Chanticleer Part 6

Mopsey looking in at this moment, gave the summons to tea, which was answered by Mr. Tiffany Carrack's offering his arm, impressively, to his excellent mother, and leading the way to the table.

It was observed, that in his progress to the tea-table, Mr. Tiffany adopted a tottering and uncertain step, indicating a dilapidated old age, only kept together by the clothes he wore, which was altogether unintelligible to the Peabody family, seeing that Mr. Carrack was in the very prime of youth, till Mrs. Carrack remarked, with an affectionate smile of motherly pride:

"You remind me more and more every day, Tiff, of that dear delightful old Baden-Baden."

"I wish the glorious old fellow would come over to me for a short lark,"

rejoined Mr. Tiffany. "But he couldn't live here long; there's nothing old here."

"Who's Baden Baden?" asked Sylvester.

"Only a prince of my acquaintance on the other side of the water, and a devilish clever fellow. But he could'nt stand it here--I'm afraid--everything's so new."

"I'm rather old," suggested Sylvester, smiling on the young man.

"So you are, by Jove--But that aint the thing I want exactly; I want an old castle or two, and a donjon-keep, and that sort of thing.--You understand."

"Something," suggested the grandfather, "in the style of the old revolutionary fort on Fort Hill?"

"No--no--you don't take exactly. I mean something more in the antique--something or other, you see"--here he began twirling his forefinger in the air and sketching an amorphous phantom of some sort, of an altogether unattainable character, "in a word--Jehoshaphat!"

The moment the eye of Mrs. Carrack fell upon the blue and white crockery, the pewter plates which had been in use time out of mind in the family, and the plain knives and forks of steel, she cast on her son a significant glance of mingled surprise and contempt. "Thomas," she said, standing before the place a.s.signed to her, her son doing the same, "the napkins!"

The napkins were brought from a great basket which had accompanied the leathern trunk.

"The other things!"

The other things, consisting of china plates, cups and saucers, and knives and forks of silver for two, were duly laid--Mrs. Carrack and her son having kept the rest of the family waiting the saying of grace by old Sylvester, were good enough to be seated at the old farmer's (Mrs.

Carrack's father's) board.

When old Sylvester unclosed his eyes from the delivery of thanks, he discovered at the back of Mrs. Carrack and her son's chairs, the two city servants in livery, with their short cut hair and embroidered coats of the fas.h.i.+on of those worn in English farces on the stage, standing erect and without the motion of a muscle. There is not a doubt but that old Sylvester Peabody was a good deal astonished, although he gave no utterance to his feelings. But when the two young men in livery began to dive in here and there about the table, snapping up the dishes in exclusive service on Mrs. Carrack and Mr. Tiffany Carrack, he could remain silent no longer.

"Boys," he said, addressing himself to the two fine personages in question, "you will oblige me by going into the yard and chopping wood till we are done supper. We shall need all you can split in an hour to bake the pies with."

Thunderstruck, as though a bolt had smitten them individually in the head, this direction, delivered in a quiet voice of command not to be resisted, sent the two servants forth at the back-door. They were no sooner out of view than they addressed each other almost at the same moment, "My eyes! did you ever see such a queer old fellow as that!"

When Mrs. Carrack and her son turned, and found that the two young gentlemen in livery had actually vanished, the lady smiled a delicate smile of gentle scorn, and Mr. Tiffany, regarding his aged grandfather steadily, merely remarked, in a tone of most friendly and familiar condescension, "Baden-Baden wouldn't have done such a thing!"

The overpowering grandeur of the fas.h.i.+onable lady chilled the household, and there was little conversation till she addressed the widow Margaret.

"Hadn't you a grown up son, Mrs. Peabody?"

The widow was silent. Presently Mr. Carrack renewed the discourse.

"By the by," he said, "I thought I saw that son of yours--wasn't his name Elbridge, or something of that sort?--in New Orleans."

"Did you speak to him?" asked the Captain, flus.h.i.+ng a little in the face.

"I observed he was a good deal out at elbows," Mr. Carrack answered, "and it was broad day-light, in one of the fas.h.i.+onable streets."

"Is that all you have to tell us of your cousin?" old Sylvester inquired.

"He is my cousin--much obliged for the information. I had almost forgotten that! Why ye-es--I couldn't help seeing that he went into a miserable broken-down house in a by-street--but had to get my moustache oiled for a Creole ball that evening, and couldn't be reasonably expected to follow him, could I?--Jehoshaphat!"

If the human countenance, by reason of its clouding up in gusts of pitchy blackness acquired the power, like darkening skies, of discharging thunderbolts, it would have been, I am sure, a hot and heavy one which Mopsey, blackening and blazing, had delivered, as she departed to the kitchen, lowering upon Mr. Tiffany Carrack,--"'_He thought he saw her son Elbridge!_' The vagabone has no more feeling nor de bottom of a stone jug."

The meal over, the evening wore on in friendly chat of old Thanksgiving times--of neighbors and early family histories; each one in turn launching, so to speak, a little boat upon the current, freighted deep with many precious stores of old-time remembrance; Mrs. Carrack sitting alone as an iceberg in the very midst of the waters, melting not once, nor contributing a drop or trickle to the friendly flow. And when bed-time came again, how clearly was it shown, that there is nothing certain in this changeful world. By some sudden and unforeseen interruption, nations lose power, communities are shattered, households well-constructed fall in pieces at a breath.

Her sudden appearance in their midst, compelled another consultation to be taken as to the disposal of the great Mrs. Carrack for the night. It would never answer to put that grand person in any secondary lodging; so all the old arrangements were of necessity broken up; the best bed-room allotted to her; and that her gentle nerves might not be afflicted, the old clock, which adjoined her sleeping-chamber, and which had occupied his corner and told the time for the Peabodys for better than a hundred years from the same spot, was instantly silenced, as impertinent. The Captain's high-actioned white horse, which had enjoyed the privilege of roaming unmolested about the house, was led away like an unhappy convict, and stabled in the barn; and to complete the arrangements, the two servants in livery were put on guard near her window, to drive off the geese, turkeys, and other talkative birds of the night, that she might sleep without the slightest disturbance from that noisy old creature, Nature.

Mr. Tiffany Carrack, while these delicate preparations were in progress, was evidently agitated with some extraordinary design, in which Miriam Haven was bearing a part; for, although he did not address a word to that young maiden, he was as busy as his imitation of the antiquity of Baden-Baden would allow him, ogling, grimacing, and plucking his tawny beard at her every minute in the most astonis.h.i.+ng manner, closely watched by Mopsey, the Captain, and old Sylvester, who strongly suspected the young man of being affected in his wits.

It was very clear that it was this same Mr. Tiffany Carrack who had entered in at the door of the sleeping chamber a.s.signed to that gentleman, but who would have ventured to a.s.sert that the figure, which, somewhere about the middle of the night, emerged from the window of the chamber in question, in yellow slippers, red silk cloak trimmed with gold, fez cap, and white muslin turban, and, with folded arms, began pacing up and down under the cas.e.m.e.nt of Miriam Haven, after the manner of singers at the opera, preparatory to beginning, was the same Tiffany? And yet, when he returned again, and holding his face up to the moon, which was s.h.i.+ning at a convenient angle over the edge of the house, the tawny tuft clearly identified it as Tiffany and no one else.

And yet, as if to further confuse all recognition, what sound is that which breaks from his throat, articulating:--

"Dearest, awake--you need not fear; For he--for he--your Troubadour is here!"

The summons pa.s.sed for some time unanswered, till Mopsey, from the little end-window of her lodgement, presented her head in a flaming red and yellow handkerchief, and rolled her eyes about to discover the source of the tumult; scowling in the belief that it must be no other than "one of dem Brundages come to carry off in de dead of night de Peabody punkin."

A gentle conviction was dawning in the brain of Mr. Carrack that this was the fair Miriam happily responding to his challenge in the appropriate character and costume of a Moorish Princess; when, as he began to roar again, still more violent and furious in his chanting, the black head opened and demanded, "what you want dere?" followed by an extraordinary shower of gourd-sh.e.l.ls, which, cras.h.i.+ng upon his sconce, with a distinct shatter for each sh.e.l.l, could not, for a moment, be mistaken for flowers, signet-rings, or any other ordinarily recognised love-tokens.

It immediately occurred to Mr. Carrack, with the suddenness of inspiration, that he had better return to his chamber and go to bed; a design which was checked, as he proceeded in that direction, by the alarming apparition of a great body with a fire-lock thrust out of the window of the apartment, next to his own, occupied by the Captain, presented directly at his head, with a cry "Avast, there!" and a movement on the part of the body, to follow the gun out at the window.

Fearfully hara.s.sed in that quarter, Mr. Carrack wheeled rapidly about, encountering as he turned, the two servants in livery, still making the circuit of the homestead--who in alarm of their lives from this singular figure in the red cloak, fled into the fields and lurked in an old out-house till daylight. As these scampered away before him, Mr.

Tiffany, to relieve himself of the apparition of the gun, would have turned the corner of the house; when Mopsey appeared, wildly gesticulating, with a great brush-broom reared aloft, and threatening instant ruin to his person.

From this double peril, what but the happiest genius could have suggested to Mr. Tiffany, an instant and straightforward flight from the house; in which he immediately engaged, making up the road--the Captain with his musket, and Mopsey with her hearth-broom, close at his heels.

If Mr. Tiffany Carrack had promptly employed his undoubted resources of youth and activity, his escape from the necessity of disclosure or surrender had been perhaps easy; but it so happened that his progress was a good deal baffled by the conflict constantly kept up in his brain, between the desire to use his legs in the natural manner, and to preserve that antique pace of tottering gentility which he had acquired from that devilish fine old fellow, the Prince of Baden-Baden, so that at one moment he was in the very hands of the enemy, and at the next, flying like an antelope in the distance. The gun, constantly following him with a loud threat, from the Captain, seemed, in the moonlight, like a great finger perpetually pointing at his head; till at last it became altogether too dreadful to bear, and making up the road toward Brundage's, which still further inflamed the pursuit, in sheer exhaustion he rushed through an open gate into a neighboring tan-yard, and took refuge in the old bark-mill. There was but a moment's rest allowed him even here, for Mopsey and the Captain, furiously threatening all sorts of death and destruction, presently rushed in at the door, and sent him scampering about the ring like a distracted colt, in his first day's service; a game of short duration, for the Captain and Mopsey, closing in upon him from opposite directions compelled him to retreat again into the open air. How much longer the chase might have continued, it were hard to tell, for as his pursuers made after him, Mr. Tiffany Carrack suddenly disappeared, like a melted snow-flake, from the surface of the earth. In his confused state he had tumbled into a vat, fortunately without the observation of the inexorable enemy, although as he clung to the side the Captain discharged his musket directly over his head.

"I guess that's done his business," said the Captain. "We'll come and look for the body in the morning."

Now it is strongly suspected that both Mopsey and the Captain knew well enough all along that this was Mr. Tiffany Carrack they had been pursuing, and that as they watched him from the distance emerge from the vat, return to the homestead, and skulk, dripping in, like a rat of outlandish breed, at his chamber-window, they were amply avenged: the Captain, for the freedom with which the city-exquisite had treated the Peabody family, especially the good old grandfather, and Mopsey, for the slighting manner in which he had referred to absent young Mas'r Elbridge.

When all was peace again within the homestead, there was one who still watched the night, and ignorant of the nature of this strange tumult, trembled as at the approach of a long-wished for happiness. It was Miriam, the orphan dependent, who now sat by the midnight cas.e.m.e.nt. Oh, who of living men can tell how that young heart yearned at the thought--the hope--the thrilling momentary belief--that this was her absent lover happily returning?

In the wide darkness of the lonesome night, which was it shone brightest and with purest l.u.s.tre, in view of the all-seeing Mover of the Heavens--the stars glittering far away in s.p.a.ce, in all their lofty glory, or the timid eyes of that simple maiden, wet with the dew of youth, and bright with the pure hope of honest love! When all was still again, and no Elbridge's voice was heard, no form of absent Elbridge there to cheer her, oh, who can tell how near to breaking, in its silent agony, was that young heart, and with what tremblings of solicitude and fear, the patient Miriam waited for the friendly light to open the golden-gate of dawn upon another morrow!

CHAPTER SEVENTH.

THE THANKSGIVING SERMON.

The morning of the day of Thanksgiving came calm, clear and beautiful. A stillness, as of heaven and not of earth, ruled the wide landscape. The Indian summer, which had been as a gentle mist or veil upon the beauty of the time, had gone away a little--retired, as it were, into the hills and back country, to allow the undimmed heaven to s.h.i.+ne down upon the happy festival of families and nations. The cattle stood still in the fields without a low; the trees were quiet as in friendly recognition of the spirit of the hour; no reaper's hook or mower's scythe glanced in the meadow, no rumbling wain was on the road. The birds alone, as being more nearly akin to the feeling of the scene, warbled in the boughs.

But out of the silent gloom of the mist there sprang as by magic, a lovely illumination which lit the country far and wide, as with a thousand varicolored lamps. As a maiden who has tarried in her chamber, some hour the least expected appears before us, apparelled in all the pomp and hue of brilliant beauty, the fair country, flushed with innumerable tints of the changed autumn-trees, glided forth upon the Indian summer scene, and taught that when kindly nature seems all foregone and spent, she can rise from her couch fresher and more radiant than in her very prime.

What wonder if with the peep of dawn the children leaped from bed, eager to have on their new clothes reserved for the day, and by times appeared before old Sylvester in proud array of little hats, new-brightened shoes and s.h.i.+ning locks, span new as though they had just come from the mint; anxious to have his grandfatherly approval of their comeliness? Shortly after, the horses caught in the distant pastures, the Captain and Farmer Oliver having charge of them, were brought in and tied under the trees in the door-yard.