CHAPTER XIV.
| I called on Vengeance; at the word She came. SIR EUSTACE GREY. |
The letter of Miss Falconer contained an allusion to an approaching festival, which she characterized as a '4th of July jollification.' This day was already rendered sacred in the affections of Americans; and the prospect of a speedy and successful close to the battle of independence had disposed them, throughout the whole confederacy, to signalize its recurrence with all the pomp and glory of observance. The spirit had awakened even in the precincts of Hawk-Hollow; and the villagers, taking advantage of the patriotic offers of Captain Loring, had made extensive preparations to celebrate it among the solitudes of that lovely valley. They assembled in public meeting, appointed committees of arrangement, purveyors, marshals, and masters of ceremonies; and that the occasion might not pass without a due share of national glorification, they selected an orator, who, it was universally supposed by all his friends, would electrify the souls of his auditory by a display of impassioned and heaven-inspired eloquence. It happened, however, that the appointment of Mr. Jingleum to this honour had disgusted the adherents of another candidate; and the consequence was, that, in the end, there were two different celebrations, held at different places, one in the village itself, which being more convenient to the mass of citizens, was much more numerously attended than the rival jubilee in the Hollow. Indeed, the spirit of faction running very high, there were found so many arguments against holding the convocation at the latter place, that the current of public opinion soon set decidedly against it, and it promised to be quite a failure. It was indeed but thinly attended; although circumstances arose to give it an éclat entirely wanting at the other.
The gentlemen of the committee, finding how matters were going, redoubled their exertions, and by adding preparations for a fête champêtre to those for the more public object, succeeded in awakening an interest on the side of the female portion of the community; so that, as the day drew nigh, they began to hold up their heads and boast aloud, that, go the day as it might, the beauty of the country would be found displayed only in the valley. The scene of festivity determined upon was the little promontory at the mouth of Hawk-Hollow Run, and the river-bank at its base, where were such green plots as might have enticed fairies, as well as mortal women, into the joys of the dance. A small piece of ordnance was dragged upon the promontory; the venerable habitation of the fishing-hawks was tumbled about their ears, and the tall and naked trunk that supported it, converted into a gigantic flag-staff, from which the striped banner was seen waving as early as the afternoon of the 3d. A scaffold some five or six feet in height was also erected around the trunk, and a tribune, or orator's desk, with seats behind it, constructed thereon; the whole forming a rostrum suitable to the occasion, which the good taste of the supervisors caused to be canopied and adorned with branches of laurel, that were also wreathed around the tree almost to its top. The whole of the day preceding the celebration was occupied with these and other preparations, in most of which the painter contributed his personal assistance with great zeal. He had consented, after first flatly refusing the honour, tendered him at the instance of his friend the poet, to accept the appointment of reader of the Declaration, with the pronouncing of which sacred instrument the exercises of such a celebration are always begun; and although, on many occasions, when his auxiliaries were all as busily occupied as himself, he betrayed a strong disposition to desert, and betake himself to the distant mansion, there was no one, when all were assembled together under its roof, sharing the hospitality of the Captain and the smiles of his daughter, who exhibited a more disinterested anxiety to hurry all back again to their duties.
The evening came, and the preparations having been completed, the bustling Committee-men mounted their horses, and retreated to the village, leaving Gilbert's Folly to solitude; for not even Herman returned to it that evening. But an unexpected guest made her appearance, an hour after night-fall. As Catherine sat musing on the porch, perhaps moralizing, as she watched the spark of the fire-fly, now struggling in the moist grass, now flitting among the oak-boughs, and traced the resemblance it seemed to figure forth to the life of man,—a tissue of linked light and darkness,—a bolder beam flashed along the park, the roll of wheels was heard on the gravelled avenue, and before she had time to wonder or surmise, a carriage stopped at the door, and in a moment she was clasped in the arms of Miss Falconer.
"Brava for my dear self!" cried the lady; "my generalship is complete—I take even my friend by surprise! Wo therefore to my enemies! for this is a part of my practice. Eureka! Eureka, Kate! as the old philosopher said, when he discovered what the little fishes knew before him: I have discovered the enemy, and to-morrow I will take him! Never trust me if Congress do not order me a vote of thanks for my doughty services.—Where's your father?"
"Sleeping in his arm-chair," replied Catherine, confounded by the vivacity of her friend's expressions; "tired with entertaining so many people, and being so much on foot; and I believe he would have gone to bed, except for Mr.—that is to say, Monsieur Red-Jacket."
"Hang Monsieur Red-Jacket!" cried Harriet, quickly: "If he is here, get rid of him,—I've a thousand things to tell you.—Not here, then? but coming? Shut up the house, and fasten the doors—no admission to any superfluities to-night. And pa's sleepy, too? Pack him off to bed, dear Kate; tell him 'tis ten o'clock; or wait till we get the carriage away, and all quiet, and don't let him know of my arrival; we'll surprise him in the morning. I tell you, you unconscionable girl, I have such a secret to relate!—a secret so big and mighty, that I have been more than half dead with keeping it already!"
Ardent as were the lady's desires to escape the welcome of the return for that night, she was doomed to a disappointment. The bustle of arrival broke the Captain's slumbers, and he rushed into the porch, after a host of domestics bearing lights, expressing his rapture that 'his dear Harry' had arrived at such a lucky time; "For," said he, "we've laid in two hundred and fifty charges for the six-pounder, and we'll have such a roaring racket as has never been heard this ten years; and there's Tom Terry, the trumpeter,—was regularly brought up in the troop school, and blasts a charge to make your blood boil! and there's the drums and fifes! and there's my boy Haman to read the Declaration! and, by the lord, now I think of it, there's the Battle of Brandywine and Tom Loring dying! There never was such likenesses painted by mortal man."