University of Virginia Library

23. CHAPTER XXIII.
THE WILD HUNTSMAN.

The young master had not forgotten the old
Doctor's cautions. Without attributing any great
importance to the warning he had given him,
Mr. Bernard had so far complied with his advice
that he was becoming a pretty good shot with
the pistol. It was an amusement as good as
many others to practise, and he had taken a
fancy to it after the first few days.

The popping of a pistol at odd hours in the
back-yard of the Institute was a phenomenon
more than sufficiently remarkable to be talked
about in Rockland. The viscous intelligence of
a country-village is not easily stirred by the
winds which ripple the fluent thought of great
cities, but it holds every straw and entangles
every insect that lights upon it. It soon became
rumored in the town that the young master was
a wonderful shot with the pistol. Some said he
could hit a fo'pence-ha'penny at three rod; some,
that he had shot a swallow, flying, with a single
ball; some, that he snuffed a candle five times
out of six at ten paces, and that he could hit

any button in a man's coat he wanted to. In
other words, as in all such cases, all the common
feats were ascribed to him, as the current jokes
of the day are laid at the door of any noted wit,
however innocent he may be of them.

In the natural course of things, Mr. Richard
Venner, who had by this time made some acquaintances,
as we have seen, among that class
of the population least likely to allow a live
cinder of gossip to go out for want of air, had
heard incidentally that the master up there at the
Institute was all the time practising with a pistol,
that they say he can snuff a candle at ten rods,
(that was Mrs. Blanche Creamer's version,) and
that he could hit anybody he wanted to right in
the eye, as far as he could see the white of it.

Dick did not like the sound of all this any too
well. Without believing more than half of it,
there was enough to make the Yankee school-master
too unsafe to be trifled with. However,
shooting at a mark was pleasant work enough;
he had no particular objection to it himself.
Only he did not care so much for those little
popgun affairs that a man carries in his pocket,
and with which you couldn't shoot a fellow, —
a robber, say, — without getting the muzzle under
his nose. Pistols for boys; long-range rifles for
men. There was such a gun lying in a closet
with the fowling-pieces. He would go out into
the fields and see what he could do as a marksman.

The nature of the mark which Dick chose for
experimenting upon was singular. He had found
some panes of glass which had been removed
from an old sash, and he placed these successively
before his target, arranging them at different
angles. He found that a bullet would go
through the glass without glancing or having its
force materially abated. It was an interesting
fact in physics, and might prove of some practical
significance hereafter. Nobody knows what
may turn up to render these out-of-the-way facts
useful. All this was done in a quiet way in one
of the bare spots high up the side of The Mountain.
He was very thoughtful in taking the precaution
to get so far away; rifle-bullets are apt
to glance and come whizzing about people's ears,
if they are fired in the neighborhood of houses.
Dick satisfied himself that he could be tolerably
sure of hitting a pane of glass at a distance of
thirty rods, more or less, and that, if there happened
to be anything behind it, the glass would
not materially alter the force or direction of the
bullet.

About this time it occurred to him also that
there was an old accomplishment of his which
he would be in danger of losing for want of
practice, if he did not take some opportunity to
try his hand and regain its cunning, if it had begun
to be diminished by disuse. For his first
trial, he chose an evening when the moon was
shining, and after the hour when the Rockland

people were like to be stirring abroad. He was
so far established now that he could do much as
he pleased without exciting remark.

The prairie horse he rode, the mustang of the
Pampas, wild as he was, had been trained to take
part in at least one exercise. This was the
accomplishment in which Mr. Richard now proposed
to try himself. For this purpose he sought
the implement of which, as it may be remembered,
he had once made an incidental use, — the
lasso, or long strip of hide with a slip-noose at
the end of it. He had been accustomed to playing
with such a thong from his boyhood, and had
become expert in its use in capturing wild cattle
in the course of his adventures. Unfortunately,
there were no wild bulls likely to be met with in
the neighborhood, to become the subjects of his
skill. A stray cow in the road, an ox or a horse
in a pasture, must serve his turn, — dull beasts,
but moving marks to aim at, at any rate.

Never, since he had galloped in the chase over
the Pampas, had Dick Venner felt such a sense
of life and power as when he struck the long
spurs into his wild horse's flanks, and dashed
along the road with the lasso lying like a coiled
snake at the saddle-bow. In skilful hands, the
silent, bloodless noose, flying like an arrow, but
not like that leaving a wound behind it, — sudden
as a pistol-shot, but without the tell-tale
explosion, — is one of the most fearful and mysterious
weapons that arm the hand of man. The

old Romans knew how formidable, even in contest
with a gladiator equipped with sword, helmet,
and shield, was the almost naked retiarius, with
his net in one hand and his three-pronged javelin
in the other. Once get a net over a man's head,
or a cord round his neck, or, what is more frequently
done nowadays, bonnet him by knocking
his hat down over his eyes, and he is at the
mercy of his opponent. Our soldiers who served
against the Mexicans found this out too well.
Many a poor fellow has been lassoed by the fierce
riders from the plains, and fallen an easy victim
to the captor who had snared him in the fatal
noose.

But, imposing as the sight of the wild huntsmen
of the Pampas might have been, Dick could
not help laughing at the mock sublimity of his
situation, as he tried his first experiment on an
unhappy milky mother who had strayed from her
herd and was wandering disconsolately along
the road, laying the dust, as she went, with
thready streams from her swollen, swinging udders.
“Here goes the Don at the windmill!”
said Dick, and tilted full speed at her, whirling
the lasso round his head as he rode. The creature
swerved to one side of the way, as the wild
horse and his rider came rushing down upon
her, and presently turned and ran, as only cows
and — it wouldn't be safe to say it — can run.
Just before he passed, — at twenty or thirty feet
from her, — the lasso shot from his hand, uncoiling

as it flew, and in an instant its loop was
round her horns. “Well cast!” said Dick, as
he galloped up to her side and dexterously disengaged
the lasso. “Now for a horse on the
run!”

He had the good luck to find one, presently,
grazing in a pasture at the road-side. Taking
down the rails of the fence at one point, he drove
the horse into the road and gave chase. It was
a lively young animal enough, and was easily
roused to a pretty fast pace. As his gallop grew
more and more rapid, Dick gave the reins to the
mustang, until the two horses stretched themselves
out in their longest strides. If the first
feat looked like play, the one he was now to
attempt had a good deal the appearance of real
work. He touched the mustang with the spur,
and in a few fierce leaps found himself nearly
abreast of the frightened animal he was chasing.
Once more he whirled the lasso round and round
over his head, and then shot it forth, as the
rattlesnake shoots his head from the loops against
which it rests. The noose was round the horse's
neck, and in another instant was tightened so
as almost to stop his breath. The prairie horse
knew the trick of the cord, and leaned away
from the captive, so as to keep the thong tensely
stretched between his neck and the peak of the
saddle to which it was fastened. Struggling was
of no use with a halter round his windpipe, and
he very soon began to tremble and stagger, —

blind, no doubt, and with a roaring in his ears as
of a thousand battle-trumpets, — at any rate,
subdued and helpless. That was enough. Dick
loosened his lasso, wound it up again, laid it like
a pet snake in a coil at his saddle-bow, turned
his horse, and rode slowly along towards the
mansion-house.

The place had never looked more stately and
beautiful to him than as he now saw it in the
moonlight. The undulations of the land, — the
grand mountain-screen which sheltered the mansion
from the northern blasts, rising with all its
hanging forests and parapets of naked rock high
towards the heavens, — the ancient mansion, with
its square chimneys, and body-guard of old trees,
and cincture of low walls with marble-pillared
gateways, — the fields, with their various coverings,
— the beds of flowers, — the plots of turf,
one with a gray column in its centre bearing a
sun-dial on which the rays of the moon were idly
shining, another with a white stone and a narrow
ridge of turf, — over all these objects, harmonized
with all their infinite details into one
fair whole by the moonlight, the prospective heir,
as he deemed himself, looked with admiring eyes.

But while he looked, the thought rose up in
his mind like waters from a poisoned fountain,
that there was a deep plot laid to cheat him of
the inheritance which by a double claim he meant
to call his own. Every day this ice-cold beauty,
this dangerous, handsome cousin of his, went up

to that place, — that usher's girl-trap. Every day,
— regularly now, — it used to be different. Did
she go only to get out of his, her cousin's, reach?
Was she not rather becoming more and more involved
in the toils of this plotting Yankee?

If Mr. Bernard had shown himself at that moment
a few rods in advance, the chances are that
in less than one minute he would have found
himself with a noose round his neck, at the heels
of a mounted horseman. Providence spared him
for the present. Mr. Richard rode his horse
quietly round to the stable, put him up, and proceeded
towards the house. He got to his bed
without disturbing the family, but could not
sleep. The idea had fully taken possession of
his mind that a deep intrigue was going on which
would end by bringing Elsie and the school-master
into relations fatal to all his own hopes. With
that ingenuity which always accompanies jealousy,
he tortured every circumstance of the last
few weeks so as to make it square with this belief.
From this vein of thought he naturally passed
to a consideration of every possible method by
which the issue he feared might be avoided.

Mr. Richard talked very plain language with
himself in all these inward colloquies. Supposing
it came to the worst, what could be done
then? First, an accident might happen to the
school-master which should put a complete and
final check upon his projects and contrivances.
The particular accident which might interrupt his

career must, evidently, be determined by circumstances;
but it must be of a nature to explain
itself without the necessity of any particular person's
becoming involved in the matter. It would
be unpleasant to go into particulars; but everybody
knows well enough that men sometimes
get in the way of a stray bullet, and that young
persons occasionally do violence to themselves in
various modes, — by fire-arms, suspension, and
other means, — in consequence of disappointment
in love, perhaps, oftener than from other
motives. There was still another kind of accident
which might serve his purpose. If anything
should happen to Elsie, it would be the most
natural thing in the world that his uncle should
adopt him, his nephew and only near relation, as
his heir. Unless, indeed, Uncle Dudley should
take it into his head to marry again. In that
case, where would he, Dick, be? This was the
most detestable complication which he could
conceive of. And yet he had noticed — he could
not help noticing — that his uncle had been very
attentive to, and, as it seemed, very much pleased
with, that young woman from the school. What
did that mean? Was it possible that he was
going to take a fancy to her?

It made him wild to think of all the several
contingencies which might defraud him of that
good-fortune which seemed but just now within
his grasp. He glared in the darkness at imaginary
faces: sometimes at that of the handsome,

treacherous school-master; sometimes at that of
the meek-looking, but, no doubt, scheming, lady-teacher;
sometimes at that of the dark girl whom
he was ready to make his wife; sometimes at
that of his much respected uncle, who, of course,
could not be allowed to peril the fortunes of his
relatives by forming a new connection. It was
a frightful perplexity in which he found himself,
because there was no one single life an accident
to which would be sufficient to insure the fitting
and natural course of descent to the great Dudley
property. If it had been a simple question
of helping forward a casualty to any one person,
there was nothing in Dick's habits of thought and
living to make that a serious difficulty. He had
been so much with lawless people, that a life between
his wish and his object seemed only as an
obstacle to be removed, provided the object were
worth the risk and trouble. But if there were
two or three lives in the way, manifestly that altered
the case.

His Southern blood was getting impatient.
There was enough of the New-Englander about
him to make him calculate his chances before he
struck; but his plans were liable to be defeated
at any moment by a passionate impulse such as
the dark-hued races of Southern Europe and their
descendants are liable to. He lay in his bed,
sometimes arranging plans to meet the various
difficulties already mentioned, sometimes getting
into a paroxysm of blind rage in the perplexity

of considering what object he should select as the
one most clearly in his way. On the whole,
there could be no doubt where the most threatening
of all his embarrassments lay. It was in
the probable growing relation between Elsie and
the school-master. If it should prove, as it seemed
likely, that there was springing up a serious attachment
tending to a union between them, he
knew what he should do, if he was not quite so
sure how he should do it.

There was one thing at least which might
favor his projects, and which, at any rate, would
serve to amuse him. He could, by a little quiet
observation, find out what were the school-master's
habits of life: whether he had any routine
which could be calculated upon; and under what
circumstances a strictly private interview of a
few minutes with him might be reckoned on, in
case it should be desirable. He could also very
probably learn some facts about Elsie: whether
the young man was in the habit of attending her
on her way home from school; whether she
stayed about the school-room after the other girls
had gone; and any incidental matters of interest
which might present themselves.

He was getting more and more restless for
want of some excitement. A mad gallop, a visit
to Mrs. Blanche Creamer, who had taken such
a fancy to him, or a chat with the Widow Rowens,
who was very lively in her talk, for all her
sombre colors, and reminded him a good deal of

some of his earlier friends, the señoritas, — all
these were distractions, to be sure, but not enough
to keep his fiery spirit from fretting itself in longings
for more dangerous excitements. The thought
of getting a knowledge of all Mr. Bernard's ways,
so that he would be in his power at any moment,
was a happy one.

For some days after this he followed Elsie at a
long distance behind, to watch her until she got
to the school-house. One day he saw Mr. Bernard
join her: a mere accident, very probably,
for it was only once this happened. She came
on her homeward way alone, — quite apart from
the groups of girls who strolled out of the school-house
yard in company. Sometimes she was behind
them all, — which was suggestive. Could
she have stayed to meet the school-master?

If he could have smuggled himself into the
school, he would have liked to watch her there,
and see if there was not some understanding
between her and the master which betrayed itself
by look or word. But this was beyond the limits
of his audacity, and he had to content himself
with such cautious observations as could be made
at a distance. With the aid of a pocket-glass he
could make out persons without the risk of being
observed himself.

Mr. Silas Peckham's corps of instructors was
not expected to be off duty or to stand at ease
for any considerable length of time. Sometimes
Mr. Bernard, who had more freedom than the

rest, would go out for a ramble in the daytime;
but more frequently it would be in the evening,
after the hour of “retiring,” as bedtime was elegantly
termed by the young ladies of the Apollinean
Institute. He would then not unfrequently
walk out alone in the common roads, or climb up
the sides of The Mountain, which seemed to be
one of his favorite resorts. Here, of course, it
was impossible to follow him with the eye at a
distance. Dick had a hideous, gnawing suspicion
that somewhere in these deep shades the school-master
might meet Elsie, whose evening wanderings
he knew so well. But of this he was not
able to assure himself. Secrecy was necessary to
his present plans, and he could not compromise
himself by over-eager curiosity. One thing he
learned with certainty. The master returned,
after his walk one evening, and entered the building
where his room was situated. Presently a
light betrayed the window of his apartment.
From a wooded bank, some thirty or forty rods
from this building, Dick Venner could see the
interior of the chamber, and watch the master
as he sat at his desk, the light falling strongly
upon his face, intent upon the book or manuscript
before him. Dick contemplated him very long in
this attitude. The sense of watching his every
motion, himself meanwhile utterly unseen, was
delicious. How little the master was thinking
what eyes were on him!

Well, — there were two things quite certain.

One was, that, if he chose, he could meet the
school-master alone, either in the road or in a
more solitary place, if he preferred to watch his
chance for an evening or two. The other was,
that he commanded his position, as he sat at his
desk in the evening, in such a way that there
would be very little difficulty, — so far as that
went; of course, however, silence is always preferable
to noise, and there is a great difference in
the marks left by different casualties. Very likely
nothing would come of all this espionage; but,
at any rate, the first thing to be done with a man
you want to have in your power is to learn his
habits.

Since the tea-party at the Widow Rowens's,
Elsie had been more fitful and moody than ever.
Dick understood all this well enough, you know.
It was the working of her jealousy against that
young school-girl to whom the master had devoted
himself for the sake of piquing the heiress
of the Dudley mansion. Was it possible, in any
way, to exasperate her irritable nature against
him, and in this way to render her more accessible
to his own advances? It was difficult to influence
her at all. She endured his company
without seeming to enjoy it. She watched him
with that strange look of hers, sometimes as if
she were on her guard against him, sometimes as
if she would like to strike at him as in that fit of
childish passion. She ordered him about with a
haughty indifference which reminded him of his

own way with the dark-eyed women whom he
had known so well of old. All this added a secret
pleasure to the other motives he had for worrying
her with jealous suspicions. He knew she
brooded silently on any grief that poisoned her
comfort, — that she fed on it, as it were, until it
ran with every drop of blood in her veins, — and
that, except in some paroxysm of rage, of which
he himself was not likely the second time to be
the object, or in some deadly vengeance wrought
secretly, against which he would keep a sharp
lookout, so far as he was concerned, she had
no outlet for her dangerous, smouldering passions.

Beware of the woman who cannot find free
utterance for all her stormy inner life either in
words or song! So long as a woman can talk,
there is nothing she cannot bear. If she cannot
have a companion to listen to her woes, and has
no musical utterance, vocal or instrumental, —
then, if she is of the real woman sort, and has
a few heartfuls of wild blood in her, and you
have done her a wrong, — double-bolt the door
which she may enter on noiseless slipper at midnight,
— look twice before you taste of any cup
whose draught the shadow of her hand may
have darkened!

But let her talk, and, above all, cry, or, if she
is one of the coarser-grained tribe, give her the
run of all the red-hot expletives in the language,

and let her blister her lips with them until she is
tired, she will sleep like a lamb after it, and you
may take a cup of coffee from her without stirring
it up to look for its sediment.

So, if she can sing, or play on any musical instrument,
all her wickedness will run off through
her throat or the tips of her fingers. How many
tragedies find their peaceful catastrophe in fierce
roulades and strenuous bravuras! How many
murders are executed in double-quick time upon
the keys which stab the air with their dagger-strokes
of sound! What would our civilization
be without the piano? Are not Erard and Broadwood
and Chickering the true humanizers of our
time? Therefore do I love to hear the all-pervading
tum tum jarring the walls of little parlors
in houses with double door-plates on their portals,
looking out on streets and courts which to know
is to be unknown, and where to exist is not to
live, according to any true definition of living.
Therefore complain I not of modern degeneracy,
when, even from the open window of the small
unlovely farm-house, tenanted by the hard-handed
man of bovine flavors and the flat-patterned woman
of broken-down countenance, issue the same
familiar sounds. For who knows that Almira,
but for these keys, which throb away her wild
impulses in harmless discords, would not have
been floating, dead, in the brown stream which
slides through the meadows by her father's door,
— or living, with that other current which runs

beneath the gas-lights over the slimy pavement,
choking with wretched weeds that were once in
spotless flower?

Poor Elsie! She never sang nor played. She
never shaped her inner life in words: such utterance
was as much denied to her nature as common
articulate speech to the deaf mute. Her
only language must be in action. Watch her
well by day and by night, Old Sophy! watch her
well! or the long line of her honored name may
close in shame, and the stately mansion of the
Dudleys remain a hissing and a reproach till its
roof is buried in its cellar!