Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348

On the first appearance of danger, M. Ménou had jumped behind a tree, which had afforded a sufficient shelter against the mad rush of the terrified stag; but his cry of warning had come too late for the young Mexican, who had less experience in this kind of chase, and who, standing full in the path of the furious beast, was knocked down, and run over. I pushed Pablo, who was howling and wringing his hands, on one side, and with Ménou, proceeded to investigate the hurts which the other Mexican had received. His coat was torn, and both legs were bleeding, having been rent by the deer’s antlers. Fortunately the wounds were not deep, or he might have had serious reason to regret the bad aim he had taken. We placed him on his horse, and turned towards home.

It was midnight when we reached the house with the wounded man, and the carcass of the deer that Ménou and I had shot. The sight of a white figure at the window of the apartment occupied by the Mexican, warned us that his wife was watching for his arrival. At the sound of our horses’ feet, she came hurrying down stairs, and out of the house to meet us; and upon beholding her husband, pale, exhausted, and supported on his horse by couple of negroes, she uttered a shrill cry, and with the word “Perdido!” sank, almost fainting, on the door steps.

“Gracious God!” cried a second female voice at that moment. “A misfortune! Is it Howard?”

It was Louise, who at that moment made her appearance in her nightdress, breathless with terror.

“Mon Dieu, it is only the Mexican! Thank God!” lisped she, in an accent of infinite joy and relief.

“Thanks, dearest Louise! for those words,” said I; “they make me very happy.”

I caught her in my arms, and pressed a kiss upon her lips. She struggled from my embrace, and, blushing deeply, hurried back into her chamber.

I now followed Ménou into the apartment of the Mexican, whose wife was hanging over him, speechless with grief and anxiety. Ménou had much trouble to get her away from him, in order that he might examine and dress his hurts. I do not know where the worthy Creole had learned his surgery, but he was evidently no tyro in the healing art; and he cut out the flesh injured by the antler, washed and bandaged the wounds, with a dexterity that really inspired me with confidence in him. The wounds were not dangerous, but might easily have become so, taking into consideration the heat of the weather, (the thermometer stood at eighty-six,) and the circumstance of their having been inflicted by a stag’s horn. In a short half hour the patient was comfortably put to bed, and the afflicted Donna Isabella consoled by Ménou’s positive assurance, that in a very few days her husband would be well again. She received this piece of comfort with such a thoroughly Roman Catholic uplifting of her magnificent eyes, that I could scarcely help envying the saints for whom that look was intended.

I had held the candle for Ménou during the operation; and as I put it down upon the table, my eyes fell upon a beautifully executed miniature of the Mexican set in brilliants. Beside it were lying letters addressed to Don Lopez di Santa Anna, Marischal de Campo; one or two had the superscription, Lieutenant-general. It was no other than the celebrated Mexican   leader, the second in rank in the would-be republic, who had been sojourning in Monsieur Ménou’s house under the assumed name of Silveira. This discovery afforded me matter for reflection as I repaired to my bed-chamber; reflections, however, which were soon forced to make way for other thoughts of a more personally interesting nature. It was the graceful form of Louise that now glided forward out of the background of my imagination. She had watched, then, anxiously for our return; and the first rumour of a mishap had drawn from her lips the name of him for whom her heart felt most interested. During the whole time of my residence with the Ménous, I had never once dreamed of falling in love with either of the sisters. There was so much activity and occupation in and out of the house, that I seemed to have had no time to indulge in sentimental reveries. Now, however, they came crowding upon me. It was so consolatory to an unlucky bachelor, only just recovering from a recent disappointment, to find himself an object of tender interest a lovely and innocent girl of seventeen.

At breakfast, the next morning, Louise did not dare to look me in the face. Without distressing her, however, I managed to look at her more than I had ever before done; and I really wondered what I had been thinking about, during the preceding two months, not to have sooner found out her manifold charms and perfections. Her elder sister was too stout for my taste, altogether on too large a scale, and with too little of the intellectual in the expression of her features; but Louise is unquestionably a charming creature, slender and graceful, with a sweet archness in her countenance, and hands and feet that might serve for models. In short, I began to think seriously that all past disappointments would be more than compensated by the affection of such a woman. I must see first about setting my house in order, thought I.

“Will you be so kind as to lend me your carriage to go as far as the river?” said I to the Creole.

“With much pleasure. A mere ride, I suppose?”

“No; a little more. I wish to see how things are getting on at my plantation.”

“You are going away?” exclaimed Madame Ménou and Julie. Louise said nothing, but she raised her eyes to mine for the first time that morning.

“It is necessary that I should do so; but, if you will allow me, I will pay you another visit before very long.”

The roses had left the cheeks of poor Louise, and I fancied I saw a tear glittering in her eyes. Several minutes elapsed without any body’s speaking. At last the silence was broken by the Creole.

“You seemed very happy here, I thought,” said he. “Has any thing happened?”

“Yes; something of great importance to me. I must really leave you immediately,” was my answer.

Mean time, Louise had left the room. I hurried after her, and overtook her before she reached her chamber.

“Louise!” said I. She was weeping. “I leave you to-day.”

“So I heard.”

“In order to arrange my house.”

“My brother is doing that already,” said she. “Why leave us?”

“Because I would fain see with my own eyes if all is ready and fitting for the reception of my Louise. When I have done so, will you follow me home as my beloved wife?”

For one second she looked in my face, her features lighted up with a beam of confiding joy, and then her gaze fell in timid confusion on the ground.

“Take her, dear Howard!” said her father, who had followed us unperceived. “She is the best of daughters, and will make as good a wife.”

Louise sank into my arms. An hour later I was on my way homewards.

At last, then, I was irrevocably pledged, and my bachelorship drew near its close. I felt that I had made a judicious choice. Louise was an excellent girl, sensible, prudent, active, and cheerful—uniting, in short, all the qualities desirable in a backwoodsman’s wife. It was strange enough that all this should only have occurred to me within a few hours. I had been living two months under the same roof with her, and yet the idea of her becoming my wife had never entered my head till the preceding night.

It was four in the afternoon when I reached my plantation, which I was very near passing without recognising it, so great was the change that had taken place since my last visit. The rubbish and tree-trunks that had then encumbered the vicinity of the house had disappeared—the garden had been increased in size, and surrounded by a new and elegant fence—a verandah, under which two negro carpenters were at work, ran along the front and sides of the house. As I walked up from the boat, young Ménou came to meet me. I shook him heartily by the hand, and expressed my gratitude for the trouble he had taken, and my wonder at the astonishing progress the improvements of all kinds had made.

“How have you possibly managed to effect all these miracles?” said I.

“Very easily,” replied Ménou. “You sent us fifteen negroes; my father lent me ten of his. With these, and the twenty-five you had before, we were able to make progress. We are now putting the finishing-stroke to your cotton press, which was fearfully out of order.”

I walked with a thankful heart through the garden, and stepped into the verandah. The rooms that looked out upon it were all fitted up in the most comfortable manner. In the principal bedroom, a negro girl was working at the elegant musquitto curtains. Old Sybille, in a calico gown of the most glaring colours, her face shining with contentment, was brushing away some invisible dust from the furniture in the parlour.

“By the by,” said young Ménou, opening a writing-desk, “here are several letters that have come for you within the last few days, and that amidst my various occupations I have quite forgotten to forward.”

I sat down and opened them. Two were from Richards, the earliest in date, inviting me to go and stay with him again. The more recent one renewed the invitation, and expressed the writer’s surprise at my having become on a sudden so domestic a character. In a postscript he added, as a sort of inducement to me to visit him, that he was daily expecting a friend of his wife’s, the beautiful Emily Warren. Not a syllable, however, about the eight thousand dollars, which surprised me not a little; for Richards was by no means a man to remain silent on a subject affecting his worldly interest, and I fully expected he would have felt and expressed some pique or resentment at my sudden withdrawal of my funds. But, on the contrary, the letter I had given to Ménou, in which I requested Richards to pay over the money in question to the Creole, was not even alluded to.

“There are matters in these letters,” said I to young Ménou, “which oblige me to return immediately to your father’s house.”

“Indeed!” cried the young man, much astonished.

“Yes,” replied I. “I hear a steamboat coming down the river—I will be off at once.”

He looked at me in great surprise; Sybille shook her head. But my character is so impatient and impetuous, that when I have resolved on any thing, I can never bear to defer its execution a moment. Besides, there was really nothing to detain me at my plantation. The arrangements and improvements that I had reckoned on finding only half effected were complete; and every moment that now elapsed before I could welcome Louise as mistress of my house and heart, seemed to me worse than wasted. I hurried down to the river and hailed the steamer. It was the same that had brought me home two months previously.

“Mr Howard,” said the captain joyously, as I stepped on board the vessel, “I am right glad to see you on my deck again. Your plantation looks quite another thing. You are really a worker of wonders.”

I hardly knew how to accept this undeserved praise. One of the best points in our American character is the universal respect paid to industry and intellect. The wealthy idler who carries thousands in his pocket-book, may, amongst us, look in vain for the respect and flattery which a tithe of his riches would procure him in many other countries; while the less fortunate man, who makes his way and earns his living by hand and head work, may always reckon on the consideration of his fellow-citizens. On   my return to Louisiana I had been thought nothing of. I was a drone in the hive—with money, but without skill or perseverance. My overseer was more looked up to than myself; but the recent change in the state of my plantation, attributed, however wrongly, to my presence, had caused a revolution in people’s ideas; and I was now met on all sides with open hands and smiling countenances. The change, I must confess, was a gratifying one for me.

The Ménous were at breakfast the next morning, when I arrived, heated by my walk from the river, opposite to the parlour window. I was received with a cry of welcome.

“So soon back! Nothing wrong, I hope?” said Ménou.

“Nothing,” replied I dryly; “I have only forgotten something.”

“And what is that?”

“My Louise,” was my answer, as I seated myself beside the blushing girl. “On arriving at my wilderness,” I continued, “I found it converted into so blooming a paradise, that I should really be heartbroken if it were to remain any longer without its Eve. To-morrow, please God, we will start for New Orleans, to put in requisition the service of Père Antoine and the worthy rector.”

There was a cry of consternation from the papa and mamma.

“There is nothing ready—point de trousseau—nothing in the world. Do not be so unreasonable, dear Howard.”

“Our Yankee damsels,” replied I, laughing, “if they have only got a pair of shoes and a gown and a half, consider themselves perfectly ready to be married.”

“Well, let him have his way,” said Ménou. “We can manage, I daresay, to equip the bride a little better than that.”

“Apropos,” said I to Ménou, while the ladies were consulting together, and recovering from the flurry into which my precipitation had thrown them—“the eight thousand dollars? Richards says nothing about them.”