Plumed victory
Is truly painted with a cheerful look,
Equally distant from proud insolence
And sad dejection.
—MASSINGER.
How glad I am to get back to my little Cap, for I know very well, reader, just as well as if you had told me, that you have been grumbling for some time for the want of Cap. But I could not help it, for, to tell the truth, I was pining after her myself, which was the reason that I could not do half justice to the scenes of the Mexican War.
Well, now let us see what Cap has been doing—what oppressors she has punished—what victims she has delivered—in a word, what new heroic adventures she has achieved.
Well, the trial of Donald Bayne, alias Black Donald, was over. Cap, of course, had been compelled to appear against him. During the whole course of the trial the court-room was crowded with a curious multitude, "from far and near," eager to get sight of the notorious outlaw.
Black Donald, through the whole ordeal, deported himself with a gallant and joyous dignity, that would have better become a triumph than a trial.
He was indicted upon several distinct counts, the most serious of which—the murder of the solitary widow and her daughter in the forest cabin, and the assassination of Eugene Le Noir in the woods near the Hidden House—were sustained only by circumstantial evidence. But the aggregate weight of all these, together with his very bad reputation, was sufficient to convict him, and Black Donald was sentenced to death.
This dreadful doom, most solemnly pronounced by the judge was received by the prisoner with a loud laugh, and the words:
"You're out o' your reckoning now, cap'n! I never was a saint, the Lord knows, but my hands are free from blood guiltiness! There's an honest little girl that believes me—don't you?" he said, turning laughingly to our little heroine.
"Yes, I do!" said Cap, bursting into tears; "and I am sorry for you as ever I can be, Donald Bayne."
"Bother! It was sure to come to this first or last, and I knew it! Now, to prove you do not think this rugged hand of mine stained with blood, give it a friendly shake!" said the condemned man. And before Old Hurricane could prevent her, Capitola had jumped over two or three intervening seats and climbed up to the side of the dock, and reached up her hand to the prisoner, saying:
"God help you, Donald Bayne, in your great trouble, and I will do all I can to help you in this world. I will go to the Governor myself, and tell him I know you never did any murder."
"Remove the prisoner," said the judge, peremptorily.
The constables approached and led away Black Donald.
Old Hurricane rushed upon Cap, seized her, and, shaking her fiercely, exclaimed, under his breath:
"You—you—you—you New York hurrah boy! You foundling! You vagabond! You vagrant! You brat! You beggar! Will you never be a lady? To go and shake hands with that ruffian!"
"Sure, uncle, that's nothing new; I have shaken hands with you often enough!"
"Demmy, you—you—you New York trash, what do you mean by that?"
"Of course I mean, uncle, that you are as rough a ruffian as ever Donald Bayne was!"
"Demmy, I'll murder you!"
"Don't, uncle; they have an uncivilized way here of hanging murderers," said Cap, shaking herself free of Old Hurricane's grasp, and hastening out of the court-room to mount her horse and ride home.
One night after tea, Capitola and her uncle occupied their usual seats by the little bright wood fire, that the chilly evening and keen mountain air made agreeable, even in May.
Old Hurricane was smoking his pipe and reading his paper.
Cap was sitting with her slender fingers around her throat, which she, with a shudder, occasionally compressed:
"Well, that demon Black Donald will be hanged the 26th of July," said Old Hurricane, exultingly, "and we shall get rid of one villain, Cap."
"I pity Black Donald, and I can't bear to think of his being hanged! It quite breaks my heart to think that I was compelled to bring him to such a fate!"
"Oh, that reminds me! The reward offered for the apprehension of Black Donald, to which you were entitled, Cap, was paid over to me for you. I placed it to your account in the Agricultural Bank."
"I don't want it! I won't touch it! The price of blood! It would burn my fingers!" said Cap.
"Oh, very well! A thousand dollars won't go a-begging," said Old Hurricane.
"Uncle, it breaks my heart to think of Black Donald's execution! It just does! It must be dreadful, this hanging! I have put my finger around my throat and squeezed it, to know how it feels, and it is awful. Even a little squeeze makes my head feel as if it would burst, and I have to let go! Oh, it is horrible to think of!"
"Well, Cap, it wasn't intended to be as pleasant as tickling, you know. I wish it was twenty times worse! It would serve him right, the villain! I wish it was lawful to break him on the wheel—I do!"
"Uncle, that is very wicked in you! I declare I won't have it! I'll write a petition to the Governor to commute his sentence, and carry it all around the county myself!"
"You wouldn't get a soul to sign it to save your life, much less his."
"I'll go to the Governor myself, and beg him to pardon Donald Bayne!"
"Ha! ha! ha! the Governor would not do it to save all our lives, and if he were to do such an outrageous thing he might whistle for his reelection!"
"I declare, Donald Bayne shall not be hanged—and so there!" said Cap, passionately.
"Whe-ew! You'll deliver him by the strength of your arm, my little Donna Quixota."
"I'll save him one way or another, now mind I tell you! He sinned more against me than against anybody else, and so I have the best right of anybody in the world to forgive him, and I do forgive him! And he shan't be hanged I I say it!"
"You say it! Ha! ha! ha! Who are you, to turn aside the laws?"
"I, Capitola Black, say that Donald Bayne, not having deserved to be hanged, shall not be hanged! And in one way or another I'll keep my word!"
And Cap did her best to keep it. The next morning she mounted Gyp and rode up to Tip Top, where she employed the village lawyer to draw up a petition to the Governor for the commutation of Donald Bayne's sentence. And then she rode all over the county to try to get signatures to the document. But all in vain. People of every age and condition too thoroughly feared and hated the famous outlaw, and too earnestly wished to be entirely and forever rid of him, to sign any petition for a commutation of his sentence. If a petition for his instant execution had been carried around it would have stood a much better chance of success.
Cap spent many days in her fruitless enterprise, but at last gave it up—but by no means in despair, for—
"I'll save his life, yet! by one means or another! I can't change clothes with him as I did with Clara; he's too big, but one way or other I'll save him," said Cap, to herself. She said it to no one else, for the more difficult the enterprise the more determined she was to succeed, and the more secretive she grew as to her measures.
In the mean time the outlaw, double-ironed, was confined in the condemned cell, the strongest portion of the county jail. All persons were strictly prohibited from visiting him, except certain of the clergy.
They did all they could to bring the outlaw to a sense of his condition, to prepare him to meet his fate and to induce him to make a confession and give up the retreat of his band.
And Donald listened to them with respect, acknowledged himself a great sinner, and knelt with them when they knelt to pray for him.
But he denied that he was guilty of the murders for which he had been doomed to die, and he utterly refused to give up his old companions, replying to the ministers in something like these words:
"Poor wretches! They are no more fit to die than I am, and a condemned cell, with the thought of the scaffold before him, are not exactly the most favorable circumstances under which a man might experience sincere repentance, my masters!"
And so, while the convict listened with docility to all that the ministers had to say, he steadily persisted in asserting his own innocence of the crimes for which he was condemned, and in his refusal to deliver up his companions.
Meantime, Capitola, at Hurricane Hall, was doing all she could to discover or invent means to save the life of Black Donald. But still she said no more about it even to Old Hurricane.
One evening, while Cap was sitting by the fire with her thoughts busy with this subject, her uncle came in saying:
"Cap, I have got some curiosities to show you!"
"What are they?" said Cap, languidly.
"A set of burglar's tools, supposed to belong to some member of Black Donald's band! One of my negroes found them in the woods in the neighborhood of the Devil's Punch Bowl! I wrote to the sheriff concerning them, and he requested me to take care of them until he should have occasion to call for them. Look! Did you ever see such things?" said Old Hurricane, setting down a canvas bag upon the table and turning out from it all sorts of strange looking instruments—tiny saws, files, punches, screws, picks, etc., etc., etc.
Cap looked at them with the most curious interest, while Old Hurricane explained their supposed uses.
"It must have been an instrument of this sort, Cap, that that blamed demon, Donald, gave to the imprisoned men to file their fetters off with!" he said, showing a thin file of tempered steel.
"That!" said Cap. "Hand it here! Let me see it!" And she examined it with the deepest interest.
"I wonder what they force locks with?" she inquired.
"Why, this, and this, and this!" said Old Hurricane, producing a burglar's pick, saw and chisel.
Cap took them and scrutinized them so attentively that Old Hurricane burst out into a loud laugh, exclaiming:
"You'll dream of house-breakers to-night, Cap!" and taking the tools, he put them all back in the little canvas bag, and put the bag up on a high shelf of the parlor closet.
The next morning, while Cap was arranging flowers on the parlor mantelpiece, Old Hurricane burst in upon her with his hands full of letters and newspapers, and his heart full of exultation—throwing up his hat and cutting an alarming caper for a man of his age, he exclaimed:
"Hurrah, Cap! Hurrah! Peace is at last proclaimed and our victorious troops are on their way home! It's all in the newspapers, and here are letters from Herbert, dated from New Orleans! Here are letters for you, and here are some for me! I have not opened them yet! Hurrah, Cap! Hurrah!"
"Hurrah, Uncle! Hurrah!" cried Cap, tossing up her flowers and rushing into his arms.
"Don't squeeze me into an apoplexy, you little bear," said Old Hurricane, turning purple in the face, from the savage hug of Cap's joyful arms. "Come along and sit down with me, at this table, and let us see what the letters have brought us."
They took their seats opposite each other at a small table, and Old Hurricane threw the whole mail between them, and began to pick out the letters.
"That's for you, Cap. This is for me," he said, pitching out two in the handwriting of Herbert Greyson.
Cap opened hers and commenced reading. It was in fact Herbert's first downright, practical proposal of marriage, in which he begged that their union might take place as soon as he should return, and that as he had written to his uncle by the same mail, upon another subject, which he did not wish to mix up with his own marriage, she would, upon a proper opportunity, let her uncle know of their plans.
"Upon my word, he takes my consent very coolly as a matter of course, and even forces upon me the disagreeable duty of asking myself of my own uncle! Who ever heard of such proceedings? If he were not coming home from the wars, I declare I should get angry; but I won't get upon my dignity with Herbert—dear, darling, sweet Herbert. If it were anybody else, shouldn't they know the difference between their liege lady and Tom Trotter? However, as it's Herbert, here goes! Now, I suppose the best way to ask myself of uncle, for Herbert, will be just to hand him over this matter. The dear knows it isn't so over and above affectionate that I should hesitate. Uncle," said Cap, pulling Old Hurricane's coat sleeve.
"Don't bother me, Cap," exclaimed Major Warfield, who sat there, holding a large, closely written document in his hand, with his great round eyes strained from their sockets, as they passed along the lines with devouring interest.
"Well, I do declare! I do believe he has received a proposal of marriage himself," cried Cap, shooting much nearer the truth than she knew.
Old Hurricane did not hear her. Starting up with the document in his hand, he rushed from the room and went and shut himself up in his own study.
"I vow, some widow has offered to marry him," said Cap, to herself.
Old Hurricane did not come to dinner, nor to supper. But after supper, when Capitola's wonder was at its climax, and while she was sitting by the little wood fire that that chilly evening required, Old Hurricane came in, looking very unlike himself, in an humble, confused, deprecating, yet happy manner, like one who had at once a mortifying confession to make, and a happy secret to tell.
"Cap," he said, trying to suppress a smile, and growing purple in the face.
—"Oh, yes! You've come to tell me, I suppose, that you're going to put a step-aunt-in-law over my head, only you don't know how to announce it," answered Capitola, little knowing how closely she had come to the truth; when, to her unbounded astonishment, Old Hurricane answered:
"Yes, my dear, that's just it!"
"What! My eyes! Oh, crickey!" cried Cap, breaking into her newsboy's slang, from mere consternation.
"Yes, my dear, it is perfectly true!" replied the old man, growing furiously red, and rubbing his face.
"Oh! oh! oh! Hold me! I'm 'kilt!'" cried Cap, falling back in her chair in an inextinguishable fit of laughter, that shook her whole frame. She laughed until the tears ran down her cheeks. She wiped her eyes and looked at Old Hurricane, and every time she saw his confused and happy face she burst into a fresh paroxysm that seemed to threaten her life or her reason.
"Who is the happy—Oh, I can't speak! Oh, I'm 'kilt' entirely!" she cried, breaking off in the midst of her question and falling into fresh convulsions.
"It's no new love, Cap; it's my old wife!" said Old Hurricane, wiping his face.
This brought Capitola up with a jerk! She sat bolt upright gazing at him with her eyes fixed as if In death.
"Cap," said Old Hurricane, growing more and more confused, "I've been a married man more years than I like to think of! Cap, I've—I've a wife and grown-up son! Why do you sit there staring at me, you little demon? Why don't you say something to encourage me, you little wretch?"
"Go on!" said Cap, without removing her eyes.
"Cap, I was—a jealous—passionate—Demmy, confession isn't in my line. A diabolical villain made me believe that my poor little wife wasn't good!"
"There! I knew you'd lay it on somebody else. Men always do that," said Cap, to herself.
"He was mortally wounded in Mexico. He made a confession and confided it to Herbert, who has just sent me an attested copy. It was Le Noir. My poor wife lived under her girlhood's name of Marah Rocke." Old Hurricane made a gulp, and his voice broke down.
Cap understood all now, as well as if she had known it as long as Old Hurricane had. She comprehended his extreme agitation upon a certain evening, years ago, when Herbert Greyson had mentioned Marah Rocke's name, and his later and more lasting disturbance upon accidentally meeting Marah Rocke at the Orphans' Court.
This revelation filled her with strange and contradictory emotions. She was glad; she was angry with him; she was sorry for him; she was divided between divers impulses to hug and kiss him, to cry over him, and to seize him and give him a good shaking! And between them she did nothing at all.
Old Hurricane was again the first to speak,
"What was that you wished to say to me, Cap, when I ran ray from you this morning?"
"Why, uncle, that Herbert wants to follow your example, and—and—and—" Cap blushed and broke down.
"I thought as much. Getting married at his age! A boy of twenty-five!" said the veteran in contempt.
"Taking a wife at your age, uncle, an infant of sixty-six!"
"Bother, Cap! Let me see that fellow's letter to you."
Cap handed it to him and the old man read it.
"If I were to object, you'd get married all the same! Demmy! you're both of age. Do as you please!"
"Thank you, sir," said Cap, demurely.
"And now, Cap, one thing is to be noticed. Herbert says, both in your letter and in mine, that they were to start to return the day after these letters were posted. These letters have been delayed in the mail. Consequently we may expect our hero here every day. But Cap, my dear, you must receive them. For to-morrow morning, please the Lord, I shall set out for Staunton and Willow Heights, and go and kneel down at the feet of my wife, and ask her pardon on my knees!"
Cap was no longer divided between the wish to pull Old Hurricane's gray beard and to cry over Him. She threw herself at once into his arms and exclaimed:
"Oh, uncle! God bless you! God bless you! God bless you! It has come very late in life, but may you be happy with her through all the ages of eternity!"
Old Hurricane was deeply moved by the sympathy of his little madcap, and pressed her to his bosom, saying:
"Cap, my dear, if you had not set your heart upon Herbert, I would marry you to my son Traverse, and you two should inherit all that I have in the world! But never mind, Cap, you have an inheritance of your own. Cap, Cap, my dear, did it ever occur to you that you might have had a father and mother?"
"Yes! often! But I used to think you were my father, and that my mother was dead."
"I wish to the Lord that I had been your father, Cap, and that Marah Rocke had been your mother! But Cap, your father was a better man than I, and your mother as good a woman as Marah. And Cap, my dear, you vagabond, you vagrant, you brat, you beggar, you are the sole heiress of the Hidden House estate and all its enormous wealth! What do you think of that, now? What do you think of that, you beggar? cried Old Hurricane."
A shriek pierced the air, and Capitola starting up, stood before Old Hurricane, crying in an impassioned voice:
"Uncle! Uncle! Don't mock me! Don't overwhelm me! I do not care for wealth or power; but tell me of the parents who possessing both, cast off their unfortunate child—a girl, too! to meet the sufferings and perils of such a life as mine had been, if I had not met you!"
"Cap, my dear, hush! Your parents were no more to blame for their seeming abandonment of you, than I was to blame for the desertion of my poor wife. We are all the victims of one villain, who has now gone to his account, Capitola. I mean Gabriel Le Noir. Sit down, my dear, and I will read the copy of his whole confession, and afterwards, in addition, tell you all I know upon the subject!"
Capitola resumed her seat, Major Warfield read the confession of Gabriel Le Noir, and afterwards continued the subject by relating the events of that memorable Hallowe'en when he was called out in a snow storm to take the dying deposition of the nurse who had been abducted with the infant Capitola.
And at the end of his narrative Cap knew as much of her own history as the reader has known all along.
"And I have a mother, and I shall even see her soon! You told me she was coming home with the party—did you not, Uncle?" said Capitola.
"Yes, my child. Only think of it! I saved the daughter from the streets of New York, and my son saved the mother from her prison at the madhouse! And now, my dear Cap, I must bid you good night and go to bed, for I intend to rise to-morrow morning long before daylight, to ride to Tip Top to meet the Staunton stage," said the old man, kissing Capitola.
Just as he was about to leave the room he was arrested by a loud ringing and knocking at the door.
Wool was heard running along the front hall to answer the summons.
"Cap, I shouldn't wonder much if that was our party. I wish it may be, for I should like to welcome them before I leave home to fetch my wife," said Old Hurricane, in a voice of agitation.
And while they were still eagerly listening, the door was thrown open by Wool, who announced:
"Marse Herbert, which I mean to say, Major Herbert Greyson;" and Herbert entered and was grasped by the two hands of Old Hurricane, who exclaimed:
"Ah, Herbert, my lad! I have got your letters. It is all right, Herbert, or going to be so. You shall marry Cap when you like. And I am going to-morrow morning to throw myself at the feet of my wife."
"No need of your going so far, dear sir, no need. Let me speak to my own dear girl a moment, and then I shall have something to say to you," said Herbert, leaving the old man in suspense, and going to salute Capitola, who returned his fervent embrace by an honest, downright frank kiss, that made no secret of itself.
"Capitola! My uncle has told you all?"
"Every single bit! So don't lose time by telling it all over again! Is my mother with you?"
"Yes! and I will bring her in, in one moment; but first I must bring in some one else," said Herbert, kissing the hand of Capitola and turning to Old Hurricane, to whom he said:
"You need not travel far to find Marah. We took Staunton in our way and brought her and Clara along—Traverse!" he said going to the door—"bring in your mother."
And the next instant Traverse entered with the wife of Major Warfield upon his arm.
Old Hurricane started forward to meet her, exclaiming in a broken voice:
"Marah, my dear Marah, God may forgive me, but can you—can you ever do so?" And he would have sunk at her feet, but that she prevented, by meeting him and silently placing both her hands in his. And so quietly Marah's forgiveness was expressed, and the reconciliation sealed.
Meanwhile Herbert went out and brought in Mrs. Le Noir and Clara. Mrs. Le Noir, with a Frenchwoman's impetuosity, hurried to her daughter and clasped her to her heart.
Cap gave one hurried glance at the beautiful pale woman that claimed from her a daughter's love and then, returning the caress, she said:
"Oh, mamma! Oh, mamma! If I were only a boy instead of a girl, I would thrash that Le Noir within an inch of his life! But I forgot! He has gone to his account."
Old Hurricane was at this moment shaking hands with his son, Traverse, who presently took occasion to lead up and introduce his betrothed wife, Clara Day, to her destined father-in-law.
Major Warfield received her with all a soldier's gallantry, a gentleman's courtesy and a father's tenderness.
He next shook hands with his old acquaintance, Mrs. Le Noir.
And then supper was ordered and the evening was passed in general and comparative reminiscences and cheerful conversation.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg