OLD HURRICANE STORMS.
"At this sir knight flamed up with ire!
His great chest heaved! his eyes flashed fire.
The crimson that suffused his face
To deepest purple now gave place."
Who can describe the frenzy of Old Hurricane upon discovering the fraud
that had been practised upon him by Black Donald?
It was told him the next morning in his tent, at his breakfast table,
in the presence of his assembled family, by the Rev. Mr. Goodwin.
Upon first hearing it, he was incapable of anything but blank staring,
until it seemed as though his eyes must start from their sockets!
Then his passion, "not loud but deep," found utterance only in emphatic
thumps of his walking stick upon the ground!
Then, as the huge emotion worked upward, it broke out in grunts, groans
and inarticulate exclamations!
Finally it burst forth as follows:
"Ugh! ugh! ugh! Fool! dolt! blockhead! Brute that I've been! I wish
somebody would punch my wooden head! I didn't think the demon himself
could have deceived me so! Ugh! Nobody but the demon could have done
it! and he is the demon! The very demon himself! He does not
disguise--he transforms himself! Ugh! ugh! ugh! that I should have been
such a donkey!"
"Sir, compose yourself! We are all liable to suffer deception," said
Mr. Goodwin.
"Sir," broke forth Old Hurricane, in fury, "that wretch has eaten at my
table! Has drunk wine with me!! Has slept in my bed!!! Ugh! ugh!!
ugh!!!"
"Believing him to be what he seemed, sir, you extended to him the
rights of hospitality; you have nothing to blame yourself with!"
"Demmy, sir, I did more than that! I've coddled him up with negusses!
I've pampered him up with possets and put him to sleep in my own bed!
Yes, sir--and more! Look there at Mrs. Condiment, sir! The way in which
she worshiped that villain was a sight to behold!" said Old Hurricane,
jumping up and stamping around the tent in fury.
"Oh, Mr. Goodwin, sir, how could I help it when I thought he was such a
precious saint?" whimpered the old lady.
"Yes, sir! when 'his reverence' would be tired with delivering a
long-winded mid-day discourse, Mrs. Condiment, sir, would take him into
her own tent--make him lie down on her own sacred cot, and set my niece
to bathing his head with cologne and her maid to fanning him, while she
herself prepared an iced sherry cobbler for his reverence! Aren't you
ashamed of yourself, Mrs. Condiment, mum!" said Old Hurricane, suddenly
stopping before the poor old woman, in angry scorn.
"Indeed, I'm sure if I'd known it was Black Donald, I'd no more have
suffered him inside of my tent than I would Satan!"
"Demmy, mum, you had Satan there as well! Who but Satan could have
tempted you all to disregard me, your lawful lord and master, as you
every one of you did for that wretch's sake! Hang it, parson, I wasn't
the master of my own house, nor head of my own family! Precious Father
Gray was! Black Donald was! Oh, you shall hear!" cried Old Hurricane,
in a frenzy.
"Pray, sir, be patient and do not blame the women for being no wiser
than you were yourself," said Mr. Goodwin.
"Tah! tah! tah! One act of folly is a contingency to which any man may
for once in his life be liable; but folly is the women's normal condition!
You shall hear! You shall hear! Hang it, sir, everybody had to give way
to Father Gray! Everything was for Father Gray! Precious Father Gray!
Excellent Father Gray! Saintly Father Gray! It was Father Gray here and
Father Gray there, and Father Gray everywhere and always! He ate with
us all day and slept with us all night! The coolest cot in the dryest
nook of the tent at night--the shadiest seat at the table by day--were
always for his reverence! The nicest tit-bits of the choicest dishes--the
middle slices of the fish, the breast of the young ducks, and the wings
of the chickens, the mealiest potatoes, the juiciest tomatoes, the
tenderest roasting ear, the most delicate custard, and freshest fruit
always for his reverence! I had to put up with the necks of poultry,
and the tails of fishes, watery potatoes, specked apples and scorched
custards--and if I dared to touch anything better before his precious
reverence had eaten and was filled, Mrs. Condiment--there--would look
as sour as if she had bitten an unripe lemon--and Cap would tread on my
gouty toe! Mrs. Condiment, mum, I don't know how you can look me in the
face!" said Old Hurricane, savagely. A very unnecessary reproach, since
poor Mrs. Condiment had not ventured to look any one in the face since
the discovery of the fraud of which she, as well as others, had been an
innocent victim.
"Come, come, my dear major, there is no harm done to you or your
family; therefore, take patience!" said Mr. Goodwin.
"Demmy, sir, I beg you pardon, parson, I won't take patience! You don't
know! Hang it, man, at last they got me to give up one-half of my own
blessed bed to his precious reverence--the best half which the fellow
always took right out of the middle, leaving me to sleep on both sides
of him, if I could! Think of it--me, Ira Warfield--sleeping between the
sheets--night after night--with Black Donald! Ugh! ugh! ugh! Oh, for
some lethean draught that I might drink and forget! Sir, I won't be
patient! Patience would be a sin! Mrs. Condiment, mum, I desire that
you will send in your account and supply yourself with a new situation!
You and I cannot agree any longer. You'll be putting me to bed with
Beelzebub next!" exclaimed Old Hurricane, besides himself with
indignation.
Mrs. Condiment sighed and wiped her eyes under her spectacles.
The worthy minister, now seriously alarmed, came to him and said:
"My dear, dear major, do not be unjust--consider. She is an old
faithful domestic, who has been in your service forty years--whom you
could not live without! I say it under advisement--whom you could not
live without!"
"Hang it, sir, nor live with! Think of her helping to free the
prisoners! Actually taking Black Donald--precious Father Gray!--into
their cell and leaving them together to hatch their--beg you
pardon--horrid plots!"
"But, sir, instead of punishing the innocent victim of his deception,
let us be merciful and thank the Lord, that since those men were
delivered from prison, they were freed without bloodshed; for remember
that neither the warden nor any of his men, nor any one else has been
personally injured."
"Hang it, sir, I wish they had cut all our throats to teach us more
discretion!" broke forth Old Hurricane.
"I am afraid that the lesson so taught would have come too late to be
useful!" smiled the pastor.
"Well, it hasn't come too late now! Mrs. Condiment, mum, mind what I
tell you! As soon as we return to Hurricane Hall, send in your accounts
and seek a new home! I am not going to suffer myself to be set at
naught any longer!" exclaimed Old Hurricane, bringing down his cane
with an emphatic thump.
The sorely troubled minister was again about to interfere, when, as the
worm if trodden upon, will turn, Mrs. Condiment herself spoke up,
saying:
"Lor, Major Warfield, sir, there were others deceived besides me, and
as for myself, I never can think of the risk I've run without growing
cold all over!"
"Serves you right, mum, for your officiousness, and obsequiousness and
toadying to--precious Mr. Gray!--serves you doubly right for famishing
me at my own table!"
"Uncle!" said Capitola, "'Honor bright! Fair play is a jewel!' If you
and I, who have seen Black Donald before, failed to recognize that
stalwart athlete in a seemingly old and sickly man, how could you
expect Mrs. Condiment to do so, who never saw him but once in her life,
and then was so much frightened that she instantly fainted?"
"Pah! pah! pah! Cap, hush! You, all of you, disgust me, except Black
Donald! I begin to respect him! Confound if I don't take in all the
offers I have made for his apprehension, and at the very next
convention of our party I'll nominate him to represent us in the
National Congress; for, of all the fools that ever I have met in my
life, the people of this county are the greatest! And fools should at
least be represented by one clever man--and Black Donald is the very
fellow! He is decidedly the ablest man in this congressional district."
"Except yourself, dear uncle!" said Capitola.
"Except nobody, Miss Impudence!--least of all me! The experience of the
last week has convinced me that I ought to have a cap and bells awarded
me by public acclamation!" said Old Hurricane, stamping about in fury.
The good minister finding that he could make no sort of impression upon
the irate old man, soon took his leave, telling Mrs. Condiment that if
he could be of any service to her in her trouble she must be sure to
let him know.
At this Capitola and Mrs. Condiment exchanged looks, and the old lady,
thanking him for his kindness, said that if it should become necessary,
she should gratefully avail herself of it.
That day the camp meeting broke up.
Major Warfield struck tents and with his family and baggage returned to
Hurricane Hall.
On their arrival, each member of the party went about his or her own
particular business.
Capitola hurried to her own room to take off her bonnet and shawl.
Pitapat, before attending her young mistress, lingered below to
astonish the housemaids with accounts of "Brack Donel, dress up like an
ole parson, an' 'ceiving everybody, even ole Marse!"
Mrs. Condiment went to her store room to inspect the condition of her
newly put up preserves and pickles, lest any of them should have
"worked" during her absence.
And Old Hurricane, attended by Wool, walked down to his kennels and his
stables to look after the well-being of his favorite hounds and horses.
It was while going through this interesting investigation that Major
Warfield was informed--principally by overhearing the gossip of the
grooms with Wool--of the appearance of a new inmate of the Hidden
House--a young girl, who, according to their description, must have
been the very pearl of beauty.
Old Hurricane pricked up his ears! Anything relating to the "Hidden
House" possessed immense interest for him.
"Who is she, John?" he inquired of the groom.
"'Deed I dunno, sir, only they say she's a bootiful young creature,
fair as any lily, and dressed in deep mourning."
"Humph! humph! humph! another victim! Ten thousand chances to one,
another victim! who told you this, John?"
"Why, Marse, you see Tom Griffith, the Rev. Mr. Goodwin's man, he's
very thick long of Davy Hughs, Colonel Le Noir's coachman. And Davy he
told Tom how one day last month his marse ordered the carriage, and
went two or three days' journey up the country beyant Staunton, there
he stayed a week and then came home, fetching along with him in the
carriage this lovely young lady, who was dressed in the deepest
mourning, and wept all the way. They 'spects how she's an orphan, and
has lost all her friends, by the way she takes on."
"Another victim! My life on it--another victim! Poor child! She had
better be dead than in the power of that atrocious villain and
consummate hypocrite!" said Old Hurricane, passing on to the
examination of his favorite horses, one of which, the swiftest in the
stud, he found galled on the shoulders. Whereupon he flew into a
towering passion, abusing his unfortunate groom by every opprobrious
epithet blind fury could suggest, ordering him, as he valued whole
bones, to vacate the stable instantly, and never dare to set foot on
his premises again as he valued his life, an order which the man meekly
accepted and immediately disobeyed, muttered to himself:
"Humph! If we took ole marse at his word, there'd never be man or 'oman
left on the 'state," knowing full well that his tempestuous old master
would probably forget all about it, as soon as he got comfortably
seated at the supper table of Hurricane Hall, toward which the old man
now trotted off.
Not a word did Major Warfield say at supper in regard to the new inmate
of the Hidden House, for he had particular reasons for keeping Cap in
ignorance of a neighbor, lest she should insist upon exchanging visits
and being "sociable."
But it was destined that Capitola should not remain a day in ignorance
of the interesting fact.
That night, when she retired to her chamber, Pitapat lingered behind,
but presently appeared at her young mistress's room door with a large
waiter on her head, laden with meat, pastry, jelly and fruit, which she
brought in and placed upon the work stand.
"Why, what on the face of earth do you mean by bringing all that load
of victuals into my room to-night? Do you think I am an ostrich or a
cormorant, or that I am going to entertain a party of friends?" asked
Capitola, in astonishment, turning from the wash stand, where she stood
bathing her face.
"'Deed I dunno, Miss, whedder you'se an ostrizant or not, but I knows I
don't 'tend for to be 'bused any more 'bout wittels, arter findin' out
how cross empty people can be! Dar dey is! You can eat um or leab um
alone, Miss Caterpillar!" said little Pitapat, firmly.
Capitola laughed. "Patty" she said, "you are worthy to be called my
waiting maid!"
"And Lors knows, Miss Caterpillar, if it was de wittels you was
a-frettin' arter, you ought to a-told me before! Lors knows dere's
wittels enough!"
"Yes, I'm much obliged to you, Patty, but now I am not hungry, and I do
not like the smell of food in my bedroom, so take the waiter out and
set it on the passage table until morning."
Patty obeyed, and came back smiling and saying:
"Miss Caterpillar, has you hern de news?"
"What news, Pat?"
"How us has got a new neighbor--a bootiful young gal--as bootiful as a
picter in a gilt-edged Christmas book--wid a snowy skin, and sky-blue
eyes and glistenin' goldy hair, like the princess you was a readin' me
about, all in deep mournin' and a weepin' and a weepin' all alone down
there in that wicked, lonesome, onlawful ole haunted place, the Hidden
House, along of old Colonel Le Noir and old Dorkey Knight, and the
ghost as draws people's curtains of a night, just for all de worl' like
dat same princess in de ogre's castle!"
"What on earth is all this rigmarole about? Are you dreaming or
romancing?"
"I'm a-telling on you de bressed trufe! Dere's a young lady a-livin at
de Hidden House!"
"Eh? Is that really true, Patty?"
"True as preaching, miss."
"Then, I am very glad of it! I shall certainly ride over and call on
the stranger," said Capitola, gaily.
"Oh, Miss Cap! Oh, miss, don't you do no sich thing! Ole Marse kill me!
I heerd him t'reaten all de men and maids how if dey telled you
anything 'bout de new neighbor, how he'd skin dem alive!"
"Won't he skin you?" asked Cap.
"No, miss, not 'less you 'form ag'in me, 'case he didn't tell me not to
tell you, 'case you see he didn't think how I knowed! But, leastways, I
know from what I heard, ole marse wouldn't have you to know nothin'
about it, no, not for de whole worl'."
"He does not want me to call at the Hidden House! That's it! Now why
doesn't he wish me to call there? I shall have to go in order to find
out, and so I will," thought Cap.