Shifting Winds: A Tough Yarn Part 31

The driver vented his impatience just then by causing the whistle to give three sharp yelps, which produced three agonising leaps in the bosoms of Miss Peppy and Mrs Niven.

"_Couldn't_ it all be done with a little less noise," said Miss Peppy to Kenneth, "it seems to me so aw--oh! look! surely that old gentleman has gone mad!"

"Not he," said Kenneth with a smile; "he has only lost his wife in the crowd, and thinks the train will start before he finds her; see, she is under the same impression, don't you see her rushing wildly about looking for her husband, they'll meet in a moment or two if they keep going in the same direction, unless that luggage-truck should interfere."

"Look-out, sir!" shouted the porter at that moment. The old gentleman started back, and all but knocked over his wife, who screamed, recognised him, and clung to his arm with thankful tenacity.

A bell rang.

The crowd swayed to and fro; agitated people became apparently insane; timid people collapsed; strong people pushed, and weak folk gave way.

If any man should be sceptical in regard to the doctrine of the thorough depravity of the human heart, he can have his unbelief removed by going into and observing the conduct of an eager crowd!

"What a hinfamous state of things!" observed Mrs Niven.

"Yell!--shriek!" went the engine whistle, drowning Miss Peppy's reply.

"Take your seats!" roared the guard.

The engine gave a sudden snort, as if to say, "You'd better, else I'm off without you."

"Now aunt," said Kenneth, "come along."

In another moment Miss Peppy was seated in a carriage, with her head out of the window, talking earnestly and rapidly to Mrs Niven.

It seemed as if she had reserved all the household directions which she had to give to that last inopportune moment!

"Now, take good care of Emmie, Niven, and don't forget to get her--"

The remainder was drowned by "that irritating whistle."

"Get her what, ma'am?"

"Get her shoes mended before Sunday, and remember that her petticoat was torn when she--bless me! has that thing burst at last?"

"No, ma'am, not yet," said Niven.

"Now then, keep back; show your tickets, please," said the inspector, pushing Niven aside.

"Imperence!" muttered the offended housekeeper, again advancing to the window when the man had pa.s.sed.

As the train was evidently about to start, Miss Peppy's memory became suddenly very acute, and a rush of forgotten directions almost choked her as she leaned out of the window.

"Oh! Niven, I forgot--the--the--dear me, what is it? I know it so well when I'm not in a flurry. It's awful to be subjected so constantly to-- the Child's History of England! that's it--on the top of my--my--which trunk _can_ it be? I know, oh yes, the leather one. Emmie is to read-- well now, that is too bad--"

As Miss Peppy stopped and fumbled in her pocket inquiringly, Mrs Niven asked, in some concern, if it was her purse.

"No, it's my thimble; ah! here it is, there's a corner in that pocket where everything seems to--well," (shriek from the whistle), "oh! and-- and--the baker's book--it must be--by the bye, that's well remembered, you must get money from Mr Stuart--"

"What _now_, ma'am," inquired Mrs Niven, as Miss Peppy again paused and grew pale.

"The key!"

"Of the press?" inquired Niven.

"Yes--no; that is, it's the key of the press, and not the key of my trunk. Here, take it," (she thrust the key into the housekeeper's hand, just as the engine gave a violent snort.) "What shall I do? My trunk won't open without, at least I suppose it won't, and it's a new lock!

what shall--"

"Make a parcel of the key, Niven," said Kenneth, coming to the rescue, "and send it by the guard of next train."

"And oh!" shrieked Miss Peppy, as the train began to move, "I forgot the--the--"

"Yes, yes, quick, ma'am," cried Niven eagerly, as she followed.

"Oh! can't they stop the train for a moment? It's the--it's--dear me-- the pie--pie!"

"What pie, ma'am?"

"There's three of them--for my brother's dinner--I forgot to tell cook-- it'll put him out so--there's three of 'em. It's not the--the--two but the--the--_other_ one, the what-d'ye-call-it pie." Miss Peppy fell back on her seat, and gave it up with a groan. Suddenly she sprang up, and thrust out her head--"The _deer_ pie," she yelled.

"The dear pie!" echoed the astonished Mrs Niven interrogatively.

Another moment and Miss Peppy vanished from the scene, leaving the housekeeper to return home in despair, from which condition she was relieved by the cook, who at once concluded that the "dear pie" must mean the venison pasty, and forthwith prepared the dish for dinner.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

PERPLEXITIES AND MUSICAL CHARMS.

My son Gildart, with his hands in his pockets and his cap very much on one side of his head, entered my drawing-room one morning with a perplexed air.

"What troubles you to-day?" asked Lizzie Gordon, who was seated at the window winding up a ball of worsted, the skein of which was being held by Miss Puff, who was at that time residing with us.

"What troubles me?--everything troubles me," said the middy with a stern air, as he turned his back to the fire; "the world troubles me, circ.u.mstances trouble me, my heart troubles me, my pocket troubles me, my friends and relations trouble me, and so do my enemies; in fact, it would be difficult to name the sublunary creature or thing that does _not_ trouble me. It blows trouble from every point of the compa.s.s, a peculiarity in moral gales that is never observed in physical breezes."

"How philosophically you talk this morning," observed Lizzie with a laugh. "May it not be just possible that the trouble, instead of flowing from all points to you as a centre, wells up within and flows out in all directions, and that a warped mind inverts the process?"

"Perhaps you are right, sweet cousin! Anyhow we can't be both wrong, which is a comfort."

"May I ask what is the heart-trouble you complain of?" said Lizzie.

"Love and hatred," replied Gildart with a sigh and a frown.

"Indeed! Is the name of the beloved object a secret?"

"Of course," said the middy with a pointed glance at Miss Puff, who blushed scarlet from the roots of her hair to the edge of her dress, (perhaps to the points of her toes--I am inclined to think so); "of course it is; but the hated object's name is no secret. It is Haco Barepoles."

"The mad skipper!" exclaimed Lizzie in surprise. "I thought he was the most amiable man in existence. Every one speaks well of him."