Maurice Garland Fulton

“ Clambering up the hill, after remounting, the summit of it brought me to a view, on the other side, through the bushes, of a log country schoolhouse, the door being wide open, and who did I see but Tom Edmundson, dressed as fine as ever, sitting back in an armchair, one thumb in his waistcoat armhole, the other hand brandishing a long switch, or rather pole. As I approached a little nearer I heard him speak out: "Sir—Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, was the author of the Declaration of Independence—mind that. I thought everybody knew that—even the Georgians." ”

“ In a moment the dragoons were engaged in a desperate pell-mell with the Rangers.
"Upon them, Stephen! Upon them bravely, my lads! Huzza for Major Butler! Fling the major across your saddle—the first that reaches him," shouted the sergeant, with a voice that was heard above all the uproar of battle. "What ho—James Curry!" he cried out, as soon as he detected the presence of his old acquaintance in this throng; "stand your ground, if you are a man!" ”

“ The spirit of Blake had its desired effect, and the same assailants now turned upon Robinson.
"Hold!" cried Peppercorn, throwing up his sword and warding off the blows that were aimed by these men at the body of the sergeant. "Hold, you knaves! this is my prisoner. I will deal with him to my liking. Would a dozen of you strike one man when he has surrendered? Back, ye cowards; leave him to me. How now, old Horseshoe; are you caught, with your gay master here? Come, come, we know you both. ”

“ Bolus's lying came from his greatness of soul and his comprehensiveness of mind. The truth was too small for him. Fact was too dry and commonplace for the fervor of his genius. Besides, great as was his memory,—for he even remembered the outlines of his chief lies,—his invention was still larger. He had a great contempt for history and historians. He thought them tame and timid cobblers mere tinkers on other peoples' wares; simple parrots and magpies of other men's sayings or doings; borrowers of and acknowledged debtors for others' chattels, got without skill ”

“ Done like a sportsman, Geordy; one dead deer is worth a dozen crippled ones. I remember once your powder was too weak; and next, your shot were too small; and next, your aim was somewhat wild; and one went off bored of an ear, and another nicked of a tail. You are bound to set up an infirmary across the river for the dismembered deer you have dispatched there! You have done well to kill—let it grow into a habit. Nimrod to the southwest, said you? That rascal is a born economist; and not a foot will he budge in pursuit of a living deer after your horn has told him there is venison in the rear! ”

“ They frequently meet in the interchange of a large and thriftless hospitality, in which the forms of society are foregone for its comforts, and the business of life thrown aside for the enjoyment of its pleasures. Their halls are large, and their boards ample; and surrounding the great family hearth, with its immense burthen of blazing wood casting a broad and merry glare over the congregated household and the numerous retainers, a social winter party in Virginia affords a tolerable picture of feudal munificence. ”

“ However, Congo Plains did not gather the house servants so much as the "field-hands."
These came in troops. See them; wilder than gypsies; wilder than the Moors and Arabs whose strong blood and features one sees at a glance in so many of them; gangs,—as they were called,—gangs and gangs of them, from this and that and yonder direction; tall, well-knit Senegalese from Cape Verde, black as ebony, with intelligent, kindly eyes and long, straight, shapely noses ”

“ There it aids in furnishing a cruising ground to a squadron of ducks who, in defiance of all nautical propriety, are incessantly turning up their sterns to the skies. On the grass which skirts the margin of the spring I observe the family linen is usually spread out by some three or four negro women, who chant shrill music over their washtubs, and seem to live in ceaseless warfare with sundry little besmirched and bow-legged blacks, who are never tired of making somersaults and mischievously pushing each other on the clothes laid down to dry. ”

“ But your eye finds something yet more attractive—the saddle of a four-year-old doe, kidney covered, as you see; a morsel more savoury smokes not upon a monarch's board. How pleasant to eat! Shall I say it?—how much pleasanter to give away! Ah, how such things do win their way to hearts—men's and women's too! My young sporting friends, a word in your ear: the worst use you can make of your game is to eat it yourselves. ”

“ Horseshoe reeled a step or two from his ground and clubbing the rifle, as it is called, by grasping the barrel towards the muzzle, he paused but an instant to dash the blood from his brow with his hand and then with one lusty sweep, to which his sudden anger gave both precision and energy, he brought the piece full upon the head of his foe with such fatal effect as to bury the lock in the trooper s brain, whilst the stock was shattered into splinters. ”

“ There is, methinks, my S——, a great fault in the world, as it respects this subject: a giddy instability, a light and fluttering vanity, a prurient longing after novelty, an impatience, a disgust, a fastidious contempt of everything that is old. You will not understand me as censuring the progress of sound science. I am not so infatuated an antiquarian, not so poor a philanthropist, as to seek to retard the expansion of the human mind. ”

“ I hear the distant thunder hum,
Maryland!
The Old Line bugle, fife, and drum,
Maryland!
She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb;
Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!
She breathes! She burns! She'll come! She'll come! ”

“ To spring from his saddle and thrust himself one pace within the door was a movement which the sergeant executed in an instant, shouting at the same time:—
"Halt! File off right and left to both sides of the house, and wait orders. I demand the surrender of all here," he said, as he planted himself between the party and their weapons. "I will shoot down the first man who budges a foot."
"Leap to your arms," cried the young officer who commanded the little party inside of the house. "Why do you stand?" ”

“ His arm is abroad over the dangerous paths, for a shield and buckler to them that put their trust in him. Ha! there is Ferguson's white horse rushing, with a dangling rein and empty saddle, down the mountain through Campbell's ranks; the rider has fallen, and there, madam—there, look on it!—is a white flag waving in the hands of a British officer. ”

“ Those who had fathers, uncles, aunts, or other dernier resorts in Virginia limped back, with feathers molted and crestfallen, to the old stamping ground, carrying the returned Californian's fortune of ten thousand dollars—six bits in money, and the balance in experience. Those who were in the condition of the prodigal (barring the father, the calf—the fatted one I mean—and the fiddle) had to turn their accomplishments to account; and many of them, having lost all by eating and drinking, sought the retributive justice from meat and drink, which might at least support them in poverty. ”

“ O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
⁠That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
⁠Their blood has wash d out their foul footsteps' pollution. ”

“ She rises with the lark and infuses an early vigor into the whole household. And yet she is a thin woman to look upon, and a feeble; with a sallow complexion, and a pair of animated black eyes which impart a portion of fire to a countenance otherwise demure from the paths worn across it in the frequent travel of a low-country ague. ”

“ The scene within her view was one of intense occupation. The air of stern resolve that sat upon every brow; the silent but onward movement of the masses of men advancing to conflict; the few brief and quick words of command that fell from the distance upon her ear; the sullen beat of the hoof upon the sod, as an occasional horseman sped to and fro between the more remote bodies and the center division, which yet stood in compact phalanx immediately below her at the foot of the hill ”

“ He has some fine colts in training, which are committed to the care of a pragmatical old negro, named Carey, who, in his reverence for the occupation, is the perfect shadow of his master. He and Frank hold grave and momentous consultations upon the affairs of the stable, in such a sagacious strain of equal debate that it would puzzle a spectator to tell which was the leading member of the council. Carey thinks he knows a great deal more upon the subject than his master, and their frequent intercourse has begot a familiarity in the old negro which is almost fatal to Meriwether's supremacy. ”

“ She can enumerate the cases—"and men may say what they choose about its being contrary to reason, and all that: it is their way! But seeing is believing—nine scoops of water in the hollow of the hand, from the sycamore spring, for three mornings, before sunrise, and a cup of strong coffee with lemon juice, will break an ague, try it when you will." In short, Mrs Frank says, "Lucretia will die in that creed." ”

“ Every here and there, over the estate, may be seen, rising in humble guise above the shrubbery, the rude chimney of a log cabin, where all the livelong day the plaintive moaning of the spinning wheel rises fitfully upon the breeze, like the fancied notes of a hobgoblin, as they are sometimes imitated in the stories with which we frighten children. ”

“ I don't want your blood. You are beaten, man, and must say so. I grant you quarter upon condition ———"
"Look to yourself! I ask no terms from you," interrupted Curry, as suddenly springing to his feet, he now made a second pass, which was swung with such unexpected vigor at the head of his adversary that Horseshoe had barely time to catch the blow, as before, upon his rifle. The broadsword was broken by the stroke, and one of the fragments of the blade struck the sergeant upon the forehead, inflicting a wound that covered his face with blood. ”

“ They were attended by a man who, even thus far off, showed the sedateness of age; and a short space behind them rode a few files of troopers in military array. It was with mingled feelings of surprise and admiration at the courage which could have prompted her at such a time to visit the army that the party recognized Mildred Lindsay and her attendants in the approaching cavalcade. These emotions were expressed by them in the rough and hearty phrase of their habitual and familiar intercourse. ”

“ In lying, Bolus was not only a successful but he was a very able practitioner. Like every other eminent artist he brought all his faculties to bear upon his art. Though quick of perception and prompt of invention, he did not trust himself to the inspirations of his genius for improvising a lie when he could well premeditate one. ”

“ All the counsels of the work have a directly reverse tendency. It furnishes a store of the clearest argument and of the most amiable and captivating exhortations, "to raise the genius, and to mend the heart." ”

“ Now, major, since we are here in the river, look up the stream. Don't you see, from the image in the water, that there's a fire on the bank? And there, by my soul! there are men on horseback. Look towards the light. Spur, and out on the other side! Quick—quick—they are upon us!"
At the same instant that Horseshoe spoke a bullet whistled close by his ear, and in the next, six or eight men galloped into the river from different points. This was succeeded by a sharp report of firearms from both parties, and the vigorous charge of Robinson, followed by Butler, through the array of the assailants. ”

“ For one of the peculiar perfections of the work is, that while it contains such a mass of ancient and modern learning, so much of profound wisdom and of beautiful composition, yet there is scarcely a number throughout the eight volumes which is not level to the meanest capacity. Another perfection is, that The Spectator will never become tiresome to anyone whose taste and whose heart remain uncorrupted. ”

“ Frank Meriwether is a good specimen of the class I have described. He seeks companionship with men of ability, and is a zealous disseminator of the personal fame of individuals who have won any portion of renown in the state. Sometimes I even think he exaggerates a little, when descanting upon the prodigies of genius that have been reared in the Old Dominion; and he manifestly seems to consider that a young man who has astonished a whole village in Virginia by the splendor of his talents must, of course, be known throughout the United States ”

“ But I lament the eternal oblivion into which our old authors, those giants of literature, are permitted to sink, while the world stands open-eyed and open-mouthed to catch every modern, tinseled abortion as it falls from the press. In the polite circles of America, for instance, perhaps there is no want of taste, and even zeal, for letters. I have seen several gentlemen who appear to have an accurate, a minute, acquaintance with the whole range of literature, in its present state of improvement ”