International Short Stories: American Part 42

"Your parole!" said Jean. "Give us your word that you will come with us quietly, making no resistance and no effort to escape." The Englishman shut his lips doggedly.

"Then you must be bound," said Mich' with curt decision. "We've no time to waste."

"Let _me_ bind you, Monsieur," said Barbe, taking his wrists gently and putting them behind his back. "It is no dishonor to be captive to a woman."

With a silk scarf from her waist, and a feminine cunning in knots, she quickly tied his hands together so that he felt himself quite hopeless of escape. Then, in a cold wrath, he was led forward; with no constraint but Barbe's touch upon his arm. The ship, high on her stocks, came into view. And he understood.

Seating himself upon a log, with his back against a tree, Mich' pa.s.sed a rope about his waist and made him fast to the trunk. There he sat and chewed his indignation, while his captors went in haste about their work. But presently he grew interested. He saw the blocks knocked out from under the little ship's sides, so that she came down upon the greased ways and slid smoothly into the flood. He saw her checked gradually by a rope turned once around a tree trunk, so that she was kept from running aground on the opposite side of the Basin. He saw a small boat dragged down from the bushes to the edge of the tide, and oars put into it. By this time he had revolved many aspects of the case in his mind. Then came to him Barbe and Jean.

"Monsieur," said Jean, "I regret to have inconvenienced you in this way. But you would without mercy have wrecked all my hopes. I have put all my means into this little ship, built with my own hands. My heart is set on removing from the land of Acadie, to live once more under my own flag of France. But I do not wish to take you a prisoner to Louisburg, or to put you to any further annoyance. To Mademoiselle Dieudonne you showed yourself yesterday a most kind and courteous gentleman. All Acadie knows you are brave. Give me your word that you will in no way seek to stop or hinder our departure, and let me set you free!"

"Give your parole, Monsieur!" begged Barbe, "or you will have to devote yourself to entertaining me all the way to Louisburg."

The Englishman's face brightened.

"Almost you make me wish to go to Louisburg, Mademoiselle. With the duty you apportion me I should be much happier, I a.s.sure you, than here in Annapolis trying to govern your good fellow-countrymen. But I will give my parole. I promise you, sir," and he turned his face to Jean, "that I will not in any way interfere with the departure of you and your ship from Acadie."

"Thank you," said Jean, and he undid the rope and the scarf.

The Englishman arose, walked down to the waterside with Barbe, and with elaborate courtesy helped her into the boat. He bent his lips over her hand as he said good-by.

Turning upon him then a laughing face of farewell, Barbe cried: "Never, never will I pardon you, Monsieur, for consenting to give your parole!"

"Mademoiselle," he answered, "I am your prisoner still, and always."

THOSE OLD LUNES! OR, WHICH IS THE MADMAN?

By W. GILMORE SIMMS

"I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw."--_Hamlet_.

CHAPTER I

We had spent a merry night of it. Our stars had paled their not ineffectual fires, only in the daylight; and while Dan Phoebus was yet rising, "jocund on the misty mountain tops," I was busy in adjusting my foot in the stirrup and mounting my good steed Priam, to find my way by a close cut, and through narrow Indian trails, to my lodgings in the little town of C----, on the very borders of Mississippi. There were a dozen of us, all merry larks, half mad with wine and laughter, and the ride of seven miles proved a short one. In less than two hours, I was snugly snoozing in my own sheets, and dreaming of the twin daughters of old Hansford Owens.

Well might one dream of such precious damsels. Verily, they seemed, all of a sudden, to have become a part of my existence. They filled my thoughts, excited my imagination, and,--if it be not an impertinence to say any thing of the heart of a roving lad of eighteen,--then were they at the very bottom of mine.--Both of them, let me say,--for they were twins, and were endowed with equal rights by nature. I was not yet prepared to say what was the difference, if any, between their claims.

One was fair, the other brown; one pensive, the other merry as the cricket of Venus. Susannah was meek as became an Elder's daughter; Emmeline so mischievous that she might well have worried the meekest of the saints in the calendar from his propriety and position. I confess, though I thought constantly of Susannah, I always looked after Emmeline the first. She was the brunette--one of your flashing, sparkling, effervescing beauties,--perpetually running over with exultation--brimful of pa.s.sionate fancies that tripped, on tiptoe, half winged, through her thoughts. She was a creature to make your blood bound in your bosom,--to take you entirely off your feet, and fancy, for the moment, that your heels are quite as much ent.i.tled to dominion as your head. Lovely too,--brilliant, if not absolutely perfect in features--she kept you always in a sort of sunlight. She sung well, talked well, danced well--was always in air--seemed never herself to lack repose, and, it must be confessed, seldom suffered it to any body else. Her dancing was the crowning grace and glory. She was no Taglioni--not an Ellsler--I do not pretend that. But she was a born artiste. Every motion was a study. Every look was life. Her form subsided into the sweetest luxuriance of att.i.tude, and rose into motion with some such exquisite buoyancy, as would become Venus issuing from the foam. Her very affectations were so naturally worn, that you at length looked for them as essential to her charm. I confess--but no!

Why should I do anything so foolish?

Susannah was a very different creature. She was a fair girl--rather pale, perhaps, when her features were in repose. She had rich soft flaxen hair, and dark blue eyes. She looked rather than spoke. Her words were few, her glances many. She was not necessarily silent in silence. On the contrary, her very silence had frequently a significance, taken with her looks, that needed no help from speech.

She seemed to look through you at a glance, yet there was a liquid sweetness in her gaze, that disarmed it of all annoyance. If Emmeline was the glory of the sunlight--Susannah was the sovereign of the shade.

If the song of the one filled you with exultation, that of the other awakened all your tenderness. If Emmeline was the creature for the dance,--Susannah was the wooing, beguiling Egeria, who could s.n.a.t.c.h you from yourself in the moments of respite and repose. For my part, I felt that I could spend all my mornings with the former, and all my evenings with the latter. Susannah with her large, blue, tearful eyes, and few, murmuring and always gentle accents, shone out upon me at nightfall as that last star that watches in the vault of night for the coming of the sapphire dawn.

So much for the damsels. And all these fancies, not to say feelings, were the fruit of but three short days' acquaintance with their objects. But these were days when thoughts travel merrily and fast--when all that concerns the fancies and the affections, are caught up in a moment, as if the mind were nothing but a congeries of instincts, and the sensibilities, with a thousand delicate antennae, were ever on the grasp for prey.

Squire Owens was a planter of tolerable condition. He was a widower, with these two lovely and lovable daughters--no more. But, bless you!

Mine was no calculating heart. Very far from it. Neither the wealth of the father, nor the beauty of the girls, had yet prompted me to think of marriage. Life was pleasant enough as it was. Why burden it?

Let well enough alone, say I. I had no wish to be happier. A wife never entered my thoughts. What might have come of being often with such damsels, there's no telling; but just then it was quite enough to dance with Emmeline, and muse with Susannah, and--_vive la bagatelle_!

I need say nothing more of my dreams, since the reader sufficiently knows the subject. I slept late that day, and only rose in time for dinner, which, in that almost primitive region, took place at 12 o'clock, M. I had no appet.i.te. A herring and soda water might have sufficed, but these were matters foreign to the manor. I endured the day and headache together, as well as I could, slept soundly that night, with now the most ravishing fancies of Emmeline, and now the pleasant dreams of Susannah, one or other of whom still usurped the place of a bright particular star in my most capacious fancy. Truth is, in those heyday days, my innocent heart never saw any terrors in polygamy. I rose a new man, refreshed and very eager for a start. I barely swallowed breakfast when Priam was at the door. While I was about to mount, with thoughts filled with the meek beauties of Susannah,--I was arrested by the approach of no less a person than Ephraim Strong, the village blacksmith.

"You're guine to ride, I see."

"Yes."

"To Squire Owens, I reckon."

"Right."

"Well, keep a sharp look out on the road, for there's news come down that the famous Archy Dargan has broke Hamilton jail."

"And who's Archy Dargan?"

"What! don't know Archy? Why, he's the madman that's been shut up there, it's now guine on two years."

"A madman, eh?"

"Yes, and a mighty sevagerous one at that. He's the cunningest white man going. Talks like a book, and knows how to get out of a sc.r.a.pe,--is jest as sensible as any man for a time, but, sudden, he takes a start, like a shying horse, and before you knows where you are, his heels are in your jaw. Once he blazes out, it's knife or gun, hatchet or hickory--any thing he can lay hands on. He's killed two men already, and cut another's throat a'most to killing. He's an ugly chap to meet on the road, so look out right and left."

"What sort of man is he?"

"In looks?"

"Yes!"

"Well, I reckon, he's about your heft. He's young and tallish, with a fair skin, brown hair, and a mighty quick keen blue eye, that never looks steadily nowhere. Look sharp for him. The sheriff with his 'spose-you-come-and-take-us'--is out after him, but he's mighty cute to dodge, and had the start some twelve hours afore they missed him."

CHAPTER II

The information thus received did not disquiet me. After the momentary reflection that it might be awkward to meet a madman, out of bounds, upon the highway, I quickly dismissed the matter from my mind. I had no room for any but pleasant meditations. The fair Susannah was now uppermost in my dreaming fancies, and, reversing the grasp upon my whip, the ivory handle of which, lined with an ounce or two of lead, seemed to me a sufficiently effective weapon for the worst of dangers, I bade my friendly blacksmith farewell, and dashed forward upon the high road. A smart canter soon took me out of the settlement, and, once in the woods, I recommended myself with all the happy facility of youth, to its most pleasant and beguiling imaginings. I suppose I had ridden a mile or more--the story of the bedlamite was gone utterly from my thought--when a sudden turn in the road showed me a person, also mounted, and coming towards me at an easy trot, some twenty-five or thirty yards distant. There was nothing remarkable in his appearance.

He was a plain farmer or woodman, clothed in ample homespun, and riding a short heavy chunk of an animal, that had just been taken from the plough. The rider was a spare, long-legged person, probably thirty years or thereabouts. He looked innocent enough, wearing that simple, open-mouthed sort of countenance, the owner of which, we a.s.sume, at a glance, will never set any neighbouring stream on fire. He belonged evidently to a cla.s.s as humble as he was simple,--but I had been brought up in a school which taught me that the claims of poverty were quite as urgent upon courtesy as those of wealth. Accordingly, as we neared each other, I prepared to bestow upon him the usual civil recognition of the highway. What is it Scott says--I am not sure that I quote him rightly--

"When men in distant forests meet, They pa.s.s not as in peaceful street."

And, with the best of good humour, I rounded my lips into a smile, and got ready my salutation. To account somewhat for its effect when uttered, I must premise that my own personal appearance, at this time, was rather wild and impressive. My face was full of laughter and my manners of buoyancy. My hair was very long, and fell in ma.s.ses upon my shoulder, unrestrained by the cap which I habitually wore, and which, as I was riding under heavy shade trees, was grasped in my hand along with my riding whip. As the stranger drew nigh, the arm was extended, cap and whip lifted in air, and with free, generous lungs, I shouted--"good morning, my friend,--how wags the world with you to-day?"

The effect of this address was prodigious. The fellow gave no answer,--not a word, not a syllable--not the slightest nod of the head,--_mais, tout au contraire_. But for the dilating of his amazed pupils, and the dropping of the lower jaw, his features might have been chiselled out of stone. They wore an expression amounting to consternation, and I could see that he caught up his bridle with increased alertness, bent himself to the saddle, half drew up his horse, and then, as if suddenly resolved, edged him off, as closely as the woods would allow, to the opposite side of the road. The undergrowth was too thick to allow of his going into the wood at the spot where we encountered, or he certainly would have done so.

Somewhat surprised at this, I said something, I cannot now recollect what, the effect of which was even more impressive upon him than my former speech. The heads of our horses were now nearly parallel--the road was an ordinary wagon track, say twelve feet wide--I could have brushed him with my cap as we pa.s.sed, and, waving it still aloft, he seemed to fancy that such was my intention,--for, inclining his whole body on the off side of his nag, as the Comanche does when his aim is to send an arrow at his enemy beneath his neck--his heels thrown back, though spurless, were made to belabour with the most surprising rapidity the flanks of his drowsy animal. And, not without some effect. The creature dashed first into a trot, then into a canter, and finally into a gallop, which, as I was bound one way and he the other, soon threw a considerable s.p.a.ce between us.

"The fellow's mad!" was my reflection and speech, as, wheeling my horse half about, I could see him looking backward, and driving his heels still into the sides of his reluctant hack. The next moment gave me a solution of the matter. The simple countryman had heard of the bedlamite from Hamilton jail. My bare head, the long hair flying in the wind, my buoyancy of manner, and the hearty, and, perhaps, novel form of salutation with which I addressed him, had satisfied him that I was the person. As the thought struck me, I resolved to play the game out, and, with a restless love of levity which has been too frequently my error, I put the whip over my horse's neck, and sent him forward in pursuit. My nag was a fine one, and very soon the s.p.a.ce was lessened between me and the chase. As he heard the footfalls behind, the frightened fugitive redoubled his exertions. He laid himself to it, his heels paddling in the sides of his donkey with redoubled industry.

And thus I kept him for a good mile, until the first houses of the settlement grew visible in the distance. I then once more turned upon the path to the Owens', laughing merrily at the rare chase, and the undisguised consternation of the countryman. The story afforded ample merriment to my fair friends Emmeline and Susannah. "It was so ridiculous that one of my appearance should be taken for a madman. The silly fellow deserved the scare." On these points we were all perfectly agreed. That night we spent charmingly. The company did not separate till near one o'clock. We had fun and fiddles. I danced by turns with the twins, and more than once with a Miss Gridley, a very pretty girl, who was present. Squire Owens was in the best of humours, and, no ways loth, I was made to stay all night.

CHAPTER III