"He that will not when he can,He's not at all my sort of man!"
"He that will not when he can,He's not at all my sort of man!"
When Mr. Robert Fortinbras heard of his daughter's determination, he declared that he renounced her for ever. But after thinking the matter over, and especially on being reminded by Hugh John that one day she would become heiress of no mean part of the Donnan wealth, he consented to a limited forgiveness, on condition that in the meantime she should do something for her father and mother. But her sister Matilda openly revolted, saying thatshealways knew Elizabeth meant to shove the housework off on her, and that she did not care if not a dish was ever washed in that house again. Elizabeth reminded her that, far from idling at New Erin Villa, she was on foot from morning till night. Also that nine times out of ten when she came home she found Matilda asleep on the sofa, with a penny novelette flung on the floor beside her. There was a feeling of strain for a moment, but Elizabeth presented her sister with a striped blouse and half-a-dozen stand-up collars, which promptly brought forth the declaration, "Oh, Elizabeth, you mustn't mind what Isay. It is only mother's nagging that does it, but I do love you!" Which may or may not have had to do with the striped blouse and the half-dozen collars. On the whole, there was a certain feeling of satisfaction in the house of Mr. Robert Fortinbras that Elizabeth was so well provided for, and that in a day of trouble she might even assist the brilliant adventurer with some of the gold of that unimaginative citizen, Mr. Ex-Butcher Donnan.
But Miss Elizabeth Fortinbras, though the best daughter in the world—with only one exception that I know of personally—had no idea of encouraging the busy idleness of her father, or the foolishness of the rest of the family. She had found a business that suited her, and she would in nowise interest herself less in it now that she was, so to speak, the present partner and future heiress in the concern.
There was but one person discontented, Mrs. Nipper Donnan. She was jealous of the white-curtained cottage, the trim garden, which began to blossom where she had hung out her clothes. Chiefly, however, she hated Elizabeth Fortinbras and "that Hugh John Picton Smith," who, strangely enough, was her abhorrence—though it was not his habit to ignore any one, but only to pass on his way with a grave bow.
Hugh John was an uncomfortable person to quarrel with. His great bodily strength and long practice in the art of boxing rendered him a man of peace whose very presence made for reconciliation. In the neighborhood of Edam he was President Roosevelt's "moral policeman with a big stick." Even at home he held over the head of an offender a baton of honor and "the right thing to do."
At school, it is to be feared that his discipline was sterner. There he argued but seldom. He was the centurion who said, "Do this!" and the other fellow did it. But then, it was a good thing to do, and the head master generally considered him as his best ally.
He was father's constant companion on his walks, and to hear them debate in that precious half-hour in the dining-room after dinner was to escape suddenly from the smallness of the world about, and find oneself on the high Alps of thought where the sun shone early and late, where the winds blew clean and cold, and thought was free exceedingly. Neither counted anything as to be accepted merely because they had been told it upon authority. They searched and compared, the man and the boy, Hugh John's finely analytic mind steadied and gripped by the elder experience. Their talk was not the talk of father and son, but rather of two seekers—Hugh John declaiming high, direct, often fierce, while through the smoke of a contemplative cigarette father went on smiling gently, now waving a hand in gentle deprecation, dropping a word of moderation here, qualifying a statement there—the son holding strictly for law and justice, of the firmest and most inexorable, the father dropping counsels of mercy and that understanding which is the forgiveness of God, being, as always, a Tolerant of the Tolerants.
I know that those who have read the two books called after Sir Toady Lion may fail a little to recognize my elder brother. But nevertheless this is the same who in his time wept because as a little child with a wooden sword he had been saluted by the Scots Grays, the same also who fought the "smoutchies"; and if I have said nothing about a certain notable Cissy Carter, it is only because, though I know, in the meantime I have promised not to tell.
It will easily be understood that with such an adversary Mrs. Nipper Donnan, ex-kitchen-maid at Erin Villa, stood little chance. Hugh John listened patiently and gravely, his head slightly bent in the pensive and contemplative way which was then his principal charm. He heard that he had interfered where he had no business, that Mrs. Nipper Donnan knew that he had always hated her husband, that, while as good as engaged to Colonel Carter's daughter, he was walking the lanes with Elizabeth Fortinbras—yes, and plotting and planning to get a fortune for her—a fortune which would make beggars of her husband and herself, and strip an only son of his inheritance.
To the angry woman Hugh John made no reply. He only kept silence, with that gentle irony which is his present manner with those who grow quarrelsome—that is, if they are not of his own sex and (approximately) age.
He only called Nipper—and by a series of questions ascertained from him that he knew how Hugh John had been the means of obtaining better terms for him than he had ever hoped for, since his marriage had so offended his father. Hugh John Picton Smith could speak no lie. He, Nipper Donnan, would uphold this against all comers. Even in the days of the smoutchies and the prison vault at the old Castle in the Edam Water he had known it. Even his very enemies had known it, and had taken Hugh John's word before the sworn oath of any one of themselves. He would take it now, and as to his wife, if she said another word—out of the shop she should go! She did go, slamming the door behind her. Nipper stepped across and shot a bar with a jarring sound heard all over the house. Then from behind the counter he thrust forth a hand, hard and massive, towards Hugh John, who took it in his strong grip. They looked at each other in the face, eye to eye. There was a slight shrug of Nipper's shoulders and a toss of his head in the direction of the barred door, which said that a man could not be responsible for his womankind, but as for themselves, had they not fought far too often and too fairly ever to go behind backs to do each other an injury?
To-day Hugh John let me see a letter which he had received from Cissy Carter in Paris. As no one will see my diary, and also because there is nothing very private in the letter, I have jotted down as much as I can remember in my locked book. It was written from number twenty of the Avenue d'Argenson, and the date was the day before yesterday. It began without any greetings (as was their custom).
"Hugh John—People have written to me about you and Elizabeth Fortinbras—not nice people like you, me, and the Rat" (this was their unkind and meaningless name for—me, Miss Priscilla Picton Smith). "I don't much care what any one writes, of course. For I know that if ever you change your mind, you will do as you said, and send backyourhalf of the crooked sixpence. You need not put in a word along with it. Only just send the half of the sixpence by the registered letter post, and I shall understand. I promise to do the same by you.—Cissy."
"Hugh John—People have written to me about you and Elizabeth Fortinbras—not nice people like you, me, and the Rat" (this was their unkind and meaningless name for—me, Miss Priscilla Picton Smith). "I don't much care what any one writes, of course. For I know that if ever you change your mind, you will do as you said, and send backyourhalf of the crooked sixpence. You need not put in a word along with it. Only just send the half of the sixpence by the registered letter post, and I shall understand. I promise to do the same by you.—Cissy."
Now it must long have been clear that my brother Hugh John is as careless about his own concerns as he is careful for other people. He naturally took Cissy at her word, and having a conscience quite void of reproach with regard to Elizabeth Fortinbras or any other, very naturally thought no more about the matter.
But he should have been cautious how he disposed of the letter—in the fire, for choice. Only, you see, that was not Hugh John's way. He stuck it in his pocket-book, and pulled it out with his handkerchief just in time for Mrs. Nipper Donnan, on her way home with her groceries, to find it. In the little skin-covered book (which had once been "imitation shark"), wrapped in a piece of tissue-paper, was also the half of a crooked sixpence.
Next morning but two, in far-away Paris, in front of a tall plastered house with big barren windows, Miss Cecilia Carter, walking to and fro with two of her companions, had an odd-looking, ill-addressed packet put into her hand. She opened it with a little glow of expectation—and there in her hand lay the other half of the crooked sixpence!
Cissy Carter did not faint. She did not cry out. There is no record, even, that she went pale. At any rate the school registers bear out the fact that a quarter of an hour after she took her lesson in "theory" from the music-master, Herr Rohrs. She only felt that something had broken within her—something not to be mended or ever set right, something she could not even have the relief of speaking about as the French girls did, rhapsodizing eternally about the officers who rode past the gate, slacking the speed of their horses a little that they might stare up the avenue along which the young girls walked two-and-two, also on the look-out for them.
She had told Hugh John often just what had happened. She had cast it in his face, when the pretty spite of her temper got the better of her, that, some day or other, it would come to this. But in her heart of hearts she had never really thought so for a moment.
Hugh John untrue! Oh, no!Thatwas impossible! It did not enter into the scheme of things.
Yes, certainly, twice, in a fit of "the pet," she had sent hers back to Hugh John. But this was different—oh, so different! How different, only those who knew Hugh John could understand. Whenhedid such a thing, he meant something by it. Hugh John had no silly flashes of temper—like a girl—like her, Cissy Carter.
So she thought to herself as she went about her work, the rodent which we children call the "Sorrow Rat" gnawing all day at her heart, the noise of the class-rooms, ordinarily so deafening, dull and distant in her ear.
All over! Yes, it was all over. Hugh John had wished it so, and from that, she well knew, there was no appeal! And there was (I know it well) one sad little heart the more in that great city of Paris, where (if one must believe the books) there are too many already.
But Cissy did not take offense, and I had my weekly letter as usual. Perhaps it was a little more staid, a little less "newsy," and her interest in Herr Rohrs not quite so profound. But really I put all that down to the cold and headache of which Cissy complained in a postscript—and, not even there, was there a hint as to the other half of the crooked sixpence! Which is a record for one woman—girl, I mean—writing to another.
Hugh John was anything but sentimental, and it was not his habit to take out the relic wrapped in the tissue-paper oftener than the rearrangement of his scanty finances compelled. He would just give his pocket a slap, and if he felt a lump—why, he thought no more about the matter. He was preparing for college, and, knowing no reason why he should be uneasy, he had immersed himself in his books. He had not the smallest idea that the sharkskin purse, empty, lay in Mrs. Nipper Donnan's drawer, or that the two pieces of the crooked sixpence were wrapped together in the same tissue-paper in far-away Paris.
While these things were pending, I went one day to the north side of Edam Water to call upon Ada Winter. I had known Ada at school—not in the same class or term, of course, but just because we came from the same place we nodded, if we were not in too great a hurry, when we crossed each other in the playground.
It was not much, but I have noticed that you get more fond of school after you have left it a while. Before, it was "the beastly hole," "Treadmill House," and other pretty little innocent names. Immediately after leaving school, however, it became "the dear old place," a little walled Paradise; and we used to go regularly to the station to see the girls who were still there going off "with smiling faces veiling sad hearts," as Hugh John said—and, of course, as I know now, wishing us all at Jericho.
At any rate I called upon Ada Winter, and among other things we talked about the choir practice at our church, and I asked Ada why she did not go. You see, she had been with me in the school choir, where, as in most choirs, they put the pretty girls in front. (No, I shan't tell where I sat, not I!)
"Why," said Ada, with an inflection which would have been bitter but for its sadness, "why I can't go to choir practice is not because I have lost my voice, as mother tells everybody. But because mother wants to go herself! Some one has got to stay at home."
"But Mrs. Winter—but your mother," I began, "she does not——"
"I know—I know—you need not repeat it," cried Ada, feeling for her handkerchief in a quick, nervous way she always had. "Mother cannot sing a note, and every one there makes fun of the way she dresses! Oh, don't I know!"
And she dabbed at her eyes, while I tried to think of something to say—something that obstinately kept away. I wanted to comfort her, you see, but you have no idea till you have tried how difficult it is to comfort (or even to answer) a girl who talks about her mother like that.
Of course I knew very well that it was all true. Mrs. Winter's youthful toilettes and girlish airs were the talk of the "visiting" good wives of Edam—and very respectable and noticing women these were, even beyond the average of a Scottish "neighborhood"—half village, half town—which is, they say, the highest in the world.
The men thought Mrs. Winter merely "nice looking." A few found her even "nice," and mentioned the fact at home! (Poor ignorant wretches, they deserved what they got!) Was it not evident to every woman (with eyes) in the congregation that Mrs. Winter was obviously, and with malice aforethought, setting her cap at the Reverend Cosmo Huntly, the newly-elected minister of the parish kirk in Edam?
No matter! I had been brought up in the ancient way, and (at least knowingly) I had not forsaken it.
I thought of the "Honor thy father and thy mother," and during the rest of my visit the words lay uncomfortably in the background of my mind.
But for the moment old comradeship prevailed. Even a queer little shamefaced tenderness somehow came over me.
"Poor Ada," I said, "itisa shame. You never get anywhere! We have all the fun, and you have to stop on here in this pokey place!"
"Oh, no," said Ada, dry-eyed, "you forget. There are the hens. When any one calls, mother sends me out to the back to feed the hens!"
We were speaking quietly on the doorstep of a quiet old house in the little main street. The lobby was dusky behind, and the settled smell of ancient furniture, perfectly kept for generations, came through the open door to mingle with the sharp sting of tar, and boats, and the sea which breathed up from the tidal river as through a funnel.
As we stood together silent for a moment, both a little moved and strange, even with one another, we heard a quick, decided tread. And round the corner came Ada's mother, "Young Mrs. Winter" as she was called, to distinguish her from Ada's grandmother, "Old Mrs. Winter," who lived in the little cottage by the Ryecroft Bridge at the other end of the town.
"Come, Ada," said her mother, "take Prissy in if you want to speak to her. I thought I had told you how much I dislike your standing gossiping on doorsteps like servant maids."
"Thank you, Mrs. Winter," I said very quietly. "I must go home. Father will want me to pour out his tea."
And Ada Winter did not press me to stay, but only shut the door, with a glance at me, and a sigh as her mother rustled up-stairs to "change for the evening."
Now of course it is true that the people of Edam gossip about Young Mrs. Winter. But, to make things quite equal all round, Young Mrs. Winter can give any one of them points at their own game! And she has her own way of doing it too. She is never nasty about it, never spiteful. She looks far too plump for that. She is rather like those people in the Bible who make broad their phylacteries, and thank God in their prayers that they are not as other men are. It says "men" in the text (I looked it up), but I think it must have been women who were really meant. For, about Edam at least, it is mostlytheywho give thanks that they are not as other women are!
Well, at any rate, Young Mrs. Winter was that kind of gossip—oh, far too good-natured ever to say an ill word about any one! But, on the other hand, always "so very sorry" for the people she did not like that she left everybody with the impression that she was in possession of the darkest and deadliest secrets concerning them. Only she wassogood andsokind that she only sympathized with these naughty people, instead of (as no doubt she could) putting them altogether outside the pale of society. She did this most often at afternoon teas. Then her sighs could be heard all over the room. They quenched conversation. They aroused curiosity, and in five minutes half tea-sipping Edam knew to how much original sin Miss So-and-so had recently added so many new and unedited actual transgressions. But for the unfortunate impression thus unwittingly given of course poor Young Mrs. Winter was by no means responsible. Indeed, she gently sighed as she went away. "It issucha pity!" she said feelingly, as her hostess accompanied her to the door.
Mrs. Winter the Younger dealt at Nipper Donnan's—both on account of the superior quality of the meat, and, still more, because there she encountered a kindred spirit—no, not the Reverend Cosmo Huntly, but Mrs. Nipper Donnan herself. It was not long before Young Mrs. Winter knew all about the abominable devices of Elizabeth Fortinbras, the terrible loss to the legitimate heir, Nipper, brought about by the cunning of a certain Hugh John, the weakness (if no worse) of the elder Donnans—in fact, all, and a great deal more, than Mrs. Nipper knew herself!
One evening, going into the shop during Nipper's absence on his "cattle-buying business" among the farms, Young Mrs. Winter found still younger Mrs. Donnan in a state of great excitement. She had just been wrapping up a parcel, and was aching for a confidant.
No, of course Young Mrs. Winter would never, never betray a secret. Was she not known and noted for that one thing? Had she not suffered grievously and been much spoken against for that very fault, if fault, indeed, it were? Mrs. Nipper might ask all Edam.
There was not, of course, time for that, because Mrs. Nipper was so keen on the track of a confidant.
It had to come out. The dam burst suddenly. There was now no means of holding it back. Meg Linwood's private sense of injustice was increased a thousandfold by the purring sympathy of Young Mrs. Winter.
No, indeed, she would not sit down under it. She was not now a "slavey" to be treated like that. She had had quite enough! And so on and so on. Young Mrs. Winter incautiously suggested an appeal to Mrs. Nipper's husband, and so very nearly cut off the whole book of the revelation in mid-gush.
"Oh, no!" cried Mrs. Nipper, "above all things Nipper must know nothing about it!Hewould not understand!"
Young Mrs. Winter threw up her hands with a little gesture of despair, as much as to say, "I do not quite see, in that case, what is to be done in the matter!"
Then came the dread secret.
"I have paid them off myself. But oh—it is a great secret! Nipper would never forgive me—he thinks so much of that Hugh John Picton Smith!"
"Tell me all about it," purred Young Mrs. Winter. "You know I never speak again of things which have been told me in confidence!"
And, indeed, there was more of truth in the statement than the lady herself was aware of. For there were but few people in Edam so foolish as to tell Young Mrs. Winter even what their chickens had had for dinner!
"Oh, they shall not mock at me any more," said Mrs. Nipper, half crying with anger, half trembling at her own temerity.
The Meg Linwood of the back kitchen had not got over her former wholesome dread of correction. And in her secret heart she always feared (and perhaps also a little hoped) that one day Nipper, put out of patience by her tricks, would snatch up a stick and give her the same sort of moral lesson by which the late Mr. Linwood had recalled his family to a sense of their duty. "They shall not mock at me—yes, I know they do—because I was once a servant." (How little she knew either Hugh John or Elizabeth, if the accusation were made seriously!) "But I have shown them that they cannot tamper with me!"
"But how—tell me how you did it?" said Young Mrs. Winter, sinking her voice to a whisper.
"I found a letter," said Meg in a solemn whisper, and putting her mouth close to the ear of her listener, "yes, a letter—from that Carter girl in Paris to Hugh John Picton Smith."
"Never!" cried Young Mrs. Winter, clasping her hands together in a kind of ecstasy. Then, fearing she had gone too far, she said, "I should like to see it, but I suppose you sent it back immediately."
"I did nothing of the kind," Meg Linwood giggled. "I would not be so soft, though I have only been a servant—a common slavey, washing pans in the scullery, while my lady, all dressed up fine, sold candy in the front shop, and talked tothat Hugh John!"
Thus innocently did poor Meg Linwood lay bare to the experienced eyes of Young Mrs. Winter the secret springs of her jealousy.
"Itisa shame," murmured that lady sympathetically but vaguely.
And so, with a little persuasion, Meg Linwood told the whole story of the twin halves of the crooked sixpence as related in the letter found in the sharkskin purse.
Young Mrs. Winter felt that perhaps never had virtue been more its own reward. She was in sole possession of a secret that would assuredly set all Edam by the ears.
Presently she made her excuses to Mrs. Nipper Donnan, all simmering with sympathy till she was round the corner. And then she actually picked up her skirts and ran.
She had so many calls to make, so much to tell, and so little time to do it in. No wonder that Young Mrs. Winter was almost crushed by the weight of her own responsibilities. Suppose that she were to fall sick, or get run over, dying untimely "with all her music in her," as the poet says.
Unfortunately nothing of the kind occurred. The people she called on were at home. Nay, more, they had friends. These friends, as soon as they had heard, jostled each other in the lobbies. Nay, so great was their haste to be gone that they made the rudest snatches at each other's umbrellas!
Thus quickly was the tale of the crooked sixpence spread about in Edam. You see, the Davenant Carters were the greatest people in the parish, all the more so for not living in the town. And as for Hugh John, he also, though less known, was a citizen of no mean city.
I think it must have been about eight o'clock of a summer night—it was after dinner, anyway—when a ring came to the door bell, and Cairns went in the dining-room where Hugh John was rearranging the universe with father while he smoked. I was at the organ looking over some music, and trying over little bits very, very softly. Because at that time it is not allowed to interrupt the talk.
"A young lady on a bicycle to speak to Mr. Hugh John!" said Cairns.
Luckily I had turned a little on the music-stool, so I did not lose a faintest detail of what followed. I saw the single mischievous dimple come and go at the corner of father's cheek, but, as is his silent way, he only flicked the ash off his cigarette with his little finger, and said nothing.
"Will you excuse me for a moment, father?" said Hugh John, always master of himself, and consequently, nine times out of ten, of the other person as well. Father nodded gravely, and Hugh John went out.
I would have given all I possessed—not usually much at most—to have accompanied my brother. But a look from father checked me. As you can see from his books, it is not so very long since he was young himself. Though, of course, he seems fearfully old to us, I know he does not feel that way himself.
So perforce I had to wait patiently, turning over that dreary music till somebody came into the room, and then I was released. I knew it was Elizabeth Fortinbras who was outside, but for all that I did not even go to the door to see.
After what seemed a very long while Hugh John came in. He was looking rather pale.
"Can I go to the Edam Post Office?" he asked. "I shall not be long."
But though he asked politely, he was gone almost before permission could be given.
He told me all about it when he came back. I had been at the window, and had seen Hugh John and Elizabeth Fortinbras ride off together. For any one who saw them there was but one thing to think. They looked so handsome that any other explanation seemed inadmissible. Only we at home knew different.
"Sis," he said, when at last we got out to the gun-room, which father uses occasionally for smoking in, "there never was a girl like Elizabeth Fortinbras!"
At this I whistled softly—a habit for which I am always being checked, and as often forgetting.
"And what about Cissy Carter?" I asked.
He looked at me once with a kind of "If-you-have-any-shame-in-thee, girl, prepare-to-shed-it-now" manner, before which I quailed. Then he told me how Elizabeth had ridden out to tell him of the treachery of Meg Linwood. Together they had made out an urgency telegram, had found the post-master, and had dispatched it to Paris that very night.
It said: "Half silver token lost. If sent you by mischievous persons, please return immediately to its owner, Hugh John Picton Smith."
"And that, I think, covers the case—she will understand!" said Elizabeth Fortinbras.
But low in her own heart, as she rode up the long steep street to New Erin Villa, she added the rider, "That is, if she is not a goose!"
But, alas! Cissy Carterwasa goose! In the well-meant telegram she saw only a new machination of the enemy—perhaps even of Elizabeth Fortinbras. And the heart in the Boulevard d'Argenson became, for the moment, sadder than ever. Also Madame asked for an explanation in a tone to which the proud little daughter of Colonel Davenant Carter had been quite unaccustomed. She resented Madame Rolly's interference rather more sharply than wisely. Whereupon she was told that her father would be requested to remove her, if, on the morrow, she was not ready with an explanation, in addition to the apology which Madame, perhaps correctly, considered her due.
Now it chanced that Colonel Carter, finding himself with a week-end to spare in London, had crossed the Channel to give himself the treat (and his daughter the surprise) of dropping in upon her unexpectedly. He could not have come more to the purpose so far as that daughter was concerned. Or more malapropos from the point of view of Madame Rolly.
As many people know, the good Colonel, once the devoted slave of Sir Toady Lion, was occasionally exceedingly peppery. And when he arrived with his pockets bulging with good things, only to find "his little girl" in tears—and, indeed, brought hastily down from the room in which she had been locked—his military ardor exploded.
"If, Madame," he is reported to have said, "I am to understand that you cannot keep discipline without having resort to methods more suitable to a boy of eight than to a young lady of eighteen, it is time that I undertook the responsibility myself! Cecilia, go up to your room. I will settle with Madame. And by the time that is done—the—ah—baggage-cart will be at the door—as sure as my name is G-rrrrrumph—G-rrrumph—G-rrrummph!"
And, indeed, the "baggage-cart" (in the shape of a small omnibus) was at the door. Although really, you know, the Colonel's name was not as he himself affirmed.
"And now, Missy," growled the Colonel in his finest Full-Bench-of-Justices manner, "kindly tell me what you have been doing!"
For, very characteristically, the Colonel, though entirely declining to listen to a word of accusation against his daughter from Madame Rolly, reserved to himself the right of distributing an even-handed justice afterwards. His method on such occasions is just the reverse of father's, as we have all learned to our cost. Our father would have listened gravely to all that Madame had to recount of our misdeeds. Then he would have nodded, remarked, "You did perfectly right, Madame! In anything that you may propose, I will support you—so long, that is, as I judge it best that my child shall remain at your school!" For father's first principle in all such matters is, "Support authority—receive or make no complaints—and, above all, work out your own salvation, my young friend!"
And though it sometimes looks a bit hard at the time, as Hugh John says, "It prepares a fellow for taking his own part in the world, as you soon find you have jolly well to do if you mean to get on."
But Cissy knew her father, and promptly set herself to cry as heartbrokenly as she could manage on such short notice. Colonel Davenant Carter gazed at her a moment with a haughty and defiant expression. But as Toady Lion had once said of him, "I teached him to come the High Horsicle wif ME!" So now, as the rickety omnibus jogged and swayed over the Parisian cobbles, Cissy wept ever more bitterly, till the old soldier had to entreat her to stop. They would, so it appeared, soon be at his hotel. Even now they were passing his club, and "that old gossiping beast, Repton Reeves," was at the window. If it got about that he, Colonel Davenant Carter, had been seen driving down the Rue de Rivoli with a damsel drowned in floods of tears—why, by all the bugles of Balaclava, he would never hear the end of it. He might as well resign at the club. All which, as Cissy sobbed out in the French language, was "exceedingly equal" to her! But it was very far indeed from being "égal" to the peppery Colonel. And at last, as the sobs increased in carry and volume, he was reduced to the ignominious expedient of personal bribery.
"Look here, Cissy," he said in tremulous tones, "we absolutelycan'tgo into the courtyard of the Grand Hotel like this! Now, if you will be a good girl, and will stop this instant, I will drive you up the Rue de la Paix, and there I will buy——!"
"What?" said Cissy, looking up with eyes that still brimmed ready for action.
"A gold bracelet!" said her father tentatively, but still quite uncertain of his effect.
"Boohoo!" said Cissy Carter, dropping her face once more between her hands.
"Goodness gracious," cried the Colonel, invoking his favorite divinity, "what can the girl want? A gold watch, then?"
"Real gold this time, then!" said Cissy, who had been "had" once before, and, even with an aching heart, was properly cautious.
"You shall do the choosing yourself!" said her father, thinking that he had conquered. But Cissy knew her opportunity—and the relative whom fate had given her. The tears welled again. Her bosom was shaken by timely sobs.
"Well, what then, Celia—really, this becomes past bearing! Why, we are nearly at the hotel!"
Cissy glanced up quickly. "A gold braceletwitha gold watch, then!" she sighed gently.
And this is the truth, and the whole truth, as to why Colonel Davenant Carter gave his arm to a radiant and beautiful daughter in the courtyard of the Grand Hotel—a daughter, also, who lifted up a prettily-gloved hand (twelve buttons), and at every fourth steplooked at the time!
Miss Cecilia Davenant Carter had been at home a good many weeks before she came to see me. Of course Hugh John was now at college, and doubtless that made a difference. But she had never stayed away so long before, and whatever reason Cissy might have to be angry with Master Hugh John, she had not the least right to take it out on ME!
However, she came at last—chiefly, I think, to show me the gold watch on her wrist. This she wanted so badly to do that it must have hurt her dreadfully to stay away as long as she did. So she sat fingering it, but not running to ask me to admire it, as a girl naturally does. Of course I took no notice, though it made me feel mean. We talked about the woods and the autumn tints (schoolgirls always like these two words—they remind them that it is the season for blackberries and jam), till at last I was thoroughly ashamed of myself. So I went over to Cissy, and said, "I think that's the prettiest bracelet I ever saw in all my life!"
And she said, "Do you?" looking up at me funnily. "Do you really?" she repeated the words, looking straight at me.
"Yes, I do indeed!" I answered. And—what do you think?—the next moment she was crying on my shoulder! Of course I understood. Every girl will, without needing to be told. And as for men (and "Old Cats"), it is no use attempting to explain to them. They never could know just how we two felt.
But Cissy had really nothing in the least "catty" about her. "Quite the reverse, I assureyou!" as the East Country folk say. She even took it off and let me try it on without ever warning me to be careful with it. And that, you know, is a good deal for a girl who is "not friends" with your own brother, and has only had a new "real-gold" watch-bracelet for three or four weeks.
But then, Cissy could never be calm and restful like Elizabeth Fortinbras. Cissy did everything in a rush, and so, I suppose, got somehow closer to the heart of our impassive Hugh John just on that account. Elizabeth Fortinbras was too like my brother to touch him "where he lived," as Sir Toady would say.
Well, after a while Cissy stopped crying, and took my handkerchief without a word and quite as a matter of course (which showed as clearly as anything how things stood between us).
Then she said, "Priss, do you know, I did an awfully mean thing, and I want you to help me to make it all right again!"
In a book, of course (a proper book, I mean), I ought to have asked Ciss all sorts of questions, and said that in everything which did not affect the honor of the house of Picton Smith I was at her service. And so on.
But of course ordinary girls don't talk like that now-a-days. If you have what our sweet Maid calls a "snarl" against anybody—why, mostly every one plays hockey now, and it is the simplest thing in the world to "take a drive at her shins, and say how sorry you are afterwards"! So at least (the Maid informs me) some girls, who shall be nameless, have been known to do at her school.
I waited for Cissy to tell me of the dreadfully mean thing she had done. But of course I assured her first that, whatever it was—yes,whatever—I should do just what she wanted done to help her. For I knew she would do the same for me.
Then she told me that in her first anger about the telegram—for she had been far more angry about that than about the sending back the other half of the crooked sixpence—a thing which really mattered a thousand times more (but of course that was exactly like a girl!)—she had put the telegram, and both parts of the crooked sixpence, and all of Hugh John's letters she could find—chiefly the short and simple annals of a Rugby "forward"—in a lozenge-box—and (here Cissy dropped her voice)sent them all, registered, to Elizabeth Fortinbras!
"To Elizabeth—Elizabeth Fortinbras!" I cried. Here was a new difficulty. If only people would not do things in a hurry, as Hugh John says, they would mostly end by not doing them at all!
"What sort of a girl is this Elizabeth Fortinbras?" Cissy Carter asked. "She is only a shop-girl after all, isn't she?"
I set Cissy right on this head. There were shop-girlsandshop-girls. And this one not only came of a respectable ancestry, but had been well educated, was the heiress of Erin Villa, and would succeed to one of the best businesses in Edam!
"Is she pretty?"
Oh, of course I had foreseen the question. It was quite inevitable, and there was but one thing to say—
"Come to the shop and see for yourself!"
But Cissy hung back. You see, she had done a perfectly mad thing, and yet was not quite ready to make it up with the person concerned—especially when Cissy was Colonel Davenant Carter's only daughter just home from Paris, and when, in spite of my explanations, Elizabeth was little more to her than a "girl behind a counter"!
You may be sure that I put her duty before her—yes, plainly and with point. But Cissy had in her all the pride of the Davenant Carters, and go she would not, till I told her plump and plain that she was afraid!
My, how that made her jump! She turned a little pale, rose quietly, adjusted her hat at the mirror, took off her watch-bracelet and gave it to me to keep for her.
"I will go and see this Elizabeth Fortinbras now—and alone!" she said, with that nice quiet dignity which became her so well. I would greatly have liked to have gone along with her. But, first of all, she had not asked me, and, secondly, I knew that I had better not.
Cissy Carter had to see Elizabeth alone. Only they could arrange matters. Still, of course, both of them told me all about it afterwards, and it is from these two narratives that the following short account is written out.
Elizabeth was in the front shop, busy as a bee among the sweet things, white-aproned, and wearing dainty white armlets of linen which came from the wrist to above the elbow. Then these two looked at each other as only girls do—or perhaps more exactly, attractive young women of about the same age. Boys are different—they behave just like strange dogs on being introduced, sulky and ready to snarl. A young man seems to be wondering how such a contemptible fellow as that other fellow could possibly have gained admittance to a respectable house. Only experienced women can manage the business properly, putting just the proper amount of cordiality into the bow and handshake. Grown men—most of them, that is—allow their natural feeling of boredom to appear too obviously.
At any rate Cissy and Elizabeth took in each other at a glance, far more searching and exhaustive as to "points" than ever any man's could be. Then they bowed to each other very coldly.
"Will you come this way?" said Elizabeth, instantly discerning that Cissy had not come to New Erin Villa as a customer. Accordingly she led the way into the little sitting-room, all in pale creamycretonnewith old-fashioned roses scattered upon it, which her own taste and the full purse of Ex-Butcher Donnan had provided for her.
"Be good enough to take a seat," said Elizabeth Fortinbras. But she herself remained standing.
Now you never can tell by which end a girl—or a woman, for that matter—will tackle anything. All that you can be sure of is that it will not be the obvious and natural one—the one nearest her hand. So Cissy, instead of coming right out with her confession and having done with it, began by asking Elizabeth if she knew a Mr. Hugh John Picton Smith.
"He is my friend!" said Elizabeth, very quiet and grave, standing with one hand in the pocket of her apron and the other hanging easily by her side.
"And nothing more?" said Cissy, looking up at her very straight.
"I must first know by what right you ask me that question!" said Elizabeth. And then, her lips quivering (I know exactly how) a long minute between pride and pitifulness, Cissy did the best thing in the world she could have done to soften Elizabeth Fortinbras. She struggled an instant with herself. Her pride gave way exactly as it had with me, and she began to sob quietly and continuously.
Elizabeth took one step towards her. Presently her cool, strong arms were about Cissy's neck, who struggled a second or two like a captive bird, and then the next Elizabeth was soothing her like an elder sister.
"Yes, dear, I know—I know! You did a foolish thing. But then it was to me. I understood! I understand! It does not matter! No one else need know!"
Then, in a voice quiet as the falling of summer rain among the misty isles of the West, Elizabeth added, "Not even Hugh John!"
I think we were all a bit unstrung after this. It was a good many weeks before Cissy could bring herself to speak about Elizabeth Fortinbras, and then it was in a rush, as, indeed, she did everything. It was one afternoon, over at Young Mrs. Winter's. Mrs. Christopher Camsteary (who always was as superior as a pussy-cat with a new blue ribbon about her neck, all because her husband kept three gardeners, one of whom blacked the Camsteary boots) happened to remark that there was "a rather ladylike girl" in those butcher-people's sweet-shop opposite the station.
"Sheisa lady!" said Cissy Carter, lifting up her proud little chin with an air of finality.
And, indeed, there was, in Edam at least, no discussing with Miss Davenant Carter on such a matter. Mrs. Christopher Camsteary, whose husband, greatly to his credit, had made a large fortune in cattle-feeding oilcake ("in the wholesale, of course, you know, my dear!"), could not, even if she had wished, contradict the daughter of ten generations of Davenant Carters as to who was a lady and who not! So it was settled that, whenever Cissy Carter was in the room, Elizabeth Fortinbras was a lady. Which must have been a great comfort to her!
Well, the following summer-time when the good days came—perhaps because everybody, including even Hugh John, was a little tired and "edgy"—father took us all off to his own country.
I was the one who had seen the most of it before, as you may see if ever you have read the book calledSweetheart Travelersthat father wrote about our gypsyings and goings-on. Of course (all our family say "of course"—and it all fills up first-rate when the man comes to count the pages up for printing)—well, of course I had forgotten a good deal about it, only I read over the book on the sly, and so was posted for everything as it came along.
This time we did not go on "The-Old-Homestead-on-Wheels," as we called the historic tricycle, but in the nicest and biggest of all wagonettes, with two lovely horses driven by a friend of ours with a cleverness which did one's heart good to see. His name was "Jim." We called him so from the first, and he was dreadfully nice to all of us, because he had been at school with father. This made us think for a good while that it was because of his superior goodness and cleverness there that so many people were glad to remember that they had been at school with father. Jim, when we asked him, said that it was so, but Hugh John immediately smelt a rat. So he asked another and yet older friend of father's, named Massa—because, I think, he sang negro melodies so beautifully. (Who would have thought that they sang "coon" songs so long ago?—but I suppose it was really just a kind of "boot-room music," or the sort of thing they play on board trip-steamers, when the trombone is away taking up a collection, and everybody is moving to the other side of the deck!) Well, Massa came along with us and Jim one lovely Saturday to see the place where my great-grandmother had kept sheep "on the bonny banks of the Cluden" a full hundred years ago.
Somehow I always liked that. It means more to a girl than even father's misdeeds, the hearing about which amuses the boys so.
However, it really was about those that I began. So, reluctantly, I must leave the little hundred-year-old girl keeping her sheep on the green holms of Cluden, and tell about father and his wonderful influence. Massa said that we were not to tell on him, and of course we promised. This is nottelling, but only writing all about it down in my Diary—quite a different thing. Well, Massa said that when "Mac" and he had "done anything," they used to climb up different trees as quickly as they could, and then, when father came after them (he was not our father then, of course, but only Roman Dictator and Tyrant of Syracuse), he could only get one of them. For while he was climbing the tree occupied by one, the other could drop out of the branches and cut and run. It was a good way, especially for Number Two, who got away—not quite so fine, though, for Number One, who was caught. Whenever a new boy visited the town and the Dictator was seen coming along, they ran the stranger up a tree and introduced him from there, as it were, lest, by mistake, a worse thing should befall him! Really it is difficult to believe all this, even when Massa swears it. Because father, if you let his pet books alone and don't make too big a row outside thechâletwhen he is working, hardly minds at all what you do. We don't really recognize him in the Roaring Lion, going about seeking whom he might devour, of Mr. Massa's legends.
So Sir Toady, in the interests of public information, asked Mr. Massa if the boys of that time were not pretty bad. And Mr. Massa said that they were, but that "they were not a patch on your——" He stopped just at the word "your," for father was coming round the corner. And, do you know, I don't believe he has quite lost his influence with Mr. Massa even now. It is a fine thing, Hugh John says, to be such a power for good among your fellows. He had that sort of power himself at school, and he managed to keep it, even though fellows ever so much bigger came while he was there.
Well, no matter; what I keep really in my heart, or maybe like an amulet about my neck, is the memory of the little hundred-year-old girl (that is, shewouldbe if she were alive now) tending sheep and twining daisy-chains on the meadows by the Water of Cluden, with the Kirk of Iron-gray glinting through the trees, and Helen Walker (which is to say Jeanie Deans) calling in the cows to be milked at the farm across the burn.
Now I don't know howyoufeel, but the story of this great-grandmother of mine always seems sort of kind and warm and sacred to me, a mixture of the stillness of an old-fashioned Sabbath and the first awakening hush when you remember that it is your birthday—a sort of religious fairyland, if you know what I mean—like "playing house" (oh, such a long time ago!) with Puck and Ariel and the Queen of the Fairies, while several of the very nicest people out of the Bible stories sat in the shade and watched—perhaps Ruth and, of course, her mother-in-law, and David when he was very young, and kept sheep also. He would certainly come to see our play—his shepherd's crook in his hand, and his eye occasionally taking a survey of great-grandmother's flocks and herds to see that there were no lions or bears about!
Yes, I know it's fearfully silly. Of course it is. But, all the same, I have oftener put myself happily to sleep thinking about that, and with the music of the Cluden Water low in my ear, than with all the wisdom that ever I learned at school! So there!
Of course you mustn't suppose that at the time I said a word of all this even to the Maid, much less to the others. Though I do think that father, who knows a lot of things without being told, partly guessed what I was thinking of. For once when we had all got down to gather flowers, he led me down to the water's edge, and, pointing across the clear purl of the stream to the opposite bank (where is a little green level, with, in the midst, a still greener Fairy Ring), he took my hand and, standing behind me, pointed with it. "It was there!" he whispered.
He did not say a word more. But that was enough. I understood, and he knew that I understood. It was like the old days when we made our travels together, he and I, with the Things of the Wide World running back past us, all beautiful and all sweet as dreaming of plucking flowers in the kindly shade of woods.
Soon after this, on our journey through father's country, we came to a little village—the cleanest and dearest that ever was seen. It was the one after which father had called one of his early books of verse—"Dulce Cor." Here we were very happy, for there was a lovely old Abbey, roofless, of course, but all blooming like one great rose when the sun shone on it at evening and morning. The colors of the stones were so rich with age and mellowing that from the little walk on the other side of the valley it seemed as if the whole had been dipped for a thousand years in a bath of sunset clouds, and then left out among the cornstooks to dry! Even more beautiful and kindly was a certain nice Doctor—only he wasn't the sort that come to see you when you are ill, to tap you on the back and write prescriptions. He took me to see the Abbey, and told me about the Last of all the Abbots, who was so kind that the people would not let him be sent away, but kept him always hidden here and there among them. And about how he died at long and last, "much respected and deeply regretted," as the papers say, even by those who did not go to his church—which, indeed, very few in these parts did.
And though it was, of course, foolish, and I would never have said it to the Doctor himself for worlds, I could not help thinking that this Last of all the Abbots (Gilbert Brown, I think his name was) must have been a good deal like this friend of mine, with his beautiful silvery head, and maybe the same gentle break in his voice when he gave out such a text as "I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."
We went through the cornfields very early next morning, father and I. It was Sunday, at dawn or a little after. The dew was still on all the little fairy cobwebs, but the sun had been before us in getting out of bed, and now was busy as he could be, drinking up the dew. We had to cross the churchyard under the big eastern side of the Abbey, all drowned in level sunshine, yellow as primrose-beds. We crossed a stile, and there, pacing slowly, his hands behind his back, saffron cornstooks on his one side and five centuries of well-peopled holy ground on the other, was the minister. He did not see us—lost in high thoughts, his lips moving with the unspoken prayer.
"Come away," whispered father, hurrying me along. "He speaks with his Master! A stranger intermeddleth not therewith!"
Then I did not know very well what he meant, nor did I ask. Only the two of us slipped down where, beyond the cornfields, a little road, all fern-grown, saunters half hidden; and where, a bit farther on, there is a bridge and a burn in which, in the daytime, children play and women wash their linen. But this morning all was still and quiet—as father said, "with the Peace of Jubilee, when all the land had rest!" I like to hear things like that—things I only half understand, but can think over afterwards. They make me feel all nice and thrilly, like after a shower-bath—only it is a mind-bath, and not a body-bath! Perhaps a soul-bath, if I knew what that was.
We came back another way by a higher path, and through a lane of tall old trees. When we got to our inn, the door was closed just as we had left it, and not a soul astir. We had seen no one at all that Sabbath morn except the silver-haired minister, his hands behind his back—perhaps, as the Psalm says, looking to the hills from which cometh his aid. Going up-stairs, I opened my grandmother's Bible at the metrical Psalms, and the first words that met my eyes were these: "In Salem is his tabernacle—in Sion is his seat!" Now I will confess again that I always like texts and poems out of which I can take my own meaning, without being bothered with notes and explanations. And so I thought how that morning I had surely gone out by Salem His Tabernacle and come back by Sion His Holy Seat!
Ever such a lot of children whom I don't know have written to me to say how glad they were that I made father take me with him on his cycle such splendid long journeys. Because, you see,theirfathers read the book, and had a little seat fitted for them! On the other hand, I suppose parents write and abuse my father for putting such ideas into their little girls' heads. In fact, I know they do. Here is a true story. One irate old fellow wrote to say that "Sir Toady" was quite unfit to associate with clean and properly brought up children! And he put down the references, too, where Toadums had misbehaved, like you find them on the margin of a Bible! How he had sat down in the dusty road at page some-number-or-other, where he had omitted to blow his nose, how he had fought, and thrown mud, and generally broken every law laid down for the good conduct of little boys in the olden times—just exactly what Sir Toady used to do! As if father was responsible for all that! Well, hewas, in the old gentleman's opinion. For he ended with: "If only your little rascal of a hero weremyson, sir——!"
This amused my brother Toadums for quite a long time, and one day he sneaked the letter, and wrote himself to the old gentleman to say how that he had reformed, and now always went about with two pocket-handkerchiefs; also how, at school, he had founded the "Admiral Benbow Toilet Club," to which the annual subscription was five shillings.
Further, he expressed a willingness to propose the old gentleman's name at the next meeting, and in the meantime he suggested sending on the money! Yes—and would you believe it?—he actually got the five shillings, along with a very nice letter from the old gentleman, couched in a sort of Better-Late-than-Never strain. So Toady Lion, who can be honest when he tries very hard, wrote and asked the old chap whether he would prefer to have the brilliantine supplied by the club in bottle, or like paint in a squeezable tube. But the old gentleman replied that, being completely bald, Sir Toady had better consider himself as a new returned prodigal, and use the five shillings "to kill the fatted calf"! So we killed him, and the noise we made on the top of Low-Hill was spread abroad over three counties. A "gamey" came to tell us that we were trespassing. But we feasted him on the old man's five shillings, while Hugh John explained that there was no such thing as trespass, and Sir Toady, getting hold of the keeper's double-barrel, practiced on bowlders till he nearly slew a stray pointer dog! Then, after braying ourselves hoarse, we had fights, rebellions, revolutions, cabals, which always ended in pushing each other into pitfalls and peat-bogs. We tripped in knotted heather as we chased downhill, skirmishing and yelling. Even Hugh John forgot himself, and all returned home, sated with the slaughter of the old gentleman's fatted calf, tired to death, not a shout left in any of us, but, as it were, stained with mud and crime!
Ordinarily now Sir Toady has grown too old for the "sins and faults of youth" already set down against him. But sometimes he relapses—and then he has it bad. He does not say "roo" for "you" any more, but sometimes the house is afflicted for days with an exhibition of what Hugh John calls "Royal Naval Manners." Usually this occurs at table when father is absent, because Toady has a quite real respect for the Fifth Commandment, a respect gained at an early age, and ever since retained. But on this journey there were a good many opportunities. You see, we did not go to bed at the usual time. We got up when we liked, and I often had to say the prayers for the entire family. Because the boys shirked most shamefully, and the Maid was so sleepy with driving in the open air all day that she often would be found sound asleep on her knees when not carefully looked after.
"The spirit was willing, though the flesh was weak!" said our good old Doctor of the parish of "Dulce Cor." "I wish all my own prayers had as good a chance of being heard as this little sleeping child's!" After this Toady Lion declared that he would always say his prayers in the same way—asleep!
Well, of course you could not imagine—nobody could—the new and peculiar wickedness devised by Sir Toady. It was simplyboundto be a success. Besides which, it was perfectly safe; after what Mr. Massa had told up at the Communion Stones of Iron-gray, The Powers-That-Be could not say a word. Oh, the beautiful thing it is to have a friend of your youth with a good memory, and, above all, communicative and frank with your own children! Oh, I know that there are people who will say, with some outside show of reason, "Well, just be perfectly good when you are young, and then you don't need to fear the frankest of your intimate friends!"
This, of course, is rank nonsense, and nothing but! For that kind of very immaculate young person does not make the best sort of father or mother when the time comes. They don't know anything. They are not up to things, and get "taken the loan of," as the boys say in that rude but expressive speech of theirs. But it is not accounted healthy to "monkey" with ours, who generally can tell beforehand when you are going to do a thing, and after it is done (if you get the chance) will tell you—what very likely you didn't know before—whyyou did it. If, in spite of all, you get into scrapes, The Powers-That-Be usually sympathize. But (and this is the awkward part) they remember the remedy that proved effectual in former and more personal cases. That remedy is applied, and, generally speaking, the same result follows. With this experience we shall all make excellent heads of families, and shall hire ourselves out—if we do not happen to have any of our own! Only, we are glad that we came into the world too early to be part of Hugh John's family. His methods are altogether too Spartan. And we tell him that the plain English for the name of his favorite hero, Brutus (the one who cut his children's heads off), was just simply Brute!
To return to Sir Toady, we were at the time at the little seaside village of the Scaur. Mark Hill is behind it, and Rough Island in front. Nothing could possibly be more delightful. At every low tide, for two or three hours we could walk on a long pebbly trail which led seaward, the wash of the tides coming from two directions round the pleasant green shoulders of the Isle, epauletted with purple heather, and buttoned down the front with white sheep. What dainty coves! What pleasing, friendly-featured lambs with shiny black noses and goggle eyes! How tame the very gulls had become from never being shot at! There never was such a place as Rough Island for us, or, indeed, any children. Away to the right you could see Isle Rathan, certainly more famous in romance. But to go there you had to get kind Captain Cassidy to take you in his boat. And generally it ended (because the Captain is a busy man) in your staying with his wife, and seeing—and being the better for seeing—how the threatening of blindness at once sweetens and strengthens the life of a delicate woman. But to Rough Island we could go by ourselves, so be that we returned with the first flowing of the tide. There is a certain Black Skerry to the south which, when covered, announces to all concerned that haste of the hastiest kind had better be made. Of course we called it Signal Rock. But one fine September forenoon, when the light was mellow and gracious even on the rough slopes of the Island of our choice, Sir Toady set us all (that is, all the children) searching in sheltered coves and little pebbly bays for "leg-o'-mutton" shells—just, he said, what father used to do. It was the bottom of the "neaps," when the water does not go very far out—which, of course, every shore child would have known by instinct. But we were landward bred, and such distinctions as to the ebbing and flowing of salt water were too fine for us! But Sir Toady had had converse with the instructed. He had profited thereby. And so no one will be surprised that, by dint of keeping our backs to the Signal Rock, our noses pointing down, and our eyes well employed in the search for "legs-o'-mutton," we did not discover the treachery of Sir Toady till the Rock was covered, and there was no hope of return! None, that is, for most of us. But Sir Toady, already singing his song of triumph, had reckoned without his Hugh John!
That austere stickler for "The Proper-Thing-To-Do-You-Know" made one dash for the rapidly covering causeway, over which the tawny Solway water was already lapping and curling in little oozy whorls, like a very soap-suddy pot coming to the boil. He had only time to shout, "You, Sis, stay where you are! Take care of the Maid. I will make it all right with The-Folk-Over-There!"
And at first Toady Lion had laughed, thinking that for once the immaculate Hugh John would be caught along with the rest of us. He did not laugh, however, at all when he saw his elder brother take his watch out of his pocket and place it in his cap. He shouted out, "It's all right, Hugh John; Mr. Massa told me at Iron-gray that he and father often did it—spent ''Tween-Tides' on the Island. He will know all about it. Come back, you fool, you'll be drowned!"
But our Old Ironsides only shouted back over his shoulder that father and Mr. Massa had not passed their words to be in for lunch, and thathehad!
"If the People are anxious Over-Yonder, they can come and fetch us off in a boat. We can say that we forgot!"
But by this time Hugh John had made his first dash into the wimpling line of creamy chocolate, like a steamer's wake, which marked the causeway to the land. His last will and testimony came to us in the command to "Stay where we were!" And in the final far-heard rider that, "when he got him," he would quicken Sir Toady's uncertain memory by one of the most complete fraternal "hidings" on record.
All the same, as we watched him plod along, the tides sweeping in from both sides upon him, and the struggle swaying him now to one side and now to the other in the effort to keep his feet, Sir Toady burst into a kind of roar (which he now says is a "way they have in the Navy" for long-distance signaling, but which sounded to us very much like a howl). "Come back, Hugh John," he cried, "and I'll take the best 'whaling' you can give menow!"
But out in the brown pother the struggle went on. Hugh John never so much as turned his head. We stood white and gasping, all pretty close together, I can tell you. And once when we saw him swept from his feet and only recovered his balance with an effort—though my heart was in my throat, I said out loud to comfort the others, "Well, anyway, he has taken the school medal for swimming. He has it on him now!"
Then Sir Toady turned on me a face of scorn and anger. He pointed to the gush and swirl of the currents of Solway over the bank of pebbles. "Swim in that!" he cried, "no, he can't! No, nor nobody can. I tell you one of the best swimmers in Scotland was drowned over there in Balcary, within sight of his own house, and a man in a boat within stonethrow!"
But for all that, Toady himself pulled off his coat and waistcoat, and made him ready to go to the rescue (oh, how vainly!). So that in the long run the Maid and I had to hold him down on the beach, half weeping, half desperate, calling on Hugh John, his Hugh John, to come back and slay him upon the spot. As if he washisHugh John, any more than anybody else's Hugh John—and the two of them fighting like cat and dog nine-tenths of the time! But at times, when his elder brother is in danger or ill, Sir Toady is like that. Janet Sheepshanks speaks yet about his face when he came back from Crusoeing-it with Dinky and Saucy Easedale—all drawn and haggard and white it was. Well, it was like that now. I declare, he turned and struck at us every time that Hugh John stumbled, or looked like being carried away.
"See here, Sis," he gasped, "you let a fellow go, or I'll kill you. I will, mind—if anything happens to My Hugh John—I'll kill you for holding me back like this."
But at this very moment we began to see the lank figure of Hugh John rising higher out of the swirling scum. Presently he scrambled out on the steep beach of pebbles, all dripping. Then he gave himself a shake like a retriever dog, shook his fist at the distant Sir Toady, now sparsely equipped in fluttering linen: "Wait till I get you, you young beast! Just you wait!"
That was what he was saying as plain as print. But Sir Toady, completely reassured, only heaved a long sigh, murmuring, "That's all right!" And went on calmly putting on his clothes, and laughing at the Maid and me for having been frightened. He actually had the cheek to ask us what we had been crying about!