Down the River; Or, Buck Bradford and His Tyrants, Oliver Optic [reading like a writer TXT] 📗

Ham was quick-tempered, and I hoped he would get over the vindictive feelings which he manifested towards me. At the same time, I could not help thinking that he was fully in earnest when he told me I had not seen the end of it. Of Ham's moral attributes the least said would be the soonest mended. Certainly he was not a young man of high and noble purposes, like Charley Woodworth, the minister's son. Captain Fishley himself, as I had heard Clarence say, and as I knew from what I had seen and heard myself, was given to low cunning and overreaching. If he could make a dollar, he made it, and did not stand much upon the order of his making it.

I cannot say that he put prairie sand into the sugar, or put an ounce bullet into the side of the [67]scale which contained the goods; but some people accused him of these things, and from what I knew of the man I could not believe that he was above such deeds. Ham was an apt scholar, and improved upon the precept and example of his father. I had heard him brag of cheating the customers, of mean tricks put upon the inexperience of women and children. If he had been a young man of high moral purposes, I might have hoped that we had seen the end of our quarrel.

I could not help thinking of this subject during the rest of my ride to Riverport, and I could not get rid of a certain undefined dread of consequences in the future. I criticise Ham and his father in the light of my own after experience rather than from any settled opinions which I had at the time; and I don't wish it to be understood that I was any better myself than I ought to be. I had no very distinct aspirations after goodness and truth. My character had not been formed. My dear little sister was my guide and Mentor. If I did wrong, she wept and prayed for me; and I am sure she saved me from many an evil deed by the sweet influence [68]of her pure and holy life. If I had drank in more of her gentle spirit, the scene between Ham and myself could not have transpired.

I reached the post-office in Riverport, and took the mail-bag for Torrentville into the wagon, leaving the one I had brought down. Then I drove to the hotel, and inquired for Squire Fishley. The landlord told me that he was engaged with a party of gentlemen in a private room. Fortunately I was in no hurry, for I could not think of disturbing a person of so much consequence as Squire Fishley. I never reached home with the mail till nine o'clock, and the bag was not opened till the next morning, when sorting the mail was Ham's first business. I drove Darky into a shed, and amused myself by looking around the premises.

I walked about for half an hour, and then asked the landlord to tell Squire Fishley that I was waiting to take him up to his brother's. I was told that my passenger was just going down to the boat to see some friends off, and directed to put the squire's trunk into the wagon, and drive down to the steamboat landing. The landlord conducted me into the [69]entry, and there, for the first time, I saw the captain's brother. He would have been a good-looking man under ordinary circumstances, but he was as boozy as an owl!

I was astonished, shocked, at this spectacle; for, unlike politicians in general, Squire Fishley had made his reputation, and his political capital, on his high moral and religious character. I had often heard what a good man the distinguished senator was, and I was horrified at seeing him drunk. With unsteady gestures, and in maudlin tones, he pointed out his trunk to me, and I put it into the wagon. I did not see him again till he reached the steamboat landing. He went on board with two other gentlemen, and was absent another half hour.

The bell of the steamer rang furiously for the start, and I began to be afraid that my passenger's devotion to his friends would lead him to accompany them down the river. I went up into the cabin, and found him taking a "parting drink" with them. I told him the boat was just starting; he hastily shook hands with his companions, and accompanied me down to the plank. I crossed it, and had hardly [70]touched the shore before I heard a splash behind me. I turned, and saw that Squire Fishley had toppled into the river. His last dram appeared to be the ounce that had broken the camel's back.

I saw the current bear him under the guards of the boat, where, in the darkness, he was lost to my view. I ran, followed by a dozen idlers, to the stern of the boat, and presently the helpless tippler appeared again. A raft of floating logs lay just below the steamer. I cast off the up-stream end of one of them, and the current swung it out in the river. Leaping astride it, I pushed off, just in time to intercept the unfortunate senator, who had sense enough left to grasp it.

"Hold on tight, squire!" I cried to him.

I worked along the log to the place where he was, and assured myself that he had a secure hold. Beyond keeping myself afloat, I was as helpless as he was, for I could not do anything to guide or propel our clumsy bark. We had disappeared from the view of the people on shore, for the night was, as Captain Fishley had predicted, very dark.

I think we floated half a mile down the river, and[71] I heard persons shouting far above us, in boats. We were approaching a bend in the stream, where I hoped the current would set us near enough to the shore to enable me to effect a landing. Just then the steamer came puffing along; but her course took her some distance from us. She passed us, and in the swell caused by her wheels we were tossed up and down, and I was afraid the squire would be shaken from his hold. I grasped him by the collar with one hand, and kept him in position till the commotion of the water had partially subsided.

But the swell did us a good turn, for it drove the log towards the shore, at the bend of the stream, and I found that I could touch bottom. With a hold for my feet, I pushed the timber towards the bank till one end of it grounded. I then helped the squire to walk up the shoaling beach, out of the river. Cold water is the natural enemy of ardent spirits, and in this instance it had gained a partial victory over its foe, for the squire was nearly sobered by his bath.

"This is bad—very bad!" said my passenger, [72]when he had shaken some of the water from his garments.

"I know it is, Squire Fishley; but we have got over the worst of it," I replied.

"I'm afraid not, boy. I shall never get over the disgrace of it," he added, with a shudder—partly from cold, I judged, and partly from a dread of consequences.

"Nobody will know anything about it if you don't tell of it. When you fell in, I heard a dozen people ask who you were, and nobody could tell."

"Don't let any one see me, boy," pleaded he, as we heard the voices of people moving down the bank of the river in search of the unfortunate.

I knew just where we were, and I conducted him to an old lumber shed, some distance from the bank of the river, where I left him to go for the horse and wagon. I avoided the people who were searching for the unfortunate, and found Darky just where I had hitched him, at the steamboat landing. I was not very uncomfortable, for I had not been all over into the water. I drove down to the lumber shed, took the squire in, and headed towards home. The [73]senator was shivering with cold, though fortunately it was a very warm day for the season, and he did not absolutely suffer.

It had been cloudy and threatening rain all the afternoon and evening, and before we reached the main road it began to pour in torrents. I had an oil-cloth, which I put over the trunk and the mail. Under ordinary circumstances, a seven-mile ride in such a heavy rain would have been a great misfortune; but, as both of us had been in the river, it did not make much difference to us. I had no umbrella; and it would have done no good if I had, the wind was so fresh, and the storm so driving. If we had not been wet in the beginning, we should have been soaked to the skin long before we reached Torrentville.

The squire suffered so much from cold that I advised him to get out, take hold of the back of the wagon, and walk or run a mile or so to warm up his blood. He took my advice, and improved his condition very much. But the cold was by no means the greatest of his troubles. Remorse, or, more likely, the fear of discovery, disturbed him more.[74]

"Boy, what is your name?" asked he, after he had walked his mile, and was able to speak without shivering.

"John Buckland Bradford, sir; but the folks all call me Buck."

"You seem to be a very smart boy, Buck, and you have done me a good turn to-night, which I shall never forget."

"I'm glad I helped you, sir. I would have done as much as that for anybody."

"It is bad, very bad," added he, apparently thinking of the consequences.

"I know it is, sir. That was a pretty narrow plank on the steamboat."

"It wasn't the narrow plank," he replied, bitterly.

"I suppose you had been taking a little too much," I added, willing to help him out.

"Did you think I was intoxicated?"

"I don't know much about it, but I did think so."

"I would rather give a thousand dollars than have it known that I drank too much and fell into the river. The story would ruin me, and spoil all my prospects."[75]

Squire Fishley was a stranger in Riverport. He had not been to Torrentville since I lived with the captain, and I was sure no one knew who it was that had fallen into the river. I comforted him, and assured him it would be all right.

"If your friends on board of the steamer don't expose you, no one else will," I continued.

"They will not; they are going to New Orleans, and will not return for months. If you should happen to say anything to my brother or his family—"

"I will not breathe it," I interposed.

"I will do something handsome for you, Buck, and be your best friend."

"I don't mind that," I replied.

"I am not in the habit of drinking ardent spirits, or even wine, to excess, when I am at home, though I don't belong to the temperance society," said he. "I didn't take much, and my friends would not let me off. I don't know that I ever was really intoxicated before in my life."

"It is a bad habit."

"But it is not my habit, and I mean to stop drinking entirely," he replied, earnestly; and I could not [76]help thinking how humiliating it must be for a great man like him to confess his folly to such a poor boy as I was.

"We are nearly home now, sir," said I, after we had ridden a while in silence.

"You will remember your promise—won't you, Buck?"

"Certainly I will, sir."

"Take this," he added, crowding something into my hand.

"What is it, sir?" I asked.

"No matter now; it may help your memory."

It was a little roll of wet paper, and I thrust it into my pocket as I drove into the yard.

Although it was after eleven o'clock, Captain Fishley and his wife were still up, waiting for the arrival of the distinguished guest.

"Now, remember," said Squire Fishley, as I drove into the yard, and the captain came out at the back door.

"Don't be at all afraid of me," I replied.

"How are you, Moses?" exclaimed Captain Fishley, as, by the light of the lantern he carried in his