Part 9 (1/2)
They found her extremely unsound there, and much worm-eaten.”
”Worm-eaten,” she continued, ”how awful! It must have been them nasty jiggers, that got in there; they tell me they are dreadful thick in the West Indies; Joe Crow had them in his feet, and lost two of his toes. Worm-eaten, dear, dear! but still that ain't so bad as having them great he-fellows strip one. I promise you if them Gulards had undertaken to strip me, I'd a taught them different guess manners; I'd a died first before I'd a submitted to it. I always heerd tell the English quality ladies were awful bold, but I never heerd the like o' that.”
”What on airth are you drivin' at?” said Mr. Slick. ”I never seed you so much out in your lat.i.tude afore, marm, I vow. We were talkin' of reparin' a vessel, not strippin' a woman; what under the sun could have put that 'ere crotchet into your head?”
She looked mortified and humbled at the result of her own absurd curiosity, and soon quitted the room. ”I thought I should have snorted right out two or three times,” said the Clockmaker; ”I had to pucker up my mouth like the upper eend of a silk puss, to keep from yawhawin' in her face, to hear the critter let her clapper run that fas.h.i.+on. She is not the first hand that has caught a lobster, by puttin' in her oar afore her turn, I guess. She'll mind her steps next hitch, I reckon.” This was our last breakfast at Amherst.
An early frost that smote the potato fields, and changed the beautiful green colour of the Indian corn into shades of light yellow, and dark brown, reminded me of the presence of autumn, of the season of short days and bad roads. I determined to proceed at once to Parrsboro', and thence by the Windsor and Kentville route to Annapolis, Yarmouth, and Shelburne, and to return by the sh.o.r.e road, through Liverpool and Lunenburg to Halifax. I therefore took leave (though not without much reluctance) of the Clockmaker, whose intention had been to go to Fort Lawrence.
”Well,” said he, ”I vow I am sorry to part company along with you; a considerable long journey like our'n, is like sitting up late with the gals, a body knows it's getting on pretty well towards mornin', and yet feels loth to go to bed, for it's just the time folks grow sociable. I got a scheme in my head,” said he, ”that I think will answer both on us; I got debts due to me in all them 'ere places for clocks sold by the consarn; now suppose you leave your horse on these mashes this fall; he'll get as fat as a fool, he won't be able to see out of his eyes in a month; and I'll put 'Old Clay' (I call him Clay arter our senator, who is a prime bit of stuff) into a Yankee wagon I have here, and drive you all round the coast.”
This was too good an offer to be declined. A run at gra.s.s for my horse, an easy and comfortable wagon, and a guide so original and amusing as Mr. Slick, were either of them enough to induce my acquiescence.
As soon as we had taken our seats in the wagon, he observed--
”We shall progress real handsum now; that 'ere horse goes etarnal fast, he near about set my axle on fire twice. He's a spanker you may depend. I had him when he was a two-year-old, all legs and tail, like a devil's darnin' needle, and had him broke on purpose by father's old n.i.g.g.e.r, January Snow. He knows English real well, and can do near about anything but speak it. He helped me once to gin a Bluenose a proper handsum quiltin'.”
”He must have stood a poor chance indeed,” said I, ”a horse kickin', and a man striking him at the same time.”
”Oh! not arter that pattern at all,” said he, ”Lord if Old Clay had kicked him, he'd a smashed him like that 'ere sarcer you broke at Pugnose's inn, into ten hundred thousand million flinders. Oh! no, if I didn't fix his flint for him in fair play, it's a pity. I'll tell you how it was. I was up to Truro, at Ezra Whitter's inn. There was an arbitration there atween Deacon Text and Deacon Faithful. Well, there was a 'nation sight of folks there, for they said it was a biter bit, and they came to witness the sport, and to see which critter would get the earmark.
”Well, I'd been doin' a little business there among the folks, and had jist sot off for the river, mounted on Old Clay, arter takin' a gla.s.s of Ezra's most particular handsum Jamaiky, and was trottin' off pretty slick, when who should I run agin but Tim Bradley. He is a dreadful ugly, cross-grained critter, as you e'enamost ever seed, when he is about half-shaved. Well, I stopped short, and says I, ”Mr.
Bradley, I hope you bean't hurt; I'm proper sorry I run agin you, you can't feel uglier than I do about it, I do a.s.sure you.' He called me a Yankee peddler, a cheatin' vagabond, a wooden nutmeg, and threw a good deal of a.s.sorted hardware of that kind at me; and the crowd of folks cried out, 'Down with the Yankee!' 'Let him have it Tim!'
'Teach him better manners!' and they carried on pretty high, I tell you. Well, I got my dander up too, I felt all up on eend like; and, thinks I to myself, My lad if I get a clever chance, I'll give you such a quiltin' as you never had since you were raised from a seedlin', I vow. So says I, 'Mr. Bradley, I guess you had better let me be; you know I can't fight no more than a cow; I never was brought up to wranglin', and I don't like it.' 'Haul off the cowardly rascal,' they all bawled out, 'haul him off, and lay it into him!' So he lays right hold of me by the collar, and gives me a pull, and I lets on as if I'd lost my balance and falls right down. Then I jumps up on eend, and says I 'Go ahead Clay,' and the old horse he sets off a head, so I knew I had him when I wanted him. Then says I, 'I hope you are satisfied now, Mr. Bradley, with that 'ere ungenteel fall you gin me.' Well, he makes a blow at me, and I dodged it. 'Now,' says I, 'you'll be sorry for this, I tell you; I won't be treated this way for nothin', I'll go right off and swear my life agin you, I'm most afeerd you'll murder me.' Well, he strikes at me agin, thinkin' he had a genuine soft horn to deal with, and hits me in the shoulder.
'Now,' says I, I won't stand here to be lathered like a dog all day long this fas.h.i.+on, it ain't pretty at all; I guess I'll give you a chase for it.' Off I sets arter my horse like mad, and he arter me (I did that to get clear of the crowd, so that I might have fair play at him). Well, I soon found I had the heels of him, and could play him as I liked. Then I slackened up a little, and when he came close up to me, so as nearly to lay his hand upon me, I squatted right whap down, all short, and he pitched over me near about a rod or so, I guess, on his head, and ploughed up the ground with his nose, the matter of a foot or two. If he didn't polish up the coulter, and both mould boards of his face, it's a pity. 'Now,' says I, 'you had better lay where you be and let me go, for I am proper tired; I blow like a horse that's got the heaves; and besides,' says I, 'I guess you had better wash your face, for I am most a feared you hurt yourself.'
That riled him properly; I meant that it should; so he ups and at me awful spiteful like a bull; then I lets him have it, right, left, right, jist three corkers, beginning with the right hand, s.h.i.+fting to the left, and then with the right hand agin. This way I did it,” said the Clockmaker (and he showed me the manner in which it was done); ”it's a beautiful way of hitting, and always does the business--a blow for each eye and one for the mouth. It sounds like ten pounds ten on a blacksmith's anvil; I bunged up both eyes for him, and put in the dead lights in two tu's, and drew three of his teeth, quicker a plaguy sight than the Truro doctor could, to save his soul alive.
'Now,' says I, 'my friend, when you recover your eye-sight I guess you'll see your mistake--I warn't born in the woods to be scared by an owl. The next time you feel in a most particular elegant good humour, come to me and I'll play you the second part of that identical same tune, that's a fact.
”With that, I whistled for Old Clay, and back he comes, and I mounted and off, jist as the crowd came up. The folks looked staggered, and wondered a little grain how it was done so cleverly in short metre.
If I didn't quilt him in no time, you may depend; I went right slap into him, like a flash of lightning into a gooseberry bush. He found his suit ready made and fitted afore he thought he was half measured.
Thinks I, friend Bradley, I hope you know yourself now, for I vow no livin' soul would; your swallowed your soup without singin' out scaldin's, and your near about a pint and a half nearer cryin' than larfin'.
”Yes, as I was sayin', this Old Clay is a real knowin' one; he's as spry as a colt yet, clear grit, ginger to the backbone; I can't help a-thinkin' sometimes the breed must have come from old Kentuck, half horse, half alligator, with a cross of the airth-quake.
”I hope I may be teetotally ruinated, if I'd take eight hundred dollars for him. Go ahead, you old clinker built villain,” said he, ”and show the gentleman how wonderful handSUM you can travel. Give him the real Connecticut quick step. That's it! that's the way to carry the President's message to Congress, from Was.h.i.+ngton to New York, in no time! that's the go to carry a gal from Boston to Rhode Island, and trice her up to a Justice to be married, afore her father's out of bed of a summer's mornin'. Ain't he a beauty? a real doll? none of your c.u.mberland critters, that the more you quilt them, the more they won't go; but a proper one, that will go free gratis for nothin', all out of his own head voluntERRILY. Yes, a horse like Old Clay, is worth the whole seed, breed and generation, of them Amherst beasts put together. He's a horse, every inch of him, stock, lock, and barrel, is Old Clay.”
No. XX
Sister Sall's Courts.h.i.+p.
”There goes one of them 'ere everlastin' rottin' poles in that bridge; they are no better than a trap for a critter's leg,” said the Clockmaker. ”They remind me of a trap Jim Munroe put his foot in one night, that near about made one leg half a yard longer than t'other.
I believe I told you of him, what a desperate idle feller he was; he came from Onion County in Connecticut. Well, he was courtin' Sister Sall. She was a real handsum lookin' gal; you scarce ever seed a more out and out complete critter than she was--a fine figur' head, and a beautiful model of a craft as any in the state, a real clipper, and as full of fun and frolic as a kitten. Well he fairly turned Sall's head; the more we wanted her to give him up the more she wouldn't, and we got plaguy oneasy about it, for his character was none of the best. He was a univarsal favourite among the gals, and tho' he didn't behave very pretty neither, forgetting to marry where he promised, and where he hadn't ought to have forgot too; yet, so it was, he had such an uncommon winnin' way with him, he could talk them over in no time. Sall was fairly bewitched.
”At last, Father said to him one evening when he came a-courtin', 'Jim,' says he, 'you'll never come to no good, if you act like Old Scratch as you do; you ain't fit to come into no decent man's house at all, and your absence would be ten times more agreeable than your company, I tell you. I won't consent to Sall's goin' to them 'ere huskin' parties and quiltin' frolics along with you no more, on no account, for you know how Polly Brown and Nancy White--' 'Now don't,'
says he, 'now don't, Uncle Sam, say no more about that; if you knowed all you wouldn't say it was my fault; and besides, I have turned right about, I am on t'other tack now, and the long leg, too; I am as steady as a pump bolt now. I intend to settle myself and take a farm.' 'Yes yes, and you could stock it too, by all accounts, pretty well, unless you are much misreported,' says father, 'but it won't do. I knew your father; he was our Sargeant; a proper clever and brave man he was too; he was one of the heroes of our glorious revolution. I had a great respect for him, and I am sorry for his sake you will act as you do; but I tell you once for all you must give up all thoughts of Sall, now and for everlastin'.' When Sall heerd this, she began to knit away like mad in a desperate hurry; she looked foolish enough, that's a fact. First she tried to bite in her breath, and look as if there was nothin' particular in the wind, then she blushed all over like scarlet fever, but she recovered that pretty soon; and then her colour went and came, and came and went, till at last she grew as white as chalk, and down she fell slap off her seat on the floor, in a faintin' fit. 'I see,' says father, 'I see it now, you etarnal villain,' and he made a pull at the old fas.h.i.+oned sword, that always hung over the fireplace (we used to call it old Bunker, for his stories always begun, 'when I was at Bunker's hill'), and drawing it out, he made a clip at him as wicked as if he was stabbing at a rat with a hay fork; but Jim, he outs of the door like a shot, and draws it too arter him, and father sends old Bunker right through the panel. 'I'll chop you up as fine as mince meat, you villain,' said he, 'if ever I catch you inside my door agin; mind what I tell you, YOU'LL SWING FOR IT YET.' Well, he made himself considerable scarce arter that, he never sot foot inside the door agin, and I thought he had gin up all hopes of Sall, and she of him; when one night, a most particular uncommon dark night, as I was a-comin' home from neighbour Dearborne's, I heerd some one a-talkin'
under Sall's window. Well, I stops and listens, and who should it be near the ash saplin', but Jim Munroe, a-tryin' to persuade Sall to run off with him to Rhode Island to be married. It was all settled, he should come with a horse and shay to the gate, and then help her out of the window, jist at nine o'clock, about the time she commonly went to bed. Then he axes her to reach down her hand for him to kiss (for he was proper clever at soft sawder), and she stretches it down and he kisses it; and, says he, 'I believe I must have the whole of you out arter all,' and gives her a jirk that kinder startled her; it came so sudden like it made her scream; so off he sot, hot foot, and over the gate in no time.
”Well, I ciphered over this all night, a-calculatin' how I should reciprocate that trick with him, and at last I hit on a scheme. I recollected father's words at partin', 'MIND WHAT I TELL YOU, YOU'LL SWING FOR IT YET;' and thinks I, friend Jim, I'll make that prophecy come true yet, I guess. So the next night, jist at dark, I gives January Snow, the old n.i.g.g.e.r, a nidge with my elbow, and as soon as he looks up, I winks and walks out and he arter me. Says I, 'January can you keep your tongue within your teeth, you old n.i.g.g.e.r you?' 'Why ma.s.sa, why you ax that 'ere question? My Gor A'mity, you tink old Snow he don't know dat 'ere yet? My tongue he got plenty room now, debil a tooth left; he can stretch out ever so far; like a little leg in a big bed, he lay quiet enough, Ma.s.sa, neber fear.' 'Well, then,'
says I, 'bend down that 'ere ash saplin' softly, you old s...o...b..ll, and make no noise. The saplin' was no sooner bent than secured to the ground by a notched peg and a noose, and a slip-knot was suspended from the tree, jist over the track that led from the pathway to the house. 'Why, my Gor, ma.s.sa, that's a--' 'Hold your mug, you old n.i.g.g.e.r,' says I, 'or I'll send your tongue a-sarchin' arter your teeth; keep quiet, and follow me in presently.'
”Well, jist as it struck nine o'clock, says I, 'Sally, hold this here hank of twine for a minute, till I wind a trifle on it off; that's a dear critter.' She sot down her candle, and I put the twine on her hands, and then I begins to wind and wind away ever so slow, and drops the ball every now and then, so as to keep her downstairs.