The Story of the Outlaw by Emerson Hough (read aloud .txt) 📕

world. He was very fond of wine; and I had him well fumed with good wine before I made the proposition for a frolic. When I invited him to walk with me he readily accepted the invitation. We cut a few shines with the girls, and started to the tavern. We were met by a band of robbers, and robbed of all our money. The Kentuckian was so mad that he cursed the whole city, and wished that it would all be deluged in a flood of water so soon as he left the place. I went to my friends the next morning, and got my share of the spoil money, and my pocketbook that I had been robbed of. We got seven hundred and fifty dollars of the bold Kentuckian, which was divided among thirteen of us.

"I commenced traveling and making all the acquaintances among the speculators that I could. I went from New Orleans to Cincinnati, and from there I visited Lexington, in Kentucky. I found a speculator about four miles from Newport, who furnished me with a fine horse the second night after I arrived at his house. I went from Lexington to Richmond, in Virginia, and from there I visited Charleston, in the State of South Carolina; and from thence to Milledgeville, by the way of Savannah and Augusta, in the State of Georgia. I made my way from Milledgeville to Williamson county, the old stamping-ground. In all the route I only robbed eleven men but I preached some fine sermons, and scattered some counterfeit United States paper among my brethren.

"After I returned home from the first grand circuit I made among my speculators, I remained there but a short time, as I could not rest when my mind was not actively engaged in some speculation. I commenced the foundation of this mystic clan on that tour, and suggested the plan of exciting a rebellion among the negroes, as the sure road to an inexhaustible fortune to all who would engage in the expedition. The first mystic sign which is used by this clan was in use among robbers before I was born; and the second had its origin from myself, Phelps, Haines, Cooper, Doris, Bolton, Harris, Doddridge, Celly, Morris, Walton, Depont, and one of my brothers, on the second night after my acquaintance with them in New Orleans. We needed a higher order to carry on our designs, and we adopted our sign, and called it the sign of the Grand Council of the Mystic Clan; and practised ourselves to give and receive the new sign to a fraction before we parted; and, in addition to this improvement, we invented and formed a mode of corresponding, by means of ten characters, mixed with other matter, which has been very convenient on many occasions, and especially when any of us get into difficulties. I was encouraged in my new undertaking, and my heart began to beat high with the hope of being able one day to visit the pomp of the Southern and Western people in my vengeance; and of seeing their cities and towns one common scene of devastation, smoked walls and fragments.

"I decoyed a negro man from his master in Middle Tennessee, and sent him to Mill's Point by a young man, and I waited to see the movements of the owner. He thought his negro had run off. So I started to take possession of my prize. I got another friend at Mill's Point to take my negro in a skiff, and convey him to the mouth of Red river, while I took passage on a steamboat. I then went through the country by land, and sold my negro for nine hundred dollars, and the second night after I sold him I stole him again, and my friend ran him to the Irish bayou in Texas; I followed on after him, and sold my negro in Texas for five hundred dollars. I then resolved to visit South America, and see if there was an opening in that country for a speculation; I had also concluded that I could get some strong friends in that quarter to aid me in my designs relative to a negro rebellion; but of all people in the world, the Spaniards are the most treacherous and cowardly; I never want them concerned in any matter with me; I had rather take the negroes in this country to fight than a Spaniard. I stopped in a village, and passed as a doctor, and commenced practising medicine. I could ape the doctor first-rate, having read Ewel, and several other works on primitive medicine. I became a great favorite of an old Catholic; he adopted me as his son in the faith, and introduced me to all the best families as a young doctor from North America. I had been with the old Catholic but a very short time before I was a great Roman Catholic, and bowed to the cross, and attended regularly to all the ceremonies of that persuasion; and, to tell you the fact, Hues, all the Catholic religion needs to be universally received, is to be correctly represented; but you know I care nothing for religion. I had been with the old Catholic about three months, and was getting a heavy practice, when an opportunity offered for me to rob the good man's secretary of nine hundred and sixty dollars in gold, and I could have got as much more in silver if I could have carried it. I was soon on the road for home again; I stopped three weeks in New Orleans as I came home, and had some high fun with old Mother Surgick's girls.

"I collected all my associates in New Orleans at one of my friend's houses in that place, and we sat in council three days before we got all our plans to our notion; we then determined to undertake the rebellion at every hazard, and make as many friends as we could for that purpose. Every man's business being assigned him, I started for Natchez on foot. Having sold my horse in New Orleans with the intention of stealing another after I started, I walked four days, and no opportunity offered for me to get a horse. The fifth day, about twelve o'clock, I had become very tired, and stopped at a creek to get some water and rest a little. While I was sitting on a log, looking down the road I had come, a man came in sight riding a good-looking horse. The very moment I saw him I determined to have his horse if he was in the garb of a traveler. He rode up, and I saw from his equipage that he was a traveler. I arose from my seat and drew an elegant rifle pistol on him, and ordered him to dismount. He did so, and I took his horse by the bridle, and pointed down the creek, and ordered him to walk before me. We went a few hundred yards and stopped. I hitched his horse, then made him undress himself, all to his shirt and drawers, and ordered him to turn his back to me. He asked me if I was going to shoot him. I ordered him the second time to turn his back to me. He said, 'If you are determined to kill me, let me have time to pray before I die.' I told him I had no time to hear him pray. He turned round and dropped on his knees, and I shot him through the back of the head. I ripped open his belly, and took out his entrails, and sunk him in the creek. I then searched his pockets, and found four hundred and one dollars and thirty-seven cents, and a number of papers that I did not take time to examine. I sunk the pocketbook and papers and his hat in the creek. His boots were brand new, and fitted me very genteelly, and I put them on, and sunk my old shoes in the creek to atone for them. I rolled up his clothes and put them into his portmanteau, as they were quite new cloth of the best quality. I mounted as fine a horse as ever I straddled, and directed my course to Natchez in much better style than I had been for the last five days.

"I reached Natchez, and spent two days with my friends at that place and the girls under the Hill together. I then left Natchez for the Choctaw nation, with the intention of giving some of them a chance for their property. As I was riding along between Benton and Rankin, planning for my designs, I was overtaken by a tall and good-looking young man, riding an elegant horse, which was splendidly rigged off; and the young gentleman's apparel was of the gayest that could be had, and his watch-chain and other jewelry were of the richest and best. I was anxious to know if he intended to travel through the Choctaw nation, and soon managed to learn. He said he had been to the lower country with a drove of negroes, and was returning home to Kentucky. We rode on, and soon got very intimate for strangers, and agreed to be company through the Indian nation. We were two fine-looking men, and, to hear us talk, we were very rich. I felt him on the subject of speculation, but he cursed the speculators, and said he was in a bad condition to fall into the hands of such villains, as he had the cash with him that twenty negroes had sold for; and that he was very happy that he happened to get in company with me through the nation. I concluded he was a noble prize, and longed to be counting his cash. At length we came into one of those long stretches in the Nation, where there was no house for twenty miles, on the third day after we had been in company with each other. The country was high, hilly, and broken, and no water; just about the time I reached the place where I intended to count my companion's cash, I became very thirsty, and insisted on turning down a deep hollow, or dale, that headed near the road, to hunt some water. We had followed down the dale for near four hundred yards, when I drew my pistol and shot him through. He fell dead; I commenced hunting for his cash, and opened his large pocketbook, which was stuffed very full; and when I began to open it I thought it was a treasure indeed; but oh! the contents of that book! it was richly filled with the copies of love-songs, the forms of love-letters, and some of his own composition,—but no cash. I began to cut off his clothes with my knife, and examine them for his money. I found four dollars and a half in change in his pockets, and no more. And is this the amount for which twenty negroes sold? thought I. I recollected his watch and jewelry, and I gathered them in; his chain was rich and good, but it was swung to an old brass watch. He was a puff for true, and I thought all such fools ought to die as soon as possible. I took his horse, and swapped him to an Indian native for four ponies, and sold them on the way home. I reached home, and spent a few weeks among the girls of my acquaintance, in all the enjoyments that money could afford.

"My next trip was