University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.
TURNING THE TABLES.

Beware of quick tempers and hot blood, whispers
Prudence, and it is a wholesome warning; for fire, in all
its forms, is a mad element, and needs control. But
beware of heart-burnings, is the voice of a deeper wisdom
yet; for the former are to the latter what surface
flame is to central fire. The one often evaporates in
smoke, the other may thunder in the earthquake or the
volcano.

Hot-headed men are suspicious, quarrelsome, dangerous.
But there is no nature on earth so stern and
desperate as that, which, naturally confiding, and slow
to believe in wrong, becomes at last convinced of misplaced
trust and deadly injury. Shallow natures, like
soft metals, are prone to quick but evanescent heats.
Strong souls, like iron ore, can only be fired by many
elements of combustion, long combined; but when they
are once aglow, they are streams of fire that course in
deep channels and take hard forms. Thus moulded by
fate or fortune, they are ready instruments for stern work
or for desperate ventures.

Men do not understand this, or if they acknowledge it
as a fact, they do not recognize it in individual instances.
Popular prejudice has always favored the theory that
quick tempers result from intense sensibility, and consequently,
while a man's angry outbreaks are a subject of
dread, his warm heart is equally the theme of eulogium.
But is this theory true? That there is a correspondence
between the heart and the head, there can be no doubt.
But is it the deepest feelings, the tenderest hearts, the
master powers that vent themselves in extravagant demonstrations,
either of love, of threatening, or of wrath?
Fickle preferences, short-lived hate, feeble purposes, explode
like gunpowder, and may be known by the flash;
but great hearts nourish secret fires, and only those who
explore deep feel the heat. Thus genius smoulders for
years while the kindling process goes on, and resolutions
ripen by imperceptible shades of growth, and
unexpressed love is constant as the sun, and hate
becomes a tyrant.

Then when some great deed is done, the household,
the community, the nation, wonder: they had not traced
the process; how could they anticipate the result?

Had the purblind people at Stein's Plains been asked
who among them would be least likely to be guilty of a
violent, an unnatural, or a desperate act, they would,
perhaps, have been unanimous in naming George Rawle.
What! Geordie? The patient, unselfish, even-tempered
Geordie? Idle he might be, thoughtless, unthrifty, —
on the down-hill of dissipation, some might add, — but

capable of sudden, fearful, reckless resolve and deed, —
O, no! never.

But, because George had borne much, was it certain
that he would bear every thing? Because his heart was
by nature true and trustful, was it less likely to be
envenomed by faithlessness or injustice? Because he
had vacillated long, was it inconceivable that he should
some day make up his mind? And when the recoil
came, when he was maddened, when he was resolved,
would the result be nothing more than a noisy explosion?
Would it not be the turning-point in a lifetime?

Perhaps the possibility of all this first flashed upon
Angie's mind on the night of the ball. Perhaps, long
and well as she had known George Rawle, she had never
realized the manhood there was in him until she saw it
defied by another than herself. Only in the light of
others' contempt did she begin to appreciate the native
forces thus trodden under foot, and to dread their
rebound.

Anxiety for George, however, was not the only emotion
that sent Angie home from the ball early and dissatisfied.
The sudden influx of womanly fear, which
took possession of her at his abrupt departure, had
brought her nervous excitement to a climax, and reduced
her to the weakness of tears; but a vague sense of anger,
mortification, disappointment, and finally jealousy, all
combined to chafe, irritate, and oppress her. Very tired
she professed to be, and so went at once to bed. For
Angie to plead fatigue after a few hours dancing was a

mere pretence, and yet it may be doubted whether truth
itself could have found a better expression for her state
of mind. She was tired of herself, with whom she had
been so well satisfied at the commencement of the evening;
tired of every body whom she had been disposed to
like; tired of every thing from which she had anticipated
pleasure. To get away from the ball, reach home,
escape her father's prattle, turn the key of her door upon
old Happy, and thus, in a figurative sense, upon the
whole world,—that was sufficient satisfaction and relief
for the present.

Exhausted by painful excitement, and experiencing
that reaction which almost amounts to apathy, she
mechanically took off her finery — her last lively emotion
for the night evincing itself in the little outburst of vexation
with which she tossed lace, flowers, and muslin into
a heap, and thrust them into a bureau drawer. It was
altogether too cold in her room for any time to be wasted
in listlessness or meditation, and the frosty weather
having driven her to bed, nature and habit soon put her
to sleep.

Either a night's rest or the influence of daylight
exerted a happy effect, for morning found her with her
accustomed life and energy restored; and if her spirits
were still depressed, there was nothing in her looks or
movements to contradict a frequent assertion of the
neighbors that Angie Cousin was “a smart little piece.”
She was up as early as usual, and more than commonly
active in her daily round of employments. It is true that,

as she peered diligently into the corners of the sitting-room
in search of dust, her brow was more contracted
and anxious than the occasion seemed to warrant; there
was a thoughtful pensiveness in the manner with which,
before washing the breakfast things, she stirred the hot
dish-water with her little mop, and there was a most unlucky
vehemence in the way in which she dashed the teapot
against the closet shelf, and broke the nose off.
Similar fluctuations of temper attended her through the
morning. Now she stood at the window, gazing down
the road as if she were expecting some one; then walked
to the fireplace, and seemed to find interest and excitement
in heaping on wood and stirring up a great blaze;
then paused before a mirror, and surveyed her own
features, without observing their dull and vacant expression.
But the day was passing heavily. Angie's
active duties were accomplished, and she could not compose
herself to any sedentary occupation. It was dreary
out of doors, the sky gray, the weather cold and raw, and
a snow-storm threatening. Mr. Cousin was pottering
about at the barn in his queer French fashion, and Angie
experienced an unusual sense of loneliness and desertion.
None of the girls would come to see her and talk over
the ball on such a dismal day, and she shouldn't want
their company if they did come. At another time she
could have put on her hood and run down, as was often
her habit, to sit an hour with Mrs. Rawle, George's
mother. The distance was not great. She was, even
now, watching the smoke of the cottage chimney, and
thinking how neighborly it looked. But to-day she would
not go there for the world. Geordie might be at home,
and if not, Mrs. Rawle would talk about nothing but him.
How angry he had gone off! — and no wonder! That
wicked old uncle of his! how he had lied about the poor
fellow! She wished — she wished — O, she couldn't
think of any punishment bad enough to wish that old
man! But then Geordie himself had behaved very badly,
coming in looking so rowdy, and with that horrid horse-jockey
waiting outside; and then treating her so rudely
as he did, and insulting the captain! Yes — Geordie had
suffered great injustice, and it was a shame! — an awful
shame! (and here again she put in a parenthesis of
hatred to Baultie); but then he owed her an apology,
and the captain, too; and she would have him to know
that he must treat her and her friends with respect, or
she would have nothing to do with him. She would give
any thing to see him, though, if it were only for five
minutes! Where was he? she wondered, and in what
company? Could any part of what old Baultie said be
true? and if so, what disgrace Geordie was bringing upon
himself and her! He had caused her anxiety and mortification
enough already. What must the captain have
thought at seeing such an outlaw and disturber of the
peace on terms of intimacy with her? Of course such a
gentleman as the captain must have been disgusted. He
was going away in a day or two. She wondered if she
should have a chance to set herself right in his eyes?
She hoped so. What would he be likely to be doing
to-day? Perhaps, — and here she felt just such a sharp
twinge as she had experienced the night before, — perhaps
he and Polly Stein were cracking and eating nuts together
by the kitchen fire at the tavern. She had heard
Polly boast of their enjoying themselves in that way
every day after dinner. She didn't more than half
believe it, though, — she wouldn't.

With this spasmodic resolve to be incredulous of every
thing disagreeable, she raised her eyes from a little spot
on the rag carpet, upon which they had been fixed while
she meditated, and looking restlessly out of the window,
she saw — could it be? or was she blinded by the
snow-flakes which were now filling the air? — and she
looked more intently; yes, — and she gave a nervous
start, — it was the captain, and somebody following him
— a boy! — Stein's stable-boy — and bringing with him
the guitar-case.

“And here I am with this old print on,” she said to
herself, retreating from the window, “and a colored
neckerchief, and a hole in my shoe!” Let it be mentioned,
in connection with this last circumstance, that
Angie was not slovenly — she was naturally the pink of
neatness — but they were so poor, and she had but one
other pair, and the only way to save them was to wear
the old ones at home.

“O Happy!” she exclaimed, in something half way
between a whisper and a shout, as she fled up the narrow
stairs that led from the kitchen to her little bed-room,
“Captain Josselyn is coming! Ask him in to the sitting-room!

Put on another stick of wood! I'll be down in
a minute!”

Every woman, almost every woman, knows what such
a minute is, — a period of hurry, agitation, and intense activity,
longer or shorter, according to the capability of the
individual. Angie being, as we have said, a “smart little
piece,” reappeared in an incredibly brief space of time,
looking, in her dark bombazette dress and broad white frill,
almost as pretty as she did at the ball. Mr. Cousin coming
from the barn, had met the captain at the door, and
accompanied him in, so the delay on her part was of no
consequence. Already the courtly little Frenchman, gratified
at the prospect of a guest and his revenge at piquet,
had made the captain quite at home. The latter paid his
compliments to Angie with as much easy grace as if nothing
unpleasant had occurred the previous evening. Indeed,
he seemed to have forgotten every circumstance of
that occasion except his own delight in her society; and
the only reference he made to the interruption of that
enjoyment was, when he saw her give a glance at the
guitar. He had taken the instrument from its case,
which was slightly wet with the snow, and had laid it on
a chair.

“You see I am persevering, Miss Angie,” he said. “I
have come to finish my song.”

Angie blushed, thanked him, and felt herself in a little
flutter of pleasurable excitement. The condescension of
the captain, and the surprise of his visit, were such antidotes
to the vexation and chagrin she had been suffering

through the long, dull day! They all sat and chatted
a while by the fireside, or rather Captain Josselyn and
Mr. Cousin kept up an animated conversation; the captain
proving equally entertaining to both his listeners —
pleasing and flattering the old gentleman by deferring to
his opinions, and making apt use of French phrases, and
paying court to Angie by a tender devotion of manner,
and glances of most unequivocal admiration. The latter,
however, were so confident and presuming that Angie,
despite a sense of elation at the conquest she had achieved,
looked first to the right, then to the left, and frequently
took shelter beneath her long eyelashes, in the endeavor
to avoid those piercing eyes which, as the twilight wrapped
every thing else in shadow, seemed to gain proportionately
in their fixedness and intensity, and as they reflected
the fire-glow, took a vivid topaz color, like crystal
goblets of wine. Angie was an inexperienced, not a
brazen, coquette, and had scarcely mettle enough to resist
this military lover with the intoxicating eyes. So, restless
and embarrassed, she was glad when Mr. Cousin
called for a candle, and challenged his visitor to their game
of piquet. This also gave her an opportunity to make
some housewifely preparations for tea, which she did
with native quickness and tact, moving about with that
daintiness with which a girl moves when she is suspicious
that a lover is watching her. Happy, who needed no
hint from her mistress, or rather who was mistress herself
in her own department, was already preparing to fry
some doughnuts; and any practised ear could distinguish,
from the sitting-room, the sizzling of the lard over the
kitchen fire.

Angie got out the best table-cloth from an old-fashioned
press, but postponed spreading it on the table until Happy
should bring in tea, because there was a very large darn
in the worn damask, which she depended upon covering
with the tray. Then she went to the cupboard and took
down from an upper shelf her stock of plate; a few little
silver teaspoons — three — how fortunate that there were
just three! The gilt-edged cups and saucers, too — there
was a sufficient number of them left unbroken. The gilt
was nearly rubbed off, to be sure, but then they showed
what they had once been, and in their present state they
matched all the better with the white crockery dishes and
plates; but, O, mischief and agony! the teapot! the
broken-nosed teapot! and it was their only one — what
should she do?

But before she could think further on the matter, she
heard a sound which betokened still greater mischief and
agony. It was well she stood within the closet door, out
of sight of their visitor, otherwise he might have wondered
at the agitation she manifested. Somebody had
lifted the kitchen latch — that was all. Yes, but Angie
could not be mistaken as to who it was that had lifted the
latch with just that click. She listened breathlessly, teapot
in hand; then detected precisely the sound she had
expected to hear next! — a footstep, — Geordie's. O,
how unlucky!

But she was a girl of good courage, especially in emergencies.

By the time she had deliberately set down the
teapot, and slowly withdrawn her hand from it, she had
resolved what to do. She would confront him at once,
treat him coolly, and dismiss him, if she could, ignorant
of the captain's visit. It would never do to let them
meet under such circumstances. She was surprised that
just now George should want to put himself in her way!
Inconsistent girl! Only that morning she had felt that
she would give all the world to see him for five minutes.
Perhaps it was some excuse for her unreasonableness that
she so dreaded another collision between the young men.
“Any how,” was her conclusion, as she slid out of the
sitting-room, “I must get rid of him to-night, if I have
to run to the ends of the earth to make it up with him
to-morrow!”

Ah, Angie, to-morrow! “Whereas, you know not
what will be on the morrow.”

George was standing with his arms resting upon the
high kitchen mantel-piece, and his head so bent over on
his hands that he seemed to be watching Happy's doughnuts
in the process of frying.

Angie thought he would, as usual, approach her humbly,
with that pleading look of his — but, no; he did not even
turn round when she entered the kitchen. So she walked
up, with a hesitating step, and stood beside him. Then
he looked at her, but only as if to assure himself that
it was she, for he did not speak, and the next instant
he was staring into the fire again.

Angie took a fork and turned the doughnuts one by
one. George watched her as she did it.

“You're wet,” she said at length.

He looked down at the steam that was evaporating
from his damp clothes, but otherwise took no notice of
the remark.

“Your doughnuts are burning, Happy,” were the
next words spoken.

“So they be, Miss Angie!” exclaimed the old negro
woman, who had been busy moulding dough, with her back
to the fire; and, pouncing upon them, she carried them off,
frying-pan and all, to the pantry, and (trust a negro's
shrewdness for that), took care not to come back again.

The clattering of Happy's rolling-pin and the hissing
of the hot fat thus suddenly subsiding, the kitchen seemed
fearfully still to Angie, who was getting nervous and impatient.

A deep sigh from George first broke the stillness, and
was at once succeeded by the petulant exclamation,
“What makes you stand there so, Geordie? You worry
me to death!”

At this he removed his arms from the mantel-piece,
raised his head, and fixed his eyes full and steadily upon
her. Such presumption in her shy lover would have
amazed her, but for a something in his gaze which she,
standing as she did then and there, could not quite appropriate
to herself. The look did not seem to be meant for
her, — at least not for her ordinary self. It was as if,
passing beyond, behind, within her, it comprehended all
the past, summed up a life's experience, and gauged its
value. She felt this even before he spoke, but the

impression was confirmed when he said, like a man
soliloquizing, “I have known you a great many
years, Angie. How much I have thought of you!
haven't I?”

Before she could answer, his eyes were turned away
from her, and were wandering round the room. “I
have had a great many good times in this kitchen,” he
said, meditatively, and still as if speaking to himself.
Probably the old wooden settle by the fireside, the clock
ticking in one corner, the polished warming-pan, which
was such a capital thing for popping corn, the worn
turkey-wing, which served for a hearth-brush, the old cat
rubbing her head against his leg, — all were reminiscences
of these good times; for he looked from one to
another with as much earnestness as if he were taking
an inventory, and finally stooped down and stroked the
cat's back.

Angie was perplexed by his conduct. He seemed so
independent of her presence that she almost felt herself a
supernumerary.

“Where's your father?” he abruptly asked, glancing
at the chair by the window in which Mr. Cousin was in
the habit of sitting.

Here was trouble. Angie stammered a little as she
answered, “He's — he's busy — just now.” Her reply
was apparently a matter of indifference to the young
man, for his only comment was, “I saw his snuffbox
there, — it made me think of him, — that's all. The
snuffbox was on the window-sill. George walked to the

window, and handling the box as if it were a talismanic
medium of thought, looked out at the night. The storm
was gathering, and the wind, as it whistled past, rattled
the window-sash, and caused the lamp on the table to
flicker. Angie, standing by the fire, shivered. What is
he looking at? What can he be thinking of? Why
doesn't he speak? Why doesn't he go? These were the
mental queries that agitated her; and the only answer,
for a space that seemed interminable, was the sighing of
the wind.

At last, when he turned, it was to walk straight up to
her, lay his hand on her head, and gently smooth her
hair, — a thing he had not dared to do before since the days
when she was first old enough to put it up with a comb.

This audacity — evidently unconscious on his part —
awed her. All the nonsense, all the coquetry, all the
false pride of the girl, were subdued on the instant. She
submitted to the caress with as much docility as if she
had been an infant.

He only passed his hand over her hair once or twice,
in much the same dreamy way that he had stroked the
fur of the cat. “Angie,” he said, almost unintelligibly,
— and she looked up, fearing he was choking, but making
a great effort, he went on with a firm voice, and she
listened breathlessly, — “Angie, that old man lied last
night. I want you to remember that. It may come
true, — God knows! — but it was a lie then; don't forget
what I tell you, or think any worse of me than you
can help. A man may be driven on to the rocks and

shipwrecked, but it ain't as if he went of his own accord.
I know I'm a poor dog, and have had my day!”

Angie trembled, and made an effort to interrupt him,
but he did not notice her, and went on. It seemed as if
he had braced himself up to a certain point, and nothing
could stop him now.

“Turn a dog out of doors, set every tormenting thing
on him, abuse him till he can't stand it, and never call
him back with a kind word, and I tell you he'll go mad
and bite or run away; but he was an honest dog once,
— mind that, — and loved his friends, and would have
died for 'em. No matter what becomes of him now —
it's all over. There,” he added, drawing a long breath,
“you're free to go back to him,” — and he pointed to the
door leading to the little sitting-room. “He's a stranger,
but I dare say he's enough sight better fellow than I am.
I hope so, any way.”

Touched and grieved by his appeal to her sympathies,
Angie had been ready to burst into tears, comfort him,
and entreat his forgiveness; but conscience-stricken at
his last words, as well as mortified at his knowledge of
a rival's presence in the next room, she could only follow
the direction of his eyes with a confused medley of sensations
and a shamefaced countenance. Even in his depth
of contrition and self-abandonment, he was getting the
mastery of her.

And so it was that she, the defiant, high-spirited
coquette, who had kept him in fetters now fourteen
years, offered no resistance, but stood still as a statue,

while he first dismissed, and then, — O, unthought of presumption!
— bent down and kissed her. Since she first
took womanly airs, and forbade him the liberty, he had
never presumed on such an offence. Even on occasion
of a country romp, or a game at forfeits, he had only
half taken advantage of his opportunities, yet now he
pressed his lips to hers without apology and without
rebuke.

I say now, — and yet it did not seem as if the kiss
had much to do with the now of their lives; it was
more like a seal set upon all the past love and friendship
there had been between them. It was a long kiss — giving
time for his eyes to look full into hers, and daguerreotype
her image on his heart. There was no rapture in it, and
no pain. It asked for no response, any more than if she
were dead. It was a benediction merely, and a farewell.

“Now go!” he said. The words were addressed to
her, and were peremptory. But she never stirred,
though he turned, and was gone out of the house in an
instant.

She was like one petrified. Not until the last echo
of his step, and of the house door, which he banged
after him, had died away, did she move from the spot
where he had left her. Then she ran to the door, opened
it and looked out, but only to retreat before a heavy gust
of wind which sent the snow whirling in her face and
seemed to mock her. As she reëntered the kitchen she
stumbled over the guitar-case, which stood in the corner.

Perhaps George had stumbled over it too on his entrance.
At all events, here was the traitor that had
betrayed the captain's visit.

By this time Happy, as prompt on a slight hint to reoccupy
as she had been to evacuate her premises, had resumed
her sway at the kitchen fire, and was bustling
about, to atone for the interruption to her labors. “One
spark to time 's 'bout enough for we!” she muttered.
The doughnuts had soaked fat, and old Hap was
cross. On such occasions there was nothing for it but
to submit to her dictation, at least when, as now, Angie
had no heart for coaxing her into good humor. So she
obeyed the old negress' directions like an automaton, and
helped her “hurry up tea.” But the elasticity was all
gone out of Angie. She was no longer the blithe little
coquette, the conscious beauty, the dainty housewife.
So far from finding it hard to avoid the captain's eye,
she did not even know whether he looked at her. With
her own hands she spread the table-cloth so as to bring
the great darn directly in front of their visitor's plate,
she gave him the horn spoon out of the sugar-bowl, and
brandished her broken-nosed teapot with a vacant air.

The tea hour seemed interminable. The songs afterwards
had no music for her, and she forgot to thank the
singer. Her father accused her of being “ver' tired
after de ball,” and Captain Josselyn must have found
her society less inspiring than usual, for he yawned
more than once.

Mr. Cousin had already been allowed to avenge his

ill luck at piquet, and as the parties had played innocently
(that is, without the excitement of gambling, for
the old Frenchman had declined playing for money),
neither cared to resume the game.

Fortunately, Stein's stable-boy came early for the
guitar, and the fact that the storm was increasing furnished
an excuse for the captain, at the same time, to
bid them a hasty good night, and avail himself of the
boy's guidance back to the tavern, which was the more
desirable, as the lad, who himself resembled a moving
snowdrift, declared that the road was already covered
with several inches depth of snow.