Fairfax, or, The master of Greenway Court :: :: University of Virginia Library

“What is that you say, sir?” said Captain Wagner,
sternly. “I do not understand your barbarous lingo,
though Mistress Butterton seems to comprehend it perfectly,
or the devil seize me!”

And Captain Wagner threw upon the fair widow a look
which nearly took away her breath. She scarcely knew
what to reply, and found all her presence of mind unequal
to the task of repelling the valiant Captain, and asserting
her own right of action. She finally decided to burst into
tears.

“You are a cruel man! that you are, Captain,” she
sobbed, “to speak to me in that way—that you are!”

The Captain was proof against tears; he knew the sex, as
he often said, and was not to be moved by such trifles.

“I was not addressing you, madam,” he said, frowning,
“but this gentleman, who used toward me the highly injurious
term, malediction. In the whole course of my life,
madam, I have never been called a malediction by any one
before, and I now inform Mr. Jambo, that whatever may be
the fashion in his own frog-eating country, in this country
when one man calls another a malediction, it is a declaration
of mortal enmity—in which light I receive it!”

“Sacre!” groaned Monsieur Jambot, between his clenched
teeth, “ce maudit capitaine! I will fight him—I will abolish
him from ze face of zis earth!”

“Abolish me!” cried Captain Wagner, indignatly; “may
the devil take me, but we shall see. I have heard that you
teach fencing, Mr. Jambo, as well as capering; well, draw
your sword, pardy, or I will nail you, Monsieur, to that
table!”

Monsieur Jambot jumped back, for Captain Wagner's
sword flashed forth like lightning from its scabbard.

“Your sword! your sword!” cried the Captain.

Monsieur Jambot was no coward; and now thoroughly
aroused by the presence and insults of his hated rival, he executed
two steps, professionally speaking, to the mantel-piece,
and took down a good rapier which hung there among
pepper-pods, balls of twine, and ears of corn; with which he
turned and faced his adversary.

“Begar!” he cried, in a great rage, “we shall see what
we shall see!”

But before the Captain could put himself into position, a
loud screech was heard, and Mrs. Butterton rushed between
them with tears and sobs.

“Oh, for mercy's sake!” she cried, “oh, no fighting—oh,
you must not! Captain—Mr. Jambot—you shall not! Put
up your swords—this moment!—or—or—I shall—faint—
my smelling-bottle—in—my—room—Monsieur—Jam!—
Cap!”—

With which faintly-uttered words the lady closed her
eyes; then her form swayed backward and forward, her
head drooped, her feet bent beneath her, and just as Monsieur
Jambot, with all the gallantry of the Frenchman and
the lover, rushed from the room to bring the smelling-bottle,
she yielded to “nerves,” and sank back into the sturdy arms
of the valiant Captain.

“Oh, how could you!” she said, languidly opening her
eyes a moment afterward, and drawing back.

“A thousand apologies, my dearest madam—I have done
wrong—forgive me!” groaned her admirer.

“Oh, Captain!” murmured the lady.

“But to see your beautiful hand pressed to another's lips!
—to see another kneeling to you, which individual you might
in another moment have raised from his knees—May the fiend
seize me, madam!” cried Captain Wagner, “but I will yet have
my revenge on that perfidious rival—revenge, revenge!”

The lady drew back pettishly.

“You care nothing for me,” she sobbed, “I am angry, sir,
and I won't be treated so, sir. You treat me too badly—
that you do.”

“Tears!” cried Captain Wagner, tearing his hair, “tears
caused by me!”

“Yes, sir, by you.”

“By me—the most devoted of your admirers—of your—
yes, of your”—

“Enemies—yes, the most bitter enemy I have.”

“Madam!”

“You would kill my friends, because they are my
friends.”

“No, no.”

“You would fight Monsieur Jambot.”

“He is a good swordsman, I know well.”

“And if he is?”

“He might run through the midriff me myself—the most
faithful of adorers; but that would be nothing,” added Captain
Wagner, gloomily; “a broken heart and a clay-cold
corpse go well together.”

“Whose heart is broken, sir?”

“Mine, madam, by your coldness—your unkindness.”

“Captain,” sighed the lady.

“You turn all my virtues into faults, or may the devil
take me!”

“Oh,” remonstrated the lady.

“If I show jealousy, you laugh at me; if I wish to drive
off other—yes, other rivals, madam, you quarrel with me.”

“I have not quarrelled.”

“You feign not to perceive that I am the most devoted
of”—

The lady turned aside her head: the Captain pressed to
his lips the hand which was abandoned to him: the other
covered her face. Just at this moment, Monsieur Jambot
re-entered, and stood transfixed with horror.

As Captain Wagner, in his profound wrath and astonishment,
had cried out violently: “Snout of the Dragon!'—
so now, Monsieur Jambot, with rage quite as profound, saluted
his adversary with the words:

“Milles diables! what do I see?”

The Captain twirled his moustache.

“You see me,” he said, curtly.

“And who are you, sacre?”

“Captain Julius Wagner, at your service, sir.”

“Captain Waggeneur, you shall answer to me zis!” cried
Monsieur Jambot.

“Answer what?”

“For your insult to me,” replied the Frenchman, adroitly
avoiding a commital of himself.

“I will answer anything,” said the Captain. But perceiving
the eyes of the fair widow fixed beseechingly upon him:
“still,” he continued, “I am not aware, Monsieur Jambot,
that I have insulted you half so grossly as you have me?”

“Comment!”

“Did you not characterize me as a malediction? answer
me that.”

“But,” said the lady, delighted to see the two adversaries
gradually cooling and speaking in more amicable tones,
“that is not an insult, I am sure, Captain. Malediction is
—I don't know exactly what—but it is not an insult.”

“If that is the case, madam, and Monsieur Jambo has
not insulted me by this malediction, I am ready to end our
quarrel.”

Monsieur Jambot bowed with ceremony.

“It shall end,” he said, coldly.

“Good!” continued the Captain, “and now, madam, let
me proceed to business. I am here purely on business.”

Monsieur Jambot hearing these words, understood that it
would not be polite for him to remain: so taking his fiddle
from the floor, and restoring the rapier to its place, he betook
himself to the porch, where, seated on the wooden
bench, he discoursed sweet music, soft enough to penetrate
the very heart of his mistress.

“Business, Captain?” asked the lady, seating herself near
the table.

“Business, madam,” said Captain Wagner, taking out a
paper, upon which were written, in huge, sprawling letters
with a pencil, a number of names; “your business.”

And he seated himself on the opposite side of the narrow
table, spreading out the paper between them.

“My business?”

“Yes, madam—that which brought you to the Valley.”

“Oh, my lots?”

“In Winchester—yes.”

“I now recollect your kind offer of assistance. La! Captain,
you put yourself to a heap of trouble.”

And the lady gently agitated her fan of swan's feathers,
gazing thereon.

“Trouble? no, nothing is trouble for which we expect to
be munificently paid, pardy!”

The lady east down her eyes with a blush.

“Thus, then, it is,” said the Captain, leaning over the
table, and earessing his martial moustache, as with his
enormous hand he pointed out the names written on the
paper in a double row, “thus it is. At the next meeting of
the Honorable Justices of the County of Frederick—which
county, by the horns of the devil!—excuse me, madam—
should be a kingdom, for it reaches from the Blue Ridge
here to the Mississippi—at the next meeting of the Court
here, madam, the county seat, as you well know, will be

determined on. It will be either Stephensburg over there,
or Winchester”——

“Yes, Captain.”

“And your interest,” said the Captain, in a business tone,
“points to Winchester?”

“Yes, indeed—I have some excellent lots there, as I have
before told you.”

“Good! well, I have determined, as I informed you,
madam, that Winchester shall be the place.”

“La! Captain!—but how can you—there is Lord Fair
fax, a sweet nobleman, I am sure, but he is determined to
have Stephensburg chosen.”

“Whether Lord Fairfax is a sweet nobleman or not, my
dear madam, is not the question: nor which of these two
places he inclines to. I have time before court-day, and
I will use it in your favor.”

“Oh, thank you—you are very good.”

“No: by no means: as I said before, my reward will
come from you. But that is beside the question. I procured
from your worthy father, whom I met on the road
coming hither, these names of the justices. You will perceive
that they are very nearly balanced equally—for and
against Winchester. Two names, you see, are marked
Doubtful. They are those of Argal and Hastyluck.”

The Captain leaned over the table, as did the lady: they
were a great contrast: he with his dark, martial face, black
moustache, and grotesque humor in the eyes, buried under
their shaggy brows; she with her fair, plump face, and red
lips, and affected simper. Their eyes met, and an odd
smile passed over the features of each.

“I will bring over Argal and Hastyluck,” said Captain
Wagner, watching his companion like a dog with head
lowered, “and Winchester will be chosen.”

“In spite of Lord Fairfax?”

“Yes, indeed; in spite of everything!”

“You are so kind!”

“Ha, ha!”

“You are the most disinterested person in the world.”

“No, I am selfish.”

“La! Captain.”

“And in proof of it I shall claim the reward for my services.”

The lady blushed, casting down her eyes.

“Will you grant me what I ask, should I succeed?”

“Oh, Captain,” murmured his companion, with a fluttering
heart.

“If it is reasonable?”

“If—it—is reasonable—y—es.”

“Good!” cried Captain Wagner, rising, and bringing
his fist down on the table, like a battering ram, “then Winchester
shall, from this time, be the county-seat, and shall
grow wealthy, and increase in population and in size, and in
importance and in glory! Yes, I have determined upon
that! Stephensburg shall have its foolish ambition overturned;
for the more I ponder upon the matter, the more
proper does it seem that Winchester—where your lots are,
my dearest madam—should be the capital town of this great
county. I rejoice, not only for my own present sake and
yours, that such will be the event: but I see with pride that
brilliant future, when the name of Captain Julius Wagner
will be loved and respected by thousands now unborn:
when they will possibly erect statues to him here in this
beautiful land; and where—who knows?—some one of that
idle and disreputable, but still useful class called authors,
shall write out an account of my services in this matter, and
print them with types such as are used for books, and so inform
the world of my patriotism!—yes, of my chivalry, my
devotedness, my—hum! I think I see that bright day
coming, and I shall leave in my will a sum of money with
which my children, or grandchildren—if I have any, which
heaven grant!—shall pay one of those scribblers, or Grubstreets,
as I have heard them called, to write about my life.

And therein, madam, your virtues will shine! therein you
will be rendered, from your connection with myself, immortal!—therein
we will go down to posterity hand in hand,
as I trust we shall do, even—hum?— my horse there!”
cried the Captain, breaking off in the middle of his eloquent
speech.

“I am going,” he added; “and now rest in peace, madam.
Your interests are mine.”

With which speech Captain Wagner took his leave.