University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

Like the old war-horse, when he snuffs the
scent of war, and hears the shrill fife, the braying
trumpet, and the thrilling drum, the Heer Piper
now felt the spirit of the ancient follower of the
great Gustavus reviving within him, even as
the snuff of an expiring lamp or candle; the latter
being rather the most savoury comparison.
He inspected his palisades, scoured his pattereroes,
victualled his garrison, and exercised
the villagers in practising the deadly rifle.
Every day he invested himself in his cocked hat,
invincible sword, and tarnished regimentals,
and strutted about with a countenance so full of
undaunted valour, that the very women and
little children slept soundly every night, save
when a troop of howling wolves approached the
village under cover of darkness, and waked them

with the apprehension of an attack of the Indians,
led on by the Rolling Thunder himself,
whose very name was enough to alarm a whole
regiment of militia.

One of the most provoking things which
mortal man encounters in this spiteful world, is
that of taking a vast deal of trouble to provide
against a danger which never arrives. Yet
nothing is more common than to see people
laying up treasures they never live to enjoy;
providing against exigencies that never happen;
and sacrificing present ease, pleasure, and enjoyment,
only to guard against the wants of a
period that they never live to see.

It would almost seem that fate delights to
mortify the pride of human wisdom, by exhibiting
daily examples, how often the most watchful
prudence is either idly employed in guarding
against evils that never come, or in vainly attempting
to evade the consequences of those that do;
while, on the other hand, the most daring disregard
to calculations of the future is often coupled with
the most prosperous success. We would give that
world of fancy, which is the only world to which
we heroes of the quill can lay any positive claim,
to be able to decide the question betwixt the
relative prospects of a person of extraordinary

prudence, and no prudence at all. Possibly,
however, the course of our history may throw
some light upon this matter.

More than a fortnight elapsed, amid the din of
preparation, and the vigilance of watchful alarm,
without any appearance of the Rolling Thunder
and his painted warriors. Every day the Heer
talked and strutted more loftily than the day
before, and boasted more confidently of the
sound drubbing he would give these galgen
schievenkels, if they dared to attack his fortress
of Elsingburgh. But, alas! that man should
always be passing from one extreme to another,
from the fearfulness of apprehension, to the foolhardihood
of unbounded carelessness. Finding
the Indians did not come as soon as he expected
them, the good Heer at length persuaded himself
they would not come at all, though he ought to
have known that the race of the red-men never forget
either a benefit or an injury. He accordingly
remitted his vigilance by degrees, and put his
fortress upon the peace establishment, in spite of
the singular and mysterious warnings of the
Frizzled Head. That declamatory oddity was
now more vehement in her incomprehensible
denunciations, never meeting the Heer without
uttering some dismal raven's note.

“Sleep on, till thou wakest no more,” cried
she; “dream till thy dreamings end in waking
woes; and believe that what is not will never
be.”

“What meanest thou, thou eternal mill-clapper?”
would the Heer reply; “away with thee,
and either speak what thou knowest, or hold thy
tongue. What knowest thou? der teufel hole
dich.”

“I know what I know—I could tell what I
will not tell—I could save those I love, at the
risk of losing those that I love still better.”

“Confound thee for a muddle-pated, crack-brained
Snow Ball,” quoth the Heer; while Bombie
of the Frizzled Head would go in search of
that likely fellow Cupid, her grandson, who every
day became more moody and ungovernable, and
now spent more than half his time wandering about
with his dog in the woods. These two were observed
to have frequent conferences together, in
which Bombie sometimes seemed greatly agitated;
but the subject of their discussions was not
known, as they excited little interest.

Whitsuntide came, and with it a hundred rural
sports, and sprightly merry-makings. The buxom
lasses, with gayest gear, and cheeks redder
than the rose, accompanied by many a rustical

and barbarous Corydon, hied forth to the
woods, in search of Pinckster apples, or to play
at hide-and-seek among the blossoms. The boys,
and lads who were yet too young to think of
sweethearts, were gathered together in a large
level common, just without the village, pursuing
such various sports as inclination led them to
prefer. In one place, a party of lusty lads were
playing at ball, having for audience some half
a dozen black fellows, who applauded with obstreperous
admiration any capital stroke or feat
in running. Elsewhere, a party not quite old
enough to be admitted among the others, were
amusing themselves in pairs, by striking their
respective balls from one to the other. A third
set were shooting marbles; a fourth firing little
lead cannons; a fifth setting off ascotches, as they
are 'yclept in boyish parlance; a sixth was playing
at chuck-farthing, with old buttons without
eyes; a seventh rolling in the dirt; and an eighth,
making dirt pies. In short, there was no end to
the diversity of sports; it was holyday, and all
were happy as noise and freedom could make
them.

The only drawback upon the pleasures of
these merry and noisy wights, was the presence
of that busybody Lob Dotterel, the high constable

of Elsingburgh, who never saw a knot of
people, great or small, making merry together,
that he was not in the thickest of them, making
mischief and raising sport, by what he was
pleased to denominate keeping the peace. We
should have mentioned before, that among the
plans adopted by the Heer and his trusty counsellors
for improving the police of Elsingburgh,
was that of passing laws for the prevention of
various amusements, which children have practised
from time immemorial, and which are as
much their right, as any of the immunities which
men enjoy under the common law. If Lob
Dotterel, who was always on the look-out,
brought information that a horse had thrown
his rider in consequence of being frightened by
a paper kite, a law was forthwith enacted to
forbid that dangerous and unlawful practice;
if an old woman chanced to have her petticoat
singed by the explosion of an ascotch, an ordinance
was straightway fulminated against these
pestilent fireworks; and so on till the urchins of
the village were gradually so hemmed in by laws,
that, if they had paid any attention to these enactments,
the little rogues would hardly have had an
amusement or a play that was not unlawful.
Like many modern legislators of the present
time, a single fact was sufficient ground for
passing half a dozen great wordy laws, which,
after all, nobody obeyed. These, for the most
part, lay dormant, like a great spider in the
recesses of his web, until the zeal of some
Lob Dotterel would sally out upon some little
buzzing fly of a boy, who had chanced to get
entangled in their mazes.

It was amazing to see the bustling activity of
Lob, on this occasion of the sports of Whitsuntide.
If two little fellows happened to fall out
in playing at marbles, or chuck-farthing, and
proceeded to settle the dispute, by an appeal to
the law of nature; or if a hubbub was raised in
any part of the field, that indefatigable officer
dashed in among them; and wherever he came,
there was an awful silence, till he was called
to some other quarter, to quell another riot,
when his departure was announced by a renewal
of the fight and noise. Never was poor man
in such a worry; and never did poor man get
so little for his pains, as Lob Dotterel,
who might be said to be in the predicament
of certain great conquerors, or rather, of certain
legitimate monarchs, of the present day, who,
the moment they have quelled an insurrection
in one part of their territories, are straightway

called to another for the like purpose. Various
were the tricks put upon the High Constable.
At one time, they pinned a dishclout to
the bottom of his coat, with which he marched
about for a time, unknowing of this appendage
to his dignity; at another, they exploded an
ascotch under his tail; and at a third, they
pelted him behind his back with a shower of
dirt and missiles of various kinds. It was in
vain that he turned round to punish the delinquent,
for at the instant, the fry dispersed
like a flock of birds, and others attacked his
rear with some new annoyance. Never man
in authority was so baited and worried in the
exercise of his office as Lob Dotterel, who
finally quitted the field, disgusted with official
dignity, leaving the small fry of Elsingburgh
to play at ball, shoot marbles, fly kites,
chuck farthings, roll in the dirt, and fight
rough and tumble, uninterrupted, all day long.

Towards sunset, the Heer, who had a certain
mellowness about him that caused his heart to
curvet and caper at the sight of human
happiness, came out with honest Ludwig Varlett,
who sympathised in such sports as these, to
renovate his age with a sight of the lusty gambols.
While thus employed, he was assailed by

the Frizzled Head, who hovered near him, and
poured forth a more than usual quantity of incomprehensibilities.
Sometimes she addressed
the Heer, and at others, turning towards the
sportive groups, she would apostrophize them in
seeming abstraction.

“Yes,” muttered she, “yes, sport away, ye
grasshoppers, that die dancing and singing! The
cricket chirps in the hearth when the house is on
fire; the insect sports in the noonday sun, and
dreams not of the coming midnight frost that
lays him stiff and cold.”

Then, turning to the Governor, she would exclaim,
with earnest energy—

“Heer! Heer!—Thou seest the sun going
down yonder in the west; take heed lest you never
see it rise again. Remember that danger
comes like a thief in the night, and that the perils
of sleep are greater than those of waking.
To-morrow—who knows which of us shall see
to-morrow?—to-morrow we may be, like yesterday,
a portion of eternity. Remember, and despise
not thy last warning!”

The sun went down; the chilly dews damped
the grass and the hilarity of the sportful groups,
that gradually broke away and returned to the
village.

All that evening Bombie seemed to hover
about her master, as if impelled by some inscrutable
impulse, and seeming to wish to say what
she dared not utter.

“Der teufel hole dich,” said the Heer at last;
“What wouldst thou? I believe thou hast swallowed
too much liquor, and art drunk.”

“The spirit moves me,” she slowly replied,
“but it is not that spirit which is the curse of
our race and thine.”

“Then let it move thee to talk so as to be understood;
say out, or say nothing, thou croaking
raven.”

“Yes—I am the raven whose notes forebode
and forewarn: when the raven croaks, let the
mortal at whose windows he flutters beware;
when Bombie croaks, do thou too beware, Heer.”

“Of what?”

“Of—I cannot tell. To save the blood of those
who have been kind to me, at least sometimes, I
should shed blood that runs in the veins of
the only being that claims kindred with me in
this wide world. Heer, I have warned thee,
farewell. When thou hearest the murderous yell,
the dying shriek, the shout of triumph, and the
crackling flames, blame not me.—Farewell!

So saying, she slowly retired, and he saw her

no more. The Heer pondered for a moment on
her strange warnings; but he had been so accustomed
to her wild and wayward talk, that the
impression soon passed away. He retired to
rest, and was soon in his usual profound sleep,
the result of good health and a good conscience.