"Well, let him, then. I don"t care. I"ll pay him off for it some time--see if I don"t. What do you s"pose he"ll do to me, aunty? Have me tried by court-martial, or hold a coroner"s inquest on top of me, or what?"
"He is going to lock you up in that old lumber-room, up in the attic, and keep you there on bread and water, he says."
"Well, now, I"ll leave it to everybody, if that isn"t barbarous. It"s just the way the stony-hearted fathers in the story-books do to their daughters, when they fall in love, and then their beaus come, filled with love and rope-ladders, and off they go through the window. I say, aunty, is there any chance for me to get through the window?"
"No, indeed, they are fastened outside with wooden shutters and iron bolts. There is no chance of escape, so you had best be very good and penitent, and beg his pardon, and perhaps he may forgive you."
"Beg his pardon! Ha! ha! ha! aunty, I like that, wouldn"t Archie laugh if he heard it. Just fancy _me_, Gipsy Gower, down on my knees before him, whimpering and snuffling, and a tear in each eye, like a small potato, and begging his serene highness to forgive me, and I"ll never do it again. Oh! goodness gracious, just fancy what a scene it would be!"
"You provoking little minx! I am sure any other little girl would beg her guardian"s pardon, when she knew she did wrong."
"But I _don"t_ know that I"ve did wrong. On the contrary, I know I"ve did _right_; and I"m going to do it over again, the first chance--there!"
"Oh, Gipsy!--child--you are perfectly incorrigible. I despair of ever being able to do anything with you. As I told you before, I shouldn"t be surprised if your guardian turned you out of doors for your conduct."
"And as I told _you_ before, aunty, I would not want better fun. Archie Rivers is going to West Point soon, and I"ll go with him, and "do my country some service" in the next war."
"If he turned you out, Gipsy, it would break my heart," said Mrs. Gower, plaintively.
"Yes, and I suppose it would break mine too, but I luckily don"t happen to have a heart," said Gipsy, who never by any chance could, as she called it, "do the sentimental." "However, aunty, let"s live in the sublime hope that you"ll break the necks of two or three hundred chickens and geese, before you break your own heart yet. And I protest, here comes Guardy, stamping and fuming up the lawn. Clear out, aunty, for I expect he"ll hurl the whole of the Proverbs of Solomon at my head, and one of "em might chance to hit you. Go, aunty, I want to fight my own battles; and if I don"t come off with drums beating and colors flying, it"ll be a caution! Hooray!"
And Gipsy waved her plumed hat above her head, and whirled round the room in a defiant waltz.
She was suddenly interrupted by the entrance of the squire, who, thrusting both hands into his coat pockets, stood flaming with rage before her; whereupon Gipsy, plunging her hands into the pockets of her riding-habit, planted both feet firmly on the ground, and confronted him with a dignified frown, and an awful expression of countenance generally, and to his amazement, burst out with:
"You unprincipled, abandoned, benighted, befuddled old gentleman! how dare you have the impudence, the effrontery, the brazenness, the impertinence, the--the--everything-else! to show your face to me after your outrageous, your unheard-of, your monstrous, your--yes, I will say it--diabolical conduct yesterday! Yes, sir! I repeat it, sir--I"m amazed at your effrontery, after sending a poor, unfortunate, friendless, degenerate son of Africa through the tremendous rain, the roaring lightning, the flashing thunder, the silent winds, in search of me, to stand there, looking no more ashamed of yourself than if you weren"t a fair blot on the foul face of creation! Answer me, old gentleman, and forever afterward hold thy peace!"
"You abominable little wretch! You incarnate little fiend, you! You impish little imp, you! I"ll thrash you within an inch of your life!"
roared the old man, purple with rage.
"Look out, Guardy, you"ll completely founder the English language, if you don"t take care," interrupted Gipsy.
"You impudent little vixen! I"ll make you repent yesterday"s conduct,"
thundered the squire, catching her by the shoulder and shaking her till she was breathless.
"Loo--loo--look here, old gentleman, do--do--don"t you try that again!"
stuttered Gipsy, panting for breath, and wrenching herself, by a powerful jerk, free from his grasp.
"Why didn"t you come home when I sent for you? Answer me that, or I won"t leave a sound bone in your body. Now, then!"
"Well, Guardy, to tell the truth, it was because I didn"t choose to.
Now, then!"
"You--you--you incomparable little impudence, I"ll fairly murder you!"
shouted the squire, raising his hand in his rage to strike her a blow, which would a.s.suredly have killed her; but Gipsy adroitly dodged, and his hand fell with stunning force on the hall table.
With something between a howl and a yell, he started after her as she ran screaming with laughter; and seizing her in a corner, where she had sunk down exhausted and powerless with her inward convulsions, he shook her until he could shake her no longer.
"I"ll lock you up! I"ll turn you out of doors! I"ll thrash you while I am able to stand over you! No, I won"t thrash a woman in my own house, but I"ll lock you up and starve you to death. I"ll be hanged if I don"t!"
"You"ll be hanged if you do, you mean."
"Come along; we"ll see what effect hunger and solitary confinement will have on your high spirits, my lady," said the squire, seizing her by the arm and dragging her along.
"Guardy, if you do, my ghost"ll haunt you every night, just as sure as shooting," said Gipsy, solemnly.
"What do I care about you or your ghost! Come along. "The unrighteous shall not live out half their days," as Solomon says; therefore it"s according to Scripture, and no fault of mine if you don"t live long."
"Solomon was never locked up in a garret," said Gipsy, thrusting her knuckles in her eyes and beginning to sob, "and he don"t know anything about it. It"s real hateful of you to lock me up--now! But it"s just like you, you always were an ugly old wretch every way." Sob, sob, sob.
"That"s right, talk away! You can talk and scold as much as you like to the four bare walls presently," said the squire, dragging her along.
"You"re a hateful old monster! I wish you were far enough--I just do!
and I don"t care if I"m taken up for defamation of character--so, there!
Boo, hoo--a hoo--a hoo," sobbed, and wept, and scolded Gipsy, as the squire, inwardly chuckling, led her to her place of captivity.
They reached it at length; a large empty room without a single article of furniture, even without a chair. It was quite dark, too, for the windows were both nailed up, and the room was situated in the remotest portion of the building, where, let poor Gipsy cry and scream as she pleased, she could not be heard.
On entering her prison, Gipsy ceased her sobs for a moment to glance around, and her blank look of dismay at the aspect of her prison, threw the squire into a fit of laughter.
"So," he chuckled, "you"re caught at last. Now, here you may stay till night, and I hope by that time I"ll have taken a little of the mischief out of you."
"And I"ll have nothing to pa.s.s the time," wept Gipsy. "Mayn"t I go down stairs and get a book?"
"Ha! ha! ha! No. I rather think you mayn"t. Perhaps I may bring you up one by and by," said the squire, never stopping to think how Gipsy was to read in the dark.
"Look up there on that shelf, I can"t reach; there"s one, I think," said Gipsy, whose keen eye had caught sight of an old newspaper lying on the spot indicated.
The squire made a step forward to reach it, and like an arrow sped from a bow, at the same instant, Gipsy darted across the room, out through the open door. Ere the squire could turn round, he heard the door slam to, and he was caught in his own trap, while a triumphant shout, a delighted "hurrah!" reached his ear from without.
The squire rushed frantically to the door, and shook, and pulled, and swore, and threatened and shouted, to all of which Gipsy answered by tantalizingly asking him whether he"d come out now, or wait till she let him. Then, finding threats of no avail, he betook himself to coaxing; and wheedled, and persuaded, and promised, and flattered, but equally in vain, for Gipsy replied that she wouldn"t if she could, couldn"t if she would, for that she had thrown the key as far as she could pitch it, out of the window, among the shrubs in the garden--where, as she wasn"t in the habit of looking for needles in hay-stacks, she thought it quite useless searching for it; and ended by delivering him a lecture on the virtue of patience and the beauty of Christian resignation. And after exhorting him to improve his temper, if possible, during his confinement, as she was going over to spend the day at Dr. Spider"s and teach Miss Hagar"s little girl to ride, she went off and left him, stamping, and swearing, and foaming, in a manner quite awful to listen to.
True to her word, Gipsy privately sought the stables, saddled Mignonne herself, and rode off, without being observed, to spend the day at Deep Dale. The absence of the squire was noticed; but it was supposed he had ridden off on business after locking up Gipsy, and therefore it created no surprise. As he had positively forbidden any one in the house to go near her prison, no one went; and it was only when Gipsy returned home late at night that she learned, to her surprise and alarm, he had not yet been liberated. The door was forced open by Jupiter, and the squire was found lying on the floor, having raged himself into a state that quite prevented him from "murdering" Gipsy as he had threatened. Two or three days elapsed before "Richard" became "himself again;" and night and day Gipsy hovered over his bedside--the quietest, the most attentive little nurse that ever was seen, quite unalarmed by his throwing the pillow, the gruel and pill-boxes at her head every time she appeared in his sight.
CHAPTER XII.
THE TIGRESS AND THE DOVE.
"Oh, wanton malice--deathful sport-- Could ye not spare my all?
But mark my words, on thy cold heart A fiery doom shall fall."
In the golden glow of the morning, Minnette Wiseman stood at the door, gazing out--not watching the radiant beauties of nature--not listening to the sweet singing of the birds--not watching the waves flashing and glittering in the sunlight--but nursing her own dark, fathomless thoughts.
From the first moment of the coming of Celeste she had hated her, with a deep, intense hatred, that was destined to be the one ruling pa.s.sion of her life. She was jealous of her beauty, angry to see her so petted and caressed by every one, but too proud to betray it.