Sweethearts at Home

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 passing 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 pussy, 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 passed, 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 Lass at Caldons" – "Jess Broon, indoor lass at the Nuik" – "Jeannie Sandilands, 'dairy' at the Boareland of Parton." These were the proud titles 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 noble words, "Cold Fire is Useless!"

There was "Johnston's Temple of Terpsichore," 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 Othello's "livery of the burnished sun" grow patchy, and the grease trickle down from the left corner of Desdemona's nose – which, being naturally rubicund, had been worked up for the occasion.

I was, of course, too much of a young lady to be allowed to visit the Fair under any available escort. In the evening I might possibly, in company with Somebody, be permitted to peruse the outsides of the booths. But the real delights were for the children. Strong in the possession of a half-crown apiece (to be spent as you please without accounting), Sir Toady and the Maid made havoc among the Aunt Sallies and the Cocoa-nut shysters.

A plan of campaign was evolved, simple but effective. Sir Toady, who was a good shot, took over the Maid's half-crown, and bound himself by a great oath to deliver up half the proceeds.

As for me, I caught glimpses of His Majesty's uniform darting from stall to stall, from range to range, followed by a butterfly figure in skimp white. This was the Maid, keeping track of profit and loss. She had good cause. Was she not involved to the extent of two-and-sixpence, her maiden mite?

Sir Toady appeared to be reckless, and put wholesale propositions before the Cocoa-nut shysters, as thus – "Suppose I give you two shillings cash, how many throws can I have for it, and can I pick my own nuts if I win?"

Some refused and some accepted. Those who refused were, commercially speaking, the lucky merchants. Sir Toady's aim was deadly. He did not mind throwing at an Aunt Sally, though this he considered rather old-fashioned play. A bull's-eye trap-door, which opened at the smack of the ball, was his favorite. And he cleaned up one merchant from whom he had secured the easy terms of forty throws for half-a-crown. So completely did he do it that the fellow, who saw his pile of nuts rapidly wasting away, brazenly repudiated his bargain, and would even have tried to lay hands on the pile already in the bag over the Maid's shoulder.

But the shyster reckoned without a knowledge of his Toady. You see, there was not in Edam man, woman, or child who did not know Sir Toady. And though at one time or another most had had their private disagreements with that youth, he was still an Edamite of the Edamites. Stained with early (orchard) crime, he yet retained the sympathy of gentle and simple. The very "smoutchies" of a younger time rallied at his call, and if the nuts had not instantly been paid over, the overturned "gallery" would have been sacked on the instant by promiscuous brigandage, the very police looking on with broad, benignant smiles.

"Such a young codger as he were!" grumbled the man afterwards, half in anger, half in admiration. "I had made a bad bargain. I see that at once. 'Give me back them nuts. You've 'ad 'em on false pretenses!' sez I.

"'Sorry! So I have!' says he, smooth as butter. And with that he outs of his breast-pocket with his lanyard and blows a whistle like a bo'sum's mate! Then they ran from every quarter. My poor ole stall were on its back in half a jerk, and if it hadn't been for my young gent, so should I —and mauled into the bargain!

"Served me right, you say, for shovin' of my head into such a wasp's nest! But how was I to know? – I puts it to ye, mates. How was I to know? —me fresh from London!"

I had gone up to the Cave of Mystery, armed with the three-draw telescopes, which Hugh John had left behind him as too precious to be risked in the give-and-take of school – though, according to information received, it was mostly "give" with Hugh John.

I saw a procession detach itself from the dense flow of the crowd, led by the white-frocked Maid and a dark blue Sir Toady, both laden down by sackloads of cocoa-nuts. It was impossible for them to carry them all the way home to the House in the Wood. Equally impossible to trust the youth of Edam, satisfactory enough when fighting was on hand, but unreliable when it came to division of the spoils.

The Imps staggered across the road, pursued by a riotous tail of infantry of no known line. Arrived at the shop door of New Erin Villa, they were met by Mrs. Donnan – who, on such a busy day, had come out for a breath of fresh air.

"What in the world have you got there, children?" cried the Dame, holding up astonished hands to heaven.

"Cocoa-nuts! Wads and lashings of cocoa-nuts!" cried Sir Toady. "I shot for them all. I threw for them. I won them. And when the man would have cheated me, I whistled the whole Fair Green down on him. Then I saved his life! But I don't know what to do with them now I have them! They won't hatch out, and if they would, I haven't got a big enough hen! Here, you!"

And opening one of the bags, he bowled half-a-dozen of the nuts among the crowd of smoutchies, who instantly became a swarming, fighting anthill on the plainstones of the street.

"Stop, Master Toady," said Mrs. Donnan, "do stop! I will show you what to make of them. Some of them will be good – "

"All are good," asserted Sir Toady; "I picked them! At college they teach us, over at the canteen, how to know the good ones from the bad!"

By this time I was down at the shop door, having struck the main road near the Station Bridge. I fled to meet them, passing on the way Butcher Donnan, who for the day had turned the blue and gold van into a fine selling booth on the Market Hill, where he presided over half-a-dozen temporary assistants, keeping a wary eye on all, both buyers and sellers.

The children were tired, and stood panting. Sir Toady was unexpectedly pessimistic. Maid Margaret looked rather world-weary. Both had begun to think that, after all, there were better ways of spending five shillings than shooting for cocoa-nuts.

"What rot!" said Sir Toady, shaking one disgustedly close to his ear. "Can't eat them all – make us ever so sick, and I have to join on Friday! No time to get better! Bah!"

"It was all your fault, Toady," moaned the Maid, "and I want my half-crown back!"

"Nonsense!" cried Toady. "I never will go into partnership with a girl again. They always are sorry afterwards, whatever a chap does for them! There is your bag full of nuts, good and sound. What more do you want?"

Maid Margaret wanted much more. She began to express her wants in terms of candies and chocolates.

"Candies!" cried Mrs. Donnan; "why, if I weren't so busy, I would make you two candy to dream about – and of those very cocoa-nuts too!"

"Do – oh, do make us some!"

"Well, come into the bakehouse, and we shall see!"

They went, Elizabeth Fortinbras and I smilingly assisting with the bags of nuts. Elizabeth could not be spared out of the front shop, but I stopped to watch, and of course Sir Toady and Maid Margaret pushed and elbowed for good front seats.

Mrs. Donnan, quietly smiling as ever, seized a skewer, and with several skillful taps made a hole in the end of the nut through which she let the milk drop into a basin. Then with a heavy hammer she smashed the shell into pieces.

It was a good nut, even as Sir Toady had prophesied. He had been well taught at the canteen.

"Now," said the cordon bleu of Edam, "who wants to do a bit of grating for me?"

"I" – "I," shouted the children, and though I did not shout, I was really as ready as any one. The white inside was dealt out to us, and while the Maid and Sir Toady went at it (sometimes scraping their fingers by way of variety), a respectable pile of soft flaky nut, cream-colored and nice, began to appear.

When we were finished, Mrs. Donnan went to a bag, and measured out two tablespoonfuls of white sugar to each one of the nut-flake, dropped the whole into a sizeable patty pan, and poured the milk of the cocoa-nut over it.

With Mrs. Donnan stirring hard, the whole was soon bubbling away cheerfully – indeed, boiling like what lava does in a volcano (ought to, at any rate), the bubbles bursting, and the nice smell making your teeth water, so that it did not seem that you could ever wait for it to cool.

Then, just when the bubbles began to burst with a warning "pop," Mrs. Donnan turned everything into a well-buttered shallow dish. It made a cake about as thick as your finger, and oh, but the smell was good! But she laid the dish away in the ice-house – as she said, to cool. Really, I think, to keep us from temptation, and prevent too early experimenting upon the result.

Elizabeth Fortinbras would have none of us (not even me) in the front shop that day. She was too busy. So, after one question put and answered (it was about Hugh John), the three of us went out and walked in the garden till the ice-house had done its work.

Well, do you know, that candy was famous. Just you try it, with the explanations I have given you! It goes all right, you will find, and no mistake.

Indeed, so well did it go that a bargain was soon struck, and Elizabeth's clever fingers were busy printing out a placard:

FOR THIS DAY ONLYCANARY ISLANDS COCOA-NUTCANDYA SPECIALTY

Cut into cubes, the result was certainly fascinating. Even Fuz was tempted to try. He came to scoff, but he remained to suck.

"Now, didn't I tell you!" said Sir Toady, when on the morrow he received twelve silver shillings as his share of the venture from the careful hands of Mrs. Donnan. "Never you grumble about your Admiral Tuppens again. There you are! More cocoa-nut candy than we can eat before next Friday, warranted wholesome by Fuz, and six bob apiece to do what we like with! How about your old half-a-crown now?"

And the Maid was properly subdued, as, indeed, she ought to have been. Sir Toady did not mention that without Mrs. Donnan he would have been a very sorrowful investor indeed.

But then, male things love to take all the credit to themselves. Bless you, they can't help it! It's born in them, like polywogs in ponds.

XV

QUIET DAYS

November 23.

We have had our first frost early this year – four days' skating on the High Pond before the middle of November! But it was sad to see the poor folks' corn still out, the stalks, stiffly frozen, piercing the couple of inches of frozen sleet that covers the ground.

They have had harvest festivals down in the town churches. But Fuz said that if they had taken up collections to help pay the farmers' rents, that would have been the best sort of festival, and he would have attended. As it was he stopped away, so as to let in somebody who was grateful for a late harvest and spoilt crops!

Fuz says that it is no use sending the Monthly Visitor to people who don't have a daily dinner, and that anything he has to spare will go towards the dinners. But then, Fuz does not mean all he says. For though he growls at the Tract Distributors, he always finishes by giving something so that they will not go sorry away.

Elizabeth Fortinbras goes to the shop opposite the Market Hill every day. She has a nice gray dress now which she made herself, a water-proof cloak, and a pretty canoeing hat. She is quite ignorant of all that the good people are getting ready to offer her. Will she accept? Possibly Hugh John could tell. Certainly I can't.

The young couple down town have come home – Meg Linwood and her husband Nipper, I mean. His father has explained the situation very sharply to him – that is, in so far as the business is concerned. I think he is waiting about the house and furniture till Elizabeth has said "yes" or "no."

It is a good time to tell about our churches. Ours is the nicest. For though we are not compelled to go to any particular one, yet Somebody thinks it is a kind of point of honor to attend the one in which we were born and brought up. There are all sorts of things going on, too, and young people who don't have parties and dances get to know each other at soirées and social meetings. It acts just the same – even quicker, I have noticed. They get married to each other all the same.

Hugh John, who has studied the subject, says he can stand all sorts of "flirts," except the one who asks you about your soul before she knows whether she has got one herself!

Now there is Thomasina Morton, the doctor's daughter, and a smart girl too. Only she never could get away from two or three catchwords, caught up from all sorts of people. She got fearfully anxious about the souls of all the good-looking young men, and made them come into her father's consulting-room so that she could "plead with them." Of course it was all very good and, I dare say, most necessary, but I don't think it was fair on Dr. Morton. You see, he is a good man, but much exposure to all sorts of weather has told on his temper, and really I can't blame him for what he said when he stumbled upon one of these reunions in the dusk of a November afternoon. It was Billy Jackson's legs he fell over, and they say Billy has had to walk with a stick ever since.

But Thomasina declared that her father was hard-hearted, and even went to consult her minister about it. But Mr. Taylor is a sensible man, and said that thirty years of Dr. Morton's life would weigh against a good deal of strongish language in the archangel's scales! He also asked Thomasina where her father had been that day, and she said, "Out seeing his country patients, since eight in the morning!" Then Mr. Taylor asked who they were, and Thomasina told him.

"The Doctor knows as well as I do," he said, "that he will never see a penny of fees from any of them. Don't you trouble, my young lady, about the hardness of your father's heart. And tell Mr. William Jackson that it will be more suitable for him to come and see me about his soul. I am at his service from eight till ten every evening – except Wednesday and Saturday!"

I don't know if Billy Jackson felt that this was not quite the same thing, or whether the minister's hours did not suit him. At all events he never went.

Thomasina Morton, however, was not pleased with Mr. Taylor, and left his church. She joined the Salvation Army, but soon left it, because she found the costume unbecoming. She did better as a nurse, and had splendid chances there. Because, you see, the dress was all right, and her patients could not get up and run when she had them good and safe within the four walls of an hospital!

I dare say, however, it helped to pass the time for the poor fellows. For, you see, Thomasina was pretty, and knew it. She would sing sad, faint, die-away hymns in the twilight, till she made these bad young men just lie down and cry. They were generally pretty weak, anyway, especially when Thomasina used to talk to them about their mothers. (When they were well, you might have talked those mothers' heads off without reforming their sons the value of a row of pins.) But Thomasina talked to them in a dreamy voice, till they all were willing to go out as missionaries to the most cannibal-haunted regions – that is, if only Thomasina would come along with them.

But when they asked her, as they mostly did, Thomasina said she was very sorry, but she had never meant it that way. She was "vowed to a vocation," and mere commonplace marriage would be sinful. Besides (mostly), the young men had nothing to keep themselves on – much less a wife.

Oh, Thomasina made the winter very cheerful at Edam, especially after the Cottage Hospital was opened, and the cutting of the new railway brought a good many into the accident ward.

To listen to Thomasina (and believe her), all these, though mere "navvies" now, were Oxford or Cambridge men, and either the sons of purple Indian colonels, very peppery, or (which she preferred) of white-haired old clergymen, who were never known to smile again after their only sons had left the family roof-tree.

Surely there was a lack of imagination in that accident ward. Hugh John would have made cartloads of plans, and as for Sir Toady – well, he could have evolved something fresh each journey, and never charged a penny extra. He would have been ashamed of so many colonels and white-haired clergymen.

But Thomasina was quite content, and read all manner of nice uninteresting books to the poor storm-stayed ones, who sometimes looked at the angelic expression on her face, and sometimes had quite a decent little sleep on the quiet. Her voice was naturally soothing.

Thus time passed none so evilly in the Cottage Hospital accident ward, and Thomasina came and got nice jellies from Mrs. Donnan, very sustaining, and "let on," as Sir Toady asserted, that she had made them all herself! But there is more – oh, ever so much more about Thomasina Morton. I hope you are not tired hearing about her – I am not of telling.

But you will see the funny thing that happened. Among all the imaginary sons of purple colonels and sad, saintly clergymen whom Thomasina had corralled into her hospital ward, there happened to be a real one. His name, he said, was Henry Smith – which is just one of those names that people take, like Jones and Wood and Robinson in England, and Dubois, Durand, Duval in France, thinking to be unknown, and lo! every hotel-keeper and policeman immediately is on the qui vive to find out what bank they have robbed.

Well, this young fellow's real name did not matter to anybody. Thomasina called him "dear Harry," and had him to sit beside her in the dining-room of the convalescent home (one of her pet hunting-grounds). And one day after he had been in training to be good for quite a while, he came in to dinner as usual, and, just as he was sitting down at the table, up jumps Master Harry Smith and bolts out of the room! Naturally enough, Nurse Webb thought there was something wrong with him, and would have gone to see, but Thomasina restrained her with a motion of the hand – very solemn, impressive, and "I-know-all-about-it-if-you-don't!"

"He has forgotten to say his prayers!" she whispered. "He promised me!"

And Nurse Webb sank back appalled, wondering what they would have said at "King's." But Thomasina was quite calm, and laid her hand soothingly on that of "dear Harry" when he returned from his (very short) devotions.

And do you know, all the time he was what Sir Toady calls "a regular rip." Only he was a real colonel's son, and had been tried everywhere – only no one would have him about on any account.

But old Dr. Morton did what Thomasina said, and got this young fellow dressed out in new clothes, till he looked as smart as a paper of new pins. Then who so proud as Thomasina! She was so glad that Harry had turned out so well that she said she would marry him. Then he was fearfully noble, and said that he wasn't worthy of her, but that he would wait for the day when he would lay the world at her feet. Oh, he said ever such a heap of what the boys call, with a certain rude correctness, "tommy-rot."

And old Papa Morton got him a place in a ginger-beer factory, to manage the accounts, where Mr. Harry Smith behaved pretty well for three months. But on the eve of his marriage with Thomasina he disappeared, taking with him a whole fortnight's wages of the ginger-beer factory workmen.

Instead, he left a letter full of consolatory texts for Thomasina, which I would quote, but Fuz says I must not. Only he concluded by saying that his dear Tommy was not half a bad little thing, only her company and conversation were wearing for a man of his tastes and antecedents. If she had only seen her way to giving him a "let up" every ten days or so, he might have stayed on. But as it was, there was nothing left for him but to borrow her father's fur-lined overcoat, and bid Thomasina a long, last farewell through floods of burning tears. She was to remember, however, that, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, he was ever her own Harry. Also that the next time he needed nursing and advice, both of superior quality, he would not fail to think of the happy days in the convalescent ward of Edam Borough Hospital.