The Frontiersmen | Page 3

of this new home, it was far safer for him than the land of his
birth. His worldly position there gave him sundry claims of superiority,
for all of which his hardy pioneer son had had scant sympathy; and
Ralph Emsden, in the difficult crisis of the disclosure of the state of his
affections, heaved many a sigh for this simple manly soul's untimely
fate.
The elder Mivane, with his head bent forward, his hand behind his ear,
sat in his arm-chair while he hearkened blandly to the sentimental
statements which Emsden was obliged to shout forth twice. Then
Richard Mivane cleared his throat with a sort of preliminary
gentlemanly embarrassment, and went fluently on with that suave low

voice so common to the very deaf. "Command me, sir, command me! It
will give me much pleasure to use my influence on your behalf to
obtain an ensigncy. I will myself write at the first opportunity, the first
express, to Lieutenant-Governor Bull, who is acquainted with my
family connections in England. It is very praiseworthy, very laudable
indeed, that you should aspire to a commission in the military
service,--the provincial forces. I honor you for your readiness to
fight--although, to be sure, being Irish, you can't help it. Still, it is to
your credit that you are Irish. I am very partial to the Irish traits of
character--was once in Ireland myself--visited an uncle there"--and so
forth and so forth.
And thus poor Ralph Emsden, who was only Irish by descent, and
could not have found Ireland on the map were he to hang for his
ignorance, and had been born and bred in the Royal province of South
Carolina,--which country he considered the crown and glory of the
world,--was constrained to listen to all the doings and sayings of
Richard Mivane in Ireland from the time that he embarked on the wild
Irish Sea, which scrupled not to take unprecedented liberties with so
untried a sailor, till the entrance of other pioneers cut short a beguiling
account of his first meeting with potheen in its native haunts, and the
bewildering pranks that he and that tricksy sprite played together in
those the irresponsible days of his youth.
Emsden told no one, not even Peninnah Penelope Anne, of his
discomfiture; but alack, there were youngsters in the family of
unaffected minds and unimpaired hearing. This was made amply
manifest a day or so afterward, when he chanced to pause at the door of
the log cabin and glance in, hoping that, perhaps, the queen of his
dreams might materialize in this humble domicile.
The old gentleman slept in his chair, with dreams of his own, perchance,
for his early life might have furnished a myriad gay fancies for his later
years. The glare of noonday lay on the unshaded spaces of the
quadrangle without; for all trees had been felled, even far around the
inclosure, lest thence they might afford vantage and ambush for
musketry fire or a flight of arrows into the stockade. Through rifts in
the foliage at considerable distance one could see the dark mountain
looming high above, and catch glimpses of the further reaches of the
Great Smoky Range, blue and shimmering far away, and even

distinguish the crest of "Big Injun Mountain" on the skyline. The
several cabins, all connected by that row of protective palisades from
one to another like a visible expression of the chord of sympathy and
mutual helpful neighborliness, were quiet, their denizens dining within.
At the blockhouse a guard was mounted--doubtless a watchful and
stanch lookout, but unconforming to military methods, for he sang, to
speed the time, a metrical psalm of David's; the awkward collocation of
the words of this version would forever distort the royal poet's meaning
if he had no other vehicle of his inspiration. There were long waits
between the drowsy lines, and in the intervals certain callow voices,
with the penetrating timbre of youth, came to Emsden's ear. His eyes
followed the sound quickly.
The little sisters of Peninnah Penelope Anne were on the floor before a
playhouse, outlined by stones and sticks, and with rapt faces and
competent fancies, saw whatsoever they would. In these riches of
imagination a little brother also partook. A stick, accoutred in such
wise with scraps of buckskin as to imitate a gallant of the place and
period, was bowing respectfully before another stick, vested in the
affabilities of age and the simulacrum of a dressing-gown.
"I love your granddaughter, sir, and wish to make her my wife," said
the bowing stick.
"Command me, sir; command me!" suavely replied the stick stricken in
years.
The scene had been an eye-opener to the tender youth of the little
Mivanes; the pomp and circumstance of a sentimental disclosure they
would never forget.
Emsden,