If the human countenance, by reason of its clouding up in gusts of pitchy blackness acquired the power, like darkening skies, of discharging thunderbolts, it would have been, I am sure, a hot and heavy one which Mopsey, blackening and blazing, had delivered, as she departed to the kitchen, lowering upon Mr. Tiffany Carrack,—"'He thought he saw her son Elbridge!' The vagabone has no more feeling nor de bottom of a stone jug."
The meal over, the evening wore on in friendly chat of old Thanksgiving times—of neighbors and early family histories; each one in turn launching, so to speak, a little boat upon the current, freighted deep with many precious stores of old-time remembrance; Mrs. Carrack sitting alone as an iceberg in the very midst of the waters, melting not once, nor contributing a drop or trickle to the friendly flow. And when bed-time came again, how clearly was it shown, that there is nothing certain in this changeful world. By some sudden and unforeseen interruption, nations lose power, communities are shattered, households well-constructed fall in pieces at a breath.
Her sudden appearance in their midst, compelled another consultation to be taken as to the disposal of the great Mrs. Carrack for the night. It would never answer to put that grand person in any secondary lodging; so all the old arrangements were of necessity broken up; the best bed-room allotted to her; and that her gentle nerves might not be afflicted, the old clock, which adjoined her sleeping-chamber, and which had occupied his corner and told the time for the Peabodys for better than a hundred years from the same spot, was instantly silenced, as impertinent. The Captain's high-actioned white horse, which had enjoyed the privilege of roaming unmolested about the house, was led away like an unhappy convict, and stabled in the barn; and to complete the arrangements, the two servants in livery were put on guard near her window, to drive off the geese, turkeys, and other talkative birds of the night, that she might sleep without the slightest disturbance from that noisy old creature, Nature.
Mr. Tiffany Carrack, while these delicate preparations were in progress, was evidently agitated with some extraordinary design, in which Miriam Haven was bearing a part; for, although he did not address a word to that young maiden, he was as busy as his imitation of the antiquity of Baden-Baden would allow him, ogling, grimacing, and plucking his tawny beard at her every minute in the most astonishing manner, closely watched by Mopsey, the Captain, and old Sylvester, who strongly suspected the young man of being affected in his wits.
It was very clear that it was this same Mr. Tiffany Carrack who had entered in at the door of the sleeping chamber assigned to that gentleman, but who would have ventured to assert that the figure, which, somewhere about the middle of the night, emerged from the window of the chamber in question, in yellow slippers, red silk cloak trimmed with gold, fez cap, and white muslin turban, and, with folded arms, began pacing up and down under the casement of Miriam Haven, after the manner of singers at the opera, preparatory to beginning, was the same Tiffany? And yet, when he returned again, and holding his face up to the moon, which was shining at a convenient angle over the edge of the house, the tawny tuft clearly identified it as Tiffany and no one else. And yet, as if to further confuse all recognition, what sound is that which breaks from his throat, articulating:—
"Dearest, awake—you need not fear;
For he—for he—your Troubadour is here!"
The summons passed for some time unanswered, till Mopsey, from the little end-window of her lodgement, presented her head in a flaming red and yellow handkerchief, and rolled her eyes about to discover the source of the tumult; scowling in the belief that it must be no other than "one of dem Brundages come to carry off in de dead of night de Peabody punkin."
A gentle conviction was dawning in the brain of Mr. Carrack that this was the fair Miriam happily responding to his challenge in the appropriate character and costume of a Moorish Princess; when, as he began to roar again, still more violent and furious in his chanting, the black head opened and demanded, "what you want dere?" followed by an extraordinary shower of gourd-shells, which, crashing upon his sconce, with a distinct shatter for each shell, could not, for a moment, be mistaken for flowers, signet-rings, or any other ordinarily recognised love-tokens.
It immediately occurred to Mr. Carrack, with the suddenness of inspiration, that he had better return to his chamber and go to bed; a design which was checked, as he proceeded in that direction, by the alarming apparition of a great body with a fire-lock thrust out of the window of the apartment, next to his own, occupied by the Captain, presented directly at his head, with a cry "Avast, there!" and a movement on the part of the body, to follow the gun out at the window. Fearfully harassed in that quarter, Mr. Carrack wheeled rapidly about, encountering as he turned, the two servants in livery, still making the circuit of the homestead—who in alarm of their lives from this singular figure in the red cloak, fled into the fields and lurked in an old out-house till daylight. As these scampered away before him, Mr. Tiffany, to relieve himself of the apparition of the gun, would have turned the corner of the house; when Mopsey appeared, wildly gesticulating, with a great brush-broom reared aloft, and threatening instant ruin to his person.
From this double peril, what but the happiest genius could have suggested to Mr. Tiffany, an instant and straightforward flight from the house; in which he immediately engaged, making up the road—the Captain with his musket, and Mopsey with her hearth-broom, close at his heels. If Mr. Tiffany Carrack had promptly employed his undoubted resources of youth and activity, his escape from the necessity of disclosure or surrender had been perhaps easy; but it so happened that his progress was a good deal baffled by the conflict constantly kept up in his brain, between the desire to use his legs in the natural manner, and to preserve that antique pace of tottering gentility which he had acquired from that devilish fine old fellow, the Prince of Baden-Baden, so that at one moment he was in the very hands of the enemy, and at the next, flying like an antelope in the distance. The gun, constantly following him with a loud threat, from the Captain, seemed, in the moonlight, like a great finger perpetually pointing at his head; till at last it became altogether too dreadful to bear, and making up the road toward Brundage's, which still further inflamed the pursuit, in sheer exhaustion he rushed through an open gate into a neighboring tan-yard, and took refuge in the old bark-mill. There was but a moment's rest allowed him even here, for Mopsey and the Captain, furiously threatening all sorts of death and destruction, presently rushed in at the door, and sent him scampering about the ring like a distracted colt, in his first day's service; a game of short duration, for the Captain and Mopsey, closing in upon him from opposite directions compelled him to retreat again into the open air. How much longer the chase might have continued, it were hard to tell, for as his pursuers made after him, Mr. Tiffany Carrack suddenly disappeared, like a melted snow-flake, from the surface of the earth. In his confused state he had tumbled into a vat, fortunately without the observation of the inexorable enemy, although as he clung to the side the Captain discharged his musket directly over his head.