POMP AGAIN
His hand did quake,
And tremble like a leaf of aspen green. —Spenser.
Still as he fled his eye was backward cast,
As if his fear still followed him behind,
As flew his steed as if his bands had brast,
And with his winged heels did tread the wind. —Spenser.
The adventure of Pomp with the black bull, or, as his mother persisted
in declaring, “wid dat ole enemy Satan,” had no little influence on
the events of this story, for it was partly in consequence that Kate
received no succor sooner from either Sweetwater or the Forks.
Up to within an hour of dinner, Mrs. Warren felt no uneasiness at her
niece’s absence, but when the time for that meal came, without the
return of Kate, the good dame began to be seriously alarmed. Our heroine
had not only said that she would not be gone for more than two hours,
but had never before protracted her stay to dinner time.
Another circumstance contributed to the fears of Mrs. Warren. During the
course of the morning the quiet of Sweetwater had been suddenly
disturbed, by the appearance of a body of cavalry, which, emerging from
the woods in the direction of Mr. Herman’s, had paused for awhile to
water their horses at the head of the pond. Lying about under the trees,
in a temporary bivouac, while their chargers cooled off, the dismounted
horsemen had not, at the time, affected the good dame with any other
feeling than that of admiration of their picturesque appearance. But
when the trumpet had summoned them to the saddle; when they had wound
slowly past the bridge, with their arms glittering in the sun; and when,
two hours after, dinner was ready to be served, without Kate having
returned, Mrs. Warren began, not only to be alarmed at her niece’s
disappearance, but to connect that disappearance with the advent of the
cavalry.
“Deary me,” she cried, wringing her hands, as she walked the parlor,
“how could Charles leave us so unprotected. These rebel horsemen have
carried off Kate, there isn’t a doubt of it.” For Mrs. Warren, with
the prejudices of too many of her class, persisted in believing that the
patriots were little better than highwaymen. “Oh! my poor niece! My
poor niece!”
She burst into tears, and in this condition Pomp found her, when, some
time later, he made his appearance to ask her whether dinner should be
served immediately, or whether she would wait for Miss Aylesford.
“I couldn’t eat,” she answered. “Tell Dinah to keep the dinner
waiting till my niece returns: that is, poor dear! if she ever returns.
I’ve a presentiment she won’t, though. I felt so dreadful, when she
went away this morning, that I know something terrible would happen.”
And again she gave way to loud weeping.
Pomp, in consternation, summoned his mother, who, in turn, called in the
assistance of the lady’s maid. Opportunely, at this crisis, Pomp’s
other parent appeared, and he, as the only male present, proceeded to
take the reins of authority into his own hands.
“Look a here, yer lazy, good-for-nuffin wagabond,” he cried, turning
to Pomp and cuffing him soundly, “how dare yer stand dar a-gapin’,
when yer know yer ought to be off a-lookin’ up young Missus? Yer’ll
come to the gallous, some day, deed yer will.”
Pomp ran to a corner, defending his ears with his hands, and protesting,
in a whining tone, that he did not know where to go.
“Yer lie, yer young scape-grace,” interrupted the irate parent.
“Young Missus took der road to Uncle Lawrence’s, and dar yer’ll
find her, if nuffin has happened. Go right off, not a word,” and he
menacingly followed the unwillingly retreating messenger, adding, “go,
or I’ll skin yer, deed I will. Maybe she’s at Aunt Chloe’s, or
maybe her bridle’s broke. Take der colt, and ride for dear life,” he
cried, elevating his voice louder and louder, as Pomp increased his
distance.
Mrs. Warren, who had become quite hysterical, was gradually soothed by
assurances that Kate had not met with any serious misadventure, and that
the American cavalry, at least, had not interfered with her.
“I axed one ob de men,” said Dinah, “who was de handsum officer a
ridin’ at de head; and he told me dat it was a grand furren count.”
“Do you remember his name?” said Mrs. Warren, eagerly, her face
brightening. “A nobleman wouldn’t do any harm to a gentlewoman.
You’re sure you’re not mistaken.”
“De blessed Lord knows I’se telling de truf,” answered Dinah. “I
wouldn’t for de whole world lose my poor ole soul, by telling a
lie.”
“You don’t recollect his name? Was it Pulaski? The Count Pulaski, I
believe, commands a regiment of cavalry in the American army.”
“Dat’s de name. Count Poorlackey,” cried Dinah.
“Pulaski,” said Mrs. Warren, correcting her, and smiling through her
tears.
“Well, Poorlackey or Puleskaski; it’s all one, I spose,” replied
Dinah, with an air of offended dignity. But, relenting immediately, she
added, “Now, Missus, ef yer’ll just eat a little bit of somethin’,
say de wing of dat boiled chicken, dat’s a spoilin’ wid waitin,’
you’ll feel like anodder person; deed yer will.”
The eloquence of Dinah, who continued expatiating on this subject for
some time, finally induced Mrs. Warren to consent to her wishes. Buoyed
up with the persuasion that Pomp would soon return, bringing
intelligence of Kate, she ate with appetite, and indeed forgot for a
season her niece, in the delicacies before her.
Meantime, Pomp had saddled the colt and set forth, but with reluctant
steps, for his thoughts reverted to his adventure of the preceding
evening, and his teeth shook in anticipation, when he remembered that
his road would lie directly past the spot where he had been set upon, as
he conscientiously believed, by the Arch Enemy. As he approached the
head of the pond, he drew the colt into a walk, and began to soliloquize
thus with himself:
“Yer’s in a fix now, Pomp, ef ebber yer was. Ef yer go after young
Missus, de debbil will cotch you sure; and ef yer don’t go, yer
daddy’ll skin you.”
He had now reached the point where the two roads met, that to the right
leading past the church and across the bridge, and that to the left
conducting to Aunt Chloe’s and Mr. Herman’s. He came to a dead halt.
“Yer’ll be a darn fool, Pomp,” he soliloquized again, and his
teeth began to chatter with the thought, “to run right into de jaws of
de debbil, arter havin’ got off once. He’s a lyin’ dar, like a
roarin’ lion, ready to jump out on yer.”
As he thus reflected, he slowly turned the colt’s head to the right.
“Pears to me,” he resumed, glancing affrightedly over his shoulder
towards the haunted road, “dat poor young Missus has been a took off
by dis ole Satan; and dat it wouldn’t do no good, sartin it
wouldn’t, to go arter her. It would ony be givin’ yerself, Pomp, to
de debbil, deed it would.”
The colt’s head was now turned even more to the bridge, and Pomp had
actually permitted it to walk a few paces in its direction, when
suddenly he checked the animal.
“Pomp,” he said, “what yer doin’? Yer’ll get skinned alive,
sartin sure. Yer ole daddy never said he’d do it, dat he didn’t.
Lor’ Almighty, how he licked yer, Pomp, dat last time; and de more yer
cried ‘murder,’ the more he said he’d giv’ yer ‘somethin’ to
cry murder fur,’ deed he did.” And Pomp rubbed sympathetically that
portion of his person which had felt most keenly his sire’s wrath.
It would have moved even the most serious to mirth to have seen Pomp’s
countenance, as he thus alternated in his fears. Twice he turned the
colt’s head towards the fatal road, and twice altered his mind, the
whimsical contortions of his face, all the time, exceeding anything that
Hogarth ever painted. At last there arose, out of the heart of the
forest on the left, one of those low, long wails, which, on a summer
day, is often the precursor of a coming storm. Pomp’s already excited
imagination needed only the smallest circumstance to decide him. The
moan of the rising wind was to him irresistible proof of the presence of
the Arch Enemy. He dug his heels into the flanks of the colt
instinctively, and sped over the bridge, as yet with no fixed
determination where to go, but only to escape as well from parental
vengeance at Sweetwater, as from the supernatural foe: and as he
galloped off, his eyes were dilated to the size of saucers, his dark
visage positively paled, and his teeth chattered, as if they would drop
out of his jaws.
When Mrs. Warren found that Pomp did not return, all her old fears came
back. It was night before she and her attendants finally abandoned the
hope of seeing him, and then it was too late to take further action.
Besides, her servants were, by this time, nearly as incapacitated as
herself. This was especially true of Dinah, who filled the house with
her lamentations, declaring that Pomp had been carried off by Satan
himself, “deed he had.”
All that night Mrs. Warren walked her room, wringing her hands and
sobbing, and occasionally falling into fits of hysterics.