Hidden Hand Part 26

"Could you not turn your hat down and let me sit on that?"

"Ha, ha, ha! Why, your weight would crush it as flat as a flounder!"

"Oh, I know now!" exclaimed Capitola, with sudden delight; "you just spread your saddle-cloth down there, and that will make a beautiful seat, and I'll sit and talk with you so nicely--only you must not want me to stay long, because if I don't get home soon I shall catch a scolding."

"You shall neither catch a scolding nor a cold on my account, pretty one," said the man, going to his horse to get the saddle-cloth.

"Oh, don't take off the saddle--it will detain you too long," said Cap, impatiently.

"My pretty Cap, I cannot get the cloth without taking it off," said the man, beginning to unbuckle the girth.

"Oh, yes, you can; you can draw it from under," persisted Cap.

"Impossible, my angel," said the man, lifting off the saddle from his horse and laying it carefully by the roadside.

Then he took off the gay, crimson saddle-cloth and carried it into the little clearing and began carefully to spread it down.

Now was Cap's time. Her horse had recovered from his fatigue. The stranger's horse was in the path before her. While the man's back was turned she raised her riding whip and, with a shout, gave the front horse a sharp lash that sent him galloping furiously ahead. Then, instantaneously putting whip to her own horse, she started into a run.

Hearing the shout, the lash and the starting of the horses, the baffled villain turned and saw that his game was lost; he had been outwitted by a child! He gnashed his teeth and shook his fist in rage.

Turning as she wheeled out of sight, Capitola--I am sorry to say--put her thumb to the side of her nose and whirled her fingers into a semicircle, in a gesture more expressive than elegant.

CHAPTER XVII.

ANOTHER STORM AT HURRICANE HALL.

At this, Sir Knight grew high in wroth, And lifting hands and eyes up both, Three times he smote on stomach stout, From whence, at length, fierce words broke out --Hudibras.

The moon was shining full upon the river and the homestead beyond when Capitola dashed into the water and, amid the sparkling and leaping of the foam, made her way to the other bank and rode up the rugged ascent.

On the outer side of the lawn wall the moonbeams fell full upon the little figure of Pitapat waiting there.

"Why, Patty, what takes you out so late as this?" asked Capitola, as she rode up to the gate.

"Oh, Miss Catterpillar, I'se waitin' for you. Old ma.r.s.e is dreadful he is! Jest fit to bust the shingles offen the roof with swearing! So I come out to warn you, so you steal in the back way and go to your room so he won't see you, and I'll go and send Wool to put your horse away, and then I'll bring you up some supper and tell old ma.r.s.e how you've been home ever so long, and gone to bed with a werry bad head-ache."

"Thank you, Patty. It is perfectly astonishing how easy lying is to you!

You really deserve to have been born in Rag Alley; but I won't trouble the recording angel to make another entry against you on my account."

"Yes, miss," said Pitapat, who thought that her mistress was complimenting her.

"And now, Patty, stand out of my way. I am going to ride straight up to the horse-block, dismount and walk right into the presence of Major Warfield," said Capitola, pa.s.sing through the gate.

"Oh, Miss Catterpillar, don't! don't! he'll kill you, so he will!"

"Who's afeard?" muttered Cap to herself, as she put her horse to his mettle and rode gayly through the evergreens up to the horse-block, where she sprang down lightly from her saddle.

Gathering up her train with one hand and tossing back her head, she swept along toward the house with the air of a young princess.

There was a vision calculated to test her firmness. Reader, did you ever see a raging lion tearing to and fro the narrow limits of his cage, and occasionally shaking the amphitheatre with his tremendous roar; or a furious bull tossing his head and tail and plowing up the earth with his hoofs as he careered back and forth between the boundaries of his pen?

If you have seen and noted these mad brutes, you may form some idea of the frenzy of Old Hurricane as he stormed up and down the floor of the front piazza.

Cap had just escaped an actual danger of too terrible a character to be frightened now by sound and fury. Composedly she walked up into the porch and said:

"Good evening, uncle."

The old man stopped short in his furious strides and glared upon her with his terrible eyes.

Cap stood fire without blanching, merely remarking:

"Now, I have no doubt that in the days when you went battling that look used to strike terror into the heart of the enemy, but it doesn't into mine, somehow."

"Miss!" roared the old man, bringing down his cane with a resounding thump upon the floor; "miss! how dare you have the impudence to face me, much less the--the--the a.s.surance!--the effrontery!--the audacity!--the bra.s.s! to speak to me!"

"Well, I declare," said Cap, calmly untying her hat; "this is the first time I ever heard it was impudent in a little girl to give her uncle good evening!"

The old man trotted up and down the piazza two or three turns, then, stopping short before the delinquent, he struck his cane down upon the floor with a ringing stroke and thundered:

"Young woman, tell me instantly and without prevarication where you've been!"

"Certainly, sir; 'going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it,'" said Cap, quietly.

"Flames and furies! that is no answer at all! Where have you been?"

roared Old Hurricane, shaking with excitement.

"Look here, uncle; if you go on that way you'll have a fit presently,"

said Cap, calmly.

"Where have you been?" thundered Old Hurricane.

"Well, since you will know--just across the river and through the woods and back again."

"And didn't I forbid you to do that, minion? and how dare you disobey me? You the creature of my bounty; you, the miserable little vagrant that I picked up in the alleys of New York and tried to make a young lady of; but an old proverb says 'You can't make a silken purse out of a pig's ear.' How dare you, you little beggar, disobey your benefactor?--a man of my age, character and position? I--I--" Old Hurricane turned abruptly and raged up and down the piazza.

All this time Capitola had been standing quietly, holding up her train with one hand and her riding habit in the other. At this last insult she raised her dark-gray eyes to his face with one long indignant, sorrowful gaze; then, turning silently away and entering the house, she left Old Hurricane to storm up and down the piazza until he had raged himself to rest.

Reader, I do not defend, far less approve, poor Cap. I only tell her story and describe her as I have seen her, leaving her to your charitable interpretation.

Next morning Capitola came down into the breakfast-room with one idea prominent in her hard little head, to which she mentally gave expression:

"Well as I like that old man, he must not permit himself to talk to me in that indecent strain, and so he must be made to know."

When she entered the breakfast-room she found Mrs. Condiment already at the head of the table and Old Hurricane at the foot. He had quite got over his rage, and turned around blandly to welcome his ward, saying;