University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.
MOONSHINE.

We were too much elated with having achieved
the recapture of the hawk, to postpone the communication
of our good fortune to the family at the
Brakes longer than our necessary refreshment required;
and accordingly, about five o'clock in the
evening, having then finished a hearty dinner, and
regained our wasted strength, we were on our way
to the habitation of our neighbours.

Whether it was that the rapid succession of
scenes, through which we had past during the forepart
of the day, and the vivid excitements we had
experienced, had now given place to a calmer and
more satisfied state of feeling; or whether it arose
only from some remaining sense of fatigue from previous
toil, our present impulse was to be silent. For
more than a quarter of an hour, we trotted along the
road with nothing to interrupt our musings but the
breeze as it rustled through the wood, the screams
of the jay-bird, or the tramp of our horses. At
length Ned, waking up as from a reverie, turned to
me and said—

“Mark! not a word about that fight to-day.”

“Truly, you speak with a discreet gravity,” said I.
“What would you have?”

“Not the slightest hint that shall lead Bel Tracy
to suspect I have had a quarrel with Miles Rutherford.”

“I pity you, Ned,” said I, laughing. “Out, hyperbolical
fiend! why vexest thou this man?”

“Ah!” replied Ned, “that is the curse of the star
I was born under. The most innocent actions of
my life will bear a reading that may turn them, in
Bel Tracy's judgment, into abiding topics of reproof.
I dread the very thought that Bel should hear of this
quarrel. She will say—as she always says—that I
have descended from my proper elevation of character.
I wish I had a hornbook of gentility to go by!
It never once occurred to me when I was chastising
that blackguard, that I was throwing aside the gentleman.
My convictions always come too late.”

“Why, what a crotchet is this!” said I. “To
my thinking, you strangely misapprehend your mistress,
Ned, when you fancy she could take offence
at hearing that you had punished an insolent fellow
for reviling her father.”

“It is the manner of the thing, Mark,” replied
Ned. “The idea that I had gone into a vulgar ring
of clowns, and soiled my hands in a rough-and-tumble
struggle with a strolling bully. Now if I had
encountered an unknown ruffian in the woods, with
sword and lance, on horseback, and had had my
weapon shivered in my hand, and then been trussed
upon a pole ten feet long,—Gad, I believe she would
be thrown into transports!—that would be romance
for her; it would be a glorious feat of arms; and, I
doubt not, she would attend me in my illness, like

the king's daughter in the ballad,—the most bewitching
of leeches! But to be pommeled black and blue,
with that plebeian instrument a fist—pugh!—she will
turn up her nose at it with a magnificent disdain.
Do you see any traces of the fight about me? have
I any scar or scratch? do you think I may pass unquestioned?”

“You may thank your skill in this vulgar accomplishment,”
I answered, “that you do not carry a
black eye to the Brakes. As it is, you have nothing
to fear on that score; and, I promise you, although
I doubt your apprehension of Bel, that I
will say nothing that shall lead to your detection.”

“This is only of a piece with my other miseries,”
said he. “It is another proof of the tyranny to
which a man is exposed who is obliged to square his
conduct to the caprices of a mistress. I declare to
you I feel, at this moment, like a schoolboy who is
compelled to rack his wits for some plausible lie to
escape a whipping.”

“Truly, Ned, you are a most ridiculous lover,”
said I. “Of all men I ever knew, I certainly never
saw one who took so little trouble to square his conduct
to any rule. This is the merest farce that ever
was acted. Little does Bel suspect that she has in
her train such a trembling slave. Why, sir, it is the
perpetual burthen of her complaint that your recklessness
of her rises to the most flagrant contumacy:
and, to tell you the truth, I think she has reason on
her side.”

Well, well!” said Ned, laughing, “be that as it
may; say nothing about the feat of to-day, because,

in sober earnest, I am not quite satisfied with the
exploit myself. I certainly was under no obligation
to drub that rascal Rutherford.”

In the discussion of this topic we arrived at the
Brakes, where both joy and surprise were manifested
at finding Fairbourne brought back in fetters to
his prison. Harvey Riggs clapped his hands and
called out “Bravo! Well done Hazard! Did'nt I
say, Bel, that Ned would perform as many wonders
as the seven champions altogether? Is there such another
true knight in the land?”

As for Bel, she was raised into the loftiest transports.
She laughed,—asked a thousand questions,—
darted from place to place, and taking Fairbourne
in her hand, smoothed his feathers, and kissed him
over and over again. The rest of the family joined
in similar expressions of pleasure, and Ned gave a
circumstantial detail of all the facts attending the recovery,
carefully omitting the least allusion to the affair
that followed it. When this was done, Harvey
again heaped a torrent of applause upon the Knight
of the Hawk, as he called Hazard, and with a lively
sally sang out, in a cracked and discordant voice,—

—which he concluded with sundry antics, and
danced out of the room. Bel, upon hearing the part
that Wilful acted in the recapture, declared that
she would take him into high favour, and that
thenceforth he should have the freedom of the parlour;
saying this, she patted him upon the back, and
made him lie down at her feet.

“Hey day! this is a fine rout and pother about a
vagabond bird!” said Mr. Tracy. “Will you lose
your senses, good folks! Mr. Edward, you see what
it is to gather toys for these women. You have
made Bel your slave for life.”

Bel blushed scarlet red at this intimation; and
Ned observing it, followed suit: their eyes met. A
precious pair of fools, to make so much of so small a
thing!

Fairbourne was carried to his perch, and regaled
with a meal; and the composure of the family being
restored, after the conclusion of this important affair,
we sat down to talk upon other matters. Swansdown,
we were told, had taken his departure after
breakfast. Mr. Tracy, Harvey assured us, had been
in his study nearly all day, conning over the papers
of the arbitration. “The old gentleman,” he said,
“was not altogether satisfied with the award, inasmuch
as there were certain particulars of fact which
he conceived to be mistated, especially in regard to
a survey, affirmed to be made of the mill-dam, which
did not appear in his notes. I have no doubt,” Harvey
added, “that before a month my venerable kinsman
will be in absolute grief for this untimely cutting
short of the law-suit in the vigour of its days.”

Ned sat beside Bel, occupied in a low, tremulous,
and earnest conversation, until the stars were all
shining bright, and even then, he unwillingly broke
his colloquy at my summons. Our horses had been
waiting at the door for the last hour.

We galloped nearly the whole way back to Swallow
Barn; Ned rapidly leading the way, and striking

his whip at the bushes on the road side, whistling,
singing, and cutting many antics upon his saddle.

“What the deuce ails you?” I called out.

“I feel astonishingly active to night,” said he. “I
could do such deeds!” and thereupon he put his
horse up to full speed.

“The man is possessed,” said I, following, however,
at the same gait.

That night we did not go to bed until the moon
rose, which I think the almanac will show to have
been near one o'clock.