Litchfield enquirer., 1843-01-05

From tAs Family Companion
 HOM ESPUN YARN.
 THE EXPERIENCE or THE BLACKSMITH oF THE
 MOUNTAIN PkSS.
 CHAP. I.
 At the enterance to one of those gorg..s or gaps in the great Appalachian chain of moun: tainS, in their passage across the northern portion of Georgia, blacksmith had erected his forge, in the early settlement of that re- zion by the American race, and drove thrif- ty trade in the way of tacing axes and point ing plOughs for the settlers, and shoeing hor- ses for wayfaring people in their transit through the country to examine gold mines and land:
 As he was no ordinary parsonage in the af. fairs of his neighborhood, and will make a conspicuous figure in this narrative, some account of his peculiarities will not be unin. teresting Having acted through life on a homely maxim ot his own-'pay up as you go up,' he had acquired sotne money and was out of debt, and consequently enjoyed 'the glorious privilege of heing n'iepen- dent,' in degree that is unknown to many who occupy a larger DO rtion Of this worlds attention than himself. He was burly, a well looking man of thirty five, just young enough to feel that all his faculties, mental and physca had reached their greatest de. velopement, and just old enough to have a. massed sufficient experience of men and things, 10 make the past serve as a finger post through life. With shrewd, but open, bold and honest look, there was gleefnl OK. pression in the corne. of his eyes, that spoke of fun. The laughing devil in his eye , was not a malicious spirit, however. His physical conformation was that which con- bined great strength with agility, and if he had been fated 10 have heen contemporary of his great prototype Vulcan, there can be no doubt that the Lemnian blacksmith would have allotted to him front forge in his estab. lishment, to act as n sort Of pattern card. and to divert the public gaze from his own game leg to the fair proportions Of hls foreman.
 Now, although Ned Forgeron, for such was the name he had inherited from some Gallic ancestor, was good natured nan, yet the possession of great muscular strength and courage, and the admiration which successful exercise of this power never fails to command, had somew hat spoiled him. Without meaning to iniure any mortal, be had managed, nevertheless, to try his prow. ess on sundry of his neghbors, and from the success which always crowned his honest forts in that way, had unconsciously acqNiS red the character of a bully. A4
 With very few early advantages of ek ' menlary education, he had nevertheless, { different periods; collected mass of hetD Fngeneous Information, which he was vek foqd of displaying on occasions. He wa . 'bOf political antiguary, and could tell fl { opinion of MT. Jefferson or Madison, on subject, and was referred to on.all diSpu& ( points of the theory and history of the gk Z ernment, that arose among the candid$ t9 for the legislature and the country politician x This he studied on account of the cons z quences it invested hlm with. But why he had treasured up an old well thumbed copy of Paine's Age of Reason.' and affected scApticisn as to the veracity of the story of Jonah and the whale, and Baiaanl and his ass, would be hard accounting for, unless it proceeded from the desire of a character for singularity and erudition. When vanity once gets the mastery of a mans reason, him into. He was fond of talking of Volney, and being found with copy of Taylor's 'Diegesis' in his hand, although few of his neighbors had heard of the author of the 'Ru- ins,' or knew what Degesis meant.
 This peculiarfty. together with the pevtina- city of the missionaries. Worcester and But Ter. which carried them to the penitentiary, may account for the great aversion of Mr. Edward Forgeron to all preachers of the Gospel. His dislike for them was so excess sive. that he could scarcely speak of the 'hy. pocriiical scoundrels,' as he called them, without flying into passion and using in. decorous language.
 But circumstance occurred which gave his zeal distinct and sectarian direction.- A Methodist preacher over in Tennessee, who was fond of spicing his discourses with anecdotes, once made the blacksmith the principal character in long sermon. His peculiari,ies were dilated on, and his heTe- sies dealt with, in becoming severity. All this came to the ears of Forgeron. with such additions and embellishments us stories usually receive in passing 10 third person. It would be as useless in attempting to de- scribe mountain storm, as to picture the wrath of this mountaineer. But if we can. not portray the storm, the consequences may easily be told. The blacksmith swore in his wrath that he would whip every Methodist preacher that passed the gap, in revenge of his insult.
 Forgeron was a man of his word, as the bruised features of many of John Wesiey's disciples could testify. His character soon went abroad, and the good old matrOns of the surrounding counties or ea:h side of the mountain, trembled at his name. In short, the mountain pass, which was really as TO. mantle place as the landscape painter would seek for a picture, and was just the spot to remind youth fresh from his classic studies. of the place where LeOnidas and his three hundred Spartans fell, in attempting to defend Greece against the army of Xerxes in despite Of the grandeur of its beetling cliffs, and the beauty of iis vcrdure, was as- sociated in the minds of many pious persons, with the broad gale that lends to destruction.