 of a town built right smack on the spot that used 
 to be one of the best deer stations in the whole 
 country. I couldn't stand that, no, that was too 
 bad, so I cut a stick and made tracks, and came 
 back to my old range ; but they won't let a feller 
 aione where he has plenty of elbow-room, and I 
 begin to think of leaving here soon, and carrying 
 a trail across the Mississippi, anyhow." 
 
 "Why so?" 
 
180 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 "Why, I'll tell you, stranger. It's getting too 
 dense hereabouts." 
 
 " Dense ?" 
 
 " Yes ; the people are getting too close toge- 
 ther, they han't elbow-room. Why, do you know 
 there's a feller has had the impudence to locate 
 himself over yonder, within three miles of me. 
 I saw the smoke of his chimney the other morn- 
 ing, and heard a strange dog bark ; so I tracked 
 the feller, and put it to him if he wasn't ashamed 
 to come and disturb a man in this unneighbouiiy 
 manner. Bym-by, says I to him, a man won't 
 have room to turn round here without hitting 
 somebody's elbow, and the upshot of the business 
 is, that either you or I must cut a stick and quit 
 this hunting-ground, or I'll see if I can't make 
 you, anyhow." 
 
 Well, and did he cut a stick?" 
 
 " Not he, the rantanckerous squatter ! he said 
 he had as good a right there as any bear or wolf 
 that ever broke bread ; as good as I had, that 
 have been in possession here ever since old 
 Rogers Clarke licked the Ingens so beautifully. 
 I'm a considerable old feller now, and followed 
 close on the trail of old Boone, and it's a mighty 
 pretty piece of nonsense if I han't a right to the 
 country about here, as much as I can throw a 
 stick at ; and I wish I may be dragged head fore- 
 most through a thorn-bush, if this interloper sha'n't 
 clear out pretty considerably in a hurry, or I'll be 
 down upon him like all wrath, anyhow. I'd as 
 good a mind as I ever had to shoot a wild deer, to 
 have a fight with him oif the reel, and settle the 
 right of soil at once ; but then I bethought my- 
 fself he njight listen to reason some other time. 
 
WESTWARD HO. 181 
 
 and so I told him I'd give him till next month to 
 make tracks, or make up his mind to get a most 
 almighty licking, if nothing- else. But whoop !" 
 cried" he, in a wild voice, that rung through the 
 woods, and roused the inmates of a rude cabin, 
 consisting of a litter of puppies and an old black 
 woman, with hair as white as snow, who came 
 out to welcome their master. 
 
 " Well, here we are, old Snowball', " cried Bush- 
 field, who seemed delighted to get home : " here 
 we are, and I doirt think there's many such places 
 as this betwixt here and kingdom come. Come 
 in, come in, stranger, you're right welcome ; but 
 there's no use in telling a man what everybody 
 knows, anyhow." 
 
 Old Mammy Phi His, that was the pastoral 
 name of Bushfield's housekeeper, was one of 
 those unaccountable creatures, as he called her. 
 who, with the appearance of age and decrepitude, 
 are capable of undergoing great labour and 
 fatigue. Like old ricketty machines, they seem 
 to keep going from the mere force of habit, long 
 after the parts which compose them are dislocated 
 or worn out. 
 
 "Come, come, mammy, stir these old stumps of 
 yours, and get us something to eat ; I'm as hungry 
 as a whole team of horses. What have you got 
 to treat us with, hey T 
 
 l - Sum deer meat, massa." 
 
 - Well, cook us a steak, in less than no time. 
 That old sinner is the plague of my life/' con- 
 tinued Bushfteld, " I wish I'd bin swamped in the 
 Mississippi before I was fool enough to bring her 
 here. I find there's no such thing as being'one's 
 own master as long as a man has any company 
 about him. He's like a nail in a piece of timber : 
 
182 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 he can't move one way nor t'other, and there he 
 sticks as straight as a pine-tree, till he grows rusty 
 and drops out. I never could find out how you 
 manage to live without doing just what you like 
 and going where you please, anyhow, i^or my 
 part, stranger, 1 can't fetch my breath anywhere 
 except in all out-doors, and had sooner lay down 
 on a bed of leaves with a sky blanket, than sleep 
 on one of your hard feather-beds, that pretty nigh 
 break a man's bones. I wish I may be hoppled all 
 my life to come, if I didn't once get within a 
 huckleberry of being smothered to death in one 
 of them beds with curtains all round 'em. Catch 
 me there agin, and I'll give you leave to curry- 
 comb me, anyhow. How under the sun do you 
 make out to live in such a queer way, stranger ?" 
 
 " Custom familiarizes us, and then the pleasures 
 of society make amends for the want of perfect 
 freedom of action." 
 
 " Society ! I'd as soon think of getting used to 
 be handcuffed, or hoppled, as we do our horses to 
 keep ? em from straying away in the woods. 
 There's nothing I ever did in all my life that 1 
 wish the d 1 had me so much for doing, as bring- 
 ing that old Snowball home here ; for somehow 
 or other, I've never rightly had my own way since 
 she came. The cretur is always in my way, 
 and sometimes I catch her great goggle eyes 
 set upon me, so that I seem tied "fast to my 
 seat, and altogether am as good as a nigger my- 
 self." 
 
 " Well, but I suppose you have your own way 
 for all that?" 
 
 " Have my own way ! what d'ye take me for, 
 stranger? wasn't I born, no, not born, but raised 
 in Old Kentuck ; and d'ye think I wouldn't havo 
 
WESTWARD HO! 1S3 
 
 my way and my say, if an earthquake stood oil 
 one side and a flash of lightning on the other, 
 and crossed their arms right before me, as much 
 as to say, stand where you are ? But a man may 
 have his own way, and yet somehow or other not 
 do just as he pleases after all." 
 
 " I don't see exactly how." 
 
 " No ? well then, I'll split the log for you. See 
 here now, what I call having my own way, is 
 doing a thing in spite of what other people may 
 say or do to prevent me ; and what I call doing 
 as I please, is to have nobody to come about me 
 and put on their wise airs, and tell me I'd better 
 not. or I shall repent, or I'd wish some day or 
 other I'd took their advice ; and worry and fret 
 a feller's soul into a knot-hole, so that when he 
 does take his own way at last, he wabbles about 
 like a broad-horn in an eddy, instead of shooting 
 right straight ahead like all nature, and after all, 
 as I said before, has no pleasure in having his 
 own way. There's nothing on the face of the 
 earth I hate so much as advice." 
 
 " And would you reject the advice of a friend ?" 
 
 " Friend ! I don't know what friend means ; 
 except somehow I think I might be wrought upon 
 to stop a bullet before Colonel Dangerfield. He's 
 a man now that I would allow to advise me 
 without knocking him down ; I liked him from 
 the first hour I saw him, and if I must tell the 
 bare truth, I do believe it was because he always 
 took my advice in coming down the Ohio, and 
 locating his settlement and all that, instead of 
 making believe he knew better than I ; I can't 
 stand mat, no, no, I can't stand that, anyhow. I'd 
 blow any other man as high as the Alleghanies, 
 if he was to go to advise me, But as I was say- 
 
184 WESTWARD HO 
 
 ing 1 I wonder what keeps the old cretur so 
 long with the steaks ? as I was saying, it was a 
 blue day when I first put this old rotten tree across 
 my path." 
 
 "How came you to commit such an error?" 
 " Why, I'll tell you how it was. I had lived 
 here I don't know how many years, for it's no 
 matter to me to count the scores of winters and 
 summers, and springs and falls ; but I was pre- 
 haps, stranger, the most ahnightiest happiest feller 
 that ever hunted a buffalo. The cretures came 
 sometimes and looked into my door, the deer 
 would hardly get out of my way, and the bears 
 and wolves came growling and howling round 
 the house at night so beautifully' O! if you only 
 had an idea of the splendid independence of liv- 
 ing in the woods fifteen or twenty miles from 
 anybody, you'd never be happy anywhere else, 
 I'll be goy blamed if you would. Only think, 
 stranger, of my being all alone, not a soul to lay 
 so much as a straw in jny way, to look at me, or 
 to talk to me, or give me advice, or watch which 
 way I was going, or inquire what I was going to 
 do, O, it was splendid ! If I wanted any thing 
 to eat, instead of working for it like a nigger, I 
 took my rifle and shot a deer or a wild turkey, 
 for they were so thick you couldn't miss theni ; 
 if I wanted amusement, I went into the woods, 
 and had a hunt after the bears and wolves, who 
 sometimes made battle and came pretty nigh tree- 
 ing me ; it was transcendent, anyhow. If I 
 wanted a rousing fire, I went just outside the door 
 and cut down a tree, which fell right under the 
 window, and I had no trouble to tote it half a 
 mile. I only wish you may one day be as happy 
 as I was, but that's quite beyond the Rocky 
 
WESTWARD HO! 185 
 
 Mountains, for the Gar-broth people are cluttering 
 up the country hereabouts so fast, that no man 
 will be able to do as he pleases much longer. 
 Well, as the Old Boy would have it, the emigra- 
 tion came this way and the game went that, so I 
 was obliged to stay out sometimes all night 
 in the winter to kill a deer, and I got the 
 rheumatism. I was pretty considerably nigh 
 starving, for all I could do was to crawl to the 
 door, and shoot a squirrel or a woodpecker ; it's 
 mighty bad living on squirrels and woodpeckers. 
 Well, when I got better, I thought I would some- 
 how go and buy a smart chance of a nigger boy 
 to live with me, and help along in case I should 
 get the rheumatism again, for it's like a wolf, it 
 will be coming back where it has had the 
 taste of blood. But then I had not money enough 
 for this, for I always hated to have more than I 
 wanted, and so I took old Phillis. whose master 
 gave her to me for nothing, and a bad bargain I 
 have had of her, anyhow : for as I said before she 
 takes away all the pleasure of having my own 
 way, which is almost as bad as not having my 
 own way at all. Not that she asks any questions, 
 about where I am going or when I shall come 
 back, but she looks so plaguy curious that I'll be 
 goy blamed if it don't sometimes make me feel as 
 if I wasn't my own master. But here comes the 
 old sinner ; she hangs fire like a rusty rifle, but 
 always goes off at last." 
 
 And sure enough, the savoury odour of the veni- 
 son steaks, which far transcends any thing that Ju- 
 piter ever snuffed up from pagan altars, smote 
 the olfactory nerves of Bushfield with such a tri- 
 umphant relish as to mollify his anger, and allay 
 his impatience, of this new species of petticoat gov-, 
 
186 WESTWARD HO 1 . 
 
 ernmcnt ; and the two sat down to the banquet 
 with as good an appetite as ever fell to the lot of 
 ancient epicure, or modern sojourner in that great 
 cook-shop of the civilized world yclept Paris. 
 
WESTWARD HO! 18? 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 A most knotting wife, and a most discreet husband. 
 
 THE foregoing was one of the longest talks 
 that Bushfieid probably ever held in the whole 
 course of his life, a large portion of which had 
 been spent in solitude. He might be called a 
 hermit of a rare species. One who loved to be 
 alone, not for the purposes of pious abstraction, or 
 uninterrupted repose, but that he might indulge 
 his own active, unrestrained love of liberty with- 
 out interruption. There had been days, nay 
 years of his life, in which he scarcely spoke to 
 a human being ; and he had thus acquired a 
 habit of taciturnity which could with difficulty be 
 overcome, except when among those he liked, or 
 animated by the subject of the happiness of his 
 peculiar mode of life. He lived, for the most part, 
 with his dog and his gun ; and the encounter 
 with a fellow-creature in the woods he ranged, 
 had the same effect on him that the presence of a 
 wild beast in a populous city has on the peace- 
 able citizens. It was an intrusion, and excited a 
 strong disposition to hunt the outlaw. He was 
 not by any means devoid of excitement in his so- 
 litary abode, for hunting had become a habit, a 
 passion ; and never did the vainest old soldier re- 
 late his exploits in the field with a higher relish of 
 enthusiasm than did our sturdy backwoodsman 
 detail his triumphs over the wild animals that 
 peopled his woodland domain. In doing this, he. 
 
188 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 like the war-worn veteran aforesaid, was prono 
 to make inroads upon the regions of the imagi- 
 nation, insomuch that some 01 his stories actually 
 bordered on the marvellous. 
 
 Rainsford accompanied him in one or two of his 
 enormous peregrinations, which generally lasted 
 all day, and would have consumed the night too. 
 had he not protested against sleeping in the open 
 air, though Bushfield swore, " like all wrath," that 
 it was the greatest luxury in the world. But two 
 men of such dissimilar habits seldom covet the 
 society of each other, or form any permanent 
 friendship. Each secretly despises his compan- 
 ion. It is only in the crowded haunts, and among 
 the peaceful occupations of mankind, that the su- 
 periority of education, intellectual acquirements, 
 and gentlemanly accomplishments, are highly 
 valued ; and it is only on the exposed frontiers of 
 life, in the midst of perils and privations, that 
 hardy daring, and the capacity to endure fatigue, 
 are estimated at their proper value. 
 
 Rainsford gave out the third day, and his host 
 voluntarily, and indeed necessarily, accompanied 
 him home to show the track through the woods. 
 
 " Stranger," said he, " you've had a mighty 
 poor sort of a raising, I should reckon. Why, 
 you're no more fit for the woods than a wild tur- 
 key is for a justice of peace. "What would you 
 do now if you had to turn out every day and 
 shoot your dinner, or go without it, or fight a 
 dozen Indians at a time, or find your way through 
 the woods two or three hundred miles, without a 
 path, and nothing to eat but an old pair of moc- 
 casins ? I wish I may be shot if I don't think some 
 of our old Kentucky women would cut a better 
 rigure than you do here/ 1 
 
WESTWARD HO! 189 
 
 The last part of this speech grated harshly on 
 the feelings of Rainsford. 
 
 " And what would you do/' replied he, " if you 
 were obliged to live in a city, change your linen 
 twice a day, and your coat three times; gallant 
 the ladies ; attend tea-parties ; dance the waltz ; 
 and go through all the ceremonies of good breed- 
 ing ? " 'Faith, I think you'd cut rather a more ri- 
 diculous figure than I do here in the woods. The 
 ladies would all run away from such a savage, 
 and the men laugh at you." 
 
 " Would they ! If they attempted to folloAv 
 such a track as that, I'd soon tree them. If I 
 didn't make 'em shut their pans quicker than a 
 flash of lightning, I hope I may be civilized to- 
 morrow, as you cafl it. I don't much mind being 
 shot at, nor should I care a great deal about run- 
 ning the gauntlet Ingen fashion, because I'm used 
 to that. But let me give you one piece of advice 
 stranger, never laugh at a feller in a hunting-shirt, 
 or you'll be likely to get a most almighty lick- 
 ing. You'll be down as quick as I can dodge 
 an Ingen 5 and that's quicker than wink, any- 
 how." 
 
 The return of Rainsford Avas welcomed by Vir- 
 ginia with mingled emotions of pleasure and 
 pain ; by Mrs. Judith with most extraordinary 
 marks of satisfaction ; and by Master Zeno with 
 wonderful cordiality. Since his departure Mrs. 
 Judith had laboured under a fit of mortal ennui, 
 seeing she had nobody to watch, and her life be- 
 came as it were a dead blank, for want of the ex- 
 citement of curiosity. There was not a secret 
 stirring in the whole village of Dangerfieldville. 
 Master Zeno had a still better reason for hailing 
 
190 WESTWARD HO I 
 
 the return of his guest ; it was now almost time to 
 begin his preparations for the Daily, and he took 
 an early opportunity of jogging Mr. Rainsford's 
 memory. 
 
 "Well, well, sir" rubbing his hands; "I've 
 kept the secret." 
 
 "What secret?" 
 
 " Why why, you know, the secret you told 
 I mean that I happened, by the merest accident 
 ill the world to overhear in the woods. The 
 secret that you are hem ! " 
 
 A deep paleness passed over the face of the 
 young man ; and it was not unnoticed by Master 
 Zeno, who had an eye and an ear like the man in 
 the fairy tale ; he could see through a mountain, and 
 hear the grass grow when a secret was in the way. 
 
 " Well," and he vainly essayed a melancholy 
 smile. "Well, you have J^ept your word, you 
 say, and I will keep mine. Make out an estimate 
 of the cost of establishing a paper." 
 
 A daily, sir ?" 
 
 " Ay, a daily, if you wish. I will give you an 
 order on a merchant, who has money of mine in 
 his hands, at Pittsburg. And you can very likely 
 procure all the materials you want at that place." 
 
 " Here it is, sir, here's the estimate. I've had 
 it ready ever since I overheard, by the merest 
 accident in the world, you were hem. What a 
 fortunate man I am !" 
 
 "Very," said the other, dryly, and he went and 
 wrote, and returned with an order for the money 
 required. 
 
 " I'm afraid I'm robbing you, sir," said Master 
 Zeno, after putting up the draft snugly in an old 
 leather convenience called a pocket-book. " But 
 
WESTWARD HO! 191 
 
 you may calculate on me to a certainty. Til keep 
 your secret, sir ; and if anybody dares to accuse 
 you of being a hem I'll attack them in my Daily, 
 in such a style they'll be glad to be quiet. But 
 really, sir, I'm afraid I'm robbing you." 
 
 " No, not in the least. I am in possession of more 
 than I want ; far more than I shall ever live to 
 use. It is no pleasure to me to be rich, for when 
 I think of the manner in which I became so, I 
 loathe the very name of money. I would will- 
 ingly be made a public example ; that my secret 
 should be exposed to the world, so I could bring 
 back to life, and its best gift, those to whom it 
 once belonged, and restore all I ha^je received, to 
 its owners. You are welcome to the money, so 
 you only make a good use of it." 
 
 " I will enlighten the universe," said Zeno ; 
 and they parted just at the moment Mrs. Judith 
 had applied her ear to the keyhole, or rather to a 
 knothole, for other there was none. 
 
 She heard nothing, save the latter part of the 
 last speech of - Ramsford, about being made 
 a public example of restoring the money to 
 those to whom it once belonged ; and above all, 
 the never to be forgotten words ; " Take the 
 money, so you only make a good use of it." And 
 she resolved within her secret soul to take special 
 care that this last injunction was complied with. 
 
 Master Paddock remained on the exact spot 
 where he had been left by Rainsford, cogitating 
 on the full and free confession he had just heard 
 from that wicked, yet inconsiderate youth, as he 
 now felt satisfied he was. " c To those to whom 
 it once belonged. 5 These were his very words. 
 Then he must have robbed and murdered' at least 
 two persons ! What a diabolical young sinner | 
 
192 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 I wish I had made him pay double for keeping 
 his secret. But never mind, I'll get more out of 
 him, I warrant. And when I've got all I can, 
 why I'll quiet my conscience by getting the 
 young rascal hanged." 
 
 Having come to this righteous conclusion, he 
 turned round, and turning saw the head of Holo- 
 fernes within what is called striking distance, for 
 it certainly struck him dumb. 
 
 " My dear," quoth the enchanted head, " how 
 much money did Mr. Rainsford give you to keep 
 his secret ?" 
 
 " Pooh ! What money ? what secret T 
 
 " Ah ! heigho ! what a wicked world this is. 
 Now, who'd have thought such a nice young man 
 was a " 
 
 "A what?" 
 
 " Hem ah ! heigho ! it's a very scandalous 
 world. I sometimes almost wish I was out of it. 
 But come now, tell me how much money you got 
 for keeping the secret ; now do, Zeno !" and she 
 fawned on him like a roaring lioness, 
 
 " Pooh ! pooh ! nonsense. I've got no money 
 how should you know any thing about it ?" 
 
 " Why, then, if you must know, I'll tell you. I 
 happened to be in the next room, and I happened 
 to hear every thing you said, and I know all 
 about it. There now, are you sat isfied ? Heigho ! 
 what a wicked world we live in !" 
 
 " Why then, if you know all, I may as well tell 
 you, I suppose." 
 
 " Yes, yes do, do, do oh !" and she discovered 
 such an itching curiosity, that the shrewd Zeno 
 was convinced she pretended to know more than 
 she really did ; whereupon, he coolly replied, 
 
 "But now I think of it, if you do really know 
 
WESTWARD HO! 193 
 
 all, there is no occasion to waste time in telling 
 you." And so saying-, he walked out of the room 
 with the air of a man having money in his pocket, 
 which, we presume, is what is called the air noble. 
 
 Had it not been for one single resource, Mrs. 
 Judith would have undoubtedly burst the boiler 
 of her curiosity, and exploded into scalding steam 
 instead of tears. People who live in the great 
 world, surrounded by excitements of a thousand 
 various kinds, and with a thousand resources for 
 passing away the time, can form no idea of the 
 biting curiosity of a real full-blooded village gos- 
 sip, who, having little employment at home, has 
 no other resource for passing the idle hours than 
 prying into the affairs of her neighbours. It be- 
 comes, not only a passion, but the master passion 
 of the soul, and swallows up all the others, as the 
 rod of no, hang it ! that's too musty as the 
 mighty Mississippi swallows up a hundred mighty 
 streams. 
 
 Next to the pleasure of gaining a secret, that of 
 telling it is held the most delectable ; nay, some 
 who have investigated this matter more deeply 
 are inclined to the opinion that the after-pleasure 
 of telling, like the dessert of a modern lady's din- 
 ner, is the better part of the feast. However this 
 may be, there is no doubt in our minds that Mrs. 
 Judith Paddock would have met with a catastro- 
 phe, had she not forthwith solaced her disap- 
 pointment at failing to get at the whole secret by 
 communicating the portion she did know, to the 
 first person she could get to listen to it, which un- 
 fortunately happened to be Miss Virginia Danger- 
 field. She sought that young maiden, who, in 
 truth, could scarcely bear the sight of her since 
 the communication of this being such a wicked 
 
 VOL, i, i 17 
 
194 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 worldj such a scandalous world. She never 
 saw her coming across the way without feeling 
 a shivering presentiment of some unwelcome 
 news ; but such is the strange inconsistency of 
 human nature, that she still would linger and 
 listen, though perhaps every word was a dagger 
 to her heart. There is a sort of supernatural fas- 
 cination in fear, and, above all, in horrible reali- 
 ties. The gentlest, tenderest portion of the human 
 race, that portion whose charity is untiring, whose 
 pity never dies need I name woman ? which is 
 the most fearful, the most apprehensive, the most 
 delicate, dwells with most intense interest, arid 
 lingers most devotedly over the page where 
 horrors are accumulated on horrors, and wick- 
 edness is displayed in the most atrocious col- 
 ours of utter abandonment. We see decent wo- 
 men thronging from all parts of the country to 
 witness the last agonies of a dying villain who 
 falls a merited sacrifice to the sanctity of the laws 
 and the safety of society ; not because they are 
 cruel, but that they are attracted by the grateful 
 horrors of the scene, fascinated by the witchcraft 
 of the terrible. All our readers will probably 
 recollect occasions when some horribly disgusting 
 or exquisitely painful exhibition of the vices or 
 infirmities of human nature in its lowest stage of 
 degradation and misery has suddenly presented 
 itself. They have turned away in thrilling hor- 
 ror as they passed ; yet, strange to tell, curiosity, 
 or rather the fascination of the terrible, has 
 wrested from them by force a single glance, and 
 that glance has impressed the scene so keenly on 
 the imagination, as to haunt it by day and appear 
 as a spectre by night for a long while afterwards. 
 r . It was thus with Virginia, who, while she 
 
 
WESTWARD HO! 195 
 
 shrunk with averted mind from the mere idea of 
 the possibility of the suspicions of Mrs. Judith 
 being true, was yet irresistibly impelled to listen 
 to every new surmise and every questionable cir- 
 cumstance that, while it increased her doubts, 
 added to her sufferings. Already had that strug- 
 gle between the heart and the reason commenced 
 in her mind, to which it falls to the lot of so 
 many gentle beings either to yield unresisting vic- 
 tims, or, if victors^ to conquer at the price of the 
 loss of all that vivacity of hope, that thrilling 
 sense of pleasure, which makes us look up from 
 the dark valley of the shadow of old age with 
 a long, lingering, wishful eye, at the sunshiny 
 region of youth, from which we have impercep- 
 tibly slidden for ever. 
 
 To such croaking ravens as Mrs. Judith, there 
 is nothing so grateful as to excite surprise, won- 
 der, pleasure, pain, any striking or violent emo- 
 tion; it is all one to them, provided they can 
 excite something. Indifference gives them the 
 fidgets irretrievably. Mrs. Judith had for this 
 reason particular pleasure in telling Virginia any 
 thing which was calculated to increase her suspi- 
 cions of Rainsford, for she saw it created the most 
 intense and painful interest. She began, as usual, 
 with the eternal gossip cant of the wickedness of 
 this world, the propensity to scandal, &c. &c.. and 
 finally disclosed, not only what she had heard, but 
 what she imagined of what she had not heard of 
 the conversation between Rainsfcrd and Master 
 Zeno, not by any means omitting the large sum 
 of money the former had given her husband to 
 keep his secret. " If it is not a wicked and abomi- 
 nable secret, why should he bribe my Zeno to 
 
196 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 keep it ? Ah ! heigho ! what a wicked world, 
 what a scandalous world we live in T 
 
 Poor Virginia ! what a situation was thine, and 
 what a struggle hadst thou to go through in order 
 to hide, if possible, in the foldsx>f thine innocent 
 heart the poisonous asp that lay coiled there in- 
 stilling his deadly poisons ! 
 
 "You don't seem well somehow, Miss Phi- 
 ginny," said this mischievous incendiary, after sit- 
 ting in simpering hypocritical sympathy, watching 
 the war of feelings reflected in the changeful 
 countenance of the young maiden ; " you don't 
 seem well. Let me advise you to take some 
 spring physic some yerbs ; do now, dear Miss 
 Phiginny. Ah ! heigho ! this is a wicked, a scan- 
 dalous world !" and the woman departed to watch, 
 but not to pray. 
 
 Mrs. Dangerfield came in a few minutes after, 
 and found Virginia sitting still, and white as a 
 statue, unconscious of existence. She started 
 as her mother entered, and, throwing her arms 
 about her neck, melted into a quiet shower of 
 tears. 
 
 "My dear Virginia, what is the matter with 
 you ?" 
 
 " I don't know ; I cannot tell you now, my dear 
 mother ; but in a little while, as soon as I know 
 more, you shall know all." 
 
 "In your own good time, my daughter; but 
 remember, there are no sorrows, no perplexities, 
 no wishes, no disappointments which a virtuous 
 and obedient daughter ought to keep long from 
 the ear of a kind, arTectionate mother." 
 
 " You shall know all ; I promise you shall know 
 all as soon as I know it myself." 
 
 " I am content, dear Virginia ; and "now cheer 
 
WESTWARD HO! 197 
 
 up, for I see Mr. Rainsford has returned from his 
 visit to Bushfield, and is crossing over this way." 
 The young lady retired for a few minutes, and 
 met Rainsford with an effort to be cheerful. 
 
198 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Proving that the chief use of words is to mar our 
 meaning. 
 
 THE meeting between Virginia and Rainsford 
 was awkward and embarrassing. Each was con- 
 scious of possessing a secret, and each equally 
 apprehensive of betraying it to the other. Vir- 
 ginia could not but perceive that Rainsford dis- 
 played a degree of shyness which she suspected 
 arose from his recollection of the emotion he had 
 betrayed at hearing the story of the mad Indian : 
 while Rainsford thought he perceived in her coun- 
 tenance an expression half tender, half fearful, and 
 in her eyes the traces of tears. She forced her- 
 self to question him as to the incidents of his visit 
 to Bushfield ; he prosed away on the subject till 
 both were heartily tired ; and, in short, they talked 
 of every thing except the subject which really oc- 
 cupied their minds. 
 
 But they say murder will out at last ; and how- 
 ever we may play about a subject of deep interest 
 for a while, like a moth round the candle, we are 
 pretty certain to singe our wings with it in the 
 end. The exquisite pain she had endured under 
 the pressure of the growing suspicion which in 
 spite of herself still rankled in her heart, had 
 brought her to the conviction it was necessary 
 to her future peace that his guilt or innocence 
 should be established. If the former, she had 
 
WESTWARD HO! 199 
 
 made up her mind to warn him to leave the place 
 for ever, and to forget, if possible, every feeling 
 towards him but that of gratitude ; and if the latter, 
 it was due to his honour, as well as to her own hap- 
 piness, that he should have an opportunity of estab- 
 lishing it beyond doubt or contradiction. But to 
 put the direct question to a man to whom she was 
 under so deep an obligation, and with whom she 
 was associating almost every day on terms of in- 
 timacy, required a hardihood of which she had at 
 no period been mistress. Several times she es- 
 sayed to touch the subject, but as often her heart 
 failed her ; and after talking themselves weary 
 about nothing, a dead, oppressive silence ensued. 
 Chance, however, at length brought them to the 
 subject nearest her heart. Rainsford had roused 
 himself to observe, that as the spring was approach- 
 ing, he intended soon to take possession of his 
 house, and begin his new settlement. 
 
 " You will be very solitary ; but perhaps the 
 precepts and example of Mr. Bushfield have made 
 you in love with the independence of living 
 alone?" 
 
 " No," replied the young man ; " loneliness has 
 no charms for me. I hate a crowd as much as I 
 fear I mean dislike being alone. But I confess 
 there is one thing which reconciles me in some 
 degree to leaving the society of my friends, and 
 that is, the idea of escaping the eternal inquisition 
 of Mrs. Judith Paddock. I never met with so 
 troublesome a woman in my life." 
 
 " Why, she certainly is the gossip of the village." 
 
 " Yes, and so fond of getting at the secrets of 
 
 'other people, only that she may keep them from 
 
 other people. I saw her leave this house a few 
 
 minutes ago brimful of something. I hope you 
 
200 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 - TlUNt 
 
 *. 
 
 have not trusted her with any of your secrets," 
 said he, smiling. 
 
 " No !" and her heart palpitated as she pro- 
 ceeded ; " no, but she intrusted me with the secret 
 of another" 
 
 Rainsford gave a slight start; and Virginia, 
 who forced herself to look him full in the eye, 
 fancied she saw an increase of paleness in a face 
 that was always pale. The ice being broken, she 
 nerved herself for the crisis, as all minds of a 
 higher order do when once it has arrived. 
 
 " She told me something that deeply concerns 
 you and, I will confess it, me also ; for I cannot 
 be indifferent to the character and actions of the 
 man to whom I am so deeply obliged." 
 
 a Me ? What can she say, what can she know 
 of me ? I assure you, Miss Dangerfield, she can 
 know nothing of me. I have never made her my 
 confidant." 
 
 "But confidence is not always necessary in 
 these cases. An involuntary look ; a sudden 
 start ; an indiscreet word ; a habit of talking to 
 one's self ; a thousand little indications of which 
 we are not aware, or cannot restrain, are the 
 agents by which guilt, or misery, let out their 
 deep buried secrets." The strong feeling which 
 had taken, possession of the soul of the young 
 maiden, communicated firmness to her nerves, and 
 enabled her to look Rainsford in the face during 
 this speech, with a firm, yet gentle melancholy 
 expression. With a thrilling pang she saw him 
 wince and quiver with emotion, as thus she 
 touched the string whose music was the howl of 
 the demon that beset his steps by day and by 
 night, He mastered his feelings however 5 and 
 
WESTWARD HO! 201 
 
 collecting all the energies of despair, asked in a 
 firm manly tone for further explanation. 
 
 " You ought to know it ; and I and my family 
 at least, ought to know if what Mrs. Paddock says 
 she has heard, and seen, and suspects, is true or 
 false." 
 
 " What what has she heard ? what has she 
 seen ? and what does she suspect ?" said the 
 young man, almost furiously. 
 
 " I I cannot yes ! I will tell you what I 
 will not deny, has almost has rendered it abso- 
 lutely necessary, if it be true, that you that we 
 should never meet again ; that you should quit 
 this place and never return." 
 
 "Well, let me hear it, Virginia," replied he, in a 
 hoarse voice ; and leaning back in his chair he 
 awaited what was to follow, with the feelings of 
 one whose conscience has already whispered the 
 secret. 
 
 Virginia, then, with a kind solemnity, detailed 
 to him the substance of the two confidential com- 
 munications of Mrs. Judith, at the same time 
 refraining from making any comments, or draw- 
 ing any conclusions. It was impossible ; it was 
 not in her heart ; and if it had been, it was not in 
 her tongue to hint at the seeming evident conclu- 
 sion, arising from such extraordinary emotion, 
 and such a bribe offered for secrecy. 
 
 As she proceeded, the feelings of Rainsford 
 became more apparent ; he trembled ; he gasped 
 for breath ; he clasped his hands, and finally co- 
 vered his face and wept aloud, as if his heart was 
 breaking. The agitation of Virginia was almost 
 equal to his own, and she kept him company in 
 silent tears. At length recovering herself she put 
 the question directly. 
 
202 WESTWARD HO! 
 
 "Is the tale of Mrs. PaddocK true?" 
 
 " It is but " 
 
 "Then let us never see each other more. I 
 cannot betray you. But you must leave this 
 place for ever." 
 
 " But, Virginia ! Miss Dangerfield let me ex- 
 plain " 
 
 " I want no explanations ; nothing you can 
 say will remove or soften the dreadful feelings 
 your presence now inspires. Leave me I forgive 
 you. I I pity you." 
 
 " But, dear Virginia " 
 
 " Dear Virginia ! How dare a wretch like you 
 apply that epithet to a virtuous woman ?" 
 
 " I am a wretch ; the veriest of all wretches 
 that ever crawled on the earth, and cursed the 
 hour he was born. But my misfortune ought not 
 to deprive me of all sympathy. God knows I 
 want it." 
 
 " Misfortune !" cried she, contemptuously. 
 
 " / at least cannot help what I am ; it was, or it 
 will be the work of fate ; the curse of inherit- 
 ance." 
 
 " The work of fate !" cried Virginia, passion- 
 ately. " Yes ! this is the blasphemous cant of 
 every wretched being, who thus attempts to fasten 
 the temptations of Satan on the dispensations of 
 Heaven, and vindicate himself by accusing his 
 God. Go, go leave me, and for ever, for the 
 more you attempt to extenuate, the more I loathe 
 you. May Heaven forgive me for saying so to 
 the saviour of my life !" 
 
 " Well, madam, I icill go," s?id he, proudly. 
 " I will try to forget you : but if I, cannot, I will 
 at least endeavour to remember you only as one 
 
WESTWARD HO! 203 
 
 who is an exception to the rest of her gentle sex, 
 in being without pity." 
 
 " Pity ! is not the tale of Mrs. Paddock true?" 
 
 " It is ; I cannot deny it." 
 
 " Then, why are you here, sir ?" 
 
 " I am gone, madam." 
 
 " Miserable, hardened wretch !" exclaimed Vir- 
 ginia, as he shut the door and departed, with the 
 insolent air of an injured man. 
 
 END OF VOL. I, 
 
v. 
 
 
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