University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
A Beau of the Old Regime.

Colonel Sydenham was a veteran beau of the
old school, which, after all, I think was not a little superior
to the present standard of dandyism. There
was a courtesy, a polish, a high-souled deference to
the ladies, which, whether originating in vanity or
a nobler feeling, was still the source of many agreeable
qualifications, and formed a charming ingredient
in social intercourse. The little stiffnesses and formalities
which accompanied this style of manners,
were certainly preferable to the careless, and abrupt
familiarity, or boorish neglect which a preposterous
deference to fashion has since consecrated as high
breeding and gentlemanly ease. The colonel had
served in India, which was a fortunate circumstance,
as it enabled him to ascribe his gray hairs, and
the evident debility of his person, to the effects of a
climate which, as he frequently observed, seldom
failed to produce an appearance of premature old
age. “I was gray at twenty,” said the colonel, who
would never use spectacles, or carry a walking stick
on any occasion, though never man stood in greater
need of both these useful auxiliaries. He was always
deeply smitten with some youthful belle or
other, whose attentions he delighted to monopolize,
more from the gratification of an habitual vanity,
than from a warmer and nobler sentiment. On the
whole, however, he was a singularly agreeable man;
and in spite of his age, always made a figure, and

was welcomed in the society of both sexes. He
was soon in special favour with high and low, rich
and poor, young and old, with the single exception
of the good Dominie Stettinius, who penetrated his
easiness of principles, and was not inclined to consider
good manners an equivalent for good morals.

The colonel early singled out Catalina as the object
of his attentions. She was the fairest lady of
the land in which he sojourned; she was unquestionably
at the head of the beaumonde; and she was
a great heiress in prospective, for she was the only
child of a man who owned land enough to entitle
him to vote at a German Diet. “If it should happen
in the chapter of accidents,” thought the colonel, “that
this wood dove were to be softened by my cooing,
she will be worth marrying—if not, there will
be no harm done. I am too much of a traveller to
pine at the wilful vagaries of a woman's heart.” Accordingly
he entered the field as Catalina's devoted
servant; and as the strict rules of military etiquette
forbade all interference with the commanding officer,
the dapper majors, captains, lieutenants, and ensigns,
always kept aloof while the colonel was making the
agreeable to the young lady.

That the young lady was not pleased and flattered
with the distinction of being the belle of the first
military man in the neighbourhood, who wore a red
coat, and tacked honourable to his name, is what we
will not say, for it would not be true. It would have
been out of nature to be insensible to such honours;
honours to which the gentle sex are prone to bow
down, because they are restricted from gaining any
other laurels than those which they pluck from the
brow of men. Their vanity and ambition can only
be gratified by leading in chains the conquerors of

others; by associating their name and their destinies
with the master spirits who wield the powers
of the earth, or with those who inherit distinction,
as a fox does instinct, from a long line of ancestors.
The colonel and Catalina were on the best possible
terms, and in no long time, the good people of the
neighbourhood, who knew nothing of the attentions
and courtesies authorized in the intercourse of the
world, all agreed that it would be a match.

Among those who watched the progress of this
intimacy with bitterness of heart, was Sybrandt
Westbrook. The selfishness engendered by solitude
and abstraction, inclined him naturally to jealousy
of a most perverse and ridiculous kind. He persuaded
himself that he neither had, or could ever
have, any pretensions to Catalina; nay, he would
have shrunk with shivering horror at the suspicion
that she ever suspected that his solitary hours and
silent reveries were full of her, and only her! Yet
he could not endure the remotest apprehension, much
less the sight, of any, the slightest marks of preference
to another. When in her society, he kept
aloof, and left her entirely to the attentions of other
men; yet these very attentions cut him to the soul,
and the recollection of them poisoned his solitary
days and sleepless nights.

I do not wonder, as some have done, that women
like your gay and enterprising admirers, who never
put their timid delicacy to the task of making advances,
or offering undue encouragement to their
sheepishness. The province of the sex is to act
always on the defensive in the strife of love, and
nothing I should imagine is more provoking to
their pride, or painful to their delicacy, than to be
obliged to open their gates spontaneously, or even

step out of their intrenchments, to humour the
coward bashfulness, or stubborn pride, of one who
displays his affection by keeping at a distance, and
makes himself agreeable by utter neglect.

Catalina, notwithstanding the perverse behaviour
of Sybrandt, had a sort of intuitive perception,
which is common to women, and stands them in the
stead of wisdom and philosophy, that he had a
strange sort of abstract preference for her. This
idea gave him an interest in her eyes, which caused
her to watch him narrowly, at those times when she
was receiving the gallant attentions of Colonel Sydenham
with encouraging smiles. On these occasions
she fancied she could often detect the boiling
eddies rolling beneath the apparently unruffled surface
of stupid indifference. Sometimes her vanity,
nay her heart was pleased with the discovery, for
she remembered that she owed her life to him, and
with all his strange and wayward neglect and awkwardness,
there were at long and rare intervals sparks
of intellect and spirit, which indicated the hidden treasures
that lay buried beneath the rubbish of his rustic
habits. Sometimes she resolved to try and bring
him forward in the society of the new comers, by
kindness and attention; at others she felt provoked
to make him the subject of ridicule, and more than
once, without a spark of illnature or malignity, she
planted daggers in his bosom. O ridicule!—how
often does it in its thoughtless gambols fling
poisoned darts, and red hot shot, that blister where
they light! There are souls in this world, incrusted
with an outward shell of roughness or deformity, so
keen, so sensitive, that the pointing of the finger is
torture—the touch of scorn, madness. They sweat
with inward agonies, at the moment when pride and

timidity, so closely veil their feelings, that while
their very hearts are bursting, they exhibit to the
careless eye nothing but stupid insensibility, or insufferable
pride. Such was this unhappy young
man, of whom at this period, it was doubtful whether
he would ever be known and properly appreciated,
even by the friend of his heart, or the wife of his
bosom; for he seemed destined never to be blessed
with either.

Though he kept as much as possible away from
the mansion-house, there were times when his
wayward temper carried him there almost in spite
of himself, or when the blustering, peremptory
gayety of Ariel would force him from his moody
solitudes into the pleasant social circle that was
almost always to be found at Mr. Vancour's. One
night a little party had collected there, consisting of
the gallant Colonel Sydenham, two or three of his
officers, the noisy Ariel, and the daughters of half a
score of the most substantial burghers of Albany.
A furious thunderstorm had come on in the early
part of the evening, and it was settled that the whole
party should remain all night where they were, to the
great delight of Uncle Ariel, whose soul expanded
with indescribable satisfaction at the thought of a
merry party and a social supper. These, or something
like them, were the only stimulants that could
keep the good soul awake after the fowls had gone
to roost. The colonel happened to be describing a
dish of boiled fowl and rice common in the East Indies,
which struck Ariel's fancy wonderfully. He
disappeared shortly afterward, and continued to pass
in and out of the room occasionally, without being
particularly noticed by anybody, for he never could
be quiet when any thing was going forward about
the house.

“Sybrandt,” said Madam Vancour, with the good-natured
intention of rousing him from the chaos of
stupidity in which he had remained bewildered for a
long time,—“Sybrandt, pray come and assist us in
finding out what this means.” They had gathered
about the table, where was a number of books, into
which some were looking, while others were talking
about various matters.

“'Tis Greek,” said one.

“'Tis Hebrew,” said another.

“'Tis High-Dutch,” said a third.

“'Tis Mohawk,” said a fourth, and each one had
a different opinion.

“Let me see,” cried Ariel, who just at the moment
entered with a face as red as fire. He pulled out
his specs, rubbed them carefully, placed them across
his little snub of a nose, and planting himself in his
usual determined position, with his short, sturdy
drumsticks extended almost at right angles, began to
pore over the mystery. He could make nothing
of it.

“Colonel,” cried he to Sydenham, who had rather
affected to be deeply engaged with Catalina,—
“Colonel, here, d—n it, you understand Hindoo,
and all that sort of thing; interpret for us.”

The rest joined in the entreaty, and the book being
handed to the colonel, he proceeded with great gravity
to study it upside down.

“Why, d—n it, Colonel,” shouted Ariel, “you're
holding the book upside down. Here, take my spectacles;
I see your eyes begin to fail you as well as
mine.”

The colonel would rather have marched up to a
loaded cannon, or stopped a red-hot ball, than use
spectacles in the presence of any living soul but his

valet, in whose discretion he placed unbounded
reliance. In his solicitude to remedy the blunder
so unceremoniously proclaimed by Ariel, he unluckily
placed the cover of the book towards him,
while he rejected the spectacles with a smile and a
bow, both indicating he had no occasion for them.

“Why, d—n it, Colonel,” shouted Ariel again, and
breaking into an explosion of laughter; “why,
zounds, you've got the book with the back side
towards you this time. I insist on your taking my
spectacles—I'm sure they will suit you exactly—
you and I are just about of an age.” And he continued
to press the colonel to accept of them, till the
good gentleman could hardly command his faithful
auxiliaries, the smile and the bow. It was, however,
a maxim with him, from which he had never
swerved for more than a score of years, never to
show either anger or mortification in company. He
contented himself with quietly handing the book to
Sybrandt, saying he must acknowledge his ignorance
of the passage, which, by-the-way, he had not been
able to distinguish, from the failure of his eyes.
But this was a secret he kept to himself, preferring
rather to be thought ignorant than blind. The whole
company gave him credit for affecting to be unable
to see merely to disguise his not being able to interpret
the passage, which, as Sybrandt announced, was
nothing more than an English proverb, printed in
Greek characters, as we have seen practised, in the
way of a grave quiz, in some of the old specimens
of printing. There were few or no blue-stockings
in those days we are now describing; but in no age
of the world, and no class of mankind, was it ever
the case that learning and knowledge did not attract
respect. They are independent of the changing

fashions of place and time,—so intrinsically useful
and respectable as to maintain their dignity at all
periods, and among all classes of people; since it
is impossible for the mind not to feel the obligation
of being made wiser than it was before. This little
incident raised Sybrandt in the scale of comparison
with the colonel, especially in the estimation of Catalina,
who inherited from her mother that decent respect
for useful acquirements, which is one of the
best evidences of good sense.

The colonel's spirits seemed to flag not a little
after the adventure of the book, while those of poor
Sybrandt gained a corresponding elevation; for it is
the characteristic of such sensitive beings as he to
be about as unreasonably inflated as they are unreasonably
mortified by trifles which to others seem
perfectly insignificant. A pause in the storm without,
and the conversation within, was interrupted by the
loud sound of voices in the direction of the kitchen,
a detached building about fifty yards in the rear
of the house, with which it was connected by
a covered way. The voices seemed to be engaged
in hot contention; and presently Ariel came
bouncing into the room—his face in a blaze—exclaiming,
“The old woolly-headed fool!—she knows
no more about cooking than a Mohawk Indian.”
The whole company expressed anxiety to know the
cause of this violent irruption; and Ariel accordingly
proceeded to explain.