Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia

by William Gilmore Simms

"'Twan't men at all. Nothing better than women, and no small women neither. Didn't see a man in the neighborhood, but Chub, and he ain't no man neither."

"What is he?"

"Why, for that matter, he's neither one thing nor another—nothing, no how. A pesky little creature! What they call a hobbe-de-hoy will suit for his name sooner than any other that I know on. For he ain't a man and he ain't a boy; but jest a short, half-grown up chunk of a fellow, with bunchy shoulders, and a big head, with a mouth like an oven, and long lap ears like saddle flaps."

In this manner the pedler informed Ralph of all those previous particulars with which he had not till then been made acquainted. This having been done, and the dialogue having fairly reached its termination—and the youth exhibiting some strong symptoms of weariness—Bunce took his departure for the present, not, however, without again proffering his services. These Ralph did not scruple to accept—giving him, at the same time, sundry little commissions, and among them a message of thanks and respectful consideration to Miss Munro.

She, in the meanwhile, had, upon fainting in the court-room, been borne off in a state of utter insensibility, to the former residence of Munro, to which place, as the pedler has already informed us, the wife of the landlord had that very morning returned, resuming, precisely as before, all the previous order of her domestic arrangements. The reason for this return may be readily assigned. The escape of the pedler and of Lucy from their place of temporary confinement had completely upset all the prior arrangements of the outlaws. They now conceived it no longer safe as a retreat; and failing as they did to overtake the fugitives, it was determined that, in the disguises which had been originally suggested for their adoption, they should now venture into the village, as many of them as were willing, to obtain that degree of information which would enable them to judge what further plans to adopt.

As Rivers had conjectured, Chub Williams, so far from taking for the village, had plunged deeper into the woods, flying to former and well known haunts, and regarding the face of man as that of a natural enemy. The pedler had seen none but women, or those so disguised as such as to seem none other than what they claimed to be—while Lucy had been permitted to see none but her uncle and aunt, and one or two persons she had never met before.

Under these circumstances, Rivers individually felt no apprehensions that his wild refuge would be searched; but Munro, something older, less sanguine, and somewhat more timid than his colleague, determined no longer to risk it; and having, as we have seen, effectually checked the utterance of that evidence which, in the unconscious excitation of his niece, must have involved him more deeply in the meshes of the law, besides indicating his immediate and near neighborhood, he made his way, unobserved, from the village, having first provided for her safety, and as he had determined to keep out of the way himself, having brought his family back to their old place of abode.

He had determined on this course from a variety of considerations. Nothing, he well knew, could affect his family. He had always studiously kept them from any participation in his offences. The laws had no terror for them; and, untroubled by any process against him, they could still remain and peaceably possess his property, of which he well knew, in the existing state of society in the South, no legal outlawry of himself would ever avail to deprive them. This could not have been his hope in their common flight. Such a measure, too, would only have impeded his progress, in the event of his pursuit, and have burdened him with encumbrances which would perpetually involve him in difficulty. He calculated differently his chances. His hope was to be able, when the first excitements had overblown, to return to the village, and at least quietly to effect such a disposition of his property, which was not inconsiderable, as to avoid the heavy and almost entire loss which would necessarily follow any other determination.

In all this, however, it may be remarked that the reasonings of Rivers, rather than his own, determined his conduct. That more adventurous ruffian had, from his superior boldness and greater capacities in general, acquired a singular and large influence over his companion: he governed him, too, as much by his desire of gain as by any distinct superiority which he himself possessed; he stimulated his avarice with the promised results of their future enterprises in the same region after the passing events were over; and thus held him still in that fearful bondage of subordinate villany whose inevitable tendency is to make the agent the creature, and finally the victim. The gripe which, in a moral sense, and with a slight reference to character, Rivers had upon the landlord, was as tenacious as that of death—but with this difference, that it was death prolonged through a fearful, and, though not a protracted, yet much too long a life.

The determination of Munro was made accordingly; and, following hard upon the flight of Lucy from the rocks, we find the landlady quietly reinstated in her old home as if nothing had happened. Munro did not, however, return to the place of refuge; he had no such confidence in circumstances as Rivers; his fears had grown active in due proportion with his increase of years; and, with the increased familiarity with crime, had grown up in his mind a corresponding doubt of all persons, and an active suspicion which trusted nothing. His abode in all this time was uncertain: he now slept at one deserted lodge, and now at another; now in the disguise of one and now of another character; now on horseback, now on foot—but in no two situations taking the same feature or disguise. In the night-time he sometimes adventured, though with great caution, to the village, and made inquiries. On all hands, he heard of nothing but the preparations making against the clan of which he was certainly one of the prominent heads. The state was roused into activity, and a proclamation of the governor, offering a high reward for the discovery and detention of any persons having a hand in the murder of the guard, was on one occasion put into his own hands. All these things made caution necessary, and, though venturing still very considerably at times, he was yet seldom entirely off his guard.