Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia

by William Gilmore Simms

The murderer laughed.

"It is your luck," he said, "always to groan with devout feeling, when you have done the work of the devil! You may spare your groans, if they are designed for repentance. They are always too late!"

"It is a sad truth, though the devil said it."

"Well, rouse up, and let's be moving. So far, our ride has been for nothing. We must leave this carrion to the vultures. What next? Will it be of any use to pursue this boy again to-night? What say you? We must pursue and silence him of course; but we have pushed the brutes already sufficiently to-night. They would be of little service to-night, in a longer chase."

The person addressed did not immediately reply, and when he spoke, did not answer to the speech of his companion. His reply, at length, was framed in obedience to the gloomy and remorseful course of his thought.

"It will be no wonder, Guy, if the whole country turn out upon us. You are too wanton in your doings. Wherefore when I told you of your error, did you strike the poor wretch again."

The landlord, it will be seen, spoke simply with reference to policy and expediency, and deserved as little credit for humanity as the individual he rebuked. In this particular lay the difference between them. Both were equally ruffianly, but the one had less of passion, less of feeling, and more of profession in the matter. With the other, the trade of crime was adopted strictly in subservience to the dictates of ill-regulated desires and emotions, suffering defeat in their hope of indulgence, and stimulating to a morbid action which became a disease. The references of Munro were always addressed to the petty gains; and the miserly nature, thus perpetually exhibiting itself, at the expense of all other emotions, was, in fact, the true influence which subjected him almost to the sole dictation of his accomplice, in whom a somewhat lofty distaste for such a peculiarity had occasioned a manner and habit of mind, the superiority of which was readily felt by the other. Still, we must do the landlord the justice to say that he had no such passion for bloodshed as characterized his companion.

"Why strike again!" was the response of Rivers. "You talk like a child. Would you have had him live to blab? Saw you not that he knew us both? Are you so green as to think, if suffered to escape, his tongue or hands would have been idle? You should know better. But the fact is, he could not have lived. The first blow was fatal; and, if I had deliberated for an instant, I should have followed the suggestions of your humanity—I should have withheld the second, which merely terminated his agony."

"It was a rash and bloody deed, and I would we had made sure of your man before blindly rushing into these unnecessary risks. It is owing to your insane love of blood, that you so frequently blunder in your object"

"Your scruples and complainings, Wat, remind me of that farmyard philosopher, who always locked the door of his stable after the steed had been stolen. You have your sermon ready in time for the funeral, but not during the life for whose benefit you make it. But whose fault was it that we followed the wrong game? Did you not make certain of the fresh track at the fork, so that there was no doubting you?"