 | CHAPTER VI.
EQUESTRIAN AND EMOTIONAL. Seacliff, or, The mystery of the Westervelts |  |
6. CHAPTER VI.
EQUESTRIAN AND EMOTIONAL.
ABOUT a week after my domiciliation an adventure
befell me which I shall presume to call noticeable
because it made me, heart and soul, an actor in the
domestic drama of Seacliff. I had an engagement to ride
with the Misses Westervelt and Somerville, but on entering
the house at the hour appointed, I found the young ladies still
in their morning dresses.
“We can't go yet,” said Genevieve. “One of the horses
has cast a shoe and been sent to the blacksmith's. But
come in and wait. We can play backgammon till he comes
back.”
Instead of backgammon we chose cards, and amused ourselves
for half an hour with solitaire, old-maid, telling fortunes,
&c. I remember perfectly what a succession of thrills
I underwent when the magic slips of paper declared that I
was to be the young man who admired Mary,—who became
engaged to her,—who married,—yes, ye gods, married her!
I consulted Mary's face at each of these heart-shaking announcements,
and was disappointed, almost incensed, to discover
there only the faintest, the most ethereal of blushes,
and that perhaps the mere child of laughter. I would have
preferred something warmer than rose-tint, I had become so
singularly partial to the Misses Westervelt.
“I hear the horses,” said Mary, throwing down the cards.
“Come, Jenny; we must hurry.”
As she rose from the table her sleeve caught a miniature
case and flung it on the floor. Picking it up and rewarding
myself by opening it, I found it to be her portrait; a daguerreotype,
indeed, and therefore doing her blonde beauty unavoidable
injustice; but, for all that, remarkably like, especially
in the sweet expression.
“Ah, that is the only good daguerreotype that ever was
taken of me,” she observed, glancing at it over my shoulder.
It seemed to me at that moment as if my blood must be full
of little bubbles, like champagne. If the youth lives who can
feel, totally unmoved, that a beautiful girl's neck-ribbon is
fluttering and rustling against his coat-collar, he must excuse
me for regarding him with mingled curiosity and pity.
“Excellent! perfect!” I muttered, anxious to say something
nice about the original, but unable to think to the
purpose.
“I know three persons who are dying to have that picture,”
laughed Genevieve, looking back from the doorway.
“Am I one of them?” I asked, with an eager bluntness
which scared me.
“No,” replied Genevieve, very coolly, as she shut the door
after herself and sister.
I was painfully cut and offended, I remember, by this
reply, and wasted the next ten minutes in wondering what
the deuce the saucy little chit meant by it. Another annoying
circumstance was, that when we came to mount, Somerville,
as the oldest cavalier, took charge of the oldest sister,
aided her into the saddle with enviable dexterity, and set off
by her side as gracefully as he would have started in a polka.
Evidently I need not hope to eclipse him in the field any
more than in the parlor.
The mounting of the young ladies was their own, a present,
as I understood, from their grandfather, and consisted of
a perfectly matched pair of wiry little blacks, spirited and
speedy, broken alike to saddle and harness. My horse, the
property of the same wealthy senior, was a slender bay, half-blooded,
had Henry Van Leer's beast, a dark chestnut, with white
feet, powerful and swift, but with shies enough in him to unseat
a squadron of dragoons. I began to feel, before we had
been long on the road, that if he should scare his rider to
death, or break his handsome nose, it would be no enormous
drawback on my happiness. I was very anxious to gain the
admiration of the Misses Westervelt, and Somerville was
making himself alarmingly attractive to them. By means of
his leading questions and Socratic stratagems of dialogue he
kept Mary constantly talking, except when he himself discoursed,
rolling out his superb mellow tones with a sort of
poetic elation quite congenial to the surrounding gay summer
flowers, the sweet exuberance of green meadow, and the
gladdening tide of sunlight.
Before long, I suspected that Miss Genevieve was even
more dissatisfied than myself with the division of our party.
She became sententious, sulky, and finally silent, taking small
notice of my many offers at conversation, and checking her
lively black until she rasped him into a foaming, snorting
tempest of horseflesh. I was surprised at this; the day
before, Genevieve had not seemed to like Somerville; to-day,
she was evidently annoyed by his preference for her sister.
Women are full of apparent contradictions, I soliloquized;
not so much because they are unstable, as because they are
restricted. Society will not let them speak frankly: but demands
that they should seem to avoid those whom they prefer,
and that they should often endure with smiles what they
detest. Upon this hint I spake.
“Miss Genevieve, do women often wish themselves men?”
She colored so quickly that I queried whether I had not
touched upon the very subject of her thoughts.
“Cé'st selon;—that depends,” said she, translating herself.
—“That depends upon what? may I ask. The woman's
nature, or her position?”
“Both, of course,” she answered, and then fell to disciplining
scarecrow. As it occupied her a full minute to bring the
nervous creature into a snuffling semi-subjection, I lost the
thread of my remarks, and had to begin on a fresh spindle.
“Has any one ever mentioned to you a resemblance between
yourself and Guido's Beatrice de' Cenci?”
“My father has.”
“I am curious to know whether you can see the likeness.”
“No.”
Another paroxysm of disagreement now ensued with the
unfortunate black, who fairly squealed with indignation, and
evidently looked upon himself as a cheval incompris.
“Genevieve! Genevieve!” begged Mary. “Please don't
fret that poor horse so. Treat him gently, do, dear. He is
a good little fellow.”
Genevieve sulkily declined to reply, or even to turn her
head; but for a minute we cantered on peaceably, though in
embarrassing silence. Presently I tried a new topic, and
gave the wheel of conversation another revolution.
“This is a picturesque country in a small way. The presence
of sea view makes up for the lack of high relief in the
landscape. I wonder that more New Yorkers do not come
here to find sites for their country-houses.”
“Yes.”
“We were speaking the other day of the beauties of New
Haven. Have you ever visited Norwich in the eastern
part of the state?”
“Never.”
“Useless to ask your opinion of it, then. For my part, I
consider it one of the most fortunate towns in point of situation,
that can be found in the country. It perches on both
sides of a river, with high, irregular banks, which command
each other so perfectly, that from every salient point in the
city you can obtain a view of the whole. It has rare advantages
for showing itself to itself, and, so to speak, mirroring
its excellences in its own vision.”
“Like some people,” observed the gracious little lady,
without turning her eyes from her horse's forelock.
“Oh! you are satirical,” said I, quite desperate, “you
insinuate a charge of vanity. Well, I shall plead not guilty,
merely for form's sake, and stand a trial. Please to open
the examination.”
“I have none to make. I did not allude to you,” was the
discouraging reply.
I felt indignant at last, and resolved to let her hold her
tongue just as long as that should be her ladylike pleasure.
I was puzzled as well as annoyed; for this was the first
irksome interview that I had ever had with Genevieve, notwithstanding
her general independence and occasional captiousness;
and I felt tolerably certain, that I personally had
done nothing which could justify her in thus consuming me
with her indignation. Some one else had perturbed her, it
was clear; and I suffered, simply for the crime of contiguity.
There are certain persons,—we have all seen them,—whose
instinct it is, when they receive a wrong, to revenge it upon
the first living creature that comes within reach. They are
not necessarily termagants; they may have, at other times,
very gentle and generous emotions; but they are as illogical
and inconsiderate in their ebullitions as tea-kettles; they
know no better than to boil over and scald what is nearest.
Genevieve must sulk at me because she is separated from
Somerville, I concluded; for a girl rarely quarrels with one
marriageable man except for the sake of another.
On we rode for ten or fifteen minutes, glumly inarticulate,
and chiefly occupied, as I believe, in listening to the snatches
of animated colloquy which now and then reached our ears
from the pair behind us. Coming to a short, but steep rise
in the ground, where the road was guttered by recent rain,
and the footing uncertain in consequence of large, loose pebbles,
we drew up our horses and fell into a walk, so that
Somerville's conversation became distressingly audible. He
was evidently shining in his fullest lustre, and perhaps sending
But on reaching the brow of the hill, a change came
over the face of things, and I, the opaque one, the unexpressed,
the unappreciated, suddenly found my moment of glory, and
put on a splendid halo. Genevieve and I, riding in advance,
had just passed a blackberry thicket, when I noticed an
Italian organ-grinder seated in its shadow, his uncouth
music-box towering above his shoulders, and that surmounted
by a little ruffian of a monkey in a scarlet blouse. Just then,
he rose to his feet and staggered abruptly forward, as a
heavily weighted man is apt to do when he suddenly overbalances
himself. Somerville's fractious chestnut shied with
great violence against Miss Westervelt's animal, bearing him
half round by sheer weight, and then dashed across the road
in such headlong ponderous terror, that his rider could not
prevent him from leaping a rail fence which divided us from
a sunken meadow. The black caught the panic, and reared
so violently, that Miss Westervelt nearly lost her saddle.
As he came on all fours again, he discovered the unlucky
musician, and, wheeling short on his haunches, went off like
lightning down the stony, dangerous hill towards Seacliff.
“Catch her! stop her!” shrieked Genevieve, losing her
presence of mind, and wildly backing her own animal;
while, giving the whip to my beast, I bounded away at full
speed after the fugitive, who by this time had gained a start
of twenty rods, and was increasing it rapidly. A horse,
running toward home, is not easily arrested short of it, so
that I did not much hope that Miss Westervelt would be
able to pull up before she reached Seacliff. I could see,
indeed, that she was drawing vigorously on the bit, and
even reducing her pace somewhat; and I took courage as I
felt the steady, grey-hound stride of the bay under me, covering
more than a rod at a bound, and lessening the gap at
every double: but in another moment the black's bridle-rein
flew out in a single strand and swung under his feet,
broken, useless. I knew at once that Miss Westervelt had
be able to cling for one minute more to her saddle. Her
horse now leaped out with all the power that lay in his fine
lathy quarters, and, though he ran very irregularly, reeling
from one side of the road to the other, he still ran with terrific
swiftness. Frightened as he was, however, lightly
weighted as he was, wiry, game, and spirited, he was no
match for the bay. His lean, light neck stretched to its full
length, his delicate muzzle pointed low, his thin mane flying
like a pennon of victory, my noble creature swept over the
ground with long elastic leaps, hardly jarring me in the saddle,
never jerking, never swerving, running as straight as the
flight of an arrow, and as stanch as a thorough-bred racer.
In less than half a minute, the black's lead of twenty rods
had been reduced to as many yards, and in ten seconds more
the bay was neck and neck with him. I lapped him on the
left, notwithstanding the risk of sheering against Miss Westervelt,
partly because I saw the broken rein flying loose on
that side, and partly because I wanted my right hand for the
approaching struggle. It had been easy to overtake him, but
it looked perilously difficult to stop him. From the moment
that my horse challenged him, he ran faster than ever, struggling
with all the pluck in his little body, and staggering so
wildly in his worry and eagerness, that, had I not forged
ahead of him in a couple of strides, Miss Westervelt would
have been badly bruised between his flank and the bay's.
As I passed his quivering muzzle, he flung it up in such a
way that I was able to catch the swinging end of the rein and
grasp it firmly. Now came the task of drawing in my own
horse, so delicately as to get him and keep him a little behind
the runaway's lead, yet not have the strip of leather
wrenched from my hold by any sudden plunge of either animal
forward or sideways. Of course I succeeded; the true
prince always succeeds on such occasions; if he did not, the
world would be as dissatisfied as he. The black's nose
swerved toward me, while his body swerved from me, until
violent flight had fallen to a jerking, rearing, canter, only
dangerous by its irregularity. Still doubting my power to
check him altogether, I called ou, “Jump!”
Miss Westervelt leaped to the ground, fell once, but rose
instantly and ran to the roadside. Free now to pursue my
controversy with blackie, regardless of anybody's safety but
my own, I soon brought him to terms, and consigned him to
the hands of a stout farmer boy who came up from a neighboring
field. Dismounting hurriedly, and tying the bay to a
tree, I ran back to Miss Westervelt. She sat, or reclined
rather, on a bank by the road, her cap fallen off, her beautiful
hair disordered, her head resting on her palm, her elbow
on the turf, and her face so pale that I hastened to her,
more alarmed than I had been during the heat of the mad
escapapde. She did not change her posture as she saw me
coming, but she lifted one hand to me with a beautiful gesture
of gratitude, and her one sweet word was, “Thank
you!”
I bent over her;—I dared to take the small trembling fingers;—I
dared to kiss them once, twice, passionately.
“Thank you,” she said again. “Thank you, my dear
friend.”
“Oh, God bless you!” I cried. “I am glad I had strength
given me to do it.”
I had found out which of the Misses Westervelt it was
that had brought me to Seacliff, that had kept me there, and
that could keep me there during life. It was a blessed discovery
to me, but I am afraid that the great world will not
properly appreciate it. Let us say no more on the subject,
for if I give myself full speech, I shall appear like a fool to
that large and respectable class of people whose hearts cannot
keep step with other men's, and whose ideas, like the
works of a watch, are always tightly encased in the precious
metals.
Horses' feet were heard not, furiously trampling the road
full speed, closely followed by Somerville.
“You are not hurt, Miss Westervelt?” asked the latter,
when he reached us. “Did you stop him, Mr. Fitz Hugh?
Then you did a hard thing.”
Genevieve sprang from her horse, and covered Mary's
face with kisses and tears. Turning to me at last, she
thanked me over and over again, with a very humility of
fervor, which, I felt assured, was partly prompted by a remorseful
remembrance of her late unsociability. Presently
I shifted Miss Westervelt's saddle on to the bay, and we
mounted again, but only to canter slowly back to Seacliff.
Immediately on our arrival, my gallantry was promulgated
in the most flattering manner, through the well-oiled and melodious
trumpet of Somerville. He praised me so delicately
and gracefully, he threw in such a humorous allegro concerning
his own forced escapade into the meadow, he sounded the
danger of Miss Westervelt in such pathetic notes, that he
actually appeared to better advantage in telling the story
than I in being the hero of it. Certainly, it is an enviable
thing to be an accomplished man of the world, never at a loss
for a bow, a smile, a good saying, and a compliment. Seated
as I was in the state-coach of my illustrious deed, I could not
help feeling belittled by the presence of Somerville, even
while he had the air of walking uncovered before me, and of
blowing, “Hail to the chief who in triumph advances!”
But my friends were not quite charmed by him into an entire
forgetfulness of my merits. Mrs. Westervelt thanked me,
and pressed my hands with such a simple, natural warmth
of feeling, as melted away all her waxen affectations, and
made her seem for a moment like a deep-souled, earnest
woman.
“Be mod—est now, Mr. Fitz Hugh,” whispered Mrs. Van
Leer. “You have a claim on my cousin, but don't ask too
much. You gentlemen are so exigeant!”
“Brayvo! your'e a trump, Mary,” said Henry Van Leer,
such a stiff upper lip. Little hoss run like a lamplighter;
did he? Wish I'd been there to see it. Brayvo for the
bay! he's a regular flyer, and no mistake. I wish my hoss
hadn't bolted, though; it would have been such a pretty
race! I say, Fitz Hugh, I'll run my hoss against the bay
with you for anything you want to name, and me the heaviest
weight.”
One other person took upon himself to be so officiously
and boisterously grateful for my salvatory exploit, that he
gave me a sensation of uneasiness unpleasantly akin to jealousy.
This was my beefy erony, Robert Van Leer, who
clamored about me like a happy earthquake, fairly astonishing
me by the volubility which took the place of his usual
aptitude for silence. If my Egyptian mummy should clap
me on the shoulder, and enter into an animated discourse
concerning his eternal obligations to me for delivering
him from the catacombs, I should not be much more surprised
than I was at this garrulous outburst of emotion in
Robert.
“Oh, Fitz Hugh! my dear feller!” he roared, dragging
me to one side so that he could shake my arms off without
being interrupted. “I thank you,—I do, old feller,—from
the bottom of my heart. I say, I'm so glad you was there
to put in and help her, that I don't know whether I'm on my
head or heels.”
Miss Westervelt blushed, and hurried out of the room,
muttering something about changing her dress. The other
ladies followed; Mrs. Westervelt and Genevieve smiling in
an embarrassed way; Mrs. Van Leer laughing outright with
gay malice. The light-hearted, heavy-brained youth noticed
them no more than if they had been thistle-downs blowing
by, and kept right onward in his boisterous, thankful eloquence.
“I tell you, Fitz Hugh, Bob Van Leer's your friend, from
this time forward and forever. If there's anything in the
that's all, now won't you, old feller?”
“Very good,” said I, a little annoyed. “The first
favor I wish to ask is that you won't crush my hands
to pieces. I may want them again, for some purpose or
other.”
“What! did I hurt you, old feller?” he exclaimed, dropping
my numbed fingers, and beginning to slap me violently
on the back in a paroxysm of athletic remorse. “I'll be
hanged if I meant to, and I'm sorry, by Jove! I am. But,
you see, I didn't know what I was about. I tell you, I'm so
glad you went in and saved her, that I feel as if I could bile
over. Come right up to my room and take a drink of
brandy; you must want it, my dear feller. My room is
close by hers, and I want to be in it now, so as to feel as if I
was near her, you know. By Jove! I can scarcely believe
yet that she's safe there, and not on that infernal black.
Come up, and perhaps we'll hear her talking, I love to hear
her there, of mornings; her voice sounds so sweet, and—and
angel-like, you know; only the blasted walls are so thick that
I can't understand a word she says.”
May you get your neck broke, you officious boor! I
thought, as I stared him in the eyes with a grimness which
made poor return for his gaze of affection. If the black
would run away with you to Patagonia, I should take it as a
favor. What do you mean by your stupid, intermeddling
gratitude? Room opposite hers, where you can hear her
voice of mornings! oh, good heavens! that is too bad.
I declined the offer of brandy, and retreated sulkily to my
own lodgings, but could not shake off my grateful tormentor.
Catching hold of my arm, and griping it hard, as if he were a
constable and I a pickpocket, he clung to me, blundered into
my room, lit a cigar, flung himself on the lounge, and talked
uninterruptedly until I told him that it was dinner-time.
Never before had I seen him when he was able to take the
lead, or even to show in the ruck of a conversation; but
more to say than I found agreeable to hear.
“I suppose, Fitz Hugh,” he ran on,—“in fact I've no doubt
you are puzzled why I should be so much obliged to you for
saving Miss Mary. It isn't for every woman that I'd thank
you in this way,—no, no! If half the girls I'm acquainted
with should get flung, and break their bones, whalebones and
all, I wouldn't care much. But Miss Mary, you see, is different
to me.”
She was indeed so different, that his bass voice trembled,
and his great brown eyes filled with tears as he suddenly
turned his face from me.
“Yes, she's very different,” he resumed, and then added,
after searching for a word which could faintly express his
emotions,—“tremendously different. Fitz Hugh, I'll—I'll
tell you all about it.”
“No, don't,” said I, hardly knowing whether to laugh or
get angry. “Don't make me your confidant. If you are in
love with her,—if that is what you are going to say,—don't
swear me to any secrecy or good faith on the subject. I may
take a fancy to fall in love with her myself.”
“You fall in love with her!” he laughed. “She wouldn't
have you. Why, I've known her ever since she was a child;
and then my cousin is married to her father. I always liked
her, even when I was a little chug—always! But I never
felt particular towards her,—not different, you understand,—
till she got grown up and wore long dresses. I tell you,
when she went to Europe, it cut into me dreadfully, and I
wanted to go along with them. But I couldn't; father was
alive then, and would put me through College. It took me an
awful long while to graduate, Fitz Hugh,” he parenthesized,
with a sigh of weariness at the recollection; “it took me six
years to scuffle through, when other fellows, you know, do it
mostly in four. It almost wore me out, Fitz Hugh, and I've
been resting my head ever since. Well, when she came
back, full-blown and handsomer than ever, and all dressed up
French and what-not, a blasted sight easier than I could read
Latin with a grammar and dictionary,—when she came back
so,—as she is now,—you may believe that that put a finisher
to me. I'll be hanged if I didn't fall in love at first sight. I
tell you, Fitz Hugh,—in confidence, you understand,—that
I'm bound up in that girl; and they all know it, every one
of them; the old man knows it, and Mary knows it. You see,
the old man, (I mean Mary's father,—not Westervelt, senior,
who's as rich as Crœsus,) the old man would be glad to get
both his daughters off his hands. He's short of funds almost
always; has to shin it a good deal, they say, to get along;
and he's borrowed a few thousands of me under extra pinches
in the money market. The fact is, he depends on me to help
him out of a speculation, now and then; and so, naturally, he
feels uncommon friendly and anxious for a closer acquaintance;
do you take? Well, now, Fitz Hugh—by Jove, old
feller! here's an idea,—suppose you take Genevieve; then,
there's both the girls settled at once. By Jove! I never
thought of that before, but it's a good egg. What do you
say, old boy?”
“But it seems to me that Somerville is a favorite with
Miss Genevieve,” I replied, not anxious to commit myself to
his proposition. “I couldn't trump such a player as he. It
seems to me that I am out of the game.”
“Somerville be hanged!” observed Bob. “No, he ain't a
favorite with Genevieve, neither, and he don't want to be. I
don't know what he comes here for. I sometimes wish he'd
stay away, for he's too confounded elegant and insinuating to
please me; but Sis (that is Henry's wife) thinks he's ever so
fine a feller, and will have him invited. Don't you be afraid
of Somerville. He's great family, I know,—tip-top aristocratic;
but his father has turned him off,—cut him completely,—don't
give him a cent. He hasn't the first solitary
red; and Westervelt couldn't afford a poor son-in-law. Now
I'm just the sort that he can afford; for father left me and
Fitz Hugh, that an't my way, I assure you; but I want to let
you know just how things stand.”
“Well! now, my dear man!” said I, suddenly assuming a
serious air, which, in point of fact, well befitted my feelings,
—“do you mean to say that you are engaged to Miss Westervelt?”
“Engaged!” he repeated, with an earnest, troubled stare,
as if the idea of a formal betrothal were new to him, and at
the same time daunted him by its delicate difficulties. “Do
you mean engaged with a ring, and all that? Why, I haven't
exactly pinned her down to it;—I haven't kissed her, nor
anything of that sort, you know. But then—why, it's all as
good as settled, I reckon, Fitz Hugh,” he added, brightening
up again. “Mrs. Westervelt is my cousin, and of course
agreeable; and as for the old man, I know he's delighted at
the idea; he as much as told me so when he borrowed the
last batch of money.”
“Oh!” returned I, with a sigh of relief, which would have
gone far to make him throw a chair at my head, could he
have understood it. Mary had not pledged her word to this
fellow; that I felt certain of, and that was ecstasy.
“And so, Fitz Hugh,” concluded Bob, who had been retracing
the thread of his discourse to discover why he had
begun it,—“so you see what it is makes me so grateful to
you. I wish I could have saved her in your place; but, for
all that, I say again, thank you!”
“Very good,” I returned. “Much obliged to you in a
small way. Now, then, take yourself off, or I shall invite
you to eat dinner with me, and you know that you are not
fond of boiled beef and greens.”
His face shining with happy abstraction, he lounged away,
making my stairs creak despairingly under his cumbrous
descent. For a little while I felt as if his heavy footstep
were on my heart also. The possibility that this coarse,
earthy creature might climb on his pile of filthy lucre up to
and make prize of the “rare and radiant maiden” whom I
had just hidden there, was altogether too terrifying to be
contemplated calmly in the seesaw repose of my rocking-chair.
I rose and walked about the room uncertainly, from
side to side, from corner to corner, very nearly as unhappy as
if I had not saved Miss Westervelt, and she had suffered
some grievous harm. Then the recollection of the rescue
intervened and swept me off into a comforting reverie, half
sentimental, half amusing. I had met a beautiful lady in
alien lands;—I had lost her among awful mountain gleams
and thick vapors; — I had tracked her over multitudinous
billows, and found her once more;—I had seen her flying in
extremest peril, with death following hard after;—I had
spurred a fiery steed to her succor and saved her, regardless
of my own life; and now I seemed justified before all men
in demanding her eternal love as my guerdon. This was
romance; this was what I had read of; this was what I had
often fancied. What youth old enough to wear a dress coat,
has not a hundred times, in his imagination, delivered this or
that lovely girl from the jaws of death, and then, without further
trouble, or any danger of refusal, claimed her grateful
heart, to accept or reject it as he chose? Yes, the adventure
was a realization of one of my boyish dreams, and all the
more astonishing for that very reason, because so few of those
same dazzling visions had ever been verified. It was not a
novelty in some respects, certainly: the idea was trampled
threadbare centuries ago by a crowd of poets and romancers;
the Perseuses have been saving the Andromedas ever since
the days of the Greeks, and earlier; the brave deserved the
fair, I doubt not, in the good old times when Cain built the
first city; but, nevertheless, I have observed that such things
rarely happen to people of my acquaintance. I declare
frankly, though with proper shame, that Miss Westervelt is
the only lady that I ever rescued from anything like mortal
peril. I shall have no more such glorious exploits to boast
of this at my pleasure. He may have multitudinous flocks of
such incidents in his mind or even in his history; but I warn
him that this is my one ewe lamb, and that I shall make a
woful outcry if I am robbed of it.
| CHAPTER VI.
EQUESTRIAN AND EMOTIONAL. Seacliff, or, The mystery of the Westervelts | |