 | Out of his head |  |
2. PAUL LYNDE'S SKETCH BOOK.
PERE ANTOINE'S DATE PALM.
A Legend of New Orleans.
IT is useless to disguise the fact:
Miss Badeau is a rebel.
Mr. Beauregard's cannon had not
done battering the walls of Sumter,
when Miss Badeau was packed up,
labelled, and sent North, where she
has remained ever since in a sort of
aromatic, rose-colored state of rebellion.
She is not one of your sanguinary rebels, you
know; she has the good sense to shrink with horror
from the bare mention of those heathen who,
at Manassas and elsewhere, wreaked their unmanly
spite on the bodies of our dead heroes: still she
and two brothers in the Confederate service
— if I may be allowed to club the statements.
When I look across the narrow strait of our boarding-house
table, and observe what a handsome
wreten she is, I begin to think that if Mr. Seward
doesn't presently take her in charge, I shall.
The preceding paragraphs have little or nothing
to do with what I am going to relate: they merely
illustrate how wildly a fellow will write, when the
eyelashes of a pretty woman get tangled with his
pen. So I let them stand — as a warning.
My exordium should have taken this shape: —
“I hope and trust,” remarked Miss Badeau, in
that remarkably scathing tone which she assumes
in alluding to the United States Volunteers, “I
hope and trust, that, when your five hundred
thousand, more or less, men capture my New Orleans,
they will have the good taste not to injure
Père Antoine's Date-Palm.”
“Not a hair of its head shall be touched,” I replied,
was talking about.
“Ah! I hope not,” she said.
There was a certain tenderness in her voice
which struck me.
“Who is Père Antoine?” I ventured to ask.
“And what is this tree that seems to interest
you so?”
“I will tell you.”
Then Miss Badeau told me the following legend,
which I think worth writing down. If it should
appear tame to the reader, it will be because I
haven't a black ribbed-silk dress, and a strip of
point-lace around my throat, like Miss Badeau; it
will be because I haven't her eyes and lips and music
to tell it with, confound me!
Near the levee, and not far from the old French
cathedral, in New Orleans, stands a fine date-palm,
some thirty feet high, growing out in the open air
as sturdily as if its roots were sucking sap from
their native earth.
Sir Charles Lyell, in his “second visit to the
tree is seventy or eighty years old; for Père Antoine,
a Roman Catholic priest, who died about
twenty years ago, told Mr. Bringier that he planted
it himself, when he was young. In his will he
provided that they who succeeded to this lot of
ground should forfeit it, if they cut down the palm.”
Wishing to learn something of Père Antoine's
history, Sir Charles Lyell made inquiries among the
ancient creole inhabitants of the faubourg. That
the old priest, in his last days, became very much
emaciated, that he walked about the streets like a
mummy, that he gradually dried up, and finally
blew away, was the meagre result of the tourist's
investigations.
This is all that is generally known of Père Antoine.
Miss Badeau's story clothes these bare
facts.
When Père Antoine was a very young man, he
had a friend whom he loved as he loved his eyes.
Emile Jardin returned his passion, and the two,
on account of their friendship, became the marvel
seen without the other; for they studied, walked,
ate, and slept together.
Antoine and Emile were preparing to enter the
Church; indeed, they had taken the preliminary
steps, when a circumstance occurred which changed
the color of their lives.
A foreign lady, from some far-off island in the
Pacific, had a few months before moved into their
neighborhood. The lady died suddenly, leaving
a girl of sixteen or seventeen entirely friendless
and unprovided for. The young men had been
kind to the woman during her illness, and at her
death, melting with pity at the forlorn situation of
Anglice, the daughter, swore between themselves
to love and watch over her as if she were their
sister.
Now Anglice had a wild, strange beauty, that
made other women seem tame beside her; and in
the course of time the young men found themselves
regarding their ward not so much like brothers
as at first.
They struggled with their destiny manfully, for
the holy orders which they were about to assume
precluded the idea of love and marriage.
But every day taught them to be more fond of
her. Even priests are human. So they drifted
on. The weak like to temporize.
One night Emile Jardin and Anglice were not
to be found.
They had flown — but whither, nobody knew,
and nobody, save Antoine, cared.
It was a heavy blow to Antoine — for he had
half made up his mind to run away with her himself.
A strip of paper slipped from a volume on Antoine's
desk, and fluttered to his feet.
“Do not be angry,” said the bit of paper, piteously;
“forgive us, for we love.”
Three years went by wearily enough.
Antoine had entered the Church, and was already
looked upon as a rising man; but his face
was pale and his heart leaden, for there was no
sweetness in life for him.
Four years had elapsed, when a letter, covered
with outlandish stamps, was brought to the young
priest — a letter from Anglice. She was dying;
— would he forgive her? Emile, the year previous,
had fallen a victim to the fever that raged
on the island; and their child, little Anglice, was
likely to follow him. In pitiful terms she begged
Antoine to take charge of the child until she was
old enough to enter a convent. The epistle was
finished by another hand, informing Antoine of
Madame Jardin's death; it also told him that
Anglice had been placed on board a vessel shortly
to leave the island for some Western port.
The letter was hardly read and wept over, when
little Anglice arrived.
On beholding her, Antoine uttered a cry of joy
and surprise — she was so like the woman he had
worshipped.
As a man's tears are more pathetic than a woman's,
so is his love more intense — not more enduring,
or half so subtle, but intenser.
The passion that had been crowded down in his
child, who was to him, not only the Anglice of
years ago, but his friend Emile Jardin also.
Anglice possessed the wild, strange beauty of
her mother — the bending, willowy form, the rich
tint of skin, the large tropical eyes, that had almost
made Antoine's sacred robes a mockery to
him.
For a month or two Anglice was wildly unhappy
in her new home. She talked continually of
the bright country where she was born, the fruits
and flowers and blue skies — the tall fan-like trees,
and the streams that went murmuring through
them to the sea. Antoine could not pacify her.
By and by she ceased to weep, and went about
the cottage with a dreary, disconsolate air that cut
Antoine to the heart. A long-tailed paroquet,
which she had brought with her in the ship,
walked solemnly behind her from room to room,
mutely pining, it seemed, for those heavy orient
airs that used to ruffle its brilliant plumage.
Before the year ended, he noticed that the ruddy
had grown languid, and her slight figure more
willowy than ever.
A physician was consulted. He could discover
nothing wrong with the child, except this fading
and drooping. He failed to account for that. It
was some vague disease of the mind, he said, beyond
his skill.
So Anglice faded day after day. She seldom
left the room now. Antoine could not shut out
the fact that the child was passing away. He had
learned to love her so!
“Dear heart,” he said once, “what is't that ails
thee?”
“Nothing, mon père,” for so she called him.
The winter passed, the balmy spring air had
come, and Anglice seemed to revive. In her little
bamboo chair, on the porch, she swayed to and
fro in the fragrant breeze, with a peculiar undulating
motion, like a graceful tree.
At times something seemed to weigh upon her
mind. Antoine noticed it, and waited.
At length she spoke.
“Near our house,” said little Anglice—“near
our house, on the island, the palm-trees are waving
under the blue sky. Oh, how beautiful! I seem
to lie beneath them all day long. I am very, very
happy. I yearned for them so much that I grew
sick — dont you think it was so, mon père?”
“Mon Dieu, yes!” exclaimed Antoine, suddenly.
“Let us hasten to those pleasant islands
where the palms are waving.”
Anglice smiled.
“I am going there, mon père!”
Ay, indeed. A week from that evening the
wax candles burned at her feet and forehead, lighting
her on her journey.
All was over. Now was Antoine's heart empty.
Death, like another Emile, had stolen his new
Anglice. He had nothing to do but to lay the
blighted flower away.
Père Antoine made a shallow grave in his garden,
and heaped the fresh brown mould over his
idol.
In the genial spring evenings the priest was
seen sitting by the mound, his finger closed in the
unread prayer-book.
The summer broke on that sunny land; and in
the cool morning twilight and after nightfall Antoine
lingered by the grave. He could never be
with it enough.
One morning he observed a delicate stem, with
two curiously shaped emerald leaves, springing up
from the centre of the mound. At first he merely
noticed it casually: but at length the plant grew
so tall, and was so strangely unlike anything he
had ever seen before, that he examined it with
care.
How straight and graceful and exquisite it was!
When it swung to and fro with the summer wind,
in the twilight, it seemed to Antoine as if little
Anglice were standing there in the garden!
The days stole by, and Antoine tended the fragile
shoot, wondering what sort of blossom it would
unfold, white, or scarlet, or golden. One Sunday,
a stranger, with a bronzed, weather-beaten face
said to him:
“What a fine young date-palm you have there,
sir!”
“Mon Dieu!” cried Père Antoine, “and is it
a palm?”
“Yes, indeed,” returned the man. “I had no
idea the tree would flourish in this climate.”
“Mon Dieu!” was all the priest could say.
If Père Antoine loved the tree before, he worshipped
it now. He watered it, and nurtured it,
and could have clasped it in his arms. Here were
Emile and Anglice and the child, all in one!
The years flew by, and the date palm and the
priest grew together—only one became vigorous
and the other feeble. Père Antoine had long
passed the meridian of life. The tree was in its
youth. It no longer stood in an isolated garden;
for homely brick and wooden houses had clustered
about Antoine's cottage. They looked down
scowling on the humble thatched roof. The city
was edging up, trying to crowd him off his land.
But he clung to it, and refused to sell.
Speculators piled gold on his doorsteps, and he
laughed at them. Sometimes he was hungry, but
he laughed none the less.
“Get thee behind me, Satan!” said the old
priest's smile.
Père Antoine was very old now, scarcely able
to walk; but he could sit under the pliant, caressing
leaves of his tree, and there he sat till the
grimmest of speculators came to him. But even
in death Père Antoine was faithful to his trust.
The owner of that land loses it, if he harm the
date-tree.
And there it stands in the narrow, dingy street,
a beautiful, dreamy stranger, an exquisite foreign
lady whose grace is a joy to the eye, the incense
of whose breath makes the air enamored. A
precious boon is she to the wretched city; and
when loyal men again walk those streets, may the
hand wither that touches her ungently.
“Because it grew from the heart of little Anglice,”
said Miss Badeau, tenderly.
A WORD FOR THE TOWN.
A City Idyl.
CORYDON may neglect his flock,
if he will, and brust an oaten pipe
for Phillida, if he wants to; Amyntas
may lie on a sunny hill-side in
Arcady if such is his pleasure, and
bake himself as brown as a bun;
but as for me, I will have none of
the country.
The country is rainy and muddy in spring, hot
and dusty in summer, and unendurable in winter.
It is true, there is a bit of Indian summer, run in
parenthetically, at the close of the year. And
this is is pleasant, providing you have bright company,
to town before Nature begins her annual
world-cleaning and whitewashing.
But when the autumnal pageant has passed;
when the ochre and crimson, and chocolate-colored
leaves are rotting under foot; when the trees
about the house shiver and moan in the twilight,
like rheumatic old ladies; when the wind whistles
down the chimney, and up your coat-sleeves; when
you can no longer walk with Mademoiselle Sylvia
in the moonlight; when, in short, the Indian summer
has gone off in a whiff, then it is time for you
to be out of the country. You should not linger
there for winter to tuck you up under its white
coverlid.
But the Town!
Ay, that is the place not for a day, but for all
time. That we have rain and mud in spring, and
wretched snow in winter, is not to be denied; but
then we have sidewalks, and Amaryllis is particularly
tempting during these periods. The grace,
care, and coquettishness with which she keeps her
single glimpse of Amaryllis, as she crosses over to
Stewart's, more than pays one for the moist inconveniences
of bad weather.
Spring in the city! You get such delicate hints
of spring! The dried up old crone of a geranium,
on your window-sill, has put forth a tiny
green leaf. It hesitates, as if it would fold itself
up again, it is such a modest, non-committal little
leaf. Is it not one of Nature's diminutive prodigies?
You discover a single blade of grass shooting
sharply up from between two bricks in your
backyard. Would a dozen acres of meadow-land
delight you more?
Amaryllis has hung her canaries at the window.
What shrill music they make! They wake you
early in the morning, and you see Amaryllis in a
distracting robe de chambre. It has sky-blue
rosettes up and down in front, and is tightened
at the waist with a silk girdle.
His arms might do what this has done?”
You see the five cunning, white birds of Amaryllis's
right-hand feeding the noisy yellow idiots,
in the villa-like cages. The air is full of sweet
messages from the south. You select a neck-tie
of gorgeous colors. You go down town without
your overcoat. You smile genially on Jones.
You don't generally smile on Jones, for he lives
next door to Amaryllis. You are good natured;
you cannot tell why. You kick a strip of lemon
peel off the curbstone, You are philanthropic,
also, but you don't know why. It is spring!
After several weeks of torturing suspense, you
conclude that Amaryllis must have gone to Nahant
or Newport. She has. The fair Capulet
does not take her “cue” now, and the window-scene
is a failure. Biddy feeds the canaries. You
are not entirely miserable, though.
It is midsummer.
There is a shady side to the street; there are
parks and fountains pro bono publico; there are
Roman punches and strawberry ices at Maillard's,
and a promenade concert at the Academy. You
you are not somewhere else, at the Academy.
You hear Agnes Robertson sing. She captivates
you with her woman's eyes and her boy's costume.
You immediately hate her husband. You do
more — you forget Amaryllis. There is a maritime
view from the battery, and a salt-sea breeze at
Coney island, and certain leafy nooks over the
river, where you can sip maraschino, or discuss
omlette rouflée within hearing of the rich bass
voice of the city hall bell. You can hire a boat
at Whitehall and float down the Narrows, or you
can sweep by the Palisades in the Thomas Powell,
and catch a glimpse of the wrong side of Fred.
Cozzen's house, at Yonkers; and, little farther up,
the cocked-hat gables of Washington Irving's
“Sunnyside.” You can drink lager-beer, and devour
schweizer kese and pretzeln at Hoboken.
You can also purchase a knot of flowers at the
Sybil's cave.
What an epitome of sweet things is a bouquet!
You have the grace and the goodness,
a shilling. You have the delights of meadow and
woodland bound together by an ell of claret-colored
ribbon. You have a fragment of the sky,
and a tangle of grass with merry red buds, such
as Coleman and Shattuck like to paint; you have
dews, and stars, and sunset things! You have a
portable flower-garden. You can put it into your
waistcoat pocket. You can give it to Chloe, who
hasn't gone to Nahant. Or, better still, keep it,
though it fade, for Amaryllis.
The summer solstice is over, and the temptation
has returned to town. She does not, indeed, hang
her canaries at the open window, and your eyes
are seldom ravished by a sight of that morning
robe with the blue rosettes in front; but, now and
then, when you come home rather late at night
you see the shadow of Amaryllis on the buff window-curtain,
and you are not wholly unhappy.
Your existence becomes worth cultivating. You
lounge in your lazy easy-chair, you fill your meerschaum
with fragrant Oranoko or May-Blossom,
the other side of that provoking curtain. Amaryllis
has been to the Opera, and is robbing her
heavy black tresses of their burning ornaments.
You can see the shadow on the curtain lifting its
arms. It appears and disappears, and tantalizes
you. It is unlacing something, you dont know
what—but you mustn't look any more. You remember
Keat's description of Madeline, as she disrobes
on St. Agnes' eve? Ten to one you repeat
the lines half aloud:
Unclasps her warmed jewels, one by one;
Loosens her fragrant bodice; by degrees
Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:
Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed,
Pensive awhile she dreams.”
You will paint some such picture. Of course
you should not. But the probability is you will.
The time has come when you have to examine
the thermometer to ascertain how cold you are.
You are very cold when you find the quicksilver
some ten degrees below zero; in fact, just twice
as cold as you were before you obtained that knowledge.
middle of the night, and you are tempted to throw
your boot at it. It is something mysterious and
awful to have your pitcher of water express its
opinion of the weather. When you get up in the
morning, you discover some very bizarre pictures
on your window-panes. They are chiefly representations
of polar scenery—weird, terrible, Icelandic
pictures. You look at them as you dress
yourself, and think of Dr. Kane.
It is Christmas time. Merry Christmas? Ah,
but it used to be some twenty years syne. It was
fine, then, to loiter through the crowded streets,
gazing into the shop windows—El Dorados of
fancy articles, Australian lands of bon-bons and
rock-candy. What visions you had of St. Nick.,
with his reindeer equipage on the house-top. You
could hear the pawing of the silver hoofs.
Something of the old pleasure in Christmas,
something of the old faith in Santa Claus, warms
in your heart as you stroll down Broadway with
the chilly stars sparkling over head and the white
spangles under your feet.
The street is illuminated with lights of a hundred
colors. It is one long bazaar where you may
feast your eyes with the riches of all nations.
Turkish looms have been busy for you.
Quarries have been opened and streams searched
that you might look on clusters of precious
jewels.
The patient Chinaman has carved his dreamy
fantasies in ivory, and the oily Esquimau has fashioned
seal-skin snow-shoes for you.
Here you have curious instruments, of brass
and wood, and pearl, within whose tubes and under
whose keys lurk passionate music—the spirits
of joy and woe.
There you have fantastic pipes from Tuscany,
wines from Germany, sweetmeats from the Indies,
and confections from Paris; Malaga grapes and
creamy bananas, and oranges that turned to gold
in the warm air of Cuba.
Your slaves in the East have sent you attars,
and gums, and scented woods. What is there in
all the climes, from
not lie within your reach?
You are Haroun al Raschid in Bagdad, you are
Haitalnefous, you are anybody you please, with
the world's wealth heaped about you.
Have the kidness to help yourself!
You wander through the street in a midwinter
night's dream. What do you care for the bleak
wind, or the snow-flakes, or the people who jostle
you? You stare at the brilliant shops; you do
not know which to enter, for each one is more
beautiful than the other, like the Khaleef's forty
wives. You pause at Tiffany's. Tiffany's windows
are on fire with diamonds.
All the water in the underground pipes, which,
like huge arteries, traverse the city, could not
quench the fire that burns in those stones.
You flatten your nose on the plate-glass; you
see a necklace which you would like to clasp on
Amaryllis's perfect throat; you would also like
to manacle her white wrists with those turquoise
bracelets; you would like —
Listen! High up in the belfry, in the rain, and
the sleet, and the dark night, there is a nest of
merry birds. They have quiet, airy hymns which
they chirp on summer evenings. But how clamorous
and jubilant they are this winter night!
Why are their happiest, wildest songs kept for the
snow and the sleet? Why are they so joyous
when
And no birds sing?”
If I should ever move into the country it will
be on one condition — that I take the Town with
me.
MISS HEPZIBAH'S LOVER.
A Seaside Sketch.
NO one looking at Miss Hepzibah,
in this year of our Lord,
18—, would suppose that Miss
Hepzibah ever had a lover. Until
last summer, it would have
been true to say that she never
had.
There is, indeed, a vague story
concerning a certain old young gentleman who,
some ten years subsequent to the war of 1812,
was imagined to have entertained a tender and pathetic
feeling for Miss Hepzibah; but as he never
told his love, and as concealment never appeared
to have become apoplectic by feeding on his damask
Miss Hepzibah was born an old maid.
She was born with the intention of never sacrificing
her independence on the altar of matrimony,
unless she should happen to meet with what she
called her Beau Ideal. Until this miraculous and
winning creature should make his advent, Miss
Hepzibah refrained from fanning any minor spark
into a flame.
Miss Hepzibah vestalized.
Now it came to pass that her Beau Ideal,
(owing to various causes, among which may be
placed the laws of gravitation) never turned up:
for Miss Hepzibah's Ideal involved the possession
of such an impossible catalogue of angelicisms and
such a plentiful lack of human weaknesses, as to entirely
shut out the whole race of Man.
Miss Hepzibah's youth glided decorously away;
her prime came and went with the utmost propriety;
epoch faded into epoch; until, at last, there
was a sarcastic yellow on the page of the family
the date of her birth.
She put on her spectacles one day, and found
that the golden girls of her childhood had passed
on. Little faces, with strangely familiar eyes and
lips, grew up about her, and cold white head-stones
whereon were engraved names familiar to her
youth.
She had become the last leaf on her ancestral
tree; she had also become the last leaf anybody
would think of gathering. Not that Miss Hepzibah
had lost any of her beauty, for it may be
truthfully said that she never lost an atom.
But she had lost the charm of her teens, the
magnetism of her twenties, the splendor of her
thirties, and, it must be confessed, of her forties
also. But while time had left inviolate the peculiar
points of her person, which was all points, it
had seen proper to work a remarkable change in
her mind, and had led her to indulge in several illusions,
to the supreme astonishment and consternation
of her friends.
She had ceased to regard the animal, Man, with
bitterness!
Indeed, she had grown to regard him, as a race,
with such tenderness, that it seemed as if she intended,
with the warmth of later days, to make
the amende honorable for the coldness of her teens.
To such an extent she carried her reparation,
that Mr. Higgins, her second cousin, with whom
she resided, felt it his duty, as a human being, to
remove his Milesian gardener from the Vivian-like
witchery of her presence. But Miss Hepzibah directed
her attention to the colored coachman (a
gentleman of a migrative turn of mind, who abruptly
graduated from Virginia one day,) and it was
through her affability that he was ultimately induced
to fall in love and elope with — the family
plate.
Miss Hepzibah now labored under the impression
that a very ornate and juvenile style of costume
became her figure and complexion.
She dawned upon the world in light shotted
silks and blossomy baréges.
She also assumed, with the gorgeousness of apparel,
the artless gaiety of a sea-side belle in her
bloom. Her naivete and freshness were perfectly
startling.
“Cousin says I'm so giddy,” she remarked to
Clarence Adolphus, as they walked on the piazza
of the hotel at Nahant.
Clarence Adolphus was heard to reply:
“Ye—yes, I think you are, werry.”
The affair with the colored coachman was the
feather that broke Miss Hepzibah's second cousin's
back. They had some low words in a high tone,
and parted. Miss Hepzibah retired from the inhospitable
roof, and tacked a codicil to her will,
leaving the bulk of her personal property to the
“Seaman's Disabled Home Association.”
Miss Hepzibah resided in the enchanted city of
Manhattan during the Winter months; but the
Summer solstice was passed on the New Hampshire
coast, in a cottage Gothique of her own, contiguous
to a fashionable hotel.
It was during the height of the watering-place
Miss Hepzibah had a lover!
After waiting for nearly half a century, the
Coming Man came — not her Beau Ideal, to be
sure; she had long ceased to dream of him; but a
real flesh and blood lover, with faults and virtues,
to whom Miss Hepzibah sometimes grimly alludes
as “that person.”
The Atlantic House was crowded with all sorts
of people — fops and belles, tinsel and gold: the
broken merchant with his three thin daughters
looking out, in smiling despair, for an itinerant
Rothschild: the everlasting family from the South
with a great deal of jewelry: the rich, obese old
gentleman, who always reminds you of Pickwick,
talks to everybody, loves fishing, is a favorite with
the young ladies, and calls the young gentlemen
“sad dogs,” slapping them heartily on the back, just
like the merry heavy father in a genteel comedy:
there was the small city clerk, putting on airs:
sensible slouched hat, making studies for studio-manipulation:
the pale gentleman who corresponds
with a metropolitan newpaper, and is said to have
once had a joke in London Punch: the retired
catholicon-maker, and several nondescript persons,
with a happy sprinkling of pretty girls in racy
basquines and distracting Godenskis.
Among this motley crowd were two persons who
figure in this chronicle.
Mr. Philip Winter was a young lawyer, aged 24,
with no end of money, and not the slightest ghost
of a client. Mr. Winter was a gentleman of a
good deal of “personal appearance,” and seemed
to be on very off-hand amiable terms with himself,
and a Miss Kate Brandon, of Brandon Fork,
a blithe Kentucky girl (what pretty women they
do get up in Kentucky,) who cultivated a blush-rose
in either cheek, guarding the same with a
pair of rather splendid eyes, which, when they
looked at you, seemed to run up and down the
many octaves you were.
I should not omit to mention Brandon senior —
Brandon padre — a courteous old gentleman and
very slim, who read the papers all day on the porch,
and looked as if he had tried to extinguish himself
with his hat, nothing but two ears preventing it
from resting on his shoulders.
It has been intimated that Mr. Winter and the
Kentucky beauty were on amiable terms. A
chance overhearing of the following fragment of
dialogue led me to that conclusion:
Scene: The sea-shore: the sun, shorn of all
its rays, attempting to balance itself, like an acrobat,
on the thin line of the horizon; the Atlantic,
with a languid lip, lapping long miles of snowy
beach; Mr. Philip Winter and Miss Kate Brandon
lounging by the bath-houses, in one of which is
the subscriber, getting himself up regardless of expense.
Philip. — but I love you, Kate.
Kate (looking out to sea) — Isn't that a fishing
smack?
Philip. — Hang the fishing smack! Won't you
be kind once?
Kate (opening those eyes) — Kind? how?
Philip. — By being serious with me.
Kate. — Nonsense; don't bother me. I declare
that's a fishing boat.
Philip. — Miss Kate Brandon!
Kate. — Mr. Philip Winter!
Philip. — Kate, I'm going back to New York.
Kate (dryly) — Good-by!
Philip. — How you torment me! Was there
ever such a Kate? Yes, one other, Petruchio's.
She got tame, at last. But I know you love me.
Haven't you told me so? Did you not rest your
lips, once, for a blissful half moment, on my forehead!
Kate (trying to remember.) — I really forget.
It must have been last week. (With sudden conviction.)
Now, wasn't it last week?
Philip. (wanting to eat her.) — I shall go quite
me kiss the cruelty from those——
Here the voices melted away, Miss Kate's musical
laugh sounded a fairy chime, now and then,
faintly in the distance.
I immediately made up my mind with regard to
the ultimate destiny of that precious pair. Youth
and beauty, and the currency of the realm — what
could be pleasanter?
Three nights after this gay glimpse into the affairs
of Miss Kate and her special pleader, I was
the luckless witness of another interview of a different
character, which was instrumental in forcing
upon my understanding the baseness and duplicity
of the human race.
The room I tenanted was in an L of the hotel,
and my one window, with its twelve square eyes,
looked plump into Miss Hepzibah's front garden,
with the intention, I think, of staring Miss Hepzibah's
Gothic cottage out of countenance.
It must have been sometime near midnight.
The intolerable heat had driven me to the open
blew rings of smoke out into the moonlight. I
was engaged in this intellectual enjoyment when I
heard Miss Hepzibah's cane rocking-chair creaking
on the porch opposite. There, in the silvery shadow,
sat Miss Hepzibah, like a festive old apparition,
bobbing to and fro, and cooling herself with
a large palm-leaf fan.
At that moment I saw Mr. Philip Winter walking
somewhat stiffly down the road. He paused
at the gate, it grated on its hinges, and the young
gentleman, passing through the arbor, stood before
Miss Hepzibah. And this is what I saw and
heard.
Miss Hepzibah gives a little scream.
Mr. Winter speaks to her in low musical tones.
Miss Hepzibah listens to the same.
Mr. Winter takes her hand with an air of infinite
tenderness.
Miss Hepzibah smirks.
Mr. Winter raises the hand to his lips.
Miss Hepzibah purrs.
Mr. Winter whispers something in her ear, and
then walks leisurely through the grape-arbor out
into the road, Miss Hepzibah looking after him,
fondly, like a Maltese cat.
Could I believe my eyes! I pinched myself,
and said the multiplication-table (as far as I
knew,) backwards and forwards: then tumbled
into bed, thinking how the light-hearted and bonny
Kate was dreaming a dream that would end in bitter
tears; and shaking my fist at the old wretch in
the Gothic cottage, I fell asleep.
The next morning the anger flew into my fingers'
ends at beholding Miss Brandon leaning cozily
on Philip Winter's arm, and caressing him with
her large brown eyes.
As the pair walked up from the beach, they met
Miss Hepzibah, robed in ridiculous splendor.
I watched the encounter without drawing a
breath.
Miss Brandon was making a bracelet of sea-kelp,
and did not observe her rival: Miss Hepzibah gave
a galvanic start; and Philip Winter lounged by
landscape.
I never saw anything more neatly done.
That night the same pantomine and whispers
were repeated on Miss Hepzibah's piazza, Miss
Hepzibah seeming even more pleased than previously
with Mr. Winter's dramatic adoration.
Now heaven knows that, though I seldom mind
my own business, I never meddle with any body
else's. But here was an aggravated case.
I took Mr. Brandon by the button hole one
afternoon, and disclosed to him the perfidy of his
intended son-in-law.
I never did a more injudicious thing.
When I had concluded, Mr. Brandon bowed
icily, and informed me that what I had told him
was simply impossible; Mr. Philip Winter was the
son of his dearest friend, a friend of forty years'
standing; he loved Philip himself as if he were
his own son; and then intimated the pain it
gave him (Mr. Brandon) to see a young man
(obliquely me) dulling his faculties and blighting
Still Catawba, and other spiritous liquors.
Miss Brandon, with a priceless tear hesitating on
either eyelash, hinted with charming candor that
there was, of course, one liar in the world who
was greater than any other liar, and that that particular
liar was at present an occupant of No. 97,
— my apartment.
Mr. Philip Winter, after denying point-blank,
that he had ever laid eyes on Miss Hepzibah, assured
me confidentially that if I and my traps (he
alluded to my trunks) were not out of the Atlantic
House within the brief space of two days, he
should take the liberty of pulling somebody's ears
in a manner more violent than might, perhaps, be
agreeable.
I was wild with mortification.
I thought of appealing to Miss Hepzibah herself;
but Miss Hepzibah was evidently Mr. Winter's acaccomplice;
I could hope for no justice in that
quarter.
Here, through mere kindliness of heart, I had
inaugurated a deadly quarrel with a reckless man
of the world.
I sat in my chamber, the victim of the darkest
melancholy. My pipe went out, and the moon
wrapped itself up in a cloud. Everybody had
gone to bed, the house was as silent as a tomb, and
and there I sat, face to face with my own dark
thoughts.
I began to imagine that may be I was insane;
that the midnight interview on the porch, the
whisper, the kiss, Miss Hepzibah, and everything
else, were only the vagaries of a disordered intellect.
Presently — as I sat there, falling out of one
depth of gloom into another — I heard Miss Hepzibah's
garden gate creak cautiously. I stole to
the window, hardly daring to hope what I hoped.
I gave but one glance, and then rushed to Mr.
Brandon's room on the opposite side of the hall.
I seized that gentleman half asleep, and dragged
him to my window.
Mr. Philip Winter was kneeling gracefully at
Miss Hepzibah's feet, in the act of kissing her
very venerable right hand.
There they were in the damaging white moonlight.
“Now sir,” I whispered, tremulous with triumph,
“there's some still and very sly Catawba
for you!”
I considered that a neat thing at the time.
There was not a drop of blood in Mr. Brandon's
face as he rested his hands on the window-sill,
with two fierce hazel eyes fixed upon Miss
Hepzibah and her lover.
“Sir,” he said, in a fearfully calm voice, wheeling
round on one heel, “allow me to bring a witness
to this.”
“Certainly.”
He left the room and presently returned, accompanied
by an elderly gentleman, an aged fac simile
of young Winter. I remembered being struck by
the likeness, when he alighted from the stage-coach
that evening.
“This,” said Mr. Brandon in the same unnaturally
calm voice, “this is Mr. Joseph Winter. I
wish to call his attention to those two persons on
the porch.”
With this he pushed the elderly gentleman to
the window.
Mr. Winter somewhat perplexed, looked, started,
and finally rubbed his nose with an impatient forefinger.
“Why,” he cried, “that's my Phil! Gracious
me! what is the boy doing? What, kissin —
good Lord, Phil is in one of his walking-fits!
He's subject to spells of somnambulism, you know,
and goes walking about on ridge-poles and mill-wheels,
and things like that fool-woman in the
opera. “You Phil!” thundered Mr. Winter.
“You Phil!”
I heard Miss Hepzibah give a scream like the
shrill whistle of a steam engine. It broke the
charm of young Winter's slumber. He stood, bewildered,
leaning against the garden-gate, while
inquiring of him if he intended to be a born fool
all the days of his life.
As to myself, my existence became a burden to
me.
“I'm sure” said bonny Kate, the next morning,
one cheek burning like the under side of a peony
petal, “I'm sure I can't think of marrying a man
who doesn't know when he's asleep!”
But she did, nevertheless; for the following antumn,
in the small whitewashed church that sanctifies
the primeval village of Rye, I heard these
two people say the life-long words together. I
then and there forgave Miss Kate's allusion to
No. 97, and promised to wear her name like a
rose in my memory, holding myself fortunate
moreover, in having a loyal friend in Miss Hepzibah's
lover.
As to Miss Hepzibah herself, she is, I believe,
still open to sealed proposals. Here's a chance for
you, young gentlemen! It would compensate a
her talk about Philip Winter.
She thinks he was not so fast asleep as he appeared
to be!
THE LADY WITH THE BALMORAL.
The Impressible Man's Story.
IF you will, for the sake of dramatic
propriety, imagine that I am not
myself, but my friend Mr. Tibbs, I
will tell you his story precisely as
that facetious gentleman related it
to me. Mr. Tibbs began and went
on as follows.
“By Jove!” cried Mr. Frederick Markem,
throwing back my chamber door with such violence
that the knob went into the wall about two inches.
I immediately upset my inkstand, for I am a nervous
man. The least noise startles me.
“O by Jove!” continued Mr. Markem, stretching
himself out in the arm-chair.
“Jove,” I remarked, “was a very estimable
person, in his way.”
“I have seen women,” said Mr. Markem, quietly
ignoring me, “I should think I had; handsome
women, too, by the streetful; but never in my
life did I ever lay eyes on such a glorious, superb,
magnificent, divine out-and-out ring-tailed snorter,
if I may be permitted to use the expression.”
I objected. I did not consider “ring-tailed
snorter,” whatever it might be, the proper phrase
under the circumstances; I did not know what
the circumstances were; it did not make any difference
what they were — there could be no circumstances
that would sanction such infelicity of
language. No, I objected.
Still Mr. Markem went on in an extravagant
manner, describing a lady whom he had met some
twenty minutes previously on the corner of Broadway
and Thirteenth street.
Juno, Hebe and Eurydice (so far as Mr. Markem
paled their ineffectual fires beside this later-day divinity;
and, as to the Venus de Medici — I quote
Mr. Markem — she knocked her higher than a
kite!
I myself am not aware of the height which
kites are popularly supposed to attain; but, accepting
his rodomontade at its proper value, I pictured
in my mind's eye the airy situation of the Venus
de Medici, and made no comment.
The lady whose beauty had robbed Mr. Markem
of what nature had not lavishly endowed him
with, had, it seems rendered his destruction complete
by sporting a red-and-black balmoral skirt,
conveniently short enough to make a modest display
of the prettiest feet and ankles in the world.
“You should have seen those feet,” said Mr.
Markem.
Mr. Markem then launched into a dissertation
on pedal extremities, drawing a comparison between
the feet of a Hong-kong belle and those
of the unknown, much in the manner of the celebrated
Thus:
If the foot of Tai-ping-wang was small, that of
the unknown was diminutive: if one was arched
like an eyebrow, the other was bent like a crescent;
one was faultless and the other perfection.
I was vastly relieved when Mr. Markem at length
retired to his own room to drown his restless soul,
as he intimated, in the intoxicating bowl. The inebriating
vessel so tragically alluded to was the
bowl of his meerschaum pipe. In a few minutes
such volumes of smoke came pouring through the
key-hole of the door which separated our apartments
that I rushed frantically into his chamber
with the vague apprehension of finding him a mass
of fire and cinder, bearing no distant resemblance
to a half-consumed balmoral.
“Pleasant, this!” said Mr. Markem, emitting
from his mouth a cloud of smoke that would have
done infinite credit to a moderately ambitious crater.
“It eases the soul so!”
I am an impressible man — nervous men always
the fair one with the golden locks was entirely toc
preposterous for a moment's thought, I lay wide
awake half the night thinking about it. Then I
sunk into a troubled sleep, only to dream that I
and the lady with the balmoral were being smoked
in an immense meerschaum pipe by a gigantic Mr.
Markem.
To disport with such trifles will the most vigorous
minds sometimes condescend!
The next day, in spite of myself, I thought of
Mr. Markem's adventure — if it is an adventure
to meet a pretty woman. In fact, I did nothing
but think of her and the tortuous dream of the
previous night. The hot aromatic meerschaum,
the lady with the balmoral, and the brobdignagic
Mr. Markem, flitted through my vision all day;
and in the evening when I went to see Clementina
— we had been engaged two weeks — I was meditative
and unhappy.
I felt that I was wronging Clementina.
Two days after this Mr. Markem again rushed
the same stage with her — her dress had brushed
against him — her dress! Eastern perfumes had
saluted his nostrils — the perfumes she used! He
had touched her exquisite finger-tips in passing the
change; and language was as milk-and-water to
express his emotions. The Venus de Medici was
again placed in an elevated position; and several
uncomplimentary remarks made relative to Mesdames
Juno, Hebe, and Eurydice.
“By Jove, Sir,” said Mr. Markem, “see what
I have done!”
And he jerked his watch out so violently that I
expcted to see the brass brains of that domestic
animal scattered over the floor.
“By Jove, Sir! when she passed me her fare,
two three-cent pieces, what did I do with 'em but
drop 'em into my vest pocket, and hand the whip
two gold dollars instead, by Jove! Look at
'em!”
And Mr. Markem opened the watch-case and
spilled the two bits of silver into the palm of his
as high as the top of Trinity steeple — could not
buy those sacred souvenirs. No, Sir! He would
have 'em put on a silk cord, and his children, in
future generations, should wear 'em around their
necks, and cut their teeth on 'em, by Jove! Part
with them! Would I accept his heart's blood as a
slight testimonial of his affectionate regards?
With this friendly offer Mr. Markem shut up the
three-cent pieces in his watch, and restored it to his
pocket.
“When the lady got out,” said I, hesitatingly,
“did you follow her?”
“Follow her? No, Sir! Could I imagine for
an instant that so ineffable a creature resided any
where? She's an inhabitant of the air — a denizen
of the milky-way! Follow her? I was entranced
— petrified — knocked higher than a kite!”
I could not help asking Mr. Markem if he met
the Venus de Medici coming down on his way up?
But this show of pleasantry on my part was the
merest counterfeit of jocularity.
The second meeting, and Mr. Markem's consequent
enthusiasm, worked like madness in my brain
I went to bed to lie awake for hours; and on fall
ing asleep to dream that I was crushed to death by
an avalanche of three-cent pieces which slid from
the roof of a palatial mansion in Fifth Avenue.
Then I was cast, heels over head, on an uninhabited
South Sea island, where the bananas and
cocoa-nuts were stuffed with the same scarce metal;
and, being on the verge of starvation, I devoured
a large quantity, and was about to die of indigestion
when the breakfast-bell rescued me from that
unpleasant alternative.
I was miserable and feverish, and a cup of strong
coffee at breakfast only made me more feverish
and more miserable.
I felt that I was doing Clementina an egregious
wrong by continuing our present relations; she
had ceased to hold that place in my heart which
only Mrs. Tibbs elect should occupy, and I had
ceased to give her that constant adoration which
only Mrs. Tibbs elect should receive. I determined
to her as gently as possible. I dreaded
the interview, for, as I have remarked I am a
nervous man, and I hate scenes. But it was an
imperative duty.
Still, I delayed the heart-rending moment; and
every evening found me sitting with Clementina,
who was all modesty and fondness, and gave me
such intoxicating little kisses in the library that, at
times, I was not quite so certain that I did not love
her.
Indeed I did, while I was with her; but when I
returned to my room, and was no longer in the
entrancing atmosphere which always surrounds a
refined woman, I felt that we could never be happy
together.
Clementina, I argued, is not so very superior to
fifty other ladies of my acquaintance. It is true
she has beautiful hair, fine eyes and teeth, a stylish
figure, and a voice like Cordelia's,
—“ever soft,
Gentle, and low: an excellent thing in woman!”
snaps like an enthusiastic fire-craker. But then
these qualities are not peculiar to Clementina.
There is the sarcastic Miss Badinage, and the
fascinating Miss Bonton.
To be honest, I was trying to convince myself
that I wasn't a knave. But I was.
In the mean time Mr. Markem had twice seen
the ineffable creature of the milky-way — once on
the street, and once taking lunch at Thompson's.
I do not dare to remember how wretched I was.
I gave my best razors to our old book-keeper at the
office, and never ventured to trust myself within
two blocks of the North River. I was irrevocably
in love with Mr. Markem's sweet stranger; and
Clementina —
I nerved myself for a final interview with my
victim. One afternoon, in calm despair, I dressed
myself for that purpose. I had brushed my hat
for the four hundred and seventh time, growing
calmer and more despairing at each stroke, when
Mr. Markem sailed into my room.
I am aware that “sailed” is not a happy expression,
but no other word will describe the easy,
swan-like grace with which Mr. Markem entered
my apartment. He was gotten up without any
regard to expense. Lord Dundreary was never
so nobbily ganté. Solomon in all his glory was
not arrayed like Mr. Markem.
He was going to air his magnificence on Broadway,
with the hope of meeting the ineffable.
“Tibbs,” said Mr. Markem, familiarly, “behold!
— “the glass of fashion and the mould of
form.' By Jove! if this sort of thing doesn't take
her!”
“By-the-by, Markem, I am going down Broadway.
I'll walk a block or so with you.”
Mr. Markem hesitated.
“O you are?”
“Yes.”
“By Jove! now, I don't know about that. I'm
a trifle tender on this subject — tender for you also.
If you should see her and become unhappy, it
would be no use for you to — to —”
And Mr. Markem picked out the ends of his
cherry-colored neck-ribbon with a noli-me-tangere
air quite delightful.
“Oh! of course not,” said I.
“Honest?”
“Honest.”
“Then, by Jove! I'll trust you. But, honor
bright, Tibbs! honor bright!”
We sauntered out of Clinton place into Broadway.
I was very ill at ease, not only from the fact of
walking with so gorgeous a person, but at the
thought of meeting that woman, the mere description
of whose exceeding loveliness had filled my
brain with visions like so much hasheesh. I was,
moreover, somewhat ashamed of myself for having
taken advantage of Mr. Markem's confiding
nature; and could not wring the smallest drop of
consolation from the accepted assertion that all is
fair in war and love.
It was rather too early in the afternoon, as Mr.
Markem poetically remarked, for the flowers of
dropped into Delmonico's, to flirt with a thimbleful
of Maderia and eat an omelette souflée, which,
to my idea, is nothing but a heavenly kind of soapsuds.
When we again sallied forth the fashionable side
of Broadway was a perfect parterre of human lilies
and roses. We walked slowly up town, looking
earnestly among the eddying throng, for that
divine perfection of a woman who had unconsciously
made me the most miserable of men.
We had reached Bleecker street.
An omnibus on the crossing and an apple-stand
on the corner hemmed us in.
Mr. Markem suddenly grasped my arm.
“There! there she is!” he whispered.
“Where?”
“There!”
“I dont see her.”
“Why there, Tibbs.”
“Oh,” said I, with bitter disappointment, “that
is only Miss Bonton!”
“No, no — not she, but the one behind her on
the crossing — the lady with the balmoral!”
“Why, you villain!” I shrieked, “that's my
Clementina!”
At the same time I gracefully upset the apple-stand.
Mr. Frederick Markem drew his hat over his
brows and rushed down Bleecker street.
That evening he and his Coblentz pipes, his
French lithographs, and his Florentine vases disappeared
abruptly in a hackney-coach, in search
of a new boarding-place.
Clementina — now the blossoming Mrs. Tibbs
— leans over my shoulder, and protests against my
airing all this nonsense about “that odious Mr.
Markem;” but I have promised the article for the
æsthetic Monthly, and I am going to print it, in
spite of the Lady with the Balmoral.
THE CUP AND THE LIP.
A Christmas Story.
LONG before General Washington
snubbed a senile king, and set up
a coat-of-arms on his own account,
there stood near the mouth of the
Piscataqua river, a large square
wooden building, that seemed seriously
proud of having violated
every known rule of architecture.
It being just the sort of structure that would not
admit of a cupola, it sported a very massive one,
from which might have been seen the garrison
house at Portsmouth, and beyond, the white caps
of the Atlantic, breaking in silver and azure on
Newcastle Light.
Something like two hundred years ago, there
dwelt between the walls of this eccentric habitation
the following more or less interesting personages.
Mr. Jeffrey Langdon (the Heavy Father of our
drama.)
Mrs. Mehitable Langdon (the Mercenary Mother.)
And Miss Gervase Langdon (the Heroine coming
to grief.)
Mr. Langdon had once been a man of great
wealth; but a series of disasters, including a scalping
frolic on the part of the neighboring Womponsags,
a playful tribe, had reduced his fortune to
about forty acres of good land, the Langdon
mansion, and the Langdon family. In the last
was his greatest wealth — Gervase Langdon.
I shall spare her the martyrdom of heroines.
I shall not describe her. Never, since gentlemen
were invented; never, since the first author wet the
first goosequill in the first ink-horn, preparatory to
dashing off his first chapter, was there ever a heroine
might, indeed, tell you something about the trimmest
figure, and the sauciest blue eyes, that ever
fell to the lot of a Puritan maiden; but then you
would have no more idea of her than if I had
done her in wax.
The lads of the village were distracted about
Gervase; the old men looked at her sunny face,
and immediately remembered their courting-days;
and even her rivals forgave her beauty, she was
such a warm-hearted little buccaneer.
It would take me all day to draw up merely a
list of the hearts which this playful Lamb split in
two, at divers times, from the moment she put on
long dresses until her seventeenth year. So I
shall not do it. But at last Gervase herself came
to grief, and it is at this momentous epoch that our
curtain rises.
It was snowing, as it can snow only in New England.
Great white feathers came floating down
from the blank clouds, darkening the whole atmosphere.
Stone-walls, and roads, and barns, and fat
into the earth, threatening to leave everything
level.
At one of the diamond-shaped windows of the
Langdon house, stood Gervase, looking out at the
snow. She was weeping and trying not to weep.
The instant a tear came, she brushed it aside with
a handkerchief small enough to be the personal
property of a fairy; but scarcely was one tear
wiped away when another sprung up to take its
place. Now, as a general thing I am not fond
of Niobe. Women are not pretty when they cry.
But please imagine Gervase. Imagine one of
Eytinge's clear-eyed women looking out of a
Gothic window by Vaux, upon one of George
Boughton's winter landscapes.
In the same room with Gervase Langdon was
her mother, an oldish lady with sharp features,
who sat by the wide-mouthed fireplace, toasting
her feet in the face and eyes of two grotesque andirons.
While we stood outside, admiring the
troubled face at the window, there had been a
these two. We are just in time to catch the last
of it.
Gervase has laid her hot cheek against the cool
window-glass, over which the frost has woven a
curtain, shutting out the bleak snowscape; old
Mrs. Langdon sits with her hands folded on her
lap. It is truce between them.
Presently Mrs. Langdon looks up.
“Davie Howe's grandfather came over in the
Mayflower. A proper good family is Davie Howe's,
and very, very old.”
“So is he,” said the Lamb at the window.
There are none so deaf as those who won't
hear.
“He owns the new wheat-houses. He is a man
of mark. He is as rich as —”
As he can be, Mrs. Langdon was going to say.
As he is ugly, Gervase was going to say.
But neither finished the sentence. It was cut
short by an interruption, and the interruption proceeded
from Gervase herself.
While Madam Langdon was exploiting Davie
Howe's pedigree, Gervase had been unconsciously
tracing something on the window-pane with one
of her taper fingers. When Gervase's tearful eyes
fell upon her handiwork, she broke out in a silvery
ringing laugh, and pointed to the window.
“What's that, child?” cried Madam Langdon
startled.
“Only see!” said Gervase laughing through
her tears. [I shall not afflict the reader with a
venerable allusion to April.] “Only see! it is
for all the world just like it!”
“Like what?”
And this is what the Lamb's pearl of a nail had
traced in the frosty glass:
“Why, Davie Howe's nose!” shrieked Gervase.
The enemy held up her hands in horror.
At this moment Jeffry Langdon came in from
the barn. As he shook the snow off his long
peruke, he looked at his wife, and the following
silent diologue ensued:
His eyes. Have you told her?
Her eyes. Yes.
His eyes. What does she say?
Her eyes. No!
This is what was the matter.
Next to the Langdon estate was Squire Howe's
farm — the best tilled and most valuable tract of
land in the township. This fact had frequently
impressed itself on old Langdon's mind, but never
so forcibly as when Davie Howe's son, who had
been educated by his father's relatives in England,
returned to the homestead to assist Davie in managing
the establishment, and ultimately, to be its
sole proprietor. Mr. Langdon looked at Gervase,
and then at Richard Howe, and said,
“They were made for each other.”
And when the old gentleman saw his roguish
son, his heart was glad within him. But at
the very moment when his hopes were brightest,
and his heart was lightest, an event took place
which rather interfered with his plans.
Richard Howe died.
Gervase was sorry, as anybody is when anybody
lies.
Then old Langdon, like the philosopher he was,
said to himself:
“If Gervase can't wed Davie Howe's son —
and she can't, he being dead — she can wed Richard
Howe's father.”
It was a brilliant idea.
But Gervase failed to see it.
In fact, at that time Gervase did not see much
of anything, save Walter Brandt. It was not
quite plain to me how this came about; but one
day as young Brandt stood looking at her with all
his eyes, there was a tumult among the rose-leaves
on Gervase's cheek; and Gervase's heart went
beating against Gervase's corsets in a manner marvellous
as quick as that.
The Lamb flirted no more.
The village lads and lassies knew what that
meant.
So it came to pass that she did not weep
so much for Richard Howe as she might have
done under different circumstances.
When Mr. Langdon was informed of these
things by an observant neighbor, that gentleman
was wroth overmuch.
“Walter Brandt,” he said, “hath not land
enough for a crow to stand on. I'll hear no more
of it!”
Then there was trouble in the family. The
doors of the Langdon house were closed against
Walter, and the Buccaneer was forbidden to hold
converse with the Outcast.
“I cannot get rich here,” said Walter Brandt.
“I'll seek fortune elsewhere. Will you be true to
me? Will you marry me, if I come back in
three years, Gervase?”
“Ay, if you come back within fifty years!”
said the brave hearted little Buccaneer.
So they kissed, and cried, and parted, as many
a pair has done before and since and will again.
Walter had been gone over two years. Only
one letter — which Gervase wore right next to her
warm heart — was all the tidings that had reached
her from the wanderer. In those days, however,
people seldom got more than three or four letters
during their entire lives. She made the most of
one, and waited patiently for the happy day; and
would not have been inconsolable if Davie Howe's
name had not become a familiar word in her family.
Then Davie Howe himself, under favor of
Mr. Langdon's sanction, pressed his suit and made
himself very disagreeable. In the meanwhile
Gervase had been treated with great tenderness by
her parents, who used all their gentle eloquence to
persuade the Lamb to drink at the same stream
with the old wolf. But she wouldn't.
One day things took an unpleasant color.
“Widow Brandt's son is coming back to the
Langdon.
Mr. Langdon wheeled about on one heel.
“Coming back?”
“Yes.”
“How d'ye know?” he asked, sharply.
“My brother has writ it to me from Holland,”
said neighbor Goodman proudly. And he drew
out the letter.
“Have you told this to any one?”
“Nay, I have this moment received the document.”
“John, you shall have that strip of hay-land at
your offer.”
“Thank you, neighbor Langdon heartily.”
And Mr. Langdon made a feint of hurrying off;
he walked two paces, paused, and said, in a nervous
manner:
“And, John, you'll not need to mention
that affair — the letter — you know. And, John,
how long would it take to go to Holland?”
He meant how long would it take to come from
there.
“Three months or more,” said John.
Mr. Langdon went home.
“Gervase shall marry Davie Howe this Christmas,”
said he.
“But I wont!” said that young lady, when
Madam Langdon broke the subject to her; and
then ensued that combat which ended in headache
and inglorious tears.
As the old folks sat by the fire that night, and
as the coffin-like clock on the staircase doled out
eight, Mr. Langdon started and looked up at his
wife.
“Four years ago to-night —”
Then she too remembered.
Four years ago that day, their son Will was lost
off Newcastle Light. Four years ago that night,
the waves threw his body, scornfully, on the rocks.
It was a sorry anniversary for the Langdon family.
Hitherto Mr. Langdon had tried by dint of patient
Davie Howe; but when he found that Walter
Brandt would probably come to the relief of the
distressed garrison before many months, he changed
his tactics. One day he would expostulate with
her solemnly, then he would take no notice of the
poor child for a week. This was hard to bear.
It was cruel not to be spoken to; it made Gervase
feel like a poor relation at her father's table. But
even that was not so heartbreaking as to have him
coax her, and plead with his eyes — the eyes
which used to look so lovingly on her. That was
bitter almonds.
“I wish I were lying in the churchyard!” said
Gervase white as death.
“You must marry Davie Howe!” cried Mr.
Langdon, out of patience.
In the meantime the color went out of her
cheeks; her eyes wore a lack-lustre look; she
went about the house like somebody's unhappy
shadow; and the lips that used to bud and blossom
into laughter, had forgotten how to smile. Heartache
to bed.”
Gervase had not a soul to help her in this unequal
bombarding. Now and then she scattered
the old people with a gun loaded to the muzzle
with feminine grape and canister, but not often.
The enemy saw that she was weakened, and plied
their shot unmercifully. Her guns hung fire now.
The small sarcastic shells which she threw at the
allies' outworks broke weakly in the air, and did
no damage. She had parted company with Hope,
and the enemy's lines came down on her. What
could Gervase do? She tried to die; but I have
observed that people never die when they want to.
At last she threw herself on her mother's bosom,
and said:
“I dont care what becomes of me — sell me if
you will. But,” she added, with a show of her
old spirit, “isn't there anybody who will give
more for me than Davie Howe offers? I seem to
be going very cheap!”
This rather dashed the old folks.
But they sent for Davie Howe. Davie Howe
leered, and kissed her hand, and Gervase shrunk
back, as if an asp had stung her.
It was Christmas Eve. It was freezing cold;
the snow had commenced falling shortly after twilight;
flake after flake lighted on the ragged trees
and the stiff fences, like millions of magical white
birds.
It was Christmas Eve. There were bright
lights in the Langdon mansion; the windows glared
out on the darkness like great sinister eyes: Gervase
was to be married.
The peparations for this event were on an extensive
scale. There was to be music; and young
ladies in powder, and crimson farthingales, and
high-heeled shoes, were to float languidly through
monotonous minuets; there was to be a feast, and
a charade, and a puppet-show, and heaven knows
what not.
The ceremony was to take place at eight. At
seven o'clock the rooms were already crowded.
Garmented and garlanded for the sacrifice, Gervase
of fair young girls, who, for the first time in their
lives, did not envy the belle of the settlement.
Her pallid face and faded lips told rather a terrible
story. But she looked enchantingly, from the
highest wave of her blonde tresses down to the
diamond-studded buckles on the white satin slippers.
Her costume, ladies?
Silk, and things.
As she sat in the large, heavy-carven oak chair,
two pretty feet were just visible underneath her
tremendous hoop — two supple ankles crossed coquettishly.
The young men of the village, passing
by the half-opened door, beheld them, and grieved.
It was a quarter after seven, and expectation was
on tiptoe for the arrival of the bridegroom.
For several days prior to the time appointed for
the ceremony that ancient gentleman, Davie
Howe, was in a fever with regard to his bridal
costume, which was intended to go a trifle beyond
anything that had been seen in the Colonies.
It was to be a gorgeous affair, gotten up without
regard to expense, or anything else. The village
under—I mean tailor, sent it home piecemeal.
First, the coat, blazing scarlet, richly trimmed
with gold braid, and faced with watered-silk.
Next, the long-waisted waistcoat of maroon cloth.
Then the white silk hose. Then the faint-blue
satin choker.
But the small-clothes, the grand, elaborate, black
velvet knee-breeches, that marvel of human art,
—there had been some mistake in them.
First they were too tight, and a seam was let out.
Then they were too large, and a seam was taken
in.
And then they didn't fit at all.
In the mean time, the happy day had dawned,
and Davie Howe's small-clothes were not finished.
Twenty times that morning did Davie send a messenger
to the distracted artist; and twenty times
was the messenger sent back with the assurance
that the garment should be ready in season.
Six o'clock arrived, and the knee-breeches did
his horse, and dashed over the glaring ice to the
village, three miles off, with the unalterable determination
to scalp the luckless tailor.
Half-past seven came, and the elder Langdon
grew uneasy. What could have occurred? And
then a quarter of eight dropped in naturally
enough, like a bore to dinner. The guests looked
perplexed and amused; eight o'clock struck
satirically, and a half-suppressed titter went round
the room. There was an awful pause.
Mrs. Langdon smiled upon the people in a helpless,
ghastly manner.
The bride's maids, up stairs, lounged in groups,
whispering: Gervase sat staring vacantly at the
carpet, the fingers of one hand unconsciously playing
with the carved oak-leaves and acorns on the
arm of the chair.
A measured step was heard on the stairway.
The women ceased whispering, and glanced toward
the door. Gervase lifted her eyes.
Walter Brandt stood looking at her.
That this was his ghost, come to reproach her
on her bridal-night, was the idea that flashed
across Gervase. She shrunk back in the chair.
Walter Brandt stood beside her, and, without
speaking a word, drew from his finger a well-worn
gold ring, which Gervase had given him three
years before. This he dropped in her lap, and
walked wearily away.
Then Gervase sprung from the chair, and
caught him in her arms, and—I know it was terribly
unmaidenly of her, but she kissed him directly
on the mouth.
That instant, Miss Langdon, down stairs, gave
a scream.
“Davie Howe hath slipped up on the ice, and
broken his leg,” was the intelligence conveyed to
Mrs. Langdon from the village.
“Poor Gervase!” said somebody.
But there were some ill-natured persons there
who thought, may be, that Gervase would n't
weep herself to death.
Mr. and Mrs. Langdon, with two or three more
news to the bride. They found that bereaved
young creature quietly leaning her head on Wal
ter Brandt's shoulder!
“Monster!” shrieked Mrs. Langdon.
Her meaning remained a profound mystery.
Whether she alluded to Walter, or Gervase, or
poor Davie Howe himself, never transpired.
Don't be a fool, my dear,” said Mr. Langdon
in persuasive tones to his wife. “It is clear that
Providence hath been against us in this matter.
I have nothing to say. The girl may wed whom
she likes.”
I trust this remark was disinterested on Mr.
Langdon's part, but suspect that neighbor Goodman
had something to do with it.
“He's made a mint o'money,” remarked Goodman,
sotto voce, to Mr. Langdon.
There was no wedding that night in the Langdon
mansion; but as there was a bride waiting, a
banquet spread, a charade to be solved, and a minuet
So was Davie Howe left out in the cold.
A stitch in time saves nine. This is true of wed
ding garments and all terrestrial things.
It would be an anachronism for me to wish Gervase
a merry Christmas at this late day; for the
Lamb was taken tenderly to the fold ages and ages
ago. It would be superfluous, too; for I believe
that Gervase and Walter, and all true lovers who
have died, are enjoying eternal Christmas, somewhere.
| Out of his head | |