Sweethearts at Home Part 15

Now, on the face of it, you would never believe this. It simply could not be, you would say. Yet it was. Even Nipper, who held out longest, ended by believing it. I, who had a sneaking liking for a love-story, of any sort, was secretly disappointed. Mrs. Donnan could not move in her kitchen for Nipper, who came home early now to talk to Meg Linwood.

Have you ever noticed that when any one has got a back-set in love, or what they think is love, they are quite apt to fly off at a tangent, and marry the least likely person in the world?

To the common eye, no one could have been less likely to engage Nipper's attention--with his lost love still in the front shop--than Meg Linwood in the back.

She was plump, rotund, rosy, where Elizabeth Fortinbras was slender, willowy, like Diana in the pictures and statues of her in the old _Art Journals_ and _Ill.u.s.trated London News_ of the Exhibition year--I mean 1851. (As a child I always liked those volumes. There were such a lot of pictures in them, and so little reading.)

But it was lost labor advising Nipper Donnan. He would show Elizabeth Fortinbras what she had missed. He would have the finest shop, the best meat, the most regularly paid monthly accounts, the biggest, squarest stone house with stables for the smartest trap to drive out his wife in.

And then Elizabeth would awake to her folly. But too late! Too late!

Elizabeth's goose was cooked.

Nipper avoided the first outbreak of parental wrath by running off with Meg Linwood, and Mrs. Donnan consoled her husband by her usual reflection that all was for the best. There are, indeed, very few things breakable about a butcher's shop, and if Meg had stayed at New Erin Villa, a complete set of crockery would have been required at an early date.

From Dumfries and Glasgow, Nipper sent very brief letters expressive of a desire to come to terms with his father. He was married. That could not be altered or amended. Meg came of a respectable family, and (save the breakages) no fault could be found with her.

True, Mrs. Donnan sighed. She would rather have seen Nipper going proudly down the aisle with another than Meg Linwood on his arm. As for Butcher Donnan himself, as soon as he got over dwelling upon the thrashing he meant to give Nipper when he caught him, the outlines of a broader, farther reaching, less arbitrary settlement began to form themselves in his mind.

He saw his lawyer, Mr. John Liddesdale, and what they said to one another bore fruit afterwards. But it was a busy ten days for Butcher Donnan. He had to spend the early morning of every day in the down town shop. He had the rooms above it cleaned out, new furniture installed--and he abused his son as he went.

"The young fool!" was the best word for Nipper, forgetting that he himself had married at eighteen. Each afternoon he was out in the blue and gold van with the collapsible rain-hood. In the evenings he looked into the ashes of the kitchen fire and thought. It was then that Elizabeth proved herself above rubies to the old folks of New Erin.

"Faith, didn't I tell ye, from the first," cried Butcher Donnan, slapping his thigh mightily, "that's the girl, Cynthia! Nothing she will not turn her hand to--as smart as a jay, and all as sweet and natural as the Queen of Sheba coming it over Solomon!"

"It strikes me, Butcher Donnan," said his wife, "that for an old man you are getting wonderfully fond o' the la.s.s!"

She was smiling also, a loving, caressing, motherly smile, showing mostly about the eyes, as she spoke of Elizabeth Fortinbras, which was very good to see.

"Fond of her, is it?" cried Donnan. "I declare, I'm as fond of her as I wad ha' been o' my own daughter, if it had pleased Mary an' the saints to give us one!"

"_And why not?_" said Mrs. Donnan, bending suddenly towards her husband, and startling him with the earnestness of her regard.

"Why not--Cynthia, woman? You have been talking to Mr. Liddesdale?"

"Not I," said his wife, smiling. "_You_ should not talk in your sleep, that's all, Butcher Donnan, if you want to keep your little secrets."

"Ah, wife, wife, it's you that are the wonderful woman," cried the Butcher-Pastry-Cook; "but if that be so, faith, it's just as well I don't sleep with that Thief-o'-the-Wurrld Kemp, our sugar merchant. But what say you, wife?"

"I say what you say, Butcher Donnan!"

"Do you think she would accept? Would she come to us and be our daughter?"

"By this and that," said his wife, "mind, I take it for granted that you have done what is right by Nipper, and that he and Meg may come home when they like?"

"Not before Sat.u.r.day!" said the Butcher; "furniture and all won't be in.

And if I saw Nipper for the first time on any other day than the blessed Sabbath, I might be tempted even then to break his silly head!"

This from Butcher Donnan was equal to a stage benediction from another.

But his wife looked for more light, and in answer to the question in her eyes he told her all.

"Oh, Nipper is all right. He gets more than he deserves, the rascal. I will let him off what he still owes me on the business. The shop and dwelling-house shall be put in his name, and that's a deal more than ever I dreamed of having at his age. As for the dollars--well, we will see about those, when you and I have done with them!"

"What do you think about asking Elizabeth?" said his wife.

It was at this moment that I chanced to come in, and had the whole story told me by Mrs. Donnan. Elizabeth had cycled down to her father's house, and so was safely out of the way. Only our conference was interrupted by the various calls upon Mr. Donnan to answer the sharp "_cling_" of the bell in the outer shop.

One after the other I heard them in silence, and at last I gave my opinion--which was that they might make their own arrangements, with the help of Mr. John Liddesdale, but that they would do well to wait the return of that long-legged, Minerva-eyed brother of mine, at present engaged in colleging it as hard as need be, to obtain the means of pa.s.sing with credit through the world.

"He may very well be taken in the same way as Nipper!" said the father of the latter grimly. "She's a mighty fine girl, this Elizabeth."

"He might, indeed, very well," I answered. "I am sure _I_ should, if I were a man. Only, he isn't, and he won't. I can promise you that. He will advise Elizabeth for the best, with less thought for himself than if _I_ were concerned."

"Then he is a most unusual young man!" said Butcher Donnan.

"Hugh John _is_ somewhat unusual," I said. "He does not let many people understand him."

"No," said Butcher Donnan; "that other young gent now--him with the uniform! Why, he is up to more tricks than a prize monkey with an Irish mother. As I said before, he is more in my own style about his age. Any one can see what _he_ is driving at. If he does not break his neck off somebody else's apple-tree, or get shot in a poaching accident, no doubt he may live to be a great and good Admiral of the Fleet. But this here Hugh John--he is always as quiet as p.u.s.s.y, and as polite as a parliamentary candidate come last night from London. Yet he licked my Nipper, licked him good and square--_and_ said nothing about it. Nipper told me, though. And now he can be a real safe brother to the prettiest girl in Edam--beggin' your pardon, young lady, but _you_ live out o' the town!"

Mrs. Donnan reminded her husband that it was owing to Master Hugh John that Elizabeth Fortinbras had come to them first. Also that it was certainly the least they could do to give him the chance of putting the matter to Elizabeth in his own way.

Thus, pending the Christmas holidays, Elizabeth Fortinbras became a child of adoption without knowing it.

Curiously enough, no one seemed to take into consideration any rights of pre-emption which her own father and mother might be supposed to possess upon her.

XIV

THE HARVEST FAIR

_Written at the Age of Sixteen._

Of all the local events which upheaved the world of children in Edam, undoubtedly the greatest was the Harvest Fair. This happened somewhat late in the year. For Edam lay high on the mountain slopes. Only the herds and the sheep went higher. The harvesting lands were mostly in the valley crofts, in the hidden "hopes" and broad waterside "holms." But here and there a few hundred acres of oats lay angled up against the steep side of a mountain, and in late October afforded a scanty, stocky harvest, "_bleached_" rather than ripened by the slant, chill sun and sweeping winds of the uplands.

In brief, then, the Harvest Fair was late in Edam. We were near enough to the Borders, however, to be overstocked with gypsies. And it was after them that the Gypsies' Wood and Tryst had been named.

A fine sight was Edam Fair. Far and wide it spread over the green, right down to the verges of Esk-water. Ours was a Fair of the old-fashioned kind. Rustics still stood about unhired with a straw in their mouths--plowmen and "orra" men they! Maidens wore their breast kerchiefs unknotted, and as soon as the bargain for six months was struck, and the silver shilling of "arles" had pa.s.sed, they knotted it firmly about their throats. They were no longer "mavericks"--masterless cattle. They had the seal of a place and an occupation upon their necks.

It was "Bell, the Byre La.s.s at Caldons"--"Jess Broon, indoor la.s.s at the Nuik"--"Jeannie Sandilands, '_dairy_' at the Boareland of Parton." These were the proud t.i.tles of the "engaged" ones who wore the knotted neckerchiefs.

But the "shows" were, after all, the most taking and permanent feature.

There was the continual joy of "Pepper's Ghost," where (as Fuz has related) on a certain occasion the hero, new to his part, first of all transfixed the ghost, and then threw down his clattering sword, with the n.o.ble words, "Cold Fire is Useless!"

There was "Johnston's Temple of Terpsich.o.r.e," on entering which you always looked over your shoulder to see if the minister or any of the elders were in sight. But how the girls danced, and how difficult it was to stop watching those who danced on their hands with their feet in the air, in order to observe those who danced on their feet with only their hands in the air! Thus we lost distinction in our joys.

However, both sorts were applauded, and when the people in tights leaped up and stood on each others' feet in order to form a pyramid, the general feeling was that if indeed we were selling our souls to Satan, at least we were getting the worth of our money!

We did not care much, after this, for the legitimate drama--though it was funny, certainly, to see Oth.e.l.lo's "livery of the burnished sun"