He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd,
As it were too peregrinate, as I may call it.
--Shakspeare.
The Anglo-American is apt to boast, and not without reason, that his
nation may claim a descent more truly honourable than that of any
other people whose history is to be credited. Whatever might have been
the weaknesses of the original colonists, their virtues have rarely
been disputed. If they were superstitious, they were sincerely pious,
and, consequently, honest. The descendants of these simple and
single-minded provincials have been content to reject the ordinary and
artificial means by which honours have been perpetuated in families,
and have substituted a standard which brings the individual himself to
the ordeal of the public estimation, paying as little deference as may
be to those who have gone before him. This forbearance, self-denial,
or common sense, or by whatever term it may be thought proper to
distinguish the measure, has subjected the nation to the imputation of
having an ignoble origin. Were it worth the enquiry, it would be found
that more than a just proportion of the renowned names of the mother-
country are, at this hour, to be found in her ci-devant colonies; and
it is a fact well known to the few who have wasted sufficient time to
become the masters of so unimportant a subject, that the direct
descendants of many a failing line, which the policy of England has
seen fit to sustain by collateral supporters, are now discharging the
simple duties of citizens in the bosom of this republic. The hive has
remained stationary, and they who flutter around the venerable straw
are wont to claim the empty distinction of antiquity, regardless alike
of the frailty of their tenement and of the enjoyments of the numerous
and vigorous swarms that are culling the fresher sweets of a virgin
world. But as this is a subject which belongs rather to the politician
and historian than to the humble narrator of the homebred incidents we
are about to reveal, we must confine our reflections to such matters
as have an immediate relation to the subject of the tale.
Although the citizen of the United States may claim so just an
ancestry, he is far from being exempt from the penalties of his fallen
race. Like causes are well known to produce like effects. That
tribute, which it would seem nations must ever pay, by way of a weary
probation, around the shrine of Ceres, before they can be indulged in
her fullest favours, is in some measure exacted in America, from the
descendant instead of the ancestor. The march of civilisation with us,
has a strong analogy to that of all coming events, which are known "to
cast their shadows before." The gradations of society, from that state
which is called refined to that which approaches as near barbarity as
connection with an intelligent people will readily allow, are to be
traced from the bosom of the States, where wealth, luxury and the arts
are beginning to seat themselves, to those distant, and ever-receding
borders which mark the skirts, and announce the approach, of the
nation, as moving mists precede the signs of day.
Here, and here only, is to be found that widely spread, though far
from numerous class, which may be at all likened to those who have
paved the way for the intellectual progress of nations, in the old
world. The resemblance between the American borderer and his European
prototype is singular, though not always uniform. Both might be called
without restraint; the one being above, the other beyond the reach of
the law--brave, because they were inured to dangers--proud, because
they were independent, and vindictive, because each was the avenger of
his own wrongs. It would be unjust to the borderer to pursue the
parallel much farther. He is irreligious, because he has inherited the
knowledge that religion does not exist in forms, and his reason
rejects mockery. He is not a knight, because he has not the power to
bestow distinctions; and he has not the power, because he is the
offspring and not the parent of a system. In what manner these several
qualities are exhibited, in some of the most strongly marked of the
latter class, will be seen in the course of the ensuing narrative.
Ishmael Bush had passed the whole of a life of more than fifty years
on the skirts of society. He boasted that he had never dwelt where he
might not safely fell every tree he could view from his own threshold;
that the law had rarely been known to enter his clearing, and that his
ears had never willingly admitted the sound of a church bell. His
exertions seldom exceeded his wants, which were peculiar to his class,
and rarely failed of being supplied. He had no respect for any
learning except that of the leech; because he was ignorant of the
application of any other intelligence than such as met the senses. His
deference to this particular branch of science had induced him to
listen to the application of a medical man, whose thirst for natural
history had led him to the desire of profiting by the migratory
propensities of the squatter. This gentleman he had cordially received
into his family, or rather under his protection, and they had
journeyed together, thus far through the prairies, in perfect harmony:
Ishmael often felicitating his wife on the possession of a companion,
who would be so serviceable in their new abode, wherever it might
chance to be, until the family were thoroughly "acclimated." The
pursuits of the naturalist frequently led him, however, for days at a
time, from the direct line of the route of the squatter, who rarely
seemed to have any other guide than the sun. Most men would have
deemed themselves fortunate to have been absent on the perilous
occasion of the Sioux inroad, as was Obed Bat, (or as he was fond of
hearing himself called, Battius,) M.D. and fellow of several
cis-Atlantic learned societies--the adventurous gentleman in question.
Although the sluggish nature of Ishmael was not actually awakened, it
was sorely pricked by the liberties which had just been taken with his
property. He slept, however, for it was the hour he had allotted to
that refreshment, and because he knew how impotent any exertions to
recover his effects must prove in the darkness of midnight. He also
knew the danger of his present situation too well to hazard what was
left in pursuit of that which was lost. Much as the inhabitants of the
prairies were known to love horses, their attachment to many other
articles, still in the possession of the travellers, was equally well
understood. It was a common artifice to scatter the herds, and to
profit by the confusion. But Mahtoree had, as it would seem in this
particular undervalued the acuteness of the man he had assailed. The
phlegm with which the squatter learned his loss, has already been
seen, and it now remains to exhibit the results of his more matured
determinations.
Though the encampment contained many an eye that was long unclosed,
and many an ear that listened greedily to catch the faintest evidence
of any new alarm, it lay in deep quiet during the remainder of the
night. Silence and fatigue finally performed their accustomed offices,
and before the morning all but the sentinels were again buried in
sleep. How well these indolent watchers discharged their duties, after
the assault, has never been known, inasmuch as nothing occurred to
confirm or to disprove their subsequent vigilance.
Just as day, however, began to dawn, and a grey light was falling from
the heavens, on the dusky objects of the plain, the half startled,
anxious, and yet blooming countenance of Ellen Wade was reared above
the confused mass of children, among whom she had clustered on her
stolen return to the camp. Arising warily she stepped lightly across
the recumbent bodies, and proceeded with the same caution to the
utmost limits of the defences of Ishmael. Here she listened, as if she
doubted the propriety of venturing further. The pause was only
momentary, however; and long before the drowsy eyes of the sentinel,
who overlooked the spot where she stood, had time to catch a glimpse
of her active form, it had glided along the bottom, and stood on the
summit of the nearest eminence.
Ellen now listened intently anxious to catch some other sound, than
the breathing of the morning air, which faintly rustled the herbage at
her feet. She was about to turn in disappointment from the enquiry,
when the tread of human feet making their way through the matted grass
met her ear. Springing eagerly forward, she soon beheld the outlines
of a figure advancing up the eminence, on the side opposite to the
camp. She had already uttered the name of Paul, and was beginning to
speak in the hurried and eager voice with which female affection is
apt to greet a friend, when, drawing back, the disappointed girl
closed her salutation by coldly adding--"I did not expect, Doctor, to
meet you at this unusual hour."
"All hours and all seasons are alike, my good Ellen, to the genuine
lover of nature,"--returned a small, slightly made, but exceedingly
active man, dressed in an odd mixture of cloth and skins, a little
past the middle age, and who advanced directly to her side, with the
familiarity of an old acquaintance; "and he who does not know how to
find things to admire by this grey light, is ignorant of a large
portion of the blessings he enjoys."
"Very true," said Ellen, suddenly recollecting the necessity of
accounting for her own appearance abroad at that unseasonable hour; "I
know many who think the earth has a pleasanter look in the night, than
when seen by the brightest sunshine."
"Ah! Their organs of sight must be too convex! But the man who wishes
to study the active habits of the feline race, or the variety,
albinos, must, indeed, be stirring at this hour. I dare say, there are
men who prefer even looking at objects by twilight, for the simple
reason, that they see better at that time of the day."
"And is this the cause why you are so much abroad in the night?"
"I am abroad at night, my good girl, because the earth in its diurnal
revolutions leaves the light of the sun but half the time on any given
meridian, and because what I have to do cannot be performed in twelve
or fifteen consecutive hours. Now have I been off two days from the
family, in search of a plant, that is known to exist on the
tributaries of La Platte, without seeing even a blade of grass that is
not already enumerated and classed."
"You have been unfortunate, Doctor, but--"
"Unfortunate!" echoed the little man, sideling nigher to his
companion, and producing his tablets with an air in which exultation
struggled, strangely, with an affectation of self-abasement. "No, no,
Ellen, I am any thing but unfortunate. Unless, indeed, a man may be so
called, whose fortune is made, whose fame may be said to be
established for ever, whose name will go down to posterity with that
of Buffon--Buffon! a mere compiler: one who flourishes on the
foundation of other men's labours. No; pari passu with Solander, who
bought his knowledge with pain and privations!"
"Have you discovered a mine, Doctor Bat?"
"More than a mine; a treasure coined, and fit for instant use, girl.--
Listen! I was making the angle necessary to intersect the line of your
uncle's march, after my fruitless search, when I heard sounds like the
explosion produced by fire arms--"
"Yes," exclaimed Ellen, eagerly, "we had an alarm--"
"And thought I was lost," continued the man of science too much bent
on his own ideas, to understand her interruption. "Little danger of
that! I made my own base, knew the length of the perpendicular by
calculation, and to draw the hypothenuse had nothing to do but to work
my angle. I supposed the guns were fired for my benefit, and changed
my course for the sounds--not that I think the sense more accurate, or
even as accurate as a mathematical calculation, but I feared that some
of the children might need my services."
"They are all happily--"
"Listen," interrupted the other, already forgetting his affected
anxiety for his patients, in the greater importance of the present
subject. "I had crossed a large tract of prairie--for sound is
conveyed far where there is little obstruction--when I heard the
trampling of feet, as if bisons were beating the earth. Then I caught
a distant view of a herd of quadrupeds, rushing up and down the swells
--animals, which would have still remained unknown and undescribed,
had it not been for a most felicitous accident! One, and he a noble
specimen of the whole! was running a little apart from the rest. The
herd made an inclination in my direction, in which the solitary animal
coincided, and this brought him within fifty yards of the spot where I
stood. I profited by the opportunity, and by the aid of steel and
taper, I wrote his description on the spot. I would have given a
thousand dollars, Ellen, for a single shot from the rifle of one of
the boys!"
"You carry a pistol, Doctor, why didn't you use it?" said the half
inattentive girl, anxiously examining the prairie, but still lingering
where she stood, quite willing to be detained.
"Ay, but it carries nothing but the most minute particles of lead,
adapted to the destruction of the larger insects and reptiles. No, I
did better than to attempt waging a war, in which I could not be the
victor. I recorded the event; noting each particular with the
precision necessary to science. You shall hear, Ellen; for you are a
good and improving girl, and by retaining what you learn in this way,
may yet be of great service to learning, should any accident occur to
me. Indeed, my worthy Ellen, mine is a pursuit, which has its dangers
as well as that of the warrior. This very night," he continued,
glancing his eye behind him, "this awful night, has the principle of
life, itself, been in great danger of extinction!"
"By what?"
"By the monster I have discovered. It approached me often, and ever as
I receded, it continued to advance. I believe nothing but the little
lamp, I carried, was my protector. I kept it between us, whilst I
wrote, making it serve the double purpose of luminary and shield. But
you shall hear the character of the beast, and you may then judge of
the risks we promoters of science run in behalf of mankind."
The naturalist raised his tablets to the heavens, and disposed himself
to read as well as he could, by the dim light they yet shed upon the
plain; premising with saying--
"Listen, girl, and you shall hear, with what a treasure it has been my
happy lot to enrich the pages of natural history!"
"Is it then a creature of your forming?" said Ellen, turning away from
her fruitless examination, with a sudden lighting of her sprightly
blue eyes, that showed she knew how to play with the foible of her
learned companion.
"Is the power to give life to inanimate matter the gift of man? I
would it were! You should speedily see a Historia Naturalis Americana,
that would put the sneering imitators of the Frenchman, De Buffon, to
shame! A great improvement might be made in the formation of all
quadrupeds; especially those in which velocity is a virtue. Two of the
inferior limbs should be on the principle of the lever; wheels,
perhaps, as they are now formed; though I have not yet determined
whether the improvement might be better applied to the anterior or
posterior members, inasmuch as I am yet to learn whether dragging or
shoving requires the greatest muscular exertion. A natural exudation
of the animal might assist in overcoming the friction, and a powerful
momentum be obtained. But all this is hopeless--at least for the
present!"--he added, raising his tablets again to the light, and
reading aloud; "Oct. 6, 1805. that's merely the date, which I dare say
you know better than I--mem. Quadruped; seen by star-light, and by the
aid of a pocket-lamp, in the prairies of North America--see Journal
for Latitude and Meridian. Genus--unknown; therefore named after the
discoverer, and from the happy coincidence of being seen in the
evening--Vespertilio Horribilis, Americanus. Dimensions (by
estimation)--Greatest length, eleven feet; height, six feet; head,
erect; nostrils, expansive; eyes, expressive and fierce; teeth,
serrated and abundant; tail, horizontal, waving, and slightly feline;
feet, large and hairy; talons, long, curvated, dangerous; ears,
inconspicuous; horns, elongated, diverging, and formidable; colour,
plumbeous-ashy, with fiery spots; voice, sonorous, martial, and
appalling; habits, gregarious, carnivorous, fierce, and fearless.
There," exclaimed Obed, when he had ended this sententious but
comprehensive description, "there is an animal, which will be likely
to dispute with the lion his title to be called the king of the
beasts!"
"I know not the meaning of all you have said, Doctor Battius,"
returned the quick-witted girl, who understood the weakness of the
philosopher, and often indulged him with a title he loved so well to
hear; "but I shall think it dangerous to venture far from the camp, if
such monsters are prowling over the prairies."
"You may well call it prowling," returned the naturalist, nestling
still closer to her side, and dropping his voice to such low and
undignified tones of confidence, as conveyed a meaning still more
pointed than he had intended. "I have never before experienced such a
trial of the nervous system; there was a moment, I acknowledge, when
the fortiter in re faltered before so terrible an enemy; but the love
of natural science bore me up, and brought me off in triumph!"
"You speak a language so different from that we use in Tennessee,"
said Ellen, struggling to conceal her laughter, "that I hardly know
whether I understand your meaning. If I am right, you wish to say you
were chicken-hearted."
"An absurd simile drawn from an ignorance of the formation of the
biped. The heart of a chicken has a just proportion to its other
organs, and the domestic fowl is, in a state of nature, a gallant
bird. Ellen," he added, with a countenance so solemn as to produce an
impression on the attentive girl, "I was pursued, hunted, and in a
danger that I scorn to dwell on--what's that?"
Ellen started; for the earnestness and simple sincerity of her
companion's manner had produced a certain degree of credulity, even on
her buoyant mind. Looking in the direction indicated by the Doctor,
she beheld, in fact, a beast coursing over the prairie, and making a
straight and rapid approach to the very spot they occupied. The day
was not yet sufficiently advanced to enable her to distinguish its
form and character, though enough was discernible to induce her to
imagine it a fierce and savage animal.
"It comes! it comes!" exclaimed the Doctor, fumbling, by a sort of
instinct, for his tablets, while he fairly tottered on his feet under
the powerful efforts he made to maintain his ground. "Now, Ellen, has
fortune given me an opportunity to correct the errors made by star-
light,--hold,--ashy-plumbeous,--no ears,--horns, excessive." His voice
and hand were both arrested by a roar, or rather a shriek from the
beast, that was sufficiently terrific to appal even a stouter heart
than that of the naturalist. The cries of the animal passed over the
prairie in strange cadences, and then succeeded a deep and solemn
silence, that was only broken by an uncontrolled fit of merriment from
the more musical voice of Ellen Wade. In the mean time the naturalist
stood like a statue of amazement, permitting a well-grown ass, against
whose approach he no longer offered his boasted shield of light, to
smell about his person, without comment or hinderance.
"It is your own ass," cried Ellen, the instant she found breath for
words; "your own patient, hard working, hack!"
The Doctor rolled his eyes from the beast to the speaker, and from the
speaker to the beast; but gave no audible expression of his wonder.
"Do you refuse to know an animal that has laboured so long in your
service?" continued the laughing girl. "A beast, that I have heard you
say a thousand times, has served you well, and whom you loved like a
brother!"
"Asinus Domesticus!" ejaculated the Doctor, drawing his breath like
one who had been near suffocation. "There is no doubt of the genus;
and I will always maintain that the animal is not of the species,
equus. This is undeniably Asinus himself, Ellen Wade; but this is not
the Vespertilio Horribilis of the prairies! Very different animals, I
can assure you, young woman, and differently characterized in every
important particular. That, carnivorous," he continued, glancing his
eye at the open page of his tablets; "this, granivorous; habits,
fierce, dangerous; habits, patient, abstemious; ears, inconspicuous;
ears, elongated; horns, diverging, &c., horns, none!"
He was interrupted by another burst of merriment from Ellen, which
served, in some measure, to recall him to his recollection.
"The image of the Vespertilio was on the retina," the astounded
enquirer into the secrets of nature observed, in a manner that seemed
a little apologetic, "and I was silly enough to mistake my own
faithful beast for the monster. Though even now I greatly marvel to
see this animal running at large!"
Ellen then proceeded to explain the history of the attack and its
results. She described, with an accuracy that might have raised
suspicions of her own movements in the mind of one less simple than
her auditor, the manner in which the beasts burst out of the
encampment, and the headlong speed with which they had dispersed
themselves over the open plain. Although she forebore to say as much
in terms, she so managed as to present before the eyes of her listener
the strong probability of his having mistaken the frightened drove for
savage beasts, and then terminated her account by a lamentation for
their loss, and some very natural remarks on the helpless condition in
which it had left the family. The naturalist listened in silent
wonder, neither interrupting her narrative nor suffering a single
exclamation of surprise to escape him. The keen-eyed girl, however,
saw that as she proceeded, the important leaf was torn from the
tablets, in a manner which showed that their owner had got rid of his
delusion at the same instant. From that moment the world has heard no
more of the Vespertilio Horribilis Americanus, and the natural
sciences have irretrievably lost an important link in that great
animated chain which is said to connect earth and heaven, and in which
man is thought to be so familiarly complicated with the monkey.
When Dr. Bat was put in full possession of all the circumstances of
the inroad, his concern immediately took a different direction. He had
left sundry folios, and certain boxes well stored with botanical
specimens and defunct animals, under the good keeping of Ishmael, and
it immediately struck his acute mind, that marauders as subtle as the
Siouxes would never neglect the opportunity to despoil him of these
treasures. Nothing that Ellen could say to the contrary served to
appease his apprehensions, and, consequently, they separated; he to
relieve his doubts and fears together, and she to glide, as swiftly
and silently as she had just before passed it, into the still and
solitary tent.