At an early hour he commenced the work of preparation: he had little trouble in this respect. He studiously selected from his wardrobe such portions of it as had been the gift of his uncle, all of which he carefully excluded from among the contents of the little portmanteau which readily comprised the residue. His travelling-dress was quickly adjusted; and not omitting a fine pair of pistols and a dirk, which, at that period, were held in the south and southwest legitimate companions, he found few other cares for arrangement. One token alone of Edith—a small miniature linked with his own, taken a few seasons before, when both were children, by a strolling artist—suspended by a chain of the richest gold, was carefully hung about his neck. It grew in value, to his mind, at a moment when he was about to separate, perhaps for ever, from its sweet original.

At midnight, when all was silent—his portmanteau under his arm—booted, spurred, and ready for travel—Ralph descended to the lower story, in which slept the chief servant of the house. Caesar was a favorite with the youth, and he had no difficulty in making himself understood. The worthy black was thunderstruck with his determination.

"Ky! Mass Ralph, how you talk! what for you go dis time o'night? What for you go 'tall?"

The youth satisfied him, in a manner as evasive and brief as possible, and urged him in the preparation of his steed for the journey. But the worthy negro absolutely refused to sanction the proceeding unless he were permitted to go along with him. He used not a few strong arguments for this purpose.

"And what we all for do here, when you leff? 'speck ebbery ting be dull, wuss nor ditch-water. No more fun—no more shuffle-foot. Old maussa no like de fiddle, and nebber hab party and jollication like udder people. Don't tink I can stay here, Mass Ra'ph, after you gone; 'spose, you no 'jection, I go 'long wid you? You leff me, I take to de swamp, sure as a gun."

"No, Caesar, you are not mine; you belong to your young mistress. You must stay and wait upon her."

"Ha!" was the quick response of the black, with a significant smirk upon his lip, and with a cunning emphasis; "enty I see; wha' for I hab eye ef I no see wid em? I 'speck young misses hab no 'jection for go too—eh, Mass Ra'ph! all you hab for do is for ax em!"

The eye of the youth danced with a playful light, as if a new thought, and not a disagreeable one, had suddenly broken in upon his brain; but the expression lasted but for an instant He overruled all the hopes and wishes of the sturdy black, who, at length, with a manner the most desponding, proceeded to the performance of the required duty. A few moments sufficed, and with a single look to the window of his mistress, which spoke unseen volumes of love, leaving an explanatory letter for the perusal of father and daughter, though addressed only to the latter—he gave the rough hand of his sable friend a cordial pressure, and was soon hidden from sight by the thickly-spreading foliage of the long avenue. The reader has been already apprized that the youth, whose escape in a preceding chapter we have already narrated, and Ralph Colleton, are one and the same person.

He had set forth, as we have seen, under the excitation of feelings strictly natural; but which, subtracting from the strong common sense belonging to his character, had led him prematurely into an adventure, having no distinct purposes, and promising largely of difficulty. What were his thoughts of the future, what his designs, we are not prepared to say. His character was of a firm and independent kind; and the probability is, that, looking to the profession of the law, in the study of which noble science his mind had been for some time occupied, he had contemplated its future practice in those portions of Tennessee in which his father had been known, and where he himself had passed some very pleasant years of his own life. With economy, a moderate talent, and habits of industry, he was well aware that, in those regions, the means of life are with little difficulty attainable by those who are worthy and will adventure. Let us now return to the wayfarer, whom we have left in that wildest region of the then little-settled state of Georgia—doubly wild as forming the debatable land between the savage and the civilized—partaking of the ferocity of the one and the skill, cunning, and cupidity of the other.



CHAPTER V.

MARK FORRESTER—THE GOLD VILLAGE.

There were moments when Ralph Colleton, as he lay bruised and wounded upon the sward, in those wild woods, and beneath the cool canopy of heaven, was conscious of his situation, of its exposure and its perils—moments, when he strove to recover himself—to shake off the stupor which seemed to fetter his limbs as effectually as it paralyzed his thoughts;—and the renewed exercise of his mental energies, brought about, and for a little while sustained, an increased consciousness, which perhaps rather added to his pain. It taught him his own weakness, when he strove vainly to support himself against the tree to which he had crawled; and in despair, the acuteness of which was only relieved by the friendly stupor which came to his aid, arising from the loss of blood, he closed his eyes, and muttering a brief sentence, which might have been a prayer, he resigned himself to his fate.

But he was not thus destined to perish. He had not lain many minutes in this situation when the tones of a strong voice rang through the forest. There was a whoop and halloo, and then a catch of a song, and then a shrill whistle, all strangely mingled together, finally settling down into a rude strain, which, coming from stentorian lungs, found a ready echo in every jutting rock and space of wood for a mile round. The musician went on merrily from verse to verse of his forest minstrelsy as he continued to approach; describing in his strain, with a ready ballad-facility, the numberless pleasures to be found in the life of the woodman. Uncouthly, and in a style partaking rather more of the savage than the civilized taste and temper, it enumerated the distinct features of each mode of life with much ingenuity and in stanzas smartly epigrammatic, did not hesitate to assign the preference to the former.

As the new-comer approached the spot where Ralph Colleton lay, there was still a partial though dim light over the forest. The twilight was richly clear, and there were some faint yellow lines of the sun's last glances lingering still on the remote horizon. The moon, too, in the opposite sky, about to come forth, had sent before her some few faint harbingers of her approach; and it was not difficult for the sturdy woodman to discern the body of the traveller, lying, as it did, almost in his path. A few paces farther on stood his steed, cropping the young grass, and occasionally, with uplifted head, looking round with something like human wonderment, for the assertion of that authority which heretofore had him in charge. At the approach of the stranger he did not start, but, seeming conscious of some change for the better in his own prospects, he fell again to work upon the herbage as if no interruption had occurred to his repast.

The song of the woodman ceased as he discovered the body. With an exclamation, he stooped down to examine it, and his hands were suffused with the blood which had found its way through the garments. He saw that life was not extinct, and readily supposing the stupor the consequence of loss of blood rather than of vital injury, he paused a few moments as in seeming meditation, then turning from the master to his unreluctant steed, he threw himself upon his back, and was quickly out of sight. He soon returned, bringing with him a wagon and team, such as all farmers possess in that region, and lifting the inanimate form into the rude vehicle with a tender caution that indicated a true humanity, walking slowly beside the horses, and carefully avoiding all such obstructions in the road, as by disordering the motion would have given pain to the sufferer, he carried him safely, and after the delay of a few hours, into the frontier, and then almost unknown, village of Chestatee.

It was well for the youth that he had fallen into such hands. There were few persons in that part of the world like Mark Forrester. A better heart, or more honorable spirit, lived not; and in spite of an erring and neglected education—of evil associations, and sometimes evil pursuits—he was still a worthy specimen of manhood. We may as well here describe him, as he appears to us; for at this period the youth was still insensible—unconscious of his deliverance as he was of his deliverer.

Mark Forrester was a stout, strongly-built, yet active person, some six feet in height, square and broad-shouldered—exhibiting an outline, wanting, perhaps, in some of the more rounded graces of form, yet at the same time far from symmetrical deficiency. There was, also, not a little of ease and agility, together with a rude gracefulness in his action, the result equally of the well-combined organization of his animal man and of the hardy habits of his woodland life. His appearance was youthful, and the passing glance would perhaps have rated him at little more than six or seven-and-twenty. His broad, full chest, heaving strongly with a consciousness of might—together with the generally athletic muscularity of his whole person—indicated correctly the possession of prodigious strength. His face was finely southern. His features were frank and fearless—moderately intelligent, and well marked—the tout ensemble showing an active vitality, strong, and usually just feelings, and a good-natured freedom of character, which enlisted confidence, and seemed likely to acknowledge few restraints of a merely conventional kind. Nor, in any of these particulars, did the outward falsely interpret the inward man. With the possession of a giant's powers, he was seldom so far borne forward by his impulses, whether of pride or of passion, as to permit of their wanton or improper use. His eye, too, had a not unpleasing twinkle, promising more of good-fellowship and a heart at ease than may ever consort with the jaundiced or distempered spirit. His garb indicated, in part, and was well adapted to the pursuits of the hunter and the labors of the woodman. We couple these employments together, for, in the wildernesses of North America, the dense forests, and broad prairies, they are utterly inseparable. In a belt, made of buckskin, which encircled his middle, was stuck, in a sheath of the same material, a small axe, such as, among the Indians, was well known to the early settlers as a deadly implement of war. The head of this instrument, or that portion of it opposite the blade, and made in weight to correspond with and balance the latter when hurled from the hand, was a pick of solid steel, narrowing down to a point, and calculated, with a like blow, to prove even more fatal, as a weapon in conflict, than the more legitimate member to which it was appended. A thong of ox-hide, slung over his shoulder, supported easily a light rifle of the choicest bore; for there are few matters indeed upon which the wayfarer in the southern wilds exercises a nicer and more discriminating taste than in the selection of a companion, in a pursuit like his, of the very last importance; and which, in time, he learns to love with a passion almost comparable to his love of woman. The dress of the woodman was composed of a coarse gray stuff, of a make sufficiently outre, but which, fitting him snugly, served to set off his robust and well-made person to the utmost advantage. A fox-skin cap, of domestic manufacture, the tail of which, studiously preserved, obviated any necessity for a foreign tassel, rested slightly upon his head, giving a unique finish to his appearance, which a fashionable hat would never have supplied. Such was the personage, who, so fortunately for Ralph, plied his craft in that lonely region; and who, stumbling upon his insensible form at nightfall, as already narrated, carefully conveyed him to his own lodgings at the village-inn of Chestatee.

The village, or town—for such it was in the acceptation of the time and country—may well deserve some little description; not for its intrinsic importance, but because it will be found to resemble some ten out of every dozen of the country towns in all the corresponding region. It consisted of thirty or forty dwellings, chiefly of logs; not, however, so immediately in the vicinity of one another as to give any very decided air of regularity and order to their appearance. As usual, in all the interior settlements of the South and West, wherever an eligible situation presented itself, the squatter laid the foundation-logs of his dwelling, and proceeded to its erection. No public squares, and streets laid out by line and rule, marked conventional progress in an orderly and methodical society; but, regarding individual convenience as the only object in arrangements of this nature, they took little note of any other, and to them less important matters. They built where the land rose into a ridge of moderate and gradual elevation, commanding a long reach of prospect; where a good spring threw out its crystal waters, jetting, in winter and summer alike, from the hillside or the rock; or, in its absence, where a fair branch, trickling over a bed of small and yellow pebbles, kept up a perpetually clear and undiminishing current; where the groves were thick and umbrageous; and lastly, but not less important than either, where agues and fevers came not, bringing clouds over the warm sunshine, and taking all the hue, and beauty, and odor from the flower. Those considerations were at all times the most important to the settler when the place of his abode was to be determined upon; and, with these advantages at large, the company of squatters, of whom Mark Forrester, made one, by no means the least important among them, had regularly, for the purposes of gold-digging, colonized the little precinct into which we have now ventured to penetrate.

Before we advance farther in our narrative, it may be quite as well to say, that the adventurers of which this wild congregation was made up were impelled to their present common centre by motives and influences as various as the differing features of their several countenances. They came, not only from parts of the surrounding country, but many of them from all parts of the surrounding world; oddly and confusedly jumbled together; the very olla-podrida of moral and mental combination. They were chiefly those to whom the ordinary operations of human trade or labor had proved tedious or unproductive—with whom the toils, aims, and impulses of society were deficient of interest; or, upon whom, an inordinate desire of a sudden to acquire wealth had exercised a sufficiently active influence to impel to the novel employment of gold-finding—or rather gold-seeking, for it was not always that the search was successful—the very name of such a pursuit carrying with it to many no small degree of charm and persuasion. To these, a wholesome assortment of other descriptions may be added, of character and caste such as will be found ordinarily to compose everywhere the frontier and outskirts of civilization, as rejected by the wholesome current, and driven, like the refuse and the scum of the waters, in confused stagnation to their banks and margin. Here, alike, came the spendthrift and the indolent, the dreamer and the outlaw, congregating, though guided by contradictory impulses, in the formation of a common caste, and the pursuit of a like object—some with the view to profit and gain; others, simply from no alternative being left them; and that of gold-seeking, with a better sense than their neighbors, being in their own contemplation, truly, a dernier resort.

The reader can better conceive than we describe, the sorts of people, passions, and pursuits, herding thus confusedly together; and with these various objects. Others, indeed, came into the society, like the rude but honest woodman to whom we have already afforded an introduction, almost purely from a spirit of adventure, that, growing impatient of the confined boundaries of its birthplace, longs to tread new regions and enjoy new pleasures and employments. A spirit, we may add, the same, or not materially differing from that, which, at an earlier period of human history, though in a condition of society not dissimilar, begot the practices denominated, by a most licentious courtesy, those of chivalry.

But, of whatever stuff the morale of this people may have been made up, it is not less certain than natural that the mixture was still incoherent—the parts had not yet grown together. Though ostensibly in the pursuit of the same interest and craft, they had anything but a like fortune, and the degree of concert and harmony which subsisted between them was but shadowy and partial. A mass so heterogeneous in its origin and tendency might not so readily amalgamate. Strife, discontent, and contention, were not unfrequent; and the laborers at the same instrument, mutually depending on each other, not uncommonly came to blows over it. The successes of any one individual—for, as yet, their labors were unregulated by arrangement, and each worked on his own score—procured for him the hate and envy of some of the company, while it aroused the ill-disguised dissatisfaction of all; and nothing was of more common occurrence, than, when striking upon a fruitful and productive section, even among those interested in the discovery, to find it a disputed dominion. Copartners no longer, a division of the spoils, when accumulated, was usually terminated by a resort to blows; and the bold spirit and the strong hand, in this way, not uncommonly acquired the share for which the proprietor was too indolent to toil in the manner of his companions.

The issue of these conflicts, as may be imagined, was sometimes wounds and bloodshed, and occasionally death: the field, we need scarcely add—since this is the history of all usurpation—remaining, in every such case, in possession of the party proving itself most courageous or strong. Nor need this history surprise—it is history, veracious and sober history of a period, still within recollection, and of events of almost recent occurrence. The wild condition of the country—the absence of all civil authority, and almost of laws, certainly of officers sufficiently daring to undertake their honest administration, and shrinking from the risk of incurring, in the performance of their duties, the vengeance of those, who, though disagreeing among themselves, at all times made common cause against the ministers of justice as against a common enemy—may readily account for the frequency and impunity with which these desperate men committed crime and defied its consequences.

But we are now fairly in the centre of the village—a fact of which, in the case of most southern and western villages, it is necessary in so many words to apprize the traveller. In those parts, the scale by which towns are laid out is always magnificent. The founders seem to have calculated usually upon a population of millions; and upon spots and sporting-grounds, measurable by the olympic coursers, and the ancient fields of combat, when scythes and elephants and chariots made the warriors, and the confused cries of a yelping multitude composed the conflict itself. There was no want of room, no risk of narrow streets and pavements, no deficiency of area in the formation of public squares. The houses scattered around the traveller, dotting at long and infrequent intervals the ragged wood which enveloped them, left few stirring apprehensions of their firing one another. The forest, where the land was not actually built upon, stood up in its primitive simplicity undishonored by the axe.

Such was the condition of the settlement at the period when our hero so unconsciously entered it. It was night, and the lamps of the village were all in full blaze, illuminating with an effect the most picturesque and attractive the fifty paces immediately encircling them. Each dwelling boasted of this auxiliary and attraction; and in this particular but few cities afford so abundantly the materials for a blaze as our country villages. Three or four slight posts are erected at convenient distances from each other in front of the building—a broad scaffold, sufficiently large for the purpose, is placed upon them, on which a thick coat of clay is plastered; at evening, a pile is built upon this, of dry timber and the rich pine which overruns and mainly marks the forests of the south. These piles, in a blaze, serve the nightly strollers of the settlement as guides and beacons, and with their aid Forrester safely wound his way into the little village of Chestatee.

Forming a square in the very centre of the town, a cluster of four huge fabrics, in some sort sustained the pretensions of the settlement to this epithet. This ostentatious collection, some of the members of which appeared placed there rather for show than service, consisted of the courthouse, the jail, the tavern, and the shop of the blacksmith—the two last-mentioned being at all times the very first in course of erection, and the essential nucleus in the formation of the southern and western settlement. The courthouse and the jail, standing directly opposite each other, carried in their faces a family outline of sympathetic and sober gravity. There had been some effect at pretension in their construction, both being cumbrously large, awkward, and unwieldy; and occupying, as they did, the only portion of the village which had been stripped of its forest covering, bore an aspect of mutual and ludicrous wildness and vacancy. They had both been built upon a like plan and equal scale; and the only difference existing between them, but one that was immediately perceptible to the eye, was the superfluous abundance of windows in the former, and their deficiency in the latter. A moral agency had most probably prompted the architect to the distinction here hit upon—and he felt, doubtless, in admitting free access to the light in the house of justice, and in excluding it almost entirely from that of punishment, that he had recognised the proprieties of a most excellent taste and true judgment. These apertures, clumsily wrought in the logs of which the buildings were made, added still more to their generally uncouth appearance. There was yet, however, another marked difference between the courthouse and jail, which we should not omit to notice. The former had the advantage of its neighbor, in being surmounted by a small tower or cupola, in which a bell of moderate size hung suspended, permitted to speak only on such important occasions as the opening of court, sabbath service, and the respective anniversaries of the birthday of Washington and the Declaration of Independence. This building, thus distinguished above its fellows, served also all the purposes of a place of worship, whenever some wandering preacher found his way into the settlement; an occurrence, at the time we write, of very occasional character. To each of the four vast walls of the jail, in a taste certainly not bad, if we consider the design and character of the fabric, but a single window was allotted—that too of the very smallest description for human uses, and crossed at right angles with rude and slender bars of iron, the choicest specimens of workmanship from the neighboring smithy. The distance between each of these four equally important buildings was by no means inconsiderable, if we are required to make the scale for our estimate, that of the cramped and diminished limits accorded to like places in the cities, where men and women appear to increase in due proportion as the field lessens upon which they must encounter in the great struggle for existence. Though neighbors in every substantial respect, the four fabrics were most uncharitably remote, and stood frowning gloomily at one another—scarcely relieved of the cheerless and sombre character of their rough outsides, even when thus brightly illuminated by the glare thrown upon them by the several blazes, flashing out upon the scene from the twin lamps in front of the tavern, through whose wide and unsashed windows an additional lustre, as of many lights, gave warm indications of life and good lodgings within. At a point equidistant from, and forming one of the angles of the same square with each of these, the broader glare from the smith's furnace streamed in bright lines across the plain between, pouring through the unclayed logs of the hovel, in which, at his craft, the industrious proprietor was even then busily employed. Occasionally, the sharp click of his hammer, ringing upon and resounding from the anvil, and a full blast from the capacious bellows, indicated the busy animation, if not the sweet concert, the habitual cheerfulness and charm, of a more civilized and better regulated society.

Nor was the smith, at the moment of our entrance, the only noisy member of the little village. The more pretending establishment to which we are rapidly approaching, threw out its clamors, and the din of many voices gathered upon the breeze in wild and incoherent confusion. Deep bursts of laughter, and the broken stanza of an occasional catch roared out at intervals, promised something of relief to the dull mood; while, as the sounds grew more distinct, the quick ear of Forrester was enabled to distinguish the voices of the several revellers.

"There they are, in full blast," he muttered, "over a gallon of whiskey, and gulping it down as if 'twas nothing better than common water. But, what's the great fuss to-night? There's a crowd, I reckon, and they're a running their rigs on somebody."

Even Forrester was at a loss to account for their excess of hilarity to-night. Though fond of drink, and meeting often in a crowd, they were few of them of a class—using his own phrase—"to give so much tongue over their liquors." The old toper and vagabond is usually a silent drinker. His amusements, when in a circle, and with a bottle before him, are found in cards and dice. His cares, at such a period, are too considerate to suffer him to be noisy. Here, in Chestatee, Forrester well knew that a crowd implied little good-fellowship. The ties which brought the gold-seekers and squatters together were not of a sort to produce cheerfulness and merriment. Their very sports were savage, and implied a sort of fun which commonly gave pain to somebody. He wondered, accordingly, as he listened to yells of laughter, and discordant shouts of hilarity; and he grew curious about the occasion of uproar.

"They're poking fun at some poor devil, that don't quite see what they're after."

A nearer approach soon gave him a clue to the mystery; but all his farther speculations upon it were arrested, by a deep groan from the wounded man, and a writhing movement in the bottom of the wagon, as the wheel rolled over a little pile of stones in the road.

Forrester's humanity checked his curiosity. He stooped to the sufferer, composed his limbs upon the straw, and, as the vehicle, by this time, had approached the tavern, he ordered the wagoner to drive to the rear of the building, that the wounded man might lose, as much as possible, the sounds of clamor which steadily rose from the hall in front. When the wagon stopped, he procured proper help, and, with the tenderest care, assisted to bear our unconscious traveller from the vehicle, into the upper story of the house, where he gave him his own bed, left him in charge of an old negro, and hurried away in search of that most important person of the place, the village-doctor.



CHAPTER VI.

CODE AND PRACTICE OF THE REGULATORS.

Forrester was fleet of foot, and the village-doctor not far distant. He was soon procured, and, prompt of practice, the hurts of Ralph Colleton were found to be easily medicable. The wound was slight, the graze of a bullet only, cutting some smaller blood-vessels, and it was only from the loss of blood that insensibility had followed. The moderate skill of our country-surgeon was quite equal to the case, and soon enabled him to put the mind of Mark Forrester, who was honestly and humanely anxious, at perfect rest on the subject of his unknown charge. With the dressing of his wound, and the application of restoratives, the consciousness of the youth returned, and he was enabled to learn how he had been discovered, where he was, and to whom he was indebted for succor in the moment of his insensibility.

Ralph Colleton, of course, declared his gratitude in warm and proper terms; but, as enjoined by the physician, he was discouraged from all unnecessary speech. But he was not denied to listen, and Forrester was communicative, as became his frank face and honest impulses. The brief questions of Ralph obtained copious answers; and, for an hour, the woodman cheered the solitude of his chamber, by the narration of such matters as were most likely to interest his hearer, in respect to the new region where he was, perforce, kept a prisoner. Of Chestatee, and the people thereof, their employment, and the resources of the neighborhood, Forrester gave a pretty correct account; though he remained prudently silent in regard to the probable parties to that adventure in which his hearer had received his hurt.

From speaking of these subjects, the transition was natural to the cause of uproar going on below stairs. The sounds of the hubbub penetrated the chamber of the wounded man, and he expressed some curiosity in respect to it. This was enough for the woodman, who had partially informed himself, by a free conversation with the wagoner who drove the vehicle which brought Ralph to the tavern. He had caught up other details as he hurried to and fro, when he ran for the doctor. He was thus prepared to satisfy the youth's inquiry.

"Well, squire, did you ever see a live Yankee?"

The youth smiled, answering affirmatively.

"He's a pedler, you know, and that means a chap what can wheedle the eyes out of your head, the soul out of your body, the gould out of your pocket, and give you nothing but brass, and tin, and copper, in the place of 'em. Well, all the hubbub you hear is jest now about one of these same Yankee pedlers. The regilators have caught the varmint—one Jared Bunce, as he calls himself—and a more cunning, rascally, presumptious critter don't come out of all Connecticut. He's been a cheating and swindling all the old women round the country. He'll pay for it now, and no mistake. The regilators caught him about three hours ago, and they've brought him here for judgment and trial. They've got a jury setting on his vartues, and they'll hammer the soul out of him afore they let him git out from under the iron. I don't reckon they kin cure him, for what's bred in the bone, you know, won't come out of the flesh; but they'll so bedevil bone and flesh, that I reckon he'll be the last Yankee that ever comes to practice again in this Chestatee country. Maybe, he ain't deserving of much worse than they kin do. Maybe, he ain't a scamp of the biggest wethers. His rascality ain't to be measured. Why, he kin walk through a man's pockets, jest as the devil goes through a crack or a keyhole, and the money will naterally stick to him, jest as ef he was made of gum turpentine. His very face is a sort of kining [coining] machine. His look says dollars and cents; and its always your dollars and cents, and he kines them out of your hands into his'n, jest with a roll of his eye, and a mighty leetle turn of his finger. He cheats in everything, and cheats everybody. Thar's not an old woman in the country that don't say her prayers back'ards when she thinks of Jared Bunce. Thar's his tin-wares and his wood-wares—his coffeepots and kettles, all put together with saft sodder—that jest go to pieces, as ef they had nothing else to do. And he kin blarney you so—and he's so quick at a mortal lie—and he's got jest a good reason for everything—and he's so sharp at a 'scuse [excuse] that it's onpossible to say where he's gwine to have you, and what you're a gwine to lose, and how you'll get off at last, and in what way he'll cheat you another time. He's been at this business, in these diggings, now about three years. The regilators have swore a hundred times to square off with him; but he's always got off tell now; sometimes by new inventions—sometimes by bible oaths—and last year, by regilarly cutting dirt [flight]. He's hardly a chance to git cl'ar now, for the regilators are pretty much up to all his tricks, and he's mighty nigh to ride a rail for a colt, and get new scores ag'in old scores, laid on with the smartest hickories in natur'."

"And who are the regulators?" asked the youth, languidly.

"What! you from Georgy, and never to hear tell of the regilators? Why, that's the very place, I reckon, where the breed begun. The regilators are jest then, you see, our own people. We hain't got much law and justice in these pairts, and when the rascals git too sassy and plentiful, we all turn out, few or many, and make a business of cleaning out the stables. We turn justices, and sheriffs, and lawyers, and settle scores with the growing sinners. We jine, hand in hand, agin such a chap as Jared Bunce, and set in judgment upon his evil-doings. It's a regilar court, though we make it up ourselves, and app'ints our own judges and juries, and pass judgment 'cordin' to the case. Ef it's the first offence, or only a small one, we let's the fellow off with only a taste of the hickory. Ef it's a tough case, and an old sinner, we give him a belly-full. Ef the whole country's roused, then Judge Lynch puts on his black cap, and the rascal takes a hard ride on a rail, a duck in the pond, and a perfect seasoning of hickories, tell thar ain't much left of him, or, may be, they don't stop to curry him, but jest halters him at once to the nearest swinging limb."

"Sharp justice! and which of these punishments will they be likely to bestow upon the Yankee?"

"Well thar's no telling; but I reckon he runs a smart chance of grazing agin the whole on 'em. They've got a long account agin him. In one way or t'other, he's swindled everybody with his notions. Some bought his clocks, which only went while the rogue stayed, and when he went they stopt forever. Some bought ready-made clothes, which went to pieces at the very sight of soap and water. He sold a fusee to old Jerry Seaborn, and warranted the piece, and it bursted into flinders, the very first fire, and tore little Jerry's hand and arm—son of old Jerry—almost to pieces. He'll never have the right use of it agin. And that ain't all. Thar's no counting up his offences."

"Bad as the fellow is, do you think it possible that they will torture him as you describe, or hang him, without law, and a fair trial?"

"Why, Lord love you, ha'n't I told you that he'll have a fair trial, afore the regilators, and thar'll be any number of witnesses, and judges, and sheriffs, and executioners. But, ef you know'd Bunce, you'd know that a fair trial is the very last marcy that he'd aix of Providence. Don't you think now that he'll git anything worse than his righteous desarvings. He's a fellow that's got no more of a saving soul in him than my whip-handle, and ain't half so much to be counted on in a fight. He's jest now nothing but a cheat and a swindle from head to foot; hain't got anything but cheat in him—hain't got room for any principle—-not enough either to git drunk with a friend, or have it out, in a fair fight, with his enemy. I shouldn't myself wish to see the fellow's throat cut, but I ain't slow to say that I shall go for his tasting a few hickories, after that a dip in the horsepond, and then a permit to leave the country by the shortest cut, and without looking behind him, under penalty of having the saft places on his back covered with the petticoats of Lot's wife, that we hear of in the Scriptures."

Ralph Colleton was somewhat oppressed with apathy, and he knew how idle would be any attempt to lessen the hostility of the sturdy woodman, in respect to the wretched class of traders, such as were described in Jared Bunce, by whom the simple and dependent borderers in the South and West, were shockingly imposed upon. He made but a feeble effort accordingly, in this direction, but was somewhat more earnest in insisting upon the general propriety of forbearance, in a practice which militated against law and order, and that justice should he administered only by the proper hands. But to this, Mark Forrester had his ready answer; and, indeed, our young traveller was speaking according to the social standards of a wholly different region.

"There, again, 'squire, you are quite out. The laws, somehow or other, can't touch these fellows. They run through the country a wink faster than the sheriff, and laugh at all the processes you send after them. So, you see, there's no justice, no how, unless you catch a rogue like this, and wind up with him for all the gang—for they're all alike, all of the same family, and it comes to the same thing in the end."

The youth answered languidly. He began to tire, and nature craved repose, and the physician had urged it. Forrester readily perceived that the listener's interest was flagging—nay he half fancied that much that he had been saying, and in his best style, had fallen upon drowsy senses. Nobody likes to have his best things thrown away, and, as the reader will readily conceive, our friend Forrester had a sneaking consciousness that all the world's eloquence did not cease on the day when Demosthenes died. But he was not the person to be offended because the patient desired to sleep. Far from it. He was only reasonable enough to suppose that this was the properest thing that the wounded man could do. And so he told him; and adjusting carefully the pillows of the youth, and disposing the bedclothes comfortably, and promising to see him again before he slept, our woodman bade him good night, and descended to the great hall of the tavern, where Jared Bunce was held in durance.

The luckless pedler was, in truth, in a situation in which, for the first time in his life, he coveted nothing. The peril was one, also, from which, thus far, his mother-wit, which seldom failed before, could suggest no means of evasion or escape. His prospect was a dreary one; though with the wonderful capacity for endurance, and the surprising cheerfulness, common to the class to which he belonged, he beheld it without dismay though with many apprehensions.

Justice he did not expect, nor, indeed, as Forrester has already told us, did he desire it. He asked for nothing less than justice. He was dragged before judges, all of whom had complaints to prefer, and injuries to redress; and none of whom were over-scrupulous as to the nature or measure of that punishment which was to procure them the desired atonement. The company was not so numerous as noisy. It consisted of some twenty persons, villagers as well as small farmers in the neighborhood, all of whom, having partaken ad libitum of the whiskey distributed freely about the table, which, in part, they surrounded, had, in the Indian phrase, more tongues than brains, and were sufficiently aroused by their potations to enter readily into any mischief. Some were smoking with all the industrious perseverance of the Hollander; others shouted forth songs in honor of the bottle, and with all the fervor and ferment of Bacchanalian novitiates; and not a few, congregating about the immediate person of the pedler, assailed his ears with threats sufficiently pregnant with tangible illustration to make him understand and acknowledge, by repeated starts and wincings, the awkward and uncomfortable predicament in which he stood. At length, the various disputants for justice, finding it difficult, if not impossible, severally, to command that attention which they conceived they merited, resolved themselves into something like a committee of the whole, and proceeded to the settlement of their controversy, and the pedler's fate, in a manner more suited to the importance of the occasion. Having procured that attention which was admitted to be the great object, more by the strength of his lungs than his argument, one of the company, who was dignified by the title of colonel, spoke out for the rest.

"I say, boys—'tisn't of any use, I reckon, for everybody to speak about what everybody knows. One speaker's quite enough in this here matter before us. Here's none of us that sha'n't something to say agin this pedler, and the doings of the grand scoundrel in and about these parts, for a matter going on now about three years. Why, everybody knows him, big and little; and his reputation is so now, that the very boys take his name to frighten away the crows with. Now, one person can jist as well make a plain statement as another. I know, of my own score, there's not one of my neighbors for ten miles round, that can't tell all about the rotten prints he put off upon my old woman; and I know myself of all the tricks he's played at odd times, more than a dozen, upon 'Squire Nichols there, and Tom Wescott, and Bob Snipes, and twenty others; and everybody knows them just as well as I. Now, to make up the score, and square off with the pedler, without any frustration, I move you that Lawyer Pippin take the chair, and judge in this matter; for the day has come for settling off accounts, and I don't see why we shouldn't be the regulators for Bunce, seeing that everybody agrees that he's a rogue, and a pestilence, and desarves regilation."

This speech was highly applauded, and chimed in admirably with all prejudices, and the voice that called Lawyer Pippin to preside over the deliberations of the assembly was unanimous. The gentleman thus highly distinguished, was a dapper and rather portly little personage, with sharp twinkling eyes, a ruby and remarkable nose, a double chin, retreating forehead, and corpulent cheek. He wore green glasses of a dark, and a green coat of a light, complexion. The lawyer was the only member of the profession living in the village, had no competitor save when the sitting of the court brought in one or more from neighboring settlements, and, being thus circumstanced, without opposition, and the only representative of his craft, he was literally, to employ the slang phrase in that quarter, the "cock of the walk." He was, however, not so much regarded by the villagers a worthy as a clever man. It required not erudition to win the credit of profundity, and the lawyer knew how to make the most of his learning among those who had none. Like many other gentlemen of erudition, he was grave to a proverb when the occasion required it, and would not be seen to laugh out of the prescribed place, though "Nestor swore the jest was laughable." He relied greatly on saws and sayings—could quote you the paradoxes of Johnson and the infidelities of Hume without always understanding them, and mistook, as men of that kind and calibre are very apt to do, the capacity to repeat the grave absurdities of others as a proof of something in himself. His business was not large, however, and among the arts of his profession, and as a means for supplying the absence of more legitimate occasions for its employment, he was reputed as excessively expert in making the most of any difficulty among his neighbors. The egg of mischief and controversy was hardly laid, before the worthy lawyer, with maternal care, came clucking about it; he watched and warmed it without remission; and when fairly hatched, he took care that the whole brood should be brought safely into court, his voice, and words, and actions, fully attesting the deep interest in their fortunes which he had manifested from the beginning. Many a secret slander, ripening at length into open warfare, had been traced to his friendly influence, either ab ovo, or at least from the perilous period in such cases when the very existence of the embryo relies upon the friendly breath, the sustaining warmth, and the occasional stimulant. Lawyer Pippin, among his neighbors, was just the man for such achievements, and they gave him, with a degree of shrewdness common to them as a people, less qualified credit for the capacity which he at all times exhibited in bringing a case into, than in carrying it out of court. But this opinion in nowise affected the lawyer's own estimate of his pretensions. Next to being excessively mean, he was excessively vain, and so highly did he regard his own opinions, that he was never content until he heard himself busily employed in their utterance. An opportunity for a speech, such as the present, was not suffered to pass without due regard; but as we propose that he shall exhibit himself in the most happy manner at a later period in our narrative, we shall abridge, in few, the long string of queerly-associated words in the form of a speech, which, on assuming the chair thus assigned him, he poured forth upon the assembly. After a long prefatory, apologetic, and deprecatory exordium, in which his own demerits, as is usual with small speakers, were strenuously urged; and after he had exhausted most of the commonplaces about the purity of the ermine upon the robes of justice, and the golden scales, and the unshrinking balance, and the unsparing and certain sword, he went on thus:—

"And now, my friends, if I rightly understand the responsibility and obligations of the station thus kindly conferred upon me, I am required to arraign the pedler, Jared Bunce, before you, on behalf of the country, which country, as the clerk reads it, you undoubtedly are; and here let me remark, my friends, the excellent and nice distinction which this phrase makes between the man and the soil, between the noble intellect and the high soul, and the mere dirt and dust upon which we daily tread. This very phrase, my friends, is a fine embodiment of that democratic principle upon which the glorious constitution is erected. But, as I was saying, my friends, I am required to arraign before you this same pedler, Jared Bunce, on sundry charges of misdemeanor, and swindling, and fraud—in short, as I understand it, for endeavoring, without having the fear of God and good breeding in his eyes, to pass himself off upon the good people of this county as an honest man. Is this the charge, my friends?"

"Ay, ay, lawyer, that's the how, that's the very thing itself. Put it to the skunk, let him deny that if he can—let him deny that his name is Jared Bunce—that he hails from Connecticut—that he is a shark, and a pirate, and a pestilence. Let him deny that he is a cheat—that he goes about with his notions and other rogueries—that he doesn't manufacture maple-seeds, and hickory nutmegs, and ground coffee made out of rotten rye. Answer to that, Jared Bunce, you white-livered lizard."

Thus did one of his accusers take up the thread of the discourse as concluded in part by the chairman. Another and another followed with like speeches in the most rapid succession, until all was again confusion; and the voice of the lawyer, after a hundred ineffectual efforts at a hearing, degenerated into a fine squeak, and terminated at last in a violent fit of coughing, that fortunately succeeded in producing the degree of quiet around him to secure which his language had, singularly enough, entirely failed. For a moment the company ceased its clamor, out of respect to the chairman's cough; and, having cleared his throat with the contents of a tumbler of Monongahela which seemed to stand permanently full by his side, he recommenced the proceedings; the offender, in the meantime, standing mute and motionless, now almost stupified with terror, conscious of repeated offences, knowing perfectly the reckless spirit of those who judged him, and hopeless of escape from their hands, without, in the country phrase, the loss at least of "wing and tail feathers." The chairman with due gravity began:—

"Jared Bunce—is that your name?"

"Why, lawyer, I can't deny that I have gone by that name, and I guess it's the right name for me to go by, seeing that I was christened Jared, after old Uncle Jared Withers, that lives down at Dedham, in the state of Massachusetts. He did promise to do something for me, seeing I was named after him, but he ha'n't done nothing yet, no how. Then the name of Bunce, you see, lawyer, I got from my father, his name being Bunce, too, I guess."

"Well, Jared Bunce, answer to the point, and without circumlocution. You have heard some of the charges against you. Having taken them down in short-hand, I will repeat them."

The pedler approached a few steps, advanced one leg, raised a hand to his ear, and put on all the external signs of devout attention, as the chairman proceeded in the long and curious array.

"First, then, it is charged against you, Bunce, by young Dick Jenkins, that stands over in front of you there, that somewhere between the fifteenth and twenty-third of June—last June was a year—you came by night to his plantation, he living at that time in De Kalb county; that you stopped the night with him, without charge, and in the morning you traded a clock to his wife for fifteen dollars, and that you had not been gone two days, before the said clock began to go whiz, whiz, whiz, and commenced striking, whizzing all the while, and never stopped till it had struck clear thirty-one, and since that time it will neither whiz, nor strike, nor do nothing."

"Why, lawyer, I ain't the man to deny the truth of this transaction, you see; but, then, you must know, much depends upon the way you manage a clock. A clock is quite a delicate and ticklish article of manufacture, you see, and it ain't everybody that can make a clock, or can make it go when it don't want to; and if a man takes a hammer or a horsewhip, or any other unnatural weapon to it, as if it was a house or a horse, why I guess, it's not reasonable to expect it to keep in order, and it's no use in having a clock no how, if you don't treat it well. As for its striking thirty-one, that indeed is something remarkable, for I never heard one of mine strike more than twelve, and that's zactly the number they're regulated to strike. But, after all, lawyer, I don't see that Squire Jenkins has been much a loser by the trade, seeing that he paid me in bills of the Hogee-nogee bank, and that stopped payment about the time, and before I could get the bills changed. It's true, I didn't let on that I knowed anything about it, and got rid of the paper a little while before the thing went through the country."

"Now, look ye, you gingerbread-bodied Yankee—I'd like to know what you mean about taking whip and hammer to the clock. If you mean to say that I ever did such a thing, I'll lick you now, by the eternal scratch!"

"Order, order, Mr. Jenkins—order! The chair must be respected. You must come to order, Mr. Jenkins—" was the vociferous and urgent cry of the chairman, repeated by half a dozen voices; the pedler, in the meanwhile, half doubting the efficacy of the call, retreating with no little terror behind the chair of the dignified personage who presided.

"Well, you needn't make such a howling about it," said Jenkins, wrathfully, and looking around him with the sullen ferocity of a chafed bear. "I know jist as well how to keep order, I reckon, as any on you; but I don't see how it will be out of order to lick a Yankee, or who can hinder me, if I choose it."

"Well, don't look at me, Dick Jenkins, with such a look, or I'll have a finger in that pie, old fellow. I'm no Yankee to be frightened by sich a lank-sided fellow as you; and, by dogs, if nobody else can keep you in order, I'm jist the man to try if I can't. So don't put on any shines, old boy, or I'll darken your peepers, if I don't come very nigh plucking them out altogether."

So spake another of the company, who, having been much delectified with the trial, had been particularly solicitous in his cries for order. Jenkins was not indisposed to the affray, and made an angry retort, which provoked another still more angry; but other parties interfering, the new difficulty was made to give place to that already in hand. The imputation upon Jenkins, that his ignorance of the claims of the clock to gentle treatment, alone, had induced it to speak thirty-one times, and at length refuse to speak at all, had touched his pride; and, sorely vexed, he retired upon a glass of whiskey to the farther corner of the room, and with his pipe, nursing the fumes of his wrath, he waited impatiently the signal for the wild mischief which he knew would come.

In the meanwhile, the examination of the culprit proceeded; but, as we can not hope to convey to the reader a description of the affair as it happened, to the life, we shall content ourselves with a brief summary. The chair went on rapidly enumerating the sundry misdeeds of the Yankee, demanding, and in most cases receiving, rapid and unhesitating replies—evasively and adroitly framed, for the offender well knew that a single unlucky word or phrase would bring down upon his shoulders a wilderness of blows.

"You are again charged, Bunce, with having sold to Colonel Blundell a coffee-pot and two tin cups, all of which went to pieces—the solder melting off at the very sight of the hot water."

"Well, lawyer, it stands to reason I can't answer for that. The tin wares I sell stand well enough in a northern climate: there may be some difference in yours that I can't account for; and I guess, pretty much, there is. Now, your people are a mighty hot-tempered people, and take a fight for breakfast, and make three meals a day out of it: now, we in the north have no stomach for such fare; so here, now, as far as I can see, your climate takes pretty much after the people, and if so, it's no wonder that solder can't stand it. Who knows, again, but you boil your water quite too hot? Now, I guess, there's jest as much harm in boiling water too hot, as in not boiling it hot enough. Who knows? All I can say is, that the lot of wares I bring to this market next season shall be calkilated on purpose to suit the climate."

The chairman seemed struck with this view of the case, and spoke with a gravity corresponding with the deep sagacity he conceived himself to have exhibited.

"There does seem to be something in this; and it stands to reason, what will do for a nation of pedlers won't do for us. Why, when I recollect that they are buried in snows half the year, and living on nothing else the other half, I wonder how they get the water to boil at all. Answer that, Bunce."

"Well, lawyer, I guess you must have travelled pretty considerable down east in your time and among my people, for you do seem to know all about the matter jest as well and something better than myself."

The lawyer, not a little flattered by the compliment so slyly and evasively put in, responded to the remark with a due regard to his own increase of importance.

"I am not ignorant of your country, pedler, and of the ways of its people; but it is not me that you are to satisfy. Answer to the gentlemen around, if it is not a difficult matter for you to get water to boil at all during the winter months."

"Why, to say the truth, lawyer, when coal is scarce and high in the market, heat is very hard to come. Now, I guess the ware I brought out last season was made under those circumstances; but I have a lot on hand now, which will be here in a day or two, which I should like to trade to the colonel, and I guess I may venture to say, all the hot water in the country won't melt the solder off."

"I tell you what, pedler, we are more likely to put you in hot water than try any more of your ware in that way. But where's your plunder?—let us see this fine lot of notions you speak of"—was the speech of the colonel already so much referred to, and whose coffee-pot bottom furnished so broad a foundation for the trial. He was a wild and roving person, to whom the tavern, and the racecourse, and the cockpit, from his very boyhood up, had been as the breath of life, and with whom the chance of mischief was never willingly foregone. But the pedler was wary, and knew his man. The lurking smile and sneer of the speaker had enough in them for the purposes of warning, and he replied evasively:—

"Well, colonel, you shall see them by next Tuesday or Wednesday. I should be glad to have a trade with you—the money's no object—and if you have furs, or skins, or anything that you like to get off your hands, there's no difficulty, that I can see, to a long bargain."

"But why not trade now, Bunce?—what's to hinder us now? I sha'n't be in the village after Monday."

"Well, then, colonel, that'll just suit me, for I did calkilate to call on you at the farm, on my way into the nation where I'm going looking out for furs."

"Yes, and live on the best for a week, under some pretence that your nag is sick, or you sick, or something in the way of a start—then go off, cheat, and laugh at me in the bargain. I reckon, old boy, you don't come over me in that way again; and I'm not half done with you yet about the kettles. That story of yours about the hot and cold may do for the pigeons, but you don't think the hawks will swallow it, do ye? Come—out with your notions!"

"Oh, to be sure, only give a body time, colonel," as, pulled by the collar, with some confusion and in great trepidation, responded the beleagured dealer in clocks and calicoes—"they shall all be here in a day or two at most. Seeing that one of my creatures was foundered, I had to leave the goods, and drive the other here without them."

The pedler had told the truth in part only. One of his horses had indeed struck lame, but he had made out to bring him to the village with all his wares; and this fact, as in those regions of question and inquiry was most likely to be the case, had already taken wind.

"Now, look ye, Bunce, do you take me for a blear-eyed mole, that never seed the light of a man's eyes?" inquired Blundell, closely approaching the beset tradesman, and taking him leisurely by the neck. "Do you want to take a summerset through that window, old fellow, that you try to stuff us with such tough stories? If you do, I rether reckon you can do it without much difficulty." Thus speaking, and turning to some of those around him, he gave directions which imparted to the limbs of the pedler a continuous and crazy motion, that made his teeth chatter.

"Hark ye, boys, jist step out, and bring in the cart of Jared Bunce, wheels and all, if so be that the body won't come off easily. We'll see for ourselves."

It was now the pedler's turn for speech; and, forgetting the precise predicament in which he personally stood, and only solicitous to save his chattels from the fate which he plainly saw awaited them, his expostulations and entreaties were rapid and energetic.

"Now, colonel—gentlemen—my good friends—to-morrow or the next day you shall see them all—I'll go with you to your plantation—"

"No, thank ye. I want none of your company—and, look ye, if you know when you're well off, don't undertake to call me your friend. I say, Mr. Chairman, if it's in order—I don't want to do anything disorderly—I move that Bunce's cart be moved here into this very room, that we may see for ourselves the sort of substance he brings here to put off upon us."

The chairman had long since seemingly given up all hope of exercising, in their true spirit, the duties of the station which he held. For a while, it is true, he battled with no little energy for the integrity of his dignity, with good lungs and a stout spirit; but, though fully a match in these respects for any one, or perhaps any two of his competitors, he found the task of contending with the dozen rather less easy, and, in a little while, his speeches, into which he had lugged many a choice ad captandum of undisputed effect on any other occasion, having been completely merged and mingled with those of the mass, he wisely forbore any further waste of matter, in the stump-oratory of the South usually so precious; and, drawing himself up proudly and profoundly in his high place, he remained dignifiedly sullen, until the special reference thus made by Colonel Blundell again opened the fountains of the oracle and set them flowing.

The lawyer, thus appealed to, in a long tirade, and in his happiest manner, delivered his opinion in the premises, and in favor of the measure. How, indeed, could he do otherwise, and continue that tenacious pursuit of his own interests which had always been the primary aim and object, as well of the profession as the person. He at once sagaciously beheld the embryo lawsuit and contingent controversy about to result from the proposition; and, in his mind, with a far and free vision, began to compute the costs and canvass the various terms and prolonged trials of county court litigation. He saw fee after fee thrust into his hands—he beheld the opposing parties desirous to conciliate, and extending to him sundry of those equivocal courtesies, which, though they take not the shape of money are money's worth, and the worthy chairman had no scruples as to the propriety of the measure. The profits and pay once adjusted to his satisfaction, his spirit took a broad sweep, and the province of human fame, circumscribed, it is true, within the ten mile circuit of his horizon, was at once open before him. He beheld the strife, and enjoyed the triumph over his fellow-laborers at the bar—he already heard the applauses of his neighbors at this or that fine speech or sentiment; and his form grew insensibly erect, and his eye glistened proudly, as he freely and fully assented to the measure which promised such an abundant harvest. Vainly did the despairing and dispirited pedler implore a different judgment; the huge box which capped the body of his travelling vehicle, torn from its axle, without any show of reverential respect for screw or fastening, was borne in a moment through the capacious entrance of the hall, and placed conspicuously upon the table.

"The key, Bunce, the key!" was the demand of a dozen.

The pedler hesitated for a second, and the pause was fatal. Before he could redeem his error, a blow from a hatchet settled the difficulty, by distributing the fine deal-box cover, lock and hinges, in fragments over the apartment. The revelation of wares and fabrics—a strange admixture, with propriety designated "notions"—brought all eyes immediately around, and rendered a new order, for common convenience, necessary in the arrangement of the company. The chairman, chair and man, were in a moment raised to a corresponding elevation upon the table, over the collection; and the controversy and clamor, from concentrating, as it did before, upon the person of the pedler, were now transferred to the commodities he brought for sale. Order having been at length obtained, Colonel Blundell undertook the assertion of his own and the wrongs of his fellow-sufferers, and kept uninterrupted possession of the floor.

"And now, Mr. Chairman, I will jist go a little into the particulars of the rogueries and rascalities of this same Yankee. Now, in the first place, he is a Yankee, and that's enough, itself, to bring him to punishment—but we'll let that pass, and go to his other transactions—for, as I reckon, it's quite punishment enough for that offence, to be jist what he is. He has traded rotten stuffs about the country, that went to pieces the first washing. He has traded calico prints, warranted for fast colors, that ran faster than he ever ran himself. He has sold us tin stuffs, that didn't stand hot water at all; and then thinks to get off, by saying they were not made for our climate. And let me ask, Mr. Chairman, if they wasn't made for our climate, why did he bring 'em here? let him come to the scratch, and answer that, neighbors—but he can't. Well, then, as you've all hearn, he has traded clocks to us at money's worth, that one day ran faster than a Virginny race-mare, and at the very next day, would strike lame, and wouldn't go at all, neither for beating nor coaxing—and besides all these doings, neighbors, if these an't quite enough to carry a skunk to the horsepond, he has committed his abominations without number, all through the country high and low—for hain't he lied and cheated, and then had the mean cowardice to keep out of the way of the regilators, who have been on the look-out for his tracks for the last half year? Now, if these things an't desarving of punishment, there's nobody fit to be hung—there's nobody that ought to be whipped. Hickories oughtn't to grow any longer, and the best thing the governor can do would be to have all the jails burnt down from one eend of the country to the other. The proof stands up agin Bunce, and there's no denying it; and it's no use, no how, to let this fellow come among us, year after year, to play the same old hand, take our money for his rascally goods, then go away and laugh at us. And the question before us is jist what I have said, and what shall we do with the critter? To show you that it's high time to do something in the matter, look at this calico print, that looks, to be sure, very well to the eye, except, as you see, here's a tree with red leaves and yellow flowers—a most ridiculous notion, indeed, for who ever seed a tree with sich colors here, in the very beginning of summer?"

Here the pedler, for the moment, more solicitous for the credit of the manufactures than for his own safety, ventured to suggest that the print was a mere fancy, a matter of taste—in fact, a notion, and not therefore to be judged by the standard which had been brought to decide upon its merits. He did not venture, however, to say what, perhaps, would have been the true horn of the difficulty, that the print was an autumn or winter illustration, for that might have subjected him to condign punishment for its unseasonableness. As it was, the defence set up was to the full as unlucky as any other might have been.

"I'll tell you what, Master Bunce, it won't do to take natur in vain. If you can show me a better painter than natur, from your pairts, I give up; but until that time, I say that any man who thinks to give the woods a different sort of face from what God give 'em, ought to be licked for his impudence if nothing else."

The pedler ventured again to expostulate; but the argument having been considered conclusive against him, he was made to hold his peace, while the prosecutor proceeded.

"Now then, Mr. Chairman, as I was saying—here is a sample of the kind of stuff he thinks to impose upon us. Look now at this here article, and I reckon it's jist as good as any of the rest, and say whether a little touch of Lynch's law, an't the very thing for the Yankee!"

Holding up the devoted calico to the gaze of the assembly, with a single effort of his strong and widely-distended arms, he rent it asunder with little difficulty, the sweep not terminating, until the stuff, which, by-the-way, resigned itself without struggle or resistance to its fate, had been most completely and evenly divided. The poor pedler in vain endeavored to stay a ravage that, once begun, became epidemical. He struggled and strove with tenacious hand, holding on to sundry of his choicest bales, and claiming protection from the chair, until warned of his imprudent zeal in behalf of goods so little deserving of the risk, by the sharp and sudden application of an unknown hand to his ears which sent him reeling against the table, and persuaded him into as great a degree of patience, as, under existing circumstances, he could be well expected to exhibit. Article after article underwent a like analysis of its strength and texture, and a warm emulation took place among the rioters, as to their several capacities in the work of destruction. The shining bottoms were torn from the tin-wares in order to prove that such a separation was possible, and it is doing but brief justice to the pedler to say, that, whatever, in fact, might have been the true character of his commodities, the very choicest of human fabrics could never have resisted the various tests of bone and sinew, tooth and nail, to which they were indiscriminately subjected. Immeasurable was the confusion that followed. All restraints were removed—all hindrances withdrawn, and the tide rushed onward with a most headlong tendency.

Apprehensive of pecuniary responsibilities in his own person, and having his neighbors wrought to the desired pitch—fearing, also, lest his station might somewhat involve himself in the meshes he was weaving around others, the sagacious chairman, upon the first show of violence, roared out his resignation, and descended from his place. But this movement did not impair the industry of the regulators. A voice was heard proposing a bonfire of the merchandise, and no second suggestion was necessary. All hands but those of the pedler and the attorney were employed in building the pyre in front of the tavern some thirty yards; and here, in choice confusion, lay flaming calicoes, illegitimate silks, worsted hose, wooden clocks and nutmegs, maple-wood seeds of all descriptions, plaid cloaks, scents, and spices, jumbled up in ludicrous variety. A dozen hands busied themselves in applying the torch to the devoted mass—howling over it, at every successive burst of flame that went up into the dark atmosphere, a savage yell of triumph that tallied well with the proceeding.

"Hurrah!"

The scene was one of indescribable confusion. The rioters danced about the blaze like so many frenzied demons. Strange, no one attempted to appropriate the property that must have been a temptation to all.

Our pedler, though he no longer strove to interfere, was by no means insensible to the ruin of his stock in trade. It was calculated to move to pity, in any other region, to behold him as he stood in the doorway, stupidly watching the scene, while the big tears were slowly gathering in his eyes, and falling down his bronzed and furrowed cheeks. The rough, hard, unscrupulous man can always weep for himself. Whatever the demerits of the rogue, our young traveller above stairs, would have regarded him as the victim of a too sharp justice. Not so the participators in the outrage. They had been too frequently the losers by the cunning practice of the pedler, to doubt for a moment the perfect propriety—nay, the very moderate measure—of that wild justice which they were dealing out to his misdeeds. And with this even, they were not satisfied. As the perishable calicoes roared up and went down in the flames, as the pans and pots and cups melted away in the furnace heat, and the painted faces of the wooden clocks, glared out like those of John Rogers at the stake, enveloped in fire, the cries of the crowd were mingled in with a rude, wild chorus, in which the pedler was made to understand that he stood himself in a peril almost as great as his consuming chattels. It was the famous ballad of the regulators that he heard, and it smote his heart with a consciousness of his personal danger that made him shiver in his shoes. The uncouth doggrel, recited in a lilting sort of measure, the peculiar and various pleasures of a canter upon a pine rail. It was clear that the mob were by no means satisfied with the small measure of sport which they had enjoyed. A single verse of this savage ditty will suffice for the present, rolled out upon the air, from fifty voices, the very boys and negroes joining in the chorus, and making it tell terribly to the senses of the threatened person. First one voice would warble

"Did you ever, ever, ever!"—

and there was a brief pause, at the end of which the crowd joined in with unanimous burst and tremendous force of lungs:—

"Did you ever, ever, ever, in your life ride a rail? Such a deal of pleasure's in it, that you never can refuse! You are mounted on strong shoulders, that'll never, never fail, Though you pray'd with tongue of sinner, just to plant you where they choose. Though the brier patch is nigh you, looking up with thorny faces, They never wait to see how you like the situation, But down you go a rolling, through the penetrating places, Nor scramble out until you give the cry of approbation. Oh! pleasant is the riding, highly-seated on the rail, And worthy of the wooden horse, the rascal that we ride; Let us see the mighty shoulders that will never, never fail. To lift him high, and plant him, on the crooked rail astride. The seven-sided pine rail, the pleasant bed of briar, The little touch of hickory law, with a dipping in the mire.

"Did you ever, ever, ever," &c.,

from the troupe in full blast!

The lawyer Pippin suddenly stood beside the despairing pedler, as this ominous ditty was poured upon the night-winds.

"Do you hear that song, Bunce?" he asked. "How do you like the music?"

The pedler looked in his face with a mixed expression of grief, anger, and stupidity, but he said nothing.

"Hark ye, Bunce," continued the lawyer. "Do you know what that means? Does your brain take in its meaning, my friend?"

"Friend, indeed!" was the very natural exclamation of the pedler as he shrank from the hand of the lawyer, which had been affectionately laid upon his shoulder. "Friend, indeed! I say, Lawyer Pippin, if it hadn't been for you, I'd never ha' been in this fix. I'm ruined by you."

"Ruined by me! Pshaw, Bunce, you are a fool. I was your friend all the time."

"Oh, yes! I can see how. But though you did stop, when they began, yet you did enough to set them on. That was like a good lawyer, I guess, but not so much like a friend. Had you been a friend, you could have saved my property from the beginning."

"Nay, nay, Bunce; you do me wrong. They had sworn against you long ago, and you know them well enough. The devil himself couldn't stop 'em when once upon the track. But don't be down in the mouth. I can save you now."

"Save me!"

"Ay! don't you hear? They're singing the regulation song. Once that blaze goes down, they'll be after you. It's a wonder they've left you here so long. Now's your time. You must be off. Fly by the back door, and leave it to me to get damages for your loss of property."

"You, lawyer? well, I should like to know how you calkilate to do that?"

"I'll tell you. You know my profession."

"I guess I do, pretty much."

"Thus, then—most of these are men of substance; at least they have enough to turn out a pretty good case each of them—now all you have to do is to bring suit. I'll do all that, you know, the same as if you did it yourself. You must lay your damages handsomely, furnish a few affidavits, put the business entirely in my hands, and—how much is the value of your goods?"

"Well, I guess they might be worth something over three hundred and twenty dollars and six shillings, York money."

"Well, give me all the particulars, and I venture to assure you that I can get five hundred dollars damages at least, and perhaps a thousand. But of this we can talk more at leisure when you are in safety. Where's your cart, Bunce?"

"On t'other side of the house—what they've left on it."

"Now, then, while they're busy over the blaze, put your tackle on, hitch your horse, and take the back track to my clearing; it's but a short mile and a quarter, and you'll be there in no time. I'll follow in a little while, and we'll arrange the matter."

"Well, now, lawyer, but I can't—my horse, as you see, having over eat himself, is struck with the founders and can't budge. I put him in 'Squire Dickens' stable, 'long with his animals, and seeing that he hadn't had much the day before, I emptied the corn from their troughs into his, and jest see what's come of it. I hadn't ought to done so, to be sure."

"That's bad, but that must not stop you. Your life, Bunce, is in danger, and I have too much regard for you to let you risk it by longer stay here. Take my nag, there—the second one from the tree, and put him in the gears in place of your own. He's as gentle as a spaniel, and goes like a deer. You know the back track to my house, and I'll come after you, and bring your creature along. I 'spose he's not so stiff but he can bring me."

"He can do that, lawyer, I guess, without difficulty. I'll move as you say, and be off pretty slick. Five hundred dollars damage, lawyer—eh!"

"No matter, till I see you. Put your nag in gears quickly—you have little time to spare!"

The pedler proceeded to the work, and was in a little while ready for a start. But he lingered at the porch.

"I say, lawyer, it's a hard bout they've given me this time. I did fear they would be rash and obstropulous, but didn't think they'd gone so far. Indeed, it's clear, if it hadn't been that the cretur failed me, I should not have trusted myself in the place, after what I was told."

"Bunce, you have been rather sly in your dealings, and they have a good deal to complain of. Now, though I said nothing about it, that coat you sold me for a black grew red with a week's wear, and threadbare in a month."

"Now, don't talk, lawyer, seeing you ha'n't paid me for it yet; but that's neither here nor there. If I did, as you say, sell my goods for something more than their vally, I hadn't ought to had such a punishment as this."

The wild song of the rioters rang in his ears, followed by a proposition, seemingly made with the utmost gravity, to change the plan of operations, and instead of giving him the ride upon the rail, cap the blazing goods of his cart with the proper person of the proprietor. The pedler lingered to hear no further; and the quick ear of the lawyer, as he returned into the hall, distinguished the rumbling motion of his cart hurrying down the road. But he had scarcely reseated himself and resumed his glass, before Bunce also reappeared.

"Why, man, I thought you were off. You burn daylight; though they do say, those whom water won't drown, rope must hang."

"There is some risk, lawyer, to be sure; but when I recollected this box, which you see is a fine one, though they have disfigured it, I thought I should have time enough to take it with me, and anything that might be lying about;" looking around the apartment as he spoke, and gathering up a few fragments which had escaped the general notice.

"Begone, fool!" exclaimed the lawyer, impatiently. "They are upon you—they come—fly for your life, you dog—I hear their voices."

"I'm off, lawyer"—and looking once behind him as he hurried off, the pedler passed from the rear of the building as those who sought him re-entered in front.

"The blood's in him—the Yankee will be Yankee still," was the muttered speech of the lawyer, as he prepared to encounter the returning rioters.



CHAPTER VII.

THE YANKEE OUTWITS THE LAWYER.

It was at this moment that Forrester entered the tavern-hall; curious to know the result of the trial, from which his attendance upon Ralph had unavoidably detained him. The actors of the drama were in better humor than before, and uproarious mirth had succeeded to ferocity. They were all in the very excess of self-glorification; for, though somewhat disappointed of their design, and defrauded of the catastrophe, they had nevertheless done much, according to their own judgment, and enough, perhaps, in that of the reader, for the purposes of justice. The work of mischief had been fully consummated; and though, to their notion, still somewhat incomplete from the escape of the pedler himself, they were in great part satisfied—some few among them, indeed—and among these our quondam friend Forrester may be included—were not sorry that Bunce had escaped the application of the personal tests which had been contemplated for his benefit; for, however willing, it was somewhat doubtful whether they could have been altogether able to save him from the hands of those having a less scrupulous regard to humanity.

The sudden appearance of Forrester revived the spirit of the transaction, now beginning somewhat to decline, as several voices undertook to give him an account of its progress. The lawyer was in his happiest mood, as things, so far, had all turned out as he expected. His voice was loudest, and his oratory more decidedly effective than ever. The prospect before him was also of so seductive a character, that he yielded more than was his wont to the influences of the bottle-god: who stood little iron-hooped keg, perched upon a shelf conveniently in the corner.

"Here Cuffee, you thrice-blackened baby of Beelzebub!—why stand you there, arms akimbo, and showing your ivories, when you see we have no whiskey! Bring in the jug, you imp of darkness—touch us the Monongahela, and a fresh tumbler for Mr. Forrester—and, look you, one too for Col. Blundell, seeing he's demolished the other. Quick, you terrapin!"

Cuffee recovered himself in an instant. His hands fell to his sides—his mouth closed intuitively; and the whites of his eyes changing their fixed direction, marshalled his way with a fresh jug, containing two or more quarts, to the rapacious lawyer.

"Ah, you blackguard, that will do—now, Mr. Forrester—now, Col. Blundell—don't be slow—no backing out, boys—hey, for a long drink to the stock in trade of our friend the pedler."

So spoke Pippin; a wild huzza attested the good humor which the proposition excited. Potation rapidly followed potation, and the jug again demanded replenishing. The company was well drilled in this species of exercise; and each individual claiming caste in such circle, must be well prepared, like the knight-challenger of old tourney, to defy all comers. In the cases of Pippin and Blundell, successive draughts, after the attainment of a certain degree of mental and animal stolidity, seemed rather to fortify than to weaken their defences, and to fit them more perfectly for a due prolongation of the warfare. The appetite, too, like most appetites, growing from what it fed on, ventured few idle expostulations; glass after glass, in rapid succession, fully attested the claim of these two champions to the renown which such exercises in that section of the world had won for them respectively. The subject of conversation, which, in all this time, accompanied their other indulgences, was, very naturally, that of the pedler and his punishment. On this topic, however, a professional not less than personal policy sealed the lips of our lawyer except on those points which admitted of a general remark, without application or even meaning. Though drunk, his policy was that of the courts; and the practice of the sessions had served him well, in his own person, to give the lie to the "in vino veritas" of the proverb.

Things were in this condition when the company found increase in the person of the landlord, who now made his appearance; and, as we intend that he shall be no unimportant auxiliary in the action of our story, it may be prudent for a few moments to dwell upon the details of his outward man, and severally to describe his features. We have him before us in that large, dark, and somewhat heavy person, who sidles awkwardly into the apartment, as if only conscious in part of the true uses of his legs and arms. He leans at this moment over the shoulders of one of the company, and, while whispering in his ears, at the same time, with an upward glance, surveys the whole. His lowering eyes, almost shut in and partially concealed by his scowling and bushy eyebrows, are of a quick gray, stern, and penetrating in their general expression, yet, when narrowly observed, putting on an air of vacancy, if not stupidity, that furnishes a perfect blind to the lurking meaning within. His nose is large, yet not disproportionately so; his head well made, though a phrenologist might object to a strong animal preponderance in the rear; his mouth bold and finely curved, is rigid however in its compression, and the lips, at times almost woven together, are largely indicative of ferocity; they are pale in color, and dingily so, yet his flushed cheek and brow bear striking evidence of a something too frequent revel; his hair, thin and scattered, is of a dark brown complexion and sprinkled with gray; his neck is so very short that a single black handkerchief, wrapped loosely about it, removes all seeming distinction between itself and the adjoining shoulders—the latter being round and uprising, forming a socket, into which the former appears to fall as into a designated place. As if more effectually to complete the unfavorable impression of such an outline, an ugly scar, partly across the cheek, and slightly impairing the integrity of the left nostril, gives to his whole look a sinister expression, calculated to defeat entirely any neutralizing or less objectionable feature. His form—to conclude the picture—is constructed with singular power; and though not symmetrical, is far from ungainly. When impelled by some stirring motive, his carriage is easy, without seeming effort, and his huge frame throws aside the sluggishness which at other times invests it, putting on a habit of animated exercise, which changes the entire appearance of the man.

Such was Walter, or, as he was there more familiarly termed Wat Munro. He took his seat with the company, with the ease of one who neither doubted nor deliberated upon the footing which he claimed among them. He was not merely the publican of his profession, but better fitted indeed for perhaps any other avocation, as may possibly be discovered in the progress of our narrative. To his wife, a good quiet sort of body, who, as Forrester phrased it, did not dare to say the soul was her own, he deputed the whole domestic management of the tavern; while he would be gone, nobody could say where or why, for weeks and more at a time, away from bar and hostel, in different portions of the country. None ventured to inquire into a matter that was still sufficiently mysterious to arouse curiosity; people living with and about him generally entertaining a degree of respect, amounting almost to vulgar awe, for his person and presence, which prevented much inquiry into his doings. Some few, however, more bold than the rest, spoke in terms of suspicion; but the number of this class was inconsiderable, and they themselves felt that the risk which they incurred was not so unimportant as to permit of their going much out of the way to trace the doubtful features in his life.

As we have already stated, he took his place along with his guests; the bottles and glasses were replenished, the story of the pedler again told, and each individual once more busied in describing his own exploits. The lawyer, immersed in visions of grog and glory, rhapsodized perpetually and clapped his hands. Blundell, drunkenly happy, at every discharge of the current humor, made an abortive attempt to chuckle, the ineffectual halloo gurgling away in the abysses of his mighty throat; until, at length, his head settled down supinely upon his breast, his eyes were closed, and the hour of his victory had gone by; though, even then, his huge jaws opening at intervals for the outward passage of something which by courtesy might be considered a laugh, attested the still anxious struggles of the inward spirit, battling with the weaknesses of the flesh.