CHAPTER III.
INTRODUCES A LEGAL PORCUPINE.
This was the voice of the Squire. It came just in time to create a diversion.
"Why, there are my antlers!" cried the good-humored Squire. "Look, Rushton! did you ever see finer!"
"Often," growled a voice in reply; and the Squire and his companion entered.
Mr. Rushton was a rough-looking gentleman of fifty or fifty-five, with a grim expression about the compressed lips, and heavy grey eyebrows, from beneath which rolled two dark piercing eyes. His hair was slowly retreating, and thought or care had furrowed his broad brow from temple to temple. He was clad with the utmost rudeness, and resembled nothing so much as a half-civilized bear.
He nodded curtly to Miss Lavinia, and took no notice whatever of either Redbud or Verty.
"Why, thank for the antlers, Verty!" said the good-humored Squire.
"I saw Cloud, and knew you were here, but I had no idea that you had brought me the horns."
And the Squire extended his hand to Verty, who took it with his old dreamy smile.
"I could have brought a common pair any day," he said, "but I promised the best, and there they are. Oh, Squire!" said Verty, smiling, "what a chase I had! and what a fight with him! He nearly had me under him once, and the antlers you see there came near ploughing up my breast and letting out my heart"s blood! They just grazed--he tried to bite me--but I had him by the horn with my left hand, and before a swallow could flap his wings, my knife was in his throat!"
As Verty spoke, his eyes became brighter, his lips more smiling, and pushing his tangled curls back from his face, he bestowed his amiable glances even upon Miss Lavinia.
Mr. Rushton scowled.
"What do you mean by saying this barbarous fight was pleasant?" he asked.
Verty smiled again:--he seemed to know Mr. Rushton well.
"It is my nature to love it," he said, "just as white people love books and papers."
"What do you mean by white people?" growled Mr. Rushton, "you know very well that you are white."
"I?" said Verty.
"Yes, sir; no affectation: look in that mirror."
Verty looked.
"What do you see!"
"An Indian!" said Verty, laughing, and raising his s.h.a.ggy head.
"You see nothing of the sort," said Mr. Rushton, with asperity; "you see simply a white boy tanned--an Anglo-Saxon turned into mahogany by wind and sun. There, sir! there," added Mr. Rushton, seeing Verty was about to reply, "don"t argue the question with me. I am sick of arguing, and won"t indulge you. Take this fine little lady here, and go and make love to her--the Squire and myself have business."
Then Mr. Rushton scowled upon the company generally, and pushed them out of the room, so to speak, with his eyes; even Miss Lavinia was forced to obey, and disappeared.
Five minutes afterwards, Verty might have been seen taking his way back sadly, on his little animal, toward the hills, while Redbud was undergoing that most disagreeable of all ceremonies, a "lecture,"
which lecture was delivered by Miss Lavinia, in her own private apartment, with a solemnity, which caused Redbud to cla.s.s herself with the greatest criminals which the world had ever produced. Miss Lavinia proved, conclusively, that all persons of the male s.e.x were uninterruptedly engaged in endeavoring to espouse all persons of the female s.e.x, and that the world, generally, was a vale of tears, of scheming and deception. Having elevated and cheered Redbud"s spirits, by this profound philosophy, and further enlivened her by declaring that she must leave Apple Orchard on the morrow, Miss Lavinia descended.
She entered the dining-room where the Squire and Mr. Rushton were talking, and took her seat near the window. Mr. Rushton immediately became dumb.
Miss Lavinia said it was a fine day.
Mr. Rushton growled.
Miss Lavinia made one or two additional attempts to direct the conversation on general topics; but the surly guest strangled her incipient attempts with pitiless indifference. Finally, Miss Lavinia sailed out of the room with stately dignity, and disappeared.
Mr. Rushton looked after her, smiling grimly.
"The fact is, Squire," he said, "that your cousin, Miss Lavinia, is a true woman. Hang it, can"t a man come and talk a little business with a neighbor without being intruded upon? Outrageous!"
The Squire seemed to regard his guest"s surliness with as little attention as Verty had displayed.
"A true woman in other ways is she, Rushton," he said, smiling--"I grant you she is a little severe and prim, and fond of taking her dignified portion of every conversation; but she"s a faithful and high-toned woman. You have seen too much character in your Courts to judge of the kernel from the husk."
"The devil take the Courts! I"m sick of "em," said Mr. Rushton, with great fervor, "and as to _character_, there is no character anywhere, or in anybody." Having enunciated which proposition, Mr. Rushton rose to go.
The Squire rose too, holding him by the b.u.t.ton.
"I"d like to argue that point with you," he said, laughing. "Come now, tell me how--"
"I won"t--I refuse--I will not argue."
"Stay to dinner, then, and I promise not to wrangle."
"No--I never stay to dinner! A pretty figure my docket would cut, if I staid to your dinners and discussions! You"ve got the deeds I came to see you about; my business is done; I"m going back."
"To that beautiful town of Winchester!" laughed the Squire, following his grim guest out.
"Abominable place!" growled Rushton; "and that Roundjacket is positively growing insupportable. I believe that fellow has a mania on the subject of marrying, and he runs me nearly crazy. Then, there"s his confounded poem, which he persists in reading to himself nearly aloud."
"His poem?" asked the Squire.
"Yes, sir! his abominable, trashy, revolting poem, called--"The Rise and Progress of the Certiorari." The consequence of all which, is--here"s my horse; find the martingale, you black cub!--the consequence is, that my office work is not done as it should be, and I shall be compelled to get another clerk in addition to that villain, Roundjacket."
"Why not exchange with some one?"
"How?"
"Roundjacket going elsewhere--to Hall"s, say."
Mr. Rushton scowled.
"Because he is no common clerk; would not live elsewhere, and because I can"t get along without him," he said. "Hang him, he"s the greatest pest in Christendom!"