Part 37 (1/2)
Tom hurried to Bevan's tent to have the unexpected and surprising news confirmed, and Paul told him a good deal, but was very careful to make no allusion to Betty's ”fortin.”
”Now, Mister Brixton,” said Paul, somewhat sternly, when he had finished, ”there must be no more s.h.i.+lly-shallyin' wi' Betty's feelin's.
You're fond o' _her_, an' she's fond o' _you_. In them circ.u.mstances a man is bound to wed--all the more that the poor thing has lost her nat'ral protector, so to speak, for I'm afraid she'll no longer look upon me as a father.”
There was a touch of pathos in Paul's tone as he concluded, which checked the rising indignation in Brixton's breast.
”But you forget, Paul, that Gashford and his men are here, and will probably endeavour to lay hold of me. I can scarce look on myself as other than an outlaw.”
”Pooh! lay hold of you!” exclaimed Paul, with contempt; ”d'ye think Gashford or any one else will dare to touch you with Mahoghany Drake an'
Mister Fred an' Flinders an' me, and Unaco with all his Injins at your back? Besides, let me tell you that Gashford seems a changed man. I've had a talk wi' him about you, an' he said he was done persecutin' of you--that you had made rest.i.tootion when you left all the goold on the river's bank for him to pick up, and that as n.o.body else in partikler wanted to hang you, you'd nothin' to fear.”
”Well, that does change the aspect of affairs,” said Tom, ”and it may be that you are right in your advice about Betty. I have twice tried to get away from her and have failed. Perhaps it may be right now to do as you suggest, though after all the time seems not very suitable; but, as you truly observe, she has lost her natural protector, for of course you cannot be a father to her any longer. Yes, I'll go and see Fred about it.”
Tom had considerable qualms of conscience as to the propriety of the step he meditated, and tried to argue with himself as he went in search of his friend.
”You see,” he soliloquised aloud, ”her brother is dying; and then, though I am not a whit more worthy of her than I was, the case is nevertheless altered, for she has no father now. Then by marrying her I shall have a right to protect her--and she stands greatly in need of a protector in this wild country at this time, poor thing! and some one to work for her, seeing that she has no means whatever!”
”Troth, an' that's just what she does need, sor!” said Paddy Flinders, stepping out of the bush at the moment. ”Excuse me, sor, but I cudn't help hearin' ye, for ye was spakin' out loud. But I agree with ye intirely; an', if I may make so bowld, I'm glad to find ye in that state o' mind. Did ye hear the news, sor? They've found goold at the hid o'
the valley here.”
”Indeed,” said Tom, with a lack of interest that quite disgusted his volatile friend.
”Yes, indade,” said he. ”Why, sor, they've found it in big nuggets in some places, an' Muster Gashford is off wid a party not half an hour past. I'm goin' mesilf, only I thought I'd see first if ye wouldn't jine me; but ye don't seem to care for goold no more nor if it was copper; an that's quare, too, whin it was the very objec' that brought ye here.”
”Ah, Flinders, I have gained more than my object in coming. I _have_ found gold--most fine gold, too, that I won't have to leave behind me when it pleases G.o.d to call me home. But never fear, I'll join you. I owe you and other friends a debt, and I must dig to pay that. Then, if I succeed in the little scheme which you overheard me planning, I shall need some gold to keep the pot boiling!”
”Good luck to ye, sor! so ye will. But plaze don't mintion the little debt you say you owe me an' the other boys. Ye don't owe us nothin' o'
the sort. But who comes here? Muster Fred it is--the very man I want to see.”
”Yes, and I want to see him too, Paddy, so let me speak first, for a brief s.p.a.ce, in private, and you can have him as long as you like afterwards.”
Fred Westly's opinion on the point which his friend put before him entirely coincided with that of Paul Bevan.
”I'm not surprised to learn that Paul is not her father,” he said. ”It was always a puzzle to me how she came to be so lady-like and refined in her feelings, with such a rough, though kindly, father. But I can easily understand it now that I hear who and what her mother was.”
But the princ.i.p.al person concerned in Tom Brixton's little scheme held an adverse opinion to his friends Paul and Fred and Flinders. Betty would by no means listen to Tom's proposals until, one day, her brother said that he would like to see her married to Tom Brixton before he died. Then the obdurate Rose of Oregon gave in!
”But how is it to be managed without a clergyman?” asked Fred Westly one evening over the camp fire when supper was being prepared.
”Ay, how indeed?” said Tom, with a perplexed look.
”Oh, bother the clergy!” cried the irreverent Flinders.
”That's just what I'd do if there was one here,” responded Tom; ”I'd bother him till he married us.”
”I say, what did Adam and Eve an' those sort o' people do?” asked Tolly Trevor, with the sudden animation resulting from the budding of a new idea; ”there was no clergy in their day, I suppose?”
”True for ye, boy,” remarked Flinders, as he lifted a large pot of soup off the fire.