Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia

by William Gilmore Simms

THE BLACK DOG.

While this brief scene was in progress in the chamber of Ralph, another, not less full of interest to that person, was passing in the neighborhood of the village-tavern; and, as this portion of our narrative yields some light which must tend greatly to our own, and the instruction of the reader, we propose briefly to record it. It will be remembered, that, in the chapter preceding, we found the attention of the youth forcibly attracted toward one Guy Rivers—an attention, the result of various influences, which produced in the mind of the youth a degree of antipathy toward that person for which he himself could not, nor did we seek to account.

It appears that Ralph was not less the subject of consideration with the individual in question. We have seen the degree and kind of espionage which the former had felt at one time disposed to resent; and how he was defeated in his design by the sudden withdrawal of the obnoxious presence. On his departure with Forrester from the gallery, Rivers reappeared—his manner that of doubt and excitement; and, after hurrying for a while with uncertain steps up and down the apartment, he passed hastily into the adjoining hall, where the landlord sat smoking, drinking, and expatiating at large with his guests. Whispering something in his ear, the latter rose, and the two proceeded into the adjoining copse, at a point as remote as possible from hearing, when the explanation of this mysterious caution was opened by Rivers.

"Well, Munro, we are like to have fine work with your accursed and blundering good-nature. Why did you not refuse lodgings to this youngster? Are you ignorant who he is? Do you not know him?"

"Know him?—no, I know nothing about him. He seems a clever, good-looking lad, and I see no harm in him. What is it frightens you?" was the reply and inquiry of the landlord.

"Nothing frightens me, as you know by this time, or should know at least. But, if you know not the young fellow himself you should certainly not be at a loss to know the creature he rides; for it is not long since your heart was greatly taken with him. He is the youth we set upon at the Catcheta pass, where your backwardness and my forwardness got me this badge—it has not yet ceased to bleed—the marks of which promise fairly to last me to my grave."

As he spoke he raised the handkerchief which bound his cheeks, and exposed to view a deep gash, not of a serious character indeed, but which, as the speaker asserted, would most probably result in a mark which would last him his life. The exposure of the face confirms the first and unfavorable impression which we have already received from his appearance, and all that we have any occasion now to add in this respect will be simply, that, though not beyond the prime of life, there were ages of guilt, of vexed and vexatious strife, unregulated pride, without aim or elevation, a lurking malignity, and hopeless discontent—all embodied in the fiendish and fierce expression which that single glimpse developed to the spectator. He went on—

"Had it been your lot to be in my place, I should not now have to tell you who he is; nor should we have had any apprehensions of his crossing our path again. But so it is. You are always the last to your place;—had you kept your appointment, we should have had no difficulty, and I should have escaped the mortification of being foiled by a mere stripling, and almost stricken to death by the heel of his horse."

"And all your own fault and folly, Guy. What business had you to advance upon the fellow, as you did, before everything was ready, and when we could have brought him, without any risk whatever; into the snare, from which nothing could have got him out? But no! You must be at your old tricks of the law—you must make speeches before you cut purses, as was your practice when I first knew you at Gwinnett county-court; a practice which you seem not able to get over. You have got into such a trick of making fun of people, that, for the life of me, I can't be sorry that the lad has turned the tables so handsomely upon you."

"You would no doubt have enjoyed the scene with far more satisfaction, had the fellow's shot taken its full effect on my skull—since, besides the failure of our object, you have such cause of merriment in what has been done. If I did go something too much ahead in the matter, it is but simple justice to say you were quite as much aback."