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THE KENTUCKIAN IN NEW-YORK.
Or, The Adventures of Three Southerns.
BY A VIRGINIAN.
"Perhaps it may turn out a sang,
Perhaps turn out a sermon."--_Burns._
In Two Volumes.
VOL. I.
New-York:
Published by Harper & Brothers,
No. 82 Cliff-Street.
1834.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1834,
By Harper & Brothers,
In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York.
* * * * *
NEARLY READY.
HELEN. A new Tale. By MARIA EDGEWORTH--forming the _tenth_ volume
of Harper's Uniform Edition of her Works. Containing two
beautiful Engravings on steel.
TALES AND SKETCHES,--such as they are. By W. L. STONE, Esq. In 2
vols. 12mo.
THE FROLICS OF PUCK. In 2 vols. 12mo.
THE KENTUCKIAN IN NEW-YORK. By A VIRGINIAN. In 2 vols. 12mo.
GUY RIVERS. A Novel. By the Author of "Martin Faber." In 2 vols.
12mo.
MRS. SHERWOOD'S WORKS. Uniform Edition. With Engravings on steel.
12mo.
PAULDING'S WORKS. Uniform Edition. Revised and corrected by the
Author. 12mo.
* * * * *
THE
KENTUCKIAN IN NEW-YORK.
CHAPTER I.
Towards the latter part of the summer of 18--, on one of those cool,
delightful, and invigorating mornings which are frequent in the southern
regions of the United States, there issued from the principal hotel on
the valley-side of Harper's Ferry two travellers, attended by a
venerable and stately southern slave. The experienced eye of the old
ferryman, as he stood in his flat-bottomed boat awaiting the arrival of
this party, discovered at once that our travellers were from the far
South.
The first of these, Victor Chevillere, entered the "flat," leading by
the bridle a mettlesome southern horse; when he had stationed this fine
animal to his satisfaction, he stood directly fronting the prescriptive
Charon of the region. This young gentleman, who appeared to be the
principal character of the party just entering the boat, was handsomely
formed, moderately tall, and fashionably dressed. His face was bold,
dignified, and resolute, and not remarkable for any very peculiar
fashion of the hair or beard which shaded it. He appeared to be about
twenty-three years of age, and though so young, much and early
experience of the world had already o'ershadowed his face with a
becoming serenity, if not sadness. Not that silly, affected melancholy,
however, which is so often worn in these days by young and romantic idle
gentlemen, to catch the errant sympathies of some untravelled country
beauty.
The next personage of the party (who likewise entered the boat leading a
fine southern animal), was a fashionable young gentleman, about the
middle size; his face was pale and wan, as if he had but just recovered
from an attack of illness. Nevertheless there was a brilliant fire in
his eye, and a lurking, but too evident, disposition to fun and humour,
which illness had not been entirely able to subdue. Augustus Lamar, for
such was his name, was the confidential and long-tried friend of the
first-named gentleman: their mutual regard had existed undiminished from
the time of their early school days in South Carolina, through their
whole college career in Virginia up to the moment of which we speak.
The third and more humble personage of the party bore the time-honoured
appellation of Cato. He was a tall old negro, with a face so black as to
form a perfect contrast to his white hair and brilliant teeth. He was
well dressed and cleanly in his person, and rather solemn and pompous
in his manners. Cato had served the father of his present highly
honoured young master, and was deeply imbued with that strong feudal
attachment to the family, which is a distinguishing characteristic of
the southern negroes who serve immediately near the persons of the great
landholders.
Our travellers were now smoothly gliding over that most magnificent
"meeting of the waters" of the Shenandoah and Potomack, which is usually
known by the unpretending name of "Harper's Ferry." It was early
morning; the moon was still visible above the horizon, and the sun had
not yet risen above those stupendous fragments whose chaotic and
irregular position gives token of the violence with which the mass of
waters rent for themselves a passage through the mountains, when rushing
on to meet that other congregation of rivers, with whose waters they
unite to form the Bay of the Chesapeake. The black bituminous smoke from
the hundred smithies of the United States' armory, had just begun to
rise above the towering crags that seemed, at this early period, to
battle with the vapours which are here sent up in thick volumes from the
contest of rocks and rivers beneath.
Old Cato had by this time assumed his post at the heads of the three
horses, while our southerns stood with folded arms, each impressed with
the scene according to his individual impulses. As they approached
nearer to the northern shore, Chevillere, addressing Lamar, observed:
"An unhappy young lady she must be who arrived at our hotel last
evening. I could hear her weeping bitterly as she paced the floor, until
a late hour of the night, when finally she seemed to throw herself upon
the bed, and fall asleep from mere exhaustion;" and then, turning to the
weather-beaten steersman, continued: "I suppose we are the first
passengers in the 'flat' this morning?"
"No, sir, you are not; a carriage from the same tavern went over half an
hour ago. There was an old gray-headed man, and two young women in it,
besides the driver, and the driver told me that they were all the way
from York State,--the mail stage, too, went over."
"The same party," said Chevillere, abstractedly; "Did you learn where
they were to breakfast, boatman?"
"About ten miles from this, I think I heard say."
They were soon landed and mounted, and cantering away through the fog
and vapours of the early morning. Nor were they long in overtaking a
handsome travelling-carriage, which was moving at a brisk rate, in
accordance with the exertions of two fine, evidently northern, horses.
The carriage contained an elderly, grave, formal, and magisterial
gentleman; his locks quite gray, and hanging loose upon the collar of
his coat; his countenance harsh, austere, and forbidding in the extreme.
By his side sat a youthful lady, so enveloped in a large black mantle,
and travelling hat and veil, that but little of her form or features
could be seen, except a pair of brilliant blue eyes.
It is not to be denied, that these sudden apparitions of young and
beautiful females, almost completely shrouded in mantles, drapery, or
veils, are the very circumstances fully to arouse the slumbering
energies of a lately emancipated college Quixotte. A lovely pair of
eyes, brimful of tears,--a "Cinderella" foot and ankle,--a white and
beautifully turned hand and tapered fingers, with perhaps a mourning
ring or two,--or a bonnet suddenly blown off, so as to dishevel a
magnificent head of hair, its pretty mistress meanwhile all confusion,
and her snowy neck and temples suffused with blushes,--these are the
little incidents on which the real romances of human life are founded.
How many persons can look back to such a commencement of their youthful
loves! nay, perhaps, refer to it all the little enjoyment with which
they have been blessed through life! We venture to say, that those who
were so unfortunate as never to bring their first youthful romance to a
fortunate denouement, can likewise look back upon such occurrences with
many pleasing emotions. A bachelor or a widower, indeed, may not always
recur with pleasure to these first passages in the book of life,--but
the feelings even of these are not altogether of the melancholy kind.
The fairy queens of their spring-tide will sometimes arise in the
present tense, until they almost imagine themselves in the possession
again of youth and all its raptures,--its brilliant dreams, airy
castles, "hair-breadth 'scapes," and miraculous deliverances,--cruel
fathers, and perverse guardians, and stolen interviews, and lovers' vows
and tokens,--winding up finally with a runaway match--all of the
imagination.
After the equipage before alluded to had been for some time left behind,
our travellers began to descry, at the distance of several miles, the
long white portico of the country inn at which they proposed to
breakfast. The United States mail-coach for Baltimore was standing at
the door, evidently waiting till the passengers should have performed
the same needful operation. Servants were running hither and thither,
some to the roost, others to the stable, as if a large number of the
most distinguished dignitaries of the land had just arrived.
But, behold, when our travellers drew up, they found that all this stir
among the servants of the inn was called into being by the real or
affected wants of a number of very young gentlemen. We say affected,
because we are sorry to acknowledge that it is not uncommon to see very
young and inexperienced gentlemen, on such occasions, assume airs and
graces which are merely put on as a travelling dress, and which would be
thrown aside at the first appearance of an old acquaintance. At such
times it is by no means rare to see all the servants of the inn,
together with the host and hostess, entirely engrossed by one of these
overgrown boys or ill-bred men, while their elders and superiors are
compelled either to want or wait upon themselves. At the time we notice,
some young bloods of the cities were exercising themselves in their new
suit of stage-coach manners.
"Here waiter! waiter!" with an affectedly delicate and foreign voice,
cried one of these youths, enveloped in a brown "Petersham box" coat,
and with his hands stuck into his pockets over his hips. Under the arm
of this person was a black riding-switch, with a golden head, and a
small chain of the same precious metal, fastened about six inches
therefrom, after the fashion of some old rapier guards. He wore a
rakish-looking fur cap, round and tight on the top of his head as a
bladder of snuff; this was cocked on one side after a most piratical
fashion, so as to show off, in the best possible manner, a great
profusion of coarse, shining black hair, which was evidently indebted to
art rather than nature for the curls that frizzled out over his ears,
while the back part of his head was left as bare and defenceless as if
he had already been under the hands of a deputy turnkey. He practised
what may be called American puppyism, as technically distinguished from
the London species of the same genus. "Here waiter! waiter!" said he,
"bring me a gin sling,--and half-a-dozen Bagdad segars,--and a lighted
taper,--and a fresh egg,--and a bowl of water, and a clean towel,--and
polish my boots,--and dust my coat,--and then send me the barber, do you
hear?"
"O, sir! we has no barber, nor Bagdab segars neither; but we has plenty
of the real Baltimores,--real good ones, too,--as I knows very well, for
I smokes the old sodgers what the gentlemen throws on the bar-room
floor."
"It is one of the most amusing scenes imaginable," said Victor
Chevillere to Augustus Lamar, as they sat witnessing this scene, "when
the waiter and the master pro tempore are both fools. The fawning,
bowing, cringing waiter, with his big lips upon the _qui vive_, his head
and shoulders constantly in motion, and rubbing his hands one over the
other after the most approved fashion of the men of business. In such a
case as that which we have just witnessed, where puppyism comes in
contact with the kindred monkey-tricks of the waiter, I can enjoy it.
But when it happens, as I have more than once seen, that the waiter is a
manly, sensible, and dignified old negro of the loftier sort, such as
old Cato,--then you can soon detect the curl of contempt upon his
lip,--and he is not long thereafter in selecting the real gentlemen of
the party,--always choosing to wait most upon those who least demand
it."
"I would bet my horse Talleyrand against an old field scrub, that that
fellow is a Yankee," answered Lamar.
"He may be a Yankee," continued Victor Chevillere, "but you have
travelled too much and reflected too long upon the nature of man, to
ascribe every thing disgusting to a Yankee origin. For my part, I make
the character of every man I meet in some measure my study during my
travels, and as we have agreed to exchange opinions upon men and things,
I will tell you freely what I think of that fellow who has just
retreated from our laughter. I have found it not at all uncommon, to see
the most undisguised hatred arise between two such persons as he of the
stage-coach,--the one from the north, and the other from the
south,--when in truth, the actuating impulse was precisely the same in
both, but had taken a different direction, and was differently developed
by different exciting causes.
"The puppyism of Charleston and that of Boston are only different shades
of the same character, yet these kindred spirits can in nowise tolerate
each other. As is universally the case, those are most intolerant to
others who have most need of forgiveness themselves. The mutual jealousy
of the north and south is a decided evidence of littleness in both
regions, and ample cause for shame to the educated gentlemen of all
parties of this happy country. If pecuniary interest had not been mixed
up with this provincial rivalry, the feeling could easily have been so
held up to the broad light of intelligence, as to be a fertile source of
amusement, and furnish many a subject for comedy and farce in
after-times."
This specimen was by no means the only one among the arrivals by the
stage-coach. Every waiter in the house was pressed into the service of
these coxcombs,--some smoked,--some swaggered through the private
rooms,--others adjusted their frizzled locks at the mirrors with brushes
carried for the purpose,--and all together created a vast commotion in
the quiet country inn.
As our two young southerns sat in the long piazza, eying these
stage-coach travellers and waiting for breakfast, the same equipage
which they had passed on the road, and containing our northern party,
drew up to the door.
Not many minutes had elapsed before a black servant stood in the entry
between the double suite of apartments, and briskly swung a small bell
to and fro, which seemed to announce breakfast, from the precipitate
haste with which the gentlemen of the stage-coach found their way into
the long breakfasting-hall of the establishment. Our southerns followed
their example, but more quietly, and by the invitation of the host. At
the upper end of the table stood the hostess, who, like most of her kind
in America, was the wife of a wealthy landholder and farmer, as well as
tavern-keeper. She was a genteel and modest-looking woman, and did the
honours of the table like a lady at her own hospitable board, and among
selected guests. It is owing to a mistake in the character of the host
and hostess, that so many foreigners give and take offence at these
establishments. They often contumaciously demand as a right, what would
have been offered to them in all courtesy after the established usages
of the country.
On the right of the hostess sat the youthful lady who had spent such an
unhappy night at the ferry,--in the hearing of Victor Chevillere,--and
whom they had passed on the road. She was still so enveloped in her
travelling dress and veil as to be but partially seen. On the same side,
unfortunately, as he no doubt thought, sat Chevillere with Lamar. The
grave-looking old gentleman, the companion of the youthful lady
mentioned, sat immediately opposite to her. The gentlemen of extreme ton
(as they wished to be thought), were ranged along the table, already
mangling the dishes, cracking and replacing the eggs, and apparently
much dissatisfied with the number of seconds they had remained in heated
water. Nor were they long in striking up a conversation, as loud and
full of slang as their previous displays had been. During this unseemly
and boisterous conduct, some more tender chord seemed to be touched
within the bosom of the lovely young female, than would have been
supposed from the character of the assailants. Victor Chevillere turned
his head in that direction, and saw that her face had become more deadly
pale; at the same moment he heard her say, in an under-tone, to the old
gentleman her companion, "My dear sir, assist me from this room,--my
head grows dizzy, and I feel a deathlike sickness."
Chevillere was upon his feet in an instant, and assisted the lady to
rise; by this time, the old gentleman having taken her other arm, they
carried rather than led her into one of the adjoining apartments,
where, after depositing their beautiful burden upon a sofa, Chevillere
left her to the care of the hostess, who had followed, and returned to
the breakfast-table.
Let us describe a country breakfast for the uninitiated. At the head of
the table was a large salver, or japanned waiter, upon which was spread
out various utensils of China-ware,--the only articles of plate being a
sugar-dish and cream-pot. On the right of this salver stood a coffee and
tea-urn, of some composition metal, resembling silver in appearance. At
the other end of the table, under the skilful hands of the host, was a
large steak, cut and sawed entirely through the sirloin of the beef.
Half-way up the table, on either side, were dishes of broiled game, the
intermediate spaces being filled up with various kinds of hot bread,
biscuit and pancakes (as they are called in some parts of the north).
This custom of eating hot bread at the morning and evening meal, is
almost universal at the south. Immediately in the centre stood a pyramid
of fresh-churned butter, with a silver butter-knife sticking into the
various ornaments of vine-leaves and grapes with which it was stamped.
To this fare Chevillere found his friend Lamar doing the most ample
justice, nor was his own keen appetite entirely destroyed by the
temporary indisposition of the lady who had so much excited his
curiosity and his sympathy. He could have congratulated himself on the
little occurrence which had given him some claims to a farther
acquaintance, and doubtless could have indulged in delightful reveries
as to the fair and youthful stranger,--had not all his gay dreams been
put to flight by the boisterous laughter and meager attempts at wit of
the other travellers. As he returned towards the table, the one whom we
have more particularly described elevated a glass, with a golden handle,
to his large, full, and impudent eye. Chevillere returned the gaze until
his look almost amounted to a deliberate stare. The "bloods" looked
fierce, and exchanged pugnacious looks, but all chance of a collision
was prevented by the return of the hostess. Notwithstanding the
disagreeable qualities of most of the guests at the table, Chevillere
found time to turn the little incident of the sudden indisposition and
its probable cause several times in his own mind; and, as may be well
imagined, his mental soliloquy resulted in no injurious imputation upon
the youthful lady,--there was evidently no trait of affectation.
At length the meal was brought to a close,--not however, before the
driver of the mail-coach had wound sundry impatient blasts upon his
bugle,--general joy seemed to pervade every remaining countenance after
the departure of the coxcombs. Both the northern and southern
travellers, who were journeying northward, and who had breakfasted at
the inn, were soon likewise plodding along at the usual rate of weary
travellers by a private conveyance.