CHUB WILLIAMS.
The young mind of Colleton, excursive as it was, could scarcely realize
to itself the strange and rapidly-succeeding changes of the last few
days. Self-exiled from the dwelling in which so much of his heart and
hope had been stored up--a wanderer among the wandering--assaulted by
ruffians--the witness of their crimes--pursued by the officers of
justice, and finally the tenant of a prison, as a criminal himself!
After the first emotions of astonishment and vexation had
subsided--ignorant of the result of this last adventure, and preparing
for the worst--he called for pen and paper, and briefly, to his uncle,
recounted his adventures, as we have already related them, partially
acknowledging his precipitance in departing from his house, but
substantially insisting upon the propriety of those grounds which had
made him do so.
To Edith, what could he say? Nothing--everything. His letter to her,
enclosed in that to her uncle, was just such as might be expected from
one with a character such as we have endeavored to describe--that of the
genuine aristocrat of Carolina--gentle, but firm--soothing, but
manly--truly, but loftily affectionate--the rock touched, if not
softened by the sunbeam; warm and impetuous, but generally just in his
emotions--liberal in his usual estimate of mankind, and generous, to a
fault, in all his associations;--ignorant of any value in money, unless
for high purposes--as subservient to taste and civilization--a graceful
humanity and an honorable affection.
With a tenderness the most respectful, Ralph reiterated his love--prayed
for her prayers--frankly admitted his error in his abrupt flight, and
freely promised atonement as soon as he should be freed from his
difficulties; an event which, in speaking to her, he doubted not. This
duty over, his mind grew somewhat relieved, and, despatching a note by
the jailer's deputy to the lawyer Pippin, he desired immediately to see
him.
Pippin had looked for such an invitation, and was already in attendance.
His regrets were prodigious, but his gratification not less, as it would
give him an opportunity, for some time desired, for serving so excellent
a gentleman. But the lawyer shook his head with most professional
uncertainty at every step of his own narration of the case, and soon
convinced Ralph that he really stood in a very awkward predicament. He
described the situation of the body of Forrester when found; the bloody
dirk which lay beside it, having the initials of his name plainly carved
upon it; his midnight flight; his close companionship with Forrester on
the evening of the night in which he had been murdered--a fact proved by
old Allen and his family; the intimate freedom with which Forrester had
been known to confide his purposes to the youth, deducible from the
joint call which they had made upon the sweetheart of the former; and
many other smaller details, unimportant in themselves, but linked
together with the rest of the particulars, strengthening the chain of
circumstances against him to a degree which rendered it improbable that
he should escape conviction.
Pippin sought, however, to console his client, and, after the first
development of particulars, the natural buoyancy of the youth returned.
He was not disposed readily to despair, and his courage and confidence
rose with the pressure of events. He entered into a plain story of all
the particulars of his flight--the instrumentality of Miss Munro in that
transaction, and which she could explain, in such a manner as to do away
with any unfavorable impression which that circumstance, of itself,
might create. Touching the dagger, he could say nothing. He had
discovered its loss, but knew not at what time he had lost it. The
manner in which it had been found was, of course, fatal, unless the fact
which he alleged of its loss could be established; and of this the
consulting parties saw no hope. Still, they did not despair, but
proceeded to the task of preparing the defence for the day of trial,
which was at hand. The technical portions of the case were managed by
the lawyer, who issued his subpoenas--made voluminous notes--wrote out
the exordium of his speech--and sat up all night committing it to
memory.
Having done all that the occasion called for in his interview with
Ralph, the lawyer proceeded to visit, uncalled-for, one whom he
considered a far greater criminal than his client. The cell to which the
luckless pedler, Bunce, had been carried, was not far from that of the
former, and the rapid step of the lawyer soon overcame the distance
between.
Never was man seemingly so glad to see his neighbor as was Bunce, on
this occasion, to look upon Pippin. His joy found words of the most
honeyed description for his visiter, and his delight was truly
infectious. The lawyer was delighted too, but his satisfaction was of a
far different origin. He had now some prospect of getting back his
favorite steed--that fine animal, described by him elsewhere to the
pedler, as docile as the dog, and fleet as the deer. He had heard of the
safety of his horse, and his anger with the pedler had undergone some
abatement; but, with the consciousness of power common to inferior
minds, came a strong desire for its use. He knew that the pedler had
been guilty in a legal sense of no crime, and could only be liable in a
civil action for his breach of trust. But he suspected that the dealer
in wares was ignorant of the advantageous distinctions in morals which
the law had made, and consequently amused himself with playing upon the
fears of the offender. He put on a countenance of much commiseration,
and, drawing a long sigh, regretted the necessity which had brought him
to prepare the mind of his old friend for the last terrors of justice.
But Bunce was not a man easily frightened. As he phrased it himself, he
had been quite too long knocking about among men to be scared by
shadows, and replied stoutly--though really with some internal
misgivings--to the lachrymalities of the learned counsel. He gave him to
understand that, if he got into difficulty, he knew some other persons
whom his confessions would make uncomfortable; and hinted pretty
directly at certain practices of a certain professional gentleman,
which, though the pedler knew nothing of the technical significant might
yet come under the head of barratry, and so forth.
The lawyer was the more timid man of the two, and found it necessary to
pare down his potency. He soon found it profitable to let the matter
rest, and having made arrangements with the pedler for bringing suit for
damages against two of the neighboring farmers concerned in the
demolition of his wares--who, happening to be less guilty than their
accessaries, had ventured to remain in the country--Bunce found no
difficulty in making his way out of the prison. There had been no right
originally to detain him; but the consciousness of guilt, and some other
ugly misgivings, had so relaxed the nerves of the tradesman, that he had
never thought to inquire if his name were included in the warrant of
arrest. It is probable that his courage and confidence would have been
far less than they appear at present, had not Pippin assured him that
the regulators were no longer to be feared; that the judge had arrived;
that the grand-jury had found bills against several of the offenders,
and were still engaged in their labors; that a detachment of the state
military had been ordered to the station; and that things looked as
civil as it was altogether possible for such warlike exhibition to
allow. It is surprising to think how fearlessly uncompromising was the
conduct of Bunce under this new condition of affairs.
But the pedler, in his own release from custody, was not forgetful of
his less-fortunate companion. He was a frequent visiter in the dungeon
of Ralph Colleton; bore all messages between the prisoner and his
counsel; and contributed, by his shrewd knowledge of human kind, not a
little to the material out of which his defence was to be made.
He suggested the suspicion, never before entertained by the youth, or
entertained for a moment only, that his present arrest was the result of
a scheme purposely laid with a reference to this end; and did not
scruple to charge upon Rivers the entire management of the matter.
Ralph could only narrate what he knew of the malignant hatred of the
outlaw to himself--another fact which none but Lucy Munro could
establish. Her evidence, however, would only prove Rivers to have
meditated one crime; it would not free him from the imputation of having
committed another. Still, so much was important, and casualties were to
be relied upon for the rest.
But what was the horror of all parties when it was known that neither
Lucy nor any of the landlord's family were to be found! The process of
subpoena was returned, and the general opinion was, that alarmed at the
approach of the military in such force, and confident that his agency in
the late transactions could not long remain concealed in the possession
of so many, though guilty like himself, Munro had fled to the west.
The mental agony of the youth, when thus informed, can not well he
conceived. He was, for a time, utterly prostrate, and gave himself up to
despair. The entreaties of the pedler, and the counsels and exhortings
of the lawyer, failed equally to enliven him; and they had almost come
to adopt his gloomy resignation, when, as he sat on his low bench, with
head drooping on his hand, a solitary glance of sunshine fell through
the barred window--the only one assigned to his cell.
The smile of God himself that solitary ray appeared to the diseased
spirit of the youth, and he grew strong in an instant. Talk of the
lessons of the learned, and the reasonings of the sage!--a vagrant
breeze, a rippling water, a glance of the sweet sunlight, have more of
consolation in them for the sad heart than all the pleadings of
philosophy. They bring the missives of a higher teacher.
Bunce was an active coadjutor with the lawyer in this melancholy case.
He made all inquiries--he went everywhere. He searched in all places,
and spared no labor; but at length despaired. Nothing could be elicited
by his inquiries, and he ceased to hope himself, and ceased to persuade
Ralph into hope. The lawyer shook his head in reply to all questions,
and put on a look of mystery which is the safety-valve to all swollen
pretenders.
In this state of affairs, taking the horse of the youth, with a last
effort at discoveries, Bunce rode forth into the surrounding country. He
had heretofore taken all the common routes, to which, in his previous
intercourse with the people, he had been accustomed; he now determined
to strike into a path scarcely perceptible, and one which he never
remembered to have seen before. He followed, mile after mile, its
sinuosities. It was a wild, and, seemingly, an untrodden region. The
hills shot up jaggedly from the plain around him--the fissures were rude
and steep--more like embrasures, blown out by sudden power from the
solid rock. Where the forest appeared, it was dense and
intricate--abounding in brush and underwood; where it was deficient, the
blasted heath chosen by the witches in Macbeth would have been no unfit
similitude.
Hopeless of human presence in this dreary region, the pedler yet rode
on, as if to dissipate the unpleasant thoughts, following upon his
frequent disappointment. Suddenly, however, a turn in the winding path
brought him in contact with a strange-looking figure, not more than five
feet in height, neither boy nor man, uncouthly habited, and seemingly
one to whom all converse but that of the trees and rocks, during his
whole life, had been unfamiliar.
The reader has already heard something of the Cherokee pony--it was upon
one of these animals he rode. They are a small, but compactly made and
hardy creature--of great fortitude, stubborn endurance, and an activity,
which, in the travel of day after day, will seldom subside from the
gallop. It was the increasing demand for these animals that had
originally brought into existence and exercise a company, which, by a
transition far from uncommon, passed readily from the plundering of
horses to the cutting of throats and purses; scarcely discriminating in
their reckless rapacity between the several degrees of crime in which
such a practice involved them.
Though somewhat uncouth in appearance, the new-comer seemed decidedly
harmless--nay, almost idiotic in appearance. His smile was pleasant,
though illuminating features of the ruggedest description, and the tones
of his voice were even musical in the ears of the pedler, to whom any
voice would probably have seemed so in that gloomy region. He very
sociably addressed Bunce in the _patois_ of that section; and the
ceremonial of introduction, without delay or difficulty, was overcome
duly on both sides. In the southern wilderness, indeed, it does not call
for much formality, nor does a strict adherence to the received rules of
etiquette become at all necessary, to make the traveller "hail fellow,
well met." Anything in that quarter, savoring of reserve or stiffness,
is punished with decided hostility or openly-avowed contempt; and, in
the more rude regions, the refusal to partake in the very social
employments of wrestling or whiskey-drinking, has brought the scrupulous
personage to the more questionable enjoyments of a regular gouging match
and fight. A demure habit is the most unpopular among all classes.
Freedom of manner, on the other hand, obtains confidence readily, and
the heart is won, at once, by an off-handed familiarity of demeanor,
which fails to recognise any inequalities in human condition. The
society and the continued presence of Nature, as it were, in her own
peculiar abode, put aside all merely conventional distinctions, and men
meet upon a common footing. Thus, even when perfect strangers to one
another, after the usual preliminaries of "how are you, friend," or
"strannger?"--"_whar_ from?"--"_whar_ going?"--"fair" or "foul
weather"--as the case may be--the acquaintance is established, and
familiarity well begun. Such was the case in the present instance. Bunce
knew the people well, and exhibited his most unreluctant manner. The
horses of the two, in like manner with their masters, made similar
overtures; and in a little while, their necks were drawn in parallel
lines together.
Bunce was less communicative, however, than the stranger. Still his head
and heart, alike, were full, and he talked more freely than was
altogether consistent with his Yankee character. He told of Ralph's
predicament, and the clown sympathized; he narrated the quest which had
brought him forth, and of his heretofore unrewarded labors; concluded
with naming the ensuing Monday as the day of the youth's trial, when, if
nothing in the meantime could be discovered of the true criminal--for
the pedler never for a moment doubted that Ralph was innocent--he
"mortally feared things would go agin him."
"That will be hard, too--a mighty tough difficulty, now, strannger--to
be hanged for other folks' doings. But, I reckon, he'll have to make up
his mind to it."
"Oh, no! don't say so, now, my friend, I beg you. What makes you think
so?" said the anxious pedler.
"Why, only from what I _heer'd_ you say. You said so yourself, and I
believed it as if I had seed it," was the reply of the simple
countryman.
"Oh, yes. It's but a poor chance with him now, I guess. I'd a notion
that I could find out some little particular, you see--"
"No, I don't see."
"To be sure you don't, but that's my say. Everybody has a say, you
know."
"No, I don't know."
"To be sure, of course you don't know, but that's what I tell you. Now
you must know--"
"Don't say _must_ to me, strannger, if you want that we shall keep hands
off. I don't let any man say _must_ to me."
"No harm, my friend--I didn't mean no harm," said the worried pedler,
not knowing what to make of his acquaintance, who spoke shrewdly at
times, but occasionally in a speech, which awakened the doubts of the
pedler as to the safety of his wits. Avoiding all circumlocution of
phrase, and dropping the "you sees," and "you knows" from his narration,
he proceeded to state his agency in procuring testimony for the youth,
and of the ill-success which had hitherto attended him. At length, in
the course of his story, which he contrived to tell with as much caution
as came within the scope of his education, he happened to speak of Lucy
Munro; but had scarcely mentioned her name when his queer companion
interrupted him:--
"Look you, strannger, I'll lick you now, off-hand, if you don't put Miss
for a handle to the gal's name. She's Miss Lucy. Don't I know her, and
han't I seen her, and isn't it I, Chub Williams, as they calls me, that
loves the very airth she treads?"
"You know Miss Lucy?" inquired the pedler, enraptured even at this
moderate discovery, though carefully coupling the prefix to her name
while giving it utterance--"now, do you know Miss Lucy, friend, and will
you tell me where I can find her?"
"Do you think I will, and you may be looking arter her too? 'Drot my old
hat, strannger, but I do itch to git at you."
"Oh, now, Mr. Williams--"
"I won't answer to that name. Call me Chub Williams, if you wants to be
perlite. Mother always calls me Chub, and that's the reason I like it."
"Well, Chub,"--said the other, quite paternally--"I assure you I don't
love Miss Munro--and--"
"What! you don't love Miss Lucy. Why, everybody ought to love her. Now,
if you don't love her, I'll hammer you, strannger, off hand."
The poor pedler professed a proper sort of love for the young lady--not
exactly such as would seek her for a wife, however, and succeeded in
satisfying, after a while, the scruples of one who, in addition to
deformity, he also discovered to labor under the more serious curse of
partial idiocy. Having done this, and flattered, in sundry other ways,
the peculiarities of his companion, he pursued his other point with
laudable pertinacity.
He at length got from Chub his own history: how he had run into the
woods with his mother, who had suffered from the ill-treatment of her
husband: how, with his own industry, he had sustained her wants, and
supplied her with all the comforts which a long period had required; and
how, dying at length, she had left him--the forest boy--alone, to pursue
those toils which heretofore had an object, while she yielded him in
return for them society and sympathy. These particulars, got from him in
a manner the most desultory, were made to preface the more important
parts of the narrative.
It appears that his harmlessness had kept him undisturbed, even by the
wild marauders of that region, and that he still continued to procure a
narrow livelihood by his woodland labors, and sought no association with
that humanity which, though among fellow-creatures, would still have
lacked of fellowship for him. In the transfer of Lucy from the village
to the shelter of the outlaws, he had obtained a glimpse of her person
and form, and had ever since been prying in the neighborhood for a
second and similar enjoyment. He now made known to the pedler her place
of concealment, which he had, some time before this event, himself
discovered; but which, through dread of Rivers, for whom he seemed to
entertain an habitual fear, he had never ventured to penetrate.
"Well, I must see her," exclaimed Bunce. "I a'n't afraid, 'cause you
see, Mr. Williams--Chub, I mean, it's only justice, and to save the poor
young gentleman's life. I'm sure I oughtn't to be afraid, and no more I
a'n't. Won't you go there with me, Chub?"
"Can't think of it, strannger. Guy is a dark man, and mother said I must
keep away when he rode in the woods. Guy don't talk--he shoots."
The pedler made sundry efforts to procure a companion for his adventure;
but finding it vain, and determined to do right, he grew more resolute
with the necessity, and, contenting himself with claiming the guidance
of Chub, he went boldly on the path. Having reached a certain point in
the woods, after a very circuitous departure from the main track, the
guide pointed out to the pedler a long and rude ledge of rocks, so rude,
so wild, that none could have ever conjectured to find them the abode of
anything but the serpent and the wolf. But there, according to the
idiot, was Lucy Munro concealed. Chub gave the pedler his directions,
then alighting from his nag, which he concealed in a clump of
neighboring brush, hastily and with the agility of a monkey ran up a
neighboring tree which overhung the prospect.
Bunce, left alone, grew somewhat staggered with his fears. He now
half-repented of the self-imposed adventure; wondered at his own rash
humanity, and might perhaps have utterly forborne the trial, but for a
single consideration. His pride was concerned, that the deformed Chub
should not have occasion to laugh at his weakness. Descending,
therefore, from his horse, he fastened him to the hanging branch of a
neighboring tree, and with something of desperate defiance in his
manner, resolutely advanced to the silent and forbidding mass of rocks,
which rose up so sullenly around him. In another moment, and he was lost
to sight in the gloomy shadow of the entrance-passage pointed out to him
by the half-witted, but not altogether ignorant dwarf.