Backwoods Tales: Paddy McGann, Sharp Snaffles, and Bill Bauldy

Text of Paddy McGann;—or,—The Demon of the Stump.

PADDY MCGANN; —OR,— THE DEMON OF THE STUMP. “If thou be’est a man, shew thyself in thy likeness: If thou be’est a devil, take’t as thou list.” . . .“I defy thee.”—SHAKSPEARE. CHAPTER I. “Now, my comates and brothers in exile, Hath not old custom made this life more sweet Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods More free from peril than the envious court? Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, The season’s difference.” AS YOU LIKE IT. It was November, and the delicious season that we call the Indian Summer; when, after two or three smart white frosts, and possibly a little ice, the cool spell passes off; the winds grow calm, and modestly beseem themselves, the temperature becomes sweet and genial—neither too cold nor too warm; when, after a heavy fog each morning, the sun suddenly bursts through the vaporous sea, in a shower of golden light; when the whole circumference of heaven, and the whole broad plain of earth, the great forests and the little hills, seem to move together in concert , as at a feast or bridal; when the woods capriciously change their suits, day by day, and ever to a glorious motley; when the birds grow more elastic in the air; when the long lines of cranes are suddenly beheld trooping south; when the squirrels are every where to be seen in eager movement, plying rapidly between their groups of great green wateroaks and the neighboring cornfields, each with his mouth full of stolen fruit; when persimmons are rapidly ripening; when Cuffee, and Cudjo, and Sambo, and Cæsar take out the dogs nightly—Towser, and Teaser, and Tear’em, and Take’em—for coon and possum hunt; when the hogs, having had full range of the peafield and the potato patch, are about to be driven up to the fattening pen, and when, following the good old English rule, which forbids the hunt from the spring of the leaf to the season of its fall, the hunters begin to sound horn and summon the beagles every morning for the chase, and when, briefly, the harvest being good, the season delicious, no war in the land, and plenty on every board, our country seats are everywhere glad in themselves, and with gladness welcome their city friends to the sports and hospitality of the old plantation. It was just such a season as this, and under just such pleasant circumstances as I have catalogued above, when I was entreated to Desilla, the fine plantation-seat, on the South Edisto, of my excellent old friend Wharncliffe, and it was just on one of the sweetest days of this delicious season, that, taking our cue from every bird of the air, and every beast of the field, we left a late dinner table and took horse for a canter to the river, about three miles from the dwelling. The afternoon sun was just bright enough to be a charm to the sight, without being oppressive to the frame; and he flung his jewels about him with the gayest profusion, varying, at every moment, the bright motley of every hemispheric crown of the forest, to every color of the rainbow! In such weather, through such foliage, to dash off on free-going steeds, is to feel life in every vein and artery; and we went forward, absorbing, at every bound, from sun, and air, and woods, the sufficient aliment for a delicious stock of happiest reveries. In such a canter, the heart forgets its cares, the head its anxieties, the whole nature seems to cast off its burdens, and the soul wakes up to the pleasantest sensations, as a bird that feels its wings with the first glance of the morning sun over its shoulders in the nest! Wharncliffe, though a good planter, was not the less a good dreamer, like myself, and in his moments of escape from the dull drudgeries of life, could give himself up, quite as readily, to the sense of the dolce far niente, which, by the way, does not, even in the Italian mind, signify merely the delight of doing nothing. At all events, if it implies the extremest measure of physical repose, it by no means implies the dormancy of the intellectual nature. On the contrary, with many, and the most superior minds, great mental activity is almost...