Ralph Doughby, Esquire of New Feliciana, La., was an old acquaintance of Richards and myself, and an excellent specimen of a warm-hearted, impetuous, breakneck Kentuckian, with a share of earthquake in his composition that might be deemed large, even in Kentucky. He had come to Louisiana some eight years previously, a voyage of a thousand miles or more down the Cumberland River, the Ohio, and Mississippi, in a flat boat with half a dozen negroes, some casks of flour, hams, and Indian corn, and a few horses, and had settled at Woodville on a couple of thousand acres of good land, bought at five dollars an acre, to be paid in five years. His industry and energy had caused him to thrive, and he was now as well established planter as any on the Mississippi; his six negroes had amounted to forty, his wilderness had become a respectable plantation, his cotton was sought after, and he had not only paid for his acres but had already a large sum in the Planters' Bank. His frank open character had made him friends on all hands, and there was not a more popular man in Louisiana than Major Ralph Doughby.
During the stay I made at Richards' house previously to my marriage, Doughby had passed a day there in company with one Mr Lambton and his daughter, Yankees—the latter a beautiful girl, but cold and formal like most of her countrywomen. An aunt of hers, who possessed large plantations on the Mississippi, had made up a match between Miss Lambton and Doughby, and they were then proceeding to New York, where the marriage was in due time to be solemnized. Richards and myself had observed, however, that the wild headlong manners and character of the Kentuckian, joined though they were to great goodness of heart and many sterling qualities, did not appear very pleasing to the stiff, etiquette-loving fine lady, and it was without any great surprise that we heard, some time afterwards, of the marriage being broken off, in consequence, it was said, of some wild freak of Doughby's. We were asking one another for the particulars of this rupture, which neither of us had heard, when the Kentuckian made his reappearance in the cabin. He had changed his dress, and, taking him altogether, was by no means an ill-looking fellow. His light blue gingham frock and snow-white trousers fitted him well; an elegant straw hat, very fine linen, and a diamond shirt-pin that must have cost the best part of a thousand dollars, contributed to give a sort of genteel planter-like air. His first care upon emerging from his state-room was to empty a glass of toddy. He then approached Richards and myself.
"And Miss Lambton?" said Richards enquiringly.
"Haven't you heard?" said Doughby; "you must have heard! It's all up—she won't hear speak of me—persists in her resolution—won't see me; or give me a chance of making my peace. I'm the most unlucky fellow on the face of the earth," continued he, changing his tone on a sudden to a melancholy sort of whine—"I wish I lay three hundred feet deep in the bed of the Mississippi. I tell you, boys, it's clean up with me, I feel that. I'm a lost man, done for entirely—shall never recover it!"
We burst out into a violent fit of laughter, as who would not have done at the sight of a young giant of seven-and-twenty, with cheeks as red as poppies, shoulders that seemed made like those of Atlas to support a world; pair of dark blue-grey eyes with a laughing devil dancing in them, and a little moist just now from the effects of the toddy, and the man dying of love! He measured five feet thirteen inches in his stockings, with legs that might have belonged to an elephant, and fists calculated to frighten a buffalo.
"Be d——d to your laughing!" cried Doughby—"Steward, another glass—d'ye hear, you cursed neger, where are you hidden? Don't you hear when a gentleman speaks to you? D'ye want me to tattoo your black brainpan? You laugh," he continued to Richards and myself, relapsing into his whimpering tones; "but if you only knew—none of the women will have me—this is the seventh who has packed me off."
"The seventh!" cried I laughing, "what, only the seventh, Doughby? Pshaw! that's nothing; during my bachelor's life I had at least two dozen refusals, and I am only a year older than yourself."
"You be hanged with your two dozen! Steward, the toddy is only fit for old women—too much water in it; you don't know how to make toddy. Tell your captain to come here. I'll have you sent to the devil. No, I tell you my heart is so full, it feels as if it would burst. She won't hear of me. I will tell you all about it, boys—but who is that?" interrupted he, pointing to Vergennes, who was standing near us, and looking on in great wonderment. "Ah, Monshur Tonson! happy to see you, Monshur Tonson! Parleh vouh English? Prenez un seat, et un glass de Madeira. Nous parlerons hansamble le Franseh. Neger, a bottle of Madeira; and let it be good, or you'll get the bottle across your crooked shins. A bottle of Irish for me, d'ye hear, real Irish whisky, or if you haven't any, Scotch will do. No, boys, I tell you I am a gone man. Dismissed, sent away, packed off with a flea in my ear, as they say."
And so saying, he threw himself on a sofa with a violence that made it crack again; the steward brought the Madeira and the whisky, and we drew round the table to condole with the love-stricken Kentuckian. A few minutes passed in the composition of the toddy, which was evidently destined to play the chief part in the way of a consoler; and when Doughby had got a large beer-glass of the comfortable mixture before him, he began his narrative.