Mrs. Tree's Will Part 10

"I have surprised you, brother!" he cried; "confess it! Surprise, chief tidbit at the Feast of Life! Alarums and excursions! enter King Henry, with forces marching. You did not expect to see the Wanderer?"

"I certainly did not, my dear brother!" cried Mr. Homer, the tears standing in his mild eyes. "I have not even felt sure, Pindar, of your being alive in these latter years. Why, why have you kept this silence, my dear fellow? think how many years it is since I have heard a word from you!"

Mr. Pindar fluttered vivaciously; he was certainly more like a bat than the Flying Dutchman. "I apologize!" he cried. "I have been at fault, Homer, I admit it. To own him wrong, the haughty spirit bows--no more of it! The past"--he swept it away with one wing--"is buried. This night its obsequies! Hung be the heavens with black; a pickaxe and a spade, a spade; other remarks of a similar nature. Homer, our cousin Marcia loved me not!" (it was true. "I can stand a beetle," Mrs. Tree was used to say, "or I can stand a bat; but a bat-beetle, and a dancing one at that, is more than I can abide. Cat's foot! don't talk to me!").

"Yet when I heard--through the medium of the public prints--that she was no more, I felt a pang, sir, a pang. I would have a.s.sisted at the funeral solemnities; it would have been a pleasure to me to compose a dirge; the first strophe even suggested itself to me. 'Ta-ta, tarum, tarum' (m.u.f.fled drums); 'ta tee, ta tidol' (trombones); but these things require time, sir, time."

"Surely!" said Mr. Homer, with a meek bow; "surely; and indeed, Pindar, the ceremonies were of the simplest description, in accordance with the wishes of our revered and deceased relative. But sit down, my dear brother; sit down, and let me procure some refreshment;--a--sustenance;--a--bodily pabulum, for you. Have you come far, may I ask?"

"From the metropolis, sir; from New York!" replied Mr. Pindar, seating himself and throwing back his little batlike cloak.

"By rail to the Junction; the evening stage, a jolt, a rattle, and a crawl,--behold me! A crust, Homer, a crust! no disturbance of domestic equilibrium. A consort lurks within?"

"I beg your pardon, Brother!" said Mr. Homer, with a bewildered look.

"A wife, sir, a wife!" said Mr. Pindar. "Are you married, Homer?"

"Oh, no; no, indeed, my dear brother!" said Mr. Homer, hastily, and blus.h.i.+ng very red. "Nothing of the kind, I a.s.sure you. And you?"

"Perish the thought!" said Mr. Pindar; and he waved the s.e.x out of existence.

Mr. Homer looked troubled, but hastened out of the room, and, after some ineffective appeals to Tommy, who, as we know, was talking with Annie Lizzie at the gate, foraged for himself, and returned with crackers and cheese, doughnuts and cider. Seated together at this simple feast, the two brothers looked at each other once more, and both rubbed their hands with precisely the same gesture.

"Food!" cried Mr. Pindar, vivaciously; "and drink! necessities, base if you will, but grateful, sir, grateful! Brother, I pledge you!"

"Brother, I drink to you!" cried Mr. Homer, filling his gla.s.s with a trembling hand. "To our reunion, sir! the--the rekindling of--of affection's torch, my dear brother. Long may it--"

"Blaze!" cried Mr. Pindar, with a sudden skip in his chair. "Snap!

crackle! flame! crepitate! Pindar to Homer shall, bright gla.s.s to gla.s.s--enough!" He ceased suddenly, and fell upon the crackers and cheese with excellent appet.i.te.

Mr. Homer watched him in anxious and bewildered silence: once or twice he opened his lips as if about to speak, but closed them each time with a sigh and a shake of the head. The visitor was the first to speak, beginning, when the last cracker had disappeared, as suddenly as he had left off.

"Brother," he said, "why am I here?"

Mr. Homer repeated the words vaguely: "Why are you here, my dear brother? I doubt not that affection's call, the--voice of sympathy, of--a--brotherhood, of--consanguinity,--a--sounded in your ears--"

"Trumpets!" Mr. Pindar struck a sonorous note, and nodded thrice with great solemnity. "Alarums and excursions; enter long-lost brother, centre. You are right, Homer; but this was not all. The Dramatic Moment, sir, had struck."

With these words, he folded his arms, and, dropping his head on his breast, gazed up through his eyebrows in a manner which Mr. Homer found highly disconcerting.

"Oh, indeed!" said Mr. Homer, with vague politeness.

"Struck!" repeated Mr. Pindar, nodding solemnly. "Sounded. Knelled--no!

tolled--not precisely! larumed, sir, larumed!"

"'Larumed' is a fine word," said Mr. Homer, meekly, "but I fail to apprehend your precise meaning, Brother Pindar."

"You know what 'dramatic' means, I suppose, Homer," replied Mr. Pindar, testily, "though you never had an atom of the quality in your composition. And you know what a moment is. The Dramatic Moment--I repeat it--in your life and the life of this village--has larumed, sir.

Listen to it, Homer; look upon it, sir; grasp it! The old order--gone!"

he swept it away. "The new--its foot upon the threshold!" he beckoned toward the door, and Mr. Homer looked round nervously. "Usher it in, to sound of trump and drum. We must celebrate, Homer, celebrate. To that end, behold me!"

Mr. Homer pa.s.sed his hand across his brow and sighed wearily. "My dear brother," he said, "you must excuse me if I do not yet altogether understand,--a--comprehend,--a--accord the hospitality of the intellect, to--to the idea that you desire to convey. I feel little if any resemblance at this moment to a watcher of the skies--Keats, as I need not remind you; but I cannot feel that this is a time for rejoicing, Pindar."

"For celebration, sir! for celebration!" cried Mr. Pindar, eagerly.

"The words are not synonymous, as you are no doubt aware. Let the mysteries be solemn, if you will, the sable scarf of cinerary pomp, the m.u.f.fled drum, and wail of deep ba.s.soon; but this was my idea, sir; thus the vision rose before my mind's eye, Horatio,--I would say, Homer. A procession, sir. Maidens, white-clad, flower-crowned, scattering roses; matrons, in kirtle and gown, twirling the distaff; village elders, in--in--our native costume is ill adapted, I confess, but suitable robes might be obtained at trifling cost, sir, at trifling cost. You in the midst, crowned with bays, the poet's robe your manly limbs enfolding.

Following,--or preceding, as you will,--musicians, with bra.s.s instruments. You write an ode, I set it to music. Rhymes will readily suggest themselves: 'jog,' no! 'clog;' hardly! 'agog;' precisely!

"Ta-ta, ta-ta, with joy agog; Quahaug! (bang!) Quahaug! (bang!) Quahaug!

Kettledrums, you understand; cymbals; superb effect! You see it, Homer?

you take it in?"

He paused, and gazed on his brother with kindling eyes, his arms extended, the little cloak fluttering from them; certainly nothing human ever looked so like a bat.

"A goblin!" said Mr. Homer to himself. "My only brother is a goblin!"

He sighed again, yet more wearily, and once more pa.s.sed his hand across his brow.

"My dear brother," he said, "the hour is late. I find myself incapable of--of thought. The weary pinion of the brain--I find myself incapable even of metaphor, sir. You must excuse me. To-morrow--"

"To fresh fields and pastures new!" cried Mr. Pindar, rising with a batlike wave. "Precisely! Enter attendants with torches. The minion waits without?"

"Oh!" said Mr. Homer, "not exactly, Pindar. Direxia Hawkes has--a--retired to rest; has--a--sought the sleep which--which--"

"Knits up the ravelled sleeve of care!" suggested Mr. Pindar.

"Oh, very much so!" cried Mr. Homer. "You surely remember Direxia, brother, and will no doubt agree with me that the term 'minion' cannot properly be applied to Cousin Marcia's old and faithful retainer.

And--the youth who--who admitted you, is Thomas Candy, my friend and fellow trustee. Thomas is an invaluable person, Pindar; he is like a son to me, I a.s.sure you. You will, I am sure, value Thomas. I will suggest to him the advisability of bringing candles. Oh, here he is! Thomas, this is my brother Pindar, my only brother, returned after the lapse of many years to--to his native heath, if I may so express myself. Thomas Candy, my dear brother!"

"Son of Silas?" cried Mr. Pindar. "Ha! 'tis well. Stripling, thy hand!

lives yet thy father, ha?"

Tommy grinned, and rumpled his hair with an elfish look eminently unfitting a trustee.

"You are the one he used to play ghost with, and scare the Weightses,"

he said. "I've heard of you, sir. Father isn't livin', but Mis' Tree told me about it. Glad to see you, sir!"

CHAPTER IX.

"_QUAND ON CONSPIRE_"

Mr. Pindar Hollopeter slept long and late the next morning, as became a gentleman of metropolitan habits; he had not yet made his appearance when Will Jaquith came swinging along the street and turned in at the gate. Tommy Candy was at work in the garden, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the roses, as Will himself had been used to do before he was a family man and a postmaster, and at sight of him Will stopped.

"Just the man I was looking for, Tom!" he said. "I want to consult you."