Newspaper Page Text
attended to. But before Madame Girardin departed, and as she
was preparing to do so, the Major begged to see her in his chamber.
“Mrs. Girardin, I am too feeble and sore to rise, but you will
believe me, as feeling very deeply and warmly your kindness and
the succour which you rendered to my son and myself.”
To which the old lady replied:—
“ Major Buhner, you will please believe that I am grateful to
God in permitting me to be of any help to any of his creatures .”
When she had departed, the Major said:—
“ Well, I owe the old lady my gratitude. She has good stuff
in her. though she is of French stock.”
The old lady had her comment also, muttered to Paula as she
rode: —
“If Major Buhner did not sometimes make himself so offensive
by his pride,—his Bull family pride,—he might yet be made a
gentleman.”
I must not omit to mention that, while the grandmother visited
the father, the grand-daughter visited the son; but what was said
between the two latter, has never, that I know of, been reported to
any third person.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE PROGRESS OF DOMESTIC REVOLUTION.
The misadventure, happening so near to Christmas—that sea
son when we require to have all our limbs in perfection, our bodies
free from bruises, and our spirits buoyant over all restraints, —was
the great subject of annoyance with the Major. Christmas was as
signed by him for a great festival —a something more than was
customary in the country, in which every loud) that was any body,
was to be at the Barony. The accident happened on the 13th of
December. But twelve days, accordingly, were allowed to the
sufferers to get well. With respect to the Major himself, this, per
haps, bating the scar upon the forehead, was not a matter of much
doubt or difficulty. But the case was otherwise with poor Ned,
whose arm, the Doctor affirmed, could not be suffered to go free
of splint and sling under a goodly month. W hat a month of
vexation. So, at least, it seemed. But the good grows out of
the evil, even as the cauliflower out of the dunghill. Evil, accord
ing to the ordinance, is the moral manure tor good. The Major
lost something of his imperious will in the feelings of self-reproach
which seized upon him. He now beheld, what he did not then,
that it was the champagne which he had imbibed, and not that
which he had imputed to his son, that had tumbled the pair into
the pathway, lie also began to suspect, what Ned would never
have hinted to him, that was (jiving certain premonitions in the
s hape of a failing eye-sight. Strange that he had never seen that
fence. Was it the wine or the years? Both, perhaps. This con
clusion humbled the old man. He sought the chamber of his son.
u My dear boy,” lie said, “ I won't ask you to forgive me, for
“Ueh a request will give you more pain, I know, than any thing
Inside; but I feel that it is not easy to forgive myself. 1 had drank
■°° much champagne, that is certain. But I was angry with you,
—and you know what one of our modern poets says .
“ And to be wroth with those we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain.
THE GOLDEN CHRISTMAS.
Tam not sure that I quote literally, but lam pretty near it. I
could not eat, and drank freely on an empty stomach. This made
me wilful; and Ned, my boy, you provoked me. You were a lit
tle too cool,—too cavalier. Had you drank freely too—had you
been angry or quarrelsome—all would have gone right. But, no
matter now. It does not help to go over the same ground again.”
“ ff u °th Ned, between a writhe and a smile, a grin and a
contortion, not able to resist the temptation—“ More likely to
hurt perhaps the other eye, the other arm”
“ el V’ good humoredly responded the Major, -‘you are doing
well, so long as you can perpetrate a pun.”
“ Os old, you held that to be doing ill”
W bat! another ! Dick,” —to me—“ is he not incorrigible !
But, Ned, my boy, you must burry your proceedings. It won’t
do to have y 7 ou laid up at Christmas. Get well as fast as you can,
and, as an inducement, I have sent to town already, to Reynolds,
ordering anew buggy. Your horse is badly hurt in the flanks. I
must take him oft your hands. You shall have two hundred dol
lars tor him, or the pick of any draught horse in my stable—they
are all free.”
“ I'll take the money, papa. I have suffered too much from
your free draughts.”
u TV hat a propensity. But I forgive you, considering your arm.”
u Strange, too, that I should owe my safety to that which I can
no longer count upon”
“ A pun again ! I give you up. But look at my phiz. Am I
in a condition to call upon Madame Agnes-Theresa this morning ?”
Ned looked up with some curiosity —anxiety perhaps—in his
glance. We both agreed that the sear had an honourable appear
ance.
“ Ah !” quoth the Major, I should not have been ashamed of it
had it been won in battle—driving an enemy instead of driving a
horse.”
“At the head of the Fencibles , instead of the foot of the fence,”
murmured Ned languidly.
“ You did serve in the war of 1815, Major,” was my remark.
“ Yes, after a fashion, along the sea coast; but we never had any
encounter with the enemy. Their shipping lay in sight of the
coast, and their boats sometimes put into the creeks and rivers, but
they fought shy of us.”
“ Knowing, perhaps, that they would have to deal with shy
fighters,” quoth Ned.
“No, indeed. We w T ere brave enough, under the circumstances.
Once we thought we had a chance. It was after night, but star
light ; the tide w T as coming in, and one of our sentinels discovered
a boat making straight for shore. We crouched among the sands,
flat on our faces, making ready. When within gun shot, we
poured in a terrific fire and rushed up to finish the work with the
bayonets. We found the boat riddled admirably with our balls,
but nothing in her but a junk bottle and a jacket, and both empty.
She had drifted from the Lacedemonian man-of-war. Her capture
was thought no small evidence of our prowess, showing how we
could have fought. The Charleston papers were particularly elo
quent in our praise, and I’m not sure hut salutes were fired from
Castle Pinckney in our honour. It was no fault of ours that the
British feared us too greatly to venture any soldiers in the skiff.
That w T as our only achievement, unless I mention a somewhat inef
fectual fire at a barge, about seven miles off. It is barely possible
27