At last the time drew on toward midnight, the hour upon which all expectation was concentrated. For did not the Parable of the Ten Virgins speak of the coming of the bridegroom at midnight?
"My friends and brethren," said Elder Hankins, his voice shaking with emotion, as he held his watch up in the moonlight, "My friends and brethren, ef the Word is true, they is but five minutes more before the comin' in of the new dispensation. Let us spend the last moments of time in silent devotion."
"I wonder ef he thinks the world runs down by his pay-tent-leever watch?" said Jonas, who could not resist the impulse to make the remark, even with the expectation of the immediate coming of the day of judgment in his mind.
"I wonder for what longitude he calculates prophecy?" said Andrew. "It can not be midnight all round the world at the same moment."
But Elder Hankins's flock did not take any astronomical difficulty into consideration. And no spectator could look upon them, bowing silently in prayer, awed by the expectation of the sudden coming of the Lord, without feeling that, however much the expectation might be illusory, the emotion was a fact absolutely awful. Events are only sublime as they move the human soul, and the swift-coming end of time was subjectively a great reality to these waiting people. Even Andrew was awe-stricken from sympathy; as Coleridge, when he stood godfather for Keble's child, was overwhelmed with a sense of the significance of the sacrament from Keble's stand-point. As for Cynthy Ann, she trembled with fear as she held fast to the arm of Jonas. And Jonas felt as much seriousness as was possible to him, until he heard Norman Anderson's voice crying with terror and excitement, and felt Cynthy shudder on his arm.
"For my part," said Jonas, turning to Andrew, "it don't seem like as ef it was much use to holler and make a furss about the corn crap when October's fairly sot in, and the frost has nipped the blades. All the plowin' and hoein' and weedin' and thinnin' out the suckers won't, better the yield then. An' when wheat's ripe, they's nothin' to be done fer it. It's got to be rep jest as it stan's. I'm rale sorry, to-night, as my life a'n't no better, but what's the use of cryin' over it? They's nothin' to do now but let it be gethered and shelled out, and measured up in the standard half-bushel of the sanctuary. And I'm afeard they'll be a heap of nubbins not wuth the shuckin'. But ef it don't come to six bushels the acre, I can't help it now by takin' on."
At twelve o'clock, even the scoffers were silent. But as the sultry night drew on toward one o'clock, Bill Day and his party felt their spirits revive a little. The calculation had failed in one part, and it might in all. Bill resumed his burlesque exhortations to the rough-looking "brethren" about him. He tried to lead them in singing some ribald parody of Adventist hymns, but his terror and theirs was too genuine, and their voices died down into husky whispers, and they were more alarmed than ever at discovering the extent of their own demoralization. The bottle, one of those small-necked, big-bodied quart-bottles that Western topers carry in yellow-cotton handkerchiefs, was passed round. But even the whisky seemed powerless to neutralize their terror, rather increasing the panic by fuddling their faculties.
"Boys!" said Bob Short, trembling, and sitting down on a stump, "this--this ere thing--is a gittin' serious. Ef--well, ef it was to happen--you know--you don't s'pose--ahem--you don't think God A'mighty would be too heavy on a feller. Do ye? Ef it was to come to-night, it would be blamed short notice."
At one o'clock the moon was just about dipping behind the hills, and the great sycamores, standing like giant sentinels on the river's marge, cast long unearthly shadows across the water, which grew blacker every minute. The deepening gloom gave all objects in the river valley a weird, distorted look. This oppressed August. The landscape seemed an enchanted one, a something seen in a dream or a delirium. It was as though the change had already come, and the real tangible world had passed away. He was the more susceptible from the depression caused by the hot sultriness of the night, and his separation from Julia.
He thought he would try to penetrate the crowd to the point where his mother was; then he would be near her, and nearer to Julia if anything happened. A curious infatuation had taken hold of August. He knew that it was an infatuation, but he could not shake it off. He had resolved that in case the trumpet should be heard in the heavens, he would seize Julia and claim her in the very moment of universal dissolution. He reached his mother, and as he looked into her calm face, ready for the millennium or for anything else "the Father" should decree, he thought she had never seemed more glorious than she did now, sitting with her children about her, almost unmoved by the excitement. For Mrs. Wehle had come to take everything as from the Heavenly Father. She had even received honest but thick-headed Gottlieb in this spirit, when he had fallen to her by the Moravian lot, a husband chosen for her by the Lord, whose will was not to be questioned.
August was just about to speak to his mother, when he was forced to hang his head in shame, for there was his father rising to exhort.
"O mine freunde! pe shust immediadely all of de dime retty. Ton't led your vait vail already, and ton't let de debil git no unter holts on ye. Vatch and pe retty!"
And August could hear the derisive shouts of Bill Day's party, who had recovered their courage, crying out, "Go it, ole Dutchman! I'll bet on you!" He clenched his fist in anger, but his mother's eyes, looking at him with quiet rebuke, pacified him in a moment. Yet he could not help wondering whether blundering kinsfolk made people blush in the next world.
"Holt on doo de last ent!" continued Gottlieb. "It's pout goom! Kood pye, ole moon! You koes town, you nebber gooms pack no more already."
This exhortation might have proceeded in this strain indefinitely, to the mortification of August and the amusement of the profane, had there not just at that moment broken upon the sultry stillness of the night one of those crescendo thunder-bursts, beginning in a distant rumble, and swelling out louder and still louder, until it ended with a tremendous detonation. In the strange light of the setting moon, while everybody's attention was engrossed by the excitement, the swift oncoming of a thunder-cloud had not been observed by any but Andrew, and it had already climbed half-way to the zenith, blotting out a third of the firmament. This inverted thunder-bolt produced a startling effect upon the over-strained nerves of the crowd. Some cried out with terror, some sobbed with hysterical agony, some shouted in triumph, and it was generally believed that Virginia Waters, who died a maniac many years afterward, lost her reason at that moment. Bill Day ceased his mocking, and shook till his teeth chattered. And none of his party dared laugh at him. The moon had now gone, and the vivid lightning followed the thunder, and yet louder and more fearful thunder succeeded the lightning. The people ran about as if demented, and Julia was left alone. August had only one thought in all this confusion, and that was to find Julia. Having found her, they clasped hands, and stood upon the brow of the hill calmly watching the coming tempest, believing it to be the coming of the end. Between the claps of thunder they could hear the broken sentences of Elder Hankins, saying something about the lightning that shineth from one part of heaven to the other, and about the promised coming in the clouds. But they did not much heed the words. They were looking the blinding lightning in the face, and in their courageous trust they thought themselves ready to look into the flaming countenance of the Almighty, if they should be called before Him. Every fresh burst of thunder seemed to August to be the rocking of the world, trembling in the throes of dissolution. But the world might crumble or melt; there is something more enduring than the world. August felt the everlastingness of love; as many another man in a supreme crisis has felt it.
But the swift cloud had already covered half the sky, and the bursts of thunder followed one another now in quicker succession. And as suddenly as the thunder had come, came the wind. A solitary old sycamore, leaning over the water on the Kentucky shore, a mile away, was first to fall. In the lurid darkness, August and Julia saw it meet its fate. Then the rail fences on the nearer bank were scattered like kindling-wood, and some of the sturdy old apple-trees of the orchard in the river-bottom were uprooted, while others were stripped of their boughs. Julia clung to August and said something, but he could only see her lips move; her voice was drowned by the incessant roar of the thunder. And then the hurricane struck them, and they half-ran and were half-carried down the rear slope of the hill. Now they saw for the first time that the people were gone. The instinct of self-preservation had proven stronger than their fanaticism, and a contagious panic had carried them into a hay-barn near by.
Not knowing where the rest had gone, August and Julia only thought of regaining the castle. They found the path blocked by fallen trees, and it was slow and dangerous work, waiting for flashes of lightning to show them their road. In making a long detour they lost the path. After some minutes, in a lull in the thunder, August heard a shout, which he answered, and presently Philosopher Andrew appeared with a lantern, his grizzled hair and beard flying in the wind.
"What ho, my friends!" he cried. "This is the way you go to heaven together! You'll live through many a storm yet!"
Guided by his thorough knowledge of the ground, they had almost reached the castle, when they were startled by piteous cries. Leaving August with Julia, Andrew climbed a fence, and went down into a ravine to find poor Bill Day in an agony of terror, crying out in despair, believing that the day of doom had already come, and that he was about to be sent into well-deserved perdition. Andrew stooped over him with his lantern, but the poor fellow, giving one look at the shaggy face, shrieked madly, and rushed away into the woods.
"I believe," said the Philosopher, when he got back to August, "I believe he took me for the devil."
The summer storm had spent itself by daylight, and the sun rose on that morning after the world's end much as it had risen on other mornings, but it looked down upon prostrate trees and scattered fences and roofless barns. And the minds of the people were in much the same disheveled state as the landscape. One simple-minded girl was a maniac. Some declared that the world had ended, and that this was the new earth, if people only had faith to receive it; some still waited for the end, and with some the reaction from credulity had already set in, a reaction that carried them into the blankest atheism and boldest immorality. People who had spent the summer in looking for a change that would relieve them from all responsibility, now turned reluctantly toward the commonplace drudgery of life. It is the evil of all day-dreaming--day-dreaming about the other world included--that it unfits us for duty in this world of tangible and inevitable facts.
It was nearly daylight when Andrew and August and Julia reached the castle. The Philosopher advised Julia to go home, and for the present to let the marriage be as though it were not. August dreaded to see Julia returned to her mother's tyranny, but Andrew was urgent in his advice, and Julia said that she must not leave her mother in her trouble. Julia reached home a little after daylight, and a little before Mrs. Anderson was brought home in a fit of hysterics.
Poor Mrs. Abigail still hoped that the end of the world for which she had so fondly prepared would come, but as the days wore on she sank into a numb despondency. When she thought of the loss of her property, she groaned and turned her face to the wall. And Samuel Anderson sat about the house in a dumb and shiftless attitude, as do most men upon whom financial ruin comes in middle life. The disappointment of his faith and the overthrow of his fortune had completely paralyzed him. He was waiting for something, he hardly knew what. He had not even his wife's driving voice to stimulate him to exertion.
There was no one now to care for Mrs. Anderson but Julia, for Cynthy had taken up her abode in the log-cabin which Jonas had bought, and a happier housekeeper never lived. She watched Jonas till he disappeared when he went to work in the morning, she carried him a "snack" at ten o'clock, and headways found her standing "like a picter" at the gate, when he came home to dinner. But Cynthy Ann generally spent her afternoons at Anderson's, helping "that young thing" to bear her responsibilities, though Mrs. Anderson would receive no personal attentions now from any one but her daughter. She did not scold; her querulous restlessness was but a reminiscence of her scolding. She lay, disheartened, watching Julia, and exacting everything from Julia, and the weary feet and weary heart of the girl almost sank under her burdens. Mrs. Anderson had suddenly fallen from her position of an exacting tyrant to that of an exacting and helpless infant. She followed Julia with her eyes in a broken-spirited fashion, as if fearing that she would leave her. Julia could read the fear in her mother's countenance; she understood what her mother meant when she said querulously, "You'll get married and leave me." If Mrs. Anderson had assumed her old high-handed manner, it would have been easy for Julia to have declared her secret. But how could she tell her now? It would be a blow, it might be a fatal blow. And at the same time how could she satisfy August? He thought she had bowed to the same old tyranny again for an indefinite time. But she could not forsake her parents in their poverty and afflictions.
The fourteenth of August, the day on which possession was to have been given to Bob Walker, came and went, but no Bob Walker appeared. A week more passed, in which Samuel Anderson could not muster enough courage to go to see Walker, in which Samuel Anderson and his wife waited in a vague hope that something might happen. And every day of that week Julia had a letter from August, which did not say one word of the trial that it was for him to wait, but which said much of the wrong Julia was doing to herself to submit so long. And Julia, like her father and mother, was waiting for she knew not what.
At last the suspense became to her unendurable.
"Father," she said, "why don't you go to see Bob Walker? You might buy the farm back again."
"I don't know why he don't come and take it," said Mr. Anderson dejectedly.
This conversation roused Mrs. Abigail. There was some hope. She got up in bed, and told Samuel to go to the county-seat and see if the deeds had ever been recorded. And while her husband was gone she sat up and looked better, and even scolded a little, so that Julia felt encouraged. But she dreaded to see her father come back.
Samuel Anderson entered the house on his return with a blank countenance. Sitting down, he put his face between his hands a minute in utter dejection.
"Why don't you speak?" said Mrs. Anderson in a broken voice.
"The land was all transferred to Andrew immediately, and he owns every foot of it. He must have sent Bob Walker here to buy it."
"Oh! I'm so glad!" cried Julia.
But her mother only gave her one reproachful look and went off into hysterical sobbing and crying over the wrong that Andrew had done her. And all that night Julia watched by her mother, while Samuel Anderson sat in dejection by the bed. As for Norman, he had quickly relapsed into his old habits, and his former cronies had generously forgiven him his temporary piety, considering the peculiar circumstances of the case some extenuation. Now that there was trouble in the house he staid away, which was a good thing so far as it went.
The next afternoon Mrs. Anderson rallied a little, and, looking at Julia, she said in her querulous way, "Why don't you go and see him?"
"Who?" said Julia with a shiver, afraid that her mother was insane.
"Andrew."
Julia did not need any second hint. Leaving her mother with Cynthy, she soon presented herself at the door of the castle.
"Did she send you?" asked Andrew dryly.
"Yes, sir."
"I've been expecting you for a long time. I'll go back with you. But August must go along. He'll be glad of an excuse to see your face again. You look thin, my poor girl."
They went past Wehle's, and August was only too glad to join them, rejoicing that some sort of a crisis had come, though how it was to help him he did not know. With the restlessness of a man looking for some indefinable thing to turn up, Samuel was out on the porch waiting the return of his daughter. Jonas had come for Cynthy Ann, and was sitting on a "shuck-bottom" chair in front of the house.
Andrew reached out his hand and greeted his brother cordially, and spoke civilly to Abigail. Then there was a pause, and Mrs. Anderson turned her head to the wall and groaned. After a while she looked round and saw August. A little of her old indignation came into her eyes as she whimpered, "What did he come for?"
"I brought him," said Andrew.
"Well, it's your house, do as you please. I suppose you'll turn us out of our own home now."
"As you did me," said the Philosopher, smiling. "Let me remind you that I was living on the river farm. My father had promised it to me, and given me possession. A week before his death you got the will changed, by what means you know. You turned me off the farm which had virtually been mine for two years. If I turn you off now, it will be no more than fair."
There was a look of pained surprise on Julia's face. She had not known that the wrong her uncle had suffered was so great. She had not thought that he would be so severe as to turn her father out.
"I don't want to talk of these things," Andrew went on. "I ought to have broken the will, but I was not a believer in the law. I tell this story now because I must justify myself to these young people for what I am going to do. You have had the use of that part of the estate which was rightfully mine for twenty years. I suppose I may claim it all now."
Julia's eyes looked at him pleadingly.
"Why don't you send us off and be done with it then?" said Mrs. Abigail, rising up and resuming her old vehemence. "You set out to ruin us, and now you've done it. A nice brother you are! Ruining us by a conspiracy with Bob Walker, and then sitting here and trying to make my own daughter think you did right, and bringing that hateful fellow here to hear it!" Her finger was leveled at August.
"I am glad to see you are better, Abigail. I wanted to be sure you were strong enough to bear all I have to say."
"Say your worst and do your worst, you cruel, cruel man! I have borne enough from you in these years, and now you can say and do what you please; you can't do me any more harm. I suppose I must leave my old home that I've lived in so long."
"You need not worry yourself about leaving; that's what I came over to say."
"As if I'd stay in your house an hour! I'll not take any favors at your hand."
"Don't be rash, Abigail. I have deeded this hill farm to Samuel, and here is the deed. I have given you back the best half of the property, just what my father meant you to have. I have only kept the river land, that should have been mine twenty years ago. I hope you will not stick to your resolution not to receive anything at my hand."
And Julia said: "Oh! I'm so--"
But Mrs. Anderson had a convenient fit of hysterics, crying piteously. Meantime Samuel gladly accepted the deed.
"The deed is already recorded. I sent it down yesterday as soon as I saw Samuel come back, and I got it back this morning. The farm is yours without condition."
This relieved Abigail, and she soon ceased her sobbing. Andrew could not take it back then, whatever she might say.
"Now," said Andrew, "I have only divided the farms without claiming any damages. I want to ask a favor. Let Julia marry the man of her choice in peace."
"You have taken one farm, and therefore I must let my daughter marry a man with nothing but his two hands," sobbed Mrs. Anderson.
"Two hands and a good head and a noble heart," said Andrew.
"Well, I won't consent," said she. "If Julia marries him," pointing to August, "she will marry without my consent, and he will not get a cent of the money he's after. Not a red cent!"
"I don't want your money. I did not know you'd get your farm back, for I did not know but that Walker owned it, and I--wanted--Julia all the same." August had almost told that he had married Julia.
"Wanted her and married her," said Andrew. "And I have not kept a corn-stalk of the property I got from you. I have given Bob Walker a ten-acre patch for his services, and all the rest I have deeded to the two best people I know. This August Wehle married Julia Anderson when they thought the world might be near its end, and believing that, at any rate, she would not have a penny in the world. I have deeded the river farm to August Wehle and his wife."
"Married, eh? Come and ask my consent afterwards? That's a fine way!" And Abigail grew white and grew silent with passion.
"Come, August, I want to show you and Julia something," said Andrew. He really wanted to give Abigail time to look the matter in the face quietly before she committed herself too far. But he told the two young people that they might make their home with him while their house was in building. He had already had part of the material drawn, and from the brow of the hill they looked down upon the site he had chosen near the old tumble-down tenant's house. But Andrew saw that Julia looked disappointed.
"You are not satisfied, my brave girl. What is the matter?"
"Oh! yes, I am very happy, and very thankful to you; and next to August I love you more than anybody--except my parents."
"But something is different to what you wished it. Doesn't the site suit you? You can look off on to the river from the rise on which the house will stand, and I do not know how it could be better."
"It couldn't be better," said Julia, "but--'
"But what? You must tell me."
"I thought maybe you'd let us live at the castle and take the burden of things off you. I should like to keep your house for you, just to show you how much I love my dear, good uncle."
Even an anchorite could not help feeling a pleasure at such a speech from such a young woman, and this shaggy, solitary, misanthropic but tender-hearted man felt a sudden rush of pleasure. August saw it, and was delighted. What one's nearest friend thinks of one's wife is a vital question, and August was happier at this moment than he had ever been. Andrew's pleasure at Julia's loving speech was the climax.
"Yes!" said the Philosopher, a little huskily. "You want to sacrifice your pleasure by living in my gloomy old castle, and civilizing an old heathen like me. You mustn't tempt me too far."
"I don't see why you call it gloomy. It wasn't only for your sake that I said it. I think it is the nicest old house I ever saw. And then the books, and--and--you." Julia stumbled a little, she was not accustomed to make speeches of this sort.
"You flatterer!" burst out Andrew. "But no, you must have your own house."
Mrs. Anderson, on her part, had concluded to make the best of it. Julia already married and the mistress of the Anderson river farm was quite a different thing from Julia under her thumb. She was to be conciliated. Besides, Mrs. Anderson did not want Julia's prosperity to be a lifelong source of humiliation to her. She must take some stock in it at the start.
"Jule," she said, as her daughter re-entered the door, "I can let you have two feather-beds and four pillows, and a good stock of linen and blankets. And you can have the two heifers and the sorrel colt."
The two "heifers" were six, and the sorrel "colt" was seven years of age; but descriptive names often outlive the qualities to which they owed their origin. Just as a judge is even yet addressed as "your honor," and many a governor without anything to recommend him hears himself called "your excellency."
When Abigail surrendered in this graceful fashion, Julia was touched, and was on the point of putting her arms around her mother and kissing her. But Mrs. Anderson was not a person easily caressed, and Julia did not yield to her impulse.
"Cynthy Ann, my dear," said Jonas, as they walked home that evening, "do you know what Abig'il Anderson reminds me of?"
No; Cynthy Ann didn't exactly know. In fact, it would have been difficult for anybody to have told what anything was likely to remind Jonas of. There was no knowing what a thing might not suggest to him.
"Well, Cynthy, my Imperial Sweetness, when I see Abig'il come down so beautiful, it reminded me of a little fice-t dog I had when I was a leetle codger. I called him Pick. His name was Picayune. Purty good name, wasn't it?"
"Yes, it was."
"Well, now, that air little Pick wouldn't never own up as he was driv outen the house. When he was whipped out, he wouldn't never tuck his tail down, but curl it up over his back, and run acrost the yard and through the fence and down the road a-barkin' fit to kill. Wanted to let on like as ef he'd run out of his own accord, with malice aforethought, you know. That's Abig'il."
Except Abigail Anderson and one other person, everybody in the little world of Clark township approved mightily the justice and disinterestedness of Andrew. He had righted himself and Julia at a stroke, and people dearly love to have justice dealt out when it is not at their own expense. Samuel, who cherished in secret a great love for his daughter, was more than pleased that affairs had turned out in this way. But there was one beside Abigail who was not wholly satisfied. August spent half the night in protesting in vain against Andrew's transfer of the river-farm to him. But Andrew said he had a right to give away his own if he chose. And there was no turning him. For if August refused a share in it, he would give it to Julia, and if she refused it, he would find somebody who would accept it.
The next day after the settlement at Samuel Anderson's, August came to claim his wife. Mrs. Abigail had now employed a "help" in Cynthy Ann's place, and Julia could be spared. August had refused all invitations to take up his temporary residence with Julia's parents. The house had unpleasant associations in his mind, and he wanted to relieve Julia at once and forever from a despotism to which she could not offer any effectual resistance. Mrs. Anderson had eagerly loaded the wagon with feather-beds and other bridal property, and sent it over to the castle, that Julia might appear to leave with her blessing. She kissed Julia tenderly, and hoped she'd have a happy life, and told her that if her husband should ever lose his property or treat her badly--such things may happen, you know--then she would always find a home with her mother. Julia thanked her for the offer of a refuge to which she never meant to flee under any circumstances. And yet one never turns away from one's home without regret, and Julia looked back with tears in her eyes at the chattering swifts whose nests were in the parlor chimney, and at the pee-wee chirping on the gate-post. The place had entered into her life. It looked lonesome now, but within a year afterward Norman suddenly married Betsey Malcolm. Betsey's child had died soon after its birth, and Mrs. Anderson set herself to manage both Norman and his wife, who took up their abode with her. Nothing but a reign of terror could have made either of them of any account, but Mrs. Anderson furnished them this in any desirable quantity. They were never of much worth, even under her management, but she kept them in bounds, so that Norman ceased to get drunk more than five or six times a year, and Betsey flirted but little and at her peril.
Once the old house was out of sight, there were no shadows on Julia's face as she looked forward toward the new life. She walked in a still happiness by August as they went down through Shady Hollow. August had intended to show her a letter that he had from the mud-clerk, describing the bringing of Humphreys back to Paducah and his execution by a mob. But there was something so repelling in the gusto with which the story was told, and the story was so awful in itself, that he could not bear to interrupt the peaceful happiness of this hour by saying anything about it.
August proposed to Julia that they should take a path through the meadow of the river-farm--their own farm now--and see the foundation of the little cottage Andrew had begun for them. And so in happiness they walked on through the meadow-path to the place on which their home was to stand. But, alas! there was not a stick of timber left. Every particle of the material had been removed. It seemed that some great disappointment threatened them at the moment of their happiness. They hurried on in silent foreboding to the castle, but there the mystery was explained.
"I told you not to tempt me too far," said Andrew. "See! I have concluded to build an addition to the castle and let you civilize me. We will live together and I will reform. This lonely life is not healthy, and now that I have children, why should I not let them live here with me?"
Julia looked happy. I have no authentic information in regard to the exact words which she made use of to express her joy, but from what is known of girls of her age in general, it is safe to infer that she exclaimed, "Oh! I'm so glad!"
While Andrew stood there smiling, with Julia near him, August having gone to the assistance of the carpenters in a matter demanding a little more ingenuity than they possessed, Jonas came up and drew the Philosopher aside. Julia could not hear what was said, but she saw Andrew's brow contract.
"I'll shoot as sure as they come!" he said with passion. "I won't have my niece or August insulted in my house by a parcel of vagabonds."
"O Uncle Andrew! is it a shiveree?" asked Julia.
"Yes."
"Well, don't shoot. It'll be so funny to have a shiveree."
"But it is an insult to you and to August and to me. This is meant especially to be an expression of their feeling toward August as a German, though really their envy of his good fortune has much to do with it. It is a second edition of the riot of last spring, in which Gottlieb came so near to being killed. Now, I mean to do my country service by leaving one or two less of them alive if they come here to-night." For Andrew was full of that destructive energy so characteristic of the Western and Southern people.
"Oh! no, don't shoot. Can't you think of some other way?" pleaded Julia.
"Well, yes, I could get the sheriff to come and bag a few of them."
"And that will make trouble for many years. Let me see. Can't we do this?" And Julia rapidly unfolded to Andrew and Jonas her plan of operations against the enemy.
"Number one!" said Jonas. "They'll fall into that air amby-scade as sure as shootin'. That plan is military and Christian and civilized and human and angelical and tancy-crumptious. It ort to meet the 'proval of the American Fish-hawk with all his pinions and talents. I'll help to execute it, and beat the rascals or lay my bones a-bleachin' on the desert sands of Shady Holler."
"Well," said Andrew to Julia, "I knew, if I took you under my roof, you'd make a Christian of me in spite of myself. And I am a sort of savage, that's a fact."
Jonas hurried home and sent Cynthy over to the castle, and there was much work going on that afternoon. Andrew said that the castle was being made ready for its first siege. As night came on, Julia was in a perfect glee. Reddened by standing over the stove, with sleeves above her elbows and her black hair falling down upon her shoulders, she was such a picture that August stopped and stood in the door a minute to look at her as he came in to supper.
"Why, Jule, how glorious you look!" he said. "I've a great mind to fall in love with you, mein Liebchen!"
"And I have fallen in love with you, Cæsar Augustus!" And well she might, for surely, as he stood in the door with his well-knit frame, his fine German forehead, his pure, refined mouth, and his clear, honest, amiable blue eyes, he was a man to fall in love with.
If Webster's "American Dictionary of the English Language" had not been made wholly in New England, it would not have lacked so many words that do duty as native-born or naturalized citizens in large sections of the United States, and among these words is the one that stands at the head of the present chapter. I know that some disdainful prig will assure me that it is but a corruption of the French "charivari," and so it is; but then "charivari" is a corruption of the low Latin "charivarium" and that is a corruption of something else, and, indeed, almost every word is a corruption of some other word. So that there is no good reason why "shiveree," which lives in entire unconsciousness of its French parentage and its Latin grand-parentage, should not find its place in an "American Dictionary."
But while I am writing a disquisition on the etymology of the word, the "shiveree" is mustering at Mandluff's store. Bill Day has concluded that he is in no immediate danger of perdition, and that a man is a "blamed fool to git skeered about his soul." Bob Short is sure the Almighty will not be too hard on a feller, and so thinks he will go on having "a little fun" now and then. And among the manly recreations which they have proposed to themselves is that of shivereeing "that Dutchman, Gus Wehle." It is the solemn opinion of the whole crowd that "no Dutchman hadn't orter be so lucky as to git sech a beauty of a gal and a hundred acres of bottom lands to boot."
The members of the party were all disguised, some in one way and some in another, though most of them had their coats inside out. They thought it necessary to be disguised, "bekase, you know," as Bill Day expressed it, "ole Grizzly is apt to prosecute ef he gits evidence agin you." And many were the conjectures as to whether he would shoot or not.
The instruments provided by this orchestra were as various as their musical tastes. It is likely that even Mr. Jubilee Gilmore never saw such an outfit. Bob Short had a dumb-bull, a keg with a strip of raw-hide stretched across one end like a drum-head, while the other remained open. A waxed cord inserted in the middle of the drum-head, and reaching down through the keg, completed the instrument. The pulling of the hand over this cord made a hideous bellowing, hence its name. Bill Day had a gigantic watchman's rattle, a hickory spring on a cog-wheel. It is called in the West, a horse-fiddle, because it is so unlike either a horse or a fiddle. Then there were melodious tin pans and conch-shells and tin horns. But the most deadly noise was made by Jim West, who had two iron skillet-lids ("leds" he called them) which, when placed face to face, and rubbed, as you have seen children rub tumblers, made a sound discordant and deafening enough to have suggested Milton's expression about the hinges which "grated harsh thunder."
One of this party was a tallish man, so dressed as to look like a hunchback, and a hunchback so tall was a most singular figure. He had joined them in the dark, and the rest were unable to guess who it could be, and he, for his part, would not tell. They thumped him and pushed him, but at each attack he only leaped from the ground like a circus clown, and made his tin horn utter so doleful a complaint as set the party in an uproar of laughter. They could not be sure who he was, but he was a funny fellow to have along with them at any rate.
He was not only funny, but he was evidently fearless. For when they came to the castle it was all dark and still. Bill Day said that it looked "powerful juberous to him. Ole Andy meant to use shootin'-ir'ns, and didn't want to be pestered with no lights blazin' in his eyes." But the tall hunchback cleared the fence at a bound, and told them to come on "ef they had the sperrit of a two-weeks-old goslin into 'em." So the bottle was passed round, and for very shame they followed their ungainly leader.
"Looky here, boys," said the hunchback, "they's one way that we can fix it so's ole Grizzly can't shoot. They's a little shop-place, a sort of a shed, agin the house, on the side next to the branch. Let's git in thar afore we begin, and he can't shoot."
The orchestra were a little stupefied with drink, and they took the idea quickly, never stopping to ask how they could retreat if Andrew chose to shoot. Jim West thought things looked scaly, but he warn't agoin' to backslide arter he'd got so fur.
When they got into Andrew's shop, where he had a new and beautiful skiff in building, the tall hunchback shut the door, and the rest did not notice that he put the key in his pocket.
That serenade! Such a medley of discordant sounds, such a clatter and clangor, such a rattle of horse-fiddle, such a bellowing of dumb-bull, such a snorting of tin horns, such a ringing of tin pans, such a grinding of skillet-lids! But the house remained quiet. Once Bill Day thought that he heard a laugh within. Julia may have lost her self-control. She was so happy, and a little unrestrained fun was so strange a luxury!
At last the door between the house and shop was suddenly opened, and Julia, radiant as she could be, stood on the threshold with a candle in her hand.
"Come in, gentlemen."
But the gentlemen essayed to go out.
"Locked in, by thunder!" said Jim West, trying the outside door of the shop.
"We heard you were coming, gentlemen, and provided a little entertainment. Come in!"
"Come in, boys," said the hunchback, "don't be afeard of nobody."
Mechanically they followed the hunchback into the room, for there was nothing else to be done. A smell of hot coffee and the sight of a well-spread table greeted their senses.
"Welcome, my friends, thrice welcome!" said Andrew. "Put down your instruments and have some supper."
"Let me relieve you," said Julia, and she took the dumb-bull from Bob Short and the "horse-fiddle" from Day, the tin horns and tin pans from others, and the two skillet-lids from Jim West, who looked as sheepish as possible. August escorted each of them to the table, though his face did not look altogether cordial. Some old resentment for the treatment of his father interfered with the heartiness of his hospitality. The hunchback in this light proved to be Jonas, of course; and Bill Day whispered to the one next to him that they had been "tuck in and done fer that time."
"Gentlemen," said Andrew, "we are much obliged for your music." And Cynthy would certainly have laughed out if she had not been so perplexed in her mind to know whether Andrew was speaking the truth.
Such a motley set of wedding guests as they were, with their coats inside out and their other disguises! Such a race of pied pipers! And looking at their hangdog faces you would have said, "Such a lot of sheep-thieves!" Though why a sheep-thief is considered to be a more guilty-looking man than any other criminal, I do not know. Jonas looked bright enough and ridiculous enough with his hunch. They all ate rather heartily, for how could they resist the attentions of Cynthy Ann and the persuasions of Julia, who poured them coffee and handed them biscuit, and waited upon them as though they were royal guests! And, moreover, the act of eating served to cover their confusion.
As the meal drew to a close, Bill Day felt that he, being in some sense the leader of the party, ought to speak. He was not quite sober, though he could stand without much staggering. He had been trying for some time to frame a little speech, but his faculties did not work smoothly.
"Mr. President--I mean Mr. Anderson--permit me to offer you our pardon. I mean to beg your apologies--to--ahem--hope that our--that your--our--thousand--thanks--your--you know what I mean." And he sat down in foolish confusion.
"Oh! yes. All right; much obliged, my friend," said the Philosopher, who had not felt so much boyish animal life in twenty-five years.
And Jim West whispered to Bill: "You expressed my sentiments exactly."
"Mr. Anderson," said Jonas, rising, and thus lifting up his hunched shoulders and looking the picture of a long-legged heron standing in the water, "Mr. Anderson, you and our young and happy friend, Mr. Wehle, will accept our thanks. We thought that music was all you wanted to gin a delightful--kinder--sorter--well, top-dressin', to this interestin' occasion. Now they's nothin' sweeter'n a tin horn, 'thout 'tis a melodious conch-shell utterin' its voice like a turkle-dove. Then we've got the paytent double whirlymagig hoss-violeen, and the tin pannyforte, and, better nor all, the grindin' skelletled cymbals. We've laid ourselves out and done our purtiest--hain't we, feller-musicians?--to prove that we was the best band on the Ohio River. An' all out of affection and respect for this ere happy pair. And we're all happy to be here. Hain't we?" (Here they all nodded assent, though they looked as though they wished themselves far enough.) "Our enstruments is a leetle out of toon, owin' to the dampness of the night air, and so I trust you'll excuse us playin' a farewell piece."
Jim West was so anxious to get away that he took advantage of this turn to say good-evening, and though the mischievous Julia insisted that he should select his instrument, he had not the face to confess to the skillet-lids, and got out of it by assuring her that he hadn't brought nothing, "only come along to see the fun." And each member of the party repeated the transparent lie, so that Julia found herself supplied with more musical instruments than any young housekeeper need want, and Andrew hung them, horns, pans, conch-shell, dumb-bull, horse-fiddle, skillet-lids, and all, in his library, as trophies captured from the enemy.
Much as I should like to tell you of the later events of the Philosopher's life, and about Julia and August, and their oldest son, whose name is Andrew, and all that, I do not know that I can do better than to bow myself out with the abashed serenaders, letting this musical epilogue harmoniously close the book; writing just here.