 | X.
ARCHY LOSES HIS SITUATION. Lucy Arlyn |  |
10. X.
ARCHY LOSES HIS SITUATION.
THE colonel was carried back to his room, his
nerves all unstrung; the raising of other spirits
having caused a depression of his own, from
which it took him three days to recover.
The fourth morning was fine. He resolved to enjoy it;
and, Aaron having got him into the garden, Archy was
summoned.
Archy, sheepish and afraid, meeting his employer for the
first time since the occurrences of the circle, approached with
qualms of soul, which were by no means diminished when he
felt the inclination to jerk coming on again. There was
something about the colonel's legs that “put the deuse into
him.” He felt an awful impulse to make a lunge at them,
which grew stronger and stronger; while his power of resistance
grew weaker and weaker. As Sinbad's ship was
wrecked by the mountain of loadstone that drew all the iron
nails out of it, so Archy was imperilled by those legs; in
proximity with which, all the faculties that bound together
“What if I should jerk!” he exclaimed within himself.
“Oh, my gracious! I shall jerk!”
“What are you stopping for?” demanded the fierce
colonel.
“I — I — nothin'!” gasped Archy with twitching shoulders,
and an increasing tendency to pitch into the colonel.
Luckily a diversion appeared, in the shape of Squire Elphaz,
who was riding by. Seeing the invalid, he dismounted,
and entered the garden. Archy was glad to retreat, and
give him place.
But what ailed Elphaz? His step was unusually nervous.
His eyes kept up a singularly sharp cross-fire of crafty
glances: terribly gristly his face was. But, accosting the
colonel, he simmered over, as his manner was, with frothy
affability.
“Ha! glad to see you look so well and cheerful, colonel,
after your little annoyances.”
“What annoyances?” asked Bannington chillingly.
“Ha! well, your son Guy — eloping with — Bless my
soul! haven't you heard?”
“Guy eloping!” The colonel's astonishment showed
plainly enough that nobody had hitherto ventured to broach
the subject in his presence. “What in” — something very
profane — “do you mean?”
“I mean what everybody knows, it seems, except you.
Lucy Arlyn! Can't blame a young fellow like Guy; hey,
colonel?”
“Pelt!” said the pale invalid, “you're joking!”
“Haven't you really heard, though?” cried Elphaz. “I
thought you was joking! You've been as much out of this
delightful little world of gossip we live in as I have. I've
been off on business, and didn't hear of the elopement till I
got back yesterday. But I saw the happy couple in Albany,
walking the streets arm in arm; loving as possible!
Thought you'd be pleased to know.”
“Yes, you thought I'd be pleased to know!” said the
colonel grimly. “What else?”
“Some furniture came up by yesterday's express,” replied
Pelt, — “sofa, chairs, bureau, carpet, and so forth, addressed
to Jehiel. I met him this morning. `Ha!' says I, `Jehiel,
seems we're going to branch out a little: got some new furniture,
have we?' You should have seen him stare! for, I
vow, 'twas the first he had heard of the new furniture.
`That must be some of Guy's doings!' says he; and off
he went to look after it.”
“Archy!” cried the colonel, “is Jehiel Hedge at the
barn?”
“Yes, sir: he's come for the hoss 'n' wagon.”
“Tell him I want him. — Are they married? — do you
know, Pelt?”
“Ha, ha! if they are, it's a pretty match! Lucy without
probably; Arlyn won't do much off there in the mines:
and Guy — you know best about Guy!” said Elphaz,
highly nervous, pulling to pieces a rosebud.
“By the Maker of heaven and earth!” began the colonel
violently; but he checked himself. “Guy ain't a fool: he
knows what he's about. — Good morning, Jehiel!” — to a
stout, honest-faced young farmer, whom Archy brought into
the garden. “What are you doing with the wagon?”
“There are some things at the depot I want to take
home,” replied Jehiel.
“What things?”
“Well, it looks like furniture.”
“Where did it come from?”
Jehiel appeared embarrassed, like one afraid of betraying
a secret, but finally spoke out, —
“I suppose Guy sent it.”
“Suppose!” snarled the colonel: “don't you know?
Hain't he told you any thing about it?”
“Not much,” said Jehiel, galled, but patient. “When
I found the things had come, I thought he must have written:
so I went to the post-office, and got a letter I ought
to've got yesterday.”
“Let me see it!”
Jehiel hesitated, as if in doubt whether to choke the colonel
or obey him. On reflection, he gave the letter.
“Jehiel,” it said, “you'll find some stuff at the depot,
Guy.”
“It seems it's a confidential note,” remarked the colonel
icily, handing it back.
“Seems so,” said Jehiel.
“Then what did you show it to me for?”
“Because — you asked for it.”
“And because you are a blockhead. Learn to do business
better than that. Take the wagon, and get the furniture:
it's none of my business.”
The colonel turned coldly to Elphaz; while Jehiel looked
as if he certainly would have throttled him if he hadn't been
a sick man.
“He's a faithful fellow,” said the colonel, after he was
gone, “and as devoted to Guy as a puppy. I guess I
aggravated him a little.”
“You made me laugh!” chuckled the lawyer.
“Yes, you enjoyed it!” retorted Bannington, regarding
him with utter contempt. “There's one mean trait in human
nature, Pelt. I've got it, and you're chock-full of it.”
“I? — ha! — what trait?” grimaced Elphaz.
“That which makes an ill-natured man like to vent his
spite on any one he can, — as you have come to throw a little
of your venom on me!”
The lawyer's metallic voice chinked with a hard, forced
laugh.
“You're awful sharp, colonel! But why should I feel
venom?”
“How do I know? Maybe you wanted Lucy yourself.”
“Ha, ha!” said Pelt, resolutely merry, though you could
see that he writhed inwardly; while impish little glances
darted hurriedly from eye to eye, as if afraid of being detected
on the nasal transit. “I marry Lucy? That's a good
joke!”
“You'll be sorry it wasn't something besides a joke, if
Arlyn happens to make a fortune in California,” said Bannington;
“unless you can manage to get the fortune without
the daughter,” he added sarcastically.
A flash of pallor streaked up the gristly face, rendering
the persistent grin that was there curious to behold.
“Deused sharp you are, colonel, I vow! Folks say
you've got to be a medium; and that accounts for it!”
“Folks say — I — a medium?”
Pelt, perceiving that, in the mutual exercise of the “trait
in human nature” alluded to, he had got a momentary advantage,
made the most of it; then fled, making the restlessness
of his horse an excuse for running to him, and so
avoiding the colonel's vengeance.
“Archy!” Archy came. “Forward!”
Archy obeyed; but he felt himself drawn in by the
magnetism of the legs once more, and the power to push
was leaving him.
“What are you shaking the chair for? If ever I hear of
your being a medium again” —
The colonel's tongue was stopped by a sudden resounding
his hat, and ruffling his hair and his temper.
“What was that?” he cried, looking around with fiery
rage.
“I don't know!” articulated Archy, with jerks that
betrayed him.
“It was you, you villain!”
“No, 'twan't! I couldn't help it! Oh, gosh! they've
got hold of me agin!”
Quick as lightning came a sharp cuff on the other ear.
The colonel was stunned for an instant. Archy did not stay
for him to recover, but fled from the wrath to come. When
the colonel, struggling up again, turned to hurl his cane at
the offender, he saw him already at a distance, making disastrous
leaps across the flower-beds.
“What's the trouble here?” cried a third voice, clear and
stern; and Guy appeared, hurriedly entering the garden.
Bannington took no heed of the new-comer, but, leaning
over his chair, shook his fist frantically at the widow's son.
“I couldn't help it! I swanny, I couldn't!” protested
Archy, staying his flight with a sense of reliance on Guy.
“It's the sperits!”
Guy stood between astonishment and laughter, and demanded
an explanation.
“He thinks he's a medium!” said the colonel, panting
with passion. “If I was a well man, I'd horsewhip the
notion out of him mighty quick! Did you see him knock
my head?”
“Come here, Archy!” said Guy. The genius drew near.
“What ails you?”
“Nothin', now!”
“Pick up the colonel's hat, and ask his forgiveness.”
Archy made a movement, but suddenly drew back.
“I dasn't! Jest as sure's I come near him, the sperits
are at me agin, — jerk, jerk!”
“Then you'd better take your hat, and go home,” said
Guy. “Do you owe him any thing, colonel?”
“Yes: pay him off! And, if he ever sets foot here
again, let the dogs have him!”
The genius, beginning to cry, went back to search for his
hat among the pansies, where it had dropped in his flight.
“Stay till I come and settle with you, Archy.” And
Guy wheeled the colonel into the house.
But Archy, fearing that the menace of the dogs was to be
presently executed, seized his hat, and, without waiting for
the adjustment of his accounts, ran away like a deer.
“Now, colonel,” said Guy, “drink this,” — handing a
glass of wine, — “and tell me what has been going on.”
The colonel drank, and smacked his thin lips.
“Is that according to Scripture?” he asked, glancing up
keenly at his son. “Did the prodigal, when he came back,
instead of confessing his sins, call on the old man to give an
account of what had happened in his absence?”
Guy kept his countenance well.
“If you've nothing better to tell than I have, our conversation
won't be very lively; and I'll go and pay Archy.”
“Stay!” said the colonel.
Distasteful as the topic was, he wished to forestall, in the
mind of his son, all other reports by giving his own version
of what had occurred at the “sitting.” He instinctively
aimed also to inspire Guy with his own prejudices. Guy
listened with profound interest; but the effect on him was
not quite what was anticipated. As it often happens that the
reluctant admissions of those who denounce a cause do it
better service than the bold claims of its friends; so the
marvels, which, had they been related by a credulous person,
would merely have elicited Guy's contempt, impressed him
powerfully, coming from the lips of so violent a sceptic. He
was eager to learn every minute particular, and wearied his
father with questions.
“And you can find,” he said, “no satisfactory explanation
for these wonders!”
“Do you expect,” retorted his father, “that a man will
see through every trick a juggler performs?”
“What!” exclaimed Guy, “are we to set down little
Ann Maria, and poor, simple Archy Bramble, as such consummate
jugglers?”
“Set 'em down for what you please!” was the colonel's
easy solution of the difficulty. “Jugglery or mesmerism, or
even spirits, — or all three together, — I don't care what it
is! I've seen enough of it. Don't mention the subject
again. Send Archy off, and find somebody to take his place.
If you get a medium, I'll kill him!”
Afraid of being questioned in his turn, Guy hastened
away, his countenance all alive with late experiences, —
whether of love and joy, or of love and grief, one could
hardly have discovered. Not seeing Archy in the garden,
he walked about, plucking a few flowers, gazing at the shimmering
waters of the fountain, and listening to its plashy
music; then went to consult Mrs. Burble in the kitchen.
“What do you say, colonel, to young Biddikin?” he
asked, returning to the library.
“That rascal?”
“Yes. Rhoda thinks he would do: only she's afraid you
couldn't manage him very well.”
That touched the Bannington pride.
“I couldn't manage him? I'd like to see the fellow I
couldn't manage! provided” — scowling at the reminiscence
of Archy — “'tain't a thundering medium!”
“I don't think Mad has any infirmity of that kind. If
you say so, I'll go and see him this afternoon.”
The colonel assented; and accordingly, after dinner, Guy
loosed his dogs, mounted his horse, and rode away.
| X.
ARCHY LOSES HIS SITUATION. Lucy Arlyn | |