John Randolph, of Roanoke, and other sketches of character, including William Wirt. Together with tales of real life

Front matter

Columbia iteitei#itp

THE LIBRARIES

JOHN RANDOLPH,

Contents

William Wirt ....

A Visit to Simon Kenton, the last of the

Old Nat. A Fact

Chapter I

I was born in the South. I had very bad health there in my early childhood, and a maiden aunt took a voyage by sea, from Baltimore to my birthplace, for the purpose of returning with me to a climate which the physician had said would strengthen my constitution.

She brought me up with the greatest kindness, or rather, I should say, she kept me comparatively feeble by her over-care of my health. When I was about fourteen years of age my father brought my mother and my little sister Virginia from Charleston to see me. My meeting with my kind mother I shall never forget. She held me at arm's length for a instant, to see if she could recognize in the chubby boy before her, the puny sickly child with whom she had parted with such fond regret on board the Caroline but a fewyears before ; and when, in memory and in heart, she recognized each linea- 12 ment, she clasped me to her bosom with a -wild hysteric joy which compensated her — more than compensated her — she said, for all the agony which our separation had caused her. I loved my mother devotedly, yet I wondered at the emotion which she exhibited at our meeting ; and child though I was, a sense of unworthiness came over me, possibly because my affections could not sound the depths of hers.

My father's recognition was kinder than I had expected from what I remembered of our separation. He felt prouder of me than at our parting, I presume from my improved health and looks ; and this made him feel that being tied to the apron-strings of my good old aunt, would not improve my manliness. A gentleman whom he had met at a dinner party, who was the principal of an academy, a kind of miniature college, some distance from Baltimore, had impressed my father, by his disquisitions, with a profound respect for such a mode of education.

" William," said my father, in speaking on the subject to a friend, " will be better there than here among the women ; he'll be a baby forever here. No, I must make a man of him. I shall take him next week with me, and leave him in charge of Sears."

My mother insisted upon it that I should stay longer, that she might enjoy my society, and that my sister and myself might become more attached to each other ere they returned to Carolina. But my father said, "No, my dear; you know it was always agreed between us, that you should bring up Virginia as you pleased, and that I would bring up William as I pleased."

" Let us take him, then, back home," exclaimed my mother ; " he is healthy enough now."

" But he would not be healthy long there, my dear. No, I have made inquiry ; Mr. Sears is an admirable man; and under his care, which I am satisfied will be paternal, William will improve his mind, and learn to be a man — will you not, William ?"

I could only cling to my mother without reply.

"Here," exclaimed my father exultingly, "you see the effect of his education thus far."

" The effect of his education thus far !" retorted my aunt, who did not relish my father's remark ; " he has been taught to say his prayers, and to love his parents, and to tell the truth. You see the effects in him now," and she pointed to me, seated on a stool by my mother.

All this made no impression on my father. He was resolved that I should go to Bel- Air, the county town of Harford County, Md., situated about twenty-four miles from Baltimore, where the school was, the next week, and he so expressed himself decidedly.

The condemned criminal, who- counts the hours that speed to his execution, scarcely feels more horror at the rush of time than I did. One appalling noiv seemed to possess me. I was deeplysensitive, and the dread of my loneliness away from all I loved, and the fear of the ridicule and tyranny of the oldsters, haunted me so that I could not sleep, and I laid awake all night picturing to myself what would be the misery of my situation at Bel- Air. In fact, when the day arrived, I bade my mother, aunt, and my little sister Virginia farewell, with scarcely a consciousness, and was placed in the gig by my father, as the stunned criminal is assisted into the fatal cart.

This over-sensitiveness — what a curse it is ! I lay no claims to genius, and yet I have often thought it hard that I should have the quality which makes the " fatal gift " so dangerous, and not the gift. My little sister Virginia, who had been my playmate for weeks, cried bitterly when I left her. I dwelt upon her swimming eye with mine, tearless and stony as death. The waters of bitterness had gathered around my heart, but had not as yet found an outlet from their icy thrall, 'neath which theyjlowed dark and deep.

Bel-Air, at the time I write of, was a little village of some twenty-five or more houses, six of which were taverns. It was and is a county town, and court was regularly held there, to which the

Baltimore lawyers used to flock in crowds ; and many mad pranks have I known them to play there for their own amusement, if not for the edification of the pupils of Mr. Sears.

My father drew up at McKenney's tavern, and as it was about twelve when we arrived, and the pupils were dismissed to dinner, he sent in his card to the principal, who in a few minutes made his appearance. Talk of a lover watching the movements and having impressed upon his memory the image of her whom he loveth ! — the school-boy has a much more vivid recollection of his teacher. Mr. Sears was a tall, stout man, with broad, stooping shoulders. He carried a large cane, and his step was as decided as ever was Dr. Busby's, who would not take off his hat when the King visited his school, for the reason, as he told his Majesty afterwards, that if his scholars thought that there was a greater man in the kingdom than himself, he never could control them. The face of Mr. Sears resembled much the likeness of Alexander Hamilton, though his features were more contracted, and his forehead had nothing like the expansion of the great statesman's ; yet it projected similarly at the brows. He welcomed my father to the village with great courtesy, and me to his pupilage with greater dignity. He dined with my father with me by his side, and every now and then he would pat me on the head and ask me 12* a question. I stammered out monosyllabic answers, when the gentleman would address himself again to his plate with renewed gusto.

Mr. Sears recommended my father to board me at the house of a Mr. Hall, who had formerly been the Sheriff of the county, and whose wife and daughters, he said, were very fine women. He regretted, he said, when he first took charge of the academy, that there was not some general place attached to it, where the pupils could board in common ; but after-reflection had taught him that to board them among trie towns-people would be as well. He remarked that I was one of his smallest pupils, but that he would look upon me in loco pa- ?*e?itis, and doubted not that he could make a man of me.

After dinner he escorted my father, leading me by the hand, down to the academy, which was on the outskirts of the town, at the other end of it from McKenney's. The buzz, which the usher had not the power to control in the absence of Mr. Sears, hushed instantly in his presence, and as he entered with my father, the pupils all rose, and remained standing until he ordered them to be seated. Giving my father a seat, and placing me in the one which he designed for me in the school, Mr. Sears called several of his most proficient scholars in the different classes, from Homer down to the elements of English, and examined them.

When a boy blundered, he darted at him a look ■which made him shake in his shoes ; and when another boy gave a correct answer and took his fellow's place, and glanced up for Mr. Sears's smile, it was a picture which my friend Beard, of Cincinnati, would delight to draw. The blunderer looked like one caught in the act of sheep-stealing, while the successful pupil took his place with an air that might have marked one of Napoleon's approved soldiers, when the Emperor had witnessed an act of daring on his part. As for Mr. Sears, he thought Napoleon a common creature to himself. To kill men, he used to say, was much more easy than to instruct them. He felt himself to be like one of the philosophers of old in his academy ; and he considered Dr. Parr and Dr. Busby, who boasted that they had whipped every distinguished map in the country, much greater than he of Pharsalia, or he of Austerlitz.

When the rehearsal of several classes had given my father a due impression of Mr. Sears's great gifts as an instructor, and of his scholars' proficiency, he took my father to Mr. Hall's, to introduce us to my future host.

We found the family seated in the long room in which their boarders dined. To Mr. Sears they paid the most profound respect. Well they might, for without his recommendation they would have been without boarders. Hall was a tall, good-humored, careless man. His wife was older than himself, tall too, but full of energy. He had two daughters, Harriet and Jane.

Harriet was a quick, active, lively girl, and withal pretty ; whilst Jane was lolling and lazy in her motions, and without either good looks or smartness. The matter of my boarding was soon arranged, and it had become time for my father to depart. All this while the variety and excitement of the scene had somewhat relieved my feelings, but when my father bade me be a good boy, and drove off, I felt as if the " last link " was indeed broken; and though I made every effort, from a sense of shame, to repress my tears, it was in vain, and they broke forth the wilder from their previous restraint. Harriet Hall came up instantly to comfort me. She took a seat beside me at the open window at which I was looking out after my father, and with a sweet voice whose tones I remember yet, she told me not to grieve because I was away from my friends ; that I should soon see them again, and that she would think I feared they would not be kind to me if I showed so much sorrow. This last remark touched me, and whilst I was drying my eyes, one of the larger boys, a youth of eighteen or twenty, came up to the window (for the academy by this time had been dismissed for the evening), and said : —

" All, Miss Harriet, is this another baby crying for home ?"

In an instant ray eyes were dried. I cast one glance at the speaker ; he was a tall, slim, recklesslooking fellow, named Prettyman, and from that day to this I have neither forgotten it, nor I fear, forgiven him.

In the night, when we retired to our rooms, I found that my bed was in a room with two others, Prettyman and a country bumpkin by the name of Muzzy. As usual on going to bed, I kneeled down to say my prayers, putting my hands up in the attitude of supplication. I had scarcely uttered to myself the first words, " Our Father," but to the ear that heareth all things, when Prettyman exclaimed —

" He's praying ! ' By the Apostle Paul !' as Richard the Third says, that's against rules. Suppose we cob him, Muzzy ?"

Muzzy laughed and got into bed ; and I am ashamed to say that I arose with the prayer dying away from my thoughts, and indignation and shame usurping them, and sneaked into bed, where I said my prayers in silence, and wept myself in silence to sleep. In the morning, with a heavy heart, and none but the kind Harriet to comfort me, I betook myself to the academy.

Parents little know what a sensitive child suffers at a public school. I verily believe that these schools engender often more treachery, falsehood, and cruelty, than exist in West India slavery ; I was about saying even in the brains of an abolitionist. Most tenderly nurtured under the care of an affectionate old aunt, who was always fixing my clothes to keep me warm, coddling up something nice to pamper me with, watching all my out-goings and in-comings, and seeing that everything around me conduced to my convenience and comfort, the contrast was indeed great when I appeared at the Bel-Air Academy, one of the smallest boys there, and subjected to the taunts and buffetings of every larger boy than myself in the institution. My father little knew what agony it cost me to be made a man of.

I am not certain that the good produced by such academies is equal to their evils. I remember well for two or three nights after Prettyman laughed at me, that I crept into bed to say my prayers, and at last under this ridicule — for he practised his gift on me every night — I not only neglected to say them, but began to feel angry toward my aunt that she had ever taught them to me, as they brought so much contempt on me. Yet such is the power of conscience, at that tender age, that when I woke in the morning of the first night I had not prayed, I felt myself guilty and unworthy, and went into the garden and wept aloud tears of sincere contrition.

Too often, in public schools, the first thing a youth Jearns from his elders, is to laugh at parental authority, and to exhibit to the ridicule of his fellows the letter of advice which his parent or guardian feels it his duty to write to him, taking care, with a jest upon them, to pocket the money they send, with an air of incipient profligacy, which any one may see will soon not only be rank but prurient. Such a moral contagion should be avoided ; and I therefore am inclined to think that the Catholic mode of tuition, where some one of the teachers is with the scholars, not only by day but by night, is preferable. And in fact any one, who has witnessed the respectful familiarity which they teach their pupils to feel and exhibit towards them, and the kindness with which it is met, cannot but be impressed with the truth of my remarks.

There were nearly one hundred pupils at Bel- Air, at the period of which I write, and the only assistant Mr. Sears had, was a gaunt fellow named Dogberry. Like his illustrious namesake in Shakspeare, from whom I believe he was a legitimate descendant, he might truly have been " written down an ass."

The boys invented all sorts of annoyances to torture Dogberry withal. A favorite one was, when Mr. Sears was in the city, which was at periods not unfrequent, for them to assemble in the school before Dogberry came, and, setting one by the door to give notice when the usher was within a few feet of it, to begin as soon as he appeared in sight, to shout as with one voice — first "Dog" and then, after a pause, by way of chorus,

it lerryt"

As soon as notice was given by the watcher, he leaped to his seat, and every tongue was silent, and every eye upon the book before it.

The rage of Dogberry knew no bounds on these occasions. He did not like to tell the principal ; for the circumstance would have proved not only his want of authority over the boys, but the contempt in which they held him.

A trick which Prettyman played him, nearly caused his death, and, luckily for the delinquent, he was never discovered. Dogberry was very penurious ; he saved two-thirds of his salary, and as it was not large, he had of course to live humbly.

He dined at Hall's and took breakfast and supper in his lodgings, if he ever took them, and the quantity of dinner of which he made himself the receptacle caused it to be doubted. His lodgings were the dormant story of a log-cabin, to which he had entrance by a rough flight of stairs without the house and against its side. Under the stairs was a large mud-hole, and Prettyman contrived one gusty night to pull them down, with the intention of calling the usher, in the tone of Mr.

Sears (for he was a good mimic), and causing him to fall in the mud. Unluckily, the usher heard the racket without, and not dreaming it was the fall of the stairs, he leaped from his bed, and hurried out to see what caused it. He fell on them ; and though no bones were broken, he was laid up for several weeks. The wind always had the credit of this affair, and Prettyman won great applause for his speedy assistance and sympathy with Dogberry, whom he visited constantly during his confinement.

The night of the adjournment of court, the lawyers, and even the judges, had what they called a regular frolic. Mr. Sears was in Baltimore, and the scholars were easily induced to join in it — in fact, they wanted no inducement. About twelve o'clock at night, we were aroused from our beds by a most awful yelling for the ex-sheriff. "Hall! Hall!" was the cry. Soon the door was opened, and the trampling of feet was heard ; in a minute the frolickers ascended the stairs, and one of the judges, with a blanket wrapped around him like an Indian, with his face painted, and a red handkerchief tied round his head, and with red slippers on, entered our room, with a candle in one hand and a bottle in the other ; and, after making us drink all round, bade us get up. We were nothing loath. On descending into the dining-room, lo ! there were the whole bar dressed off in the most 13 fantastic style, and some of them scarcely dressed at all. They were mad with fun and wine. The ex-sheriff brought forth his liquors, and was placed on his own table a culprit, and tried and found guilty of not having been, as in duty bound, one of the originators of the frolic. He was, therefore, fined glasses round for the company, and ordered by the judges to pay it at Richardson's bar. To Richardson's the order was given to repair. Accordingly, they formed a line without, Indian-file. Two large black women carried a light in each hand beside the first judge, and two smaller black women carried a light in their right hands beside the next one. The lawyers followed, each with a light in his hand ; and the procession closed with the scholars, who each also bore a light. I being the smallest, brought up the rear. There was neither man nor boy who was not more or less intoxicated, and the wildest pranks were played.

When we reached Dogberry's domicil, one of the boys proposed to have him out with us. The question was put by one of the judges, and carried by unanimous acclamation. It was farther resolved, that a deputation of three, each bearing a bottle of different liquor, should be appointed to wait on him, with the request that he would visit the Pawnee tribe, from the far West, drink some fire-water with them, and smoke the pipe of peace.

Prettyman, whose recklessness knew no bounds, and who, as I suppose, wished to involve me in difficulty, moved that the smallest and largest person in the council be of that deputation. There happened to be by Dogberry's a quantity of logs, which had been gathered there for the purpose of building a log-house. Mr. Patterson (I use here a fictitious name) was at this time the great lawyer of Maryland. He was dressed in a splendid Indian costume, which a western client had given him, and he had painted himself with care and taste. He was a fine-looking man, and stretching out his hand, he exclaimed: —

" Brothers, be seated ; but not on the prostrate forms of the forest, which the ruthless white man has felled, to make unto himself a habitation. Like the big warrior, Tecumseh, in a council with the great white chief, Harrison, we will sit upon the lap of our mother, the earth ; upon her breast will we sleep ; the Pawnee has no roof but the blue sky, where dwelleth the Great Spirit ; and he looks up to the shining stars, and they look down upon him ; and they count the leaves of the forest, and know the might of the Pawnees."

Every one, by this time, had taken a seat upon the ground, and all were silent. As the lights flashed over the group, they formed as grotesque a scene as I have ever witnessed.

" Brothers," he continued, " those eyes of the Great Spirit" — pointing upward to the stars — "behold the rushing river, and they say to our fathers, who are in the happy hunting-grounds of the blest, that, like it, is the might of the Pawnee, when he rushes to battle. The white men are dogs ; their carcasses drift in the tide ; they are cast out on the shore, and the prairie-wolf fattens on them.

"Brothers ! the eyes of the Great Spirit behold the prairies and the forest, where the breath of the wintry wind bears the red fire through them ; where the prairie-wolf flies and the fire flies faster. Brothers, the white man is the prairie-wolf, and the Pawnee is the fire.

" Brothers ! when the forked fire from the right arm of the Great Spirit smites the mountain's brow, the eagle soars upward to his home in the clouds, but the snake crawls over the bare rock in the blast, and hides in the clefts, and hollows, and holes. Behold ! the forked fire strikes the rock and scatters it, as the big warrior would throw pebbles from his hand ; and the soaring eagle darts from the clouds, and the death-rattle of the snake is heard, and he hisses n© more.

" Brothers ! the Pawnee is the eagle, the bird of the Great Spirit ; and the white man is the crawling snake that the Great Spirit hates.

" Brothers ! the shining eyes of the Great Spirit see all these things, and he tells them to our fathers, who are in the happy hunting-grounds of the blest; and they say that some day, wrapped in the clouds, they will come and see us, for our land is like theirs."

This was said with so much eloquence by the distinguished lawyer, that there was a silence of nearly a minute when he concluded. In the company was a lawyer named Short, who, strange to say, was just six feet three inches and a half high, and he had a client, which is stranger still, named Long, who was but five feet high.

" Who has precedence, Judge Williard?" called out some one in the crowd, breaking in upon the business of the occasion, as upon such occasions business always will be broken in upon — " Who has precedence, Long or Short ?"

"Long," exclaimed the Judge, " of course. It is a settled rule in law, that you must take as much land as is called for in the deed ; therefore, Long takes precedence of Short. Maybe, Short has a remedy in equity ; but this court has nothing to do with that ; so you have the long and the short of the matter."

"Judge," cried out the ex-sheriff, " we must go to Richardson's ; you know it is my treat."

" The Pawnee, the eagle of his race," exclaimed Patterson ; " the prophet of his tribe ; he who is more than warrior ; whose tongue is clothed with the Great Spirit's thunder ; who can speak with the eloquence of the spring air when it whispers among the leaves, and makes the flowers open and 13* give forth their sweets ; he, the Charming Serpent, that hath a tongue forked with persuasion ; he, even he, will go in unto the white man, and invite him to come forth and taste the fire-water, and smoke the pipe of peace with the Pawnee. Then, if he come not forth when the Charming Serpent takes him by the hand and bids him, the Pawnees shall smoke him out like a fox, and his blazing habitation shall make night pale ; and there shall be no resting-place for his foot; and children and squaws shall whip him into the forest, and set dogs upon his trail ; and he shall be hunted from hill to hill, from river to river, from prairie to prairie, from forest to forest, till, like the frightened deer, he rushes panting into the great lakes, and the waters rise over him, and cover him from the Pawnee's scorn."

This was received with acclamation. Mr. Patterson played the Indian so well, that he drew me one of the closest to him in the charmed circle that surrounded him. His eye flashed, his lips quivered with fiery ardor, though but in a mimic scene. He would have made a great actor. I was so lost in admiration of him, that I placed myself beside him without knowing it. He saw the effect he had produced upon me, and was evidently gratified. Taking me by the hand, he said : —

" Warriors and braves, give unto me the brand, that the Charming Serpent may light the steps of the boy to the hiding-place of the pale-face. He shall listen to the eloquence of the Charming Serpent when he takes the white man by the hand — he shall learn to move alike the heart of the pale-face and the red man."

" Brothers : the Charming Serpent to-night," said he, handing me the candle, and placing himself in an oratorical attitude, while every man lifted his candle so that it shone full upon him — " Brothers, the Charming Serpent to-night could speak unto the four winds that are now howling in the desolate Pawnee paths of the wilderness, and make them sink into a low moan, and sigh themselves into silence, were he to tell them of the many of his tribe who are now lying mangled, unburied, and cold, beneath the shadow of the Rocky Mountains — victims of the white man's treacherous cruelty.

" Brothers ! 0 ! that the Great Spirit would give the Charming Serpent his voice of thunder — then would he stand upon the highest peak of the Alleghanies, with forked lightning in his red right hand, and tell a listening and heart-struck world the wrongs of his race. And when all of every tribe of every people had come crouching in the valleys, and had filled up the gorges of the hills, then would the Charming Serpent hurl vengeance on the oppressor. But come," said he, taking the candle in one hand and myself in the other, " the

Pawnee talks like a squaw. The Charming Serpent will speak with the pale-face, and lead him forth from his wigwam to the great council-fire."