Essential Novelists - Harold Frederic. Frederic Harold
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Sir William talks so much. How happy one must be to be such a favorite everywhere! And you content to live here, too, leading this simple, pastoral life! How sweet! And you never weary of it—never sigh when it is time to return to it from New York?"
"I never have been to New York, nor Albany either," Daisy made answer.
Lady Berenicia held up her fan in pretended astonishment.
"Never to New York! nor even to Albany! Une vraie belle sauvage! How you amaze me, poor child!"
"Oh, I crave no pity, madam," our dear girl answered, cheerily. "My father and brother are so good to me—just like a true father and brother—that if I but hinted a wish to visit the moon, they would at once set about to arrange the voyage. I do not always stay at home. Twice I have been on a visit to Mr. Campbell, at Cherry Valley, over the hills yonder. And then once we made a grand excursion up the river, way to Fort Herkimer, and beyond to the place where my poor parents lost their lives."
As we stood regarding the lilac bushes, planted in a circle on the slope, and I was congratulating myself that my elbows were free again, two gentlemen approached us from the direction of the Hall.
Daisy was telling the story of her parents' death, which relation Lady Berenicia had urgently pressed, but now interrupted by saying: "There, that is my husband, with young Mr. Butler."
Mr. Jonathan Cross seemed a very honest and sensible gentleman when we came to converse with him; somewhat austere, in the presence of his rattle-headed spouse at least, but polite and well-informed. He spoke pleasantly with me, saying that he was on his way to the farther Lake country on business, and that his wife was to remain, until his return, at Johnson Hall.
His companion was Walter Butler, and of him I ought to speak more closely, since long generations after this tale is forgotten his name will remain written, blood-red, in the Valley's chronicles. I walked away from the lilacs with him, I recall, discussing some unremembered subject. I always liked Walter: even now, despite everything, there continues a soft spot in my memory for him.
He was about my own age, and, oh! such a handsome youth, with features cut as in a cameo, and pale-brown smooth skin, and large deep eyes, that look upon me still sometimes in dreams with ineffable melancholy. He was somewhat beneath my stature, but formed with perfect delicacy.
In those old days of breeches and long hose, a man's leg went for a good deal. I have often thought that there must be a much closer connection between trousers and democracy than has ever been publicly traced. A man like myself, with heavy knee-joints and a thick ankle, was almost always a Whig in the Revolutionary time—as if by natural prejudice against the would-be aristocrats, who liked to sport a straight-sinking knee-cap and dapper calf. When the Whigs, after the peace, became masters of their own country, and divided into parties again on their own account, it was still largely a matter of lower limbs. The faction which stood nearest Old-World ideas and monarchical tastes are said to have had great delight in the symmetry of Mr. Adams's underpinning, so daintily displayed in satin and silk. And when the plainer majority finally triumphed with the induction of Mr. Jefferson, some fifteen years since, was it not truly a victory of republican trousers—a popular decree that henceforth all men should be equal as to legs?
To return. Walter Butler was most perfectly built—a living picture of grace. He dressed, too, with remarkable taste, contriving always to appear the gentleman, yet not out of place in the wilderness. He wore his own black hair, carelessly tied or flowing, and with no thought of powder.
We had always liked each other, doubtless in that we were both of a solemn and meditative nature. We had not much else in common, it is true, for he was filled to the nostrils with pride about the Ormond-Butlers, whom he held to be his ancestors, and took it rather hard that I should not also be able to revere them for upholding a false-tongued king against the rights of his people. For my own part, I did not pin much faith upon his descent, being able to remember his grandfather, the old lieutenant, who seemed a peasant to the marrow of his bones.
Nor could I see any special value in the fact of descent, even were it unquestioned. Walter, it seemed to me, would do much better to work at the law, to which he was bred, and make a name for himself by his own exertions. Alas, he did make a name!
But though our paths would presently diverge we still were good friends, and as we walked he told me what he had heard that day of Lady Berenicia Cross. It was not much. She had been the daughter of a penniless, disreputable Irish earl, and had wedded early in life to escape the wretchedness of her paternal home. She had played quite a splendid part for a time in the vanities of London court-life, after her husband gained his wealth, but had latterly found her hold upon fashion's favor loosened. Why she had accompanied her serious spouse on this rough and wearisome journey was not clear. It might be that she came because he did not care for her company. It might be that he thought it wisest not to leave her in London to her own devices. In any case, here she indubitably was, and Walter was disposed to think her rather a fine woman for her years, which he took to be about twoscore.
We strolled back again to the lilacs, where the two women were seated on a bench, with Mr. Cross and Colonel Claus—the brighter and better of Sir William's two sons-in-law—standing over them. Lady Berenicia beckoned to my companion with her fan.
"Pray come and amuse us, Mr. Butler," she said, in her high, mincing tones. "Were it not for the fear of ministering to your vanity, I might confess we two have been languishing for an hour for your company. Mistress Daisy and I venerate these cavaliers of ours vastly—we hold their grave wisdom in high regard—but our frivolous palates need lighter things than East India Companies and political quarrels in Boston. I command you to discourse nonsense, Mr. Butler—pure, giddy nonsense."
Walter bowed, and with a tinge of irony acknowledged the compliment, but all pleasantly enough. I glanced at our Daisy, expecting to discover my own distaste for this silly speech mirrored on her face. It vexed me a little to see that she seemed instead to be pleased with the London lady.
"What shall it be, my lady?" smiled Walter; "what shall be the shuttlecock—the May races, the ball, the Klock scandal, the—"
If it was rude, it is too late to be helped now. I interrupted the foolish talk by asking Colonel Claus what the news from Boston was, for the post-boy had brought papers to the Hall that morning.
"The anniversary speech is reported. Some apothecary, named Warren, held forth this year, and his seems the boldest tongue yet. If his talk stinks not of treason in every line, why then I have no smelling sense. They are talking of it in the library now; but I am no statesman, and it suits me better out here in the sun."
"But," I replied, "I have heard of this Dr. Warren, and he is not reputed to be a rash or thoughtless speaker."
Young Butler burst into the conversation with eager bitterness:
"Thoughtless! Rash! No—the dogs know better! There'll be no word that can be laid hold upon—all circumspect outside, with hell itself underneath. Do we not know the canters? Oh, but I'd smash through letter and seal of the law alike to get at them, were I in power! There'll be no peace till some strong hand does do it."
Walter's deep eyes flashed and glowed as he spoke, and his face was shadowed with grave intensity of feeling.
There was a moment's silence—broken by the thin voice of the London lady: "Bravo! admirable! Always be in a rage, Mr. Butler, it suits you so much.—Isn't he handsome, Daisy, with his feathers all on end?"
While our girl, unused to such bold talk, looked blushingly at the young grass, Mr. Cross spoke:
"Doubtless you gentry of New York have your own good reasons for disliking Boston men, as I find you do. But why rasp your nerves and spoil your digestion by so fuming over their politics? I am an Englishman: if I can keep calm on the subject, you who are only collaterally aggrieved, as it were, should surely be able to do so. My word for it, young men, life brings vexations enough to one's very door, without setting out in quest of them."
"Pray, Mr. Cross," languidly sneered my lady, "what is there in the heavens or on the earth, or in the waters under the