The Robber Bridegroom (4 page)

"Good morning/' said he, getting off his horse, a red stallion named Orion, which at once began to graze upon the fine herbs growing under his nose.

"Good morning," said Rosamond, and she was so surprised that she let her skirt fall, and all the herbs she had gathered scattered to the wind.

"That is a grand dress you are wearing out for nothing/' said Jamie, with a look coming into his eye.

"All my dresses are like this one," said Rosamond. "Only this is the worst of the lot, and that is why I don't care what happens to it."

"How lucky you are today, then, my girl/' said Jamie, giving her a flash of his white teeth. "So put off the clothes you're wearing now, for I'm taking them with me."

"And who told you you might ask me for them?" cried Rosamond.

"No one tells me and no one needs to tell me/' said Jamie, "for I am a bandit and I think of everything for myself."

And he led her by the hand into a clump of green willows, where they would not be seen by other travelers or bandits coming along the Trace.

"So pull your dress off over your head, my bonny, for you'll not go a step further with it on," he said.

"Well, then, I suppose I must give you the dress," said Rosamond, "but not a thing further."

"Oh!" spoke up Goat, where he was hiding behind the bush. "It's a shame now to take that off, for the petticoat is much too beautiful beneath."

But Rosamond was so busy with the little pins, which she took care to stick back in the dress, that she could not hear.

Then she stood before Jamie in the wonderful petticoat stitched all around with golden thread, and at once he must have that too.

"Put off your petticoat," he said, "for the dish requires the sauce."

The tears sprang for a moment to Rosamond's eyes, and she said to herself, "If my mother knew I had to give up the petticoat as well, her heart would break/*

"Oh!" cried Goat from his hiding place, "never give up the spangled petticoat, for you are far too beautiful beneath!"

But at that moment Rosamond was so particular not to catch the tassels on the thorns that she never heard a thing.

Then she stood in front of Jamie in her cotton petticoats two deep, and he said, "Off with the smocks, girl, and be quick."

"Are you leaving me nothing?" cried Rosamond, darting glances all about her for help, but there wasn't any to be had, though Goat looked about too.

"I am taking some and all away with me/' said Jamie. "Off with the rest."

"God help me," said Rosamond, who had sometimes imagined such a thing happening, and knew what to say. "Were you born of a woman? For the sake of your poor mother, who

may be dead in her grave, like mine, I pray you to leave me with my underbody."

"Yes, I was born of a woman/' said Jamie, "but for no birth that she bore or your mother bore either will I leave you with so much as a stitch, for I am determined to have all/'

So Rosamond took off the first smock. "You may not know/' said she, "that I have a father who has killed a hundred Indians and twenty bandits as well, and seven brothers that are all in hearty health. They will come after you for this, you may be sure, and hang you to a tree before you are an hour away/'

"I will take all eight as they come, then," said Jamie, and he took out his airy little dirk. "Off with the last item," he said, "for I must hurry if a father and seven sons are waiting for the chase."

"Oh!" said Goat from the bush. "You are done for now, and my work is finished, and I might as well go home."

But Rosamond, who had imagined such things happening in the world, and what she

would do if they did, reached up and pulled the pins out of her hair, and down fell the long golden locks, almost to the ground, but not quite, for she was very young yet. And as for hearing the sighs of little Goat, she was thinking of how ever she might look without a stitch on her, and would not have heard a thunderclap.

"Thank you, now," said Jamie, gathering up all the clothes from the grass and not forgetting the gold hairpins from France that were scattered about. "But wait/' he said, "which would you rather? Shall I kill you with my little dirk, to save your name, or will you go home naked?"

"Oh," cried Goat, "you are done for either way, but if you let him kill you now I will get a suckling pig."

"Why, sir, life is sweet," said Rosamond, looking up straight at him through the two curtains of her hair, "and before I would die on the point of your sword, I would go home naked any day."

"Then good-by," said Jamie, and leaping on his horse and crying "Success!", away he went, leaving her standing there.

When Rosamond reached home, the sun was straight up in the sky, and there were her father and stepmother sitting on either side of the front door in their chairs.

Salome said, ''Rosamond, speak! Where are the pot-herbs I sent you for?"

But her father said, 'In God's name, the child is as naked as a jay bird/'

And he took hold of her and asked her what in the name of heaven had befallen her.

"Well, I will tell you/' said Rosamond.

But first her father put over her his planter's coat, which doused her like a light, and said, "Before you begin, remember that truth is brief, for if you lie now, you will catch your death of a chill." And her stepmother's ears were opening like morning-glories to the sun.

Rosamond began and said, "Every day, I go to the farthest edge of the indigo field, on the other side of the woods, to gather the herbs that grow there, for my stepmother will have no other kind."

"Yes, yes," said poor Clement, "but make haste with the story."

"So on this day," said Rosamond, "I was gathering the herbs into my skirt and singing this song:

" 'Oh the moon shone bright, and it cast a fair

light:

"Welcome," says she, "my honey, my sweet

"Never mind all the verses now/' said Clement. "Skip over to the end."

"Well, in the end, there came the bandit," said Rosamond, "riding his horse up the Old Natchez Trace. He was a very tall bandit with berry stains on his face so that nobody could tell what he looked like or who he was. His horse was as red as fire, and set to work right away biting off the tops of the herbs."

"Yes, no doubt," said Clement. "But hurry on with the news. The truth is longer than I thought."

"So he said 'Good morning/ and I said 'Good morning/ And I was so surprised to see him so polite that I dropped my skirt to the ground and

all the herbs fell out, and that is why I did not bring them home."

"A likely excuse!" said Salome, and her eye traveled round to look for Goat, and her two hands went into fists to take him by the heels and shake his story out.

"What next, after the salutations?" poor Clement begged. 'Tor something must go on from there, and this is the time I dread to hear what it was."

"Next, the bandit said, 'That's a grand dress you are wearing out for nothing/ for alas, I had on the New Orleans dress," said Rosamond, "and Father, for this, I never deserve to have another."

And her father said "Alas" too, for now he was going to hear what had happened to it.

"Well," said Rosamond, "the long and short of it is that the bandit took it, and took not only my dress but my petticoat with the golden tassels, my cotton petticoats, and, although I asked him in his mother's name to refrain, my underbody."

"And did he leave you then?" cried Clement.

"He left me then," said Rosamond, "though I had not been sure what he would do, my hair, brushed every night as it is, still being of uncertain length when I let it down/*

And at first they did not believe her, but by dark she had told it the same way at least seven times, until there was nothing else to do but believe her, unless they jumped down the well.

"Where did the bastard go?" cried Clement, jumping to his feet the moment he was convinced, "for I will follow him and string him to a tree for this."

"I gave him my word that you would indeed, Father," said Rosamond, "but he replied that there was no hope for you to saddle your horse for that, since he was aiming to cross the river into the wilds of Louisiana, where you could never get at him."

Nevertheless, Clement saddled his horse and rode all night, looking for the bandit, and finding nothing but the dark and cold.

But to Salome he said, "There is a thing the bandit did not count on, and it is this: I know

the man to catch him where I cannot, the man who has the brains and the bravery and the very passport to do it. And that is Jamie Lockhart, the man who saved my life at the Rodney inn, and the very man to avenge my daughter's honor as well."

"But how do we know your daughter retains her honor?" asked Salome, gritting her teeth at the very thought of rescue. "Bandits, panthers, and the like indeed! The panther carries her gently in his teeth, and sets her down without harm, and the bandit robs her of every stitch she has on, and leaves her untouched. It is something to meditate about, my good husband!"

"Hold your tongue, woman!" cried Clement, full of anger, and for once he wondered if the stepmother really loved his little girl. Something seemed to fill the air like a black cloud, and the house shook as if from thunder.

When Rosamond appeared, dressed in her old blue gown, Clement asked her for the last time if she was quite sure she had not fallen into the bayou and gotten her dress wet, so that she had

to leave it to dry there on the bank, with all her

petticoats, and if they might not be there still.

But Rosamond said, "No, Father, it was a bandit that took them, and all just as I told you/'

So Clement said, "Sunday night, which is tomorrow, I am bringing Jamie Lockhart to search out and kill this bandit of the woods. But in the meanwhile, stay away from the place where the pot-herbs grow, and never go there again. For next time, the bandit may do worse/'

But Rosamond only opened the window and sang a song which floated away on the bright blue air.

Now back in the herb patch, Goat had seen everything and lost track of nothing. But at the final point, seeing Rosamond separated from her clothes, he had had to make his mind up which to follow, and he had decided upon the clothes. It was evident that the clothes had cost money and Rosamond had not, and he was influenced by the bandit's choice in the matter as well. And

besides, Goat knew better than not to place his hand before his eyes in the presence of naked ladies, or he would get the pillory, and that way he would have been sure to fall in the briars going home.

The bandit had galloped away like the wind and was a flicker on the hill, so Goat made haste to start off in that direction. He followed along up the Natchez Trace, keeping his eye out for the dress, and once he thought he saw it floating on the creek, but it was only the lily pads, and once he thought he saw it flying in the sky, but then he heard a distant moo, and it was only the old flying cow of Mobile going by. So eventually, after a day of starvation, he turned around and came back home.

The door was locked, but he butted his way into the kitchen and took up a loaf from the shovel and put it in his mouth.

"Hello, Mother," he said, "here I am back."

"Oh, cark and care," said his mother. "Did you bring any money?"

"No/' he said, "but I have only to ask the rich lady for it, for I am doing a job of work for her and she is in debt to me."

"Are you sure she is rich/' said the mother, "since she has paid you nothing? 0

"All the surer/' said Goat. "Rich she is, and a good thing for her, for she's as tall as a house, as dark as down a well, and as old as the hills, with such a face that's enough to make anybody die laughing or crying to see it, if they had nothing else to do."

"Then you'll do well to get your money from her," said the mother. "And get it in a hurry, or I'll brain you with the skillet for being so little comfort to me in my old age/'

"I'm on my way now, as soon as I hear the news," said Goat. "What's the cry? Are my six sisters married off yet?"

"No more than they were before or ever will be," said the mother, "without a cent in the world to go with them."

"Well, you have only to wait till I bring the money home to sec how the money works/' said

Goat. "Tell all six virgins to come in and brighten themselves up a little. Pack up their clothes, sit them on their chairs, and wait for my return/'

So he was off up the hill and gave a whistle, and Salome came out in her hood and led him to the pear orchard, where the branches raining down to the ground hid them from sight.

"Well," said she, "did you follow her?"

"Like the lamb to school," said Goat.

"You saw it all?"

"I gave myself but one blink of the eye," said Goat.

"Then what of the moment when she stood there naked?" asked Salome, ready to burst for wanting to know.

"Oh, I shut my eyes for that," said Goat, whirling in a circle before her black frown. "For they'll never put me in the pillory for you to bail out."

"Why don't I kill you?" cried Salome furiously. "Ass! Fool! Then did you follow her still? What was the path she took home?"

"I followed the girl until she and the dress separated and took opposite ways/' said Goat. "And since he chose the dress, I chose the dress, and went off hot after that, but it got away. Yet I recall one place now where I haven't looked, and that is in your bear trap/'

"Fool!" cried Salome. "It is the girl I sent you to follow, and now the thing has happened which I looked for to happen, and you were blinking your eye! You have robbed me of my satisfaction, and robbed me of my proof. Idiot! Begone!" For she knew how to talk to Goat just like his own mother.

"First I would like my pay/' said Goat.

"Here, take it then/' said Salome, and she began boxing him well about the ears.

"That's enough," said Goat, "for I did not work quite that hard."

"One more chance will I give you," said Salome. "I think the girl will go out again in the morning. Follow her and never let her out of your sight. And whatever transpires, remember it as if it were written down and you could read, and come back and tell me."