Sweethearts at Home

"Harry Smith" was seen no more on Esk waterside, and by last accounts Dr. Morton is still awaiting the return of his fur-lined overcoat.

XVI

HUGH JOHN, AMBASSADOR PLENIPOTENTIARY

I don't think that Dr. Morton ever really got over the loss of his fur-lined overcoat. You see, it gave him a tone, making many a suffering household feel quite chirpy and consoled only to see him getting carefully out of his gig, and laying back the lapels so as to show the best pieces of fur. But he was never the same man in plain tweed, even when he took to a high velvet collar. People had not the old confidence. He had two favorite methods of treatment – leeches and fly-blisters – and when he began to leech the blister people and blister the leech people, all felt that the end was near.

So Mr. Liddesdale persuaded him to sell his practice while he had one to sell – the stock of leeches and Spanish flies being taken at a valuation. So there came a young doctor to Edam, and his name was Dr. Weir Douglas. At first it was feared that he would not be a success, because he went about in gray tweeds and a straw hat. Worse than all, he made 84 in the cricket match against Lockermaben. This showed how little serious he could be, and how little he had to do in his profession. Dr. Morton was often called out of church twice on the same Sunday, and though everybody knew that he kept a boy for the purpose, yet, after all, the summons might be real. No one could tell. At any rate it waked up a sleepy congregation better than peppermint drops, and people whispered that it must be Sandy Paterson's wife, or that loon of Jock Malcolm's who was always climbing and coming to grief.

However, when Jock Malcolm did fall from the scaffolding of the Established Church (then being repaired parsimoniously by reluctant heritors) Dr. Weir Douglas saved the boy's life by carrying him to his own house across the way, and, after setting the shoulder, sent to ask Miss Thomasina Morton to come over and nurse Master Jock Malcolm.

Then the whole village of Edam began to respect Dr. Morton, calling him "cunning old rascal," and other terms of admiration. Indeed, they respected him for the first time in their lives. Had he not got a good price for his practice, and would not Thomasina do the rest? Indeed, the marriage of Thomasina and Dr. Weir Douglas was regarded on all hands as a settled thing. Any one else in Edam (except perhaps our Hugh John) would have been considered fair game for jest, and congratulated fifty times in a day. But somehow Dr. Weir Douglas did not look the kind of man to be too familiar with, even in a straw hat and gray tweeds – just as no one would take a liberty with our Hugh John in a clown's dress at a fancy ball, if the mind of man can conceive such a thing. Even there, he would probably be found in a retired corner with the prettiest girl (if she were tall and pale and willowy), instructing her on the chances of Siam becoming a second Japan, the resurrection of the Further East, the probability of a Russian Anarchist Republic, and other topics especially adapted for a ball-room. Whereas Sir Toady – but perhaps the less said about that the better. If he had not told at least five girls that they were the prettiest in the room, the young man would have felt that he had thrown away his chances, an accident against which he carefully guarded himself.

But to return to the nursing of Master Jock Malcolm – now become so important and necessary a link in the chain of events. Edam gave Thomasina twenty-four hours to bring the young doctor to his knees. But Dr. Weir Douglas spoiled all calculations by charging his coachman's wife to look after the comfort of Miss Morton, and taking up his own quarters for the time being at the Edam Arms, opposite!

The entire village agreed that this was not playing the game, and as for Thomasina, she felt that never in the world had there been such a reprobate. She placed tracts in his way. She scattered them all about the house, and neglected her patient to think out plans for wrestling with this stiff-necked and rebellious young man.

In the meantime, however, Dr. Weir Douglas began to gain on Edam. Certainly he made a wonderful cure of Jock Malcolm, junior – a young rascal who deserved no such spoiling as he was receiving. He even asked the advice and assistance of his distinguished colleague Dr. Morton, making it a favor that in the meantime he should return to the house which had been his own for so many years. It was really much too large for a bachelor, and Dr. Weir Douglas would consider it a favor to have it taken care of. He himself was perfectly comfortable at the Edam Arms. This, however, could not last for ever.

The whole village was more certain than ever that Thomasina and he were "going to make a match of it." It was just at this critical time that Hugh John came home on holiday for Christmas and New Year.

I was exceedingly interested to see how these two would get on – the Doctor and Hugh John, I mean. Because my brother is by no means universally amiable, and the new arrival, for all his generosity, carried a good deal of "side" – or at least what seemed so to the Edam people. They did not understand his "antiseptics," the boiling of his medical scissors, his multipled sprayings, and minima of medicines. A whacking black draught, and a fly-blister the size of the Scotsman newspaper, were the popular idea of what a real doctor ought to prescribe. Who would pay a man just to come and look at them? Certainly not the people of Edam.

I was present when Hugh John and Dr. Weir Douglas met for the first time. In fact, I made the introduction. I was interested to see what Dr. Douglas would make of Hugh John. For if he treated him like a schoolboy, all was over.

It was in our drawing-room. Somebody had had his little afternoon nap over Froude's History of England– volume eight. Now if you ask Somebody how long Somebody has slept, Somebody will answer that Somebody may just have dropped off for five minutes. The Doctor had come in to call socially. You see, I had met him at the Tennis Club. Well, Somebody was quite pleased with him because he had read "Froude," and for a while he did not notice the big, gray-eyed boy on the window-seat who had risen at his entrance and then as quietly sat down again.

But I said, "Doctor – my brother Hugh John!"

Then Hugh John loomed up, with that quiet gravity which deceives strangers sometimes, his finger still keeping the place in William's Middle Kingdom, and his eyes meeting those of the Doctor level as the metals on a straight run of the railway line.

The Doctor was ready to pass the lad in order to talk with Somebody – who, as usual, lay back looking amused. But that arresting something in Hugh John's eyes, a mixture of equality and authority, halted him, as it has done so many others.

"You are reading?" said the Doctor civilly.

"Oh, no," said Hugh John, "just picking out favorite bits. Do you know The Middle Kingdom?"

Now The Middle Kingdom is an exceedingly fine book, highly technical in parts, and has to do with China. So it is no wonder that it was not so familiar to a man who for years has had to specialize on surgery as it was to the omnivorous Hugh John.

Dr. Weir Douglas shook his head as he glanced over the volume.

"It looks very stiff," he remarked; "are you getting it up for an exam.?"

Hugh John looked at him curiously. He did not approve of jests on such subjects. "I read it first when I was about ten," he said. "I only wish exams were as easy."

"Is it 'math'?" the Doctor inquired sympathetically.

"Yes," said Hugh John, "that – and the idiocies of English spelling!"

All this as from man to man, unsmiling, unwinking, each taking the measure of the other.

It came to an end in a mutual self-respect, neither yielding an inch. But the boy knew how to make himself respected as well as the man of thirty. That night they took a long walk together in the crisp black frost, while Dr. Weir Douglas talked of "microbes," and Hugh John expounded Chinese transcendental medicine. But the real respect did not arrive till, passing the darkened library as they returned, the Doctor said, "I hear you do something with the gloves. What do you say to a turn?"

"Step in!" said Hugh John.

What passed I do not know, but when he went away the Doctor said, "I really think those gloves of yours are two or three ounces too light!"

It was the next day that Hugh John, summoned into solemn council by Butcher Donnan and his wife, was informed what was expected of him in the matter of Elizabeth Fortinbras. Luckily I was again present, and so can tell all about it.

Hugh John was not surprised. He was the Red Indian of the family. He took it as quite natural that he should be called in, quite natural that such good luck should befall Elizabeth Fortinbras, and entirely reasonable that he should be chosen as plenipotentiary.

Now and then he asked a question, unexpectedly acute, as to Nipper's financial position, and how the proposed arrangement with Elizabeth would affect him. You would have thought it was Nipper's case he was advocating. Only I know that he was anxious to keep clear of all injustice before taking the matter in hand.

"And suppose Elizabeth gets married?"

I saw the two Donnans look one at the other. I don't think either had yet considered the matter in this light. To adopt Elizabeth meant to adopt any possible husband Elizabeth might take to herself. I could tell from Butcher Donnan's twinkle that he was envisaging the possibility of having Hugh John as a son-in-law – by adoption. Hugh John was still an unknown quantity to the good pastry-cook. He would never understand the delicate detachment of the friendship of Elizabeth Fortinbras and my brother.

"We hope," said Butcher Donnan cunningly, "that you will let us keep Elizabeth for a long time, Mr. Hugh John?"

The boy took the words perfectly seriously and with no personal bearing.

"Elizabeth," he answered, "is a very pretty girl, but I shall do my best. At any rate she is sure to consult me before doing anything rash – like getting married, I mean!"

There was something about Hugh John which kept any one from laughing at him, and accordingly Butcher Donnan refrained.

"You are a confident young man," he said; "at your age I might have had an eye a little wider open for my own good fortune."

"Elizabeth trusts me, and I am her friend!" said Hugh John, as if that settled the whole matter.

"Well, may I be … blessed!" cried Butcher Donnan. "Off with you, and let us hear what Elizabeth says."

"No," said Hugh John, "it must happen, not be dragged in by the collar. To-night, after shop-shutting, Elizabeth will go home to see that all is right with her people. I shall walk with her, and tell you what she says in the morning."

"We would rather hear to-night," cried Butcher Donnan, hotly impatient after the manner of his kind.

"No – to-morrow!" pronounced Hugh John. "She ought to have the night to think it over. It wouldn't be fair unless!"

"No more it would, young fellow!" cried Butcher Donnan, clapping Hugh John on the shoulder. "You found us a new business. You are finding us a daughter – perhaps some day – "

"Hush now, Butcher," said his wife, anxious as to what he should say next.

But Hugh John, already deep in his mission, took no offense at Butcher Donnan's innuendoes. Elizabeth Fortinbras and he were the best of good friends. And when the time came he would stand by the right hand of the bridegroom of her choice and witness his joy.

So at least he thought at that moment.

XVII

THE LITTLE GREEN MAN

Written the Summer we went abroad for the first time.

It was about then that Hugh John suddenly grew up. He had been threatening it for a long time, but had always put it off. This time, however, it was for keeps. We noticed it first when we made Father tell us stories. Hugh John had grown tired of the "Little Green Man"! Now this was a thing so terrible to us that we hardly dared to face it. For, you see, we had been, as it were, brought up on the Little Green Man, and this was like being false to the very salt we had eaten. And the crime was specially bad on Hugh John's part. For, you see, he ate such a lot of salt that the Doctor told him it was bad for his health. However, because there is no chance of Hugh John reading this book, I will try to tell the tale just as Father tells it even yet to Margaret the Maid – and the rest of us who have not grown too old to like such stories.

THE TALE OF THE LITTLE GREEN MAN

"Of course it is true," Father always began, "because you know yourselves that you have seen the very place and the Bogle Thorn and all. No doubt everything has shrunk a good deal since the time the story tells about. But that is only because you have grown out of all knowledge, and so everything seems smaller to you."

"I know," cried the Maid, "last year when we came back from the seaside, the Edam Water looked quite small and shallow, even at the first Torres Vedras!"

But Sir Toady nipped her good to make her "shut up" – yes, he had grown so rude in the use of words that that was what he said. But then, most boys are like that. It is school that does it, and, do you know, when they come back they even pervert us girls. That this is true was immediately proved by Maid Margaret giving a fierce kick under the table to Sir Toady, and whispering back, "Shut up yourself!"

But Father went on, never heeding in the least. A father who can be conveniently deaf at times is the best kind. Be sure and take no other! The only genuine has a twinkle in his eye, and a dimple instead of smiling. You will know by that.

"Well, the Little Green Man," Father went on, "lived in the Bogle Thorn on the road between Laurieston and the Duchrae. I used to go that way to school long ago, and at first I was frightened of the Little Green Man. I used to climb the dyke and go right up by the loch on the moor where the curlers played in winter, so as not to be compelled to pass that way. But after a while I got not to mind him a bit. For, you see, he was a good little man, all clad in green velvet tights, and with a broad green bonnet on his head like a peaky toadstool. Once or twice when I caught sight of him up among the branches, he popped into his little house just as quickly as a rabbit into its hole when you say "Scat!" And, you see, when once I was sure that he was frightened of me, I used not to mind him a bit. Then by and by I used to sit down and swop currants and sugar which I had "found" at home for some of the nuts and lovely spicy fruits that the Little Green Man had stored away. He had the loveliest little parlor and bedrooms all in the inside of the tree, everything finished neat as cabinet-making, and the floor carpeted – you never saw the like – and there were little windows, too, with glass in them, and shutters that shut with the bark outside, so that you never could tell there was a window there at all."

"And how could you see all that, Father?" asked the Maid, who, as usual, was immensely interested, not having heard it above a thousand times before. So it stayed quite new to her.

"Oh," said Father, "the Little Green Man touched a spring, and let me look through the windows. Of course I was too big to get bodily into the inside of the rooms, or run up and down the stairs. But when the Little Green Man got married, he made a beautiful pleasure-ground at the top of his house, with a clipped-hedge parapet all round to keep the Little Green Children from falling over."

"Whom did he marry, Father?" said the Maid though, of course, she knew.

"Why, he married the Little Green Woman," said Father in a tone of surprise mixed with reproof.

He had been asked the same question at least a hundred times before, but he always answered in the same tone of grieved astonishment, which showed how clever he was. For he could not have been astonished – not really, of course. Then he went on with the story of the Little Green Man. The Little Green Man (said he) had a lot of children. There were Toppy, Leafy, Branchy, Twiggy, Flowery, Fruity, and Rooty. That made seven in all, and as they grew up, the Little Green Man made the playground on the top of the Bogle Thorn ever so much bigger. And he built the retaining walls higher, so as to keep them from falling over. Not that that was a very serious matter. For, you see, they could all of them hang on like monkeys. The only two who really ran some risk of danger were Toppy and Rooty. For Toppy, of course, had to stay on top, where he was safest, and knew his way about; and as for Rooty, there was something in his blood that made him want all the time to worm his way down into the hidden places under the earth where nobody but he ever went, and where the corkscrew staircases got perfectly breakneck with steepness. Then, when he found out this, the Little Green Man took Rooty, and gave him regular sound lectures about his "habits" – you know the kind of lecture – you have all got some on your own account. He said that away off on the face of the wild moor, a good bit back from the Bogle Thorn, was the cave of the Ugly Gray Dwarf – so called because that was what he was. He was ugly as a gnarled bit of oak-trunk that they dug up out of the moss. He was gray because he hid among the stones and rocks of the moorland, and, worst of all, he lived on what he could catch to eat – for choice, Little Green Children who had fallen out of tree-tops, or missed their hold of branches, or been naughty and wandered out when a root came to the surface. He had a horrid den where he used to take his prey, and would either roast them before a slow fire, basting them all the time, or else put them into a cauldron of cold water, hung on three sticks, and boil them alive! (Here the Maid always grew very pale, and edged as thickly as she could among the crowd of us, while the boys fingered their (unloaded) revolvers.)

So you can well imagine that it was not always the greatest fun to wander over the face of that moorland, while this cruel monster, dry as a chip, still as one of the bowlders among the heather, and invisible as Will-o'-the-Wisp by day, lay watching the Bogle Thorn and the Little Green Man's Well, to which some one had to go at least once a day for water. Several times already the Little Green Man had had to fight for his life. But he was a good shot with the little fairy bow-and-arrows – the ones tipped with chips of flint —you know? ("We know!" came from all the children in a breath.) Besides, Father Green Man was so tough when you had him that the Ugly Gray Dwarf thought twice, and even three times, before tackling him. For although he had no heart to pierce, but only a cold, cold stone out of the bottom of a well instead, the heads of the tiny chip arrows came off where they hit him and annoyed him fearfully, wandering about his system and tickling up unexpected organs. So that at long and last he got to know that he had better give the Little Green Man a wide berth.

But when he got married, and children began to patter up and down the dainty little turning staircase of the Bogle Thorn, the Gray Dwarf rubbed his knotted clawy hands together, and grumbled over and over to himself – "Fresh Meat! Fresh Meat!! Fresh Meat!!!" And if he did not laugh, it is certainly reported that he chuckled to himself, like thunder among the hills very far away.

But of all who went about the passages and ups-and-downs of the Bogle Thorn, there was none so reckless as Little Rooty. He was just as rambling, rampageous a boy as any I know! (Here Father looked at us, and Hugh John nodded at Sir Toady, who nodded back, to show that both considered the other as "catching it.") More than once the Little Green Man had even taken a little green switch, and – well, it just happened the same, so there is no use entering into that. But, in spite of all, Rooty would go off foraging where he had no business to, and that came quite near to being the end of Little Rooty, who would not "take a telling," and forgot all about the little green switch as soon as he had stopped smarting – where he frequently smarted.

But one dreamy afternoon, when even the bumble-bees fell asleep and only gurgled in the deep fox-glove bells, when his father was lying on the green couch in the parlor, and his mother was telling the others tales about "humans" in a shady green place on the tree-top, Little Rooty slipped away off down-stairs, twenty-five flights to the cellar door where they took in the winter's fuel – that is, fir-cones chopped small, which make the best fires in the world, especially in Green Tree-top Land where fuel is a scarcity, and one has to be careful not to overheat the chimney, because of the insurance people. Well, Little Rooty found the door all right, and after having touched the spring, he went out on the face of the moor. The loch was shining beneath him, but sleepily too. And it looked so warm and bright that Little Rooty forgot all about what he had been told – the Ugly Gray Dwarf, the big black pot swinging on three poles in front of the Grisly Den, with the water just coming to the boil within it. And Rooty ran as hard as ever he could, without ever taking a minute to shut the cellar door. He jumped and shouted, and almost tumbled into Woodhall Loch just as he was, which would have spoiled his clean new suit of gossamer green velvet that his mother had finished that morning, and given him because it was just six months to Christmas, when he got his thicker winter one.

However, he did manage to get them off, and was just getting ready to plunge into the nice cool water, when the stranded log, on which he had been sitting taking off his stockings, sat up in its turn and stretched out a kind of wizened claw that caught Little Rooty by the middle and held him in the air, kicking and screaming. Then two horny warty lids winked up, and two eyes like cold gravy looked at him – oh, so coldly and hatefully! It was the Ugly Gray Dwarf, and he had been lying waiting for Little Rooty all the afternoon. Then Rooty thought of everything his father had told him, and wished it had never felt so hot and stuffy and bumble-bee-y inside the house, and he resolved that if he got off this time, nothing would ever induce him to disobey his parents again. He even wished he was back in the wood-cellar, with his father getting the little green switch down off the shelf. Positively he thought he could have enjoyed it. Of course Rooty was the first little boy who ever felt like that, but he did not have a very long time in which to repent, and, indeed, it mattered very little to the Gray Dwarf whether he did or not. That hideous brute just pinched him all over to see how fat he was, gurgling approbation all the time of Little Rooty's "ribs" and "chines" and "cuts off the joint" – all of which Rooty had always liked very much, but had never before thought of in so intimate a connection with himself.

Meanwhile, in the little house of the Bogle Thorn, its walls wainscoted with green silk from a fairy Liberty's, its ceilings done in Grass of Parnassus with sprigs and tassels of larch, the afternoon world slept on. But the Little Green Woman paused in her long drowsy tale-telling to the children in the shady corner of the Roof Garden. She thought she heard a cry, so faint and far away that it might have been the squeak of a field-mouse scuttling away from a weasel among the grass roots.

Then a sudden thought struck her like a knife.

"Where is Rooty? Who saw Rooty last? Toppy, you run and look over the pricklements and see if you see Rooty. I thought I heard him cry."

Toppy ran to the green wall of thorn, and was just in time to see the Gray Dwarf toss poor Little Rooty over his shoulder (or at least the knotted crotch of a tree which served him as a shoulder), and away with him to his Grisly Den on the face of the moorland. Toppy just managed to scream, and then his mother ran and caught him, or it might very well have been all over with Little Toppy. By the time the Little Green Man was wakened off the green sofa, and had understood what they were saying (for the entire family talked at once, as is mostly the case with united families), he ran hastily up to the Roof Garden, and saw the Gray Dwarf, very little and flat on the face of the heath, just like a splotch of mildew. And on his shoulder there was a spot of green, hardly visible, which the father knew at once for his Little Rooty. But he did not scold – at least not then. He went for his fairy bow, made tiny like a catapult – not hurrying, you know, but going so fast that it felt as if the wind was rising all over the house of the Bogle Thorn. The Little Green Man dipped each arrow-point – that is, the flint part of it – into a kind of green stuff like porridge, made from hemlock and the berries of deadly nightshade, with other pleasant and effective things only known to the Little Green People. He took great care not to let any drip about, and looked closely to see if there were any scratches on his hands. For it was quite unusual stuff, and precious. So he did not want to waste any of it. He needed it all for that mildewy spot crawling over the moorland towards the Grisly Cave with the green dot on its shoulder which was his own Rooty.