_“The Kinsmen, or the Black Riders of the Congaree.” A Romance. By the author of Guy Rivers, &c. 2 vols.—Lea & Blanchard, Philada. 1841._
A good novel is always welcome; and a good one from an American pen is doubly so. Since the publication of the Pathfinder, we have seen nothing equal to the Kinsmen.
The story is laid at the period of the Revolution, and Clarence Conway, the hero, is a prominent actor in the partizan war, which then raged in the Carolinas. Many of the characters are well drawn, and the interest is kept up throughout. Flora Middleton is an exquisite creation of the novelist’s pen. She deserves to be placed alongside of James’s finest female characters.
We have room for only a short extract. In it, however, the interest is worked up to a pitch of the most intense excitement. The hero, be it remembered, having fallen into the hands of the Black Riders, has irritated their ruffian leader. To the outlaw’s threats he replies:
“I am Colonel Conway, and, dog of a tory, I defy you. Do your worst. I know you dare do nothing of the sort you threaten. I defy and spit upon you.”
The face of the outlaw blackened:—Clarence rose to his feet.
“Ha! think you so? We shall see. Shumway, Frink, Gasson!—you three are enough to saddle this fiery rebel to his last horse. Noose him, you slow moving scoundrels, to the nearest sapling, and let him grow wiser in the wind. To your work, villains—away!”
The hands of more than one of the ruffians were already on the shoulders of the partizan. Though shocked at the seeming certainty of a deed which he had not been willing to believe they would venture to execute, he yet preserved the fearless aspect which he had heretofore shown. His lips still uttered the language of defiance. He made no concessions, he asked for no delay—he simply denounced against them the vengeance of his command, and that of his reckless commander, whose fiery energy of soul and rapidity of execution they well knew. His language tended still farther to exasperate the person who acted in the capacity of the outlaw chief. Furiously, as if to second the subordinates in the awful duty in which they seemed to him to linger, he grasped the throat of Clarence Conway with his own hands, and proceeded to drag him forward. There was evidently no faltering in his fearful purpose. Every thing was serious. He was too familiar with such deeds to make him at all heedful of consequences; and the proud bearing of the youth; the unmitigated scorn in his look and language; the hateful words which he had used, and the threats which he had denounced; while they exasperated all around, almost maddened the ruffian in command, to whom such defiance was new, and with whom the taking of life was a circumstance equally familiar and unimportant.