The Gypsy Queen's Vow
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“Oh, Ranty! do you think he will die?” exclaimed Pet, in a tone of such piercing anguish, that it thrilled through every heart but the angry one of Ranty, who considered she deserved to be punished for what she had done.
“Of course, he’ll die,” said Ranty, jerking her away, “if he’s not dead already – as I expect he is! Go for the surgeon – will you? They’ll want him for the coroner’s inquest, which must sit on the body to-morrow morning. And after you’ve sent the doctor to the cottage, the best thing you can do is to go and give yourself up to the sheriff and save him the trouble of coming to the house after you. Be off, now, and ride fast, if you ever want to atone for the mischief you have done. If you break your neck on the way it will be the greatest blessing bestowed on America since the Declaration of Independence was signed. Here, you fellows! off and get some branches, and spread your coats on them, and make a litter to carry poor Ray home.”
“Go for the doctor, Pet,” whispered the admiral. “I’ve got out of my reckoning again, somehow. Don’t see where the wind sits, for my part.”
Without a word, Pet leaped into her saddle and darted off, according to Ranty’s directions, as if “Satan was after her.” And then, superintended by Ranty, a rude litter was made and the cold, rigid form of Ray placed upon it. The negroes carefully raised it on their shoulders, and headed by Ranty and the admiral, the melancholy cavalcade set out for the cottage.
“How, in the name of Beelzebub, did this all happen?” was the worthy admiral’s first question, as he rode along beside his afflicted nephew.
“It’s my opinion Beelzebub, or some other of them old fellows, has had a hand in it, all through,” said Ranty, with another suppressed howl of grief. “The way of it, you see, Uncle Harry, was this: Pet would go to Dismal Hollow this morning in spite of all we could say or do. We told her there were savage negroes in the woods who would send her to kingdom come as fast as they would look at her; but it was only a heaving away of breath and eloquence to talk to her. Go she would and go she did. Well, I persuaded Ray to play a practical joke on her by blacking our faces and waylaying her on her road home, to see whether or not she was as courageous as she pretended to be, Ray consented, and we stopped her here, and by George! before we knew what we were about she fired at Ray, and then dashed off before you could say ‘Jack Robinson.’ Ray fell like a stone, and I, with a yell like an Indian war-whoop, rushed up to him, and raised him up, and asked him if he was killed. He said ‘no’ but that he thought he was pretty badly wounded in the shoulder, and I could feel his coat all wet with blood. If I had been a grown-up man, the way I would have sworn at Pet, just then, would have been a caution; but as I wasn’t, I contented myself with wishing I had a hold of her for about five minutes – that was all! A little later, Ray went and fainted as dead as a mackerel, and there we were, left like the two ‘Babes in the Wood,’ and I expect, like those unfortunate infants, the robins might have made us a grave, if you hadn’t come along in the nick of time to my relief. I didn’t like to leave poor Ray wounded, and helpless, and alone there, and I couldn’t carry him home; so I was in just the tallest sort of a fix I ever want to be in again. So there’s the whole story, preface, marginal notes, dedication and all.”
“Keep her round a point or so,” said the admiral, thoughtfully; “I see breakers ahead!”
“Where?” asked Ranty, looking involuntatrily in the direction of the sea.
“If old Mother Ketura finds out Firefly has shot her boy, there’ll be mutiny among the crew,” said the admiral, in a mysterious whisper; “don’t tell her.”
“What will I say, then?” said Ranty; “suppose I tell her he and I were fighting a duel in a peaceable, friendly sort of way, just to keep our hand in, eh?”
“No, no, Ranty, boy! Stick to the truth; every lie you tell is recorded in the great log-book up above – ” here the admiral removed his glazed hat reverentially. “Say he was shot accidentally – ”
“On purpose,” interrupted Ranty.
“Or say he was shot by mistake – so he was, you know.”
“All right! I’ll fix it up; trust me to get up a work of fiction founded on fact, at a moment’s notice! Here we are at the cottage. Now for it!”
Ranty knocked, and again the window up above was raised; and the same sable head, a second time aroused from its slumbers, was protruded, and in sharp, irritated tones demanded:
“Who’s dar now, I’d like ter know?”
“A mighty polite beginning,” muttered Ranty – then raising his voice – “it’s me, Lucy – Ranty Lawless.”
“Ugh! might have known it was a Lawless! Never seed such a rampageous set – comin’ and rousin’ people out der beds dis hour de night. Fust de sister, den de brudder; fust de ’un, den de udder,” scolded Lucy, quite unconscious she was making poetry; “what in de name of Marster does yer want?”
“To get in, you sooty goblin!” shouted Master Ranty, in a rage. “Come down and open the door, and let us in; don’t stand there asking questions.”
“Belay your jawing tackle!” roared the admiral, in a voice like distant thunder.
“Deed, I won’t den! Does yer tink I’s no sort o’ ’steem for myself to go lettin’ in men dis hour de night? I hasn’t lived forty odd years to come to dis in my old ages o’ life.” And down the window went with a bang.
Before Ranty could burst out with a speech more vigorous than proper, the door was softly opened, and Erminie, like a stray seraph in her white floating dress, stood before them, with a face pale with undefined apprehension, and exclaiming, with clasped hands:
“Oh, Ranty, something has happened! what is it? I could not go asleep after Pet left, and I felt sure something was going to happen. Where’s Ray?”
“Hush, Erminie; don’t be frightened. Go in and get a light, and don’t wake your grandmother – go.”
“But tell me first what has happened. I won’t scream. I’ll be very good,” pleaded Erminie, her face growing whiter and whiter.
“Well, then – Ray’s got hurt pretty badly, and Pet’s gone for the doctor. Now don’t go crying, or making a time, but light a candle, and kindle a fire, and get some linen bandages and things; they’re always wanted when wounds are dressed. That’s a good girl – worth your weight in gold not to speak of diamonds. Hurry up!”
Pale and trembling, but soon wonderfully quiet, Erminie obeyed, but started back with a faint cry of terror, when the light fell on the black faces of the boys.
“Hush, Erminie! give me some soap and water ’till I wash all this black off before the doctor comes,” said Ranty. “I dare say, I ain’t very pretty to look at just now; but never mind; a good scrubbing will set it all right. And now get some more, and wash the black off Ray’s face, too; I fancy you’ll find him white enough underneath by this time.”
Still trembling, and with a face perfectly colorless, Erminie obeyed; and while Ranty was giving his frontispiece a vigorous scrubbing, Erminie was more gently bathing that of Ray. When the dusky paint was off, the deadly pallor of his face seemed in such striking contrast, that she barely repressed a cry of passionate grief. Cold, and still, and white he lay, like one already dead. Then Ranty, with a face shining from the combined influences of sincere grief, and a severe application of soap and water, went to the door to see, like Sister Annie in “Bluebeard,” if there was “anybody coming.” Very soon he returned with the welcome intelligence that he heard the tramp of approaching horses; and the next moment Pet burst wildly into the room, followed by a grave, old, baldheaded gentleman – the physician of Judestown.
“Oh, doctor, will he die?” passionately exclaimed Pet, looking up, with a face as white as Raymond’s own.
“Hope not; can’t tell just yet,” said the doctor, as he proceeded to rip up Ray’s coat-sleeve, and remove the saturated coat.
The wound was in the shoulder; and the doctor, with very little difficulty, extracted the bullet, dressed the wound, and proceeded to administer restoratives. Then seeing Pet’s white, terrified face, and with black eyes looking at him so beseechingly, he chucked her good-naturedly under the chin, and said:
“Don’t be afraid, little blackbird! Master Ray’s good as half-a-dozen dead people yet. All you have got to do is, to nurse him carefully for a couple of weeks, and you’ll see him alive and kicking as briskly as ever by the end of that time.”
“Oh, I’m so glad,” said Pet, drawing a long, deep breath and dropping into a chair, she covered her face with her hands.
The doctor now gave a few directions to Erminie, and then took his leave. The admiral followed him to the door, and whispered:
“Doctor, will you just stand off and on around here, till the lad in there gets seaworthy again? I’ll stand the damages, and don’t you say anything about it.”
The doctor nodded, and rode off; and then the admiral, seeing he could be of no use in the cottage, mounted, with many groans and grunts, Ringbone, and wended his way, followed by his three valorous henchmen, to the White Squall.
“Ranty, go home,” said Pet; “we don’t want you. You can tell papa, if he asks you, how it all happened, and say I ain’t coming home until to-morrow. As I’ve shot Ray, I’m going to stay here and nurse him; so be off!”
CHAPTER XX.
FIREFLY GOES TO SCHOOL
“Puck found it handier to commenceWith a certain share of impudence;Which passes one off as learned and clever,Beyond all other degrees whatever.”– Song of Old Puck.Judge Lawless was in a rage! If you have ever seen an angry lion, an enraged bear, or a young lady with “her mantle pinned awry,” you may conceive in some measure the state of mind in which that gentlemen trod up and down his library floor, while he listened to Ranty’s account of Pet’s exploit of the previous night.
Judge Lawless was a man of forty or so, and had been a widower for five years. His face was not particularly prepossessing though extremely handsome; his haughty, supercilious expression; his cold and somewhat sinister eyes, and slightly sensual mouth, were, on the whole, rather repelling. He prided himself, as a general thing, on his gentlemanly urbanity; but on the present occasion he quite forgot all his customary politeness, and paced up and down in a towering passion.
His son and heir, Master Ranty, had ensconced himself in a velvet-cushioned easy-chair; and with his feet on a stool, and both hands stuck in his coat-pockets, took things very coolly indeed.
“To think that my daughter should act in such an outrageous manner!” exclaimed the judge, passionately; “making herself a town’s talk, with her mad actions. What other young lady in her station of life would associate familiarly with those people at Dismal Hollow, who are a low set as far as I understand; or ride through those infested woods after night? I shall put an immediate stop to it, if I have to lock her up in the attic on bread and water. I have a good mind to keep her on bread and water for a month or so, and see if that will not cool the fever in her blood! And you, sir,” he added, stopping in his excited walk, and turning furiously upon Ranty, “deserve a sound thrashing for playing such a trick upon your sister. It would have served that young puppy Germaine right if she had put an end to his worthless life. I never liked that boy, and I command you instantly to cease your intimacy with him. If your uncle chooses to make a fool of himself, adopting every beggar’s brat for a protégé, that’s no reason why I should follow his lead. Now, sir, let me hear no more of this. As the son of Judge Lawless, you should look for better companionship than the grandson of an old gipsy.”
“I don’t know where I’d find one, then,” said Ranty, sturdily. “There isn’t a boy from Maine to Louisiana a better fellow than Ray Germaine. He can beat me at everything he lays his hands to, from mathematics down to pulling a stroke-oar; and there wasn’t another boy at school he couldn’t knock into a cocked hat.”
And with this spirited declaration, Master Ranty thrust his hands deeper into his pockets, and planted his feet more firmly than ever on the stool.
“How often must I tell you, sir,” vociferated his father, in a voice of thunder, “to drop this vulgar habit you have got of talking slang? I presume your accomplished friend, Germaine, has taught you that, as well as your manifold other acquirements,” he added, with a sneer.
“No, he didn’t,” said Ranty, stoutly; “and he could knock them into a cocked hat, if not further, too! Ray Germaine’s a tiptop fellow, and I shouldn’t wonder if he’d be a President some day. It will be the country’s loss if he ain’t – that’s all.”
“Silence, sir!” thundered the judge. “How dare you have the brazen effrontery to speak in this manner to me? You have improved under your sister’s tuition rapidly, since you came home! Go immediately to old Barrens Cottage, and bring Petronilla here. I shall see that she does not go there again in a hurry.”
Ranty rose, with anything but a sweet expression, and went out, shaking his fist grimly at the door, I am sorry to say, once it was safely shut between them.
On reaching the cottage, he found Ray flushed and feverish with Pet and Erminie sitting on either side of him.
“Pet, go home; father says so,” was his first brusque salute.
“I won’t then – not a step!” said the obstinate Pet.
“He’ll be after you with a horsewhip mighty sudden, if you don’t,” said Ranty. “I wish you could see how he’s been blazing away all the morning. I reckon he’s stamping up and down the library yet, nursing his wrath to keep it warm till he gets hold of you.”
“Well,” said the disrespectful vixen, “if he’s a mind to get mad for nothing, I can’t help it. I shan’t go.”
“Oh, Pet! you’d better,” said Erminie, anxiously. “He’ll be so very angry. I can take care of Ray, you know; and your father will scold you dreadfully.”
“La! I know that! I’m in for a scolding, anyway, so I may as well earn it. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, you know.”
“Oh, Pet! don’t stand bothering here all day,” broke in Ranty, impatiently. “I’ve got to bring you home, anyway, and I suppose you think a fellow has nothing to do but stay here and wait ’till you’re ready. Father will half-murder you, if you don’t come right straight along.”
“Yes; go, Pet – please do,” pleaded Erminie. “I had rather you would.”
“Oh, well, if I’m to be turned out I suppose I must,” said Pet, taking her hat. “I’m ready, Ranty. Good-by, Minnie; I’ll be back after dinner.”
“I don’t know about that,” muttered Ranty, springing into the saddle. “People ain’t got out of attics so easily as you think.”
A rapid gallop of half an hour brought them to Heath Hill, a gently-sloping eminence, on which stood an imposing mansion of gray sandstone, the aristocratic home of Judge Lawless, the one great potentate of Judestown and environs.
The judge, from the window of the library, saw his son and daughter approach, and flinging himself into the lounging chair Ranty had vacated, he rung the bell, and ordered the servant who answered his summons to send Miss Petronilla up-stairs directly.
“Now, you’ll catch it, Pet,” said Ranty, with a malicious chuckle.
“Will I? Wait ’till you see,” retorted Pet, as, gathering up her riding-habit in her hand, she prepared to follow the servant up-stairs.
With his face contracted into an awful frown, destined to strike terror into the flinty heart of his self-willed little heiress, the judge sat, awaiting her coming. In she came, her hat cocked jauntily on one side of her saucy little head; her round, polished, boyish forehead laughing out from between clusters of short, crispy, jetty curls; her black eyes all ablaze with anticipated defiance; her rosy mouth puckered up, ready to vindicate what she considered her legitimate rights. Not the least daunted was Pet by her father’s look, as swinging her riding-whip in one hand, she stood erect and fearless before him.
“Well, Miss Petronilla Lawless,” began the judge, in a measured, sarcastic tone; “no doubt you are very proud of last night’s achievement. You think you have done something excessively clever now – don’t you?”
“Yes, I do,” said Pet; “and so would you and everybody else – if I had only shot a real nigger, instead of Ray Germaine. It wasn’t my fault. I’d just as lief shoot one as t’other.”
“No doubt. The race of Joan D’Arc is not quite extinct, I see. How will you like to have your name bandied from lip to lip ’till it becomes a common by-word in every low tavern and hovel in Judestown?”
“Well, I shouldn’t mind. I like to be talked about; and it isn’t the first time I have given them something to talk about, either.”
“No; but it shall be the last,” said the judge, rising sternly. “I command you, now, to go no more to that cottage. If you dare to disobey me, it will be at your peril.”
“Why, where’s the harm of going, I want to know?” demanded Pet, indignantly.
“I am not in the habit of giving reasons for my conduct, Miss Lawless,” said the judge, severely; “but in this instance I will say, it is exceedingly unbecoming in a young lady to nurse a youth who is a stranger to her. No other young lady would think for a moment of such a thing.”
“Well, I ain’t a young lady,” said Pet, “no more than Ray is a stranger. And if I was a young lady, and went and shot a young man, I ought to help to nurse him well again, I should think.”
“What you think, Miss Lawless, is of very little consequence, allow me to tell you. Your duty is to do as I say, without presuming to ask questions. I have hitherto excused your wild, rude conduct, and made every allowance for your want of proper female training; but really, your conduct is getting so outrageous there is no telling where it will end. My intention is, therefore, to put a stop to it at once.”
Pet’s eyes flashed open defiance, and her face assumed a look of resolute determination; but she prudently said nothing.
“I have resolved, therefore, Miss Lawless,” said the judge, re-seating himself, with a look of haughty inflexibility quite overpowering; “to send you immediately to school. I wrote some time ago to a lady who keeps a private boarding-school for young girls, and she has promised to take charge of you at any time. It is an exceedingly strict establishment, and the severe discipline there maintained will have the good effect, I hope, of taming down your glaring improprieties. As I feel that keeping you here any longer is like holding a keg of gunpowder over a blazing furnace, I intend setting out with you this very afternoon. You need dresses and various other things, I know, which I am not altogether qualified to procure; I will, therefore, leave a sum of money in the hands of Mrs. Moodie, sufficient to purchase you a complete outfit, and such other things as you may want. It is useless for you to remonstrate, Miss Lawless,” said the judge, with a wave of his jeweled hand; “for nothing you can say will move me from my purpose. I anticipated violent opposition on your part, and I am quite prepared for it. Go, I have said, this afternoon, and go you shall. If you attempt to oppose my will, you shall receive the severe punishment you have already merited.”
The judge stroked his dark, glossy mustache, and looked threateningly at Pet; but to his surprise that eccentric young lady offered not the slightest opposition. When she first heard his intention of sending her away to school, she had started violently, and her color came and went rapidly; but as he went on, her eyes dropped, and an inexplicable smile flickered around her red lips. Now she stood before him, with demurely cast down eyes – the very personification of meekness and docility; had he only seen the insufferable light of mischief blazing under their long, drooping, black lashes, resting on the thin crimson cheeks, what a different tale he would have read!
“Very well, sir,” said Pet, meekly; “I suppose I can’t help it, and have got to put up with it. I don’t know as I should mind going to school, either, for a change. Mayn’t I call and see Erminie before I go, papa?”
“Hem-m-m! ah – I’ll see about it,” said the judge, rather perplexed by this unusual submissiveness, and intensely relieved, too, if the truth must be told; for in his secret heart he dreaded a “scene” with his stormy little daughter. “You may call in, for a moment, as we go past, and say good-by; but once in school, you will form new acquaintances among your own standing in society, and drop all the low connections you have formed around here. The daughter of Judge Lawless,” said that gentleman, drawing himself up, “is qualified, by birth and social position, to take her place among the highest and most exclusive in the land, and must forget that she ever associated with – paupers!”
A streak of fiery red flamed across the dark face of Pet, and her black eyes flew up, blazing indignantly at this insult to her friends. But the next moment she remembered her rôle, and down fell the long lashes again; and Pet stood as meek and demure as a kitten on the eve of scratching.
“This is all, I believe, Miss Lawless,” said the judge, resuming his customary, suave blandness, and feeling intensely proud of his own achievement in having awed into submission the hitherto dauntless Pet; “you may go now, and if you have any trifling preparations to make before starting, you will have sufficient time before dinner to accomplish them. I shall expect when we reach Mrs. Moodie’s, you will try to behave yourself like a young lady, as my daughter will be expected to behave. You must drop your rude, brusque ways, your slang talk, amazonian bearing, and become quiet, and gentle, and ladylike, and accomplished. You understand?”
“Yes, sir!” murmured Pet, putting her forefinger in her mouth.
“Very well, I hope you do. Go now.”
With her long lashes still drooping over her wickedly-scintillating eyes, her finger still stuck in her mouth, Pet meekly walked out of the august “presence,” and closed the library-door, but no sooner was she safely outside, than a change most wonderful to behold came over the spirit of her dream. Up flew the long eyelashes, revealing the dancing eyes, all ablaze with the anticipation of fun and frolic; erect towered the little form, as she turned; and facing the door, applied her thumb to her nose, flourished her four fingers in a gesture more expressive than elegant, and exclaimed:
“Oh! won’t I be good, though! won’t I be lady-like! won’t I forget my friends! won’t I be so quiet, and gentle, and good, that they’ll make a saint out of me pretty soon! won’t I be a pocket-edition of ‘St. Rose of Lima!’ Maybe I won’t; that’s all!”
Pet was as busy as a nailer until dinner was announced, packing up such things as she wished to take with her to school.
Great was the amazement of Ranty, when at the dinner-table his father, in pompous tones, announced his immediate departure with Pet. Ranty glanced at her, as she sat quietly looking in her plate, and being somewhat wider awake in respect to her than his father, inwardly muttered:
“Pet’s up to something; I can tell that whenever she looks particularly quiet and saintly, like she does now; there’s always ‘breakers ahead,’ as uncle would say. Mrs. Moodie will find her hands full when she gets our Pet. She’ll discover she’s caught a tartar, I’ll be bound?”
Immediately after dinner, black Debby was ordered to dress Miss Pet for her journey, while the judge went to his own apartment to make himself as irresistible as possible. In half an hour both were ready. Pet was handed into the carriage by her father, and waved a smiling adieu to Ranty. The judge took his seat beside her, and the two superb carriage-horses, flashing with silver-mounted harness, started off at a rapid pace.
As they came within sight of the cottage, Pet who had been lying back silently among the cushions, started up, exclaiming:
“Stop at the cottage, John; I’m going in there for a moment:”
The coachman drew up, and Pet sprung out.
“I will give you just five minutes to make your adieux,” said the judge, drawing out his watch; “if you are not back in that time, I shall go after you.”
Pet’s eyes again defiantly flashed, but without deigning to reply, she ran into the cottage.
Erminie met her at the door, and looked her surprise at seeing the stately equipage of Judge Lawless stop at the cottage, and Miss Lawless herself all arrayed for a journey.