"Can you tell us how far we are from Brown's ferry?" said I to a man,
who came suddenly and silently upon us from a narrow side-path.
We were on the banks of the Tennessee: the evening was drawing in; the
fog, that hung over land and river, was each moment thickening. The
landscape had a wild chaotic appearance, and it was scarcely possible to
distinguish objects at five paces distance.
The horseman paused some moments before answering my question. At last
he replied, accompanying his words with an ominous shake of the head--
"To Brown's ferry? Perhaps you mean Cox's ferry?"
"Well, then--Cox's ferry," said I, rather impatiently.
"Ay, old Brown is dead," continued the man, "and Betsy has married young
Cox. Ain't it him you mean?"
"That we know nothing about," replied I; "but what we wish to learn is,
whether we are far from the ferry, and if this is the right road to it."
"Ah! the way to the ferry--that's the rub, man! You're a good five miles
off, and might just as well turn your horse's head another way. I guess
you're strangers in these parts?"
"Heaven preserve us!" whispered my friend Richards, "we are in the hands
of a Yankee; he is guessing already."{A}
Meantime the horseman had drawn nearer to us, in spite of the thorns and
of the wet boughs, that each moment slapped and slashed him across his
face; and he was now close to our horse. As far as we could distinguish
through the rapidly-increasing gloom, he was a middle-aged man, bony and
long-legged, with a sallow unprepossessing physiognomy surmounting his
long ungainly carcass, and metal buttons upon his coat.
"And so you've lost your way?" said the stranger after a long pause,
during which the thick fog had had the kindness to convert itself into a
close penetrating rain. "That's queer too, seein' that the ferry ain't
fifteen paces from the road, which runs right along the side of the
river. A very queer mistake to be goin' up the stream, instead of
followin' yer nose and the run of the water."
"What do you mean?" cried Richards and I in a breath.
"That you're goin' up the Tennessee instead of down it, and are on the
road to Bainbridge. That's all!" replied the supposed Yankee.
"On the road to Bainbridge!" repeated we, in voices in which
astonishment and vexation were tolerably evident.
"You hadn't a mind to go to Bainbridge, then?"
"How far is the infernal place from here?" asked I.
"How far, how far?" repeated the man with the metal buttons. "It's not
to say very far, nor yet so very near, as I may guess. Perhaps you know
Squire Dimple?"
"I wish you and Squire Dimple were at the devil!" muttered I. But
Richards, who took things more quietly, replied--
"No, we have not the honour of his acquaintance."
"Humph! And whereaway may you be goin'?" enquired our tormentor, who was
apparently waterproof.
"To Florence in Alabama," answered Richards, "and thence down the
Mississippi."
"Ah, fine city, Florence! such as one only finds in this country. Ain't
it now? And a good market, too. Talkin' of that, what's the price of
flour in the north? You're come from thereaway, I guess. I did hear it
was six and four levies, and Injun corn five and a fip--butter three
fips."
"Are you mad?" cried I, losing all patience, and unconsciously raising
my whip as I spoke--"are you stark staring mad, to keep us talking here
about flour and butter, and fips and levies, while the rain is falling
by bucketsfull?"
"Hallo, stranger!" cried the man, raising himself for the first time out
of his lounging position on the saddle. "Guess you're gettin' wolfish.
I'm for you--stick, fist, or whiphandle, rifle or bowie-knife. Should
like to see the man as could leather Isaac Shifty!"
"The road, the road, Mister Isaac Shifty!" interrupted friend Richards
in a conciliating tone. There was another long pause.
"I guess you're traders," said the fiend at last.
"No, man."
"And what may you be, then?"
Our answer was followed by another long inspection of our persons and
physiognomies. He gazed at us for a couple of minutes or more, examining
us from head to foot; at last he spoke.
"And so you've a mind to go down the Mississippi?"
"Yes, in the Jackson, which starts to-morrow, we are told."
"Ah, the Jackson! a mighty good steamboat too--ain't it now? But I guess
you ain't a thinkin' of takin' that thing and your horse with you?"
continued the Yankee, pointing to our gig.
"Yes, we are."
"Oh, you are! Well.--You haven't seen two women in a dearborn on the
road, have you?"
"No, we have not."
"Well, then," continued the man in the same indifferent tone, "it's
a'most too late now to get to Bainbridge; and yet you might try it, too.
Better turn your horse round, and follow the road till you come to a big
walnut-tree; there it divides. Take to the right hand for half a mile,
till you come to neighbour Dims's hedge; then you must go through the
lane; and then, for about forty rods, right through the sugar-field;
keep to your left till you come to some rocks, but then turn to your
right, if you don't want to break your necks. There's a bit of a stream
there; and when you are over that, the left-hand road will take you
straight to Cox's ferry. You can't miss it," concluded he, in a
self-satisfied tone, striking his horse a blow with his riding-whip. The
animal broke into a smart trot, and in ten seconds our obliging friend
had disappeared into the fog.
My countenance, during the Yankee's interminable directions, must have
somewhat resembled that of a French recruit, to whom some scarred and
mustached veteran is relating his Egyptian campaigns, and telling him
wonderful stories of snakes and crocodiles at least half a mile
long--monsters who made nothing of swallowing a drum-major to their
breakfast, bearskin cap, cane, and whiskers, included. I was so
completely bothered and confounded with the rights and lefts, that the
metal-buttoned individual was out of sight and hearing before I thought
of explaining to him, that, dark as it then was, we should never be able
to find even the walnut-tree, let alone neighbour Dims's hedge and the
break-neck rocks. Patience is by no means one of my virtues; but the
man's imperturbable phlegm and deliberation, in the midst of the most
pouring rain that ever wetted poor devil to the skin, tickled my fancy
so exceedingly, that the sound of his horse's hoofs had hardly died
away, when I burst into an almost interminable fit of laughter. "First
right, then left--look out for the big walnut-tree, and don't break your
neck over the crags!" repeated I, in a tone between merriment and
despair. Richards, however, saw nothing to laugh at.
"The devil take the Yankee!" cried he. "May I be hanged if I know what
you find so amusing in all this!"
"And hang me if I know how you manage to look so grave!" was my answer.
"How could we possibly have missed the ferry?" cried Richards; "and,
what is still more stupid, to come back instead of going forward!"
"Not very astonishing," replied I, "considering the multitude of
by-roads and cross-roads, and waggon-tracks and cattle-paths, and the
swamp into the bargain. It is quite impossible to see which way the
river runs. And then you have been sleeping all the afternoon, and I had
to find the way by myself."
"And you found it after an extraordinary fashion--retracing your own
steps," said Richards in a vexed tone. "It is really too stupid."
"Very stupid," said I--"to sleep."
As may be seen, we were on the verge of a quarrel; but we were old and
sincere friends, and stopped in time. The discussion was dropped. The
fact was, that our mistake was by no means a very surprising one. The
country in which we were, seemed made on purpose to lose one's-self in.
The road winds along at some distance from the river, frequently out of
sight of it; the shore is uneven, covered with crags and hillocks;
nothing like a landmark to be seen, or a mountain to guide one's-self
by, except occasionally, when one gets a peep at the Appalachians rising
out of the blue distance. The fog, however, had hidden them from us, and
that just at the time when we most wanted them as guides. We found
ourselves in a long low clearing--a sort of bottom, as they call it in
that country--which was laid out in sugar-fields, and through which
there ran nearly as many cart-roads as there were owners to the land.
The morning had been bright and beautiful; but, towards noon, a grey
mist had begun to rise in the south-western corner of the horizon, and
had gone on, thickening and advancing, till it spread like a pall over
the Tennessee. With a grey wall of fog on one side, and the swamp,
intersected with a hundred cross-paths, on the other, we had gone on for
about a mile; until it got so thick and dark, that it was quite as
possible we should find our way into the marsh as over the Mussel
shoals.{B} So certain was I, however, of the proximity of the latter,
that I pushed on, expecting each moment to find the ferry, until the
unlucky Yankee brought all my hopes to a termination.
It was now quite night--one of those dreary pitch-dark nights that are
of no unfrequent occurrence in the south-western states. I would as soon
have been on the banks of Newfoundland as in this swamp, from which
nothing was more probable than that we should carry away a rattling
fever. The Yankee's directions concerning the road were, as may be
supposed, long since forgotten; and even had they not been so, it would
have required cat's eyes to have availed ourselves of them. Even the
owls, the nightingales of that neighbourhood, seemed puzzled by the
extreme darkness. We could hear them whooping and screaming all around
us; and now and then one flew against us, as if it had lost its way as
well as ourselves. The road we were now following ran close to the bank
of the river; so close, indeed, that a single stumble of our horse might
have precipitated us into the water, which was then very high.
"I think we should do our best to get out of the gig," said I to my
companion; "or else we have a very good chance of passing the night in
the Tennessee."
"No danger," replied Richards, "Caesar is an old Virginian."
A shock that made our very ribs crack again, and as nearly as possible
threw us backwards out of the gig, came rather opportunely to interrupt
this eulogium on Caesar, who had suddenly reared furiously up on his
hind-legs.
"There must be something in the path," cried Richards. "Let us see what
it is."
We got out, and found a huge walnut-tree lying right across the road.
Here was an end to our journey. It was an absolute impossibility to get
the gig over the enormous trunk; the boughs, which spread out full
twenty yards in every direction, had given Caesar timely warning of the
impediment to our further progress. The road, moreover, was so narrow
that it was impossible to turn. There was nothing for it but to back
out. Richards began hunting about for a cross-road, where we might turn;
I set to work to back the gig. I had no sooner, however, set one foot
out of the road, than my cloak was almost torn from my shoulders by a
thorn half a yard long. To get through this detestable wilderness with a
whole skin, one ought to have been cased in complete armour. I had only
just taken my unfortunate garment off this new-fashioned cloak-peg, when
Richards returned.
"This is the most infernal wilderness in all the west!" said he.
"Neither road nor path, mud up to the ears, and, to add to my enjoyment,
I have left one of my boots in the swamp."
"And, for my part, there are as many holes in my cloak as thorns on that
cursed acacia-tree," replied I by way of consolation.
These were the last words we spoke in any thing like a jesting tone; for
we were now wet to the skin: and of all situations, I believe a damp one
to be the least favourable to jocularity. I confess a certain partiality
for adventures, when they are not carried too far. There is nothing I
detest like a monotonous wearisome Quaker's journey, with every thing as
tame, and dull, and uniform, as at a meeting of broad-brims; but to be
overtaken by darkness and a deluge in the middle of a maple-swamp, to be
unable to go three steps on one side without falling into the Tennessee,
with an impenetrable morass and thicket on the other hand, a colossal
walnut-tree barring the way in front, and no possibility of turning
back--this was, even to my taste, rather too much of an adventure.
"Well, what is to be done now?" said Richards, who had placed himself in
a sort of theatrical posture--his bootless foot on the gig-step, the
other sticking fast in the mud.
"Take out the horse, and draw the gig back," suggested I.
Easily said, but rather more difficult to accomplish. We set to work,
however, with a will; and pushed, and tugged, and pulled, till at last,
after much labour, we got the gig about thirty paces backwards, where
the road became wider. We then turned it, and were putting Caesar into
the shafts, when, to our inexpressible delight, a loud hallo was given
quite close to us.
Reader, if you were ever at a hard contested election, where you had bet
your fifty or a hundred dollars on your favourite candidate, and just
when you made sure of losing, and your five senses were almost
extinguished by noise, brandy, and tobacco smoke, you heard the result
proclaimed that secured you your stake, and a hundred per cent to boot;
if you have ever been placed in such circumstances, then, and then only,
can you form an idea of the joyful feeling with which we heard that
shout. After such a thorough Yankee fashion was it given, that it caused
the fog to break for a moment, and roused the obscene inhabitants of the
neighbouring swamp from their mud-pillowed slumbers. They set up a
screeching, and yelling, and croaking, that was lovely to listen to.
"And now have patience, for Heaven's sake!" whispered Richards to me,
"and hold your tongue for a quarter of an hour, or you will spoil all
with this infernal Yankee."
"Do not be afraid," replied I; "I am dumb."
My blood was certainly tolerably cooled by the shower-bath I had had--to
say nothing of the prospect of passing the night in this vile hole; and
I would willingly have given the tenacious Yankee information concerning
the prices of flour and butter in every state of the Union, upon the
sole condition that he should afterwards help us out of this reservoir
of fever.
It was, as we had at once conjectured, our friend Mr Isaac Shifty, in
soul, body, and buttons. In true Connecticut fashion, he stood a couple
of minutes close to us without saying a word. It almost looked as if he
took a delight in our difficulties, and was in no particular hurry to
extricate us from them. For our part, we kept very much on our guard.
The cross-grained scarecrow might likely enough have left us to our fate
again, if we had said any thing that did not exactly chime in with his
queer humour. Richards at last broke silence.
"Bad weather," said he.
"Well, I don't know. I shouldn't say it was though, exactly," returned
the Yankee.
"You have not met the two women you were looking for, have you?"
"No. Guess they'll have stopped at Florence, with cousin Kate."
"You are not thinking of going there too, are you?" said Richards.
"No. I'm goin' home. I thought you were at the ferry by this time."
"Perhaps we should have been, if your roads were better, and the holes
in them filled up with stones instead of walnut-trees," returned
Richards, laughing.
"Guess you ain't inclined to go to the ferry to-day?"
"Inclined we are, but able we are not," replied Richards; "and you will
acknowledge, my friend, that is a pretty strong reason for not going."
"Well, so it is," replied the man sententiously. "It ain't very
agreeable lyin' out in the swamp; and so, stranger, if you like to go to
Bainbridge, you can come with me. Better let me drive, and my mare can
follow behind."
It took at least five minutes before the wearisome, pedantical fellow
had finished his arrangements and preparations. At last, to the infinite
satisfaction of Richards and myself, we sat three in the gig. After
undergoing a questioning and cross-questioning that would have done
honour to an experienced diplomatist, we had succeeded in striking up a
sort of alliance with Mr Isaac Shifty, and were on our way to one of the
hundred famous cities of Alabama--cities which have decidedly not their
match in the whole of the United States.
I do not know how it happens, but I am constantly finding myself
disappointed in my expectations. I had hoped that the distance between
the infernal maple swamp and the place to which we were going, would
have borne some sort of relative proportion to the agreeableness of our
situation--that is to say, that it would not be very great. It
nevertheless appeared to me enormous, and Horace's impatience during his
celebrated walk was trifling compared to mine. Our Yankee, like the
Roman babbler, had abundance of time to discourse on fifty different
subjects. The first which he brought before our notice was naturally his
own worthy person. From the interesting piece of biography with which he
favoured us, we learned that he was originally from Connecticut, and
that his first occupation had been that of usher in a school; which
employment he had, after a short trial, exchanged for the less
honourable but more independent one of a pedlar. From that he had risen
to be a trader and shop-keeper, and was now, as he modestly informed us,
a highly respectable and well-to-do man. He next gave us an account of
all the varieties of merchandise in which he dealt, or ever had dealt;
intermixing the details with an occasional side-blow at a certain Mr
Bursicut, who had dared to set up an opposition store, and whom
Providence had punished for his presumption by the loss of sundry dozen
knives and forks, and pairs of shoes, upon the Mussel shoals. He then
found occasion to talk of the thousand and one mishaps that had occurred
upon the aforesaid Mussel shoals; and thence branched off into the
various modes of water-carriage which the enlightened inhabitants of
Alabama were accustomed to employ. After amusing us for some time with
long histories concerning steam-boats and keel-boats, barks and
flat-boats, broad-horns, dug-outs, and canoes, he glided into some
canal-making scheme, which was to connect the waters of the Tennessee
with Heaven knows what others. It was a most monstrous plan--that I
remember; but whether the junction was to be made with Raritan bay or
Connecticut river, I have clean forgotten. At last we came to the
history of Bainbridge--a sure sign, as I thought, with much inward
gratulation, that we were approaching the end of our journey; yet the
accomplishment of this hope, reasonable as it was, was doomed to be
deferred a long time. We had first to listen to the whole history and
topographical description of that celebrated city; how it had sprung up
in the right corner, he reckoned; and how flourishing and industrious it
was; and whether we had not a mind to settle there--because if we had,
he, Mr Isaac Shifty, had some almighty fine building land to sell; and
how the town already boasted of three taverns, just the right proportion
to the ten houses of which Bainbridge consisted. We should find two of
the taverns chokeful of people, he said, because there was a canvass
going on for the Florence election; as to the third, it was a poor
place, hardly habitable indeed.
At the word _canvass_, Richards and I looked aghast.
"An election coming on!" stammered Richards.
"An election!" repeated I, the words dying away upon my tongue from
consternation at this unwelcome news. An election in Alabama, which even
in old Kentucky is considered as backwoods! Farewell, supper and sleep,
and comfortable bed and clean linen! every thing, in short, which we had
flattered ourselves with obtaining, and which we stood so much in need
of, after such a hard day's journey.
Before we had time to make any further enquiries, Caesar, who had for
some time been splashing through a sea of mud, stood suddenly still. The
light of a tallow candle, glimmering and flaring through an atmosphere
of tobacco-smoke, and the hoarse and confused sounds of many voices,
warned us that we had reached the haven. We sprang out of the gig; and
whilst Richards was tying Caesar to a post, I hurried to the door, when I
felt myself suddenly seized by the skirt of my cloak.
"Not there--not there! This is the house where you are to stop,"
exclaimed Mr Isaac Shifty, pointing anxiously to an adjacent edifice,
that looked something between a house and a pigsty.
"Don't go with him," whispered I to Richards, heartily glad to be at
last independent of the insupportable Yankee, and to be able to vex him
a little in my turn. My hand was already on the latch; I opened the
door, and we entered.
There sat the burgesses of Bainbridge, with their heels upon the
table--those, at least, for whom there were chairs; while those for whom
there were none, made shift with tubs, or stood up in various elegant
attitudes. There was a prodigious amount of talking, shouting, drinking,
and laughing going on; and my first feeling was, that I would rather
have been any where else than in that worshipful assembly. Richards,
however, stepped boldly forward, in spite of his bootless foot; and
luckily the men appeared disposed to be upon their best behaviour with
us. They pressed back right and left, forming a lane about a foot wide,
enclosed between living palisades, six feet and upwards in height,
through which we passed, subjected, as we did so, to a searching
inspection. Richards stepped smartly up to the table, then turned round,
and confronted the group of half-horse, half-alligator visages there
assembled.
"A hurra for old Alabama!" cried he, "and the devil take the Bainbridge
roadmaster!"
"Are you mad?" I whispered to him.
"May I be scalped if you don't soon feel the weight of these five bones
upon your carcass, stranger!" growled a voice, proceeding from a sort of
mammoth that had just filled itself a half-pint tumbler of Monongahela.
Before the double-jointed Goliath put his threat into execution, he
swallowed the whisky at a gulp, and then, striding forwards, laid his
open hand upon my companion's shoulder, with a force that threw the poor
fellow on one side, and gave him the appearance of being crooked. At the
same time the giant stared Richards in the face, with an expression
which the natural hardness of his features, and the glimmer of his
owl-like eyes, rendered any thing but agreeable.
"The devil take the Bainbridge roadmaster--I repeat it!" cried Richards,
half in earnest and half laughing, raising his muddy and bootless foot
as he spoke, and placing it on a chair. "See there, men! I may thank him
for the loss of my boot. The cursed swamp between here and the ferry was
kind enough to pull it off for me."
The roar of laughter that responded to these words would inevitably have
broken the windows, had there been any glass in them. Fortunately the
latter luxury was wanting; its place being supplied by fragments of old
inexpressibles, and of _ci-devant_ coats and waistcoats.
"Come, lads!" continued Richards, "I mean no offence; but of a surety I
have to thank your bad roads for the loss of my boot."
Richard's jest, exactly adapted to the society in which we found
ourselves, was the most fortunate _impromptu_ that could have been hit
upon. It seemed at once to have established us upon a footing of harmony
and friendship with the rough backwoodsmen amongst whom we had fallen.
"May I be shot like a Redskin, if that ain't Mister Richards from Old
Virginny, now of the Mississippi," suddenly exclaimed the same colossus
who had so recently had his hand upon Richards's shoulder, twisting, as
he spoke, his wild features into a sort of amicable grin. "May I never
taste another drop of rale Monongahela, if you sha'n't drink a pint with
Bob Snags the roadmaster!"
It was the very dignitary whom Richards had insulted with such imminent
risk to his shoulder-blade.
"A hurra for old Virginny!" shouted the master of the roads, biting, as
he spoke, into a piece of tobacco from that famous state. "Come,
mister--come, doctor!" continued the man, offering Richards with one
hand a roll of tobacco, with the other a pint glassful of whisky.
"Doctor!" repeated the whole assembly--"a doctor!"
A man possessing power over gin and whisky, and whose word is an
indisputable veto against even a _smaller_, is no unimportant personage
in that feverish neighbourhood. In this instance, Richards's doctorship
was of the double utility of delivering us from the threatened
pint-glasses, and of causing us to be considered as privileged
guests--no small advantage in a backwoods' tavern, occupied as the
headquarters of an electioneering party. Caesar, however, was the first
to derive a positive profit from the discovery. Bob left the room for a
minute or two, and we could hear the horse walking into the stable. When
the roadmaster returned, he had assumed a patronizing sort of look.
"Mister Richards!" said he confidentially, "Mister Richards! May I be
shot if you ain't continually a sensible man, with more rale blood in
your little finger than a horse could swim in. Yes, and I'll show you
that Bob Snags is your friend. I say, doctor, what countryman is your
horse?"
"A thorough-bred Virginian," replied Richards.
"The devil he is!" cried Bob. "Well, doctor, to prove to you that I'm
your friend, and that I ain't forgotten old times, I'll swop with you
without lookin' at him. May I be shot if I ain't reg'larly cheatin'
myself. Well, I'm uncommon glad to see you again. Bob Snags has no
reason to fear lookin' a rale gemman in the face. Come, lads, none of
yer jimmaky, and slings, and poorgun,{C} and suchlike dog's wash, but
ginu_ine_ Monongahela--that's the stuff. Hurra for Old Virginny! Well,
doctor, it's a deal--ain't it?"
"No, Bob," said Richards, laughing; "your generosity is so truly
Alabamian, that I cannot make up my mind to accept it. For the present,
at least, I must keep my Virginian. It is my wife's saddle-horse."
"But Swiftfoot," replied Bob, in a cordial confidential
manner--"Swiftfoot is a famous trotter."
"It won't do, Bob," was the answer. "I should not dare show myself at
home without Caesar."
Bob bit his lips, a little vexed at not being able to make a deal; but
another half-pint of whisky, which he poured down as if it had been
spring water, seemed to restore him to good humour. Meanwhile my wet
clothes were beginning to hang heavy upon me, and to steam in the hot
atmosphere in which we were. Bob, who had already cast several
side-glances at me, now turned to Richards.
"And who may the mister be?" said he.
The mention of my name and condition, procured me a welcome that I could
willingly have dispensed with. After the shake of the hand with which
Bob favoured me, I looked at my finger-nails, to see if the blood was
not starting from under them. The fellow's hands were as hard and rough
as bear's paws.
"Very glad that you're come, boys," said Bob in a low confidential tone.
"I'm just makin' a try for the next Assembly; and it's always good, you
know, to have somebody to speak to one's character. How long is it,
Mister Richards, since I left Blairsville."
"Eight years," replied my friend.
"No, Harry," whispered the roadmaster; "may I be shot if it's more than
five."
"But," replied Richards, "I have been living five years by the
Mississippi, and you know"----
"Ah, nonsense!" interrupted Bob. "Five years--not an hour more. D'ye
understand?" added he cautiously--"five years, if you're asked."
The facts were thus. This respectable candidate for the representation
of his fellow-citizens, had made his escape from his previous residence,
the birthplace of Richards, on account of certain misdeeds, of which the
sheriff and constables had taken cognizance, and after wandering about
for a few years, had settled in Bainbridge county, where he seemed to
have thriven--as far, at least, as whisky and human weakness had allowed
him. We could hardly help laughing outright at the importance which Bob
thought proper to attribute to us before his companions, the independent
electors, whose votes he was desirous of securing. AEsculapius himself
was a mere quacksalver compared to Squire Richards, whose twenty-five
negroes were rapidly multiplied into a hundred; while my poor neglected
plantation was, between brothers, well worth five hundred thousand
dollars. We allowed Mr Bob to have it his own way; for it might have
been dangerous to contradict a giant of his calibre, who was always
ready to support his arguments with his huge cocoa nut-coloured fists.
At last Richards was able to slip in a word.
"You are not going to make your speech now, are you?"
"May I be shot if I ain't, though! I'll begin at once."
"Cannot we manage to change our clothes, and get some supper first?"
said Richards.
"Change your clothes!" said Bob contemptuously. "And what for, man? Not
on our account; you're quite smart enough, quite good enough for us--no
occasion to bother yourselves. If it's for your own pleasure, however,
you can do it. Hallo, Johnny!"
And he commenced a negotiation with Johnny, the host, who, to our great
joy, took up a candle, and led the way into a sort of back parlour, with
a promise that we should have our supper before very long.
"Is there no other room where we can dress ourselves?" said I.
"To be sure there is," was the answer. "There's the garret--only there's
my daughter and a dozen gals sleepin' there; then there's the kitchen,
if you like it better."
I looked round the room. A servant girl was beginning to lay the table;
and, unluckily, the apartment was connected by an open door with the
kitchen, in which there was a loud noise of voices. I would have given a
good deal for a quarter of an hour's undisturbed possession of the room.
I looked about for our portmanteaus, but could see nothing of them.
"Six smalls it ain't buffalo hide!" vociferated a young Stentor in the
kitchen.
"Six smalls its cow hide!" roared another.
"If I am not very much mistaken," said Richards, "it is our portmanteaus
that those fellows are betting about."
"That would really be too bad," said I.
Nevertheless, it was as Richards had said. We had little occasion to
fear that the portmanteaus would be lost or injured; but we knew very
well that the only way to get them out of the claws of these rough
backwoodsmen would be by some well-contrived joke. And those jokes were
exactly what I feared; for one had often to risk breaking an arm or a
leg by them. There was a crowd of men in the kitchen. One young fellow,
upwards of six feet high, held a lighted candle; and they were all
busily engaged examining something which lay in the middle of the floor.
"No," cried a voice, appealing apparently from a decision that had been
given, "I won't pay without I see the inside."
They were debating whether the portmanteaus were of buffalo or cow hide.
They had caught sight of them as they were being carried through the
kitchen into the back-room, and had at once seized upon them as good
subjects for a bet. It was time for us to interfere, if we did not wish
to see our trunks ripped open, for the sake of ascertaining the quality
of the leather.
"Sixteen smalls," cried Richards, "that it's deer hide!"
"Done!" thundered half a score voices, with loud peals of laughter.
"It is a bet, then," said my friend; "but let us see what we are betting
about."
"Make way for the gemmen!" cried the men.
"Our portmanteaus!" exclaimed Richards, laughing. "No, certainly, they
are not deer hide. Here is my bet."
A loud hurra followed the payment of the dollar which my friend handed
over; and we now found ourselves in undisputed possession of our
baggage. The next thing to be done was to endeavour to get the room to
ourselves for a few minutes.
"We wish to be left alone for a short time," said I to the help, who was
bustling in and out, and covering the table with innumerable plates of
preserved fruits, cucumbers, beet-root, and suchlike edibles.