Free The Gothic Terror MEGAPACK™: 17 Classic Tales by Henry James, Ann Radcliffe, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Gertrude Atherton Page A
His heritage had been the young earth, with its skies, its waters, and its winds, its huge primeval forests, and plains throwing out their broad breasts to the sun:—with all the sights and sounds and living things that moved and were articulate beneath God’s eye—and what cared he for the authority of men!
The first, indeed, that was known or heard of Jack, was when he had already built him a snug log-cabin, on the outskirts of the county, near the bank of a small stream—stowed away his fair-faced young wife and two children cozily into it, and was busily engaged in slaying the deer and bear right and left.
He kept himself so much to himself that for a long time little was thought or said of him. His passion for hunting seemed so absorbing, he did nothing else but follow up the game from morning till night, and it was so abundant that he had full opportunity for indulgence to his entire content. Beyond this he seemed to have no pleasure but in that solitary hut which, however rude, held associations dear enough to fill that big heart and quicken all the sluggish veins of that ungainly body. Sometimes one of the Rangers would come across him alone with his long rifle, amidst the limber island of the plain, or in the deep woods; and he always appeared to have been so successful, that the rumor gradually got abroad that he was a splendid shot. This attracted attention somewhat more to his apparently unsocial and solitary habits. They had the curiosity to watch him, and when they saw how devoted he was to his wife, the gibe became general that he was a “hen-pecked husband, under petticoat government” and other like gratifying expressions.
This, taken in connection with his lolling, awkward gait, and rather excessive expression of simplicity and easy temper, disposed these harsh, rude men, very greatly to sneer at him as a soft fellow, who could be run over with impunity. They even bullied him with taunts—but Jack looked like such a formidable customer to be taken hold of that no one of them felt disposed to push him too far and risk being made, individually, the subject of a display of the strength indicated in the great size of his body and limbs. He was upward of six feet four in height, with shoulders like the buttresses of a tower, a small head, and other proportions developed in fine symmetry. Indeed,—but for a slight inclination to corpulency, and that sluggishness of manner we have spoken of, which made him seem too lazy even to undertake the feat—he looked just the man who could take a buffalo bull by the horns amidst his bellowing peers, and bring him to the ground with all his shaggy bulk.
Finding they could not tempt him to a personal fray, they changed the note and by every sort of cajolery endeavored to enlist the remarkable physical energy and skill he was conjectured to possess in the service of their schemes of brutal violence. But Jack waived all sort of participation in them with a smiling and unvarying good-humor, which, although it enraged the baffled ruffians, gave them no possible excuse for provocation. They would not have regarded this, but there was still less invitation in that formidable person and long rifle; and somehow or other they had an undefined sense that the man was not “at himself,” as the phrase goes in the West—that he had not yet been roused to a consciousness of his own energies and capabilities, and they were, without acknowledging it, a little averse to waking him.
They finally gave him up, therefore, and Jack might have been left in peace to love Molly and the children as hard as he pleased, and indulge his passion for marksmanship only at the expense of the dumb, wild things around him, but that he was led to make an unfortunate display of it.
A few log huts near the centre, constituted the county town. Here was the grocery or store as it was dignified—at which alone powder and lead and whiskey were to be obtained for many miles around. Jack happened to
The first, indeed, that was known or heard of Jack, was when he had already built him a snug log-cabin, on the outskirts of the county, near the bank of a small stream—stowed away his fair-faced young wife and two children cozily into it, and was busily engaged in slaying the deer and bear right and left.
He kept himself so much to himself that for a long time little was thought or said of him. His passion for hunting seemed so absorbing, he did nothing else but follow up the game from morning till night, and it was so abundant that he had full opportunity for indulgence to his entire content. Beyond this he seemed to have no pleasure but in that solitary hut which, however rude, held associations dear enough to fill that big heart and quicken all the sluggish veins of that ungainly body. Sometimes one of the Rangers would come across him alone with his long rifle, amidst the limber island of the plain, or in the deep woods; and he always appeared to have been so successful, that the rumor gradually got abroad that he was a splendid shot. This attracted attention somewhat more to his apparently unsocial and solitary habits. They had the curiosity to watch him, and when they saw how devoted he was to his wife, the gibe became general that he was a “hen-pecked husband, under petticoat government” and other like gratifying expressions.
This, taken in connection with his lolling, awkward gait, and rather excessive expression of simplicity and easy temper, disposed these harsh, rude men, very greatly to sneer at him as a soft fellow, who could be run over with impunity. They even bullied him with taunts—but Jack looked like such a formidable customer to be taken hold of that no one of them felt disposed to push him too far and risk being made, individually, the subject of a display of the strength indicated in the great size of his body and limbs. He was upward of six feet four in height, with shoulders like the buttresses of a tower, a small head, and other proportions developed in fine symmetry. Indeed,—but for a slight inclination to corpulency, and that sluggishness of manner we have spoken of, which made him seem too lazy even to undertake the feat—he looked just the man who could take a buffalo bull by the horns amidst his bellowing peers, and bring him to the ground with all his shaggy bulk.
Finding they could not tempt him to a personal fray, they changed the note and by every sort of cajolery endeavored to enlist the remarkable physical energy and skill he was conjectured to possess in the service of their schemes of brutal violence. But Jack waived all sort of participation in them with a smiling and unvarying good-humor, which, although it enraged the baffled ruffians, gave them no possible excuse for provocation. They would not have regarded this, but there was still less invitation in that formidable person and long rifle; and somehow or other they had an undefined sense that the man was not “at himself,” as the phrase goes in the West—that he had not yet been roused to a consciousness of his own energies and capabilities, and they were, without acknowledging it, a little averse to waking him.
They finally gave him up, therefore, and Jack might have been left in peace to love Molly and the children as hard as he pleased, and indulge his passion for marksmanship only at the expense of the dumb, wild things around him, but that he was led to make an unfortunate display of it.
A few log huts near the centre, constituted the county town. Here was the grocery or store as it was dignified—at which alone powder and lead and whiskey were to be obtained for many miles around. Jack happened to
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