Captain Belgrave.

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BY FREDERIC S. COZZENS.

“My eyes make pictures when they are shut.”

In one of those villages peculiar to our Eastern coast, whose long
lines of pepper-and-salt stone-fences indicate laborious if not profitable
farming, and the saline breath of the ocean has the effect of
making fruit-trees more picturesque than productive, in a stone
chunk of a house, whose aspect is quite as interesting to the geologist
as to the architect, lives Captain Belgrave.

The Captain, as he says himself, “is American clean through,
on the father's side, up to Plymouth Rock, and knows little, and cares
less, of what is beyond that.” To hear him talk, you would suppose
Adam and Eve had landed there from the May-Flower, and the
Garden of Eden was located within rifle distance of that celebrated
land-mark. His genealogical table, however, stands upon unequal
legs; for, on his mother's side he is part German and part Irishman.
I mention this for the benefit of those who believe that certain
qualities in men are hereditary. Of course it will be easy for them
to assign those of Captain Belgrave to their proper source.

The house is square, and not remarkable except for its stone
turret on one corner. This, rising from the ground some forty feet,
embroidered with ivy, and pierced with arrow-slits, has rather a
feudal look. It stands in a by-lane, apart from the congregated
village. On the right side of the road is a plashy spring, somewhat
redolent of mint in the summer. Opposite to this, in a clump of

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oaks, surrounded with a picket-fence, is the open porch, with broad
wooden benches, and within is an ample hall, looking out upon wellcultivated
fields, and beyond — blue water! This is the “Oakery,” as
Captain Belgrave calls it. Here he lives with his brother Adolphus—
bachelors both.

His title is a mystery. There is a legend in the village, that in
the last war Belgrave was enrolled in the militia on some frontier.
One night he was pacing as sentinel on a long wooden piazza in front
of the General's quarters. It was midnight; the camp was asleep,
and the moon was just sinking in a bank of clouds. Belgrave heard
a footstep on the stairs at the end of the piazza. “Who goes there?”
No answer. Another step. “Who goes there?” he repeated, and
his heart began to fail him. No answer — but another step. He
cocked his musket. Step, step, step, and then between him and
the sinking moon appeared an enormous head decorated with diabolical
horns. Belgrave drew a long breath and fired. The next
instant the spectre was upon him; he was knocked down; the
drums beat to arms; the guard turned out, and found the sentinel
stretched upon the floor, with an old he-goat, full of defiance and
odor, standing on him. From that time he was called “Captain.”

No place, though it be a paradise, is perfect without one of the
gentler sex. There is a lady at the Oakery. Miss Augusta Belgrave
is a maiden of about — let me see; her age was formerly inscribed
on the fly-leaf of the family Bible between the Old and New Testaments;
but the page was torn out, and now it is somewhere in the
Apocrypha. No matter what it may be; if you were to see her,
you would say she was safe over the breakers. Two unmarried
brothers, with a spinster sister, living alone: it is not unfrequent
in old families. The rest of the household may be embraced in
Hannah, the help, who is also “a maiden all forlorn,” and Jim, the
stable-boy. Jim is a unit, as well as the rest. Jim has been a
stable-boy all his life, and now, at the age of sixty, is only a boy
ripened. His chief pride and glory is to drive a pair of bob-tailed
bay trotters that are (traditionally) fast! Adolphus, who has a turn
for literature, christened the off-horse “Spectator;” but the near
horse came from a bankrupt wine-broker, who named him “Chateau

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Margaux.” This the Captain reduced to “Shatto,” and the village
people corrupted to “Shatter!”

There was something bold and jaunty in the way the Captain used
to drive old Shatter on a dog-trot through the village, (Spectator
rarely went with his mate except to church on Sundays,) with squared
elbows, and whip depending at a just angle over the dash-board.
“Talk of your fast horses!” he would say. “Why, if I would only
let him out,” pointing his whip, like a marshal's baton, toward
Shatter, “you would see time!” But he never lets him out.

The square turret rises considerably above the house-roof. Every
night, at bed-time, the villagers see a light shining through its narrow
loop-holes. There are loop-holes in the room below, and strong casements
of ordinary size in the rooms adjoining. In the one next to it
Miss Augusta sleeps, as all the village knows, for she is seen at times
looking out of the window. Next to that is another room, in which
Adolphus sleeps. He is often seen looking out of that window.
Next, again, to that is the vestal chamber of Hannah, on the southwest
corner of the house. She is sometimes seen looking out of the
window on either side. Next to that again is the dormitory of Jim,
the stable-boy. Jim always smells like a menagerie, and so does his
room, no doubt. He never looks out of the window except upon the
Fourth of July, when there is too much noise in the village to risk
driving Spec and Shat. No living person but the occupants has
ever been in that story of the house. No living person understands
the mystery of the tower. The light appears at night through the
loop-holes in the second story, then flashes upward, shines again
through the slits in the lofty part of the turret, burns steadily half
an hour or so, and then vanishes. Who occupies that lonely turret?

Let us take the author-privilege and ascend the stairs. First we
come to Jim's room; we pass through that into Hannah's apartment.
There is a bolt on the inside of her door; we pass on into the room
of Adolphus; it, too, has a bolt on the inside. Now all the virtues
guide and protect us, for we are in the sleeping-apartment of the
spinster sister! It, too, has a bolt on the inside; and here we are in
the tower: the door, like the rest, is bolted. There is nothing in the
room but the carpet on the floor; no stair-case, but a trap-door in the

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ceiling. It is but a short flight for fancy to reach the upper story.
The trap is bolted in the floor; there is a ladder standing beside it;
here are chairs, a bureau, a table, with an extinguished candle, and
the moonlight falls in a narrow strip across the features of Captain
Belgrave, fast asleep, and beside him a Bible, and an enormous horse-pistol,
loaded.

Nowhere but in the household of some old bachelor could such
discipline exist as in the Oakery. At night the Captain is the first to
retire; Miss Augusta follows with a pair of candlesticks and candles;
then metaphysical Adolphus with his mind in painful state of fermentation;
then Hannah, the help, with a small brass candlestick; then
Jim, the stable-boy, who usually waits until the company is on the
top-stair, when he makes a false start, breaks, pulls himself up, and
gets into a square trot just in time to save being distanced at the
landing. Adolphus and Jim are not trusted with candles. Miss
Augusta is rigorous on that point. She permits the Captain to have
one because he is careful with it; beside, he owns the house and
every thing in it; the land and every thing on it; and supports the
family; therefore his sister indulges him. We now understand the
internal arrangement of the Oakery. It is a fort, a castle, a citadel,
of which Augusta is the scarp, Jim the glacis, Hannah the counter-scarp,
and Adolphus the ditch. The Captain studied the science of
fortification after his return from the wars.

The Belgraves are intimate only with one family in the village,
and they are new acquaintances — the Mewkers. There is Mr.
Mewker, Mrs. Mewker, Mrs. Lasciver, formerly Miss Mewker, and
six or seven little Mewkers. Mewker has the reputation of being a
good man, but unfortunately his appearance is not prepossessing.
He has large bunchy feet, with very ineffectual legs, low shoulders,
a sunken chest, a hollow cavity under the waistcoat, little, weak,
eyes that seem set in bladders, straggling hair, rusty whiskers,
black, and yellow teeth, and long, skinny, disagreeable fingers;
beside, he is knock-kneed, shuffling in gait, and always leans on one
side when he walks. Uncharitable people say he leans on the side
where his interests lie, but Captain Belgrave will not believe a word
of it. Oh! no; Mewker is a different man from that. He is a

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member of the church, and sings in the choir. He is executor of several
estates, and of course takes care of the orphans and widows. He
holds the church money in trust, and of course handles it solely to
promote its interests. And then he is so deferential, so polite, so
charitable. “Never,” says the Captain, “did I hear him speak ill of
any body, but he lets me into the worst points of my neighbors by
jest teching on 'em, and then he excuses their fibles, as if he was kind
o' sorry for 'em; but I keeps my eye onto 'em after the hints he give
me, and he can't blind me to them.”

Harriet Lasciver, formerly Miss Mewker, is a widow, perfectly
delicious in dimples and dimity, fond of high life and low-necked
dresses, music, birds, and camelias. Captain Belgrave has a great
fancy for the charming widow. This is a secret, however. You and I
know it, and so does Mewker.

It is Sunday in Little-Crampton — a summer Sunday. The old-fashioned
flowers are blooming in the old-fashioned gardens, and the
last vibration of the old rusty bell in the century-old belfry seems
dying off, and melting away in fragrance. Outside, the village is
quiet, but within the church there is an incessant plying of fans and
rustling of dresses. The Belgraves are landed at the porch, and
Spec and Shat whirl the family carriage into the grave-yard. The
Mewkers enter with due decorum. Adolphus drops his hymn-book
into the pew in front, as he always does. The little flatulent organ
works through the voluntary. The sleek head of the Rev. Mr. Spat
is projected toward the audience out of the folds of his cambric
handkerchief; and after doing as much damage to the simple and
beautiful service as he can by reading it, flourishes through the regular
old Spatsonian sermon; its tiresome repetitions and plagiarisms,
with the same old rising and falling inflections, the same old tremulous
tone toward the end, as if he were crying; the same old recuperative
method by which he recovers his lost voice in the last
sentence, when it was all but gone; and the same old gesture by
which the audience understand that his labors (and theirs) are over
for the morning. Then the congregation departs with the usual
accompaniments of dresses rustling, and pew-doors slamming; and
Mr. Meeker descends from the choir and sidles up the aisle, nursing

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his knobs of elbows in his skinny fingers, and congratulates the Rev.
Mr. Spat upon the excellent discourse he had delivered, and receives
the customary quid pro quo in the shape of a compliment upon the
excellent singing in the choir. This account adjusted, Mr. Mewker
shuffles home beside the lovely widow; and Mrs. Mewker and the
small fry of members follow in their wake.

“I have looked into the records in the county clerk's office,”
Mewker says, in a whisper, to his sister, “and the property is all
right. That old Thing, (unconscious Augusta Belgrave, rolling
home behind Spec and Shat, do you hear this?) that old Thing,
and that fool of a book-worm (Adolphus) can be packed off after
the wedding, and then we can arrange matters between us. Spat
understands me in this, and intends to be hand and glove with Belgrave,
so as to work upon him. He will, he must do it, for he knows
that his remaining in this church depends upon me.” Here Mr.
Mewker was interrupted by one of the young Mewkers, who came
running up, hat in hand. “Oh! pa, look there! see those beautiful
climbing roses growing all over that old tree!” “Jacob,” said
Mewker, catching him by the hair, and rapping his head with his
bony knuckles until the tears came, “have n't I told you not to speak
of such trivial things on the Sabbath? How dare you (with a
repetition of raps) think of climbing roses so soon after church?
Go; (with a fresh clutch in the scalp of Mewker, Junior,) go to your
mother, and when I get home I will punish you.” Mr. Mewker
resumed the whispered conversation. “Belgrave is ruled entirely
by his sister, but between Spat and I, she can be blinded, I think. If
she should suspect, now, she would interfere, of course, and Belgrave
would not dare to disobey her. But if we can get him committed
once in some way, he is such a coward that he would be entirely
in my power. Dear,” he said aloud to Mrs. M., “how did you
like the sermon?” “Angelic,” replies Mrs. Mewker. “That's my
opinion, too,” responds Mewker. “Angelic, angelic. Spat is a lovely
man, my dear. What is there for dinner?”

If there were some feminine meter by which Harriet Laseiver's
sould could be measured, it would indicate “good” pretty high up on
the scale. Yet she had listened to this after-church discourse of her

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brother not only with complacency, but with a full and unequivocal
assent to all he had proposed. So she would have listened, so
assented to any thing, no matter what, proposed by him; and all
things considered, it was not surprising. Even as continued attrition
wears the angles of the flint until it is moulded into the perfect
pebble, so had her nature been moulded by her brother. He had
bullied her in her childhood and in her womanhood, except when
there was a purpose in view which he could better accomplish by
fawning; and her natural good disposition, so indurated by these
opposed modes of treatment, had become as insensible to finer emotions
as her heart was callous to its own impulses. There was one
element in his composition which at all times had cast a gloss upon
his actions. It was his piety! God help us! that any one should
allude to that but with reverence and love! Nor do I here speak
of it but as a profession, an art, or specious showing forth of something
that is not real, but professed, in order to accomplish other ends.
What profited her own experience, when Harriet Lasciver was so far
imposed upon as to believe her brother's professions sincere? What
though all his life he had been a crooked contriver and plotter,
malicious in his enmity, and false in his friendship; and she knew it?
Yet, as she could not reconcile it with his affected sanctity, she could
not believe it. That wonderful power which men seldom, and women
never analyze — hypocrisy, held her entangled in its meshes, and she
was his instrument to be guided as he chose. Every noble trait
true woman possesses — pity, tenderness, love, and high honor —
were commanded by an influence she could not resist. Her reason,
nay, her feelings were dormant, but her faith slept securely upon
her brother's religion!

In this instance there was another consideration — a minor one, it
is true, but in justice to the widow, it must be added. She really
admired the Captain; but that makes no great difference. A widow
must love some body. Those delicate tendrils of affection which put
forth, with the experiences of the young wife die not in the widow,
but survive, and must have some support. Even if the object be unworthy
or unsightly, as it happens sometimes, still will they bind,
and bloom, and cling, and blossom around it, like honey-suckles
around a post.

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The windows at the Oakery are open, and the warm air of a Sunday
summer evening pours in, as Augusta pours out the tea. The
Captain burns his mouth with the first cup, turns the tea into the saucer,
blows it to cool it, drinks it off hastily, takes a snap at the thin,
white slice of bread on his plate, takes another snap at a radish somewhat
overcharged with salt, wipes his mouth, goes to the window and
calls out “Jim!” Jim appears at the stable-door with a wisp of
straw and a curry-comb. “Put in the hosses!” Jim telegraphs with
the curry-comb, “All right, Sir!” Augusta stares at Adolphus, and
Adolphus brushes the metaphysical films from his eyes, and, for once,
seems wide awake. The Captain takes his seat and a fresh snap at
the bread. Augusta looks at him steadily. “Why, brother, where
are you going with the horses on Sunday afternoon?” The Captain
squints at the bread, and answers, “To Mewker's.” “Mewker's!”
repeats Augusta; “Mewker's! why, brother, you 're crazy; they
never receive company on Sunday. You know how strictly pious
Mr. Mewker is, and he would look at you with amazement. To see
you riding, too! why—I—never!”

The Captain, however, said nothing, but waited, with some impatience,
until Spec and Shat turned out with the carriage from the stable.
Then he took the ribbons, stopped, threw them down, went up
into the tower, came back with a clean shirt on, climbed into the seat,
and drove off.

“He 'll come back from there in a hurry, I guess,” said Augusta
to the wondering Adolphus.

But the Captain did not return until eleven that night, and then
somewhat elevated with wine. “Augushta,” said he, as the procession
formed as usual on the stairs, “that Mucous 'sha clever feller, heesha
clever feller, heesha dev'lish clever feller; heesh fond of talking on
church matters, and sho 'mi. His shister, sheesha another clever feller,
she 's a chump! I asked 'em to come to-morrow to tea, and
shaid they would.”

“Why, brother, to-morrow is Monday, washing-day!” replied the
astonished spinster.

“Tha 's a fack, Gushta, fack,” answered the Captain, as he took
the candle from his sister at the tower-door; “but, wash or no wash,

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musht come. When I ask 'em to come, musht come. Good-night!”

The bolts are closed on the several doors, scarp and counterscarp,
ditch and glacis are wrapped in slumber; but the Captain lies wide
awake, looking through the slits in the tower casement at the Great
Bear in the sky, and thinking rapturously of the lovely Lasciver.

Never did the old family carriage have such a polishing as on that
Monday morning. Never did Jim so bestir himself with the harness
as on that day under the eye of Belgrave. The Captain neglects to
take his accustomed ride to the village in the morning, that Spec
and Shat may be in condition for the afternoon. At last the carriage
rolls up the road from the Oakery, with Jim on the box, and the Captain
retires to dress for company. In due course the carriage returns
with Spec and Shat somewhat blown with an over-load; for all the
young Mewkers are piled up inside, on the laps of Mrs. Mewker and
the lovely Lasciver. Then Augusta hurries into the kitchen to tell
Hannah, the help, to cut more bread for the brats, and Adolphus is hurried
out into the garden to pull more radishes, and the young Mewker
tribe get into his little library, and revel in his choice books, and
quarrel over them, and scatter some leaves and covers on the floor as
trophies of the fight. Then the tea is brought on, and the lovely Lasciver
tries in vain to soften the asperity of Augusta; and then Mewker
takes her in hand, and does succeed, and in a remarkable degree,
too. Meanwhile the ciphers of the party, Mrs. Mewker and Adolphus,
drink and eat in silence. Then they adjourn to the porch, and
Mewker sits beside Augusta, and entertains her with an account of
the missions in Surinam, to which she turns an attentive ear. Then
Mrs. Mewker says it is time to go, “on account of the children,” at
which Mewker darts a petrifying look at her, and turns with a smile
to Augusta, who, in the honesty of her heart, says “she, too, thinks it
is best for the young ones to go to bed early.” Then Jim is summoned
from the stable, and Spec and Shat; and the Mewkers take
leave, and whirl along the road again toward home.

It was long before the horses returned, for Jim drove back slowly.
There was not a tenderer heart in the world than the one which beat
in the bosom of that small old boy of sixty. He sat perched upon

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the box, calling out, “Gently, soho!” to Spec and Shat, when they
advanced beyond a walk, and held a talk with himself in this wise:
“I do n't want to carry that old carcase agin. He gits in and praises
up the Cap'n so as I can hear him, and then asks me if I wo n't lay
the whip on the hosses. Says I, `Mr. Mewker, them hosses has been
druv.' Says he, `Yes, James, but you can give 'em a good rubbin'
down when you get to hum, and that will fetch 'em all right.' Now,
I want to know if you take a man, and lay a whip onto him, and
make him travel till he 's sore, whether rubbin' down is a-goin' to
make him all right? No, Sir. Then he calls me James. I do n't
want no man to call me James; my name 's Jim. There was old
Midgely; he called me James; did n't he coax out of me all I 'd
saved up for more 'n twenty years, and then busted? There was
Deacon Cotton; did n't he come in over the Captain with that pork?
He called me James, too. And there was that psalm-singin' peddler
that got Miss Augusty to lend him the colt; he called me James. Did
he bring the colt back? No, Sir; at least not yit, and it 's more 'n
three years ago. When a man calls me James, I take my eye and
places it onto him. I hearn him when he tells Miss Mewker not to
give beggars nothin'. I hearn him. He sez they may be impostors!
Well, 'spose they be? When a feller-creatur' gits so low as to beg,
have n't they got low enough? Aint they ragged, dirty, despised?
Do n't they run a chance of starvin', impostors or not, if every
body drives 'em off? And what great is it if they do get a-head of
you, for a crumb or a cent? When I see a feller-creatur' in rags,
beggin', I say human matur' has got low enough; it 's in rags! it
begs! it 's 'way down, and it do n't make much difference if it 's
actin' or not. Them aint impostors that will do much harm. Them
aint impostors like old Midgely, and Deacon Cotton, and that psalm-singin'
peddler that borrowed the colt; at least they do n't cut it so
fat. But 'spose they do n't happin' to be impostors, arter all?
Whar's that account to be squared? I guess I 'd rayther be the beggar
than the other man when that account is squared. I guess when
that account is squared, it will kind a-look as if the impostor was n't
the one that asked for the stale bread, but the one that would n't give
it. Seems as if I 've heard 'em tell about a similar case somewhere.”

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A good rubbing down, indeed, for Spec and Shat that night, and a
well-filled manger, too. When Jim picked up his stable-lantern, he
gave each horse a pat on the head and a parting hug, and then backed
out, with his eyes still on them. “Spec!” said he at the door. Spec
gave a whinny in reply. “Shat!” Shat responded also. “Good-night,
old boys! Old Jim aint a-goin' to lay no whip onto you. If
old Jim wants to lay a whip onto something, it wo n't be onto you,
that 's been spavined and had the bots, and he 's cured 'em, and they
know it, hey! No, Sir. His 'tipathy works outside into another
quarter. Is my name James? Well, it aint. It 's Jim, is n't it?
Yes, Sir!”

Old Jim's remarks being ended, and the stable-door locked,
nothing remained for him to do but to form the glacis before the
Belgrave citadel.

From that night, however, the halcyon days of Spec and Shat
were at an end. The Mewkers loved to ride, but they had no horses:
the only living thing standing upon four legs belonging to Mr. Mewker
was an ugly, half-starved, cross-grained, suspicious-looking dog,
that had the mange and a bad reputation. Of course, the Captain's
horses were at their service, for rides to the beach, for pic-nics in the
woods, for shopping in the village, or, perchance, to take Mr. Mewker
to some distant church-meeting. And not only were the horses
absent at unusual times; there seemed to be a growing fondness in
the Captain for late hours. The old-style regularity of the Oakery,
the time-honored habits of early hours to bed, the usual procession up
the stairs, formal but cheerful, were, in some measure, broken into;
not but what these were observed as formerly; not but what every
member of the family waited and watched until the Captain returned,
no matter how late; but that sympathetic feeling which all had felt
when the hour of bed-time came, had ceased to be, and in its place
was the dreary languor, the tiresome, tedious feeling that those experience
who sit up and wait and wait, for an absent one, waiting and
asking, “Why tarry the wheels of his chariot?” There was an increasing
presentiment, a gloomy foreshadowing of evil, in Miss Augusta's
mind at these doings of the Captain; and this feeling was heightened
by something, trifling in itself, yet still mysterious and unaccountable.

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Some body, almost every day, cut off a tolerably large piece from the
beef or mutton, or whatever kind of meat there chanced to be in the
cellar. And no body knew any thing about it. Hannah was fidelity
itself; Jim was beyond suspicion; Adolphus never went into the cellar,
scarcely out of the library, in fact. The Captain! could it be her
brother? Miss Augusta watched. She saw him do it. She saw him
covertly draw his jack-knife from his pocket, and purloin a piece of
beautiful rump-steak, then wrap it up in paper, put it in his pocket,
and walk off whistling, as if nothing had happened. “The widow is
at the bottom of this!” was the thought that flashed through the mind
of Augusta. She was indirectly correct. The widow was at the bottom
of the theft, and I will tell you how. I have mentioned a large,
mangy dog, of disreputable character, Mr. Mewker's property, and
“Bose” by name. Whenever the Captain drove up the path to the
house of his friend, there, beside the step of the wagon, from the time
it passed the gate until it reached the porch, was this dog, with a tail
short as pie-crust, that never wagged; thick, wicked eyes, and a face
that did not suggest fidelity and sagacity, but treachery and rapine,
dead sheep, and larceny great or small. And although the Captain
was a stout, active, well-framed man, with a rosy cheek, a bright eye,
and a sprightly head of hair, yet he was afraid of that dog. And
therefore, the Captain, to conciliate Bose, brought him every day
some choice morsel from his own kitchen; and as he did not dare
to tell Augusta, the same was abstracted in the manner already
described.

Here I must mention a peculiarity in Captain Belgrave's character.
He never saw a dog without thinking of hydrophobia; he never
bathed on the beautiful beach in the rear of his house without imagining
every chip in the water, or ripple on the wave, to be the dorsal
fin of some voracious shark. When he drove home at night, it was
with fear and trembling, for an assassin might be lurking in the
bushes; and if he passed a sick neighbor, he walked off with smallpox,
measles, typhoid, and whooping-cough trundling at his heels. In
a word, he was the most consummate coward in Little-Crampton. It
was for this reason he had built and slept in the tower; and what with
reading of pirates, buccaneers, Captain Kidd, and Black Beard, his

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mind was so infected that no sleeping-place seemed secure and safe,
but his own turret and trap-door, scarp, counterscarp, ditch, and glacis,
through which all invaders had to pass before they encountered
him with his tremendous horse-pistol.

It was not the discovery of the theft alone that had opened the
eyes of Augusta in regard to her brother's motions. Although he had
told her, again and again, that he merely went to Mewkers to talk
over church matters, yet she knew intuitively, as every woman would,
that a widow so lovely as Harriet Lasciver could not but have great
attractions for such an old bachelor as her brother. In fact, she
knew, if the widow, as the phrase is, “set her cap for him,” the Captain
was a lost man. But to whom could she apply for counsel and
assistance? Adolphus? Adolphus had no more sense than a kitten.
Hannah? There was something of the grand old spinster—spirit
about Augusta that would not bend to the level of Hannah, the help.
Jim? She would go to Jim. She would see that small boy of sixty,
and ask his advice. And she did. She walked over to the stable
in the evening, while her brother was making his toilet for the customary
visit to the Mewkery, and, without beating around the bush
at all, reached the point at once. “Jim,” said she, “the Captain is
getting too thick with the Mewkers, and we must put a stop to it.
How is that to be done?”

Jim paused for a moment, and then held up his forefinger. “I
know one way to stop him a-goin' there; and, if you say so, Miss
Augusta, then old Jim is the boy to do it.”

Augusta assented in a grand, old, towering nod. Jim, with a mere
motion of his forefinger, seemed to reïterate, “If you say so, I 'll
do it.”

“Yes.”

“Then, by Golly!” responded Jim joyfully, “arter this night
he 'll never go there ag'in.”

Augusta walked toward the house with a smile, and Jim proceeded
to embellish Shatter.

By-and-by the Captain drove off in the wagon, and old Jim
busied himself with Spectator, fitting a mouldy saddle on his back,
and getting him ready for action.

[figure description] Page 176.[end figure description]

There was a thin cloud, like lace, over the moon that night; just
enough to make objects painfully distinct, as Captain Belgrave turned
out from Mewker's gate, and took the high road toward home. He
jogged along, however, quite comfortably, and had just reached the
end of Mewker's fence, when he saw a figure on horseback, emerging
from the little lane that ran down behind the garden to the pond at
the back of the house. The apparition had a sort of red cape around
its shoulders; a soldier-cap, with a tall plume, (very like the one the
Captain used to wear on parade,) was upon its head; in its hand was
a long, formidable-looking staff; and the horse of the spectre was
enveloped in a white saddle-cloth, that hung down almost to the
ground. What was remarkable, Old Shatter, as if possessed with the
devil, actually drew out of the road toward the stranger, and gave a
whinny, which was instantly responded to in the most frightful tones
by the horse of the spectre. Almost paralyzed, the Captain suffered
the apparition to approach him. What a face it had! Long masses
of hair, like tow, waved around features that seemed to have neither
shape nor color. Its face seemed like a face of brown paper, so formless
and flat was it, with great hideous eyes and a mouth of intolerable
width. As it approached, the figure seemed to have a convulsion—
it rolled so in the saddle; but, recovering, it drew up beside
the shaft, and, whirling its long staff, brought such a whack upon Shatter's
flank, that the old horse almost jumped out of his harness.
Away went the wagon and the Captain, and away went the spectre
close behind; fences, trees, bushes, dust, whirled in and out of sight;
bridges, sedges, trout-brooks, mills, willows, copses, plains, in moonlight
and shadow, rolled on and on; but not an inch was lost or won;
there, behind the wagon, was the goblin with his long plume bending,
and waving, and dancing, and his staff whirling with terrible menaces.
On, and on, and on, and ever and anon the goblin steed gave one of
those frightful whinnies that seemed to tear the very air with its dissonance.
On, and on, and on! The Captain drove with his head turned
back over his shoulder, but Shat knew the road. On, and on, and on!
A thought flashes like inspiration through the mind of the Captain,
“The horse-pistol!” It is under the cushions. He seizes it nervously,
cocks it, and — bang! goes the plume of the goblin. “By gosh!” said

[figure description] Page 177.[end figure description]

a voice under the soldier-cap, “I did n't cal'late on that;” and then,
“I vum ef old Shat haint run away!” Sure enough, Shatto has run
away; the wagon is out of sight in a turn of the road; the next
instant, it brings up against a post; off goes Shat, with shafts and
dislocated fore-wheels; and old Jim soon after finds the remains of
the wagon, and the senseless body of his master, in a ditch, under
the moon, and a willow. To take the red blanket from his shoulders,
which he had worn like a Mexican poncho by putting his head through
a hole in the middle, is done in an instant; and then, with big tears
rolling down his cheeks, the old boy brings water from a spring, in
the crown of the soldier-cap, to bathe the face of the Captain. The
report of the pistol has alarmed a neighbor; and the two, with the
assistance of the hind-wheels and the body of the wagon, carry poor
Belgrave through the moon-lit streets of Little-Crampton, to the
Oakery.

When the Captain opened his eye, (for the other was under the
tuition of a large patch of brown paper, steeped in vinegar,) he found
himself safe at home, surrounded and fortified, as usual, by Augusta,
Adolphus, Hannah, the help, and Jim, in picturesque attitudes. How
he came there, was a mystery. Stay; he begins to take up the
thread: Mewkers, fence, the figure, the race for life, and the pistol!
What else? Nothing — blank — oblivion. So he falls into a tranquil
state of comfort, and feels that he does not care about it. No getting
up that steep ladder to-night! Never mind. It is a labor to think,
so he relapses into thoughtlessness, and finally falls asleep. There
was a stranger in the room behind the bed's head, a tall, astringent-looking
man, Dr. Butternuts, by whom the Captain had been let
blood. If Belgrave had seen him, he would have fainted. “No injuries
of any consequence,” says the doctor, departing and waving his
brown hand. “Terribly skart, though,” Augusta responds in a whisper.
“Yes, he will get over that; to-morrow he will be better;”
and the doctor waves himself out. Adolphus retires, and then Hannah,
the help; but Augusta and Jim watch by the bedside until
morning. The Captain, every now and then, among the snowy sheets
and coverlet, turns up a side of face that looks like a large, purple
egg-plant, at which Jim sighs heavily; but Augusta whispers

[figure description] Page 178.[end figure description]

soothingly, “Never mind, Jim, it 's for his good; I 'm glad you skart
him; you skart him a leetle too much this time, that 's all; next time
you 'll be more careful, wo n't you, and not skear him so bad?”

That Captain Belgrave had been thrown from his wagon, and
badly hurt, was known all over Little-Crampton, next morning.
Some said he had been shot at by a highwayman; some, he had shot
at a highwayman. The story took a hundred shapes, and finally was
rolled up at the door of the Rev. Melchior Spat, who at once took
his wagon, and drove off to the Mewkery. There the rumor was
unfolded to Mr. Mewker, who, enjoying it immensely, made so many
funny remarks thereon, that the Rev. Melchior Spat was convulsed
with laughter, and then the two drove down to the Oakery to condole
with the sufferer. On the way there, the Rev. Melchior was so wonderfully
facetious, that Mewker, who never enjoyed any person's
jokes but his own, was actually stimulated into mirth, and had it not
been for happily catching a distant sight of the tower, would have so
forgotten himself as to drive up to the door with a pleasant expression
of countenance. As it was, they both entered grave as owls, and
inquired, in faint and broken voices, how the Captain was, and whether
he was able to see friends. Augusta, who received them, led
them up to the room, where the Captain, with his face like the globe
in the equinox, sitting propped up in bed, shook both feebly by the
hands, and then the Rev. Melchior proposed prayer, to which Mewker
promptly responded by dropping on his knees, and burying his
face in the bottom of an easy chair. This was a signal for Adolphus
to do likewise; and the Captain, not to be behind, struggling up into a
sitting posture, leaned forward in the middle of the coverlet, with his
toes and the end of his shirt deployed upon the pillows. Then the
Rev. Melchior, in a crying voice, proceeded according to the homoeopathic
practice — that is, making it short and sweet as possible —
touching upon the excellent qualities of the sufferer, the distress of
his beloved friends, and especially of the anxiety which would be
awakened in the bosom of one now absent, “whose heart was only the
heart of a woman, a heart not strong and able to bear up against
calamity, but weak, and fragile, and loving, and pitiful, and tender;
a heart that was so weak, and loving, and pitiful, and tender, and

[figure description] Page 179.[end figure description]

fragile, that it could not bear up against calamity; no, it could not;
no, it could not; it was weak, it was pitiful, it was loving, it was tender,
it was fragile like a flower, and against calamity it could not
bear up.”

So great was the effect of the Rev. Melchior Spat's eloquence, that
the Captain fairly cried, so as to leave a round wet spot in the middle
of the coverlet, and Mr. Mewker wiped his eyes frequently with his
handkerchief, as he rose from the chair. And although the voice of
the Reverend Melchior had been heard distinctly, word for word, by
Jim, in the far-off stable, yet it sank to the faintest whisper when he
proceeded to inquire of the Captain how he felt, and what was this
dreadful story. And then the Captain, in a voice still fainter, told
how he was attacked by a man of immense size, mounted on a horse
of proportionate dimensions, and how he had defended himself, and
did battle bravely until, in the fight, “Shatto got skeared, and overset
the wagon, and then the man got onto him, and pounded the life out
of him, while he was entangled with reins.” Then Mr. Mewker and
the Rev. Mr. Spat took leave with sorrowful faces, and as they drove
home again, renewed the jocularity which had been interrupted somewhat
by the visit to the Oakery.

To say that Mr. Mewker neglected his friend, the Captain, during
his misfortunes, would be doing a great injustice to that excellent
man. Every day he was at the Oakery, to inquire after his health;
and rarely did he come without some little present, a pot of sweetmeants,
a bouquet, or something of the kind, from the lovely Lasciver.
How good it was of him to buy jelly at two shillings a pound at the
store, and bring it to the Captain, saying, “This little offering is from
Harriet, who thought some delicacy of the kind would be good for
you.” Was it not disinterested? Hiding his own modest virtues in
a pot of jelly, and presenting it in the name of another! The truth
is, Mewker's superior tactics were too profound for Augusta to contend
against; she felt, as it were, the sand sliding from under her
feet. Nor was Mewker without a powerful auxiliary in the Reverend
Melchior Spat, who, by his prerogative, had free access to the house
at all times, and made the most of it, too. Skillfully turning to common
topics when Augusta was present, and as skillfully returning to

[figure description] Page 180.[end figure description]

the old subject when she retired, he animated the Captain with such
desire for the lovely widow, that, had it not been for his black eye, he
would assuredly have gone off and proposed on the spot. This feeling,
however, subsided when the Rev. Melchior was gone; the Captain
did not think of marrying; he was a true old bachelor, contented
with his lot, and not disposed to change it even for a better; beside,
he was timid.

At last our hero was able once more to go about, and Jim drove
him down slowly to the Mewkery. Such a noise as Bose made when
he saw the carriage approaching! But there was no present from the
hand of his friend this time; so Bose contented himself with growling
and snapping angrily at his own tail, which was not longer than half a
cucumber. What a blush spread over the face of the Captain when
he saw the widow, all dimples and dimity, advancing to meet him in
the familiar back-parlor! How the sweet roses breathed through the
shaded blinds as he breathed out his thanks to the widow for many
precious favors during his confinement. They were alone; the Captain
sat beside her on the sofa; one of her round, plump, white, dimpled
hands was not far from him, resting upon the black hair-cloth of
the sofa bottom. He looked right and left; there was no one near;
so he took the hand respectfully, and raised it to his lips, intending to
replace it, of course. To his dismay, she uttered a tender “O!” and
leaned her head upon his shoulder. What to do, he did not know;
but he put his arm around her bewitching waist, to support her. Her
eyes were closed, and the long, radiant lashes heightened, by contrast,
the delicious color that bloomed in her cheeks. The Captain looked
right and left again; no one was near; if he could venture to kiss
her! He had never kissed a pretty woman in all his life! The
desire to do so increased; it seemed to grow upon him, in fact;
drawn toward her by an influence he could not resist, he leaned
over and touched those beautiful lips, and then — in walked Mr.
Mewker.

Had Mewker not been a genius, he might have compromised
every thing by still playing the humble, deferential, conscientious
part; but hypocrisy on a low key was not his cue now; he knew his
man too well for that, and besides, familiar as this branch of art had

[figure description] Page 181.[end figure description]

been, there was another still more natural to him; he was wonderful
in the sycophant, but matchless in the bully! Those little, weak,
bladdery eyes seemed almost to distil venom, as wrapping his knobby
arms in a knot, he strode up to the astonished Belgrave, and asked him
“how he dared invade the privacy of his house, the home of his wife
and children, and the sanctuary of his sister? How he dared trespass
upon the hospitality that had been extended toward, nay, that had
been lavished upon him? Was not the respectability of the Mewker
family, a family related to the wealthy Balgangles of Little-Crampton,
and connected by marriage with the Shellbarques of Boston, a
sufficient protection against his nefarious designs? And did he undertake,
under the mask of friendship,” and Mewker drew up his forehead
into a complication of lines like an indignant web, “to come,
as a hypocrite, a member of the church (O Mewker!) with the
covert intention of destroying the peace and happiness of his only
sister?”

Belgrave was a man who never swore; but on this occasion he
uttered an exclamation: “My grief!” said he, “I never had no such
idee.”

“What, then, are your intentions?” said Mewker, fiercely.

“T' make it all straight,” replied the Captain.

“How?”

Belgrave paused, and Mewker shuffled rapidly to and fro, muttering
to himself. At last he broke out again:

“How, I say?”

“On that p'int I 'm codjitatin'.”

“Do — you — mean —” said Mewker, with a remarkable smile,
placing his hand calmly on the Captain's shoulder, “to — trifle —
with — me?”

“No,” replied poor Belgrave, surrendering up, as it were, what
was left of him; “I 'm ready to be married, if that will make it all
straight, provided,” he added with natural courtesy, turning to the
lovely widow, “provided this lady does not think me unworthy of
her.”

Mewker drew forth a tolerably clean handkerchief, and applied it
to his eyes: a white handkerchief held to the eyes of a figure in

[figure description] Page 182.[end figure description]

threadbare black is very effective. The lovely Lasciver remained
entirely passive; such is discipline.

Here, at last, was an opportunity to beat a retreat. The Captain
rose, and shaking Mewker's unemployed hand, which, he said afterward,
“felt like a bunch of radishes,” left the room without so much
as a word to the future Mrs. Belgrave. So soon as the door closed
upon him, Mr. Mewker raised his eyes from the handkerchief, and
smiled sweetly upon his sister. The thing is accomplished.

As some old bear, who had enjoyed freedom from cubhood, feels,
at the bottom of a pit dug by the skillful hunter, so feels Captain Belgrave,
as he rides home sorrowfully. His citadel, after all, is not a
protection. Into its penetralia a subtle spirit has at last found
entrance. The air grows closer and heavier around him, the shadows
broader, the bridges less secure, the trout-brooks blacker and deeper.
How shall he break the matter to Augusta? “No hurry, though;
the day has n't been app'inted yit;” and at this suggestion the clouds
begin to break and lighten. Then he sees Mewker, threadbare and
vindictive; his sky again is overcast, but filaments of light stream
through as he conjures up the image of the lovely widow, the dimpled
hand, the closed eyes, the long radiate lashes, cheeks, lips, and the
temptation which had so unexpected a conclusion. Home at last;
and, with some complaint of fatigue, the Captain retires to his high
tower to ruminate over the past and the future.

The future! yes, the future! A long perspective stretched before
his eyes; and, at the end of the vista, was a bride in white, and a
wedding. It would take some months to gradually break the subject
to his sister. Then temperately and moderately, the courtship would
go on, year by year, waxing by degrees to the end.

Mr. Mewker altered the focus of Belgrave's optics next morning,
by a short note, in which he himself fixed the wedding-day at two weeks
from the Captain's declarations of intentions. This intelligence confined
the Captain two days in the tower, “codjitating,” during which time
every body in Little-Crampton was informed that Widow Lasciver
and he were engaged to be married. The news came from the best
authority — the Rev. Melchior Spat. On the evening of the second
day, a pair of lead-colored stockings, a fustian petticoat, a drab

[figure description] Page 183.[end figure description]

shortgown, and a bright bunch of keys, descended the steep step-ladder
from the trap in the tower, and walked into the room adjoining.
Then two hands commenced wringing themselves, by which we may
understand that Augusta was in great tribulation. The rumor, rife in
Little-Crampton, had reached her ears, and her brother had confirmed
its truth. The very means employed to keep him out of danger had
only assisted the other party to carry him off. This should be a
warning to those who interfere with affairs of the heart. But what
was her own future? Certainly her reign was at an end; a new
queen-bee was to take possession of the hive; and then — what then?
kings and kaisers, even, are not free from the exquisite anguish
which, in that hour, oppressed the heart of Augusta Belgrave. It was
but a step; but what a step? from mistress to menial, from ruler to
subordinate. She knelt down heavily by the bedside, and there
prayed; but — oh! the goodness of woman's heart! — it was a prayer,
earnest, sincere, truthful, and humble; not for herself, but for her
brothers. Then her heart was lightened and strengthened; and as she
rose, she smiled with a bitter sweetness, that, considering every thing,
was beautiful.

Great preparations now in Little-Crampton for the wedding. Invitations
were out, and needles, scissors, flowers, laces, ribbons, and
mantua-makers at a premium. The Captain took heart of grace, and
called upon his lovely bride, but always managed to get past that
lane before night-fall. Hood & Wessup, the fashionable tailors of
Little-Crampton, were suborned to lay themselves out night and day
upon his wedding-suit. He had set his heart upon having Adolphus
dressed precisely like himself on the occasion. Two brothers
dressed alike, groom and groomsman, look remarkably well at a
wedding. But to his surprise, Adolphus refused to be dressed, and
would not go to the wedding — “positively.” Neither would Augusta.
Brother and sister set to work packing up, and when the expected
night arrived there was all their little stock in two, blue, wooden
trunks, locked, and corded, and ready for moving, in the hall of the
Oakery.

It was a gloomy night outside and in, for the rain had been falling
all day, and a cold rain-storm in summer is dreary enough. But

[figure description] Page 184.[end figure description]

cheerful bars of light streamed across the darkness from the tower
windows, lighting up a green strip on a tree here and there, a picket
or two in the fence, and banding with an illuminated ribbon the side
and roof of the dripping barn. The Captain was making his toilet.
White ruffled shirt, with a black mourning pin containing a lock of
his mother's hair; white marseilles waistcoat, set off with an inner
vest of blue satin, (suggested by Hood & Wessup;) trowsers of
bright mustard color, fitting as tight as if his legs had been melted
and poured into them; blue coat, cut brass buttons, end of handkercher'
sticking out of the pocket behind; black silk stockings and
pumps; red check-silk neck-cloth, and flying-jib collars. Down he
came, and there sat brother and sister on their corded trunks in the
hall, portentous as the Egyptian statues that overlook the Nile from
their high stone chairs. Not a word was said; but the Captain
opened the door and looked out. “Why, it rains like fury. Jim!”

Jim, who was unseen in the darkness, and yet within three feet
of the door, answered cheerily, “Aye, aye, Sir!”

“All ready, Jim?”

“All ready, Capt'in.”

“Wait till I get my cloak;” and as the Captain wrapped himself
up, his sister silently and carefully assisted him; not on account
of his plumage, but to keep him from catching cold.

Off goes Shatter, Jim, and the Captain; off through the whistling
rain and the darkness. The mud whirled up from the wheels and
covered the cloak of the bridegroom, so he told Jim “to drive keerful,
as he wanted to keep nice.” It was a long and dreary road, but
at last they saw the bright lights from Mewker's windows, and with
a palpitating heart the Captain alighted at the porch.

Old Bose, who had been scouring the grounds and barking at
every guest, started up with a fearful growl, but the Captain threw
off his travel-stained cloak, and exhibited himself to the old dog in
all his glory. The instant Bose recognized his friend and benefactor
he leaped upon him with such a multitude of caresses that the white
marseilles vest and mustard-colored trowsers were covered with
proofs of his fidelity and attachment, “Hey, there! hey! down,
Bose!” said Mewker at the door: “Why, my dear brother!”

[figure description] Page 185.[end figure description]

The Captain, with great gravity, was snapping with his thumb and
finger the superfluous mud with which Bose had embellished his
trowsers.

“Come in here,” said Mewker, chuckling and scratching his chin.
“I'll get you a brush. No hurry. Time enough before the ceremony.”

The Captain walked after him through the hall, and caught a
glimpse of the parlors, radiant with wax-lights, and crowded with
such a display of company as was rarely seen in Little-Crampton.

“Come in here,” said Mewker, still chuckling, as he opened the
door. “This is your room;” and he winked, and gave the bridegroom
such a nudge with his knobby elbow as almost tumbled him
over the bed. “Your room — understand? The bridal-chamber!
Wait here, now; wait here till I get a brush.”

The Captain, left alone, surveyed the apartment. The pillowcases
were heavy with lace. Little tasteful vases filled with flowers,
made the air drunk with fragrance; a white, worked pin-cushion was
on the bureau, before an oval glass, with his own name wrought thereon
in pin's heads. The astral lamp on the mantel shed a subdued and
chastened light over the whole. Long windows reached to the floor,
and opened on the piazza; light Venitian blinds were outside the
sashes, without other fastenings that a latch. The Captain tried the
windows, and they opened with a touch of his thumb and fore-finger.
He had not slept in so insecure a place for more than twenty years.
Then he thought of the phantom horseman, and the deep pond behind
the house. He shivered a little, either from cold or timidity. The
window was partially raised, so he throws it up softly, touches the
latch; the blinds are open; he walks out on the piazza, and then
covertly steals around to the front of the house, where he finds
Shatter and the wagon, with old Jim peering through the blinds to
see the wedding come off.

“Jim,” he says, in a hoarse whisper, “take me hum. I aint a-goin'
to sleep in such a room as that, no how.”

The old boy quietly unbuckled the hitching-strap, and when
Mewker got back with the brush, Shatter was flying through the mud
toward the Oakery, at a three-minute gait. Two or three quick

[figure description] Page 186.[end figure description]

knocks at his own door, and it is opened by Augusta, who, with her
brother, had kept watch and ward on their corded trunks. The Captain
took the candle from the table, without saying a word, ascended
the stairs, passed through scarp, counterscarp, glacis, and ditch,
mounted his ladder, drew it up after him bolted the trap in the
floor, and cocked his pistol.

“Now,” said he, “let 'em come on! They 'aint got me married
this time any how!”