Part 4 (1/2)
Ashby knocked the ashes off his cigar with a reflective look, and said, ”I rather think, Harry, that I had better make you my father-confessor.”
”All right,” said Harry; ”that's what I was made for. Go ahead, my son. Confess--out with it. Cleanse your bosom of its perilous stuff: make a clean breast of it.”
”Well,” said Ashby, ”in the first place, I'm just now meditating matrimony.”
”Matrimony!”
”Yes; but that's not all. It's a sort of runaway match.”
”A runaway match! By Jove! Only think of a fellow like you planning a runaway match! Now if it was me, it would be the proper thing. But is it really to be a runaway match?”
”Well, it amounts to that, for I've asked the girl to clear out from her friends and come with me.”
”Well, old fellow, all I can say is, good luck to you both. And please, mayn't I be the best man?” he added, with a droll accent that brought an involuntary smile to Ashby's face. ”But go on. Who is the charmer? and where is she now?”
”Well, to answer your last question first, she's here--in Burgos.”
”Ah,” said Harry, ”I twig! Came on in the same train. Both planned it together. You cut across the border, and are made one. Why, it's like Gretna Green!”
”Well, you've hit it partly, only she's with her friends just now--that is to say, she's with her guardian and his wife; and the problem to be solved by me is, how I am to get her from those two dragons.”
”Oh, that can be done. But now, my boy, to come to the point, who is she?--her name?”
”Her name,” said Ashby, ”is Westlotorn--Katie Westlotorn.”
”Westlotorn,” repeated Harry: ”never saw her, and don't think I ever heard the name in all my life.”
”I got acquainted with her at Cadiz a few months ago,” said Ashby.
”Her father had been a merchant there, and had died about a year before. She was there with her step-mother, who took no particular care of her--a miserable beast of a woman. She was in correspondence with her sister in England, a Mrs. Russell, whom she kept urging to come on and take Katie away from Spain. This Mrs. Westlotorn had induced her husband before his death to appoint Russell, her sister's husband, Katie's guardian, and it was this Russell and his wife whom, she expected on, but they could not get away very easily. After a time Mrs. Westlotorn decided to move to Madrid, which she thought would be a pleasanter residence. So about three months ago she made the move, and after that Katie and I saw as much of one another as we wished, and she became regularly engaged to me.”
”So the step-mother approved, did she?”
”Oh, altogether!”
”Well, what's the trouble?”
”Oh, this infernal Russell, the guardian, you know! As soon as he came on, he and his wife began to make trouble, and tried to break up the engagement; they also tried to keep me away from the house. Then there was another difficulty: they allowed some Spanish blackguards to get acquainted with them. Mrs. Westlotorn, the widow, you know, is hot-and-heavy in the chase of a husband, and thought that all the young fellows who came after Katie were after her. The worst of them was a chap named Lopez, who calls himself a captain in the Spanish army--a poor, pitiful beggar whom I shall have to horsewhip. And, by-the-bye, that reminds me--I expect to be called out to-morrow or next day.”
”Called out? how?”
”Oh, by this pitiful fellow Lopez;” and Ashby related the incident at the Madrid station.
”By Jove!” said Harry, ”this is lucky. I'm glad I came upon you at such a time. You won't have to trust to a bungling Spaniard to be your second.”
”The worst of it is,” said Ashby, ”I believe that this Russell is one of the most infernal villains that ever lived, and that he is concocting some scheme against Katie.”
”A scheme! how?”
”Well, I'll tell you. I saw from the first that he was hostile to me.