CHAPTER IX.
"Sirrah! how dare you leave your barley-broth To come in armor thus, against your king?" _Drama_.
The large irregular building inhabited by Colonel Howard welldeserved the name it had received from the pen of Katherine Plowden.Notwithstanding the confusion in its orders, owing to the differentages in which its several parts had been erected, the interior wasnot wanting in that appearance of comfort which forms the greatcharacteristic of English domestic life. Its dark and intricate mazesof halls, galleries, and apartments were all well provided with goodand substantial furniture; and whatever might have been the purposes oftheir original construction, they were now peacefully appropriated tothe service of a quiet and well-ordered family.
There were divers portentous traditions of cruel separations andblighted loves, which always linger, like cobwebs, around the walls ofold houses, to be heard here also, and which, doubtless, in abler hands,might easily have been wrought up into scenes of high interest anddelectable pathos. But our humbler efforts must be limited by an attemptto describe man as God has made him, vulgar and unseemly as he mayappear to sublimated faculties, to the possessors of which enviablequalifications we desire to say, at once, that we are determined toeschew all things supernaturally refined, as we would the devil. Toall those, then, who are tired of the company of their species we wouldbluntly insinuate, that the sooner they throw aside our pages, and seizeupon those of some more highly gifted bard, the sooner will they be inthe way of quitting earth, if not of attaining heaven. Our business issolely to treat of man, and this fair scene on which he acts, and thatnot in his subtleties, and metaphysical contradictions, but in hispalpable nature, that all may understand our meaning as well asourselves--whereby we may manifestly reject the prodigious advantage ofbeing thought a genius, by perhaps foolishly refusing the mighty aid ofincomprehensibility to establish such a character.
Leaving the gloomy shadows of the cliffs, under which the little Arielhad been seen to steer, and the sullen roaring of the surf along themargin of the ocean, we shall endeavor to transport the reader to thedining parlor of St. Ruth's Abbey, taking the evening of the same day asthe time for introducing another collection of those personages, whoseacts and characters it has become our duty to describe.
The room was not of very large dimensions, and every part was glitteringwith the collected light of half a dozen Candles, aided by the fiercerays that glanced from the grate, which held a most cheerful fire ofsea-coal. The mouldings of the dark oak wainscoting threw back upon themassive table of mahogany streaks of strong light, which played amongthe rich fluids that were sparkling on the board in mimic haloes. Theoutline of this picture of comfort was formed by damask curtains ofa deep red, and enormous oak chairs with leathern backs and cushionedseats, as if the apartment were hermetically sealed against the worldand its chilling cares.
Around the table, which still stood in the centre of the floor, wereseated three gentlemen, in the easy enjoyment of their daily repast. Thecloth had been drawn, and the bottle was slowly passing among them, asif those who partook of its bounty well knew that neither the time northe opportunity would be wanting for their deliberate indulgence in itspleasures.
At one end of the table an elderly man was seated, who performedwhatever little acts of courtesy the duties of a host would appear torender necessary, in a company where all seemed to be equally at theirease and at home. This gentleman was in the decline of life, though hiserect carriage, quick movements, and steady hand, equally denoted thatit was an old age free from the usual infirmities. In his dress, hebelonged to that class whose members always follow the fashions of theage anterior to the one in which they live, whether from disinclinationto sudden changes of any kind, or from the recollections of a periodwhich, with them, has been hallowed by scenes and feelings that thechilling evening of life can neither revive nor equal. Age mightpossibly have thrown its blighting frosts on his thin locks, but art hadlabored to conceal the ravages with the nicest care. An accurate outlineof powder covered not only the parts where the hair actually remained,but wherever nature had prescribed that hair should grow. Hiscountenance was strongly marked in features, if not in expression,exhibiting, on the whole, a look of noble integrity and high honor,which was a good deal aided in its effect by the lofty recedingforehead, that rose like a monument above the whole, to record thecharacter of the aged veteran. A few streaks of branching red mingledwith a swarthiness of complexion, that was rendered more conspicuous bythe outline of unsullied white, which nearly surrounded his prominentfeatures.
Opposite to the host, who it will at once be understood was ColonelHoward, was the thin yellow visage of Mr. Christopher Dillon, that baneto the happiness of her cousin, already mentioned by Miss Plowden.
Between these two gentlemen was a middle-aged hard-featured man, attiredin the livery of King George, whose countenance emulated the scarletof his coat, and whose principal employment, at the moment, appeared toconsist in doing honor to the cheer of his entertainer.
Occasionally, a servant entered or left the room in silence, givingadmission, however, through the opened door, to the rushing sounds ofthe gale, as the wind murmured amid the angles and high chimneys of theedifice.
A man, in the dress of a rustic, was standing near the chair of ColonelHoward, between whom and the master of the mansion a dialogue had beenmaintained which closed as follows. The colonel was the first to speak,after the curtain is drawn from between the eyes of the reader and thescene:
"Said you, farmer, that the Scotchman beheld the vessels with his owneyes?"
The answer was a simple negative.
"Well, well," continued the colonel, "you can withdraw."
The man made a rude attempt at a bow, which being returned by the oldsoldier with formal grace, he left the room. The host turning to hiscompanions, resumed the subject.
"If those rash boys have really persuaded the silly dotard who commandsthe frigate, to trust himself within the shoals on the eve of sucha gale as this, their case must have been hopeless indeed! Thus mayrebellion and disaffection ever meet with the just indignation ofProvidence! It would not surprise me, gentleman, to hear that my nativeland had been engulfed by earthquakes, or swallowed by the ocean, soawful and inexcusable has been the weight of her transgressions! And yetit was a proud and daring boy who held the second station in that ship!I knew his father well, and a gallant gentleman he was, who, like myown brother, the parent of Cecilia, preferred to serve his master on theocean rather than on the land. His son inherited the bravery of his highspirit, without its loyalty. One would not wish to have such a youthdrowned, either."
This speech, which partook much of the nature of a soliloquy, especiallytoward its close, called for no immediate reply; but the soldier, havingheld his glass to the candle, to admire the rosy hue of its contents,and then sipped of the fluid so often that nothing but a clear lightremained to gaze at, quietly replaced the empty vessel on the table,and, as he extended an arm toward the blushing bottle, he spoke, in thecareless tones of one whose thoughts were dwelling on another theme:
"Ay, true enough, sir; good men are scarce, and, as you say, one cannotbut mourn his fate, though his death be glorious; quite a loss to hismajesty's service, I dare say, it will prove."
"A loss to the service of his majesty!" echoed the host--"his deathglorious! no, Captain Borroughcliffe, the death of no rebel can beglorious; and how he can be a loss to his majesty's service, I myself amquite at a loss to understand."
The soldier, whose ideas were in that happy state of confusion thatrenders it difficult to command the one most needed, but who still, fromlong discipline, had them under a wonderful control for the disorder ofhis brain, answered, with great promptitude:
"I mean the loss of his example, sir. It would have been so appalling toothers to have seen the young man executed instead of shot in battle."
"He is drowned, sir."
"Ah! that is the next thing to being hanged; that circumstance hadescaped me
."
"It is by no means certain, sir, that the ship and schooner that thedrover saw are the vessels you take them to have been," said Mr. Dillon,in a harsh, drawling tone of voice. "I should doubt their daring toventure so openly on the coast, and in the direct track of our vesselsof war."
"These people are our countrymen, Christopher, though they are rebels,"exclaimed the colonel. "They are a hardy and brave nation. When I hadthe honor of serving his majesty, some twenty years since, it was myfortune to face the enemies of my king in a few small affairs, CaptainBorroughcliffe; such as the siege of Quebec, and the battle beforeits gates, a trifling occasion at Ticonderoga, and that unfortunatecatastrophe of General Braddock--with a few others. I must say, sir, infavor of the colonists that they played a manful game on the latter day;and this gentleman who now heads the rebels sustained a gallant nameamong us for his conduct in that disastrous business. He was a discreet,well-behaved young man, and quite a gentleman. I have never denied thatMr. Washington was very much of a gentleman."
"Yes!" said the soldier, yawning, "he was educated among his majesty'stroops, and he could hardly be other wise. But I am quite melancholyabout this unfortunate drowning, Colonel Howard. Here will be an end ofmy vocation, I suppose; and I am far from denying that your hospitalityhas made these quarters most agreeable to me."
"Then, sir, the obligation is only mutual," returned the host, with apolite inclination of his head: "but gentlemen who, like ourselves, havebeen made free of the camp, need not bandy idle compliments about suchtrifles. If it were my kinsman Dillon, now, whose thoughts ran more onCoke upon Littleton than on the gayeties of a mess-table and a soldier'slife, he might think such formalities as necessary as his hard words areto a deed. Come, Borroughcliffe, my dear fellow, I believe we have givenan honest glass to each of the royal family (God bless them all!), letus swallow a bumper to the memory of the immortal Wolfe."
"An honest proposal, my gallant host, and such a one as a soldierwill never decline," returned the captain, who roused himself with theoccasion. "God bless them all! say I, in echo; and if this graciousqueen of ours ends as famously as she has begun, 'twill be such a familyof princes as no other army of Europe can brag of around a mess-table."
"Ay, ay, there is some consolation in that thought, in the midst of thisdire rebellion of my countrymen. But I'll vex myself no more with theunpleasant recollections; the arms of my sovereign will soon purge thatwicked land of the foul stain."
"Of that there can be no doubt," said Borroughcliffe, whose thoughtsstill continued a little obscured by the sparkling Madeira that hadlong lain ripening under a Carolinian sun; "these Yankees fly before hismajesty's regulars, like so many dirty clowns in a London mob before acharge of the horse-guards."
"Pardon me, Captain Borroughcliffe," said his host, elevating hisperson to more than its usually erect attitude; "they may be misguided,deluded, and betrayed, but the comparison is unjust. Give them arms andgive them discipline, and he who gets an inch of their land from them,plentiful as it is, will find a bloody day on which to take possession."
"The veriest coward in Christendom would fight in country where winebrews itself into such a cordial as this," returned the cool soldier."I am a living proof that you mistook my meaning; for had not thoseloose-flapped gentlemen they call Vermontese and Hampshire-granters (Godgrant them his blessing for the deed) finished two-thirds of my company,I should not have been at this day under your roof, a recruitinginstead of a marching officer; neither should I have been bound up in acovenant, like the law of Moses, could Burgoyne have made head againsttheir long-legged marchings and countermarchings. Sir, I drink theirhealths, with all my heart; and with such a bottle of golden sunshinebefore me, rather than displease so good a friend, I will go throughGates' whole army, regiment by regiment, company by company, or, if youinsist on the same, even man by man, in a bumper."
"On no account would I tax your politeness so far," returned thecolonel, abundantly mollified by this ample concession; "I stand toomuch your debtor, Captain Borroughcliffe, for so freely volunteeringto defend my house against the attacks of my piratical, rebellious, andmisguided countrymen, to think of requiring such a concession."
"Harder duty might be performed, and no favors asked, my respectablehost," returned the soldier. "Country quarters are apt to be dull, andthe liquor is commonly execrable; but in such a dwelling as this, a mancan rock himself in the very cradle of contentment. And yet there is onesubject of complaint, that I should disgrace my regiment did I not speakof--for it is incumbent on me, both as a man and a soldier, to be nolonger silent."
"Name it, sir, freely, and its cause shall be as freely redressed," saidthe host in some amazement.
"Here we three sit, from morning to night," continued the soldier;"bachelors all, well provisioned and better liquored, I grant you, butlike so many well-fed anchorites, while two of the loveliest damsels inthe island pine in solitude within a hundred feet of us, without tastingthe homage of our sighs. This, I will maintain, is a reproach both toyour character, Colonel Howard, as an old soldier and to mine as a youngone. As to our old friend, Coke on top of Littleton here, I leave him tothe quiddities of the law to plead his own cause."
The brow of the host contracted for a moment, and the sallow cheek ofDillon, who had sat during the dialogue in a sullen silence, appeared togrow even livid; but gradually the open brow of the veteran resumed itsfrank expression, and the lips of the other relaxed into a Jesuiticalsort of a smile, that was totally disregarded by the captain, who amusedhimself with sipping his wine while he waited for an answer, as if heanalyzed each drop that crossed his palate.
After an embarrassing pause of a moment, Colonel Howard broke thesilence:
"There is reason in Borroughcliffe's hint, for such I take it to be----"
"I meant it for a plain, matter-of-fact complaint," interrupted thesoldier.
"And you have cause for it," continued the colonel. "It is unreasonable,Christopher, that the ladies should allow their dread of these piraticalcountrymen of ours to exclude us from their society, though prudencemay require that they remain secluded in their apartments. We owe therespect to Captain Borroughcliffe, that at least we admit him to thesight of the coffee-urn in an evening."
"That is precisely my meaning," said the captain: "as for dining withthem, why, I am well provided for here; but there is no one knows howto set hot water a hissing in so professional a manner as a woman. Soforward, my dear and honored colonel, and lay your injunctions on them,that they command your humble servant and Mr. Coke unto Littleton toadvance and give the countersign of gallantry."
Dillon contracted his disagreeable features into something that wasintended for a satirical smile, before he spoke as follows:
"Both the veteran Colonel Howard and the gallant Captain Borroughcliffemay find it easier to overcome the enemies of his majesty in the fieldthan to shake a woman's caprice. Not a day has passed these three weeks,that I have not sent my inquiries to the door of Miss Howard as becameher father's kinsman, with a wish to appease her apprehensions of thepirates; but little has she deigned me In reply, more than such thanksas her sex and breeding could not well dispense with."
"Well, you have been, as fortunate as myself, and why you should bemore so, I see no reason," cried the soldier, throwing a glance of coolcontempt at the other: "fear whitens the cheek, and ladies best love tobe seen when the roses flourish rather than the lilies."
"A woman is never so interesting, Captain Borroughcliffe," said thegallant host, "as when she appears to lean on man for support; and hewho does not feel himself honored by the trust is a disgrace to hisspecies."
"Bravo! my honored sir, a worthy sentiment, and spoken like a truesoldier; but I have heard much of the loveliness of the ladies of theabbey since I have been in my present quarters, and I feel a strongdesire to witness beauty encircled by such loyalty as could induce themto flee their native country, rather than to devote their charms to therude keeping of the rebels."
The
colonel looked grave, and for a moment fierce, but the expression ofhis displeasure soon passed away in a smile of forced gayety, and, as hecheerfully rose from his seat, he cried:
"You shall be admitted this very night, and this instant, CaptainBorroughcliffe, We owe it, sir, to your services here, as well as in thefield, and those forward girls shall be humored no longer. Nay, it isnearly two weeks since I have seen my ward myself; nor have I laid myeyes on my niece but twice in all that time, Christopher, I leavethe captain under your good care while I go seek admission into thecloisters, we call that part of, the building the cloisters, because itholds our nuns, sir! You will pardon my early absence from the table,Captain Borroughcliffe."
"I beg it may not be mentioned; you leave an excellent representativebehind you, sir," cried the soldier, taking in the lank figure of Mr.Dillon in a sweeping glance, that terminated with a settled gaze on hisdecanter. "Make my devoirs to the recluses, and say all that your ownexcellent wit shall suggest as an apology for my impatience, Mr. Dillon,I meet you in a bumper to their healths and in their honor."
The challenge was coldly accepted; and while these gentlemen still heldtheir glasses to their lips, Colonel Howard left the apartment, bowinglow, and uttering a thousand excuses to his guest, as he proceeded,and even offering a very unnecessary apology of the same effect to hishabitual inmate, Mr. Dillon.
"Is fear so very powerful within these old walls," said the soldier,when the door closed behind their host, "that your ladies deem itnecessary to conceal themselves before even an enemy is known to havelanded?"
Dillon coldly replied:
"The name of Paul Jones is terrific to all on this coast, I believe; norare the ladies of St. Ruth singular in their apprehensions."
"Ah! the pirate has bought himself a desperate name since the affair ofFlamborough Head. But let him look to't, if he trusts himself in anotherWhitehaven expedition, while there is a detachment of the ----th in theneighborhood, though the men should be nothing better than recruits."
"Our last accounts leave him safe in the court of Louis," returned hiscompanion; "but there are men as desperate as himself, who sail theocean under the rebel flag, and from one or two of them we have had muchreason to apprehend the vengeance of disappointed men. It is they thatwe hope we lost in this gale."
"Hum! I hope they were dastards, or your hopes are a little unchristian,and----"
He would have proceeded, but the door opened, and his orderly entered,and announced that a sentinel had detained three men, who were passingalong the highway, near the abbey, and who, by their dress, appeared tobe seamen.
"Well, let them pass," cried the captain; "what, have we nothing to dobetter than to stop passengers, like footpads on the king's highway!Give them of your canteens, and let the rascals pass. Your orders wereto give the alarm if any hostile party landed on the coast, not todetain peaceable subjects on their lawful business."
"I beg your honor's pardon," returned the sergeant; "but these menseemed lurking about the grounds for no good, and as they kept carefullyaloof from the place where our sentinel was posted, until to-night,Downing thought it looked suspiciously and detained them."
"Downing is a fool, and it may go hard with him for his officiousness.What have you done with the men?"
"I took them to the guardroom in the east wings your honor."
"Then feed them; and hark ye, sirrah! liquor them well, that we hear nocomplaints, and let them go."
"Yes, sir, yes, your honor shall be obeyed; but there is a straight,soldierly-looking fellow among them, that I think might be persuaded toenlist, if he were detained till morning. I doubt, sir, by his walk, buthe has served already."
"Ha! what say you!" cried the captain, pricking up his ears like a houndwho hears a well-known cry; "served, think ye, already?"
"There are signs about him, your honor, to that effect An old soldieris seldom deceived in such a thing; and considering his disguise, for itcan be no other, and the place where we took him, there is no danger ofa have-us corpses until he is tied to us by the laws of the kingdom."
"Peace, you knave!" said Borroughcliffe, rising, and making a deviousroute toward the door; "you speak in the presence of my lord chiefjustice that is to be, and should not talk lightly of the laws. Butstill you say reason: give me your arm, sergeant, and lead the way tothe east wing; my eyesight is good for nothing in such a dark night. Asoldier should always visit his guard before the tattoo beats."
After emulating the courtesy of their host, Captain Borroughclifferetired on this patriotic errand, leaning on his subordinate in astyle of most familiar condescension. Dillon continued at the table,endeavoring to express the rancorous feelings of his breast by asatirical smile of contempt, that was necessarily lost on all buthimself, as a large mirror threw back the image of his morose andunpleasant features.
But we must precede the veteran colonel in his visits to the"cloisters."