 | CHAPTER XVIII.
HOW THE AMBASSADOR WAS UNHORSED AND THEN HORSED. The Virginia comedians, or, Old days in the Old Dominion |  |
18. CHAPTER XVIII.
HOW THE AMBASSADOR WAS UNHORSED AND THEN HORSED.
The muse is proverbially jealous and capricious—else would
we endeavor to describe the greater than Olympic race which
then ensued:—the windings, the turnings, the desperate
efforts of the great orator and ambassador to escape the impending
fate. Still thundered on behind him like an avenging
Nemesis the irate parson, and Crow saw the shadow of
his outstretched arm grasping at his coat tails.
New rapidity is added to his headlong speed:—he runs
like a deer, and bounds like an antelope:—when, most disastrous
event!—event ever to be deplored by Crow and all his
posterity!—his feet trod on his coat-skirts, and, rolling
on the ground, he became the prey of the enemy.
They had circled back to the school-house; and the parson
had not far to bear his captive, whom he grasped by the
waistband of his unmentionables and indescribables.
He enters in awful state—with gloomy brow, portentous
frown. The assembled company are terror-struck, and regard
Crow with horror and trembling, but with interest too:—as
in old days the populace of Rome looked on the ox going to
the altar to be immolated.
The parson looks round for a moment in silence:—he
regards Donsy with an awful frown.
“What is this letter, brought by that villain?” he says
to her.
Donsy blushes and murmurs:
“Indeed I don't know, sir.”
“You do not know?”
“Indeed, I don't know, sir.”
“Donsy Smith, you are telling me a falsehood!” says
the worthy, with a deeper frown.
Donsy flushes to the roots of her hair, and looks indignant.
“I never did—tell—a falsehood—in my life!” she says,
sobbing.
“Very well, madam!” replies the parson, “we shall see!
I have a notion that this letter will clear up matters, and as
Lane,” continues the worthy, addressing the author of the
sketch of himself, “take care that that rascal who brought
this does not escape. Hold him tight, sir.”
William Lane holds Crow tightly by the collar, and surveys
him with forlorn interest, thinking he would make a
good sketch.
The parson without further preface tears open the letter
and reads the following words, written in large uneven characters,
with the end of a stick apparently.
“Oh my dear Miss Donsy!
“How ken I express myself writin' to you. I feel all
over a-tremblin' and skeered, and I'm 'fraid the pen 'ill
drop from my hand 'fore I get thru. I couldent tell you
how much—there it is, comin' right out. Oh my dear Donsy,
if I may call you my dear Donsy, which I'm 'fraid you'll
git mad. Nobody in the whole wide world ken love you
like I do. 'Deed they can't—I've been a-lovin' you now for
one year and you don't know it, or perhaps you do, if so i'm
mistaken' I told the cap'n that I couldn't say nothin' when
you was lookin' at me, and he told me to go and talk to you
and look up bold and not giv' up: I tried to, but I couldent,
and you know how you twisted me over yo thum, i don't
complain—i don't—but I think you ought to like me sum,
cause I've been faithful to you, and never would have anything
to do with Sally Jones, who is a pretty girl too, you
know.
“And now my dear Miss Donsy—or if you'll let me call
you so, my dearest Donsy, take pity on poor Lanky; I love
you a heap, and I think you ought to like me sum, i can't
play on my fiddle or work for thinkin' of you, and I never
can forget you—no I can't. I thought I'd write it down, as
I couldn't say it, and Crow will carry it: the black boy from
town, you know.
“O! Donsy, I love you so much, indeed I do. So no more
from your friend, till death, and loving,
the girls or boys see it, they would laugh at me. O! if I
of that sort, you know.
says I may have holida'. I'm comin' to see you, and we can
go a fishin', you know. You've caught my heart, O! my
dear Miss Donsy, or rather, dearest Donsy.
The parson reads this epistle with a countenance working
with rage.
“And you dared to bring this, did you!” he says to the
unfortunate Crow, who rubs his coat cuff in his eyes despondingly,
“you are the black boy from town the letter speaks
of, are you! You are the villain that dared to come and
hold surreptitious intercourse with my female scholars, bearing
amatory missives, like this barbarous production!—you
are the messenger, are you!”
Crow does not understand the meaning of “amatory
missive,” and “barbarous production,” but he feels a dreadful
consciousness that he is guilty of committing those two
crimes, which he regards with horror, and fears a terrible
punishment for. He is not suffered to remain long in doubt.
The parson, rolling up his cuffs, and grasping a long and pliant
birch, cries:
“Horse the villain! You, sir! you William Lane!
immediately, sir.”
And Crow, spite of his desperate struggles, is placed
upon the back of Mr. William Lane. The parson looks at
him for a moment, with gloomy and irate interest: Crow,
with his head turned sideways, regards the dreadful birch,
and calculates the impending ruin. His hands are held
tightly by the “horse:”—his coat skirts are arranged gracefully
upon each side: his legs kick the air:—the hour was
come.
“Now, you rascal!” says the parson, “I have caught
you!”
And the birch descends upon the unfortunate Crow, who
writhes with anguish.
“Now, you've caught it!” cries the parson, whistling his
birch through the air, and bringing it down upon the repentant
ambassador again.
“Oh, mas' parson! oh, mas' parson!” cries Crow.
The blows fall thicker—the ambassador cries out more
loudly—the parson pants with the exertion—the unfortunate
Crow writhes.
“Try that again, sir?” says the parson, striking quicker.
Crow protests with overwhelming earnestness, that he
has repented—will reform. Debarred from using persuasive
gestures with his arms, he kicks his legs, following unconsciously
the great precept of Demosthenes.
Donsy looks on with indignation, and she does not care
to conceal it. The parson sees this expression, and says, in
a pause of his exertions:
“Very well, my lady! you are presuming to frown when
I am punishing this wretch!”
“It is unjust!” cries Donsy.
“Take care, madam!”
“It is!” sobs Donsy, “and you had no right to snatch
my letter and read it:—that you hadn't, sir!”
And she sheds a torrent of mortified tears—the parson
regarding her with a mixture of surprise, scorn, and anger.
“You presume, then, to lecture me, madam!” he says.
Donsy repeats obstinately:
“You had no right to read my letter!—no, you hadn't!”
The parson takes a step toward the girl.
“Don't provoke me, you little hussy!” he says, “or I'll
whip you too.”
“Me!” cries Donsy, overwhelmed with indignation, and
dread of the disgraceful punishment.
“Yes, you! I'll whip you, within an inch of your life!”
“No, you won't!” cries Will Effingham, starting up,
“just try it!”
But before the parson can turn round, this champion is
sunk into the shade immediately: the door bursts open with
a loud noise—a stool is turned over, and Donsy has a second
and more irate champion.
| CHAPTER XVIII.
HOW THE AMBASSADOR WAS UNHORSED AND THEN HORSED. The Virginia comedians, or, Old days in the Old Dominion | |