SETTLED AT LAST; OR, RED RIVER RECOLLECTIONS.
Chap. I.
Homeward Bound.
I had left New Orleans with the full intention of proceeding without stop or delay to my home upon the Red River; but notwithstanding this determination, my wife and myself were unable to resist Richards' pressing invitation to pause for a day or two at his house. Upon our yielding to his solicitations, he proceeded to recruit other guests among our travelling companions, and soon got together a pleasant party. My father-in-law, Monsieur Menou, went on to my plantation, but Julie remained with us, as did also her aunt, Madame Duras, an agreeable old lady with a slight expression of perfidy in her light blue, French-looking eyes, possessed withal of infinite delicacy and finesse—a fervent admirer of the old court school of Louis the Fifteenth, in the chronique scandaleuse of which she was as well versed as if she had been herself a contemporary of that pleasure-loving monarch. Besides these ladies, there was a young Frenchman named Vergennes, the third son of some Gascon viscount, and a distant cousin of the Menous, who had come to America till the scandal occasioned by certain republican scribblings of his in one of the newspapers of the day should have blown over, and till he could revisit his country without risk of obtaining a lodging gratis in the Conciergerie. He had brought with him a head crammed with schemes for the political regeneration of the whole world, and a trunkful of French fashions, neither of which, as I reckoned, were likely to take much with us. He made me laugh inwardly twenty times a-day by his Utopian theories and fancies. Truth to tell, in matters of politics or of sound common sense, these Frenchmen are for the most part mere children, and reach their dying day without ever becoming men. Take them by their weak points, their unlimited vanity or their love of what they call glory, and you may ride them like a horse to water. Vergennes, however, when one could get him off his hobby, was a pleasant gentlemanly fellow enough.
It was impossible to spare Richards more than three days, and at six o'clock on the morning of the fourth, we went on board the steamer Alexandria. I had prevailed on my friend and his wife, and the whole party, to come and pass a week or two at my house, which was now quite ready for the reception of guests. The three days we had remained with Richards had been one continued fête, and considering the good living, and the heat of the weather—the thermometer ranging from 95° to 100°—there were few things more agreeable or better to be done, than to take a steam up the Red River. The fresh breezes on the water might save some of us a touch of fever. On board we went therefore, all in high glee and good-humour with each other.
We had passed the Atchafalaya, and had crossed over to the Francisville side, in order to avoid the powerful current occasioned by the influx of the Red River into the Mississippi. A strong wind had sprung up, and in the middle of the stream the waves were of a considerable height. The Mississippi was full to overflowing, and the mouth of the Red River, as far as the eye could reach, presented the appearance of an extensive lake, with thousands of tree trunks floating upon it. I had left the cabin, and was standing on deck with Richards and Vergennes, looking out upon the broad sheet of water that lay before us. We were just turning into the Red River when I observed a rowboat pulling across from the direction of Woodville, and which had already arrived within a hundred yards of us without attracting the attention of any one on board the steamer. It was cutting in and out amongst the enormous floating trees, with a boldness that, in that part of the river—near the middle of which we were—might almost be called insanity.
"That man must be mad, or in love!" cried the captain.
"It is Ralph Doughby!" exclaimed Richards. "Captain, it is Mister Doughby. Pray, stop the ship and let him come on board."