A Rich Man's Relatives Volume III Part 9

"He called on me with Jordan the night before, asking me to give up his uncle's money, which I hold in trust. You may have heard of the uncle's curious will, which tied up the money out of Ralph's reach.

Ah! he knew the rascal. I could not give up the money. It would have been a breach of trust. And so, the very next morning, he fires at me while I am swimming in the river. Fired and struck me. I tried to regain the boat, but I could not. I was crippled of an arm, and I sank, and know no more."

"Mr. Considine!" and Matilda rose and came to the sofa where he sat, her cheek blanched, and betraying an interest which made him feel glad that he had suffered, to call it forth.

"And--well, Mr. Considine, what then?"

"The next thing I knew, I was barely conscious; but I was on dry land, feeling sick and stupid, and more dead than alive. A whole crowd of people were about me, shaking me, punching me, pulling me, b.u.mping me, while I only wished they would let me alone, and let me die; for already I had gone through all the horrors of drowning, and this seemed like an after-death. And then I found myself among blankets, and some one--a witch she looked like--was forcing whisky down my throat, and fingering my wounded shoulder. I was drowsy and miserable, and, thinking I was already dead, I wondered if all this was for my sins. And then I slept, I suppose, for when I woke next it was dark or nearly so; and there was a jolting and rumbling which set my poor shoulder aching miserably; and I tried to sit up, but some one pushed me down again and bade me keep still. When I looked, the witch was perched upon my pillow, with the moonlight slanting through her grisly hair, and a long skinny arm pressing me down. She forced more whisky into my mouth, and then I slept."

"Oh! Mr. Considine. What an experience!"

"I woke again, and it was daylight, and the old hag seated on my pillow had fallen asleep. I sat up slowly and with difficulty, for I was stiff and sore. I was in a waggon under a tree. I tried to rise, but could find nothing save my blanket to dress in. The hag opened her eyes and looked at me, and grinned, and asked me what I wanted to do.

I said,' to go home,' and then she laughed out, pointing to me, and reminding me I had no clothing; and at the sound of her voice there gathered round a whole crowd of swarthy vagabonds, grinning at me, and jeering, and when I looked at them, one rascal was wearing my coat, and another kicked up his heels and showed me my boots. A pimpled baby was rolled up in my nice clean shirt, and the captain of the gang pulling my watch out of his pocket, told me it was only five o'clock, and a heap too early for 'a swell cove' to think of rising. I was their prisoner, in short, though I must confess the old woman attended to my wounded shoulder very kindly; bathing it with cool water several times a day, and bandaging it as well as one of our surgeons could have done during the war. They kept me several days with them, in their journeyings and campings, travelling by all kinds of bye-ways and unfrequented places, and keeping me concealed whenever strangers came about the camp. They crossed the Lines, by-and-bye, and travelled into the States. I knew that by the nasal Yankee tw.a.n.g of the strangers' voices, though great care was taken that I should not get speech of them--and then, one day, the captain, the fellow, at least, who wore my watch, told me he thought I was strong enough to travel now, and if I would give them some money to buy me clothes, and pay for the care they had taken of me, I might go my ways. I was so helplessly in their power, that we did not haggle long about the price, though it was a pretty steep one. I wrote them a cheque, which they carried to a neighbouring bank, and so soon as my bankers had honoured it I was set at liberty. I put in a bad time, Miss Matilda, I promise you; but, if you will believe me, what vexed me most of all was to think how I had kept you waiting, and never been able to send a word of excuse. When I was drowning in the river, it was my very last thought, I remember, and when I came to myself it was my first."

"Oh! Mr. Considine. How very nice of you to say so. But don't! It is really too dreadful. It is horrible. I never did hear anything so frightful. And you say that Ralph Herkimer did this abominable deed?

Are you sure you are not mistaken? Or it may have been an accident."

"Not a bit of it. I saw him as plain as I see you, and it was no accident. I saw him shoulder his gun to fire again, while I was struggling in the water, in case I had succeeded in gaining my boat."

"You will have him taken up, Mr. Considine? It seems wrong--and dangerous to leave such a person at large."

"I would if it were not for his wife. But you know how she would suffer. She never would be able to show face again. No! For her sake I mean to let the thing pa.s.s; and you must promise me, Miss Matilda, you will never mention it."

"How n.o.ble of you! Mr. Considine. I shall never be able to look at the ruffian again. And his son is here constantly. But we must put a stop to that. It will vex poor Muriel, I fear, but she will see the reason of the thing. You will allow me to explain to Muriel? There they go; pa.s.sed the window this very minute. The a.s.sa.s.sin!"

"Nay! Miss Matilda. Let me intercede for the lad. There is no harm in my young friend Gerald. A fine manly youngster--his mother's son, every inch of him. No, no, my little Muriel--forgive the freedom--must know least of all. Young love! Miss Matilda. It is a charming sight to see. So full, and so trusting--so all-in-all, and yet so delicate and dainty. So fleeting, sometimes. Always so fragile and so irreparable if it gets a bruise. So hopeless to try and bring back its early l.u.s.tre if once it grows dim. So--but--I'm a maundering old fogey, I suppose. Forgive an old bachelor's drivel, Miss Matilda."

"There's nothing to forgive, Mr. Considine. I sympa--I agree with--it's all so true! There's nothing like youth in all the world, and--love--but, there now! These are things which middle-aged people have no business with----"

"But surely, Miss Matilda. We--they--the middle-aged--have business with that? If our hearts have remained unwithered by the world--if there should still be a germ of life at the core, though hidden by the rind which time brings for a protection, like the scales on a hyacinth root in a gardener's drawer, do you not think it allowable and even fitting, that when warmth gets at them, and moisture, they may sprout forth worthily, even if out of season, each after its kind? Do you suppose a sound heart can ever grow incapable of love. Miss Matilda?

Will love ever die?"

"Ah!" and Matilda looked upward. "My own feeling. So true! So comforting! Love never dies. The poets say so. Beyond the grave are we not a.s.sured that still and for ever we shall love? But yet--but yet--I fear sometimes that it shows a grovellingness in myself, that I do not cherish the thought more eagerly--as we grow older should our affections not take a higher flight? I long so for more warmth, and regret my coldness and frivolity; but I feel going to church so little helpful."

"You are lonely. Miss Matilda. Aspiring after unseen goodness is a high and abstract flight. It needs companionship. I, too, know what it means. But a man in the world is little able to withdraw his thoughts from worldliness, and I am alone. With help--a good woman's help--Matilda! May I say it? as I have long felt it?--with yours----"

He took her hand and held it, looking in her face.

She did not seem to hear him at first, her eyes were far away. And then she grew to feel the intentness of his gaze, and drew away her hands to hold before her face, where a blush was rising; for the look spoke more of a human than immortal love, and it confused her.

"We will be friends," she said.

"But friendship will not be enough for me, Matilda. You must be my wife."

Matilda was white now. She leaned back in the sofa, and her head fell forward. It seemed to Considine that she would faint, and he had risen to ring, when she recovered self-control, and looked up in his face.

Being a lady of an earlier generation, when fainting was occasionally practised as a climax to emotion, and brides sometimes wept at the altar on bidding _adieu_ to the a.s.sociations of their youth, allowance must be made for Matilda by young women of the modern and robuster school, who can ratify an engagement for life with the same outward composure as one for the next valse. The modes of emotional expression and disguise are as much a question of date as the fashions in hair-dressing. Matilda was no more a lackadaisical fool than you are, my good madam; nor are you, I do believe, one whit more hard or heartless than she, whom I take to have been a good and affectionate woman.

Penelope came in from the farm not long after, and there was much to tell her. Considine was persuaded to remain for dinner, and went away in the evening a happy man.

The hyacinths were getting their chance at last, and he promised himself that with care and shelter they would sprout yet, and bloom in the autumn, as fragrantly and gay as with other fortune they might have done in spring.

CHAPTER XII.

RANDOLPH'S BUCKLING.

There was a lacrosse match at Montreal that September, the Indians of Brautford against the Indians of Caughnawaga, at which that section of the community interested in sport, and now returned from the regattas of the coast, mustered strong. The Lacrosse Club, the getters-up of the exhibition, were there in a body, the school boys were all there, and the betting men, as well as those who are willing to go anywhere on a fine day on any pretext, and the ladies, who like to see what is the excitement which draws the latter cla.s.s--the b.u.t.terfly cla.s.s--together.

"See how the Caughnawagas have got the ball, and are carrying it on, and on. There--there! They will win. Almost at the goal. But, ah! That little fellow! He seems only a boy. How he breaks through them--See!

He has got it away--caught it on his lacrosse--throws it back over his shoulder--away back past them all. Not a Caughnawaga near it. And now Brautford has got it. They strike it again and again. Won! By Jove!

Brautford has won. Who would have thought it?"

It was Randolph Jordan who spoke, springing on his chair and waving his hat in the general tumult of applause, and the cheering for "Little Brautford," who now rejoined his comrades amidst the loud plaudits in which they all shared, but which were especially for him who had earned the victory. They had won the first game.

Randolph occupied a chair in front of the grand stand, and beside him sat Adeline Rouget, dressed in cardinal red and white, tolerably conspicuous, and not objecting to be looked at; but still better pleased with the evident admiration in Randolph's eyes, and the devoted attention he was paying her, than with anything else. They were old friends, those two, now. Their friendship dated from the night of their first tobogganing together, when Randolph had discovered to his surprise that mademoiselle was "really a jolly girl, and with no nonsense in her." They had many another tobogganing after that first, and many a jolly waltz, and found that they suited each other to a nicety. Both were fairly good looking, and always well got up, and each felt the presence of the other was a credit and setoff to one's self in the eyes of the world to which both belonged. It is a strong point in a friendship when one is sure that it looks well. A friend of the other s.e.x, with whom one groups badly, may be a delightful companion at home or in the country; but what pleasure can there be in being seen in society dancing with a guy? A certain share of the ridicule will fall on one's self. It must always show one at a disadvantage, and if it is a dance, how can even the finest figure and get-up look well, if awkwardly held or turned round, or rumpled as to flounces, and so forth?--or hung upon, or stood away from, as if people were marionettes?

These two young people realized that they looked well together. Their friends had told them so frequently; therefore it was indubitable, even if they had not known it themselves. Their relations had also told them that they should marry, and as each found the other extremely "jolly" and companionable, and saw in a joint establishment an indefinite prolongation of the gaieties of the past six months, they were nothing loth. People said they were engaged, and they supposed so themselves; in fact, they must have been, for in their conversations that was taken for granted. They were not of a "spoony"

disposition, as they said themselves, however, and found many other things to talk about more interesting than an a.n.a.lysis of their affections; and nothing but opposition applied to their head-strong tempers could have fanned their easy-going preference into an appearance of genuine strength. That stimulus was now afforded by the lady's papa, in a way both sudden and unexpected.

Randolph had resumed his seat beside his companion, and plied the fan for her, while she managed the parasol, so as to make a small tent, from under which they could scan their neighbours while greatly sheltered themselves. There was a tap on Randolph's shoulder, accompanied by "Pairmit me, sair."

Randolph looked round. "Mr. Rouget! Good morning, sir. I did not think we should have had the happiness to see you here--believed you were in New York. When did you arrive in Montreal?" His hand was held out while he spoke, expectant of being shaken, but it remained untouched.

This might have been an oversight, though Mr. Rouget was scrupulously particular in such matters, as a rule; but on the present occasion he seemed resolved there should be no mistake. The extended hand not having been withdrawn when the speaker ceased, he drew himself up to the top notch of his stature--it was French stature, and not excessive--placing his hands behind his back with a look of lowering majesty and indignation, which made him as overhanging and colossal, if also as stagy, as was possible.

"Sair! Pairmit me to pa.s.s you."

Randolph drew half a step aside, and backward; it was all he could do, owing to his companion's close proximity.

"I vish to speak to mademoiselle, my daughtaire."

"Adeline is here, sir;" showing with his left hand how the parent might place himself on her other side.

"Mademoiselle Rouget vill dispense vit your presence, sair," with severe dignity; and he stepped, not as ushered by Randolph's left hand, but in the direction of his right, the consequence being that his foot caught between the legs of Randolph's chair, and he found himself prostrated on the turf.

"_Mon Dieu!_" cried Adeline, rising and taking refuge with one of her friends, a few chairs off, under the impression that a brawl in public was imminent, and screening herself from all share in it with her parasol, while she continued to watch the scene through the fringes.

"_Sac-r-r-re_," growled the father, pa.s.sing from dignity into fury.

Dignity cannot possibly survive a trip up with a chair leg, and there is no refuge from the ridicule of the thing but in anger.

"You vould dare knock me down? _Coquin!_" as he regained his feet, grasping his cane, and gnawing his white moustache between his teeth.

"Pardon me, Mr. Rouget," said Professor Hammerstone, coming forward and dusting a blade of gra.s.s with his handkerchief from the angry gentleman's sleeve. "I hope you have not hurt yourself. I was standing by, and you must forgive my saying that our young friend here is really not to blame for this little accident. It is all the fault of those foolish chairs. I have bruised my own shins with them. The club would have done better to provide benches. Jordan is as innocent of the _contretemps_ as I am."

Rouget bowed--what else could he do?--and thanked Professor Hammerstone, who at least had done him the kindness of giving him a cue to modulate back naturally into the ordinary manner of civilized men; but he scowled at Randolph, who, in the bewilderment caused by Rouget's unexpected address--they had parted last as any expectant father and son-in-law might, three weeks before--had nearly laughed at his sudden downfall.