第29章 Chapter (3)
And while the husband went poking about the house, silent and surly as an ill-natured slave, the ladies displayed towards us the most endearing attentions. The mother brought out from her closet a bottle of nice family cordial, to warm and cheer us;while the girls presented basins of water and towels, that we might wash and refresh ourselves after our fatigue.
And all these seasonable hospitalities they did, not with that ungracious silence and reserve, which so often depress the traveller's spirits, but with the charming alacrity of daughters or sisters, so sweetening every thing with smiles and sprightly chat as almost made us feel ourselves at home.
As with deep struck thought, I compared our present happy condition with that a few minutes before, benighted, wet and weary, I could not help exclaiming, "O my God! what pity it is that among so many labors which poor mortals take under the sun, they do not labor more for that which alone deserves their care.
I mean that LOVE, which at once diffuses and enjoys all the happiness both of earth and heaven."At supper, the poor creature of a husband strove very hard to draw Marion into a dispute, about what he was pleased to call our "REBELLION".
I expected to have heard him lashed very severely for such brutality;for few men ever excelled Marion in the `retort abrupt'. But every time the subject was introduced, he contrived very handsomely to waive it, by some pretty turn to the ladies, which happily relieved their terrors, and gave a fresh spring to general and sprightly conversation.
As our excellent hostess and her fair daughters were about to retire, we bade them good night, and also adieu, telling them that we meant to ride very early in the morning. To this they stoutly objected, urging that, from our fatigue and fasting, we ought to pass a day or two with them, and refresh ourselves. But if we could not do this, we must at any rate stay and give them the pleasure of our company at breakfast.
When we retired to our chamber, I asked Marion why he had not given that brute, our landlord, a proper set down.
"I am surprised at you, Horry," he replied; "when you see that your fellow man is wretched, can't you give him quarter?
You must have observed, ever since we darkened his door, that with spleen and toryism, this poor gentleman is in the condition of him in the parable, who was possessed of seven devils. Since we have not the power to cast them out, let us not torment him before his time.
Besides, this excellent woman his wife; these charming girls his daughters.
They love him, no doubt, and therefore, to us, at least, he ought to be sacred, because surrounded by their affections."The next morning while breakfast was preparing, the churl renewed his hostilities, by telling us, with a malignant pleasure in his face, that he and his neighbors were making ready to go to South Carolina for negroes.
"For negroes!" replied Marion; "pray sir, what do you mean by that?""Why, sir," returned he, "South Carolina is now all one as conquered by the British, and why may we not go and pick up what negroes we can?
They would help me in my corn-field yonder."
Marion asked him whether, if he were to find HIS negroes, he would think it right to take them?
"To be sure I would," answered he. "You great men who choose to fight against your king, are all now running away. And why may I not go and catch your negroes as well as any body else?""My God!" replied Marion, with a deep sigh, "what will this world come to?"and turned the conversation.
Soon as breakfast was over, we took leave of this most unequally yoked couple and their lovely daughters, and continued our journey. We had not got far from the house when Marion's servant rode up, and, with a very smirking face, told his master that he believed the gentlewoman where we stayed last night must be a monstrous fine lady! Marion asked him why he thought so.
"Why, sir," replied he, "she not only made me almost burst myself with eating and drinking, and all of the very best, but she has gone and filled my portmanteau too, filled it up chock full, sir!
A fine ham of bacon, sir, and a pair of roasted fowls, with two bottles of brandy, and a matter of a peck of biscuit.""God bless the dear lady!" we both exclaimed at the same moment.
And I trust God did bless her. For indeed to us she was a kind angel, who not only refreshed our bodies, but still more, feasted our souls.
And though eight and twenty long years have rolled away since that time, I can still see that angel smile which brightened on her face towards us, and the memory of which springs a joy in my heart beyond what the memory of his money bags ever gave to the miser.
On the evening of the same day that we left this charming family, (I mean the FAIRER PART of it) we reached the house of colonel Thatcher, one of the noblest whigs in North Carolina. His eyes seemed as though they would never tire in gazing on our regimentals.
We soon gave him the history of our travels through his native state, and of the very uncivil manner in which his countrymen had treated us.
He smiled, and bid us be thankful, for that it was entirely of God's mercy that we had come off so well. "Those people," continued he, "are mere Hottentots; a set of unenlightened miserable tories, who know nothing of the grounds of the war; nothing of the rights and blessings we are contending for; nor of the corruptions and cruelties of the British ministry; and are therefore just as ready to fall into their destructive jaws, as young cat-birds are to run into the mouth of a rattle-snake."