Part 69 (1/2)
”I a.s.sure you, Miss Brentwood, that I have only aided and abetted: the idea was his own.”
”Well, well, I see how it is;--we were too happy I suppose.”
”But, Alice,” said Jim, ”won't you be proud to see your brother a good soldier?”
”Proud! I was always proud of you. But I wish the idea had never come into your head. If it was in war time I would say nothing, but now it is very different. Well, gentlemen, I shall leave you to your wine. Mr.
Halbert, I like you very much, but I wish you hadn't turned Jim's head.”
She left them, and walked down the garden; through the twilight among the vines, which were dropping their yellow leaves lightly on the turf before the breath of the autumn evening. So Jim was going,--going to be killed probably, or only coming back after ten years' absence, ”full of strange oaths and bearded like a pard!” She knew well how her father would jump at his first hint of being a soldier, and would move heaven and earth to get him a commission,--yes, he would go--her own darling, funny, handsome Jim, and she would be left all alone.
No, not quite! There is a step on the path behind her that she knows; there is an arm round her waist which was never there before, and yet she starts not as a low voice in her ear says,--
”Alice, my love, my darling, I have come after you to tell you that you are dearer to me than my life, and all the world besides. Can you love me half as well as I love you? Alice, will you be my wife?”
What answer? Her hands pressed to her face, with
flood of happy tears, she only says,--
”Oh! I'm so happy, Sam! So glad, so glad!”
Pipe up there, golden-voiced magpie; give us one song more before you go to roost. Laugh out, old jacka.s.s; till you fetch an echo back from the foggy hollow. Up on your bare boughs, it is dripping, dreary autumn: but down here in the vineyard, are bursting the first green buds of an immortal spring.
There are some scenes which should only be undertaken by the hand of a master, and which, attempted by an apprentice like myself, would only end in disastrous failure, calling down the wrath of all honest men and true critics upon my devoted head,--not undeservedly. Three men in a century, or thereabouts, could write with sufficient delicacy, and purity to tell you what two such young lovers as Sam Buckley and Alice Brentwood said to one another in the garden that evening, walking up and down between the yellow vines. I am not one of those three. Where Charles d.i.c.kens has failed, I may be excused from being diffident. I am an old bachelor, too--a further excuse. But no one can prevent my guessing, and I guess accordingly,--that they talked in a very low tone, and when, after an hour, Alice said it was time to come in, that Sam was quite astonished to find how little had been said, and what very long pauses there had been.
They came in through the window into the sittingroom, and there was Dr.
Mulhaus, Captain Brentwood, and also, of all people, Major Buckley, whom the other two had picked up in their ride and brought home. My information about this period of my history is very full and complete.
It has come to my knowledge on the best authority, that when Sam came forward to the light, Halbert kicked Jim's s.h.i.+ns under the table, and whispered, ”You have lost your money, old fellow!” and that Jim answered, ”I wish it was ten pounds instead of five.”
But old folks are astonis.h.i.+ngly obtuse. Neither of the three seniors saw what had happened; but entered CON AMORE into the proposed expedition to Cape Chatham, and when bedtime came, Captain Brentwood, honest gentleman, went off to rest, and having said his prayers and wound up his watch, prepared for a comfortable night's rest, as if nothing was the matter.
He soon found his mistake. He had got his boots off, and was sitting pensively at his bedside, meditating further disrobements, when Jim entered mysteriously, and quietly announced that his whole life in future would be a weary burden if he didn't get a commission in the army, or at least a cadets.h.i.+p in the East India Company's service. Him the Captain settled by telling, that if he didn't change his mind in a month he'd see about it, and so packed him off to bed. Secondly, as he was taking off his coat, wondering exceedingly at Jim's communication, Sam appeared, and humbly and respectfully informed him that he had that day proposed to his daughter and been accepted,--provisionally; hoping that the Captain would not disapprove of him as a sonin-law. He was also rapidly packed off to bed, by the a.s.surance that he (Brentwood) had never felt so happy in his life, and had been sincerely hoping that the young folks would fall in love with one another for a year past.
So, Sam dismissed, the Captain got into bed; but as soon as the light was blown out two native cats began grunting under the was.h.i.+ng-stand, and he had to get out, and expel them in his s.h.i.+rt; and finally he lost his temper and began swearing. ”Is a man never to get to sleep?” said he. ”The devil must be abroad tonight, if ever he was in his life.”
No sleep that night for Captain Brentwood. His son, asking for a commission in the army, and his daughter going to be married! Both desirable enough in their way, but not the sort of facts to go to sleep over, particularly when fired off in his ear just as he was lying down.
So he lay tossing about, more or less uncomfortable all night, but dozed off just as the daylight began to show more decidedly in the window. He appeared to have slept from thirty to thirty-five seconds, when Jim awoke him with,--
”It's time to get up, father, if you are going to Cape Chatham to-day.”
”D--n Cape Chatham,” was his irreverent reply when Jim was gone, which sentiment has been often re-echoed by various coasting skippers in later times. ”Why, I haven't been to sleep ten minutes,--and a frosty morning, too. I wish it would rain. I am not vindictive, but I do indeed. Can't the young fools go alone, I wonder? No; hang it, I'll make myself agreeable to-day, at all events!”
Chapter x.x.xIV
HOW THEY ALL WENT HUNTING FOR SEA ANEMONES AT CAPE CHATHAM--AND HOW THE DOCTOR GOT A TERRIBLE FRIGHT--AND HOW CAPTAIN BLOCKSTROP SHOWED THAT THERE WAS GOOD REASON FOR IT.
And presently, the Captain, half dressed, working away at his hair with two very stiff brushes, betook himself to Major Buckley's room, whom he found shaving. ”I'll wait till you're done,” said he; ”I don't want you to cut yourself.”
And then he resumed: ”Buckley, your son wants to marry my daughter.”