"If you're ralely ripe for a fight, Roaring Ralph," cried Tom Bruce the
younger, who had shown, like the others, a greater disposition to jest
than to do battle with the champion, "here comes the very man for you.
Look, boys, thar comes Bloody Nathan!" At which formidable name there was
a loud shout set up, with an infinite deal of laughing and clapping of
hands.
"Whar's the fellow?" cried Captain Stackpole, springing six feet into the
air, and uttering a whoop of anticipated triumph. "I've heerd of the
brute, and, 'tarnal death to me, but I'm his super-superior! Show me tho
critter, and let me fly! Cock-a-doodle-doo!"
"Hurrah for Roaring Ralph Stackpole!" cried the young men, some of whom
proceeded to pat him on the back in compliment to his courage, while
others ran forward to hasten the approach of the expected antagonist.
The appearance of the comer, at a distance, promised an equal match to
tho captain of horse-thieves; but Roland perceived, from the increase of
merriment among the Kentuckians, and especially from his host joining
heartily in it, that there was more in Bloody Nathan than met the eye.
And yet there was enough in his appearance to attract attention, and to
convince the soldier that if Kentucky had shown him, in Captain
Stackpole, one extraordinary specimen of her inhabitants, she had others
to exhibit not a whit less remarkable. It is on the frontiers, indeed,
where adventurers from every corner of the world, and from every circle
of society are thrown together, that we behold the strongest contrasts,
and the strangest varieties, of human character.
Casting his eyes down the road, or street (for it was flanked by the
outer cabins of the settlement, and perhaps deserved the latter name),
which led, among stumps and gullies, from the gate of the stockade to the
bottom of the hill, Forrester beheld a tall man approaching, leading an
old lame white horse, at the heels of which followed a little silky
haired black or brown dog, dragging its tail betwixt its legs, in
compliment to the curs of the Station, which seemed as hospitably
inclined to spread a field of battle for the submissive brute, as their
owners were to make ready another for its master. The first thing that
surprised the soldier in the appearance of the person bearing so
formidable a name, was an incongruity which struck others as well as
himself, even the colonel of militia exclaiming, as he pointed it out
with his finger, "It's old Nathan Slaughter, to the backbone! Thar he
comes, the brute, leading a horse in his hand, and carrying his pack on
his own back! But he's a marciful man, Old Nathan, and the horse thar,
old White Dobbin, war foundered and good for nothing ever since the boys
made a race with him against Sammy Parker's jackass."
As he approached yet higher, Roland perceived that his tall, gaunt figure
was arrayed in garments of leather from top to toe, even his cap, or hat
(for such it seemed, having several broad flaps suspended by strings, so
as to serve the purpose of a brim), being composed of fragments of tanned
skins rudely sewed together. His upper garment differed from a hunting
shirt only in wanting the fringes usually appended to it, and in being
fashioned without any regard to the body it encompassed, so that in
looseness and shapelessness, it looked more like a sack than a human
vestment; and, like his breeches and leggings, it bore the marks of the
most reverend antiquity, being covered with patches and stains of all
ages, sizes, and colours.
Thus far Bloody Nathan's appearance was not inconsistent with his name,
being uncommonly wild and savage; and to assist in maintaining his claims
to the title, he had a long rifle on his shoulder, and a knife in his
belt, both of which were in a state of dilapidation worthy of his other
equipments; the knife, from long use and age, being worn so thin that it
seemed scarce worthy the carrying, while the rifle boasted a stock so
rude, shapeless, and, as one would have judged from its magnitude and
weight, so unserviceable, that it was easy to believe it had been
constructed by the unskilful hands of Nathan himself. His visage, seeming
to belong to a man of at least forty-five or fifty years of age, was
hollow, and almost as weather-worn as his apparel, with a long hooked
nose, prominent chin, a wide mouth exceedingly straight and pinched, with
a melancholy or contemplative twist at the corners, and a pair of black
staring eyes, that beamed a good-natured, humble, and perhaps submissive,
simplicity of disposition. His gait, too, as he stumbled along up the
hill, with a shuffling, awkward, hesitating step, was like that of a man
who apprehended injury and insult, and who did not possess the spirit
to resist them. The fact, moreover, of his sustaining on his own
shoulders a heavy pack of deer and other skins, to relieve the miserable
horse which he led, betokened a merciful temper, scarce compatible with
the qualities of a man of war and contention. Another test and criterion
by which Roland judged his claims to the character of a roarer, he found
in the little black dog; for the Virginian was a devout believer, as we
are ourselves, in that maxim of practical philosophers, namely, that by
the dog you shall know the master, the one being fierce, magnanimous, and
cowardly, just as his master is a bully, a gentleman, or a dastard. The
little dog of Nathan was evidently a coward, creeping along at White
Dobbin's heels, and seeming to supplicate with his tail, which now
draggled in the mud, and now attempted a timid wag, that his fellow-curs
of the Station should not be rude and inhospitable to a peaceful
stranger.
On the whole, the appearance of the man was anything in the world but
that of the ferocious ruffian whom the nick-name had led Roland to
anticipate; and he scarce knew whether to pity him, or to join in the
laugh with which the young men of the settlement greeted his approach.
Perhaps his sense of the ridiculous would have disposed the young soldier
to merriment; but the wistful look with which, while advancing, Nathan
seemed to deprecate the insults he evidently expected, spoke volumes of
reproach to his spirit, and the half-formed smile faded from his
countenance.
"Thar!" exclaimed Tom Bruce, slapping Stackpole on the shoulder, with
great glee, "thar's the man that calls himself Dannger! At him, for the
honour of Salt River; but take care of his forelegs, for, I tell you,
he's the Pennsylvany war-horse!"
"And arn't I the ramping tiger of the Rolling Fork?" cried Captain Ralph;
"and can't I eat him, hoss, dog, dirty jacket, and all? Hold me by the
tail while I devour him!"
With that, he executed two or three escapades, demivoltes curvets, and
other antics of a truly equine character, an galloping up to the amazed
Nathan, saluted him with a neigh so shrill and hostile that even White
Dobbin pricked up his ears, and betrayed other symptoms of alarm.
"Surely, Colonel," said Roland, "you will not allow that mad ruffian to
assail the poor man?"
"Oh," said Bruce, "Ralph won't hurt him; he's never vicious, except among
Injuns and horses. He's only for skearing the old feller."
"And who," said Forrester, "may the old fellow be? and why do you call
him Bloody Nathan?"
"We call him Bloody Nathan," replied the commander, "because he's the
only man in all Kentucky that _won't fight_! and thar's the way he beats
us all hollow. Lord, Captain, you'd hardly believe it, but he's nothing
more than a poor Pennsylvany Quaker; and what brought him out to
Kentucky, whar thar's nar another creatur' of his tribe, thar's no
knowing. Some say he war dishonest, and so had to cut loose from
Pennsylvany; but I never heerd of his stealing anything in Kentucky; I
reckon thar's too much of the chicken about him for that. Some say he is
hunting rich lands; which war like enough for anybody that war not so
poor and lazy. And some say his wits are unsettled, and I hold that
that's the truth of the creatur'; for he does nothing but go wandering up
and down the country, now h'yar and now thar, hunting for meat and skins;
and that's pretty much the way he makes a living: and once I see'd the
creatur' have a fit--a right up-and-down touch of the falling-sickness,
with his mouth all of a foam. Thar's them that's good-natur'd that calls
him Wandering Nathan, because of his being h'yar and thar, and every
whar. He don't seem much afear'd of the Injuns; but, they say, the red
brutes never disturbs the Pennsylvany Quakers. Howsomever, he makes
himself useful; for sometimes he finds Injun sign whar thar's no Injuns
thought of, and so he gives information; but he always does it, as he
says, to save bloodshed, not to bring on a fight. He comes to me once,
thar's more than three years ago, and instead of saying, 'Cunnel, thar's
twenty Injuns lying on the road at the lower ford of Salt, whar you may
nab them,' says he, says he, 'Friend Thomas, thee must keep the people
from going nigh the ford, for thar's Injuns thar that will hurt them;'
and then he takes himself off; whilst I rides down thar with twenty-five
men and exterminates them, killing six, and driving the others the Lord
knows whar. He has had but a hard time of it amongst us, poor creatur';
for it used to make us wrathy to find thar war so little fight in him
that he wouldn't so much as kill a murdering Injun. I took his gun from
him once; for why, he wouldn't attend muster when I had enrolled him. But
I pitied the brute; for he war poor, and thar war but little corn in his
cabin, and nothing to shoot meat with; and so I gave it back, and told
him to take his own ways for an old fool."
While Colonel Bruce was thus delineating the character of Nathan
Slaughter, the latter found himself surrounded by the young men of the
Station, the butt of a thousand jests, and the victim of the insolence of
the captain of horse-thieves. It is not to be supposed that Roaring Ralph
was really the bully and madman that his extravagant freaks and
expressions seemed to proclaim him. These, like any other "actions that a
man might play," were assumed, partly because it suited his humour to be
fantastic, and partly because the putting of his antic disposition on,
was the only means which he, like many of his betters, possessed of
attracting attention, and avoiding the neglect and contempt to which his
low habits and appearance would have otherwise justly consigned him.
There was, therefore, little really hostile in the feelings with which he
approached the non-combatant; though it was more than probable, the
disgust he, in common with the other warlike personages, entertained
toward the peaceable Nathan, might have rendered him a little more
malicious than usual.
"Nathan!" said he, as soon as he had concluded his neighing and
curvetting, "if you ever said your prayers, now's the time. Down with
your pack--for I can't stand deer's ha'r sticking in my swallow, no how!"
"Friend," said Nathan, meekly, "I beg thee will not disturb me. I am a
man of peace and quiet."
And so saying, he endeavoured to pass onwards, but was prevented by
Ralph, who, seizing his heavy bundle with one hand, applied his right
foot to it with a dexterity that not only removed it from the poor man's
back, but sent the dried skins scattering over the road. This feat was
rewarded by the spectators with loud shouts, all which, as well as the
insult itself, Nathan bore with exemplary patience.
"Friend," he said, "what does thee seek of me, that thee treats me thus?"
"A fight!" replied Captain Stackpole, uttering a war-whoop; "a fight,
strannger, for the love of heaven!"
"Thee seeks it of the wrong person," said Nathan; "and I beg thee will
get thee away,"
"What!" said Stackpole, "arn't thee the Pennsylvanny war-horse, the
screamer of the meeting-house, the ba'r of Yea-Nay-and-Verily?"
"I am a man of peace," said the submissive Slaughter.
"Yea verily, verily and yea!" cried Ralph, snuffling through the
nostrils, but assuming an air of extreme indignation: "Strannger, I've
heerd of you! You're the man that holds it agin duty and conscience to
kill Injuns, the redskin screamers--that refuses to defend the women, the
splendiferous creatur's! and the little children, the squall-a-baby
d'avs! And wharfo'? Bec'ause as how you're a man of peace and no fight,
you superiferous, long-legged, no-souled crittur! But I'm the gentleman
to make a man of you. So down with your gun, and 'tarnal death to me,
I'll whip the cowardly devil out of you."
"Friend," said Nathan, his humility yielding to a feeling of contempt,
"thee is theeself a cowardly person, or thee wouldn't seek a quarrel with
one thee knows can't fight thee Thee would not be so ready with thee
match."
With that, he stooped to gather up his skins, a proceeding that
Stackpole, against whom the laugh was turned by this sally of Nathan's,
resisted by catching him by the nape of the neck, twirling him round, and
making as if he really would have beaten him.
Even this the peaceful Nathan bore without anger or murmuring; but his
patience fled, when Stackpole, turning to the little dog, which was
bristling its back and growling, expressed a half inclination to take up
its master's quarrel, applied his foot to its ribs with a violence that
sent it rolling some five or six yards down the hill, where it lay for a
time yelping and whining with pain.
"Friend!" said Nathan, sternly, "thee is but a dog theeself, to harm the
creature! What will thee have with me?"
"A fight! a fight, I tell thee!" replied Captain Ralph, "till I teach thy
leatherified conscience the new doctrines of Kentucky."
"Fight thee I cannot and dare not," said Nathan; and then added, much to
the surprise of Forrester, who, sharing, his indignation at the brutality
of his tormentor, had approached to drive the fellow off,--"But if thee
must have thee deserts, thee _shall_ have them.--Thee prides theeself
upon thee courage and strength--will thee adventure with me a friendly
fall?"
"Hurrah for Nathan!" cried the young men, vastly delighted at his
unwonted spirit, while Captain Ralph himself expressed his pleasure, by
leaping into the air, crowing, and dashing off his hat, which he kicked
down the hill with as much good will as he had previously bestowed upon
the little dog.
"Off with your leather night-cap, and down with your rifle," he cried,
giving his own weapon into the hands of a looker-on, "and scrape some of
the grease off your jacket; for, 'tarnal death to me, I shall give you
the Virginny lock, fling you head-fo'most, and you'll find yourself, in a
twinkling, sticking fast right in the centre of the 'arth!"
"Thee may find theeself mistaken," said Nathan, giving up his gun to one
of the young men, but instead of rejecting his hat, pulling it down tight
over his brows. "There is locks taught among the mountains of Bedford
that may be as good as them learned on the hills of Virginia.--I am ready
for thee."
"Cock-a-doodle-doo!" cried Ralph Stackpole, springing towards his man,
and clapping his hands, one on Nathan's left shoulder, the other on his
right hip: "Are you ready?"
"I am," replied Nathan.
"Down, then, you go, war you a buffalo!" And with that the captain of the
horse-thieves put forth his strength, which was very great, in an effort
that appeared to Roland quite irresistible; though, as it happened, it
scarce moved Nathan from his position.
"Thee is mistaken, friend!" he cried, exerting his strength in return,
and with an effect that no one had anticipated. By magic, as it seemed,
the heels of the captain of the horse-thieves were suddenly seen flying
in the air, his head aiming at the earth, upon which it as suddenly
descended with the violence of a bomb-shell; and there it would doubtless
have burrowed, like the aforesaid implement of destruction, had the soil
been soft enough for the purpose, or exploded into a thousand fragments,
had not the shell been double the thickness of an ordinary skull.
"Huzza! Bloody Nathan for ever!" shouted the delighted villagers.
"He has killed the man," said Forrester; "but bear witness, all, the
fellow provoked his fate."
"Thanks to you, strannger! but not so dead as you reckon," said Ralph,
rising to his feet, and scratching his poll, with a stare of comical
confusion. "I say, strannger, here's my shoulders,--but whar's my
head?--Do you reckon I had the worst of it?"
"Huzza for Nathan Slaughter! He has whipped the ramping tiger of Salt
River!" cried the young men of the Station.
"Well, I reckon he has," said the magnanimous Captain Ralph, picking
up his hat: then walking up to Nathan, who had taken his dog into his
arms, to examine into the little animal's hurts, he cried, with much
good-humoured energy,--"Thar's my fo'paw, in token I've had enough of you
and want no mo'. But I say, Nathan Slaughter," he added, as he grasped
the victor's hand, "it's no thing you can boast of, to be the strongest
man in Kentucky, and the most sevagarous at a tussel,--h'yar among
murdering Injuns and scalping runnegades,--and keep your fists off their
top-knots. Thar's my idear: for I go for the doctrine that every
able-bodied man should sarve his country and his neighbours, and fight
their foes; and them that does is men and gentlemen, and them that don't
is cowards and rascals, that's my idear. And so, fawwell."
Then, executing another demivolte or two, but with much less spirit than
he had previously displayed, he returned to Colonel Bruce, saying,
"Whar's that horse you promised me, cunnel? I'm a licked man, and I can't
stay here no longer, no way no how. Lend me a hoss, cunnel, and trust to
my honour."
"You shall have a beast," said Bruce, coolly; "but as to trusting your
honour, I shall do no such thing, having something much better to rely
on. Tom will show you a horse; and, remember, you are to leave him at
Logan's. If you carry him a step further, captain, you'll never carry
another. Judge Lynch is looking at you; and so bewar'."
Having uttered this hint, he left the captian of horse-thieves to digest
it as he might, and stepped up to Nathan, who had seated himself on a
stump, where, with his skins at his side, his little dog and his rifle
betwixt his legs, he sat enduring a thousand sarcastic encomiums on his
strength and spirit, with as many sharp denunciations of the peaceful
principles that robbed the community of the services he had shown himself
so well able to render. The doctrine, so eloquently avowed by Captain
Ralph, that it was incumbent upon every able-bodied man to fight the
enemies of their little state, the murderers of their wives and children,
was a canon of belief imprinted on the heart of every man in the
district; and Nathan's failure to do so, however caused by his
conscientious aversion to bloodshed, no more excused him from contempt
and persecution in the wilderness, than it did others of his persuasion
in the Eastern republics, during the war of the revolution. His
appearance, accordingly, at any Station, was usually the signal for
reproach and abuse; the fear of which had driven him almost altogether
from the society of his fellowmen, so that he was seldom seen among them,
except when impelled by necessity, or when his wanderings in the woods
had acquainted him with the proximity of the foes of his persecutors. His
victory over the captain of horse-thieves exposed him, on this occasion,
to ruder and angrier remonstrances than usual; which having sought in
vain to avert, he sat down in despair, enduring all in silence, staring
from one to another of his tormentors with lack-lustre eyes, and playing
with the silken hair of his dog. The approach of the captain of the
Station procured him an interval of peace, which he, however, employed
only to communicate his troubles to the little cur, that, in his
perplexity, he had addressed pretty much as he would have addressed a
human friend and adviser: "Well, Peter," said he, abstractedly, and with
a heavy sigh, "what does _thee_ think of matters and things!" To which
question, the ridiculousness of which somewhat mollified the anger of the
young men, Peter replied by rubbing his nose against his master's hand,
and by walking a step or two down the hill, as if advising an instant
retreat from the inhospitable Station.
"Ay, Peter," muttered Nathan, "the sooner we go the better; for there are
none that makes us welcome. But nevertheless, Peter, we must have our
lead and our powder; and we must tell these poor people the news."
"And pray, Nathan," said Colonel Bruce, rousing him from his meditations,
"what may your news for the poor people be? I reckon it will be much
wiser to tell it to me than that 'ar brute dog. You have seen the
Jibbenainosay, perhaps, or his mark thar-away on the Kentucky?"
"Nay," said Nathan. "But there is news from the Injun towns of a great
gathering of Injuns with their men of war in the Miami villages, who
design, the evil creatures, marching into the district of Kentucky with a
greater army than was ever seen in the land before."
"Let them come, the brutes," said the Kentuckian, with a laugh of scorn;
"it will save us the trouble of hunting them up in their own towns."
"Nay," said Nathan, "but perhaps they _have_ come; for the prisoner who
escaped, and who is bearing the news to friend Clark, the General at the
Falls, says they were to march two days after he fled from them."
"And whar did you learn this precious news?"
"At the lower fort of Kentucky, and from the man himself," said Nathan.
"He had warned the settlers at Lexington--"
"That's piper's news," interrupted one of the young men. "Captain Ralph
told us all about that; but he said thar war nobody at Lexington believed
the story."
"Then," said Nathan, meekly, "it may be that the man was mistaken. Yet
persons should have a care, for there is Injun sign all along the
Kentucky. But that is my story. And now, friend Thomas, if thee will give
me lead and powder for my skins, I will be gone, and trouble thee no
longer."
"It's a sin and a shame to waste them on a man who only employs them to
kill deer, b'ar, and turkey," said Bruce, "yet a man musn't starve, even
whar he's a quaker. So go you along with my son Dick thar, to the store,
and he'll give you the value of your plunder. A poor, miserable brute,
thar's no denying," he continued, contemptuously, as Nathan, obeying the
direction, followed Bruce's second son into the fortress. "The man has
some spirit now and then; but whar's the use of it, while he's nothing
but a no-fight quaker? I tried to reason him out of his notions; but thar
war no use in trying, no how I could work it. I have an idea about these
quakers--"
But here, luckily, the worthy Colonel's idea was suddenly put to flight
by the appearance of Telie Doe, who came stealing through the throng, to
summon him to his evening meal,--a call which neither he nor his guest
was indisposed to obey; and taking Telie by the hand in a paternal
manner, he ushered the young soldier back into the fort.
The girl, Roland observed, had changed her attire at the bidding of her
protector, and now, though dressed with the greatest simplicity, appeared
to more advantage than before. He thought her, indeed, quite handsome,
and pitying her more than orphan condition, he endeavoured to show her
such kindness as was in his power, by addressing to her some
complimentary remarks, as he walked along at her side. His words,
however, only revived the terror she seemed really to experience,
whenever any one accosted her; seeing which, he desisted, doubting if she
deserved the compliment the benevolent Bruce had so recently paid to her
good sense.