Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844

“The devil take the Bainbridge roadmaster—I repeat it!” cried Richards, half in earnest and half laughing, raising his muddy and bootless foot as he spoke, and placing it on a chair. “See there, men! I may thank him for the loss of my boot. The cursed swamp between here and the ferry was kind enough to pull it off for me.”

The roar of laughter that responded to these words would inevitably have broken the windows, had there been any glass in them. Fortunately the latter luxury was wanting; its place being supplied by fragments of old inexpressibles, and of ci-devant coats and waistcoats.

“Come, lads!” continued Richards, “I mean no offence; but of a surety I have to thank your bad roads for the loss of my boot.”

Richard’s jest, exactly adapted to the society in which we found ourselves, was the most fortunate impromptu that could have been hit upon. It seemed at once to have established us upon a footing of harmony and friendship with the rough backwoodsmen amongst whom we had fallen.

“May I be shot like a Redskin, if that ain’t Mister Richards from Old Virginny, now of the Mississippi,” suddenly exclaimed the same colossus who had so recently had his hand upon Richards’s shoulder, twisting, as he spoke, his wild features into a sort of amicable grin. “May I never taste another drop of rale Monongahela, if you sha’n’t drink a pint with Bob Snags the roadmaster!”

It was the very dignitary whom Richards had insulted with such imminent risk to his shoulder-blade.

“A hurra for old Virginny!” shouted the master of the roads, biting, as he spoke, into a piece of tobacco from that famous state. “Come, mister—come, doctor!” continued the man, offering Richards with one hand a roll of tobacco, with the other a pint glassful of whisky.

“Doctor!” repeated the whole assembly—“a doctor!”

A man possessing power over gin and whisky, and whose word is an indisputable veto against even a smaller, is no unimportant personage in that feverish neighbourhood. In this instance, Richards’s doctorship was of the double utility of delivering us from the threatened pint-glasses, and of causing us to be considered as privileged guests—no small advantage in a backwoods’ tavern, occupied as the headquarters of an electioneering party. Cæsar, however, was the first to derive a positive profit from the discovery. Bob left the room for a minute or two, and we could hear the horse walking into the stable. When the roadmaster returned, he had assumed a patronizing sort of look.

“Mister Richards!” said he confidentially, “Mister Richards! May I be shot if you ain’t continually a sensible man, with more rale blood in your little finger than a horse could swim in. Yes, and I’ll show you that Bob Snags is your friend. I say, doctor, what countryman is your horse?”

“A thorough-bred Virginian,” replied Richards.

“The devil he is!” cried Bob. “Well, doctor, to prove to you that I’m your friend, and that I ain’t forgotten old times, I’ll swop with you without lookin’ at him. May I be shot if I ain’t reg’larly cheatin’ myself. Well, I’m uncommon glad to see you again. Bob Snags has no reason to fear lookin’ a rale gemman in the face. Come, lads, none of yer jimmaky, and slings, and poorgun,5 and suchlike dog’s wash, but ginuine Monongahela—that’s the stuff. Hurra for Old Virginny! Well, doctor, it’s a deal—ain’t it?”

“No, Bob,” said Richards, laughing; “your generosity is so truly Alabamian, that I cannot make up my mind to accept it. For the present, at least, I must keep my Virginian. It is my wife’s saddle-horse.”

“But Swiftfoot,” replied Bob, in a cordial confidential manner—“Swiftfoot is a famous trotter.”

“It won’t do, Bob,” was the answer. “I should not dare show myself at home without Cæsar.”

Bob bit his lips, a little vexed at not being able to make a deal; but another half-pint of whisky, which he poured down as if it had been spring water, seemed to restore him to good humour. Meanwhile my wet clothes were beginning to hang heavy upon me, and to steam in the hot atmosphere in which we were. Bob, who had already cast several side-glances at me, now turned to Richards.

“And who may the mister be?” said he.

The mention of my name and condition, procured me a welcome that I could willingly have dispensed with. After the shake of the hand with which Bob favoured me, I looked at my finger-nails, to see if the blood was not starting from under them. The fellow’s hands were as hard and rough as bear’s paws.

“Very glad that you’re come, boys,” said Bob in a low confidential tone.   “I’m just makin’ a try for the next Assembly; and it’s always good, you know, to have somebody to speak to one’s character. How long is it, Mister Richards, since I left Blairsville.”

“Eight years,” replied my friend.

“No, Harry,” whispered the roadmaster; “may I be shot if it’s more than five.”

“But,” replied Richards, “I have been living five years by the Mississippi, and you know”–

“Ah, nonsense!” interrupted Bob. “Five years—not an hour more. D’ye understand?” added he cautiously—“five years, if you’re asked.”

The facts were thus. This respectable candidate for the representation of his fellow-citizens, had made his escape from his previous residence, the birthplace of Richards, on account of certain misdeeds, of which the sheriff and constables had taken cognizance, and after wandering about for a few years, had settled in Bainbridge county, where he seemed to have thriven—as far, at least, as whisky and human weakness had allowed him. We could hardly help laughing outright at the importance which Bob thought proper to attribute to us before his companions, the independent electors, whose votes he was desirous of securing. Æsculapius himself was a mere quacksalver compared to Squire Richards, whose twenty-five negroes were rapidly multiplied into a hundred; while my poor neglected plantation was, between brothers, well worth five hundred thousand dollars. We allowed Mr Bob to have it his own way; for it might have been dangerous to contradict a giant of his calibre, who was always ready to support his arguments with his huge cocoa nut-coloured fists. At last Richards was able to slip in a word.

“You are not going to make your speech now, are you?”

“May I be shot if I ain’t, though! I’ll begin at once.”

“Cannot we manage to change our clothes, and get some supper first?” said Richards.

“Change your clothes!” said Bob contemptuously. “And what for, man? Not on our account; you’re quite smart enough, quite good enough for us—no occasion to bother yourselves. If it’s for your own pleasure, however, you can do it. Hallo, Johnny!”

And he commenced a negotiation with Johnny, the host, who, to our great joy, took up a candle, and led the way into a sort of back parlour, with a promise that we should have our supper before very long.

“Is there no other room where we can dress ourselves?” said I.

“To be sure there is,” was the answer. “There’s the garret—only there’s my daughter and a dozen gals sleepin’ there; then there’s the kitchen, if you like it better.”

I looked round the room. A servant girl was beginning to lay the table; and, unluckily, the apartment was connected by an open door with the kitchen, in which there was a loud noise of voices. I would have given a good deal for a quarter of an hour’s undisturbed possession of the room. I looked about for our portmanteaus, but could see nothing of them.

“Six smalls it ain’t buffalo hide!” vociferated a young Stentor in the kitchen.

“Six smalls its cow hide!” roared another.

“If I am not very much mistaken,” said Richards, “it is our portmanteaus that those fellows are betting about.”

“That would really be too bad,” said I.

Nevertheless, it was as Richards had said. We had little occasion to fear that the portmanteaus would be lost or injured; but we knew very well that the only way to get them out of the claws of these rough backwoodsmen would be by some well-contrived joke. And those jokes were exactly what I feared; for one had often to risk breaking an arm or a leg by them. There was a crowd of men in the kitchen. One young fellow, upwards of six feet high, held a lighted candle; and they were all busily engaged examining something which lay in the middle of the floor.

“No,” cried a voice, appealing apparently from a decision that had been given, “I won’t pay without I see the inside.”

They were debating whether the portmanteaus were of buffalo or cow hide. They had caught sight of them   as they were being carried through the kitchen into the back-room, and had at once seized upon them as good subjects for a bet. It was time for us to interfere, if we did not wish to see our trunks ripped open, for the sake of ascertaining the quality of the leather.

“Sixteen smalls,” cried Richards, “that it’s deer hide!”

“Done!” thundered half a score voices, with loud peals of laughter.

“It is a bet, then,” said my friend; “but let us see what we are betting about.”

“Make way for the gemmen!” cried the men.

“Our portmanteaus!” exclaimed Richards, laughing. “No, certainly, they are not deer hide. Here is my bet.”

A loud hurra followed the payment of the dollar which my friend handed over; and we now found ourselves in undisputed possession of our baggage. The next thing to be done was to endeavour to get the room to ourselves for a few minutes.

“We wish to be left alone for a short time,” said I to the help, who was bustling in and out, and covering the table with innumerable plates of preserved fruits, cucumbers, beet-root, and suchlike edibles.

I shut the door.

“That is the surest way to have it opened again,” said Richards.

He had hardly uttered the words, when, sure enough, the door flew open, amidst a peal of uproarious laughter.

“Tail!” cried one fellow.

“Head!” shouted another.

“They want another dollar,” said Richards. “Well, they must have it, I suppose. Head!” cried he.

“Lost!” roared the fellows in chorus.

“There is something for you to drink,” said my friend, whose wonderful patience and good-humour was bringing us so fortunately through the shoals and difficulties of this wild backwoods’ life. We now shut the door, and had time enough to change our wet clothes for dry ones. We were nearly dressed, when a gentle tapping at the only pane of glass of which the room window could boast attracted our attention. On looking in the direction of the sound, we distinguished the amiable features of Mr Isaac Shifty, who, upon our entering the tavern, had thought proper to part company.

“Gentlemen,” whispered he, removing the remains of an old waistcoat, which supplied the place of one of the absent panes, and then applying his face to the aperture—“Gentlemen, I was mistaken. Our spies say you are not come to the election, but that you are from lower Mississippi.”

“And if we are, what then?” replied I dryly. “Didn’t we tell you as much at first?”

“So you did, but I wasn’t obliged to believe it; and d’ye see, they’re a-canvassing here for next election, and we’ve got an opposition in the other tavern; and as we knew that Bob Snags’s people were expectin’ two men from down stream, we thought you might be they.”

“And so, because you thought we should vote against you, you allowed us to stick in the mud, with the agreeable prospect of either breaking our necks or tumbling into the Tennessee?” said Richards laughing.

“Not exactly that,” replied the Yankee; “though if you had been the two men that were expected, I guess we shouldn’t have minded your passing the night in the swamp; but now we know how matters stand, and I’m come to offer you my house. There’ll be an almighty frolic here to-night, and p’r’aps somethin’ more. In my house you can sleep as quiet as need be.”

“It won’t do, Mr Shifty,” said Richards, with a look that must have shown the Yankee pretty plainly that his object in thus pressing his hospitality upon us was seen through; “it won’t do, we will stop where we are.”

The latch of the door leading into the kitchen was just then lifted, which brought our conversation to a close. During the confabulation, our Yankee’s sharp grey eyes had glanced incessantly from us to the door; and hardly was the noise of the latch audible, when his face disappeared, and the old waistcoat again stopped the aperture.

“He wants to get us away,” said   Richards, “because he fears that our presence here will give Bob too much weight and respectability. You see they have got their spies. If Bob and his people find that out, there will be a royal row. A nice disreputable squatter’s hole we have fallen into; but, bad as it is, it is better than the swamp.”

The table was now spread; the tea and coffee-pots smoking upon it. The supper was excellent, consisting of real Alabama delicacies. Pheasants and woodcocks, and a splendid haunch of venison, which, in spite of the game-laws, had found its way into Johnny’s larder—wheat, buckwheat, and Indian-corn cakes; the whole, to the honour of Bainbridge be it spoken, cooked in a style that would have been creditable to a Paris restaurateur. By the help of these savoury viands, we had already, to a considerable extent, taken the edge off our appetite, when we heard Bob’s voice growling away in the next room. He had begun his speech. It was high time to make an end of our supper, and go and listen to him under whose protecting wings we were, and to whom we probably owed it, that we had got so far through the evening with whole heads and unbroken bones. Backwoods’ etiquette rendered our presence absolutely necessary; and we accordingly rose from table, and rejoined the assemblage of electors.

At the upper end of the table, next to the bar, stood Bob Snags, in his various capacity of president, speaker, and candidate. A thickset personage, sitting near him, officiated as secretary—to judge at least from the inkstand with which he was provided. Bob looked rather black at us as we entered, no doubt on account of our late arrival; but Cicero pleading against Catiline could not have given a more skilful turn to his oration than did Bob upon the occasion of our entrance.

“And these gemmen,” continued he, “could tell you—ay, and put down in black and white—no end of proofs of my respectability and character. May I be shot by Injuns, if it ain’t as good as that of the best man in the state.”

“No better than it should be,” interposed a voice.

Bob threw a fierce look at the speaker; but the smile on the face of the latter showing that no harm was meant, the worthy candidate cleared his throat and proceeded.

“Yes,” said he, “we want men as know what’s what, and who won’t let themselves be humbugged by the ’Ministration, but will defend our nat’ral born sovereign rights. I know their ’tarnal rigs, inside and out. May I be totally swallowed by a b’ar, if I give way an inch to the best of ’em; that is to say, men, if you honour me with your confidence and”–

“You’ll go the whole hog, will you?” interrupted one of the free and independent electors.

“The whole hog!” repeated Bob, striking his fist on the table with the force of a sledge-hammer; “ay, that will I! the whole hog for the people! Now lads, don’t you think that our great folks cost too much money? Tarnation to me if I wouldn’t do all they do at a third of the price. Why, half a dozen four-horse waggons would have enough to do to carry away the hard dollars that Johnny6 and his ’Ministration have cost the country. Here it is, lads, in black and white.”

Bob had a bundle of papers before him, which we had at first taken for a dirty pocket-handkerchief, but which now proved to be the county newspapers—one of which gave a statement of the amount expended by the first magistrate of the Union during his administration, reduced, for the sake of clearness, into waggon-loads. Bob was silent, while his neighbour the secretary put on his spectacles, and began to read this important document. He was interrupted, however, by cries of “Know it already! Read it already! Go on, Bob!”

“Only see here now,” continued Bob, taking up the paper. “Diplomatic missions! what does that mean? What occasion had they to send any one there? Then they’ve appointed one General Tariff, who’s the maddest   aristocrat that ever lived, and he’s passed a law by which we ain’t to trade any more with the Britishers. Every stocking, every knife-handle, that comes into the States, has to pay a duty to this infernal aristocrat. Where shall we get our flannel from now, I wonder?”

“Hear, hear!” cried a youth in a tattered red flannel shirt, to whose feelings this question evidently went home.

“Moreover,” continued Bob, “it’s a drag put upon our ships, to the profit of their Yankee manyfacters. Manyfacters, indeed! Men! free sovereign citizens! to work in manyfacters!”

“Hear, hear!” in a threatening tone from the audience.

“But that ain’t all,” continued Bob, nodding his head mysteriously. “No, men—hear and judge! You, the enlightened freemen of Alabama, listen and judge for yourselves! Clever fellows, the ’Ministration and the Yankees! D’ye know what they’ve been a-doin’?”

“No, no. Tell us!” repeated twenty voices.

“You don’t know?” said Bob, with a fine oratorical movement. “I’ll tell you then. They’ve been a-sendin’ clothes, powder, rifles, flour, and whisky to the Creeks! Two full shiploads have they sent. Here it is!” yelled Bob, taking another paper from his pocket, and dashing it upon the table.7

A breathless silence reigned during the reading of the important paragraph, while Richards and myself were making almost superhuman efforts to restrain our laughter. Bob continued—

“You see, men, they want to get the scalpin’ plunderin’ thieves back ag’in over the Mississippi into Georgia—ay, and perhaps into Alabama too. And they’re holdin’ meetin’s and assemblies in their favour, and say that we owe our independence to these Creeks; and talk about their chiefs—one Alexander the Great, and Pericles, and Plato, and suchlike names that we give our niggers. And the cussed Redskins are fightin’ against another chief whom they call Sultan, and who lives upon Turk’s island. Where shall we get our salt from now, I should like to know?”8

The storm that had been for some time brewing, now burst forth with a roar that shook the rafters of the log-built tavern. Although immeasurably tickled by Bob’s speech, Richards and I had struggled successfully with our disposition to laugh. At this moment, however, a stifled giggling was heard behind us, which immediately attracted the attention of Bob and his friends. “A spy! a spy!” shouted they; and there was a sudden and general rush to the door, through which an unfortunate adherent of the opposite party had sneaked in to witness their proceedings. The poor devil was seized by a dozen hands, and dragged, neck and heel, before Bob’s tribunal, to account for his intrusion. He set up a howl of terror, and probably pain, that immediately brought to his assistance a whole regiment of his friends, who were assembled in the adjacent tavern. A furious fight began, from which Richards and myself hastened to escape. We made our way into the kitchen, and thence into a court at the back of the house.

“Stop!” said a whispering voice, as we were groping about in the darkness; “you are close to a pool that would drown an ox. I guess you won’t refuse my invitation now?”

It was no less a person than Mr Isaac Shifty; and we began to consider whether it would not really be better to put ourselves under his guidance. Indoors we could hear the fight raging furiously. We paused to think what was best to be done. Suddenly, to our great astonishment, the noise of the contest ceased, and was replaced by a dead silence. We hurried through the kitchen to the field of battle, and found that the charm which had so suddenly   stilled the fury of an Alabamian election fight, was no other than the arrival of the constable and his assistants, who had suddenly appeared in the midst of the combatants. Their presence produced an effect which scarcely any amount of mere physical force would have been able to bring about; and a single summons in the name of the law to keep the peace, had caused the contending parties to separate—the intruding one retiring immediately to its own headquarters.

We passed a quiet and tolerably comfortable night, except that Bob thought proper to favour us with his society, so that we lay three in one bed. Before break of day he got up, and went away. Tired as we were, it was much later before we followed his example. Upon entering the common room of the tavern, we found it empty, but bearing pretty evident marks of the recent conflict. Chairs, benches, and tables, lay in splinters upon the floor, which was, moreover, plentifully sprinkled with fragments of broken jugs and glasses; and even the bar itself had not entirely escaped damage. On repairing to the stable, to pay Cæsar a visit, I found my gig, to my no small mortification, plastered all over with election squibs—“Hurras for Bob Snags!” and the like; while poor Cæsar’s tail was shorn of every hair, as close and clean as if it had been first lathered and then shaved. Our breakfast, however, was excellent—the weather fine; and we set out upon our journey to Florence under decidedly more favourable auspices than those that attended us on the preceding day.