The Doctor was roused from his revery by the clatter of approaching
hoofs. He looked forward and saw a young fellow galloping rapidly
towards him.
A common New-England rider with his toes turned out, his elbows
jerking and the daylight showing under him at every step, bestriding
a cantering beast of the plebeian breed, thick at every point where
he should be thin, and thin at every point where he should be thick,
is not one of those noble objects that bewitch the world. The best
horsemen outside of the cities are the unshod countryboys, who ride
"bareback," with only a halter round the horse's neck, digging their
brown heels into his ribs, and slanting over backwards, but sticking
on like leeches, and taking the hardest trot as if they loved it.---
This was a different sight on which the Doctor was looking. The
streaming mane and tail of the unshorn, savage-looking, black horse,
the dashing grace with which the young fellow in the shadowy
sombrero, and armed with the huge spurs, sat in his high-peaked
saddle, could belong only to the mustang of the Pampas and his
master. This bold rider was a young man whose sudden apparition in
the quiet inland town had reminded some of the good people of a
bright, curly-haired boy they had known some eight or ten years
before as little Dick Venner.
This boy had passed several of his early years at the Dudley mansion,
the playmate of Elsie, being her cousin, two or three years older
than herself, the son of Captain Richard Venner, a South American
trader, who, as he changed his residence often, was glad to leave the
boy in his brother's charge. The Captain's wife, this boy's mother,
was a lady of Buenos Ayres, of Spanish descent, and had died while
the child was in his cradle. These two motherless children were as
strange a pair as one roof could well cover. Both handsome, wild,
impetuous, unmanageable, they played and fought together like two
young leopards, beautiful, but dangerous, their lawless instincts
showing through all their graceful movements.
The boy was little else than a young Gaucho when he first came to
Rockland; for he had learned to ride almost as soon as to walk, and
could jump on his pony and trip up a runaway pig with the bolas or
noose him with his miniature lasso at an age when some city-children
would hardly be trusted out of sight of a nursery-maid. It makes men
imperious to sit a horse; no man governs his fellows so well as from
this living throne. And so, from Marcus Aurelius in Roman bronze,
down to the "man on horseback" in General Cushing's prophetic speech,
the saddle has always been the true seat of empire. The absolute
tyranny of the human will over a noble and powerful beast develops
the instinct of personal prevalence and dominion; so that horse-
subduer and hero were almost synonymous in simpler times, and are
closely related still. An ancestry of wild riders naturally enough
bequeaths also those other tendencies which we see in the Tartars,
the Cossacks, and our own Indian Centaurs, and as well, perhaps, in
the old-fashioned fox-hunting squire as in any of these. Sharp
alternations of violent action and self-indulgent repose; a hard run,
and a long revel after it; this is what over-much horse tends to
animalize a man into. Such antecedents may have helped to make
little Dick Venner a self-willed, capricious boy, and a rough
playmate for Elsie.
Elsie was the wilder of the two. Old Sophy, who used to watch them
with those quick, animal-looking eyes of hers,--she was said to be
the granddaughter of a cannibal chief, and inherited the keen senses
belonging to all creatures which are hunted as game, Old Sophy, who
watched them in their play and their quarrels, always seemed to be
more afraid for the boy than the girl. "Masse Dick! Masse Dick!
don' you be too rough wi' dat gal! She scratch you las' week, 'n'
some day she bite you; 'n' if she bite you, Masse Dick! "Old Sophy
nodded her head ominously, as if she could say a great deal more;
while, in grateful acknowledgment of her caution, Master Dick put his
two little fingers in the angles of his mouth, and his forefingers on
his lower eyelids, drawing upon these features until his expression
reminded her of something she vaguely recollected in her infancy,--
the face of a favorite deity executed in wood by an African artist
for her grandfather, brought over by her mother, and burned when she
became a Christian.
These two wild children had much in common. They loved to ramble
together, to build huts, to climb trees for nests, to ride the colts,
to dance, to race, and to play at boys' rude games as if both were
boys. But wherever two natures have a great deal in common, the
conditions of a first-rate quarrel are furnished ready-made.
Relations are very apt to hate each other just because they are too
much alike. It is so frightful to be in an atmosphere of family
idiosyncrasies; to see all the hereditary uncomeliness or infirmity
of body, all the defects of speech, all the failings of temper,
intensified by concentration, so that every fault of our own finds
itself multiplied by reflections, like our images in a saloon lined.
with mirrors! Nature knows what she is about. The centrifugal
principle which grows out of the antipathy of like to like is only
the repetition in character of the arrangement we see expressed
materially in certain seed-capsules, which burst and throw the seed
to all points of the compass. A house is a large pod with a human
germ or two in each of its cells or chambers; it opens by dehiscence
of the front-door by and by, and projects one of its germs to Kansas,
another to San Francisco, another to Chicago, and so on; and this
that Smith may not be Smithed to death and Brown may not be Browned
into a mad-house, but mix in with the world again and struggle back
to average humanity.
Elsie's father, whose fault was to indulge her in everything, found
that it would never do to let these children grow up together. They
would either love each other as they got older, and pair like wild
creatures, or take some fierce antipathy, which might end nobody
could tell where. It was not safe to try. The boy must be sent
away. A sharper quarrel than common decided this point. Master Dick
forgot Old Sophy's caution, and vexed the girl into a paroxysm of
wrath, in which she sprang at him and bit his arm. Perhaps they made
too much of it; for they sent for the old Doctor, who came at once
when he heard what had happened. He had a good deal to say about the
danger there was from the teeth of animals or human beings when
enraged; and as he emphasized his remarks by the application of a
pencil of lunar caustic to each of the marks left by the sharp white
teeth, they were like to be remembered by at least one of his
hearers.
So Master Dick went off on his travels, which led him into strange
places and stranger company. Elsie was half pleased and half sorry
to have him go; the children had a kind of mingled liking and hate
for each other, just such as is very common among relations. Whether
the girl had most satisfaction in the plays they shared, or in
teasing him, or taking her small revenge upon him for teasing her, it
would have been hard to say. At any rate, she was lonely without
him. She had more fondness for the old black woman than anybody; but
Sophy could not follow her far beyond her own old rocking-chair. As
for her father, she had made him afraid of her, not for his sake, but
for her own. Sometimes she would seem to be fond of him, and the
parent's heart would yearn within him as she twined her supple arms
about him; and then some look she gave him, some half-articulated
expression, would turn his cheek pale and almost make him shiver, and
he would say kindly, "Now go, Elsie, dear," and smile upon her as
she went, and close and lock the door softly after her. Then his
forehead would knot and furrow itself, and the drops of anguish stand
thick upon it. He would go to the western window of his study and
look at the solitary mound with the marble slab for its head-stone.
After his grief had had its way, he would kneel down and pray for his
child as one who has no hope save in that special grace which can
bring the most rebellious spirit into sweet subjection. All this
might seem like weakness in a parent having the charge of one sole
daughter of his house and heart; but he had tried authority and
tenderness by turns so long without any good effect, that he had
become sore perplexed, and, surrounding her with cautious
watchfulness as he best might, left her in the main to her own
guidance and the merciful influences which Heaven might send down to
direct her footsteps.
Meantime the boy grew up to youth and early manhood through a strange
succession of adventures. He had been at school at Buenos Ayres,--
had quarrelled with his mother's relatives,--had run off to the
Pampas, and lived with the Gauchos;--had made friends with the
Indians, and ridden with them, it was rumored, in some of their
savage forays,--had returned and made up his quarrel,--had got money
by inheritance or otherwise,--had troubled the peace of certain
magistrates,--had found it convenient to leave the City of Wholesome
Breezes for a time, and had galloped off on a fast horse of his, (so
it was said,) with some officers riding after him, who took good care
(but this was only the popular story) not to catch him. A few days
after this he was taking his ice on the Alameda of Mendoza, and a
week or two later sailed from Valparaiso for New York, carrying with
him the horse with which he had scampered over the Plains, a trunk or
two with his newly purchased outfit of, clothing and other
conveniences, and a belt heavy with gold and with a few Brazilian
diamonds sewed in it, enough in value to serve him for a long
journey.
Dick Venner had seen life enough to wear out the earlier
sensibilities of adolescence. He was tired of worshipping or
tyrannizing over the bistred or umbered beauties of mingled blood
among whom he had been living. Even that piquant exhibition which
the Rio de Mendoza presents to the amateur of breathing sculpture
failed to interest him. He was thinking of a far-off village on the
other side of the equator, and of the wild girl with whom he used to
play and quarrel, a creature of a different race from these
degenerate mongrels.
"A game little devil she was, sure enough!"--And as Dick spoke, he
bared his wrist to look for the marks she had left on it: two small
white scars, where the two small sharp upper teeth had struck when
she flashed at him with her eyes sparkling as bright as those
glittering stones sewed up in the belt he wore. "That's a filly
worth noosing!" said Dick to himself, as he looked in admiration at
the sign of her spirit and passion. "I wonder if she will bite at
eighteen as she did at eight! She shall have a chance to try, at any
rate!"
Such was the self-sacrificing disposition with which Richard Venner,
Esq., a passenger by the Condor from Valparaiso, set foot upon his
native shore, and turned his face in the direction of Rockland, The
Mountain, and the mansion-house. He had heard something, from time
to time, of his New-England relatives, and knew that they were living
together as he left them. And so he heralded himself to "My dear
Uncle" by a letter signed "Your loving nephew, Richard Venner," in
which letter he told a very frank story of travel and mercantile
adventure, expressed much gratitude for the excellent counsel and
example which had helped to form his character and preserve him in
the midst of temptation, inquired affectionately after his uncle's
health, was much interested to know whether his lively cousin who
used to be his playmate had grown up as handsome as she promised to
be, and announced his intention of paying his respects to them both
at Rockland. Not long after this came the trunks marked R. V. which
he had sent before him, forerunners of his advent: he was not going
to wait for a reply or an invitation.
What a sound that is,--the banging down of the preliminary trunk,
without its claimant to give it the life which is borrowed by all
personal appendages, so long as the owner's hand or eye is on them!
If it announce the coming of one loved and longed for, how we delight
to look at it, to sit down on it, to caress it in our fancies, as a
lone exile walking out on a windy pier yearns towards the merchantman
lying alongside, with the colors of his own native land at her peak,
and the name of the port he sailed from long ago upon her stern! But
if it tell the near approach of the undesired, inevitable guest, what
sound short of the muffled noises made by the undertakers as they
turn the corners in the dim-lighted house, with low shuffle of feet
and whispered cautions, carries such a sense of knocking-kneed
collapse with it as the thumping down in the front entry of the heavy
portmanteau, rammed with the changes of uncounted coming weeks?
Whether the R. V. portmanteaus brought one or the other of these
emotions to the tenants of the Dudley mansion, it might not be easy
to settle. Elsie professed to be pleased with the thought of having
an adventurous young stranger, with stories to tell, an inmate of
their quiet, not to say dull, family. Under almost any other
circumstances, her father would have been unwilling to take a young
fellow of whom he knew so little under his roof; but this was his
nephew, and anything that seemed like to amuse or please Elsie was
agreeable to him. He had grown almost desperate, and felt as if any
change in the current of her life and feelings might save her from
some strange paroxysm of dangerous mental exaltation or sullen
perversion of disposition, from which some fearful calamity might
come to herself or others.
Dick had been several weeks at the Dudley mansion. A few days
before, he had made a sudden dash for the nearest large city,--and
when the Doctor met him, he was just returning from his visit.
It had been a curious meeting between the two young persons, who had
parted so young and after such strange relations with each other.
When Dick first presented himself at the mansion, not one in the
house would have known him for the boy who had left them all so
suddenly years ago. He was so dark, partly from his descent, partly
from long habits of exposure, that Elsie looked almost fair beside
him. He had something of the family beauty which belonged to his
cousin, but his eye had a fierce passion in it, very unlike the cold
glitter of Elsie's. Like many people of strong and imperious temper,
he was soft-voiced and very gentle in his address, when he had no
special reason for being otherwise. He soon found reasons enough to
be as amiable as he could force himself to be with his uncle and his
cousin. Elsie was to his fancy. She had a strange attraction for
him, quite unlike anything he had ever known in other women. There
was something, too, in early associations: when those who parted as
children meet as man and woman, there is always a renewal of that
early experience which followed the taste of the forbidden fruit,--a
natural blush of consciousness, not without its charm.
Nothing could be more becoming than the behavior of "Richard Venner,
Esquire, the guest of Dudley Venner, Esquire, at his noble mansion,"
as he was announced in the Court column of the "Rockland Weekly
Universe." He was pleased to find himself treated with kindness and
attention as a relative. He made himself very agreeable by abundant
details concerning the religious, political, social, commercial, and
educational progress of the South American cities and states. He was
himself much interested in everything that was going on about the
Dudley mansion, walked all over it, noticed its valuable wood-lots
with special approbation, was delighted with the grand old house and
its furniture, and would not be easy until he had seen all the family
silver and heard its history. In return, he had much to tell of his
father, now dead,--the only one of the Venners, beside themselves, in
whose fate his uncle was interested. With Elsie, he was subdued and
almost tender in his manner; with the few visitors whom they saw, shy
and silent,--perhaps a little watchful, if any young man happened to
be among them.
Young fellows placed on their good behavior are apt to get restless
and nervous, all ready to fly off into some mischief or other. Dick
Venner had his half-tamed horse with him to work off his suppressed
life with. When the savage passion of his young blood came over him,
he would fetch out the mustang, screaming and kicking as these
amiable beasts are wont to do, strap the Spanish saddle tight to his
back, vault into it, and, after getting away from the village, strike
the long spurs into his sides and whirl away in a wild gallop, until
the black horse was flecked with white foam, and the cruel steel
points were red with his blood. When horse and rider were alike
fired, he would fling the bridle on his neck and saunter homeward,
always contriving to get to the stable in a quiet way, and coming
into the house as calm as a bishop after a sober trot on his steady-
going cob.
After a few weeks of this kind of life, he began to want some more
fierce excitement. He had tried making downright love to Elsie, with
no great success as yet, in his own opinion. The girl was capricious
in her treatment of him, sometimes scowling and repellent, sometimes
familiar, very often, as she used to be of old, teasing and
malicious. All this, perhaps, made her more interesting to a young
man who was tired of easy conquests. There was a strange fascination
in her eyes, too, which at times was quite irresistible, so that he
would feel himself drawn to her by a power which seemed to take away
his will for the moment. It may have been nothing but the common
charm of bright eyes; but he had never before experienced the same
kind of attraction.
Perhaps she was not so very different from what she had been as a
child, after all. At any rate, so it seemed to Dick Venner, who, as
was said before, had tried making love to her. They were sitting
alone in the study one day; Elsie had round her neck that somewhat
peculiar ornament, the golden torque, which she had worn to the great
party. Youth is adventurous and very curious about necklaces,
brooches, chains, and other such adornments, so long as they are worn
by young persons of the female sex. Dick was seized with a great
passion for examining this curious chain, and, after some preliminary
questions, was rash enough to lean towards her and put out his hand
toward the neck that lay in the golden coil.
She threw her head back, her eyes narrowing and her forehead drawing
down so that Dick thought her head actually flattened itself. He
started involuntarily; for she looked so like the little girl who had
struck him with those sharp flashing teeth, that the whole scene came
back, and he felt the stroke again as if it had just been given, and
the two white scars began to sting as they did after the old Doctor
had burned them with that stick of gray caustic, which looked so like
a slate pencil, and felt so much like the end of a red-hot poker.
It took something more than a gallop to set him right after this.
The next day he mentioned having received a letter from a mercantile
agent with whom he had dealings. What his business was is, perhaps,
none of our business. At any rate, it required him to go at once to
the city where his correspondent resided.
Independently of this "business" which called him, there may have
been other motives, such as have been hinted at. People who have
been living for a long time in dreary country-places, without any
emotion beyond such as are occasioned by a trivial pleasure or
annoyance, often get crazy at last for a vital paroxysm of some kind
or other. In this state they rush to the great cities for a plunge
into their turbid life-baths, with a frantic thirst for every
exciting pleasure, which makes them the willing and easy victims of
all those who sell the Devil's wares on commission. The less
intelligent and instructed class of unfortunates, who venture with
their ignorance and their instincts into what is sometimes called the
"life" of great cities, are put through a rapid course of instruction
which entitles them very commonly to a diploma from the police court.
But they only illustrate the working of the same tendency in mankind
at large which has been occasionally noticed in the sons of ministers
and other eminently worthy people, by many ascribed to that intense
congenital hatred for goodness which distinguishes human nature from
that of the brute, but perhaps as readily accounted for by
considering it as the yawning and stretching of a young soul cramped
too long in one moral posture.
Richard Veneer was a young man of remarkable experience for his
years. He ran less risk, therefore, in exposing himself to the
temptations and dangers of a great city than many older men, who,
seeking the livelier scenes of excitement to be found in large towns
as a relaxation after the monotonous routine of family life, are too
often taken advantage of and made the victims of their sentiments or
their generous confidence in their fellow-creatures. Such was not
his destiny. There was something about him which looked as if he
would not take bullying kindly. He had also the advantage of being
acquainted with most of those ingenious devices by which the
proverbial inconstancy of fortune is steadied to something more
nearly approaching fixed laws, and the dangerous risks which have so
often led young men to ruin and suicide are practically reduced to
somewhat less than nothing. So that Mr. Richard Veneer worked off
his nervous energies without any troublesome adventure, and was ready
to return to Rockland in less than a week, without having lightened
the money-belt he wore round his body, or tarnished the long
glittering knife he carried in his boot.
Dick had sent his trunk to the nearest town through which the
railroad leading to the city passed. He rode off on his black horse
and left him at the place where he took the cars. On arriving at the
city station, he took a coach and drove to one of the great hotels.
Thither drove also a sagacious-looking, middle-aged man, who entered
his name as "W. Thompson" in the book at the office immediately
after that of "R. Venner." Mr. "Thompson" kept a carelessly
observant eye upon Mr. Venner during his stay at the hotel, and
followed him to the cars when he left, looking over his shoulder when
he bought his ticket at the station, and seeing him fairly off
without obtruding himself in any offensive way upon his attention.
Mr. Thompson, known in other quarters as Detective Policeman Terry,
got very little by his trouble. Richard Venner did not turn out to
be the wife-poisoner, the defaulting cashier, the river-pirate, or
the great counterfeiter. He paid his hotel-bill as a gentleman
should always do, if he has the money and can spare it. The
detective had probably overrated his own sagacity when he ventured to
suspect Mr. Venner. He reported to his chief that there was a
knowing-looking fellow he had been round after, but he rather guessed
he was nothing more than "one o' them Southern sportsmen."
The poor fellows at the stable where Dick had left his horse had had
trouble enough with him. One of the ostlers was limping about with a
lame leg, and another had lost a mouthful of his coat, which came
very near carrying a piece of his shoulder with it. When Mr. Venner
came back for his beast, he was as wild as if he had just been
lassoed, screaming, kicking, rolling over to get rid of his saddle,
and when his rider was at last mounted, jumping about in a way to
dislodge any common horseman. To all this Dick replied by sticking
his long spurs deeper and deeper into his flanks, until the creature
found he was mastered, and dashed off as if all the thistles of the
Pampas were pricking him.
"One more gallop, Juan?" This was in the last mile of the road
before he came to the town which brought him in sight of the mansion-
house. It was in this last gallop that the fiery mustang and his
rider flashed by the old Doctor. Cassia pointed her sharp ears and
shied to let them pass. The Doctor turned and looked through the
little round glass in the back of his sulky.
"Dick Turpin, there, will find more than his match!" said the Doctor.