Quaint Courtships Part 17

The cap'en modestly bowed to reputation, admitting that he had a.s.sisted "a sight of couples over the broomstick," adding, however, that the knack had its drawbacks. There were many door-stones in Zorra that he dared not cross. And he wagged his head over Timmins's case, wisely, as a lawyer ponders over the acceptance of a hopeless brief. Finally he suggested that if Timmins was "no stuck on his Methodisticals," he might join the kirk.

"You think that would 'elp?"

The cap'en thought that, but he was not prepared to endorse Timmins's following generalization that it didn't much matter what name a man worshipped under. It penetrated down through the aforesaid rubble of disintegration and touched native granite. Stiffly enough he returned that Presbyterianism was good enough for him, but it rested on Timmins to follow the dictates of his own conscience.

Now when bathed in love's elixir conscience becomes very pliable indeed, and as the promptings of Timmins's inner self were all toward Janet, his outer man was not long in making up his mind. But though, following the cap'en's advice, he joined himself to the elect of Zorra, his change of faith brought him only a change of name.

Elder McCakeron officiated at the "christening" which took place in the crowded market the day after Timmins's name had been spread on the kirk register. "An' how is the apoos-tate the morning?" the elder inquired, meeting Timmins. And the name stuck, and he was no more known as the "Englisher."

"Any letters for the Apoos-tate?" The postmaster would mouth the question, repeating it after Timmins when he called for his mail. Small boys yelled the obnoxious t.i.tle as he pa.s.sed the log school on the corner; wee girls gazed after him, fascinated, as upon one destined for a headlong plunge into the lake of fire and brimstone. Summing the situation at the close of his second month's fellowship in the kirk, Timmins confessed to himself that it had brought him only a full realization of the "stiffness" of Elder McCakeron's "condition." He was no nearer to Janet, and never would have been but for the sudden decease of Elder Tammas Duncan.

In view of what followed, many hold that Elder Tammas made a vital mistake in dying, while a few, less charitable, maintain that his decease was positively sinful.

But if Elder Tammas be not held altogether blameless in the premises, what must be said of Saunders McClellan, who loaded himself with corn-juice and thereby sold himself to the fates? Saunders was a bachelor of fifty and a misogynist by repute. Twenty years back he had paid a compliment to Jean Ross, who afterward married on Rab Murray. It was not a flowery effort; simply to the effect that he, Saunders, would rather sit by her, Jean, than sup oatmeal brose. But though he did not soar into the realms of metaphor, the compliment seems to have been a strain on Saunders's intellect, to have sapped his being of tenderness; for after paying it he reached for his hat and fled, and never again placed himself in such jeopardy.

"Man!" he would exclaim, when, at threshing or logging bees, hairbreadth escapes from matrimony cropped up in the conversation,--"man! but I was near done for yon time!" And yet, all told, Saunders's dry bachelorhood seems to have been caused by an interruption in the flow rather than a drying up of his wells of feeling, as was proven by his conduct coming home from market the evening he overloaded with "corn-juice."

For as he drove by Elder McCakeron's milk-yard, which lay within easy hailing distance of the gravel road, Saunders bellowed to Janet: "Hoots, there! Come awa, my bonnie bride! Come awa to the meenister!" In front of her mother and Sib Sanderson, the cattle-buyer--who was pricing a fat cow,--Saunders thus committed himself, then drove on, chuckling over his own daring.

"Ye're a deevil! man, ye're a deevil!" he told himself, giving his hat a rakish c.o.c.k. "Ye're a deevil wi' the weemen, a sair deceever."

He did feel that way--just then. But when, next morning, memory disentangled itself from a splitting headache, Saunders's red hair bristled at the thought of his indiscretion. It was terrible! He, Saunders, the despair of the girls for thirty years, had fallen into a pit of his own digging! He could but hope it a nightmare; but as doubt was more horrible than certainty, he dressed and walked down the line to McCakeron's.

Once again he found Janet at the milking; or rather, she had just turned the cows into the pasture, and as she waited for him by the bars, Saunders thought he had never seen her at worse advantage. The sharp morning air had blued her nose, and he was dimly conscious that the color did not suit her freckles.

"Why, no!" she said, answering his question as to whether or no he had not acted a bit foolish the night before. "You just speired me to marry on you. Said I'd been in your eye this thirty years."

In a sense this was true. He had cleared from her path like a bolting rabbit, but gallantry forbade that manifest explanation. "'Twas the whuskey talking," he pleaded. "Ye'll no hold me til a drunken promise?"

But he saw, even before she spoke, that she would.

"'Deed but I will!" she exclaimed, tossing her head. "An' them says ye were drunken will ha' to deal wi' me. Ye were sober as a sermon."

Though disheartened, Saunders tried another tack. "Janet," he said, solemnly, "I dinna think as a well-brought la.s.s like you wad care to marry on a man like me. I'm terrible i' the drink. I might beat ye."

Janet complacently surveyed an arm that was thick as a club from heavy choring. "I'll tak chances o' that."

Saunders's heart sank into his boots; but, wiping the sweat from his brow, he made one last desperate effort: "But ye're promised to the--the--Apoos-tate."

"I am no. Father broke that off."

Saunders shot his last bolt. "I believe I'm fickle, Janet. There'll be a sair heart for the la.s.s that marries me. I wouldna wonder if I jilted ye."

"Then," she calmly replied, "I'll haul ye into the justice coort for breach o' promise."

With this terrible ultimatum dinging in his ears Saunders fled. Zorra juries were notoriously tender with the woman in the case, and he saw himself stripped of his worldly goods or tied to the ap.r.o.n of the homeliest girl in Zorra. One single ray illumined the dark prospect.

That evening he called on Timmins, whom he much astonished by the extent and quality of his advice and encouragement. He even went so far as to invite the Englisher to his own cabin, thereby greatly scandalizing his housekeeper--a maiden sister of fifty-two, who had forestalled fate by declaring for the shelf at forty-nine.

"What'll he be doing here?" the maiden demanded, indicating Timmins with accusatory finger on the occasion of his first visit. But his meekness and the propitiatory manner in which he sat on the very edge of his chair, hat gripped between his knees, mollified her so much that she presently produced a bowl of red-cheeked apples for his refreshment.

But her thawing did not save Saunders after the guest was gone. "There's always a fule in every family," she cried, when he had explained his predicament, "an' you drained the pitcher."

"But you'll talk Janet to him," Saunders urged, "an' him to her? She's that hard put to it for a man that wi' a bit steering she'll consent to an eelopement."

But, bridling, Jeannie tossed a high head. "'Deed, then, an' I'll no do ither folk's love-making."

"Then," Saunders groaned, "I'll ha' the pair of ye in this hoose."

This uncomfortable truth gave Jeannie pause. The position of maiden sister carried with it more ch.o.r.es than eas.e.m.e.nts, and Jeannie was not minded to relinquish her present powers. For a while she seriously studied the stove, then her face cleared; she started as one who suddenly sees her clear path, and giving Saunders a queer look, she said: "Ah, weel, you're my brother, after all. I'll do my best wi' both.

Tell the Englisher as I'll be pleased to see him any time in the evening."

Matters were at this stage when Elder McCakeron's cows committed their dire trespa.s.s on Neil McNab's turnips.

Who would imagine that such unlike events as Saunders McClellan's lapse from sobriety, the death of Elder Duncan, and the trespa.s.s of McCakeron's cows could have any bearing upon one another? Yet from their concurrence was born the most astounding hap in the Zorra chronicles.

Even if Elder McCakeron had paid Neil's bill of damage instead of remarking that he "didna see as the turnips had hurt his cows," the thing would have addled in the egg; and his recalcitrancy, so necessary to the hatching, has caused many a wise pow to shake over the inscrutability of Providence. But the elder did not pay, and in revenge Neil placed Peter Dunlop, the elder's ancient enemy, in nomination for Tammas Duncan's eldership.

It was Saunders McClellan who carried the news to the McCakeron homestead. According to her promise, Jeannie had visited early and late with Janet; and dropping in one evening to check up her report of progress, Saunders found the elder perched on a stump.

Saunders discharged him of his news, which dissipated the elder's calm as thunder shatters silence.

"What?" he roared. "Yon scunner? Imph! I'd as lief ... as lief ...

elect"--_the devil_ quivered back of his teeth, but as that savored of irreverence, he subst.i.tuted "the Apoostate!"

Right here a devil entered in unto Saunders McClellan--the mocking devil whose mission it was to abase Zorra to the dust. But it did not make its presence known until, next day, Saunders carried the news of Elder McCakeron's retaliation to Cap'en McKay's pig-killing.

"He's going," Saunders informed the cap'en and Neil McNab between pigs,--"he's going to run Sandy 'Twenty-One' against your candidate."

Now between Neil and Sandy lay a feud which had its beginnings what time the latter _doctored_ a spavined mare and sold her for a price to the former's cousin Rab.

"Yon scunner?" Neil exclaimed, using the very form of the elder's words, "yon scunner? I'd as lief ... as lief ... elect ..."

"... the Apoos-tate," said the Devil, though Neil thought that Saunders was talking.

"Ay, the Apoos-tate," he agreed.

"It wad be a fine joke," the Devil went on by the mouth of Saunders, "to run the Apoos-tate agin' his candidate. McCakeron canna thole the man."

"But what if he was elected?" the mariner objected.

The Devil was charged with glib argument. "We couldna very weel. It's to be a three-cornered fight, an' Robert Duncan, brother to Tammas, has it sure."

"'Twad be a good one on McCakeron," Neil mused. "To talk up Dunlop, who doesna care a cent for the eldership, an' then spring the Apoos-tate on him."

"'Twould be bitter on 'Twenty-One,'" the cap'en added. He had been diddled by Sandy on a deal of seed-wheat.

"It wad hit the pair of 'em," McNab chuckled, and with that word the Devil conquered.

So far, as aforesaid, Saunders had been unconscious of the Devil, but going home the latter revealed himself in a heart-to-heart talk. "Ye're no pretty to look at," Saunders said. "I'm minded to throw ye oot!"