The Kentuckian in New-York; or, The Adventures of Three Southerns. Volume 1 (of 2)

Towards the latter part of the summer of 18--, on one of those cool, delightful, and invigorating mornings which are frequent in the southern regions of the United States, there issued from the principal hotel on the valley-side of Harper's Ferry two travellers, attended by a venerable and stately southern slave. The experienced eye of the old ferryman, as he stood in his flat-bottomed boat awaiting the arrival of this party, discovered at once that our travellers were from the far South.

The first of these, Victor Chevillere, entered the "flat," leading by the bridle a mettlesome southern horse; when he had stationed this fine animal to his satisfaction, he stood directly fronting the prescriptive Charon of the region. This young gentleman, who appeared to be the principal character of the party just entering the boat, was handsomely formed, moderately tall, and fashionably dressed. His face was bold, dignified, and resolute, and not remarkable for any very peculiar fashion of the hair or beard which shaded it. He appeared to be about twenty-three years of age, and though so young, much and early experience of the world had already o'ershadowed his face with a becoming serenity, if not sadness. Not that silly, affected melancholy, however, which is so often worn in these days by young and romantic idle gentlemen, to catch the errant sympathies of some untravelled country beauty.

The next personage of the party (who likewise entered the boat leading a fine southern animal), was a fashionable young gentleman, about the middle size; his face was pale and wan, as if he had but just recovered from an attack of illness. Nevertheless there was a brilliant fire in his eye, and a lurking, but too evident, disposition to fun and humour, which illness had not been entirely able to subdue. Augustus Lamar, for such was his name, was the confidential and long-tried friend of the first-named gentleman: their mutual regard had existed undiminished from the time of their early school days in South Carolina, through their whole college career in Virginia up to the moment of which we speak.

The third and more humble personage of the party bore the time-honoured appellation of Cato. He was a tall old negro, with a face so black as to form a perfect contrast to his white hair and brilliant teeth. He was well dressed and cleanly in his person, and rather solemn and pompous in his manners. Cato had served the father of his present highly honoured young master, and was deeply imbued with that strong feudal attachment to the family, which is a distinguishing characteristic of the southern negroes who serve immediately near the persons of the great landholders.

Our travellers were now smoothly gliding over that most magnificent "meeting of the waters" of the Shenandoah and Potomack, which is usually known by the unpretending name of "Harper's Ferry." It was early morning; the moon was still visible above the horizon, and the sun had not yet risen above those stupendous fragments whose chaotic and irregular position gives token of the violence with which the mass of waters rent for themselves a passage through the mountains, when rushing on to meet that other congregation of rivers, with whose waters they unite to form the Bay of the Chesapeake. The black bituminous smoke from the hundred smithies of the United States' armory, had just begun to rise above the towering crags that seemed, at this early period, to battle with the vapours which are here sent up in thick volumes from the contest of rocks and rivers beneath.

Old Cato had by this time assumed his post at the heads of the three horses, while our southerns stood with folded arms, each impressed with the scene according to his individual impulses. As they approached nearer to the northern shore, Chevillere, addressing Lamar, observed: "An unhappy young lady she must be who arrived at our hotel last evening. I could hear her weeping bitterly as she paced the floor, until a late hour of the night, when finally she seemed to throw herself upon the bed, and fall asleep from mere exhaustion;" and then, turning to the weather-beaten steersman, continued: "I suppose we are the first passengers in the 'flat' this morning?"

"No, sir, you are not; a carriage from the same tavern went over half an hour ago. There was an old gray-headed man, and two young women in it, besides the driver, and the driver told me that they were all the way from York State,--the mail stage, too, went over."

"The same party," said Chevillere, abstractedly; "Did you learn where they were to breakfast, boatman?"

"About ten miles from this, I think I heard say."

They were soon landed and mounted, and cantering away through the fog and vapours of the early morning. Nor were they long in overtaking a handsome travelling-carriage, which was moving at a brisk rate, in accordance with the exertions of two fine, evidently northern, horses. The carriage contained an elderly, grave, formal, and magisterial gentleman; his locks quite gray, and hanging loose upon the collar of his coat; his countenance harsh, austere, and forbidding in the extreme. By his side sat a youthful lady, so enveloped in a large black mantle, and travelling hat and veil, that but little of her form or features could be seen, except a pair of brilliant blue eyes.

It is not to be denied, that these sudden apparitions of young and beautiful females, almost completely shrouded in mantles, drapery, or veils, are the very circumstances fully to arouse the slumbering energies of a lately emancipated college Quixotte. A lovely pair of eyes, brimful of tears,--a "Cinderella" foot and ankle,--a white and beautifully turned hand and tapered fingers, with perhaps a mourning ring or two,--or a bonnet suddenly blown off, so as to dishevel a magnificent head of hair, its pretty mistress meanwhile all confusion, and her snowy neck and temples suffused with blushes,--these are the little incidents on which the real romances of human life are founded. How many persons can look back to such a commencement of their youthful loves! nay, perhaps, refer to it all the little enjoyment with which they have been blessed through life! We venture to say, that those who were so unfortunate as never to bring their first youthful romance to a fortunate denouement, can likewise look back upon such occurrences with many pleasing emotions. A bachelor or a widower, indeed, may not always recur with pleasure to these first passages in the book of life,--but the feelings even of these are not altogether of the melancholy kind. The fairy queens of their spring-tide will sometimes arise in the present tense, until they almost imagine themselves in the possession again of youth and all its raptures,--its brilliant dreams, airy castles, "hair-breadth 'scapes," and miraculous deliverances,--cruel fathers, and perverse guardians, and stolen interviews, and lovers' vows and tokens,--winding up finally with a runaway match--all of the imagination.

After the equipage before alluded to had been for some time left behind, our travellers began to descry, at the distance of several miles, the long white portico of the country inn at which they proposed to breakfast. The United States mail-coach for Baltimore was standing at the door, evidently waiting till the passengers should have performed the same needful operation. Servants were running hither and thither, some to the roost, others to the stable, as if a large number of the most distinguished dignitaries of the land had just arrived.

But, behold, when our travellers drew up, they found that all this stir among the servants of the inn was called into being by the real or affected wants of a number of very young gentlemen. We say affected, because we are sorry to acknowledge that it is not uncommon to see very young and inexperienced gentlemen, on such occasions, assume airs and graces which are merely put on as a travelling dress, and which would be thrown aside at the first appearance of an old acquaintance. At such times it is by no means rare to see all the servants of the inn, together with the host and hostess, entirely engrossed by one of these overgrown boys or ill-bred men, while their elders and superiors are compelled either to want or wait upon themselves. At the time we notice, some young bloods of the cities were exercising themselves in their new suit of stage-coach manners.

"Here waiter! waiter!" with an affectedly delicate and foreign voice, cried one of these youths, enveloped in a brown "Petersham box" coat, and with his hands stuck into his pockets over his hips. Under the arm of this person was a black riding-switch, with a golden head, and a small chain of the same precious metal, fastened about six inches therefrom, after the fashion of some old rapier guards. He wore a rakish-looking fur cap, round and tight on the top of his head as a bladder of snuff; this was cocked on one side after a most piratical fashion, so as to show off, in the best possible manner, a great profusion of coarse, shining black hair, which was evidently indebted to art rather than nature for the curls that frizzled out over his ears, while the back part of his head was left as bare and defenceless as if he had already been under the hands of a deputy turnkey. He practised what may be called American puppyism, as technically distinguished from the London species of the same genus. "Here waiter! waiter!" said he, "bring me a gin sling,--and half-a-dozen Bagdad segars,--and a lighted taper,--and a fresh egg,--and a bowl of water, and a clean towel,--and polish my boots,--and dust my coat,--and then send me the barber, do you hear?"

"O, sir! we has no barber, nor Bagdab segars neither; but we has plenty of the real Baltimores,--real good ones, too,--as I knows very well, for I smokes the old sodgers what the gentlemen throws on the bar-room floor."

"It is one of the most amusing scenes imaginable," said Victor Chevillere to Augustus Lamar, as they sat witnessing this scene, "when the waiter and the master pro tempore are both fools. The fawning, bowing, cringing waiter, with his big lips upon the qui vive, his head and shoulders constantly in motion, and rubbing his hands one over the other after the most approved fashion of the men of business. In such a case as that which we have just witnessed, where puppyism comes in contact with the kindred monkey-tricks of the waiter, I can enjoy it. But when it happens, as I have more than once seen, that the waiter is a manly, sensible, and dignified old negro of the loftier sort, such as old Cato,--then you can soon detect the curl of contempt upon his lip,--and he is not long thereafter in selecting the real gentlemen of the party,--always choosing to wait most upon those who least demand it."

"I would bet my horse Talleyrand against an old field scrub, that that fellow is a Yankee," answered Lamar.

"He may be a Yankee," continued Victor Chevillere, "but you have travelled too much and reflected too long upon the nature of man, to ascribe every thing disgusting to a Yankee origin. For my part, I make the character of every man I meet in some measure my study during my travels, and as we have agreed to exchange opinions upon men and things, I will tell you freely what I think of that fellow who has just retreated from our laughter. I have found it not at all uncommon, to see the most undisguised hatred arise between two such persons as he of the stage-coach,--the one from the north, and the other from the south,--when in truth, the actuating impulse was precisely the same in both, but had taken a different direction, and was differently developed by different exciting causes.