University of Virginia Library

31. CHAPTER XXXI.
MISS DARE'S EXPEDITION WITH AN ESCORT.

MISS Dare had made an appointment with Mr.
Naughton, for a ride to Bay-Harbor, and he set
himself immediately about securing a steed for
his own use on the occasion, Agamemnon, (Dunk,) his own
horse being lame. The Minister's he did not quite like to
borrow. Mr. O'Rourke sent word, in answer to a verbal
request, that “he would as soon take Mr. Naughton on
his own back, as lend his horse;” and the exigency was
met, at length, by the engagement of Jemmy Fitz-Simmons's
white pony, whose regular rate of rentage was
one dollar (five shillings, currency,) a day, and who certainly
made an honest day's work of it, (that is, spent a
fair working-day, or rather more about it,) when employed
to go eight miles in one direction, or ten in the
other. In consideration of Mr. Naughton's being a new
customer, and of his being to ride with a lady, (who
might very likely lead him into that extravagance again,)
Jemmy offered the beast for the day at four shillings instead
of five; and on the other hand, in accordance with

a message that Mr. Naughton had specially enjoined upon
his messenger, undertook to have his pony in the best
trim possible, for the intended expedition.

At half-past seven o'clock the next morning, there were
present, at the rendezvous, the young lady, well-mounted,
and the gentleman on foot, but with spurs on his heels,
ready for the Fitz-Simmonian steed, when he should be
astride of it. Though he had made this appointment, to
take horse at the corner of the drung on which the
worthy little Irishman lived, in order to save time, yet he
had gallantly escorted Miss Dare from the door of her
uncle's house.

“If Fitz-Simmons is at work putting spirit into his
horse up to the very last minute, I don't know how much
I shall see of you between this and Bay-Harbor,” said
she, as they got to the corner and found it unoccupied by
man or beast.

The first appearance of the absentees was not at all as
unpromising as might have been expected in accordance
with a general and long-established public opinion.
Jemmy brought up his horse, not at a trot, to be sure,
(a gait such as men like,) but certainly at a palpable—a
very palpable—canter; while he assured Mr. Naughton
(lest that gentleman should be afraid of extravagant animation
under him by-and-by,) that “he wouldn't make
that free with any one, only his master.” Thus encouraged,
Mr. Naughton mounted, the creature bringing
round his great white head and rubbing it, with a strong
upward jerk, against the whole side of the future equestrian's
clothes, on which this salutation left a greasy soil.
That the animal's toilette had not been neglected, was
evident, from the marks of the curry-comb imprinted
durably in the discolored and highly-scented fur of one

side of him, which fur answered to the adhesive material
in which it was mixed, much the same purpose that cow's
hair is employed for in mortar.

“He didn't look so good as he felt,” was the owner's
assurance, who knew him best; and, having assisted at
the mounting, the owner discreetly took himself away.

As the little beast had an inconvenient way of sidling
up to any other quadruped who might be near enough for
him to practise that manœuvre upon, the attempt was soon
made to keep him in advance; but here he was so effectual
an obstructive, getting always across the way, that the
attempt to follow his leading was not kept up with that
persistence with which men tie themselves to the lead of
conservative (whig) statesmen, or submit to the blocking
of a privileged “governing class,” as the scandalous
phrase now goes in England; the spirited horsewoman,
with a dexterous cut of her whip, at the right time, took
the place which belongs of property to the competent.

Now, with a horse like Miss Dare's (which was a good
one) in advance, it must be a matter of compromise
if the two companions were to keep company. Mr.
Naughton, did, it may fairly be supposed, his best. He
stuck his spurs into the pony's side; but from the effect
produced it might be doubted whether the little beast had
not the power of drawing in his nerves from the surface
of his body, as a turtle draws in his claws. The rider
procured a serviceable stick, to coöperate with his spurs,
as a fleet combines operations with a land army; but the
pommelling that he was obliged to bestow to produce a
short-lived mitigation of the vis inertiæ in which the
creature moved, seemed so cruel, that he could not do
justice to that method, by faithful practise of it. At
times the pony cantered for five successive paces, but

the amount of progression secured in this way, was much
what a table (before these days of table-tipping, of
course,) could be made to accomplish by having its two
legs at each end, alternately lifted and put down upon
the ground.

Our horsewoman, accordingly, could hardly help getting
nearly out of sight, now and then, though she waited
duly for her escort, at convenient distances; occupying
the interval for the first part of the way between Peterport
Riverhead and Castle-Bay, with short visits at the
doors of two or three houses, whose inmates she knew as
being in the habit of bringing eggs or poultry, or some
such little wares, to her uncle's, for sale.

Mr. Naughton had attempted conversation, most zealously,
according to his slender opportunities; he had
remarked upon the pleasant woodland smell, as they went
along the way skirted with trees, where the young birches
had come out beyond the limits of the little forest, like
children playing at a short safe distance in front of their
homes. Again,—after an interval,—on the summit of the
hill, in Castle-Bay, whose side is precipitous to the water,
and down the face of which the road goes as steeply,
almost, as a waterfall, (or as Whitmonday Hill, in Peterport,)
he had spoken of the lovely landscape, in which the
breadth of Conception-Bay makes so great a part. Miss
Dare's bright eye was not only open to all beauties of
nature, but had found them out long ago, and grown
familiar with them, and saw in them what nothing but a
quick eye, practised, could have seen; and Mr. Naughton,
as they paused, for a breathing-space, at this look-out,
forgot his steed, and the difficulties of horsemanship;
for with all his ecclesiology and fuss about tapers and
altar-cloths, he had had his heart flashed into before now,

by burning eyes, and had not been regardless of becoming
dress. There was his fair companion, with the flush of
exercise in her cheek; her veil flowing out upon the
wind; her hair slightly disengaged; her white forehead
looking as unapproachable as one of the cliffs that hang
over the sea in the British Channel; and her eyes, with a
liquid lustre floating through them, like that which might
roll its tide of light about in the fabled caves of the sea.
Just now, as gazing more thoughtfully than usual, or,
rather, more silently (for she always had thought enough)
on the deep, she sat with lovely ease and grace, upon her
horse, he might have felt as if a very special moment had
come. There she was, all relieved against the sheer
sky; and her lips, that had said so many witty and pretty
things, silent.

“Miss Dare,” he said, seizing the occasion.

“Beautiful!” said she, finishing with her landscape;
and then, as she turned to him, “Why, what solemn exordium
is that, Mr. Naughton? Are you going to decline
going any further? Let's both get off and walk down
this hill, and take a new start down there at the turn of
the road. Shall we?”

Mr. Naughton's mind was surrounded and hindered
by the building-materials, out of which he was putting
together that slowest and hardest of constructions which
men make of words with very little cement, and he could
not, therefore, instantly get out of them; accordingly,
though this proposal was a welcome one, as walking down
the hill together would give him so much more of her
society, yet she had dismounted, easily, before he was
ready to ask for her horse's bridle-rein. He was not
long, however, for his distance to the ground was very
moderate, and his heart was vigorous.

“Don't you recollect the dog in the fable,” she asked,
“that had a piece of meat, but lost it, jumping for
another?”

The gentleman had in his mind something a great deal
more appropriate to the present occasion than that fable,
(of which he did not see the exact reference, at such a
moment;) he had what must be said, or the time for it
would have gone by. It was a quotation; and as he
went down, leading her horse, he got it forth.

“Ah! Miss Fanny, do you remember those lines of
Burns: `We've climbed life's hill together?'”

“Not quite that; but a good deal like it; `thegither'
is the pretty Scottish;—but do please attend to my fable,
Mr. Magistrate, if you expect us to go down this hill,
thegither; look to your Arabian courser, or you'll lose
him.”

Now, though it will never do to let one's self get into a
ludicrous or awkward position in the eyes of a lady
whom he values, yet there are different ways of escaping
that ill-luck; sometimes by overbearing and putting down
circumstances; sometimes by giving way to and following
them; sometimes by taking dexterous advantage of them
and turning them to account. Mr. Naughton's wit was in
a sharpened state; he saw at once that he might just as
well cast off his quotation and abandon it to the waters
of oblivion; as to his horse, the creature wouldn't go,
with all the appliances that he could bring to bear upon
him, and could be recovered in half a minute.

“You'd better leave me Brutus,” said Miss Dare, as
the gentleman turned up the hill, holding her horse's
rein; “I'll give him back to you, when you've got Fitz-Simmons.”
“Very good;” answered Mr. Naughton with
a few hasty steps getting up with the pony. The little

beast was cropping such grass as the top of that picturesque
hill sustained. He did not look round, or take
his teeth off his food, but he quietly turned towards his
late rider a part of his body which wore no bridle, and
was unoccupied in eating.

Grecians and Romans often made great work of it
when they fought, with their wives, and mothers, and
beloved maidens looking on; but here was a fortress to
be charged that could turn faster and better than a
windmill, and bring a pair of ugly heels to the defence.

“He'll stand on his dignity now, after all that's been
said and done to him, like the boy in Wednesbury church,
that stopped the bellows, to show what part in the music
he played,” said the maiden, spectator of the contest of
agility and skill, then and there going on.

“Woa!” cried Mr. Naughton, in a soothing and conciliatory
tone, perfectly fair in war, and trying to get up
beside the pony; but as the moon turns one face to the
earth continually, and not another, so Jemmy Fitz Simmons's
little horse seemed to follow the same laws of
gravitation, offering always to the nobler animal the self-same
part.

Mr. Naughton strove to settle this method of argument
by a hearty thwack, which was very fairly administered.
This manœuvre, like a shake of a kaleidoscope, brought
about a new disposition of the pieces making our figure:
the horse, snatching up his head, whirled round on his
hind feet and began to go—not as might have been expected
of a shrewd little fellow, that had often been
through the same simple process of reasoning upon that
point, towards home—in which direction grass was just as
cheap and good at the wayside, and every step was away
from a journey,—but down hill, though keeping the side

near the garden-rod fence. Mr. Naughton, with dignity,
kept the road a little behind.

When the beast reached, as he soon did, a place where
the road, being cut down, left himself on the top of a
bank, he then turned round abruptly, and got himself
beyond his pursuer in the other direction.

Any one who has been through this process of catching
a slow-footed horse, with predilections for pasture, can
fancy the further progress of the pursuer and pursued.
The pony enacted to the best of his ability the part of
the pretty little butterfly, leading on and eluding the boy;
but on the other side of the hill from Miss Dare, several
circumstances turned to the help of Mr. Naughton; he
had left his dignity behind, within the young lady's sight,
and, moreover, the road backward lay through the flakes,
on which the women were already turning and spreading
the fish and while their being there took some nimbleness
from his limbs, it also secured as many feet and
hands as were needed for his purpose. The pony was
at length caught on the beach, under a flake, with his
face magnanimously towards the deep, and his left ankle
hobbled with his bridle-rein, which he either could not or
would not break. So he was recovered; but what time
and possible opportunities had been lost! Mr. Naughton
broke his substantial stick, not as an official breaks his
staff of office, having no farther use for it, but in actual
discharge of authority upon the offender.

Miss Dare was not where he had left her: having
laughed heartily at the beginning and first steps of the
chase, she had gently descended the hill; had leisurely
mounted at a rock by the roadside, and was waiting at
the little bridge (or perhaps it was a ford then) before
you get to the long hill, down which comes now a later

way, and a less steep one, than that which alone crossed
it in that day.

The view is a very fair one as you get to the highest
level between Castle-Bay and Bay-Harbor. Upon the
left, in the direction of the Barrens, the eye catches the
sheen of more than one inland lake, and on the right
hand and before you lies large and grand the Bay, with
lightly-wooded ups and downs between—sometimes abrupt
contrasts of height and hollow,—which are very
picturesque.

The air on this bright day was clear and exhilarating,
and Miss Dare and her horse alike found it difficult to
accommodate themselves to the tardy pace of “Fitz,” as
Mr. Naughton's courser was by this time called. The
gallant gentleman who bestrode this lagging steed, felt
the awkwardness of his position, but could not make it
any better. After a violent exertion of one arm and hand,
and both legs and feet, to which the pony was an unwilling
party, the effect produced was much as if he had
been working a rude electrical machine; a nervous force
was generated, which spent itself in three and a half
spasmodic, cantering steps of the quadruped. This display
of scientific manipulation, the horseman hesitated to
exhibit before the unappreciative inhabitants of certain
dwellings, that began to appear in the neighborhood of
the Riverhead of Bay-Harbor, and still more in presence
of the more frequent houses that fronted the road from
that place onward, and therefore the latter half of the
way from Castle-Bay was traversed with more leisurely
dignity than the former.

“You left off at `climbed life's hill thegither,'” said
Miss Dare, prompting her companion in his unfinished
part.

“Ah! yes, and I was going—if I hadn't”—

—“`been interrupted,'” she supplied, “to the Roman
Catholic Mission at Bay-Harbor.”

Even in the midst of an apparent preoccupation of
mind, Mr. Naughton was astonished.

“Yes, and on your business too. You remember how
Deborah took Barak, son of Abinoam, with her, and how
Sisera was delivered `into the hand of a woman?'”

Whether by the suggestion of the last five words, or,
however prompted, Mr. Naughton's interest even in the
strange object of Miss Dare's visit to Bay-Harbor, was
diverted to an object of his own.

There was one occult part of that Bay-Harbor road,
with a bank to the left, and a fence and some firs to the
right, a bend in front and a descent behind, where Mr.
Naughton began to check his steed with the voice, and
the steed began to stop.

“Why, what has happened to Fitz-Araby now, Mr.
Magistrate?” inquired Miss Dare, reining up and turning
her horse about; “has he dropped one of his legs, at
last, in practising that very skilful pace?”

Mr. Naughton answered only indirectly, by repeating
his request to his pony, soothingly,—

“Wo-o! wo-o! wo—o!” and stimulating him with his
armed heels, looking, moreover, down towards the pony's
left forefoot, assiduously.

In addition to the dilated monosyllable which had
been hitherto applied to Fitz and counteracted by the
spurs, the horseman must have drawn upon the bridle,
for before coming up with the larger beast, the lesser
stood still. The spurs were still actively employed, but
with the rein exerted against them were inefficient to
produce motion, and rather fastened the feet with intense

tenacity to the ground. Miss Dare witnessed every thing
with a smile. Mr. Naughton's mind was not at all fettered
and kept down to the circumstances by which it
was temporarily surrounded, for he found his voice and
spoke out of the midst of them, without any reference to
Fitz, or rein, or spur.

“Oh!” said he, “if I could dare to hope that you
would be persuaded to make the journey of life with me,
Miss Dare”—

“Oh, no, Mr. Naughton, of course not,” she said;
“shall we go on to Bay-Harbor? We shall be companions
so far, and back, if you please.”

He loosed his tightened rein, applied, sadly, his stick
and spurs, and in sadness which he could not hide, went
forward. The answer was perhaps just the one best
adapted to his case; but it did not take its specific effect
immediately.

Father Terence was at home, and kind and courteous
as usual. Miss Dare told him directly, that she wished
his permission to ask a question at the Nunnery about
the missing girl; and he wrote a note,—taking his time
to it,—in which, as she requested,—he introduced her,
without mentioning the object of her visit. He undertook
the entertainment of Mr. Naughton, who was very
grave and agitated, and whom, therefore, the kind-hearted
man mistook for the father of the maiden, and tried to
occupy about other things.

When Miss Dare came back from her interview with
the nun, she found Father Terence showing Mr. Naughton
as heartily and hospitably over “the grounds,” as if
there were a thousand acres of them, all waving with
grain or larger growth, or carpeted with green herbs.

There was, indeed, a potato-garden, in dimensions

about forty feet by sixty, and as stony almost as a macadamized
road, and a little patch of potato-onions, of which
the worthy Priest was rather proud; there was a pigsty
grunting, and squelching, and squeeling, with pigs of
every size; and there were flocks of geese, and turkeys,
and ducks, and hens, and chickens, which certainly gave
a very cheerful and comfortable look to the premises, and
warranted the proprietor's eloquence, which the young
lady overheard as she drew near.

Father Terence, having learned, in answer to his question,
that she had not found the missing girl, and had
been informed that she was not with the nuns, met the
information with a very emphatic

“How would they have her then? or would any
Christians act that way?”

Miss Dare did not repeat to the Priest what she had
said to the nun, and the kind-hearted man went on to say
that he was glad she had come straight down and satisfied
herself, for “people often took up notions that were
not the thing at all, and Catholics were not all that
bad that some Protestants thought them;” an assertion
which, nobody who knew or even saw the speaker, would
think of doubting. Miss Dare assented to it, cordially;
Mr. Naughton, (who was very grave and silent,) with
less animation than might have been expected.

The young lady was anxious to get away, and the old
man, with a courtesy that was well-becoming to his years
and character, escorted his guests towards the gate.

“I guess 'f any b'dy was goin' t' cut 'p a caper o' that
sort, he'd leave Father O'Toole out,” said a voice behind
them, easily recognized by any one who had heard it before.
Mr. Naughton had heard it before; and his gravity
became rather grim, as he walked on regardless. Miss

Dare turned round, but no speaker was in sight, though
the top of a hat was to be seen behind the fence, as if
the occupier were sitting there, much at home.

“It's a merchant from Amerikya that's inquiring into
the Catholic faith,” said Father Terence, by way of explanation.

“Wall, 'm beginnin' to see through it, now, I b'lieve,”
said the mercantile scholar from over the sea, whose ears
seemed to be good.

“Ye'll think better o' the Catholics after finding out
this mistake,” the Priest said, as he saw his visitors off.

Fitz-Simmons's pony might have been expected to go
home at a much better rate than that which he had
maintained during the ride to Bay-Harbor; but as if to
convince his rider that it was not mere attachment to
home that possessed his legs, he paced the street of the
town much as he had paced it an hour ago. The magistrate,
however, was another man; his stick was more
effective; his spurs struck more sharply; and as Miss
Dare, occupied with her thoughts, kept a very moderate
gait, the young lady and her escort were not far asunder.

She tried to draw out her companion, as they rode
along, but he was moody; and conversation was very unequally
carried on. She dismissed him at her uncle's
gate; and,—when he was out of sight,—went down to
the Minister's; but the Minister was not at home:—