Shifting Winds: A Tough Yarn Part 45

"Not goin' to get married?" inquired Billy with caution.

Haco snorted, then he grunted, and then he said--

"Yes, she _was_ goin' to get married, and he wished she wasn't, that was all."

"Who to?" inquired the other.

"Why, to that Irish scoundrel Dan Horsey, to be sure," said Haco with a huge sigh of resignation, which, coming from any other man, would have been regarded as a groan. "The fact is, lad, that poor Susan's heart is set upon that fellow, an' so it's no use resistin' them no longer.

Besides, the blackguard is well spoken of by his master, who's a trump.

Moreover, I made a kind o' half promise long ago that I'd not oppose them, to that scapegrace young Lieutenant Bingley, who's on his way home from China just now. An' so it's a-goin' to be; an' they've set their hearts on havin' the weddin' same week as the weddin' o' Master Kenneth and Lizzie Gordon; so the fact is they may all marry each other, through other, down the middle and up again, for all I care, 'cause I'm a-goin'

on a whalin' voyage to Novy Zembly or k.u.mskatchkie--anywheres to git peace o' mind--there!"

Saying this Haco dashed the ashes out of his big German pipe into his left palm, and scattered them to the winds.

"Now, lad," he said, in conclusion, "we'll go turn in, and you'll sleep with me to-night, for ye couldn't get a bed in the Home for love or money, seein' that it's choke full already. Come along."

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.

FAILURES AND HOPES DEFERRED, AND CONSEQUENCES.

Now, it chanced that, about the time of which I write, a noted bank failed, and a considerable sum of money which had been temporarily deposited in it by the committee of the Sailors' Home at Wreck.u.moft was lost.

This necessitated retrenchment. All the salaries of officials were lowered--among them Kenneth's, although the directors a.s.sured him that it would be again raised as soon as the Inst.i.tution recovered from the shock of this loss.

Meanwhile, however, the secretary was compelled to postpone his marriage indefinitely.

Perhaps the shortest way to convey a correct idea of the dire effects of this failure to my reader will be to detail several conversations that took place in regard to it by various parties.

Conversation first was held between the head cook and head waiter of the Sailors' Home. These worthies were seated on one of the dressers in the kitchen of the establishment;--and a wonderful kitchen it was, with culinary implements so huge as to suggest the idea of giant operators.

There was a grate that might have roasted an ox whole. There were pots big enough to have boiled entire sheep, caldrons of soup that a little boy might have swum in, rolls and loaves that would, apparently, have made sandwiches for an army, and cups and saucers, plates and dishes that might have set up any reasonable man for life in the crockery line.

But the most astounding vessels in that amazing place were the tea-pot and coffee-pot of the establishment. They stood side by side like giant twins; each being five feet high by a yard in diameter, and the pounds of tea and gallons of water put into these pots night and morning for tea and breakfast seemed almost fabulous. (See note 1.)

"It's werry unfortinet, werry," said the presiding spirit of this region.

"So 'tis," observed the head waiter.

"Werry hard, too," said the cook, "on a man like me, with a wife and six childer, to have his wages docked."

"So 'tis--even for a man with a wife and four child'n like me," said the head waiter; "but it comes hardest on the secretary, poor feller. He was just a-goin' to get spliced, an' there he's 'bliged to put it off.

He's such a good feller too."

"Ah--it's werry hard," said the cook.

"Werry," said the head waiter.

Having shaken their heads in concert, these worthies dropped the subject as being an unpleasant one.

In Mr Stuart's drawing-room, referring to the same subject, Miss Penelope Stuart said to Mr George Stuart--

"Well, I'm sure, George, it seems to me that it would be only right and proper to forgive poor Kenneth, not that he's done anything exactly wrong, but forgiveness is a Christian duty, whether it's an enemy you've hurt, or a friend who has hurt you, that--that, how could he help it, you know, brother, now do be reasonable, and only think of the poor boy having to part with that great cart-horse--though it'll be the death of him some day whether he parts with it or not, for it's a dreadful creature, and Dan too--I'm sure the perplexities people are put to by banks failing. Why don't people prevent them from failing? But the worst is his marriage being put off, and it so near. I do think, brother, you might take him back and--"

"Pray hold your tongue, Peppy," said Mr Stuart, who was attempting to read the _Times_, "I'm not listening to you, and if you are pleading for my son Kenneth, let me say to you, once for all, that I have done with him for ever. I would not give him a sixpence if he were starving."

"Well, but," persevered the earnest Miss Peppy, "if he were to repent, you know, and come and ask pardon, (dear me, where are those scissors?

ah, here they are), surely you would not refuse, (the thimble next--what a world of worries!) to--to give him--"

"Peppy, I have stated my sentiments, pray do not trouble me further in regard to this matter. _Nothing_ can move me."

Miss Peppy sighed, and retired to pour her regrets into the sympathetic ear of Mrs Niven.

Gaff sat in the chimney-corner of the "Boodwar" smoking his pipe and staring at Shrieky, which, having survived the voyage home, had been hung up in a cage in the little window, and was at that time engaged in calling loudly for Squeaky, who, having also survived the voyage, was grubbing up stones and mud at the front door. Mrs Gaff was seated opposite to him, with Tottie's head in her lap; for she still solaced herself by smoothing her hair. Billy was sitting on one of the six chairs whittling a piece of wood.

"It's a bad business," said Gaff; "bad for everybody consarned; but wust for Mr Stuart."

"An' his man," said Billy.

"And Susan," said Tottie.

"Gaff," said Mrs Gaff, "it's my advice to you to go up to the bank, ask them for a thousand pounds, (if they have as much in the shop at the time, if not, ye can take what they have, and call again for the rest), give it all to Miss Lizzie Gordon, and tell her to go and get married right off. We won't miss it, Gaff. In fact it seems to me that the more we give away the more we have to give. It's an _awful_ big fortin'

we've comed into. But that's what I advise."

"I doubt she wouldn't take it," said Gaff.

"Oh yes, she would," cried his better half.

Billy and Tottie being of the same opinion, Gaff laid aside his pipe, got out the tea-caddy, from which he took his cheque-book, and made Tottie write out a cheque for 1000 pounds, payable to Miss Lizzie Gordon.

"She deserves it well o' me," observed Gaff, as he slowly printed his signature on the cheque, "for she gave me the Noo Testament, that's bin o' more valley to me than thousands o' gold an' silver--G.o.d bless her."

The cheque was taken up and presented by Gaff on the following morning, but to the honest man's dismay, Lizzie declined it positively, though she accompanied her refusal with many earnest expressions of grat.i.tude, and kissed the seaman's hard hand at parting.

Gaff returned to the "Boodwar," lit his German pipe with the cheque, and said, "I _knowed_ she wouldn't tak' it--dear girl."

Kenneth was standing in the bower at the foot of my garden, looking pensively on the distant landscape, which was bathed in the rich glow of the setting sun. His right arm embraced the slender waist of Lizzie-- his left encircled the shoulder of Emmie Graham.

"We must have patience, darling," said Kenneth, with an effort at cheerfulness.

"Our hopes were as bright as that lovely sky some days ago," said Lizzie.

While she was speaking the sun descended behind a bank of heavy clouds.

"And thus have our hopes gone down," murmured Kenneth sadly.

"But, uncle," observed Emmie, "the sun is still shining behind the clouds."

"Thank you, Emmie, for the comforting word," said Lizzie, "and our sun is indeed shining still."