University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.
HOW CAPTAIN WATERS THREATENED LANKY WITH THE BASTINADO
IF HE SIGHED.

Since the events we have related, more than a year has
passed.

March, 1765, has come.

We cannot pause here to narrate those important political
events, which marked the period between the winter of
1763 and the spring of 1765: but in the course of our history,
the results of those events will unfold themselves and rise
to view, as the coral reef long growing beneath the ocean and
unseen, raises at last its dangerous wall above the waves—
events which made more noise than breakers: upon which
lordlier ships were shattered, than ever strewed the fatal
coasts of Madagascar.

In place of regaling the reader with an historical disquisition,
we shall proceed to relate the adventures which befell
the personages of our narrative, after the violent denouement
in which, as in a huge vortex, so many of the dramatis personæ
were swallowed up.

March has come again into the world, as that merry
month promises to come in all future times —with wind, and
rainy gusts, and chill moonshiny nights, and flowers peeping
from the sod looking for April, and their close-friend the gentle
May. The earth smiles again, and begins to forget the
snow and ice:—the days are growing warm again, but fires
are still far from uncomfortable. So at least thought a
military gentleman, who warmed his hands listlessly by a
cheerful blaze, on the day at which we have now arrived.

Captain Ralph Waters sits in that room, of the old fisherman's
mansion, which listened in the winter of '63, to the
narrative of his adventures. The room is very little changed
—the Captain scarcely more. He is as handsome and martial-looking
as ever—his moustache is as long and as black
—his face as open and careless—his sword clatters as gayly,
and his spurs jingle as serenely as before. Perhaps it is
not exactly correct in us to say, that his face is as careless
as ever:—for, though there is no absolute care upon
the martial countenance, there is a decided expression of
ennui.

The worthy soldier stretches out his legs, draws a long
breath from the bottom of his stalwart chest—and yawns
portentously: he then twirls his moustache, endeavoring to
give it the warlike and gallant curl toward the eye, but the
moustache rebels, as if it were weary, like its master, and
persists in curling in the opposite direction.

The Captain, after several attempts to coerce the rebellious
ornament, submits and yawns again.

“The fact is,” he says, addressing his hat and cloak
which—hanging on a nail,—bear no bad resemblance to
an exceedingly thin gentleman, walking on the air,—“the
fact is,” says the Captain sighing, “I am going to pieces
here, like a ship cast upon the shore and falling away, timber
after timber. My good spirits are leaving me, parbleu!
—I am dying of ennui.”

And having made this communication to the hat and
cloak, he relapses into silence for a moment.

“I really think that I will set out, and go and find mon
bon père, and Charley, and Beatrice, in their mountain
home. I have not seen them, hilf himmel! since last fall:
—they talk about something they call `Springs,' up there,

and its benefiting Beatrice's cold! All nonsense! I assert
that there is nothing in them, for they did me no good, whatsoever!”

And having thus floored his imaginary opponent in debate,
and proved that the medicinal baths were folly, the
soldier again paused.

“I wonder where that farcical fellow Lanky is,” continues
the Captain, again attacking his moustache, “he makes
me die a-laughing, with his opinions upon love and all that.
I fancy, however, that Miss Smith has not been enlightened
on her admirer's real sentiments yet.”

And the Captain smiles.

“Heigho!” he adds, again yawning, “what the devil is
come to me! I am expiring of ennui—I am becoming fat, I
really believe—I have no longer any muscles!”

And to test the reality of his fears, the Captain draws
his hanger, and makes half a dozen furious lunges at the
cloak, which suffers considerably.

“I'm as strong as ever,” he adds, with a sigh, “I must
go and find somebody to quarrel with, or ventre du pape!
I shall die.”

At the same moment Lanky Lugg enters—clad nearly
as we had the pleasure of seeing him on a former occasion,
and wiping his face with an exceedingly dirty sleeve. Lanky's
feet are perhaps larger than ever, his hands more like reaping
hooks, his head more like a pine knot, than ever it has
been at any previous time. But there are some changes
observable in the gentleman. His stockings are more ornamental
than before, his clothes less ragged, his gait more
proud and impressive. When he bows his head from north-east
to south-west, he presents the appearance of a mandarin
figure fillipped by the finger of a child.

As Lanky enters, the Captain makes a terrific lunge at
him, the sword's point only stopping within an inch of his
breast:—at which horrible circumstance, Lanky starts back
in profound terror, and looks at his master with astonished
eyes.

The Captain bursts into a laugh.

“Don't be afraid, mon garçon!” he says, “I am only
taking a little exercise.”

But the explanation does not satisfy Lanky, who keeps
at a safe and respectful distance, scratching his head.

“Lanky,” says the Captain, “I am dying of weariness.”

Lanky is unimpressed.

“Come, give me a little advice, you rascal! Oh! you
are afraid of my toasting iron, are you? Well, here it
goes.”

And the Captain throws away the sword, which falls with
a tremendous clatter upon the table. This reassures his
companion, and obedient to his master's sign, he sits down
in the chimney corner.

“I am getting tired of life, Lanky,” resumes the Captain,
“existence, parbleu! seems to me not worth having, so to
speak. Come, give me your views. What do you think?”

“I never thinks about nothin', Cap'n,” says Lanky;
“leastways—”

“Never think!”

“I does sometimes—yes, I does,” adds Lanky, correcting
himself.

“What do you think of? Of Donsy Smith, I'll wager.”

Lanky draws himself up like an emperor.

“I ain't seen that young 'ooman lately, Cap'n,” he says.

“Have you quarrelled?”

“No, Cap'n.”

“How then?”

“Parted.”

And Lanky groans.

“Lanky, you are getting into bad spirits,” says the Captain,
“I shall not permit that, Diable! if we are both down,
what will become of us?”

Lanky nods his head, with a sigh.

“Don't sigh, you rascal—I will not allow it: no retainer
of mine shall sigh on pain of the bastinado.”

Lanky apparently does not understand this rhetorical
paraphrase.

“Take a slice of bacon, and a mug of beer, and get your
spirits again,” continues the Captain.

Lanky assents to this, and is soon munching and drinking.

“Now advise me, animal!” says the Captain, “egad! I
am perfectly ennuyé,” and the soldier yawns.

“S'pose you fall in love, Cap'n,” says Lanky, with his
mouth full.

The Captain greets this suggestion with a laugh.

“I cannot,” he replies.

“You ain't tried.”

“Have you?”

“Yes, sur.”

“And successfully?”

“Yes, Cap'n.”

“Miss Smith, eh?”

“Miss Smith and me, is 'most quit—” says Lanky, wofully.

“But she was the object of your affections?”

Lanky nods, wofully.

“I think then, I shall follow your advice,” says his master,
“and as you are a man of taste, I will adopt your own
sweetheart.”

Lanky starts.

“Rather a pretty girl, too,” says the Captain, caressing
the midnight fringe upon his upper lip.

“Oh, Cap'n!” Lanky observes, overcome with horror.

The soldier bursts into laughter.

“Well, well!” he says, “don't fear: we shall not probably
be rivals—but don't be too well assured. Let us now
dismiss the subject, and on this fine March morning, lay out
some plan for amusement.”

Lanky reflects.

“There's the races sir, near Jeamston,” he says soon.

“But they're a month or so off. Now in a month I
shall die, at the present rate. Something else, parbleu!
mon ami!”

“S'pose you take a ride, Cap'n: I never see a day better
for't.”

The Captain yawns.

“Well,” he says, “I believe I shall follow your advice;
go and get the Arab.”

Lanky rises obediently.

“No: the roan,” says the Captain.

“He's cast a shoe, and that's a fact, Cap'n.”

“Diable! then the Arabian—Selim, as the heathen dog
I bought him of calls him.”

Lanky goes out, and the Captain yawns uninterruptedly
until he returns.

“Ready, sir,” says Mr. Lugg.

The Captain then buckles on his sword, issues forth and
mounts the slim-legged animal, who whinnies at his approach.
He throws the bridle on his neck, and trusts to
Providence to direct him. Lanky meanwhile resumes his
meat and beer, and saws imaginary obstacles with the stereotyped
north-east and south-west movement of his visage.

Before following the soldier on his morning ride, let us
return for a moment to those personages who no longer light
up the rude mansion with their pleasant faces as of old—
and whose whereabouts we have heard Captain Waters very
briefly allude to in his muttered soliloquy.

We have seen how Hallam and his “Company of Virginia
Comedians,” had, like birds of passage, disappeared
from Virginia, after gathering in those “sweet fields”—to
carry out the simile—as much golden grain as could be
found therein: and the whispered words of Beatrice, as she
sobbed and poured out her tender regrets to Charles Waters,
have put the reader in possession of the particulars of
that last interview between herself and her pseudo father.

We may understand readily how the young girl's reluctant
and half-formed desperate resolution to remain with
Hallam, had melted before the tender caresses of the kind
old man, her uncle—the more than tender looks and words
of him whom she had loved so dearly, and yet given up
with a bursting heart, at the call of inexorable duty. Thus
she had remained—and soon after the scene upon the river,
the company had taken their departure, and were no more
seen in those borders—not any more, for ever.

Hallam, Shylock, Shallow, Mr. Effingham—all these
had passed from Beatrice's horizon, leaving it bright and
calm: and in the fresh sunshine now she saw alone the
figures of her kind uncle, and her tender Charles, and jovial
honest Captain Ralph, and Townes, and Lanky—all
smiling on her, full of love for her. Thus the poor dove,
beaten so long by storms, and tossed about from land to
land; exposed every where to persecutions, similar to those
under which we have seen her labor; thus Beatrice found

her life all at once changed: her heart suddenly filled with
light and joy. God had heard the prayers she had uttered,
and the harbor was now reached: henceforth she was safe
from storms.

Her objections were now all removed, and Charles Waters
become her husband: and to him, too, life opened and
grew brilliant with an untold splendor: all his sadness
passed—his face was bright and joyous—she was beside him,
loved so long, denied to him so long, now all his own.

The spring following the autumn and winter, whose events
we have related, passed away, and nothing clouded the unalloyed
happiness of the household, but a slight cough
which Beatrice had caught, she said, far back as her first arrival
in Virginia, that day when she fell into the water from
the “Nancy.”

With the quick apprehension of a lover, Charles Waters
magnified this slight indisposition, and determined to go and
take up his residence for a time near one of the newly discovered
mineral springs, beyond the mountains. Beatrice
resisted this proposal at first, and laughed at his apprehensions—and
indeed her cough was the least possible, and gave
her no pain at all. She saw, however, that if she persisted
in her opposition he would be pained, and so she assented;
and ere long Charles and herself, and old John Waters, who
would not leave her, his new-found daughter and little pet,
all went away and took up their sojourn in the far mountain
land, leaving the unfortunate Captain Ralph to amuse himself
with Lanky in the paternal mansion.

Captain Ralph had, upon reflection, determined to remain;
having become accustomed to jovial society, he said,
those backwoods would kill him—spite of having the bon
père, Charley, and that “Marguerite des Marguerites”—
Beatrice, to narrate his adventures to. Mr. Jack Hamilton
and himself had become great friends, and this had for a
time diverted the active soldier's ennui; but Hamilton
could not fill up all his time; and the Captain was beginning
to spend many weary hours, such as we have seen him
yawning through, when our story again opened.

About once a month the lazy and leisurely post brought
him letters from the far mountains; and carried back huge
epistles from the Captain in return. In these epistles the

soldier narrated many things, not even disdaining to detail
the progress of Lanky Lugg's love affair, which we shall
see something of in the course of our narrative. Beatrice
and the rest always laughed heartily at these accounts; and
their letters to the soldier were full of mirth, and tenderness,
and joy; especially those of the young girl, who experienced
a species of wistful sadness, whenever she wrote the
name of her dead father, “Ralph Waters.”

We shall now leave them, happy, joyous, in their far
mountain home, and proceed to the history of other personages
of the drama.