Vassall Morton Part 9

There was something in his friend's tone which led Morton half to suspect the truth. Meredith had himself a _penchant_ for Miss f.a.n.n.y Euston, held in abeyance by a very lively perception of her faults.

CHAPTER XII.

Will you woo this wildcat?--_Katharine and Petruchio_.

Meredith went away, as he had proposed, leaving Morton at New Baden.

The latter soon came to the opinion that he had never yet found so interesting a subject of psychological observation as that afforded him in the person of his relative, Miss Euston. She seemed to him the most wayward of mortals; yet in the midst of this lawlessness, generous instincts were constantly betraying themselves, and a certain native grace, a charm of womanhood, followed her wildest caprices. She often gave great offence by her brusqueries; yet those who best knew her were commonly her ardent friends.

Mrs. Primrose looked upon her with her most profound and unqualified disapprobation. Her daughter copied her sentiments; while Stubb thought her an outside barbarian of the most alarming character. f.a.n.n.y Euston's perceptions were very acute. She saw the effect she had produced, and seemed to take peculiar delight in aggravating it, and shocking the prejudices of her critics still more.

One afternoon, Miss Primrose, Mr. Stubb, f.a.n.n.y Euston, Morton, and several others, set out on a horseback excursion, matronized by Mrs.

Primrose. At a few miles from New Baden, Morton found himself riding at his cousin's side, a little behind the rest.

"Do you know, I came this morning, to ask you to join us on our walk to Elk Ridge."

"Ah, I am sorry I was not there."

"You were there; but you seemed so deep in Ivanhoe, or some other of your favorites, that I had no heart to interrupt you."

"But that was quite absurd. I should like to have gone."

"I am curious to know what book you were so busy with. Something of Scott's--was it not?"

"Not precisely."

"Nor one of the new novels," pursued Morton--"those are not after your taste."

"Not at all; they are all full of some grand reform or philanthropic scheme, or the sorrows of some dest.i.tute, uninteresting little wretch, with whom you are required to sympathize."

"You are not moulded after the philanthropic model. But may I ask, what book was entertaining you so much?"

"Napier's Life of Montrose."

"And do you like it?"

"Indeed I do."

"And you like Montrose?"

"Certainly I like him."

"I could have sworn it. Do you remember his verses to the lady of his heart?"

"That I do," said f.a.n.n.y Euston,--

"'Like Alexander I will reign, And I will reign alone; My heart shall evermore disdain A rival on my throne.

He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, Who puts it not unto the touch, To win or lose it all.

"'But if thou wilt be constant then, And faithful of thy word, I'll make thee famous by my pen, And glorious by my sword; I'll serve thee in such n.o.ble ways Was never heard before; I'll dress and crown thee all with bays, And love thee evermore.'"

"Admirable! I thought I had a good memory, but you beat me hollow. You repeat the lines as if you liked them."

"Who would not like them?"

"And yet his fas.h.i.+on of wooing would be a little peremptory for the nineteenth century."

"There are no Montroses in the nineteenth century."

"They are out of date, like many a good thing besides. Not long ago, I saw some verses in a magazine--a kind of ballad on Montrose's execution."

"Can you repeat it?"

"I cannot compete with you; but I think I can give you a stanza or two:--

"'The morning dawned full darkly, The rain came flas.h.i.+ng down, And the jagged streak of the levin bolt Lit up the gloomy town: The thunder crashed across the heaven, The fatal hour was come; And ay broke in, with m.u.f.fled beat, The 'larum of the drum.

There was madness on the earth below, And anger in the sky, And young and old, and rich and poor, Came forth to see him die.

"'But when he came, though pale and wan, He looked so great and high, So n.o.ble was his manly front, So calm his steadfast eye,-- The rabble rout forbore to shout, And each man held his breath, For well they knew the hero's soul Was face to face with death.'"

f.a.n.n.y Euston's eye kindled, as if at a strain of warlike music.

"Go on."

"I have forgotten the rest."

"Then pray find the verses and send them to me. Why is it that, as you say, such men are out of date?"

"What place, or what career, could they find in a commercial country?"

"Then why were we born in a commercial country?"

"You seem to make an ideal hero of Montrose."

"Not I. I am not the school girl you take me for. I have no ideal hero. I do not believe in ideal heroes. Montrose was a man, with the faults of a man; full of faults, and yet not a bad man either."

"Very far from it."

"He had great faults, but grand qualities to match them,--worth a thousand of the small, tame, correct virtues that one sees hereabouts."

"Dangerous ideas, those, Mrs. Primrose would tell you."

"Deliver me from Mrs. Primrose!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed f.a.n.n.y.

They rode in silence for a few minutes, Morton's companion murmuring to herself fragments of the lines which he had just repeated.