Snowflakes and Sunbeams Part 37

"Father, dear, dear father!" said Charley, as he loosened his grasp, and, still holding him by both hands, looked earnestly into his face with swimming eyes.

Old Mr. Kennedy seemed to have lost his powers of speech. He gazed at his son for a few seconds in silence--then suddenly threw his arms around him and engaged in a species of wrestle which he intended for an embrace.

"O Charley, my boy! you've come at last--G.o.d bless you! Let's look at you. Quite changed: six feet; no, not quite changed--the old nose; black as an Indian. O Charley, my dear boy! I've been waiting for you for months; why did you keep me so long, eh? Hang it, where's my handkerchief?" At this last exclamation Mr. Kennedy's feelings quite overcame him; his full heart overflowed at his eyes, so that when he tried to look at his son, Charley appeared partly magnified and partly broken up into fragments. Fumbling in his pocket for the missing handkerchief, which he did not find, he suddenly seized his fur cap, in a burst of exasperation, and wiped his eyes with that. Immediately after, forgetting that it was a cap he thrust it into his pocket.

"Come, dear father," cried Charley, drawing the old man's arm through his, "let us go home. Is Kate there?"

"Ay, ay," cried Mr. Kennedy, waving his hand as he was dragged away, and bestowing, quite unwittingly, a back-handed slap on the cheek to Harry Somerville--which nearly felled that youth to the ground. "Ay, ay! Kate, to be sure, darling. Yes, quite right, Charley; a pipe--that's it, my boy, let's have a pipe!" And thus, uttering coherent and broken sentences, he disappeared through the doorway with his long-lost and now recovered son.

Meanwhile Harry and Jacques continued to pace quietly before the house, waiting patiently until the first ebullition of feeling, at the meeting of Charley with his father and sister, should be over. In a few minutes Charley ran out.

"Hollo, Harry! come in, my boy; forgive my forgetfulness, but--"

"My dear fellow," interrupted Harry, "what nonsense you are talking! Of course you forgot me, and everybody and everything on earth, just now; but have you seen Kate? is--"

"Yes, yes," cried Charley, as he pushed his friend before him, and dragged Jacques after him into the parlour.--"Here's Harry, father, and Jacques.--You've heard of Jacques, Kate?"

"Harry, my, dear boy;" cried Mr. Kennedy, seizing his young friend by the hand; "how are you, lad? Better, I hope."

At that moment Mr. Kennedy's eye fell on Jacques, who stood in the doorway, cap in hand, with the usual quiet smile lighting up his countenance.

"What! Jacques--Jacques Caradoc!" he cried, in astonishment.

"The same, sir; you an' I have know'd each other afore now in the way o' trade," answered the hunter, as he grasped his old bourgeois by the hand and wrung it warmly. Mr. Kennedy, senior, was so overwhelmed by the combination of exciting influences to which he was now subjected, that he plunged his hand into his pocket for the handkerchief again, and pulled out the fur hat instead, which he flung angrily at the cat; then using the sleeve of his coat as a subst.i.tute, he proceeded to put a series of abrupt questions to Jacques and Charley simultaneously.

In the meantime Harry went up to Kate and _stared_ at her. We do not mean to say that he was intentionally rude to her. No! He went towards her intending to shake hands, and renew acquaintance with his old companion; but the moment he caught sight of her he was struck not only dumb, but motionless. The odd part of it was that Kate, too, was affected in precisely the same way, and both of them exclaimed mentally, "Can it be possible?" Their lips, however, gave no utterance to the question. At length Kate recollected herself, and blushing deeply, held out her hand, as she said,--

"Forgive me, Har--Mr. Somerville; I was so surprised at your altered appearance, I could scarcely believe that my old friend stood before me."

Harry's cheeks crimsoned as he seized her hand and said: "Indeed, Ka--a--Miss--that is, in fact, I've been very ill, and doubtless have changed somewhat; but the very same thought struck me in regard to yourself, you are so--so--"

Fortunately for Harry, who was gradually becoming more and more confused, to the amus.e.m.e.nt of Charley, who had closely observed the meeting of his friend and sister, Mr. Kennedy came up.

"Eh! what's that? What did you say _struck_ you, Harry, my lad?"

"_You_ did, father, on his arrival," replied Charley, with a broad grin, "and a very neat back-hander it was."

"Nonsense, Charley," interrupted Harry, with a laugh.--"I was just saying, sir, that Miss Kennedy is so changed that I could hardly believe it to be herself."

"And I had just paid Mr. Somerville the same compliment, papa," cried Kate, laughing and blushing simultaneously.

Mr. Kennedy thrust his hands into his pockets, frowned portentously as he looked from one to the other, and said slowly, "_Miss_ Kennedy, _Mr._ Somerville!" then turning to his son, remarked, "That's something new, Charley, lad; that girl is _Miss_ Kennedy, and that youth there is _Mr._ Somerville!"

Charley laughed loudly at this sally, especially when the old gentleman followed it up with a series of contortions of the left cheek, meant for violent winking.

"Right, father, right; it won't do here. We don't know anybody but Kate and Harry in this house."

Harry laughed in his own genuine style at this.

"Well, Kate be it, with all my heart," said he; "but, really, at first she seemed so unlike the Kate of former days that I could not bring myself to call her so."

"Humph!" said Mr. Kennedy. "But come, boys, with me to my smoking-room, and let's have a talk over a pipe, while Kate looks after dinner."

Giving Charley another squeeze of the hand, and Harry a pat on the shoulder, the old gentleman put on his cap (with the peak behind), and led the way to his gla.s.s divan in the garden.

It is perhaps unnecessary for us to say that Kate Kennedy and Harry Somerville had, within the last hour, fallen deeply, hopelessly, utterly, irrevocably, and totally in love with each other. They did not merely fall up to the ears in love. To say that they fell over head and ears in it would be, comparatively speaking, to say nothing. In fact, they did not fall into it at all. They went deliberately backwards, took a long race, sprang high into the air, turned completely round, and went down head first into the flood, descending to a depth utterly beyond the power of any deep-sea lead to fathom, or of any human mind adequately to appreciate. Up to that day Kate had thought of Harry as the hilarious youth who used to take every opportunity he could of escaping from the counting-room and hastening to spend the afternoon in rambling through the woods with her and Charley. But the instant she saw him a man, with a bright, cheerful countenance, on which rough living and exposure to frequent peril had stamped unmistakable lines of energy and decision, and to which recent illness had imparted a captivating touch of sadness--the moment she beheld this, and the undeniable sc.r.a.p of whisker that graced his cheeks, and the slight _shade_ that rested on his upper lip, her heart leaped violently into her throat, where it stuck hard and fast, like a stranded ship on a lee-sh.o.r.e.

In like manner, when Harry beheld his former friend a woman, with beaming eyes and cl.u.s.tering ringlets and--(there, we won't attempt it!)--in fact, surrounded by every nameless and namable grace that makes woman exasperatingly delightful, his heart performed the same eccentric movement, and he felt that his fate was sealed; that he had been sucked into a rapid which was too strong even for his expert and powerful arm to contend against, and that he must drift with the current now, _nolens volens_, and run it as he best could.

When Kate retired to her sleeping-apartment that night, she endeavoured to comport herself in her usual manner; but all her efforts failed. She sat down on her bed, and remained motionless for half-an-hour; then she started and sighed deeply; then she smiled and opened her Bible, but forgot to read it; then she rose hastily, sighed again, took off her gown, hung it up on a peg, and returning to the dressing-table sat down on her best bonnet; then she cried a little, at which point the candle suddenly went out; so she gave a slight scream, and at last went to bed in the dark.

Three hours afterwards, Harry Somerville, who had been enjoying a cigar and a chat with Charley and his father, rose, and bidding his friends good-night, retired to his chamber, where he flung himself down on a chair, thrust his hands into his pockets, stretched out his legs, gazed abstractedly before him, and exclaimed--"O Kate, my exquisite girl, you've floored me quite that!"

As he continued to sit in silence, the gaze of affection gradually and slowly changed into a look of intense astonishment as he beheld the gray cat sitting comfortably on the table, and regarding him with a look of complacent interest, as if it thought Harry's style of addressing it was highly satisfactory--though rather unusual.

"Brute!" exclaimed Harry, springing from his seat and darting towards it. But the cat was too well accustomed to old Mr. Kennedy's sudden onsets to be easily taken by surprise. With a bound it reached the floor, and took shelter under the bed, whence it was not ejected until Harry, having first thrown his shoes, soap, clothes-brush, and razor-strop at it, besides two or three books and several miscellaneous articles of toilet, at last opened the door (a thing, by the way, that people would do well always to remember before endeavouring to expel a cat from an impregnable position), and drew the bed into the middle of the room. Then, but not till then, it fled, with its back, its tail, its hair, its eyes--in short, its entire body--bristling in rampant indignation. Having dislodged the enemy, Harry replaced the bed, threw off his coat and waistcoat, untied his neckcloth, sat down on his chair again, and fell into a reverie; from which, after half-an-hour, he started, clasped his hands, stamped his foot, glared up at the ceiling, slapped his thigh, and exclaimed, in the voice of a hero, "Yes, I'll do it, or die!"

CHAPTER XXIX.

The first day at home--A gallop in the prairie, and its consequences.

Next morning, as the quartette were at breakfast, Mr. Kennedy, senior, took occasion to propound to his son the plans he had laid down for them during the next week.

"In the first place, Charley, my boy," said he, as well as a large mouthful of buffalo steak and potato would permit, "you must drive up to the fort and report yourself. Harry and I will go with you; and after we have paid our respects to old Grant (another cup of tea, Kate, my darling)--you recollect him, Charley, don't you?"

"Yes, perfectly."

"Well, then, after we've been to see him, we'll drive down the river, and call on our friends at the mill. Then we'll look in on the Thomsons; and give a call, in pa.s.sing, on old Neverin--he's always out, so he'll be pleased to hear we were there, and it won't detain us.

Then---"

"But, dear father--excuse my interrupting you--Harry and I are very anxious to spend our first day at home entirely with you and Kate.

Don't you think it would be more pleasant? and then, to-morrow--"

"Now, Charley, this is too bad of you," said Mr. Kennedy, with a look of affected indignation: "no sooner have you come back than you're at your old tricks, opposing and thwarting your father's wishes."

"Indeed, I do not wish to do so, father," replied Charley, with a smile; "but I thought that you would like my plan better yourself, and that it would afford us an opportunity of having a good long, satisfactory talk about all that concerns us, past, present, and future."

"What a daring mind you have, Charley," said Harry, "to speak of cramming a _satisfactory_ talk of the past, the present, and the future all into _one_ day!"

"Harry will take another cup of tea, Kate," said Charley, with an arch smile, as he went on,--

"Besides, father, Jacques tells me that he means to go off immediately, to visit a number of his old voyageur friends in the settlement, and I cannot part with him till we have had one more canter together over the prairies. I want to show him to Kate, for he's a great original."

"Oh, that _will_ be charming!" cried Kate. "I should like of all things to be introduced to the bold hunter.--Another cup of tea, Mr. S-Harry, I mean?"

Harry started on being thus unexpectedly addressed. "Yes, if you please--that is--thank you--no, my cup's full already, Kate!"