Nature and Human Nature Part 9

"There, Sir, there is my story: it is a true one, I a.s.sure you, for I was present at the time. What do you think of it?"

"Well," sais I, "if he had never heard a rumour, nor had any reason to suppose that the money had been hid there, why it was a singular thing, and looks very much like a--"

"Like a what?" said she.

"Like a supply that one couldn't count upon a second time, that's all."

"It's a dream that was fulfilled though," she said; "and that don't often happen, does it?"1

1 The names of the persons and river are alone changed in this extraordinary story. The actors are still living, and are persons of undoubted veracity and respectability.

"Unless," sais I, "a young lady was to dream now that she was a going to be married to a certain person, and that does often come true. Do you--"

"Oh, nonsense," said she. "Come, do tell us your story now, you know you promised me you would if I related mine."

"Yes," said Miss Jessie; "come now, Mr Slick, that's a good man, do?"

Sais I, "Miss, I will give you my book instead, and that will tell you a hundred of them."

"Yes, but when will you give it to me?" she replied.

"To-morrow," said I, "as soon as I go on board. But mind, there is one condition." And I said in Gaelic: "Feumieth thu pog thoir dhomh eur a shon (you must give me a kiss for it)."

"Oh," said she, lookin' not over pleased, I consaited; but perhaps it was because the other girls laughed liked anything, as if it was a capital joke, "that's not fair, you said you would give it, and now you want to sell it. If that's the case I will pay the money for it."

"Oh, fie," sais I, "Miss Jessie."

"Well, I want to know!"

"No, indeed; what I meant was to give you that book to remember me by when I am far away from here, and I wanted you to give me a little token, O do bhilean boidheach (from your pretty lips), that I should remember the longest day I live."

"You mean that you would go away, laugh, and forget right off. No, that won't do, but if you must have a token I will look up some little keepsake to exchange for it. Oh, dear, what a horrid idea," she said, quite scorney like, "to trade for a kiss; it's the way father buys his fish, he gives salt for them, or flour, or some such barter, oh, Mr Slick, I don't think much of you. But for goodness gracious sake how did you learn Gaelic?"

"From lips, dear," said I, "and that's the reason I shall never forget it."

"No, no," said she, "but how on earth did you ever pick it up."

"I didn't pick it up, Miss," said I, "I kissed it up, and as you want a story I might as well tell you that as any other."

"It depends upon what sort of a story it is," said she, colouring.

"Oh, yes," said the Campbell girls, who didn't appear quite so skittish as she was, "do tell us, no doubt you will make a funny one out of it. Come, begin."

Squire, you are older than I be, and I suppose you will think all this sort of thing is clear sheer nonsense, but depend upon it a kiss is a great mystery. There is many a thing we know that we can't explain, still we are sure it is a fact for all that. Why should there be a sort of magic in shaking hands, which seems only a mere form, and sometimes a painful one too, for some folks wring your fingers off amost, and make you fairly dance with pain, they hurt you so. It don't give much pleasure at any time. What the magic of it is we can't tell, but so it is for all that. It seems only a custom like bowing and nothing else, still there is more in it than meets the eye. But a kiss fairly electrifies you, it warms your blood and sets your heart a beatin' like a bra.s.s drum, and makes your eyes twinkle like stars in a frosty night. It tante a thing ever to be forgot. No language can express it, no letters will give the sound. Then what in natur is equal to the flavour of it? What an aroma it has! How spiritual it is!

It ain't gross, for you can't feed on it; it don't cloy, for the palate ain't required to test its taste. It is neither visible, nor tangible, nor portable, nor transferable. It is not a substance, nor a liquid, nor a vapour. It has neither colour nor form. Imagination can't conceive it. It can't be imitated or forged. It is confined to no clime or country, but is ubiquitous. It is disembodied when completed, but is instantly reproduced, and so is immortal. It is as old as the creation, and yet is as young and fresh as ever. It preexisted, still exists, and always will exist. It pervades all natur. The breeze as it pa.s.ses kisses the rose, and the pendant vine stoops down and hides with its tendrils its blushes, as it kisses the limpid stream that waits in an eddy to meet it, and raises its tiny waves, like anxious lips to receive it. Depend upon it Eve learned it in Paradise, and was taught its beauties, virtues, and varieties by an angel, there is something so transcendent in it.

How it is adapted to all circ.u.mstances! There is the kiss of welcome and of parting, the long-lingering, loving present one, the stolen or the mutual one, the kiss of love, of joy, and of sorrow, the seal of promise, and the receipt of fulfilment. Is it strange therefore that a woman is invincible whose armoury consists of kisses, smiles, sighs, and tears? Is it any wonder that poor old Adam was first tempted, and then ruined? It is very easy for preachers to get up with long faces and tell us he ought to have been more of a man. My opinion is, if he had been less of a man, it would have been better for him. But I am not agoin' to preach; so I will get back to my story; but, Squire, I shall always maintain to my dying day, that kissing is a sublime mystery.

"Well," sais I, "ladies, I was broughten up to home, on my father's farm, and my edecation, what little I had of it, I got from the Minister of Slickville, Mr Joshua Hopewell, who was a friend of my father's, and was one of the best men I believe that ever lived. He was all kindness and all gentleness, and was at the same time one of the most learned men in the United States. He took a great fancy to me, and spared no pains with my schooling, and I owe everything I have in the world to his instruction. I didn't mix much with other boys, and, from living mostly with people older than myself, acquired an old-fashioned way that I have never been able to shake off yet; all the boys called me 'Old Slick.' In course, I didn't learn much of life that way. All I knew about the world beyond our house and hisin, was from books, and from hearing him talk, and he conva.r.s.ed better than any book I ever set eyes on. Well, in course I grew up unsophisticated like, and I think I may say I was as innocent a young man as ever you see."

Oh, how they all laughed at that! "You ever innocent!" said they.

"Come, that's good; we like that; it's capital! Sam Slick an innocent boy! Well, that must have been before you were weaned, or talked in joining hand, at any rate. How simple we are, ain't we?" and they laughed themselves into a hooping-cough amost.

"Fact, Miss Janet," said I, "I a.s.sure you" (for she seemed the most tickled at the idea of any of them) "I was, indeed. I won't go for to pretend to say some of it didn't rub off when it became dry, when I was fishing in the world on my own hook; but, at the time I am speaking of, when I was twenty-one next gra.s.s, I was so guileless, I couldn't see no harm in anything."

"So I should think," said she; "it's so like you."

"Well, at that time there was a fever, a most horrid typhus fever, broke out in Slickville, brought there by some shipwrecked emigrants.

There was a Highland family settled in the town the year afore, consisting of old Mr Duncan Chisholm, his wife, and daughter Flora.

The old people were carried off by the disease, and Flora was left without friends or means, and the worst of it was, she could hardly speak a word of intelligible English. Well, Minister took great pity on her, and spoke to father about taking her into his house, as sister Sally was just married, and the old lady left without any companion; and they agreed to take her as one of them, and she was in return to help mother all she could. So, next day, she came, and took up her quarters with us. Oh my, Miss Janet, what a beautiful girl she was!

She was as tall as you are, Jessie, and had the same delicate little feet and hands."

I threw that in on purpose, for women, in a general way, don't like to hear others spoken of too extravagant, particularly if you praise them for anything they hain't got; but if you praise them for anything they pride themselves on, they are satisfied, because it shows you estimate them also at the right valy, too. It took, for she pushed her foot out a little, and rocked it up and down slowly, as if she was rather proud of it.

"Her hair was a rich auburn, not red (I don't like that at all, for it is like a lucifer-match, apt to go off into a flame spontinaciously sometimes), but a golden colour, and lots of it too, just about as much as she could cleverly manage; eyes like diamonds; complexion, red and white roses; and teeth, not quite so regular as yours, Miss, but as white as them; and lips--lick!--they reminded one of a curl of rich rose-leaves, when the bud first begins to swell and spread out with a sort of peachy bloom on them, ripe, rich, and chock full of kisses."

"Oh, the poor ignorant boy!" said Janet, "you didn't know nothing, did you?"

"Well, I didn't," sais I, "I was as innocent as a child; but n.o.body is so ignorant as not to know a splendiferous gall when he sees her," and I made a motion of my head to her, as much, as to say, "Put that cap on, for it just fits you."

"My sakes, what a neck she had! not too long and thin, for that looks goosey; nor too short and thick, for that gives a clumsy appearance to the figure; but betwixt and between, and perfection always lies there, just midway between extremes. But her bust--oh! the like never was seen in Slickville, for the ladies there, in a gineral way, have no--"

"Well, well," said Jessie, a little snappish, for praisin' one gall to another ain't the shortest way to win their regard, "go on with your story of Gaelic."

"And her waist, Jessie, was the most beautiful thing, next to your'n, I ever see. It was as round as an apple, and anything that is round, you know, is larger than it looks, and I wondered how much it would measure. I never see such an innocent girl as she was. Brought up to home, and in the country, like me, she knew no more about the ways of the world than I did. She was a mere child, as I was; she was only nineteen years old, and neither of us knew anything of society rules.

One day I asked her to let me measure her waist with my arm, and I did, and then she measured mine with her'n, and we had a great dispute which was the largest, and we tried several times before we ascertained there was only an inch difference between us. I never was so glad in my life as when she came to stay with us; she was so good-natured, and so cheerful, and so innocent, it was quite charming.

"Father took a wonderful shindy to her, for even old men can't help liking beauty. But, somehow, I don't think mother did; and it appears to me now, in looking back upon it, that she was afraid I should like her too much. I consaited she watched us out of the corner of her gla.s.ses, and had her ears open to hear what we said; but p'raps it was only my vanity, for I don't know nothin' about the working of a woman's heart even now. I am only a bachelor yet, and how in the world should I know anything more about any lady than what I knew about poor Flora? In the ways of women I am still as innocent as a child; I do believe that they could persuade me that the moon is nothin' but an eight-day clock with an illuminated face. I ain't vain, I a.s.sure you, and never brag of what I don't know, and I must say, I don't even pretend to understand them."

"Well, I never!" said Jessie.

"Nor I," said Janet.

"Did you ever, now!" said Catherine. "Oh dear, how soft you are, ain't you?"

"Always was, ladies," said I, "and am still as soft as dough. Father was very kind to her, but he was old and impatient, and a little hard of hearing, and he couldn't half the time understand her. One day she came in with a message from neighbour Dearborne, and sais she,

"'Father--'

"'Colonel, if you please, dear,' said mother, 'he is not your father;'

and the old lady seemed as if she didn't half fancy any body calling him that but her own children. Whether that is natural or not, Miss Jessie," said I, "I don't know, for how can I tell what women thinks?"

"Oh, of course not," said Janet, "you are not waywise, and so artless; you don't know, of course!"

"Exactly," sais I; "but I thought mother spoke kinder cross to her, and it confused the gall.