OCR Text |
Show 352 Early Western Travels [ Vol 26 before was bounding over the nodding wild- weeds like the summer wind, lay gasping at our feet. So agreeable did I find my youthful hunter, that I was wellnigh complying with his request to " tarry with him yet a few days," and try my own hand and eye, all unskilled though they be, in gentle venerie; or, at the least, to taste a steak from the fine fat doe. Sed fugit, interea fugit, irreparabile tempus; and when the shades of evening were beginning to gather over the landscape, I had passed over a prairie some eight miles in breadth; and, chilled and uncomfortable from the drenching of a heavy shower, was entering the village of Shelbyville through the trees.** This is a pleasant little town enough, situated on the west bank of the Kaskaskia River, in a high and heavily- timbered tract. It is the seat of justice for the county from which it takes its name, which circumstance is fearfully portended by a ragged, bleak- looking structure called a courthouse. Its shattered windows, and flapping doors, and weather-stained bricks, when associated with the object to which it is appropriated, perched up as it is in the [ 106] centre of the village, reminds one of a cornfield scarecrow, performing its duty by looking as hideous as possible. In terrarem, in sooth. Dame Justice seems indeed to have met with most shameful treatment all over the West, through her legitimate representative the courthouse. The most interesting object in the vicinity of Shelbyville is a huge sulphur-spring, which I did not tarry long enough to visit. " Will you be pleased, sir, to register your name? " was the modest request of mine host, as, having settled the bill, with foot in stirrup, I was about mounting my steed at the door of the little hostlerie of Shelbyville the morning ** Shelbyville, selected as the seat of Shelby County ( 1827), was named in honor of Isaac Shelby, early governor of Kentucky. It is located about thirty- two miles southeast of Decatur, and was incorporated in May, 1859.- ED. |