COLONEL QUAGG'S CONVERSION.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume I, Issue 36, 2 September 1863, Page 6

COLONEL QUAGG'S CONVERSION.

It may be ten years ago that there was a religion in rather a small way in Punkington, called the Grace-Walking Brethren. They had originally been called the Punkington Seceders ; but, coalescing with Reverend Pygrave Clapp—who had just sloped from Coonopolis, Ga., where he had had a slight difficulty with the citizens on the Freesoil (whole ticket) question, which ended by his being ridden on a rail out of the state, and a report being spread abroad that the darkness of his complexion came from his having been taned; and that under his clothes he was feathered like a bird—coalescing with this persecuted Testifer, the amalgamated ticket was thenceforward known as Grace-Walking. They were peaceful, decent, harmless bodies enough, mind : ng their own business, not interfering with that of anybodv else, and our citizeus took to them kindly. 'Their congregations soon began to multiply in number, and they had chapels at Marathon, Squashborough, Lower Whittle, Thermopylae, Jeffersouville and East Halleluia. Within a year from their establishment they had five circuits within a fifty miles circle of Punkington. Now a circuit, you must understand, may comprehend five, ten, fifteen, twenty congregations; and the religion not being quite rich enough to entertain a minister for each congregation, there are so many circuits—religious " beasts," in f ac t—each of which is assigned to a different clergyman, who goes the round thereof in turn. Punkington circuit, including as it did the townships of Eggnogville, Bunkum, and together with Rapparoarer city and the villages of Snakesby, Fiscopolis, New Marseilles, Globbs, and Ephesiis, was a very popular circuit indeed. There were always dreadful handsome girls at preachings and camp meetings, and plenty of comfortable farm-houses where the ministers were entertained with such delicacies in the w ay of pork fixings, mush, hominy, johnnycakes, can-vas-backed ducks, pumpkin pies, squash,whitepot, curds, molasses, York hams, turkies, and apple pasties; with elder wine, and perhaps a sly drop of peach brandy or Monongahela whisky, that would have brought water into the mouth of a London alderman all cloyed and soggy from a tortoise dinner at Guildhall, or a proud British nobleman surfeited with the luxuries of a regal banquet at the court of Saint James's. The country around Punkington was pretty and picturesque ; and the brethren walked in grace with meekness and devoutness. There was but one thing wanting to make the whole circuit one real land of milk and honey ; or, rather, there was one thing that turned it into a land of gall and wormwood— of soreness of flesh and bitterness of spirit; and that thing was an individual; and that individual was Colonel Quagg. A dreadful man, a skeery man, a Tan to waken snakes and rile moukies was Colonel Quagg. Goliah Washington Quagg was his name; and two and a-half miles from Punkington did he locate, on the main road to Rapparoarer city. He was six foot three without his stockings, which would have made him in jack-boots something terrifically gigantic to look at. He had a bushy beard and whiskers, and the integument that covered his bones was hard and horny as a crabshell. The hair of his head was like a primeval forest, for it looked as though it had never been cut, combed, weeded, or trimmed. His eyes were fearful to look upon when they flashed, and they flashed almost always. He ate so much that people said that he was hoilow all through—legs, arms, and all—and packed his food from the feet upwards. Some people compared him to a locomotive, for he was always smoking, drinking, roaring, and coming into collision with other folks. He compared himself to a Mississippi steamboat with the safety-valves tied down with rope-yarn. "Rosin me up and stand on my boilers," he used to cry. " Give me goss and let me rip. Strangers, pay your bills and liquor once more before you die, for I must lik every 'coon of you or bust." He was always licking 'coons. He licked a backwoodsman; four " Bowery bhovs" from New York, one after the other; an Irish hod-carrier (with one hand), and an English prize-fighter. They set a giant out of a menagerie at him once, and the giant closed with him, and was head soon afterwards to crack like a nut. The giant said (after he cracked), that it was a darned, tarnation, everlasting shame it was; for he had gone in to whip a man, not a grisly bear. Colonel Quagg was a blacksmith—-a roaring, rampagious, coaly, knotty, sooty Vulcan of a man. To hear him shout out hoarsely to 'Zeek, his long, lank bellows-blower; to see him whirl his tremendous hammer above his head as though it had been a feather, and bring it down upon the iron of his anvil with such a monstrous clang that the sparks flew about and the flames leaped up the chimney and tripped up the heels of the smoke, as if they were frightened out of their wits. This was a sight—grand if you like—but fearful. The colonelcy of Goliah Quagg arose from his command of the Rapparoarer Tigers. These redoubtable volunteers were (of course) the ssgis of the Union, and the terror of Buffum County. On the 4th of July day they fired off so many rounds of musketry that their eventually blowing themselves up with gunpowder was thought to be by no means a matter of extreme improbability. The Rapparoarer Screamer newspaper teemed with cards headed " Rapparoarer Tigers, attention!" and commanding the attendance of the corps at reviews, burials, or weddings of members, or political meetings. Colonel Quagg, in his tiger uniform, at the head of his corps, vowing vengeance against the Punkington National Guards, the Lower Whittle Fire Corps; the Squashbonugh Invincibles ; the Bunkum Defenders ; the East Halleluia Hussars—between which last-named volunteers and the Tigers there

had occurred a deadly fray at the corners of Seventh Street and Slog Avenue, Punkington : the Hussars being at last obliged to take refuge in a liquor store in the next block, and two eyes and unnumbered double teeth being left on the field. Colonel Quagg, brandishing his sabre and threatening gouging, cowhiding, and etarnal chawing up to creation in general and rival militia and Fire Corps in particular, was a great and glorious sight to see once, perhaps twice, but not oftener ; for the sun at noon-day dazzles, and distance lends enchantment to the voice of a powder magazine, or Vesuvius, or a mad dog. Colonel Quagg had neither wife nor relations, chick nor child. He lived behind the smithy, in a grim cabin, where, for aught anybody knew, he slept on the bones of his enemies, or kept bears and wolves, or burned brimstone and Bengal lights in his fireplace. Where he was raised was not certain. What he did on Sundays (for he never went to church or meeticg, and could not, in deference to our citizens, work in his smithy on the Sabbath,) was not known. There were but two things about him on which arguments could be, with tolerable certainty, held. That he liked rum—raw—which he drank in vast quantities, without ever winking or being intoxicated ; and that he hated the Grace-Walking Brethren.

What these, or any other brethren had ever done to incur his dislike was not stated ; but it was clear aed certain that he hated them fiercely and implacably. He declaimed against them in drinking bars; he called them opprobrious names in the street; and, what was particularly disagreeable to the brethren themselves, he made a point of giving every minister who passed his smithy—on horse or on foot, on business or pleasure —a sound and particularly humiliating beating. Colonel Quagg's method was this. 'Zeek, the long, lanky assistant would, as he blew the bellows, keep a sliaip look out through a little round hole in the smithy wall. When, on the crest of the little hill in the valley beneath which the smithy lay (the bridge over the Danube, leading to Punkington, was in the other direction), ihere appeared the devoted figure of a Grace-Walking clergyman, 'Zeek would call out, •' One o' them, Colonel!" Whereupon the blacksmith would lay down his hammer, and say grimly, "'Zeek, <ile.'" The " ile," or oil, being brought, the Colonel would therewith anuoint a tremendous leather strap, in size and appearance between the trace for a cart-horse and the movement band for a steam-engine. Then would he sally forth, tug the luckless preacher by one leg off his horse—if he happened to be riding—or grapple him by the collar of his coat if he were a-foot, and thrash him with the strap—not till he howled for mercy, for the first victim always did that at the very first stroke of the awful strap ; but till his own brawny arm could no longer hold the mighty weapon. All this was accompanied by a flood of abuse on the part of the Colonel: the ministPr, his congregation, sect, person, and presumed character, were all animadverted upon; and, after having been treated with brutality, he was dismissed with scorn, with a sardonic recommendation to send as many more of his brethren that way as he could, to be served in the same way. then, execution being done, and the miserable victim of his ferocity being gone on his bruised way towards Punkington, the Colonel would stride into Silas B. Powkey's tavern over the hill, hot, perspiring, and fatigued; and, throwing his terrible strap on the bar, and seating himself on a puncheon, would throw his leiis aloft, half in weariness half in triumph, even till they reached the altitude of the mantel-piece, would there rest them, and, ejecting a mighty stream of tobacco juice, cry—- " Squire, strapped another Grace-Walker: Rum."

Now this, as in the celebrated Frog and Boy case (vide spelling-book reports), albeit excellent sport to one party concerned, was death to the other. Martyrdom had not exactly been contracted for when the Grace-Walking Brethren entered the ministry; and without martyrdom there was no riding the Punkington circuit There wes no avoiding the colonel and his awful strap. There was no going round another way. There was no mollifying, persuading, or infusing soft pity into the colonel's breast. " I licks ye," he was wont to reply when interceded with, " because I kin, and because I like, and because ye'se critters that licks is good for. Skins ye have on, and skins I'll have off; hard or soft, wet or dry, spring or fall. Walk in grace if ye like till pumpkins in peaches; but licked ye must be till your toe-nails drop off and your noses bleed blue ink." And licked they were accordingly. The Punkington circuit began to lack ministers. Clergyman were not forthcoming. The pulpits were deserted. There was a meeting held at Punkington to decide upon what ministers should go the ensuing Spring circuit; just as, in Europe, the Judges meet to arrange among themselves who shall go a hanging, and where. The question Colonel Quagg was debated in solemn conclave; for, though all the other places in the circuit found ready volunteers, not one clergyman could be found to offer to administer to the spiritual necessities of the Rapparoarer brethren. Brother M'Tear had a bad cold; brother Brownjohn would rather not; brother Knash had a powerful call down Weepingwall way; brother Bobberlink would next time—perhaps. Brother Slocum gave a more decided reason than any one of his brother ministers. He said that he would he etarnally lieked if he'd go, because he'd be sure to be considerably licked if he went.

A brother who, up to that time, had said little or nothing—a lonp, thin, loose-limbered brother, with a fnce very like a quince more than three parts withered—who sat in the corner of the room during the debate, with his legs curled up

very much in the fashion of a dog—a brother, to say the truth, of whose abilities a somewhat mean opinion was entertained, for he was given to stammering, blushing, hemming, hawing, scraping with his feet, and seemed to possess no peculiar accomplishment save the questionable one of shutting one eye when he expectorated—this brother, by name Zephaniah Stockdolloger, here addressod himself modestly to speech : " Thorns," he said, "isn't good eating ; stinging nettles isn't pleasant handling, without gloves; nor is thistles comfortable, worn next to the skin. Corns is painful. Man's skin was not made to be flayed off him like unto the hide of a wild cat. But vocation is vocation, and dutv, duty. Some, I, Zepheninh Stockdolloger, will go on the Rapparoarer location, and if Bn-ther Brownjohn will loan me his hoss, I will confront the man—even Goliah Quagg." After which the devoted brother shut his eyes and—expectorated.

The meeting turned their quids and expectorated too, but without shutting their eyes. They adopted the long brother's disinterested proposition nem. con. But Brother Bobberlink whispered to Brother Slocum that he had allays thought Zephaniah St ickdolloger considerable of a fool, and that now he knew it—that was a fact.

(To be continued.)