University of Virginia Library

11. CHAPTER XI.
SIGNS OF A HERO.

While Hazard was indulging the luxurious fancy
that he had sailed, at last, into the harbour of
Bel's good graces; and was casting about to see
how he should best make good his moorings, Hafen,
like a lame Vulcan, was forging a thunderbolt that
was destined to descend upon Ned's slender pinnace,
and either tear up one of the principal planks,
or at least, give him such a lurch as should make
him think he was going straight to the bottom.

Happy would it have been for Hazard if he had
not forbidden me to say any thing to his mistress
about his unfortunate quarrel with Miles Rutherford;
for then I could have given the matter such a gloss
as must have entirely satisfied any reasonable woman
whatever. But to have this incident mangled
by Hafen Blok, disgraced by his slang, and discoloured
by his officious zeal to contribute to Ned's
glorification, was one of those unlucky strokes of
fortune to which the principal actors in romance
have been subject from time immemorial. This,
therefore, gives me strong hopes that he is really
destined to be a hero of some note before I am done
with him. It has thrown him, for the present, into a
deep shade. And yet,—shortsighted mortal!—so

little suspicious was he that affairs had taken this
turn, that all the next day (being Sunday) he was
more like a man bordering upon insanity than a rational
christian. His first impulse was to go over to
the Brakes immediately after breakfast: then, he
checked himself by the consideration that it was
pushing matters too fiercely. After this, he thought
of sending for Harvey Riggs to join us at dinner:
then, he reflected that it wasn't Harvey he wished
to see. He would sit down with a book in his hand,
but would soon discover that he could not understand
one sentence that he was reading. He
would get up, and walk as far as the gate; look critically
at the plum-tree, that had not the smallest
appearance of fruit upon it and very few leaves, and
then return to the house whistling, until Lucy or
Vic would tell him, “it was Sunday and he must
not whistle.” At length, as a last resort, he went
up to his chamber, and dressed himself out with extraordinary
particularity in white drilling pantaloons,
as stiff with starch as if they were made of foolscap
paper, a white waistcoat, his green frock, a black
stock, boots and his light, hair-cloth forage-cap. In
this attire he appeared in the hall, with a riding
whip in his hand, walking up and down in profound
abstraction.

“Where are you going, Ned?” asked Meriwether.

“Going!” he replied, “I am going to stay at
home.”

“I beg your pardon! I thought you were about
to ride.” Meriwether passed on. Ned continued
his walk.

“Where are you going, Edward?” asked my
cousin Lucretia.

“Nowhere,” said Ned. “I mean to stay at
home.” My cousin Lucretia disappeared.

“Edward, where are you going?” inquired Prudence.

“I am not going out,” said Ned. Prudence decamped.

“Uncle Ned, may I go with you? shall I get
Spitfire?” cried Rip, running into the hall.

“Where?” asked Ned, with some surprise.

“Wherever you are going to ride,” answered Rip.

“Good people!” exclaimed Hazard. “What
has got into the family! where would you have me
go? what do you see? what do you want?”

“Arn't you going to ride?” asked Rip.

“By no means, my dear.”—Away went Rip.

All this I saw from the porch. So, getting up
from my seat, I also accosted him with the same
question. “Where are you going?”

“The Lord knows, Mark! I have just dressed
myself, and have been walking here, for want of
something better to do. I wish it were to-morrow!
for I don't like to go over yonder to-day. I think a
man ought not to visit more than three times a week.
—I feel very queerly this morning: I have been everywhere,
gaping about like an apprentice-boy in his
Sunday clothes. I have seen the horses in the stable,
the fowls in the poultry-yard, the pigs, the negroes,
and, in fact, I don't know what in the devil

to do with myself. Mark, we will go over to the
Brakes to-morrow morning?”

“Oh, certainly. I think our affairs require some
attention in that quarter. Why not go this evening?”

“I should like it very much,” said Ned. “But it
would alarm the family. I feel qualmish at being
seen there too often. People are so fond of gossipping!
No, no, we will wait until to-morrow.”

These particulars will show the state of Hazard's
mind, the day following the recovery of the hawk,—a
day that passed heavily enough. Ned pretended to
impute al lthis tediousness to Sunday, which, he remarked,
was always the most difficult day in the
week to get through.

On Monday morning we were at the Brakes by
ten o'clock. Bel was busy with Fairbourne, and
looked uncommonly fresh and gay. Her manner
was affable, and too easy, I thought, considering the
peculiar relation of her affairs, at this moment,
towards Hazard. She addressed her conversation
principally to me; and, once or twice, refused Ned's
services in some little matters wherein it was natural
he should offer them. I observed, moreover, that
she did not second his attempts at wit as freely as
she was used to do: they made me smile; but upon
her they fell harmless and flat, like schoolboys' arrows
headed with tar. All this seemed strange and
boded ill. Hazard observed it; for it made him
awkward; his cheek grew pale, and his words stuck
in his throat.

In a short time some household matters called Bel
away.

“The wind has changed,” said Ned, in a half-whisper
to me, as we walked to the parlour; “the
thermometer is falling towards the freezing point. I
wish this business was at the —”

“Whist, Ned!” I exclaimed, “don't swear! There
is some mistake in this matter: we'll talk to Harvey.”

Harvey Riggs took a seat with us at the front
door; and there, in a long, confidential and grave
conference, he explained to us all that he knew of
this perplexing affair. He said that he had been trying
to bring Bel to reason, because he thought, to use
his own phrase, “it was all flummery in her to be so
hyperbolical with Ned;” but that she was struck,
just between wind and water, with Hafen's rigmarole
about Ned's boxing match; and that it would require
some time to get this warp out of her fancy;
that there was no question she was deeply wounded
by all she had heard; but still he had hopes, that he
would be able to set matters right again. “Ned,”
said he, “my dear fellow, let me warn you, at least
until you are married, (if you are ever to have that
luck,) to care how you make a fool of yourself; because
it is sure immediately to turn Bel into a greater
one. Mark, they are a miraculous pair of geese!”
cried Harvey, breaking out into a loud laugh; and
then singing out with a great flourish, to the tune of
a popular song, the following doggerel—

Ned absolutely raved. He thought he had the
fairest occasion in the world to get into a passion;
and he, accordingly, fell to swearing against all womankind,
in the most emphatic terms. As soon as
he had “unpacked his heart” in this way, he dropped
into another mood, and began to deplore his
fate, pretty much as he had done on some of those
former occasions that I have described; and last of
of all,—which he ought to have done at first,—he became
very reasonable; and, in a calm, manly defence
of himself, narrated circumstantially the whole
affair; showing, in the most conclusive manner, that
he had been induced to accept Miles Rutherford's
challenge, only because he did not choose to hear
that graceless brawler pour out his vile abuse upon
one so venerable in his eyes as Mr. Tracy.

“What could I do,” said he, “but chastise such
a scoundrel, for the irreverent mention, in such a
circle, of the excellent old gentleman? and, I humbly
think, that, of all persons in the world, Bel Tracy
is the last that has a right to complain of it.”

“This sets the matter in a new light,” said Harvey;
“I told Bel, I was certain Hafen had lied.
Her worshipful minstrel, her rascally minnesinger
makes a great figure in this business!”

Here Hazard's mood changed again. Nothing
is so brave as a lover who has found good ground
to rail against his mistress; he may be as gentle as
a pet squirrel, or a lamb that is fed by hand, as long
as he has no confederate to encourage him in rebellion;
but no sooner does he receive a compassionate
word from a by-stander, or enlist a party, than he

becomes the most peremptory and fearful of animals.
Harvey's words stirred up Ned's soul into a sublime
mutiny; and, for some minutes, he was more extravagant
than ever. He would let Bel see that she
had made a sad mistake, when she imagined that he
was going to surrender his free agency, his judgment,
his inclinations, his sense of duty to her! It
became a man to take a stand in affairs of this nature!
He scorned to put on a character to win
a woman, that he did not mean to support afterwards,
if he should be successful: it would be rank
hypocrisy! What, in the devils' name, did she expect
of him!—to stand by, and acknowledge himself a
man, when she—yes, she herself—for an attack upon
her father was an attack upon her—was reviled and
made the subject of profane jest and vituperation
on the lips of an outlaw! Let Bel consider it in this
point of view, and how could she possibly find fault
with him?”

“Yes. Let Bel consider it in this point of view!”
said Harvey, chiming in with a droll and affected
gravity; “I'll go and put the subject to her in this
light, this very instant.”

“No,” said Ned, “you need not be in a hurry.
But, in earnest, Harvey, at another time I would
like you to do it: it is but justice.”

“I'll harrow up,” replied Harvey, with a deep tragic
voice, “her inmost soul.”

“In order that you may have free scope,” said
Hazard, “it will be better for Mark and me to set
off home immediately.”

“`Sir Lucius, we won't run,”' said I, laughing.

“Do you think there is danger, Ned? shall we make
a rapid retreat?”

“ `Brush,” exclaimed Harvey, “the sooner you
are off, the better!' I will met you anon, and report
to you at Swallow Barn.”

Without taking leave of the family we commenced
our retreat; and during the ride Ned displayed
the same alternations of feeling that were
manifested in our interview with Harvey. These
emotions resolved themselves, at last, into one abiding
and permanent determination, and that, considering
the character and temper of Hazard, was
sufficiently comic, namely,—that in his future intercourse
with Bel, he would invariably observe the
most scrupulous regard to all the high-flown and
overstrained elegancies and proprieties of conduct
which she so pretended to idolize. His humour
was that of dogged submission to her most capricious
whims. Never did spaniel seem so humbled.

“I know I shall make a fool of myself,” said he,
“but that is her look-out, not mine. I'll give her
enough of her super-subtle, unimaginable, diabolical
dignity!—I will be the very essence of dulness, and
the quintessence of decorum!—I will turn myself into
an ass of the first water, until I make her so sick
of pedantry and sentiment, that a good fellow shall
go free with her all the rest of her life!”