"Adzooks!" said the Captain, setting the matter to rest at once, "isn't she my daughter? By the lord, sir, when my son Tom was but a boy of ten years, he could trounce all the boys of the Brandywine of his own age, and two years older."
"So heroic!" ejaculated the painter; "instead of committing me to my destiny, with a pathetic scream, to run at once to my assistance, like an angel, rather than a woman!"
"Adzooks," cried Captain Loring, "it was no such thing, when I carried Tom Loring home; for then she fell to weeping and bewailing; and hark ye, Herman, my boy, that's the way you must paint her."
"So noble! so benevolent! so humane!" continued Hunter. "Noble impulses are only produced in noble spirits.—And I really, then, owe my escape, perhaps my life, to the humanity of this young lady, to whom I was but a stranger!—Captain, it was the noblest act in the world!"
"Adzooks," cried the Captain, "do you think so? Why then, by the lord, we'll paint that too! And, now I think of it, 'twill make a most excellent picture! Why, yes,—what a fool I was, not to think of it before! 'Twas very brave of her, and it shall be painted: You shall stick yourself at the bottom of the brook, and my Kate Loring fishing you out, with Harriet and me on the top of the rock; and as for that rusty fellow, the pedler, why you may leave him out."
"I am very curious about that man," said Hunter; "but 'tis no matter."
Then he fell to musing, and in spite of the noisy rapture with which the Captain danced about his bed, filled with the new conception of immortalizing paint,—of a picture which was to perpetuate the heroism of his daughter as effectually as the other was to record the glorious death of his son,—the painter indulged his meditations for a considerable time. The result was, first, a perfect conviction that the sooner he made a due acknowledgment of his gratitude the better; and, secondly, that he felt himself strong and well enough to undertake a duty so pleasing, without further delay. In this opinion Captain Loring coincided with great satisfaction; and neither the physician nor his nurse being at hand to restrain him, (for so soon as he recovered his wits, and began to amend, they deserted his bed-side, returning only at stated periods,) he got up and dressed himself as well as he could, the Captain having in the meanwhile, descended, to apprize his daughter of the meditated visit. It was indeed lucky that the Captain did so; for after the young man had risen, and caught a view of himself in a mirror, his resolution melted away like wax in the fire.
"Heavens!" said he, "how villanous I look! Such lobster eyes, and such lantern-like jaws! That confounded doctor has bled me like a Turk: I wonder he did not make a Turk of me in earnest, and leave me with a poll as naked as a peeled yam. Truly I am now the Caballero de la Triste Figura, Don Quixotte in good earnest, as far as looks go; and truly I had better get me to bed again, and wait a month or two, before showing myself to any handsome young lady."
His objections, however, to descend were overruled by the Captain, and having been announced at his own instance, and the young lady having expressed great satisfaction at the happy change in his condition, as indicated by a renovation of strength so unexpected, he was even forced to do as he proposed, and suffer himself to be conducted into her presence.
Miss Loring was evidently surprised and shocked by the change in his appearance, which was still odiously visible, notwithstanding the great pains he had been at to arrange his battered person to advantage. The hair, massed over his forehead, to hide an envious patch, added but little ornament to his bloodless visage; nor did the splint on his right arm, the riband-ties of his sleeve which could not wholly conceal it, and the black silk sling that supported the arm on his breast, impart any peculiar elegance to a person of ghostly tenuity. However, the surprise of the young lady, though confirmatory of his own assurances in relation to his unprepossessing looks, served the good purpose of drawing what blood was left in his body into his cheeks, and thus, for an instant, removed one item of deformity.