 | CHAPTER III. The wigwam and the cabin |  |
3. CHAPTER III.
A new day of delight dawned upon us with the next. Our
breakfast made a happy family picture, which I began to think it
would be cruel to interrupt. So snugly did I sit beside Emmeline,
and so sweetly did Susannah minister at the coffee urn, and
so patriarchally did the old man look around upon the circle,
that my meditations were all in favour of certain measures for
perpetuating the scene. The chief difficulty seemed to be, in the
way of a choice between the sisters.
Were t'other dear charmer away.”
The lively glance and playful remark of Emmeline, her
love smiling visage, and buoyant, unpremeditative air, were triumphant
always while I beheld them; but the pensive, earnest
look of Susannah, the mellow cadences of her tones, seemed always
to sink into my soul, and were certainly remembered longest.
Present, Emmeline was irresistible; absent, I thought
chiefly of Susannah. Breakfast was fairly over before I came
to a decision. We adjourned to the parlour,—and there, with
Emmeline at the piano, and Susannah with her Coleridge in hand
—her favourite poet—I was quite as much distracted as before.
The bravura of the one swept me completely off my feet. And
when I pleaded with the other to read me the touching poem of
“Genevieve”—her low, subdued and exquisitely modulated utterance,
so touching, so true to the plaintive and seductive sentiment,
so harmonious even when broken, so thrilling even when
most checked and hushed, was quite as little to be withstood.
Like the ass betwixt two bundles of hay, my eyes wandered from
one to the other uncertain where to fix. And thus passed the
two first hours after breakfast.
The third brought an acquisition to our party. We heard the
windows, to see the new comer. We had but a glimpse of him—
a tall, good-looking personage, about thirty years of age, with
great whiskers, and a huge military cloak. Squire Owens met
him in the reception room, and they remained some half hour or
three quarters together. It was evidently a business visit. The
girls were all agog to know what it was about, and I was mortified
to think that Emmeline was now far less eager to interest me
than before. She now turned listlessly over the pages of her music
book, or strummed upon the keys of her piano, with the air of
one whose thoughts were elsewhere. Susannah did not seem so
much disturbed,—she still continued to draw my attention to the
more pleasing passages of the poet; but I could see, or I fancied,
that even she was somewhat curious as to the coming of the stranger.
Her eyes turned occasionally to the parlour door at the slightest
approaching sound, and she sometimes looked in my face with
a vacant eye, when I was making some of my most favourable
points of conversation.
At length there was a stir within, a buzz and the scraping of
feet. The door was thrown open, and, ushered by the father, the
stranger made his appearance. His air was rather distingué.
His person was well made, tall and symmetrical. His face was
martial and expressive. His complexion was of a rich dark
brown; his eye was grey, large, and restless—his hair thin, and
dishevelled. His carriage was very erect; his coat, which was
rather seedy, was close buttoned to his chin. His movements were
quick and impetuous, and seemed to obey the slightest sound,
whether of his own, or of the voices of others. He approached
the company with the manner of an old acquaintance; certainly,
with that of a man who had always been conversant with the best
society. His ease was unobtrusive,—a polite deference invariably
distinguishing his deportment whenever he had occasion to
address the ladies. Still, he spoke as one having authority.
There was a lordly something in his tones,—an emphatic assurance
in his gesture,—that seemed to settle every question; and,
after a little while, I found that, hereafter, if I played on any fiddle
at all, in that presence, it was certainly not to be the first.
Emmeline and Susannah had ears for me no longer. There was
I spoke, as if I had only interrupted much pleasanter sounds;
and, even Susannah, the meek Susannah, put down her Coleridge
upon a stool, and seemed all attention, only for the imposing
stranger.
The effect upon the old man was scarcely less agreeable. Col.
Nelson,—so was the stranger called—had come to see about the
purchase of his upper mill-house tract—a body of land containing
some four thousand acres, the sale of which was absolutely necessary
to relieve him from certain incumbrances. From the
conversation which he had already had with his visitor, it appeared
that the preliminaries would be of easy adjustment, and
Squire Owens was in the best of all possible humours. It was
nothing but Col. Nelson,—Col. Nelson. The girls did not seem
to need this influence, though they evidently perceived it; and,
in the course of the first half hour after his introduction, I felt
myself rapidly becoming de trop. The stranger spoke in passionate
bursts,—at first in low tones,—with halting, hesitating manner,
then, as if the idea were fairly grasped, he dilated into a torrent
of utterance, his voice rising with his thought, until he started
from his chair and confronted the listener. I cannot deny
that there was a richness in his language, a warmth and colour in
his thought, which fascinated while it startled me. It was only when
he had fairly ended that one began to ask what had been the provocation
to so much warmth, and whether the thought to which we
had listened was legitimately the growth of previous suggestions.
But I was in no mood to listen to the stranger, or to analyze what
he said. I found my situation quite too mortifying—a mortification
which was not lessened, when I perceived that neither of the two
damsels said a word against my proposed departure. Had they
shown but the slightest solicitude, I might have been reconciled
to my temporary obscuration. But no! they suffered me to rise
and declare my purpose, and made no sign. A cold courtesy
from them, and a stately and polite bow from Col. Nelson, acknowledged
my parting salutation, and Squire Owens attended
me to the threshold, and lingered with me till my horse was got
in readiness. As I dashed through the gateway, I could hear the
rich voice of Emmeline swelling exultingly with the tones of her
hanging over her on one hand, while the meek Susannah on
the other, was casting those oblique glances upon him which had
so frequently been addressed to me. “Ah! pestilent jades,” I
exclaimed in the bitterness of a boyish heart; “this then is the
love of woman.”
| CHAPTER III. The wigwam and the cabin | |