The bridegroom's doors are open'd wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set,
May'st hear the merry din!
COLERIDGE--_Ancient Mariner_.
The Colonel galloped through the park and down the hill, until he had
approached nigh enough to Elsie's cottage to see that its porch was
darkened by the bodies of several men, moving about in what seemed to
him extraordinary commotion. He grew pale, and finally, drawing up
his horse, beckoned to his servant, a young and active mulatto, with
an exceedingly bold and free visage, to approach:
"Give me the larger pistols, Reuben," he cried, "and do you take the
smaller holsters----'Pshaw, they are fiddling and dancing! It is
nothing.--Follow."
He resumed his course, and drawing nigher to the little inn, saw that
the group, which he at first eyed with trepidation, consisted of his
own son, and two or three young gentlemen of the bridal party, with a
man of strange and even ludicrous appearance, from whom they appeared
to be extracting no little diversion. He was a tall man, with a
French military coat of white cloth, faced with green, and on his
head a chapeau-de-bras, which was, at that time, though the common
cap of the Gallic auxiliaries, esteemed quite a curiosity in the
confederacy. Instead of a white underdress, however, he had on
breeches of broad blue and white stripes, which, being very tight,
gave a pair of legs more remarkable for brawn than beauty, an
appearance quite comical, and the more especially that they were
decked off at the extremities with rose-coloured shoes, and were kept
moving about as briskly as those of a house-fly or a monkey. In the
particular of shoes, as well his silver-fringed rich waistcoat, and a
cane with a head half as big as his own, he bore no little
resemblance to the valet-messenger of a French field-officer,--a sort
of humble aid, whose business was to fetch and carry written orders
in a review, but who was sometimes mistaken by our simple-minded
ancestors for a general-in-chief, in consequence of the splendour and
gravity of his appearance; and such a menial Colonel Falconer
supposed him to be, discarded by his late master, or driven from
service by that sudden spirit of independence so apt to appear in
foreign servants, when brought to the land of liberty. Besides his
cane, he had a fiddle and bow in his hand; and from these, as well as
the prodigious grace, restlessness, and activity of his motions, it
was judged that he had betaken himself, in his distresses, to that
honourable profession, to which three-fourths of the wanderers of the
Grande Nation seem to have been born,--in other words, to that of the
dancing-master. It did not seem, however, that he had yet profited
much by the change of profession, for his attire was in somewhat a
dilapidated condition, and his cheeks pinched and hollow. Such as he
was, however, he seemed to be the happiest creature in existence; and
as Colonel Falconer drew nigh, he saw that he was one while engaged
flourishing his bow, the next his leg, and ever and anon his
tongue,--the last with intense volubility,--as if in spirits
irrepressibly buoyant and exuberant. The unruly member was hard at
work, as the Colonel approached, and had it not been for the clatter
of his horse's feet, he might have heard him deliver the following
highly flattering account of himself:
"Yes, Missare Ou-at-you-call-it, and jentlemans, I am a man of figure
in mine own land; and you laughs, par de deb'l! I come invite myself
to de marriage, _néanmoins_, juste like Ménélas in l'Iliade d'Homère,
_mort de diable, parce qu'il etait_ jentleman. You are soldiare! _Et
moi_, by mine _honneur_, and so am I; for _autre fois, jadis_, (ou-at
de deb'l you call him?) I use de sword for de violon, ride de horse,
chargé _sur mon ennemi_, in ou-at you' Shakaspeare call de 'war
glorieuse.'--
'Ah! cruel souvenir de ma gloire passée!
OEuvre de tant de jours en un jour effacée!'
Yes, missares, I am jentleman-soldiare, ou-id fiddle. How de deb'l
you make mariage wi'sout de fiddle, _l'aimable violon, l'instrument
des amours? Ecoutez!_ you s'all hear. How de ladies and jentlemans
s'all dance when dey hears, '_Qu'elle est grande, qu'elle est
belle!_'"--And, in a rapture, he forthwith began sawing his
instrument, and singing, with a voice exceedingly cracked and
enthusiastic, the words of the old chorus of shepherds,
'Ah! qu'elle douce nouvelle!
Qu'elle est grande! qu'elle est belle!
Que de plaisirs! que de ris! que de jeux!'
nor did he cease, even when the merriment of his auditors became as
uproarious as his own harmony.
In the midst of the chorus and the laughter, young Falconer looked
up, and beheld his father, who had suddenly checked his horse at the
entrance of the little oak-yard, and was looking towards him. He was
struck with the unusual agitation of his parent's countenance, and
ran towards him; but before he could speak, the Colonel demanded
quickly, as if with an effort to change the current of his own
thoughts,
"What do you here, Henry! Is this a place, is this a sport for a
bridegroom?"
"'Pon my soul, pa," said the hopeful son, "I find it more agreeable
than up among the tabbies. This fellow, this Monsieur Tiqueraque, as
he calls himself, is decidedly the most agreeable person I have seen
to-day,--a gentleman fiddler, who swears by all the gods of a
Frenchman, he has trudged twenty miles on foot, to have the honour of
dancing at my funeral--that is, my wedding; but the lord knows, pa,
you look as solemn as if to-day was to be the end of me. Pray, sir,
what is the matter? I hope you are not offended? Egad, sir, I am
acting under orders,--under Harry's, who has taken as much command of
me as if she were my wife, instead of my sister. She ordered me away,
to be out of Catherine's sight,--the lord knows why, but women are
all mad, and I think Catherine is growing as whimsical and absurd as
the rest."
"Get you back to her, notwithstanding," said the father; "a maiden is
privileged to be capricious on her wedding-day. Get you back; your
absence is improper. And hark you, Henry, my son--delay not the
ceremony on my account: the clergyman must be now on the way, and
will soon arrive. Wait not a moment for me. A sudden affair, not to
be deferred even to the nuptial rite, calls me to Hillborough:--Say
thus much to Captain Loring and the rest; say that I will be back
within a few hours; and add, that I charge them not to delay the
ceremony a moment for me. God bless you, my son--I must away."
So saying, he put spurs to his horse, and followed by Reuben, was
soon out of sight.
"Well done, dad!" cried the young soldier, staring after him; "I
wonder what's in the wind now? He has seen one of his spectres, I
warrant me.--Adzooks, as the Captain says, if one were to believe
that Reuben and black Joe, they are thicker in our house, about two
in the morning, than is comfortable,--especially in dad's chamber.
Won't stay to the wedding? why that's comical, egad! But that's his
way. Well, now for that mad fool, Tiqueraque: he shall have his will,
were it only on account of his striped breeches; he shall go among
the fiddlers, though, gad's my life, he saws like a knife-grinder. I
never saw two such legs before: egad, I beg my pardon, I _did_!
'List, list, oh list!' Such legs in Hamlet! Well God bless us, and by
the eternal Jupiter, as Caliver says, I had no idea it was so stupid
a thing to be married. _Eh bien, monsieur_," he added, turning to M.
Tiqueraque, "I have no doubt you are a gentleman born and bred; so,
gad's my life, you shall fiddle at the wedding, and get drunk into
the bargain; but, by the eternal Jupiter, you must not be in a
hurry!"
"_Si fait, monsieur_," cried the wanderer, drawing a note of
indignation from his instrument; "_Mort de ma vie_, dronk! I s'all do
no such sing. But I s'all see de leddees?" he added, in a transport
that quite dispelled his temporary wrath. "Ah, Missare
Ou-at-you-call-him, I s'all be very happy now! I love de leddees,
_particulièrement_ de leddees of figure, and not the contree
_pauvrettes_, wis big feet and te'es like de old horse.--_Ah ça_, I
s'all be very happy, and I s'all sharge only two dollare."
"Bring him along Tom, fiddle and all," cried the bridegroom,--"and,
you Ned Cascable-nose, if you love me, gad, steal somebody's horse,
ride down the road, and see what the deuce has become of the parson.
We can get married very well without dad; but, adzooks, as the
Captain says, a parson is quite essential. I swear, gad's my life,
'tis a very ludicrous thing, one's wedding-day."
And thus, as the party bent their steps towards the mansion, rattled
the bridegroom, a youth of the lightest heart and emptiest head in
all Pennsylvania, of a mind entirely too contracted for eccentricity,
yet full of those foibles of character which commonly pass for
such,--incapable of any stretch of sentiment or elevated emotion, and
indeed rude, boisterous, and unreasonable of manners,--yet with a
certain native good-humour and spirit prevailing through all his acts
and conversation, that recommended him to the favour of such as were
not choice in their friendships, and preserved him the affection of
those whom the ties of relationship compelled to love. Such was the
man whom Colonel Falconer, or rather his daughter, (for she was the
guiding and ruling spirit throughout the whole attempt to unite such
adverse elements together,) had chosen as the husband of Catherine
Loring; and the inhumanity of the choice was rendered excusable only
by the natural desire she had to contribute to his happiness, and the
undue importance she attached to those good qualities he really
possessed. Still the attempt was cruel, for it set at naught the
disinclination of one whom feebleness of character, a sense of
destitution, operating, however, only through the person of a
bereaved parent, a knowledge of _his_ desires, and a consciousness
perhaps that it was too late for escape, had put into her power. It
is not to be supposed that Miss Falconer saw, that in effecting her
brother's happiness she was destroying that of her friend; or that
seeing it, she would have persisted in her object. On the contrary
she was sincerely attached to Catherine, and fully believed she was
consulting her welfare, though at the price of some temporary pain.
It was her peculiar disposition to pursue every object with an
avidity and resolution that became the stronger for every interposing
obstacle; and she willingly blinded her eyes to such difficulties as
she was not forced to see. She turned her looks, therefore, from her
friend's distresses, and soon ceased to believe that they existed.
But the match was one not made in heaven, nor destined to be
accomplished; and fate, in frustrating the whole ill-advised scheme,
was preparing a heavy retribution for all who had laboured to promote
it.