SAMPLING THE VINTAGES
Having started the wheels of justice fairly moving, with Scroggs at
the throttle, the new land baron soon discovered that he was not in
consonance with the great commoner who said he was savage enough to
prefer the woods and wilds of Monticello to all the pleasures of
Paris. In other words, those rural delights of his forefathers, the
pleasures of a closer intimacy with nature, awoke no responsive chord
in Mauville's breast, and he began to tire before long of a
patriarchal existence and crullers and oly-koeks and playing the fine
lord in solitary grandeur.
The very extent of the deserted manor carried an overwhelming sense of
loneliness, especially at this season when nature was dying and
triumphal tints of decay were replacing the vernal freshness of the
forests, flaunting gaudy vestments that could not, however, conceal
the sadness of the transition. The days were growing shorter and the
leaden-colored vapors, driven by the whip of that taskmaster, the
wind, replaced the snow-white clouds becalmed in the tender depths of
ether. Soon would the hoar frost crystallize on grass and fence, or
the autumn rains descend, dripping mournfully from the water spouts
and bubbling over the tubs. Already the character of the dawn was
changed to an almost sullen awakening of the day, denoting a seeming
uneasiness of the hidden forces, while an angry passing of the glowing
orb replaced the Paphian sunset.
In nook and cranny, through the balustrades and woody screens of the
ancient house, penetrated the wandering currents of air. The draperies
waved mysteriously, as by a hidden hand, and, at nightfall, the floor
of satin and rosewood creaked ominously as if beneath the restless
footsteps of former inmates, moving from the somber hangings of the
windows to the pearl-inlaid harpsichord whose melody was gone, and
thence up the broad staircase, pausing naturally at the landing,
beneath which had assembled gay gatherings in the colonial days. And
such a heedless phantom group--fine gentlemen in embroidered coats,
bright breeches, silk stockings and peruke, and, peeping through
ethereal lace wristbands, a white hand fit for no sterner toil than to
flourish with airy grace a gold-headed cane; ladies with gleaming bare
shoulders, dressed in "cumbrous silk that with its rustling made proud
the flesh that bore it!" The imaginative listener could almost
distinguish these footfalls, as the blind will recognize the tread of
an unseen person.
To further add to the land baron's dissatisfaction over his heritage,
"rent-day"--that all-important day in the olden times; when my lord's
door had been besieged by the willing lease-holders, cheerful in
rendering unto Caesar what was due Caesar!--seemed to have been
dropped from the modern calendar, as many an ancient holiday has
gradually been lost in the whirligig of time. No long procession now
awaited the patroon's pleasure, when it should suit him to receive the
tribute of guilders, corn or meal; the day might have been as obsolete
as an Hellenic festival day to Zeus, for all the observance it was
accorded.
"Your notices, Scroggs, were wasted on the desert air," said the
patroon, grimly, to that disappointed worthy. "What's the use of
tenants who don't pay? Playing at feudal lord in modern times is a
farce, Scroggs. I wish we had lived about four hundred years ago."
"Yes, if four hundred years ago were now," assented the parasite, "I'd
begin with Dick, the tollman! He's a regular Goliath and,"--his face
becoming purple--"when I threatened him with the law, threw me out of
the barn on an obnoxious heap of refuse."
"You weren't exactly a David, then?" laughed the patroon, in spite of
his bad humor.
"I'll throw the stone yet," said the little man, viciously showing his
yellow teeth. "The law's the sling."
That evening, when the broad meadows were inundated by the shadow of
the forest that crept over it like an incoming tide, the land baron
ordered lights for every room. The manor shone in isolated grandeur
amid the gloomy fields, with the forest-wall around it; radiant as of
old, when strains of music had been heard within and many figures
passed the windows. But now there was light, and not life, and a
solitary anti-renter on the lonely road regarded with surprise the
unusual illumination.
"What does it mean?" asked Little Thunder--for it was he--waiting and
watching, as without the gates of Paradise.
Well might he ask, for the late Mynheer, the Patroon, had been a
veritable bat for darkness; a few candles answered his purpose in the
spacious rooms; he played the prowler, not the grand lord; a recluse
who hovered over his wine butts in the cellar and gloated over them,
while he touched them not; a hermit who lived half his time in the
kitchen, bending over the smoky fireplace, and not a lavender-scented
gentleman who aired himself in the drawing-room, a fine fop with
nothing but the mirrors to pay him homage. Little Thunder, standing
with folded arms in the dark road, gloomy as Lucifer, almost expected
to see the brilliant fabric vanish like one of those palaces of joy
built by the poets.
Hour after hour passed, midnight had come and gone, and still the
lights glowed. Seated in the library, with the curtains drawn, were
the land baron and Scroggs, a surveyor's map between them and a dozen
bottles around them. Before Mauville stood several glasses, containing
wines of various vintages which the land baron compared and sipped,
held to the light and inhaled after the manner of a connoisseur
sampling a cellar. He was unduly dignified and stately, but the
attorney appeared decidedly groggy. The latter's ideas clashed against
one another like pebbles in a child's rattle, and, if the round table
may be supposed to represent the earth, as the ancient geographers
imagined it, Scrogg's face was surely the glowing moon shining upon
it.
Readily had the attorney lent himself to the new order of procedure.
With him it was: "The king is dead! Long live the king!" He, who had
found but poor pickings under the former master--dry crust fees for
pleadings, demurrers or rejoinders--now anticipated generous booty and
spoil. Alert for such crumbs as might fall from a bountiful table;
keen of scent for scraps and bits, but capable of a mighty mouthful,
he paid a courtier's price for it all; wheedling, pandering, ready for
any service, ripe for any revelry. With an adulator's tact, he still
strove strenuously to hold the thread of his companion's conversation,
as Mauville said:
"Too old, Scroggs; too old!" Setting down a glass of burgundy in which
fine particles floated through the magenta-hued liquid. "It has lost
its luster, like a woman's eyes when she has passed the meridian. Good
wine, like a woman, has its life. First, sweetly innocent, delicately
palatable, its blush like a maiden of sixteen; then glowing with a
riper development, more passionate in hue, a siren vintage; finally,
thin, waning and watery, with only memories of the deeper, rosy-hued
days. Now here, my good, but muddled friend, is your youthful maiden!"
Holding toward the lamp a glass, clear as crystal, with luster like a
gem. "Dancing eyes; a figure upright as a reed; the bearing of a
nymph; the soul of a water lily before it has opened its leaves to the
wooing moonlight!"
[Illustration]
"Lord! How you go on!" exclaimed Scroggs. "What with a sampling this
and sampling that, my head's going round like a top. If there's
anything in the cellar the old patroons put down we haven't tried,
sir, I beg to defer the sampling. I am of the sage's mind--'Of all men
who take wine, the moderate only enjoy it,' says Master Bacon, or some
one else."
"Pass the bottle!" answered the other. "Gently, man! Don't disturb its
repose, and remember it disdains the perpendicular."
"So will I soon," muttered Scroggs. "I hope you'll excuse me, sir, but
that last drop of Veuve Cliquot was the whip-cord that started the top
going, and, on my word"--raising his hands to his head--"I feel like
holding it on to keep it from spinning off."
"Spinning or not, you shall try this vintage"--the young man's eyes
gleamed with such fire as shone in the glass--"and drink to Constance
Carew!"
"Constance Carew!" stammered the other, desperately swallowing the
toast.
Mauville slowly emptied the glass. "A balsamic taste, slightly piquant
but agreeable," he observed. "A dangerous wine, Scroggs! It carries no
warning; your older kind is like a world-worn coquette whose glances
at once place you on the defensive. This maiden vintage, just
springing into glorious womanhood, comes over you like a springtime
dream."
"Who--who is she?" muttered Scroggs.
"She is not in the scroll you prepared for my lamented kinsman, eh?
They are, for the most part, deep red, dark scarlet--that list of fair
dames! She doesn't belong to them--yet! No title, man; not even a
society lady. A stroller, which is next door to a vagrant."
"Well, sir, she's a woman and that's enough," replied the lawyer. "And
my opinion is, it's better to have nothing to do with 'em."
This sententious remark seemed to arouse Scroggs to momentary
vivacity.
"Now there was my Lord Hamerton, whose picture is upstairs," he went
on quickly, like a man who is bent on grasping certain ideas before
they escape him. "He brought a beautiful woman here--carried her off,
they say from England--and installed her as mistress of the manor. I
have heard my father say that his great-grandfather, who was my lord's
solicitor, said that before his death my lord desired to make her his
wife, having been brought to a sense of the sinful life he had led by
a Puritan preacher. But at that, this woman straightened herself up,
surveyed him with scorn, and, laughing like a witch, answered: 'They
say marriages are made in heaven, my lord--and you are the devil!' So
my lord died without having atoned, and, as for my lady who refused to
become an honest woman, I am sure she was damned!" concluded Scroggs
triumphantly.
"No doubt! So this wicked lord abducted her, Scroggs?" he added
thoughtfully. "A man of spirit, until the Puritans got after him and
showed him the burning pit and frightened him to that virtue which was
foreign to his inclinations. My lady was right in refusing to honor
such a paltry scoundrel with her hand. But it takes courage, Scroggs,
to face everlasting damnation."
"They say, too, there was a spice of revenge about her unwillingness
to give her hand to my lord," resumed the narrator, unmindful of the
interruption. "This Puritan father said nothing but marriage with her
would save Hamerton from the sulphurous flames and so my lady refused
to sanctify their relations and rescue her lord from perdition!"
"A pleasant revenge!" laughed the land baron. "He made life a hell for
her and she gave him an eternity of it. But take a little of this
white wine, man. We've drunk to the roses of desire, and now should
drink to the sanctified lilies. Her neck, Scroggs, is like a lily, and
her hand and her brow! Beneath that whiteness, her eyes shine with a
tenderness inviting rays of passion to kindle them. Drink!"
But the other gave a sudden lurch forward. "My lady--refused--perdition!"
he muttered, and his head dropped to the board.
"Wake up, man, and drink!" commanded the master.
"Jush same--they ought to have been married," said his companion
drowsily. "They lived together so--so ill!" And then to place himself
beyond reach of further temptation from the bottle, he quietly and
naturally slid under the table.
The patroon arose, strode to the window, which he lifted, and the
night air entered, fanning his hot brow. The leaves, on high, rustled
like falling rain. The elms tossed their branches, striking one
another in blind confusion. The long grass whispered as the breeze
stirred it like the surface of an inland lake. Withering flowers gave
up their last perfume, while a storm-cloud fled wildly across the
heavens. Some of the restlessness of the external world disturbed that
silent dark figure at the window; within him, conflicting passions
jarred like the boughs of the trees and his fancies surged like the
eddying leaves.
"The roses of desire--the sanctified lilies!" he muttered.
As he stood there the stars grew pale; the sky trembled and quivered
before the advent of morn. A heavy footstep fell behind him, and,
turning, he beheld the care-taker.
"Not in bed yet, Oly-koeks?" cheerfully said the land baron.
"I am just up."
"In that case, it is time for me to retire," returned the master, with
a yawn. "This is a dull place, Oly-koeks; no life; no variety. Nothing
going on!"
The servant glanced at the formidable array of bottles. "And he calls
this a quiet life!" thought the care-taker, losing his impassiveness
and viewing the table with round-eyed wonder.
"Nothing going on?" he said aloud. "Mynheer, the Patroon, complained
of too much life here, with people taking farms all around. But, if
you are dull, a farmer told me last night there was a company of
strolling players in Vanderdonkville--"
"Strollers!" exclaimed Mauville, wheeling around. "What are they
called?"
"Lord; I don't know, sir. They're show-folks, and that's all--"
"Do many strolling players come this way?"
"Not for weeks and months, sometimes! The old patroon ordered the
_schout_ to arrest them if they entered the _wyck_."
"Is Vanderdonkville in the _wyck_?" asked the land baron quickly.
"No. It was separated from the _wyck_ when Rickert Jacobus married--"
"Never mind the family genealogy! Have the coach ready at nine--"
"To-night?"
"This morning," replied Mauville, lightly. "And, meanwhile, put this
to bed," indicating Scroggs, who was now snoring like a bag-pipe with
one arm lovingly wound around a leg of the library table.
The care-taker hoisted the attorney on his broad shoulders, his burden
still piping as they crossed the hall and mounted the stairway. Having
deposited his load within the amazing depths of a Dutch feather
mattress, where he lay well-nigh lost to sight, but not unheard, the
_wacht-meester_ of the _steyn_ left him to well-earned slumber and
descended to the kitchen.
At the appointed hour, the land baron, freshly shaven, not a jaded
line in his face, and elastic in step, appeared on the front porch
before which his carriage was waiting.
"When shall I expect you back?" asked Oly-koeks, who had reappeared at
the sound of his master's footsteps.
"Any time or never!" laughed the patroon, springing into the vehicle.
But as he drove through a bit of wood, wrapped in pleasing reflections,
he received startling proof that the warfare between landlord and
tenants had indeed begun in earnest, for a great stone suddenly
crashed through the window of the vehicle, without, however, injuring
the occupant. Springing from his carriage, Mauville dashed through
the fringe of wood, discharging his revolver at what he fancied was a
fleeing figure. But a fluttering in the trees from the startled birds
was the only result.
Little Thunder was too spry to be caught by even a pursuing bullet.