Charlie and I returned from our pleasant walk, feeling as though we had been acquainted for years. We had considerable conversation, on various topics, and I will never forget a remark I heard him make. We were speaking of religion, and I found that he, like myself, was a dissenter from the orthodox faith. Speaking of the doubts and perplexities that always arose, when he thought on the subject, he said:
“If I possessed the wealth of the whole world; if the lands, the houses, the gold, the gems, the kingdoms, and the thrones were mine; I would gladly give them all to know the TRUTH!”
The reader has, no doubt, heard or read of a certain cave among the rocks on Wheeling creek, in which an Indian once concealed himself with a rifle, and, by imitating the voice of a turkey, decoyed several men from the fort in succession, and shot them. His stratagem was at last detected, however, and a pioneer who was as shrewd as he, went in the night, concealed himself in the neighborhood, and in the morning saw the dusky savage go and ensconce himself in his usual hiding-place, and begin the song of the turkey. The pioneer, who could see his dark visage among the rocks, took aim with his rifle, and with one shot silenced him forever.
Charlie pointed this cave out to me, and I went the next day and visited it. He would have accompanied me, but he was subject to rheumatism, and was suffering considerably that day; so I went alone. The cave is about a mile from Wheeling. I had to climb up the rocks fifteen or twenty feet, in order to get into it, and I sat there awhile, aiming my crutch at a stump beyond Wheeling creek, and imagining myself the cunning but unfortunate Indian who personated a turkey and got shot for it. The cave is not large—in fact, one cannot stand erect; but half-a-dozen persons could be stowed in it in a reclining position, provided none of them were ladies in capacious crinoline.
Returning from the cave, via McCulloch’s Leap, it was my lot to encounter one of the greatest bores I ever met. He was one of those persons who, it is said, can “talk a man to death.” He made me think of the celebrated lines of Pope:
“No place so sacred from such fops is barred,
Nor is Paul’s church more safe than Paul’s churchyard.
Nay, fly to altars, there they talk you dead,
And fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
He lived in a solitary house, by the creek at the base of the declivity, and he happened to come out just as I was about to make the ascent. He was a fast talker, said a great many words in a few seconds, and often spoke a good many seconds at a time.