University of Virginia Library

25. XXV.
HOW THE TOWN OF STEPHENSBURG, OTHERWISE NEWTOWN, WAS
SOLD FOR A FLAGON OF PUNCH.

THE Captain proceeded toward the Ordinary
without further reflections, or at least utterance,
and was soon entering the door of the main
apartment.

A disagreeable picture awaited him. The handsome widow
was leaning familiarly upon Monsieur Jambot's shoulder,
and conversing confidentially with that gentleman. Whether
she had heard the sonorous neigh of Injunhater, and arranged
for his rider's benefit this pleasing little tableau—or
whether the idea of making her admirer jealous had never
entered the mind of the lady, we cannot say. But she certainly
exhibited great surprise and confusion. Monsieur
Jambot only scowled.

On this trying occasion Captain Wagner acted with that consummate
knowledge of the female character which his friends
declared made him so dangerous. He squeezed Monsieur
Jambot's lily white hand with the warmest and most fraternal
regard—greeted Mrs. Butterton politely but with easy
indifference—and then turning his back in a careless way,
proceeded to converse with Mynheer Van Doring, taking no
further notice either of the Frenchman or the lady.

The result of this stratagem was soon apparent. Mrs.
Butterton pouted, tossed her fair head, and abandoned the
vicinity of Monsieur Jambot, whose teeth began to grind
against each other.

Captain Wagner did not move. He was perfectly absorbed
in his conversation with the fat landlord.

The lady lightly touched his shoulder:—he turned indifferently.

“Why do you treat me so unfriendly, Captain?” said the
lady; “all because I was looking at that music?”

“Unfriendly, madam!” ejaculated the Captain, “I am not
unfriendly—but I know too well what is expected of a soldier
in the presence of the fair sex. As you were conversing
with Monsieur Jambot, I was too polite to interrupt
you.”

And the Captain raised his head with martial dignity
and hauteur, with which was mingled a proud misery.

Mrs. Butterton put her handkerchief to her eyes and
sobbed. The Captain set his teeth together, and summoned
all his resolution.

Another sob issued from the handkerchief. Monsieur
Jambot rose to his feet with ferocious rapidity. In a moment
his little dress-sword was drawn, and he had confronted
the Captain, whom he charged, in a voice hoarse
with rage, with making Madame “grieve.”

Captain Wagner drew his sabre, courteously saluted, and
took his position with the coolness of an old swordsman. It
was then that Mrs. Butterton threw herself between them
with sobs and tears, beseeching them to be friends—for her
sake, for the sake of goodness gracious—and on other
grounds.

“For the sake of a lady,” returned Captain Wagner,
coldly, “I am prepared to do anything. But blood will
come of this, or the devil take it! Blood, sir!”

And the Captain struck ferociously, the hilt of his sword,
which weapon he slowly returned to its scabbard. Monsieur
Jambot declared his entire willingness to fight all the
Capitaines in the world, singly, or together—and then with
his hands superbly placed upon his hips, and his hat cocked
fiercely, sauntered carelessly from the apartment.

Then commenced a terrible scene between the Captain
and Mrs. Butterton. We forbear to relate the particulars.

The lady was the pleader—the soldier was the dignified
listeuer. For a long time he remained obdurate—in the
end he melted. When Mrs. Butterton brought him Jamaica
with her own fair hands, and provided all else which he
wished, with smiles breaking through tears, the Captain
fairly succumbed. He took the chubby hand and kissed it
gallantly—declared he was more her devoted slave than
over—and then busied himself in mingling his morning
dram, for which he possessed a recipe known only to himself.

“Really, my dear madam,” said the worthy, now completely
mollified by the sight of breakfast coming in, “you
are the paragon of your sex. You resemble the goddess
Diana, or I'm a dandy!—Diana rising from the sea; for
which reason she was called Diana Urainy. You are her
very image!”

“La, Captain!” said the lady with a simper, “you are
really too flattering!”

At the same moment, a loud and harsh voice on the stairway
was heard calling.

“Who's that, in the devil's name?” said the Borderer.

“Oh, only Major Hastyluck, who slept here last night.”

“I'll wager my head against a sixpence that he didn't see
the way to bed, madam.”

And the Captain's black moustache curled until his long
white teeth resembled icicles pendent from the eaves of a
house.

“I fear he was—intoxicated,” was Mrs. Butterton's reply
with a smile; “how shocking!”

“Oh, dreadful, awful, really deplorable, my dear madam,
and what's he calling for?—there again! like the growl of a
bear, or I'm a dandy!”

In fact Major Hastyluck was calling violently to old Hans,
the waiter.

“Goming, sir,” said Hans quietly: and ascending leisurely,
he was heard conversing with the Major. Soon he reappeared,

announcing that Major Hastyluck was impatient
for his morning draught, and all at once a brilliant thought
struck the Captain. He had secured the votes of precisely
one half of the justices, for the establishment of the county-seat
at Winchester—and Major Hastyluck's vote would
decide all. The reflection stimulated the worthy to a tremendous
exertion of politeness. This was no less than to
send up to the official gentleman, the flagon of delightful
punch which he had just brewed, with every ingredient, and
in the highest perfection.

“Take that up, Hans, my hogshead,” said the soldier,
handing him the cup, “and present it to the Major with the
respects of Captain Wagner.”

Hans obeyed, and very soon descended again, with the
request, on the part of the Major, that Captain Wagner
would brew him another supply. To this task the Captain,
who had meanwhile attended to his own wants, addressed
himself immediately—and very soon after the justice made
his appearance. He was a little weasen man, with a dried
up physiogomy, of a fiery red hue, and carried himself with
an immense affectation of dignity and superiority.

“My dear Major!” cried the Captain, “I am really delighted
to see you—you arrive at a moment when my heart
is open, just as breakfast is coming. How is your health?”

“Hum!—hah!—thank you, Captain Wagner, pretty well,
pretty well. You are lately arrived, sir?”

“Precisely—from Belhaven, on the Potomae, down there.”

“A thriving place.”

“Yes, but by no means equal to Winchester, or I'm a
dandy!”

“Hum!—perhaps—hum!”

And with these oracular words, Major Hastyluck sat down
to breakfast, slightly staggering as he did so. His appetite
once satisfied, he rose with the same oracular expression
and air. The Captain soon followed, and lighting a corncob

pipe with a reed stem, which he took from the mantel-piece,
he addressed himself to business.

“How did you like that beverage I sent you, my dear
Major?” said the Captain, sending forth clouds of foamy
smoke; “was it a scorcher—as mild as milk, and as strong
as a yoke of oxen, eh?”

“It was a pleasant draught,” returned the Justice; “I
will freely say, more pleasant than any which I have tasted
for many years—ahem!”

“The fact is, I make it by a recipe known only to myself,
and my respected grandmother—formerly known by that
excellent lady, I mean—and as she has now, alas! paid the
debt of nature, you understand, I am the sole depositary of
the recipe.”

This announcement seemed to excite unusual interest in
breast of the Major. He assumed a coaxing expression, and
said in a wheedling voice, almost wholly divested of his
habitual pomposity:

“Is it a very great secret, Captain?”

“Secret!” cried the soldier; “I believe you! I promised
my venerable grandmother that no one should ever worm it
out of me.”

“That is unlucky. I'd give a great deal to have it, Captain.”

“Understand me,” added the Borderer, curling his moustache,
and assuming a serious expression, “there was one
condition to my promise: that those individuals who proved
themselves my true friends should participate with me.”

“Ah, indeed! Well, I trust that you regard me as one
of those—hum!”

“That depends upon circumstances, my dear Major.
You can easily convince me, however. Prove yourself my
friend—vote for Winchester for the county-seat.”

“Winchester? Why, what interest have you there, Captain?”

“What interest? Can you ask? Are you ignorant, my
dear friend, that I possess large and valuable estates immediately

in that vicinity? I and my friends, General Adam
Stephen, and Colonel Carter, are the real owners of all this
region, or the devil take it! We let Fairfax live yonder as
a favor—and to make a long story short, I want the county-seat
at Winchester.”

The Major shook his little withered head doubtfully.

“Very well, my dear comrade,” returned the Captain; “I
don't need your vote as yet—but I warn you that you have
lost the only chance of getting my recipe.”

The Major groaned.

“Will nothing else do, Captain?”

“Nothing.”

“And if I were to make the bargain,” he added, looking
round guardedly, “would it be confidential?”

“Confidential? I wouldn't breathe it to myself.”

“Then it's a bargain!” returned the worthy; “and now
for the recipe.”

“Wait a moment, my dear Major,” said the Captain; “in
business matters I always like to proceed regularly. Let
me draw up something in the shape of a little contract—it
will prevent mistakes.”

And going to a table, he requested the fair widow to
supply him with pen, ink, and paper. This was soon done
by the smiling lady, and the worthy Borderer spread a sheet
before him, and dipped the pen in the ink. After a moment's
reflection, during which he assisted the operations
of his intellect by tugging violently at the black fringe upon
his lip, he traced upon the page, in a large, sprawling hand,
decorated with a myriad of ornamental spatters, the following
lines:

Captain Wagner executed a masterly flourish beneath this
document, which he evidently regarded with much pride
and satisfaction—and then affixed his name in letters nearly
an inch long. Major Hastyluck, with a business-like air did
the same, and the Borderer put the agreement in his
pocket.

“And now for the punch, Captain—the recipe and the
`flagon' which I think you speak of brewing in the latter
portion of that document.”

“It shall be forthcoming at once, my dear Major—at
once.”

And first carefully writing down the desired formula, the
worthy soldier applied himself to mingling the new supply
in silence. Ere long it was rapidly descending the insatiate
throat of Major Hastyluck; as to the Captain, he was chuckling
to himself and muttering:

“I've the majority now, or may the—hum! your health,
my dear Major, your very good health!”

In this way was the town of Stephensburg sold for a
flagon of rum punch and the recipe to make it. Kercheval,
in his History of the Valley, says: “Tradition relates that
Fairfax was much more partial to Stephensburg than he
was to Winchester,” but an opponent “out-generalled his
lordship, and by treating one of the justices to a bowl of

toddy, secured his vote in favor of Winchester, which settled
the question.” This is Mr. Kercheval's account—the
reader is left to judge of the relative credibility of the opposing
historians—that gentleman and ourselves.