Part 38 (1/2)

”Pray do not give me any credit for getting up this morning,” said Victor with a hasty wave of the hand. ”I a.s.sure you I detest early rising with my whole French soul, and haven't seen a sun younger than three hours old since I can remember; but, my dear sir, with all homage to the most comfortable of beds, and the pleasantest room I ever occupied in my life, I never pa.s.sed such a night! When at last I slept, my dreams were so frightful that I was thankful to wake, and would have resorted to any means to have kept myself awake, if there had been the slightest danger of my closing my eyes again.”

”What room did you occupy?” I asked.

”The corner room at the north end of the hall, it is, I think.”

”It is most unfortunate,” said Mr. Rutledge, looking a little annoyed.

”Are you subject to wakeful nights?”

”Never remember such an occurrence before,” he returned. ”I have enjoyed the plebeian luxury of sound sleep all my life, and so am more at a loss to account for my experience of last night.”

”Were you disturbed by any noise--conscious of any one moving in the house?”

”No, the house was silent, silent as death! _Ma foi!_ I believe that was the worst of it. If I were superst.i.tious, I should tell you of the only thing that interrupted it; but I know how credulous and absurd it would sound to dispa.s.sionate judges, and how I should ridicule anything of the kind in another person; but this strange nightmare has taken such possession of me, I cannot shake it off.”

His face expressed intense feeling as he spoke, and the usual levity of his manner was quite gone.

”What was it?” I said earnestly, and Mr. Rutledge looked indeed so far from ridiculing his emotion, that Victor went on rapidly:

”You will think me a person of imaginative and excitable temperament, but I must a.s.sure you to the contrary, and that I never before yielded to a superst.i.tious fancy, and have always held in great contempt all who were influenced by such follies. Will you believe me then, when I tell you that last night I was startled violently from my sleep, by a voice that sounded, from its hollowness and ghastliness, as if it came from the fleshless jaws of a skeleton, calling again and again, in tones that made my blood curdle, a familiar name, and one that at any time, I cannot hear without emotion. Sleep had nothing to do with it! I was as wide awake as I am now. But pshaw!” he exclaimed, suddenly turning, ”I shall forget all about it in an hour, and I beg you'll do the same,” and not giving either of us time to answer, he went on in an altered tone: ”Mr. Rutledge, what a fine place you have! I have been admiring the view from my window. Have you purchased it recently? I don't remember to have seen a finer estate in America.”

”It is a valuable and well located farm,” answered Mr. Rutledge, rather indifferently; ”but farming is not my specialty, and I never should have enc.u.mbered myself voluntarily with such a care, if it had not devolved upon me by inheritance.”

”Ah!” said Victor with a slight accent of irony, that from last night's conversation I was prepared for; ”It was then a case of greatness thrust, etc. But sir, it must add a great charm to this already charming home, to think that it has been the birth-place and family altar, as it were, of generations of your ancestors? Surely you are not insensible to such sentiments of pride and affection.”

”a.s.sociations of that kind, of course, invest a place with a certain kind of interest; but I cannot lay claim to as much feeling on the subject as perhaps would be becoming. Like you, sir,” he said, with a bow, ”I have a dread of claiming credit for habits and feelings that I do not possess and entertain.”

Victor looked a little annoyed that he had not succeeded in drawing out Mr. Rutledge's aristocratic and overbearing sentiments, and he would not have given up the subject, had not Mr. Rutledge, with a firm and quiet hand, put it aside, and led the way to other topics.

”How is it,” he said to me, ”that you have not noticed your small friend Tigre? He has been at your feet for the last five minutes, looking most wistfully for a kind word.”

I started in confusion and surprise, and stooping down, covered the dog with caresses. The poor little rascal was frantic with delight, springing up to my face, and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. his welcome in short barks and low whines, tearing around me, and then running off a little distance and looking back enthusiastically.

”He is evidently inviting you to another steeple-chase,” said Mr.

Rutledge.

I blushed violently at the recollection, and wished Tigre anywhere but where he was.

”Have you lost your interest in the turf, since your season in town, or have other interests and tastes developed themselves while it has lain dormant?”

”Other tastes have developed themselves, I believe,” I answered.

”Break it gently to Tigre, I beg you then, for I am sure he has been living all winter on the hope of another romp. He does not appreciate the lapse of time, and the changes involved, so readily as his betters, you know.”

”He has, at least, the grace to receive them more kindly,” I returned, stooping to pat him. ”Tigre, if I am too old to run races, I am not debarred as yet from taking walks, I believe, and I would propose that we indulge in one. Mr. Viennet, are you too old to be of the party?”

Mr. Rutledge turned shortly toward the library, Victor and I pa.s.sed out on the piazza, and, with Tigre in close attendance, descended the broad steps to the terrace.

Breakfast was nearly completed when we returned, and the party at the table looked up in amazement as we entered the room.

”I should admire to know,” exclaimed Ella Wynkar, who affected Boston manners, and ”admired” a good deal, ”I should admire to know where you two have been! Mr. Arbuthnot declares that Mr. Viennet has been up since daybreak; and as for _you_,” she said, turning to me, ”I heard your door shut hours ago.”