“Can you tell us how far we are from Brown’s ferry?” said I to a man, who came suddenly and silently upon us from a narrow side-path.
We were on the banks of the Tennessee: the evening was drawing in; the fog, that hung over land and river, was each moment thickening. The landscape had a wild chaotic appearance, and it was scarcely possible to distinguish objects at five paces distance.
The horseman paused some moments before answering my question. At last he replied, accompanying his words with an ominous shake of the head—
“To Brown’s ferry? Perhaps you mean Cox’s ferry?”
“Well, then—Cox’s ferry,” said I, rather impatiently.
“Ay, old Brown is dead,” continued the man, “and Betsy has married young Cox. Ain’t it him you mean?”
“That we know nothing about,” replied I; “but what we wish to learn is, whether we are far from the ferry, and if this is the right road to it.”
“Ah! the way to the ferry—that’s the rub, man! You’re a good five miles off, and might just as well turn your horse’s head another way. I guess you’re strangers in these parts?”
“Heaven preserve us!” whispered my friend Richards, “we are in the hands of a Yankee; he is guessing already.”[A]
Meantime the horseman had drawn nearer to us, in spite of the thorns and of the wet boughs, that each moment slapped and slashed him across his face; and he was now close to our horse. As far as we could distinguish through the rapidly-increasing gloom, he was a middle-aged man, bony and long-legged, with a sallow unprepossessing physiognomy surmounting his long ungainly carcass, and metal buttons upon his coat.