The Virginia comedians, or, Old days in the Old Dominion

And Lanky raises his hand affectionately toward his auricular
appendages, with a dreadful conviction that their
size and prominence would render them an easy prey to the
enemy.

Captain Ralph addressed the above emphatic words to
Mr. Lugg two or three days after the scenes which we have
just described. The worthy soldier was sitting after breakfast,
with a meerschaum between his lips, with his feet in
close proximity to the hook fixed in the beam above the
great fireplace of his mansion. From time to time, clouds
of snowy smoke would issue from beneath his huge moustache,
and rise in circles to the rafters overhead, upon which
the red beams of the morning sun reposed, turning the
dusty timbers into bars of gold.

Lanky sat as usual, in his chimney corner, and from time

to time touched furtively the strings of an old battered violin,
which lay upon his knees:—gazing all the while into the
blaze, which drove away the cool river mist with its crackling
laughter.

The Captain looked at his retainer for some moments in
silence, after the outburst we have faithfully chronicled
above; then added:

“Play that reel again—”

And the Captain, stopping to smoke a moment, Lanky
raised his violin with alacrity to obey his master's bidding.

—“If you dare, you rascal!” finished the Captain,
whose sentence had been broken off in the middle. Lanky's
arm subsided immediately, and the fiddle fell back to
its former position on his knees.

“Raly, Cap'n,” said Lanky, scratching his head, “nobody
can't please you. Now you know you told me, bein'
as you gin me a holiday to day, to bring out my fiddle and
scrape for you. And now,” added Lanky, with an injured
air, “you're a tellin' me that I dasn't play no more. Oh,
Cap'n!”

And after this stereotyped protest, Lanky remained silent.

“I told you to play, because I wanted to hear music,
parbleu!” said the Captain, “but that was a quarter of an
hour ago. I have changed my mind. I don't believe you
are much of an artist, with all your distinguished reputation
in the neighborhood. You scrape horribly, and your in
strument is an awful one.”

Lanky, though deeply hurt and indignant at this double
attack on his violin and his reputation, did not answer.
“Oh, Cap'n!” was all that his muttering lips enunciated.

At the end of ten minutes, Captain Ralph laid aside
his meerschaum, and stretched his legs.

“Lanky,” he began.

“Sur?”

The Captain paused for some moments, yawning.

“When did you see Donsy Smith?” he asked, at length.

Lanky started.

“Oh, Cap'n,” he said, “I ain't seen that ere young
'ooman for a month o' Sundays.”

“Have you quarrelled?”

“No, sir.”

“A rival?”

Lanky groaned.

“What horrible sound was that which issued from your
diaphragm, you villain?” asked the Captain.

“I never said nothin', sur.”

“You sighed.”

“Did I, Cap'n?”

“Yes, and do you know what these `heighos' mean?”

“He'o's, sur?”

“These sighs, you rascal?”

“No, sur.”

“They signify that one is deeply smitten by some angelic
fair one. Eh? do you understand?”

“I think I does, sur.”

“When I said `have you a rival?' you sighed, or rather
groaned. Now I understand from that, that you are far
gone.”

“Oh, Cap'n.”

“Come, now, you have a rival?”

“I b'lieve I has,” said Lanky, piteously, but beginning
to saw his head from north-east to south-west, according to
his habit.

The Captain observed this favorite manœuvre, and began
to laugh.

“You have a rival, eh?” he said; “a successful one?”

“I dun'no, sur.”

And Lanky groaned again, and sawed his head worse
than ever. The Captain twirled his moustache with a delighted
look.

“Listen to me now, Lanky,” he said, bursting into
laughter; “listen to my advice, mon ami. Here you are
groaning and sighing, and declaring in your delicious patois
that you have not seen your dulcinea for ages:—you are
plainly in high dudgeon, and have abandoned the field.
Now, sir, hear what I have to say. No retainer of mine
shall disgrace me by succumbing to a woman—laying down
his arms because the bastion frowns with guns, instead of
being wreathed with flowers. Tonnere! you villain, it is a
personal slight upon myself, and I won't have you give up
in this way to your little Donsy, who is only coquetting with
you! Do you hear, sir?”

“What kin I do, Cap'n? I can't do nothin,” sighed
Lanky.

“There it is, again—with your eternal groaning! Be a
man, you rascal, or, parbleu! I'll hang you by the legs to
the rafters!”

Lanky started at this terrible threat, and took a bird's-eye
view of matters, coming to the irresistible conclusion
that the posture suggested by his master would not only be
disagreeable, but would have the effect of adding a new and
undesired charm to the landscape.

“Oh, sur!” he ejaculated.

“Now listen,” said the Captain, “and do not sit there
moaning and groaning, sighing and crying, when as a brave
man you should buckle on your sword—figuratively speaking—and
advance upon the enemy. What is that enemy?
That, morbleu! is the first question with every courageous
and rational soldier. In the present instance a woman—a
young woman, or as you say in your barbarous dialect—
`young 'ooman.' Now, sir, I commence by laying down the
proposition that every member of the fair sex may be overcome
by well-directed and courageous generalship. They,
of course, despise a mere sighing, lachrymose lover, with his
heart in his hand, and a propensity for moonlight and soliloquy:—basta!
I am throwing away my philosophy on your
thick head! What do you know about soliloquies and
moonlight!”

And the Captain paused.

“I don't know nothin' 'bout slil'kees,” observed Lanky,
“but I hunts 'coons by moonlight, sometimes.”

“You unsentimental villain!” said the soldier, “are
you not ashamed of yourself, to mix up the divine sentiment
with 'coons—as you barbarously term it:—to mingle
tendresse with the consideration of furs!”

“You was goin' to give me some advice, Cap'n,” said
Lanky, desirous of averting the Captain's indignation.

“Well, you villain: in place of advice, I give you commands!
I command you to resume offensive operations immediately,
and yield not one point.”

Lanky looked dubious: these generalities were plainly
distasteful to him, since he did not very clearly comprehend
their meaning.

“Oh, Cap'n! I dun'no what that means,” he said.

“It means this, you villain! When Donsy or any other
young lady endeavors to turn you around her thumb, to
make you do just as she desires, to wheedle, and coax, and
bring you over—resist, morbleu! Yield not a single point,
as I said before!—never yield a point to one of the fair sex;
for observe, you pine knot! the ambitious desire to rule in
these enchanting creatures, closely resembles a body of water
pent in by a dam. Give it but one little point to issue
through, and diable! it rushes on, and carries all before it.
Never yield to women—it is a bad precedent: respect them,
love them, fight for them, die for them,—but never yield to
them, you unreasonable villain! En avant! with a brave
heart, and without thought of surrender:—ask no terms,
yield in nothing: refuse to see brilliant eyes, to listen to
coaxing words; close your heart obdurately, and victory is
yours! Bah!” continues the Captain, “here am I advising
you as to your course, when the first advice should be
to show your nose to your sweetheart: how can she respect
such a lover. As your master, sir, I command you to go
and make yourself agreeable to your sweetheart, and not
disgrace me by giving up the battle in this way.”

Lanky touched the violin absently.

“But how kin it be done, Cap'n?” he said. “I ain't
giv' up: I never intends to giv' up! But oh, Cap'n, when
a feller feels all sorts o' ways, how can he make hisself agreeable?”

The Captain laughed heartily. Lanky took courage at
this, and continued, sawing his head:

“I ain't a goin' to giv' up! No I ain't! He's too
young for her, and 'sides, he ain't as good lookin' as I am.”

“Who—your rival?”

“Yes, sur.”

“Who is he?”

“Will Efn'um.”

The Captain burst into a tremendous laugh.

“What, that little fellow, Lanky?” he said.

“Yes, sur.”

“Morbleu! you astonish me.”

“You know Donsy goes to school to the parson, sur,
and so does Will Efn'um.'

“There near town?”

“Yes, sur.”

“Well, now, I command you to enter the field at once,
and prosecute hostilities,” said the Captain. “Go, you rascal!
I give you a holiday.”

Lanky rose, with his fiddle under his arm.

“Won't your honor want your horse?” he said, scratching
his head.

“Yes—morbleu! I forgot. I must go and fight Glatz
for mon ami over there. Saddle Selim.”

“Yes, sur.”

And Lanky went out. In a quarter of an hour Captain
Ralph was riding towards Riverhead, singing merrily one
of his numerous repertory of camp ditties; and Lanky,
having first smoothed his hair, by means of a coarse comb,
and a triangular bit of looking-glass, was proceeding, with
his violin under his arm, toward the town of Williamsburg.

University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII. HOW CAPTAIN RALPH LAID HIS COMMANDS ON MR. LUGG.

7. CHAPTER VII.
HOW CAPTAIN RALPH LAID HIS COMMANDS ON MR. LUGG.