University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.
AN EMBARRASSED LOVER.

The ladies had announced their intention of returning
to the Brakes before breakfast; and, accordingly,
the next morning soon after the dawn, the
court-yard was alive with the stir of preparation.
Horses, dogs and servants filled the enclosure with
a lively bustle, and the inmates of the house thronged
the door and porch. Bel, with the wholesome bloom
of the morning on her cheek, displayed those spirits
that belong to young and ardent girls when they are
conscious of being objects of admiration. She danced
about the hall, and sang short passages from songs
with a sweet and merry warbling.

“We owe you our thanks, gentlemen, this morning,”
said she, “for Mr. Carey's saucy ditty last
night. And do you seriously call that croaking a
serenade, Edward?—Cousin Harvey, I set down all
the impertinence of it to you. Well, help me to my
saddle, and when I am on horseback I will tell you
my mind. I am not afraid to speak when I have a
swift foot under me.”

At this, Ned advanced somewhat officiously to
lead the animal which Bel was about to mount, up to
the steps.

“No, no, Edward!” said Bel, checking his eagerness

to perform this service, “I never want assistance
to get into my seat when cousin Harvey is by;
I have trained him for my own use. See how well
he understands his duty!”

Harvey came round to the stirrup side of the mare,
and stooping down, whilst he locked his two hands
so as to form a step:

“Now, Bel, your left foot,—so; bear on my
shoulder, and there you are,” said he, as she obeyed
his instructions, and sprang lightly from the ground,
by the assistance of his hand, into the saddle.

“I flatter myself,” said Bel, “that was gracefully
done. Have I not an excellent cavalier, Mr. Littleton,
to put me here with so little trouble?”

“It is seldom,” I replied, “that a gentleman finds
so ready a pupil.”

“Edward,” continued Bel, “how long would you
be learning such a feat?”

“Indeed,” said Ned, “I should readily take to
such a service, if my hand were deemed as worthy
of your slipper as your cousin Harvey's.”

“Then,” replied Bel, “come to the Brakes, and
perhaps I shall teach you to be useful in future.
Bring Mr. Littleton with you, and resolve to make
yourselves as agreeable as you can; for, in truth,
we have an especial need of gay friends. I am
afraid that even cousin Harvey will fall into our
moping humours, unless we can procure him merry
companions, and that very soon.”

“I have practised already,” said Ned, with a serious
air, “too many antics to keep your favour. If

I grow worse on that score, it will be because it
gives you pleasure to see what a fool I can make of
myself. We shall not fail to visit the Brakes in a
very short time.”

“The sun is up,” said Bel; “so, fair betide you
all!” Then speaking in an affectionate tone to the
petted animal on which she rode,—“Now, Grace,
—forward.”

The mare rose on her hind legs with an active
motion, and sprang off at a brisk speed.

Catharine had all this time been quietly mounting
by the aid of a chair, and talking in a subdued tone
to Prudence and the ladies around her. She now
said some amiable things at parting, urged Hazard
and myself to come to the Brakes, and rode forward
with a becoming propriety of gait, attended by Ralph;
—Harvey had followed close at the heels of Bel—
and before the rays of the sun had fallen below the
highest tree-tops, the equestrians were out of sight.

After breakfast, I found Hazard sitting at the
door, examining a small box of fishing tackle. A
few cane rods leaned against one of the pillars of the
porch, and Rip, together with a little ape-faced negro,
was officiously aiding in the inspection of the
lines, and teasing Ned with a catechism of questions
appertaining to the purpose of his present employment;
their drift was to ascertain how far it
comported with his design to take them along
wherever he might be bent.

“The day looks so well,” said he to me, “that I
am about to propose a ramble along the brook, and

we will take these rods with us, to help us to a little
pastime. `The angler, at the least, hath his wholesome
walk and merry at his ease—as the quaint prioress
of Sopwell, I think, says—a sweet air of the
sweet savour of the mead flowers that maketh him
hungry:—and if he take fish, surely no man is merrier
than he is in his spirit.' We shall not want
conversation even if the fish should fail us.”

Rip, and the flat-nosed pigmy that hung about
him in quality of henchman, were, of course, to accompany
us. These two efficient auxiliaries were
forthwith despatched to procure bait. Away they
went,—Rip at a bound across the railing of the
porch, and Belzebub, (such was Ned's appellative
for the black,) down the steps into the yard, with a
mouth distended from ear to ear, making somersets
over the green sward of the enclosure. In a few
moments the latter was on his way to the stable
with a long-handled hoe across his shoulder, and
a small tin vessel in his hand, to collect worms;
whilst Rip was following up some devoted grasshoppers
across the lawn, and flapping down his much-abused
beaver upon them, with a skill that showed
this to be a practised feat.

A brief delay brought in our active marauders
with an abundant spoil; and we then set forth on
our expedition, each provided with a long rod and its
appertenances; our young attendants shouldering
their weapons, and strutting before us with amazing
strides and important faces.

As we loitered along, we fell into a half-serious

conversation, which principally concerned the persons
who had lately left us. Ned told me anecdotes
of Harvey Riggs, and gave me many particulars
relating to Catharine and Ralph; but it was observable
that his notice of Bel was rather cursory
and insufficient. I perceived from the manner in
which he came up to this subject, and his immediate
retreat from it, and the repetitions of the same stratagem,
that Ned was rather anxious that I should express
some curiosity to know more of Bel than he had
communicated. Finding this, it rather amused me to
disappoint him; because I was sure he would, after
a while, volunteer a more special revelation.

I need hardly say, after the details I have already
communicated in my previous sketches, that Ned
was pretty fairly in love with Bel. The truth was
notorious to the whole family, and, I believe, to all
the subordinates and dependants of Swallow Barn,
—as much as any piece of country gossip could be—
and that is saying a great deal. This was very
evident to me in the little incident in which Bel surprised
him the day before. Besides, Rip, who is inconveniently
shrewd in such matters, took occasion
this morning, just after the ladies left us on their return
to the Brakes, to whisper to me, as we entered
the breakfast room, “Uncle Ned wanted mightily to
lift Bel to her horse, because he likes the very ground
she walks on.” And Harvey Riggs did not mince
matters when he spoke of it. Then, old Carey had
twisted it into his rhyme on the night before. Yet,
strange as it may appear, Ned, with all these proofs

against him, was such an owl as to think it a profound
secret to all the world except himself. Such
is the hallucination of a gentleman afflicted with this
malady!

So great is the natural frankness of Hazard's character,
that all attempted concealments of his feelings
have a comic extravagance; and in this matter, his
zeal to disguise the truth now and then led him to
counterfeit an ill acted but most perilous indifference.
This was the cause of his inexpert efforts at raillery
upon his mistress; his continually falling pell-mell
upon her foibles, alarming her pride, laughing at
her conceits, and making unconscionable jests upon
points that women are not apt to endure. Instead
of haunting her society, like more skilful lovers, he
rather affected to regulate his approaches by the
rules of ordinary intercourse; was awkward in his
attentions; seemed to lose his intrepidity in her presence;
and, by some froward destiny, to be for ever
presenting himself to her view in those aspects which
were most likely to offend her conceptions of a lover.
Thus, his burlesque display of the night before,
though producing diversion, assailed some of her
most determinate prepossessions. I have said that
she had a vein of romance. This engendered some
fantastic notions touching propriety of manners, and
even gave her a predilection for that solemn foppery
which women sometimes call dignity and high
wrought refinement; and which, it has been already
perceived, did not enter in the slightest proportion
into any one motion of Ned Hazard. Her own

temper was exactly at war with this formal pretension;
but by a certain ply of her mind, picked up
perhaps in some by-path of education, or nurtured
by a fanciful conceit of the world, or left upon her
memory amongst the impressions of some character
she had been taught to admire, or peradventure—
which is equally probable—the physical disclosure
in her organization of some peculiarly aristocratic
drop of blood inherited from some over-stately grandam,
and re-appearing at the surface after the lapse
of a century;—from whatever cause, it was produced,
she considered an orderly, measured, graceful movement,
a choice adaptation of language, reverence
of deportment, and, above all, entire devotedness,
essential to the composition of, what she termed, a
refined gentleman—a character which runs a fair
risk of being set down in the general opinion as sufficiently
dull and insipid. Bel overlooks the total
absence of these gifts in Harvey Riggs, and says his
playfulness (she uses a soft expression) is quite delightful.
I explain this anomaly by the fact that
Harvey is entirely out of the question as a lover; and
that Bel has unwarily permitted her nature to counsel
her opinion in Harvey's case; by reason of which,
her good-humoured cousin has taken the citadel of
her favour by surprise. Ned Hazard she regards in
quite a different light. Her sentinels are all at their
posts when he makes a demonstration.

I sometimes think there is a little spleen at the
bottom of Ned's treatment of Bel, a momentary
sub-acid fretfulness, occasioned by her professing to

hold in estimation the grave and empty pedantry of
Singleton Swansdown, the very model of a delicate
and dainty gentleman. Bel says, “he is so like the
hero of a novel;” which Ned has once or twice repeated
to me, with the remark, that it was “cursed
fudge.”

I have related enough to enable my reader to comprehend
the spirit of the dialogue between Ned and
myself, that I am about to record. We had reached
an old sycamore on the bank of the brook, and
had thrown our lines into a deep pool formed by the
narrow stream under the roots of the tree, and taken
our seats upon the grass in its shade. As I expected,
Ned had begun, at last, to talk more freely of
Bel; and I found that I was gaining rapidly upon his
confidence by the gravity with which I listened to
him. I affected total ignorance of his concern in this
question, and praised or dispraised with a judicial
impartiality. Ned particularly desired to open his
bosom to me on the love affair, but he found great
difficulty in contriving such a train of conversation
as might introduce it in a natural manner. I remained
provokingly dull of apprehension. It is universally
true, that no man of sober sense can, with any
decent face, disclose the fact of his being in love—
even to his most intimate friend. He looks like a
fool, attempt it when he will.

“Mark,” said Ned; and here followed a pause,
in which he wore a strange look of discomfiture.

“Well!” said I, looking full in his face.

The beginning was too abrupt, so Ned evaded it
with—

“Bel's a lively girl.”

“Very.”

“Curse that little slippery minnow!” said he, as
he pulled up his naked hook; it has nibbled away
three excellent baits; but I can't manage to get it
at the point of the hook.”

“Throw in again, Ned,” said I, laughing, “perhaps
you will have better luck next time.”

“Littleton!” here was another pause; “did you
hear what a reproach Bel gave me for not having
been at the Brakes lately?”

“I cannot imagine how you should deserve it,”
I remarked, “living so near, too.”

“These women are always jealous of attentions;”
said Ned. “It is not above ten days since I was
there.”

“They exact a great deal of their lovers,” I replied;
“now I suppose she would have you trudging
there at least twice or three times a week, if she
had her way. But she is unreasonable, Ned. I
would not submit to it,” I continued, in a bantering
tone, with a view to help him to a disclosure which
I began to perceive was likely to be protracted.

“Lovers!” said Ned, not, however, in any tone of
surprise.

He had it on his lips to follow up the word with a
full confession; but hesitating one moment, that unit
of time was fatal: his heart failed him, and like a

ship that misses her stays, he fell back again into the
wind.

“If Bel Tracy had her way,” he continued, without
denying my imputation, “she would have her
father's house filled with admirers through the whole
year. She would import them by the gross, and
change them with every voyage of the steamboat.
She is a perfect cormorant of admiration.”

“They do say, that your friend Swansdown looks
that way with an eager eye, and, if reports be true,
something is likely to come of it.”

I thought if I could rouse Ned's jealousy a little,
he would come with a bolder front to the question,
and therefore I made the insinuation implied in this
remark. Ned answered with great promptness, and
an unusual degree of fire,—

“Never. Bel's a woman of good sense, and discriminates
with remarkable acuteness. She has
some odd fancies, but it is all talk with her; she does
not act upon them. You may depend upon it she
has her working-day notions for use, and her conceits
for holidays. She might tolerate Swansdown
on Sunday evening, but she would not give a toy-puppet
for him on Monday morning.”

“I know how she discriminates,” I replied; “and
besides, I understand that her father likes the idea
very well. Bel is a dutiful girl, and does as her father
bids her. Moreover, when a woman of a lively
imagination once permits her fancy to light upon a
lover, it is quite immaterial what manner of man he
be; the fancy is apt to settle the business for itself.”

“Swansdown,” said Ned, alarmed by the suggestion
which I had forced so confidently upon him,
and therefore rising into a tone of anger, “is the
most preposterous ass—the most lackered, tinselled
pretender—the most unflavoured coxcomb in Virginia.
Weak, sir, weak as water-gruel; not fit to
stand by Bel Tracy's chair with a shawl when her
waiting-woman signifies she is going to walk. Sir,
he has nothing in him but a few tawdry shreds, which
are all shown in fifteen minutes. Bel Tracy will
none of him! I speak disinterestedly, I would not
associate with her, if I thought she could seriously
endure Singleton Swansdown.”

“No matter for all that,” said I; “Bel, as you
say, likes even the counterfeit of dignity, and that,
by all accounts, Swansdown possesses, at least.”

“Folly!” cried Ned; “I know she is touched
with that distemper, and that it does make a woman
impracticable. But her natural sense will get the
better of it. However, you may reason as you will
about it, I know that she does not care that for him,
(snapping his fingers,) I have reason to know it personally,”
he continued, with some warmth.

“What reason?”

“Damn it, if you will have it, I am in love with
her myself;” exclaimed Hazard, with a petulant emphasis,
and then bursting out into a laugh. “Mark,
you must not mention it: it is a foolish thing, that
will happen to a man when he has nothing to do. I
never told any one before; so keep it secret, as you
are my friend.”

“Is it possible!” I returned: “Why did'nt you tell
me before? Here have I been taking your part
against Bel Tracy all this time; and now it appears
I ought to have been on the other side.”

“I thought you would laugh at me,” said he.

“Indeed, I assure you upon my honour, I think to
be in love one of the most serious, nay solemn, things
in the world. And does she encourage you?”

“I should say so. You know there are a thousand
little passages in a woman's life, that show how
her humour lies. You observed yesterday how she
spoke to me? and this morning when she insisted upon
our coming to the Brakes? Trifles!—but the manner
of the thing! Besides, I frequently send her books,
and write notes with them, which she always receives
without the least scruple.”

“Did you ever show her any very particular attentions?”

“Frequently. Almost whenever I had a chance.”

“As how?”

“Why I can hardly describe them. You saw that
ivory-handled riding-whip this morning? I presented
that to her.”

“The deuce you did!”

“She once said in my hearing, that she would
like to have some Cologne of a particular kind; so,
about three months afterwards, I brought her a large
supply from Richmond myself.

“No!”

“And I have sent her, I suppose, at different times,

at least a dozen young partridges: she is fond of
raising them.”

“Indeed!”

“I made Hafen Blok one night, about a year ago,
go over to the Brakes, and play his fiddle for an hour
under her window.”

“There was something pointed in that! And
you went there, of course, yourself very often?”

“No, not very. It might have alarmed her; she
is very sensitive.”

“You spoke to her when you met, I suppose?”

“Mark, you are laughing at me,” said Ned, all
at once aroused by my replies. “But you know
these things depend entirely upon the circumstances
of time and place and looks, and many particulars
that I cannot give you an idea of.”

“Entirely,” said I. “But I think, after all, from
your account of your particular attentions, the lady
might be blind enough to mistake their import.”

“She could not mistake them,” he replied, “because
all this was after I had addressed her.”

“So, ho! You addressed her then?”

“Like a most miserable varlet I did,” replied Ned.
“It was strange. But she acted with admirable
spirit. I'll tell you how it happened. About a year
ago I dined at the Brakes with a large company;
and we drank a great deal of champagne. I think
I must have been possessed with a devil, for I was
walking with Bel alone on the porch, after night-fall:
the moon was bright above us, and I was rattling

away more boldly than I ever did in my life before,
Some how or other she said something to me,—
God knows what,—but, by the faith of a gentleman,
I addressed her in downright English.”

“What then?”

“What then! She gave me the flattest refusal
you can conceive; and ran away laughing.”

“That was encouraging!”

“How could she have done otherwise?” said
Ned. “Bel Tracy is a girl of a nice sense of propriety,
and thought it impudent in me to propose in
that way. She laughs about it now, and says that
she knew I intended it as a joke. I don't think she
ever will believe that I am in earnest! However,
that made her acquainted with my design, and if,
after that, she received my advances well,—don't
you think it looks as if something might come out of
it?—Well, sir, since that I have rode out with her
twenty times.”

“Alone?”

“No. She always makes Ralph or Harvey
Riggs or somebody else of the party. But that shows
she is sensitive on the subject, and does not consider
it so much of a joke as she pretends.”

“Have you ever said any thing to her since?”

“Faith! I was so completely driven from my
wires that evening, that I never could touch the subject
since.”

“Why, you always had the reputation of being a
brave man!”

“There is a great difference,” said Ned, “between

bravery, man-ward and woman-ward. I
would as lief march up to an alligator, to box him
about the eyes in a pair of kid gloves, as come up
deliberately of a cool morning, in the drawing-room,
or any where else, to Bel Tracy, with a straightforward
declaration of love. It is so hard to groove
such a thing into conversation. A man gets his
nerves flurried, and he can hardly talk on common
subjects, with such an intention in his head. I don't
know a single topic that one can take hold of with a
surety that it will bring him straight to the point.
You may depend upon it, that a man who addresses
a woman must go at it like a French rope-dancer,
hop on the rope without a word of introduction, and
trust to the balance-pole to preserve him through his
flourishes.”

“We must order this thing differently in future,”
said I. “I dare say, together we can find out her
exact opinion upon the subject.”

“If it should be after dinner,” said Ned, “I could
court her almost any day; for I should lay in as
much courage as the case required. It is mere
moonshine when a man is merry. But then, Bel
is so fastidious on that point, that she would be sure
to floor me at the first word.”

“And then, your fall would be so much the greater,”
I added, “in proportion to your previous elevation.
It is my opinion that we should try her with
cool heads.”

Before we ended this discussion we had several

times changed our ground, and had, at this moment,
wandered to the inmost recess of a grove of tall
trees. Hazard, having eased his mind of its weight,
changed our topic, and directed my attention to the
scenery around us. The trees were principally
beech, poplar and sycamore, springing from a moist
carpet of matted grass. The forest was free from
underwood, except an occasional thicket of blackberries,
or a straggling grapevine swung across from
tree to tree, embracing the branches of both in its
serpent-like folds, or here and there where some
prim old maidish poplar, long and lean, was furbelowed
with wild ivy, and in this sylvan millinery,
coquetted with the swaggering Zephyr that seemed
native to the grove. Through this sequestered shade
the stream crept, with a devious course, brattling, now
and then, at the resistance of decayed trunks that
accident had thrown across the channel, but quickly
after subsiding into silence. As we advanced, the
swarms of tadpoles darted from the shallows into
deeper water; the apple-bugs (as schoolboys call
that glossy black insect which frequents the summer
pools, and is distinguished for the perfume of the apple)
danced in busy myriads over the surface of the
still water; the large spider, resembling a wheel
without its rim, seemed to move in every direction
on his little seas, as if driven by the wind; and hosts
of small fish sprang upwards at every mote that fell
upon the stream. Occasionally the grey-squirrel
vaulted furtively across our path to some neighbouring
tree; and our attention was frequently called to
the harmless water-snake, with his head thrust under
a stone, and the folds of his body glistening in the sun,
as the stream washed over him.

Rip and his goblin page, both of whom had been
long out of sight, were now in view. They had
grown weary of their patient employment, and were
wading through the brook with their trowsers drawn
above the knee, Rip leading the way and directing
the motions of Belzebub, who preserved an affected
subordination to his master, and imitated all his gestures
with a grin of saucy good nature. They were
carrying on a pernicious warfare against the frogs,
and, by the capture of several distinguished individuals
of the enemy, had spread consternation and
dismay along the whole riparian settlement; insomuch,
as Rip declared, “That not a Frenchman
amongst them dared to show his goggle eyes through
the mud.”

Hazard had taken some dozen of small fish, and
pursued his sport with the skill of an angler, whilst
I sat on the bank and watched the successive depredations
of the game upon my bait, until, in an
attempt to land a voracious mullet, I lost my hook;
“An evil fish,” as the authority quoted by Ned affirms,
“for he is so stronge enarmyd in the mouthe,
that there may no weke harnays hold him.” The
sun had now travelled up to his meridian, and we
proposed a return. So, gathering up our spoils, and
calling in our skirmishers from the battle of the frogs,

we took up our line of march; the two dripping and
muddy mignons of our suite bringing up the rear,
each bearing a string of fish, hung by the gills upon
a willow rod. In this array we soon regained the
court-yard of Swallow Barn.