Chapter II: Part 2

The skipper sat upright again, and tried manfully to compose his features. Many things he had not understood before were suddenly made clear, and he remembered now the odd way in which the girl had regarded him as she bade him good-night on the previous evening. The mate eyed him with interest, and was about to supply him with further details when his attention was attracted by footsteps descending the companion-ladder. Then he put down his cup with great care, and stared in stolid amazement at the figure of Miss Jewell in the doorway.

“I’m a bit late,” she said, flushing slightly.

She crossed over and shook hands with the skipper, and, in the most natural fashion in the world, took a seat and began to remove her gloves. The mate swung round and regarded her open-mouthed; the skipper, whose ideas were in a whirl, sat regarding her in silence. The mate was the first to move; he left the cabin rubbing his shin, and casting furious glances at the skipper.

“You didn’t expect to see me?” said the girl, reddening again.

“No,” was the reply.

The girl looked at the tablecloth. “I came to beg your pardon,” she said, in a low voice.

“There’s nothing to beg my pardon for,” said the skipper, clearing his throat. “By rights I ought to beg yours. You did quite right to make fun of me. I can see it now.”

“When you asked me whether I was Bert’s sister I didn’t like to say ‘no,’ continued the girl; “and at first I let you come out with me for the fun of the thing, and then Bert said it would be good for him, and then—then—”

“Yes,” said the skipper, after a long pause.

The girl broke a biscuit into small pieces, and arranged them on the cloth. “Then I didn’t mind your coming so much,” she said, in a low voice.

The skipper caught his breath and tried to gaze at the averted face.

The girl swept the crumbs aside and met his gaze squarely. “Not quite so much,” she explained.

“I’ve been a fool,” said the skipper. “I’ve been a fool. I’ve made myself a laughing-stock all round, but if I could have it all over again I would.”

“That can never be,” said the girl, shaking her head. “Bert wouldn’t come.”

“No, of course not,” asserted the other.

The girl bit her lip. The skipper thought that he had never seen her eyes so large and shining. There was a long silence.

“Good-by,” said the girl at last, rising.

The skipper rose to follow. “Good-by,” he said, slowly; “and I wish you both every happiness.”

“Happiness?” echoed the girl, in a surprised voice. “Why?”

“When you are married.”

“I am not going to be married,” said the girl. “I told Bert so this afternoon. Good-by.”

The skipper actually let her get nearly to the top of the ladder before he regained his presence of mind. Then, in obedience to a powerful tug at the hem of her skirt, she came down again, and accompanied him meekly back to the cabin.

HIS LORDSHIP

HIS LORDSHIP

Farmer Rose sat in his porch smoking an evening pipe. By his side, in a comfortable Windsor chair, sat his friend the miller, also smoking, and gazing with half-closed eyes at the landscape as he listened for the thousandth time to his host’s complaints about his daughter.

“The long and the short of it is, Cray,” said the farmer, with an air of mournful pride, “she’s far too good-looking.”

Mr. Cray grunted.

“Truth is truth, though she’s my daughter,” continued Mr. Rose, vaguely. “She’s too good-looking. Sometimes when I’ve taken her up to market I’ve seen the folks fair turn their backs on the cattle and stare at her instead.”

Mr. Cray sniffed; louder, perhaps, than he had intended. “Beautiful that rose-bush smells,” he remarked, as his friend turned and eyed him.

“What is the consequence?” demanded the farmer, relaxing his gaze. “She looks in the glass and sees herself, and then she gets miserable and uppish because there ain’t nobody in these parts good enough for her to marry.”

“It’s a extraordinary thing to me where she gets them good looks from,” said the miller, deliberately.

“Ah!” said Mr. Rose, and sat trying to think of a means of enlightening his friend without undue loss of modesty.

“She ain’t a bit like her poor mother,” mused Mr. Cray.

“No, she don’t get her looks from her,” assented the other.

“It’s one o’ them things you can’t account for,” said Mr. Cray, who was very tired of the subject; “it’s just like seeing a beautiful flower blooming on an old cabbage-stump.”

The farmer knocked his pipe out noisily and began to refill it. “People have said that she takes after me a trifle,” he remarked, shortly.

“You weren’t fool enough to believe that, I know,” said the miller. “Why, she’s no more like you than you’re like a warming-pan—not so much.”

Mr. Rose regarded his friend fixedly. “You ain’t got a very nice way o’ putting things, Cray,” he said, mournfully.

“I’m no flatterer,” said the miller; “never was. And you can’t please everybody. If I said your daughter took after you I don’t s’pose she’d ever speak to me again.”

“The worst of it is,” said the farmer, disregarding his remark, “she won’t settle down. There’s young Walter Lomas after her now, and she won’t look at him. He’s a decent young fellow is Walter, and she’s been and named one o’ the pigs after him, and the way she mixes them up together is disgraceful.”

“If she was my girl she should marry young Walter,” said the miller, firmly. “What’s wrong with him?”

“She looks higher,” replied the other, mysteriously; “she’s always reading them romantic books full o’ love tales, and she’s never tired o’ talking of a girl her mother used to know that went on the stage and married a baronet. She goes and sits in the best parlor every afternoon now, and calls it the drawing-room. She’ll sit there till she’s past the marrying age, and then she’ll turn round and blame me.”

“She wants a lesson,” said Mr. Cray, firmly. “She wants to be taught her position in life, not to go about turning up her nose at young men and naming pigs after them.”

Mr. Rose sighed.

“What she wants to understand is that the upper classes wouldn’t look at her,” pursued the miller.

“It would be easier to make her understand that if they didn’t,” said the farmer.

“I mean,” said Mr. Cray, sternly, “with a view to marriage. What you ought to do is to get somebody staying down here with you pretending to be a lord or a nobleman, and ordering her about and not noticing her good looks at all. Then, while she’s upset about that, in comes Walter Lomas to comfort her and be a contrast to the other.”

Mr. Rose withdrew his pipe and regarded him open-mouthed.

“Yes; but how—” he began.

“And it seems to me,” interrupted Mr. Cray, “that I know just the young fellow to do it—nephew of my wife’s. He was coming to stay a fortnight with us, but you can have him with pleasure—me and him don’t get on over and above well.”

“Perhaps he wouldn’t do it,” objected the farmer.

“He’d do it like a shot,” said Mr. Cray, positively. “It would be fun for us and it ’ud be a lesson for her. If you like, I’ll tell him to write to you for lodgings, as he wants to come for a fortnight’s fresh air after the fatiguing gayeties of town.”

“Fatiguing gayeties of town,” repeated the admiring farmer. “Fatiguing—”

He sat back in his chair and laughed, and Mr. Cray, delighted at the prospect of getting rid so easily of a tiresome guest, laughed too. Overhead at the open window a third person laughed, but in so quiet and well-bred a fashion that neither of them heard her.

The farmer received a letter a day or two afterwards, and negotiations between Jane Rose on the one side and Lord Fairmount on the other were soon in progress; the farmer’s own composition being deemed somewhat crude for such a correspondence.

“I wish he didn’t want it kept so secret,” said Miss Rose, pondering over the final letter. “I should like to let the Grays and one or two more people know he is staying with us. However, I suppose he must have his own way.”

“You must do as he wishes,” said her father, using his handkerchief violently.

Jane sighed. “He’ll be a little company for me, at any rate,” she remarked. “What is the matter, father?”

“Bit of a cold,” said the farmer, indistinctly, as he made for the door, still holding his handkerchief to his face. “Been coming on some time.”

He put on his hat and went out, and Miss Rose, watching him from the window, was not without fears that the joke might prove too much for a man of his habit. She regarded him thoughtfully, and when he returned at one o’clock to dinner, and encountered instead a violent dust-storm which was raging in the house, she noted with pleasure that his sense of humor was more under control.

“Dinner?” she said, as he strove to squeeze past the furniture which was piled in the hall. “We’ve got no time to think of dinner, and if we had there’s no place for you to eat it. You’d better go in the larder and cut yourself a crust of bread and cheese.”

Her father hesitated and glared at the servant, who, with her head bound up in a duster, passed at the double with a broom. Then he walked slowly into the kitchen.

Miss Rose called out something after him.

“Eh?” said her father, coming back hopefully.

“How is your cold, dear?”

The farmer made no reply, and his daughter smiled contentedly as she heard him stamping about in the larder. He made but a poor meal, and then, refusing point-blank to assist Annie in moving the piano, went and smoked a very reflective pipe in the garden.

Lord Fairmount arrived the following day on foot from the station, and after acknowledging the farmer’s salute with a distant nod requested him to send a cart for his luggage. He was a tall, good-looking young man, and as he stood in the hall languidly twisting his mustache Miss Rose deliberately decided upon his destruction.

“These your daughters?” he inquired, carelessly, as he followed his host into the parlor.

“One of ’em is, my lord; the other is my servant,” replied the farmer.

“She’s got your eyes,” said his lordship, tapping the astonished Annie under the chin; “your nose too, I think.”

“That’s my servant,” said the farmer, knitting his brows at him.

“Oh, indeed!” said his lordship, airily.

He turned round and regarded Jane, but, although she tried to meet him half-way by elevating her chin a little, his audacity failed him and the words died away on his tongue. A long silence followed, broken only by the ill-suppressed giggles of Annie, who had retired to the kitchen.

“I trust that we shall make your lordship comfortable,” said Miss Rose.

“I hope so, my good girl,” was the reply. “And now will you show me my room?”

Miss Rose led the way upstairs and threw open the door; Lord Fairmount, pausing on the threshold, gazed at it disparagingly.

“Is this the best room you have?” he inquired, stiffly.

“Oh, no,” said Miss Rose, smiling; “father’s room is much better than this. Look here.”

She threw open another door and, ignoring a gesticulating figure which stood in the hall below, regarded him anxiously. “If you would prefer father’s room he would be delighted for you to have it. Delighted.”

“Yes, I will have this one,” said Lord Fairmount, entering. “Bring me up some hot water, please, and clear these boots and leggings out.”

Miss Rose tripped downstairs and, bestowing a witching smile upon her sire, waved away his request for an explanation and hastened into the kitchen, whence Annie shortly afterwards emerged with the water.

It was with something of a shock that the farmer discovered that he had to wait for his dinner while his lordship had luncheon. That meal, under his daughter’s management, took a long time, and the joint when it reached him was more than half cold. It was, moreover, quite clear that the aristocracy had not even mastered the rudiments of carving, but preferred instead to box the compass for tit-bits.

He ate his meal in silence, and when it was over sought out his guest to administer a few much-needed stage-directions. Owing, however, to the ubiquity of Jane he wasted nearly the whole of the afternoon before he obtained an opportunity. Even then the interview was short, the farmer having to compress into ten seconds instructions for Lord Fairmount to express a desire to take his meals with the family, and his dinner at the respectable hour of 1 p.m. Instructions as to a change of bedroom were frustrated by the reappearance of Jane.

His lordship went for a walk after that, and coming back with a bored air stood on the hearthrug in the living-room and watched Miss Rose sewing.

“Very dull place,” he said at last, in a dissatisfied voice.

“Yes, my lord,” said Miss Rose, demurely.

“Fearfully dull,” complained his lordship, stifling a yawn. “What I’m to do to amuse myself for a fortnight I’m sure I don’t know.”

Miss Rose raised her fine eyes and regarded him intently. Many a lesser man would have looked no farther for amusement.

“I’m afraid there is not much to do about here, my lord,” she said quietly. “We are very plain folk in these parts.”

“Yes,” assented the other. An obvious compliment rose of itself to his lips, but he restrained himself, though with difficulty. Miss Rose bent her head over her work and stitched industriously. His lordship took up a book and, remembering his mission, read for a couple of hours without taking the slightest notice of her. Miss Rose glanced over in his direction once or twice, and then, with a somewhat vixenish expression on her delicate features, resumed her sewing.

“Wonderful eyes she’s got,” said the gentleman, as he sat on the edge of his bed that night and thought over the events of the day. “It’s pretty to see them flash.”

He saw them flash several times during the next few days, and Mr. Rose himself, was more than satisfied with the hauteur with which his guest treated the household.

“But I don’t like the way you have with me,” he complained.

“It’s all in the part,” urged his lordship.

“Well, you can leave that part out,” rejoined Mr. Rose, with some acerbity. “I object to being spoke to as you speak to me before that girl Annie. Be as proud and unpleasant as you like to my daughter, but leave me alone. Mind that!”

His lordship promised, and in pursuance of his host’s instructions strove manfully to subdue feelings towards Miss Rose by no means in accordance with them. The best of us are liable to absent-mindedness, and he sometimes so far forgot himself as to address her in tones as humble as any in her somewhat large experience.

“I hope that we are making you comfortable here, my lord?” she said, as they sat together one afternoon.

“I have never been more comfortable in my life,” was the gracious reply.

Miss Rose shook her head. “Oh, my lord,” she said, in protest, “think of your mansion.”

His lordship thought of it. For two or three days he had been thinking of houses and furniture and other things of that nature.

“I have never seen an old country seat,” continued Miss Rose, clasping her hands and gazing at him wistfully. “I should be so grateful if your lordship would describe yours to me.”

His lordship shifted uneasily, and then, in face of the girl’s persistence, stood for some time divided between the contending claims of Hampton Court Palace and the Tower of London. He finally decided upon the former, after first refurnishing it at Maple’s.

“How happy you must be!” said the breathless Jane, when he had finished.

He shook his head gravely. “My possessions have never given me any happiness,” he remarked. “I would much rather be in a humble rank of life. Live where I like, and—and marry whom I like.”

There was no mistaking the meaning fall in his voice. Miss Rose sighed gently and lowered her eyes—her lashes had often excited comment. Then, in a soft voice, she asked him the sort of life he would prefer.

In reply, his lordship, with an eloquence which surprised himself, portrayed the joys of life in a seven-roomed house in town, with a greenhouse six feet by three, and a garden large enough to contain it. He really spoke well, and when he had finished his listener gazed at him with eyes suffused with timid admiration.

“Oh, my lord,” she said, prettily, “now I know what you’ve been doing. You’ve been slumming.”

“Slumming?” gasped his lordship.

“You couldn’t have described a place like that unless you had been,” said Miss Rose nodding. “I hope you took the poor people some nice hot soup.”

His lordship tried to explain, but without success. Miss Rose persisted in regarding him as a missionary of food and warmth, and spoke feelingly of the people who had to live in such places. She also warned him against the risk of infection.

“You don’t understand,” he repeated, impatiently. “These are nice houses—nice enough for anybody to live in. If you took soup to people like that, why, they’d throw it at you.”

“Wretches!” murmured the indignant Jane, who was enjoying herself amazingly.

His lordship eyed her with sudden suspicion, but her face was quite grave and bore traces of strong feeling. He explained again, but without avail.

“You never ought to go near such places, my lord,” she concluded, solemnly, as she rose to quit the room. “Even a girl of my station would draw the line at that.”

She bowed deeply and withdrew. His lordship sank into a chair and, thrusting his hands into his pockets, gazed gloomily at the dried grasses in the grate.

During the next day or two his appetite failed, and other well-known symptoms set in. Miss Rose, diagnosing them all, prescribed by stealth some bitter remedies. The farmer regarded his change of manner with disapproval, and, concluding that it was due to his own complaints, sought to reassure him. He also pointed out that his daughter’s opinion of the aristocracy was hardly likely to increase if the only member she knew went about the house as though he had just lost his grandmother.

“You are longing for the gayeties of town, my lord,” he remarked one morning at breakfast.

His lordship shook his head. The gayeties comprised, amongst other things, a stool and a desk.

“I don’t like town,” he said, with a glance at Jane. “If I had my choice I would live here always. I would sooner live here in this charming spot with this charming society than anywhere.”

Mr. Rose coughed and, having caught his eye, shook his head at him and glanced significantly over at the unconscious Jane. The young man ignored his action and, having got an opening, gave utterance in the course of the next ten minutes to Radical heresies of so violent a type that the farmer could hardly keep his seat. Social distinctions were condemned utterly, and the House of Lords referred to as a human dust-bin. The farmer gazed open-mouthed at this snake he had nourished.

“Your lordship will alter your mind when you get to town,” said Jane, demurely.

“Never!” declared the other, impressively.

The girl sighed, and gazing first with much interest at her parent, who seemed to be doing his best to ward off a fit, turned her lustrous eyes upon the guest.

“We shall all miss you,” she said, softly. “You’ve been a lesson to all of us.”

“Lesson?” he repeated, flushing.

“It has improved our behavior so, having a lord in the house,” said Miss Rose, with painful humility. “I’m sure father hasn’t been like the same man since you’ve been here.”

“What d’ye mean Miss?” demanded the farmer, hotly.

“Don’t speak like that before his lordship, father,” said his daughter, hastily. “I’m not blaming you; you’re no worse than the other men about here. You haven’t had an opportunity of learning before, that’s all. It isn’t your fault.”

“Learning?” bellowed the farmer, turning an inflamed visage upon his apprehensive guest. “Have you noticed anything wrong about my behavior?”

“Certainly not,” said his lordship, hastily.

“All I know is,” continued Miss Rose, positively, “I wish you were going to stay here another six months for father’s sake.”

“Look here—” began Mr. Rose, smiting the table.

“And Annie’s,” said Jane, raising her voice above the din. “I don’t know which has improved the most. I’m sure the way they both drink their tea now—”

Mr. Rose pushed his chair back loudly and got up from the table. For a moment he stood struggling for words, then he turned suddenly with a growl and quitted the room, banging the door after him in a fashion which clearly indicated that he still had some lessons to learn.

“You’ve made your father angry,” said his lordship.

“It’s for his own good,” said Miss Rose. “Are you really sorry to leave us?”

“Sorry?” repeated the other. “Sorry is no word for it.”

“You will miss father,” said the girl.

He sighed gently.

“And Annie,” she continued.

He sighed again, and Jane took a slight glance at him cornerwise.

“And me too, I hope,” she said, in a low voice.

“_Miss_ you!” repeated his lordship, in a suffocating voice. “I should miss the sun less.”

“I am so glad,” said Jane, clasping her hands; “it is so nice to feel that one is not quite forgotten. Of course, I can never forget you. You are the only nobleman I have ever met.”

“I hope that it is not only because of that,” he said, forlornly.

Miss Rose pondered. When she pondered her eyes increased in size and revealed unsuspected depths.

“No-o,” she said at length, in a hesitating voice.

“Suppose that I were not what I am represented to be,” he said slowly. “Suppose that, instead of being Lord Fairmount, I were merely a clerk.”

“A clerk?” repeated Miss Rose, with a very well-managed shudder. “How can I suppose such an absurd thing as that?”

“But if I were?” urged his lordship, feverishly.

“It’s no use supposing such a thing as that,” said Miss Rose, briskly; “your high birth is stamped on you.”

His lordship shook his head. “I would sooner be a laborer on this farm than a king anywhere else,” he said, with feeling.

Miss Rose drew a pattern on the floor with the toe of her shoe.

“The poorest laborer on the farm can have the pleasure of looking at you every day,” continued his lordship passionately. “Every day of his life he can see you, and feel a better man for it.”

Miss Rose looked at him sharply. Only the day before the poorest laborer had seen her—when he wasn’t expecting the honor—and received an epitome of his character which had nearly stunned him. But his lordship’s face was quite grave.

“I go to-morrow,” he said.

“Yes,” said Jane, in a hushed voice.

He crossed the room gently and took a seat by her side. Miss Rose, still gazing at the floor, wondered indignantly why it was she was not blushing. His Lordship’s conversation had come to a sudden stop and the silence was most awkward.

“I’ve been a fool, Miss Rose,” he said at last, rising and standing over her; “and I’ve been taking a great liberty. I’ve been deceiving you for nearly a fortnight.”

“Nonsense!” responded Miss Rose, briskly.

“I have been deceiving you,” he repeated. “I have made you believe that I am a person of title.”

“Nonsense!” said Miss Rose again.

The other started and eyed her uneasily.

“Nobody would mistake you for a lord,” said Miss Rose, cruelly. “Why, I shouldn’t think that you had ever seen one. You didn’t do it at all properly. Why, your uncle Cray would have done it better.” Mr. Cray’s nephew fell back in consternation and eyed her dumbly as she laughed. All mirth is not contagious, and he was easily able to refrain from joining in this.

“I can’t understand,” said Miss Rose, as she wiped a tear-dimmed eye—“I can’t understand how you could have thought I should be so stupid.”

“I’ve been a fool,” said the other, bitterly, as he retreated to the door. “Good-by.”

“Good-by,” said Jane. She looked him full in the face, and the blushes for which she had been waiting came in force. “You needn’t go, unless you want to,” she said, softly. “I like fools better than lords.”

ALF’S DREAM

ALF’S DREAM

“I’ve just been drinking a man’s health,” said the night watchman, coming slowly on to the wharf and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand; “he’s come in for a matter of three ’undred and twenty pounds, and he stood me arf a pint—arf a pint!”

He dragged a small empty towards him, and after planing the surface with his hand sat down and gazed scornfully across the river.

“Four ale,” he said, with a hard laugh; “and when I asked ’im—just for the look of the thing, and to give ’im a hint—whether he’d ’ave another, he said ‘yes.’”

The night watchman rose and paced restlessly up and down the jetty.

“Money,” he said, at last, resuming his wonted calm and lowering himself carefully to the box again—“money always gets left to the wrong people; some of the kindest-’arted men I’ve ever known ’ave never had a ha’penny left ’em, while teetotaler arter teetotaler wot I’ve heard of ’ave come in for fortins.”

It’s ’ard lines though, sometimes, waiting for other people’s money. I knew o’ one chap that waited over forty years for ’is grandmother to die and leave ’im her money; and she died of catching cold at ’is funeral. Another chap I knew, arter waiting years and years for ’is rich aunt to die, was hung because she committed suicide.

It’s always risky work waiting for other people to die and leave you money. Sometimes they don’t die; sometimes they marry agin; and sometimes they leave it to other people instead.

Talking of marrying agin reminds me o’ something that ’appened to a young fellow I knew named Alf Simms. Being an orphan ’e was brought up by his uncle, George Hatchard, a widowed man of about sixty. Alf used to go to sea off and on, but more off than on, his uncle ’aving quite a tidy bit of ’ouse property, and it being understood that Alf was to have it arter he ’ad gone. His uncle used to like to ’ave him at ’ome, and Alf didn’t like work, so it suited both parties.

I used to give Alf a bit of advice sometimes, sixty being a dangerous age for a man, especially when he ’as been a widower for so long he ’as had time to forget wot being married’s like; but I must do Alf the credit to say it wasn’t wanted. He ’ad got a very old ’ead on his shoulders, and always picked the housekeeper ’imself to save the old man the trouble. I saw two of ’em, and I dare say I could ’ave seen more, only I didn’t want to.

Cleverness is a good thing in its way, but there’s such a thing as being too clever, and the last ’ousekeeper young Alf picked died of old age a week arter he ’ad gone to sea. She passed away while she was drawing George Hatchard’s supper beer, and he lost ten gallons o’ the best bitter ale and his ’ousekeeper at the same time.

It was four months arter that afore Alf came ’ome, and the fust sight of the new ’ousekeeper, wot opened the door to ’im, upset ’im terrible. She was the right side o’ sixty to begin with, and only ordinary plain. Then she was as clean as a new pin, and dressed up as though she was going out to tea.

“Oh, you’re Alfred, I s’pose?” she ses, looking at ’im.

“Mr. Simms is my name,” ses young Alf, starting and drawing hisself up.

“I know you by your portrait,” ses the ’ousekeeper. “Come in. ’Ave you ’ad a pleasant v’y’ge? Wipe your boots.”

Alfred wiped ’is boots afore he thought of wot he was doing. Then he drew hisself up stiff agin and marched into the parlor.

“Sit down,” ses the ’ousekeeper, in a kind voice.

Alfred sat down afore he thought wot ’e was doing agin.

“I always like to see people comfortable,” ses the ’ousekeeper; “it’s my way. It’s warm weather for the time o’ year, ain’t it? George is upstairs, but he’ll be down in a minute.”

“_Who?_” ses Alf, hardly able to believe his ears.

“George,” ses the ’ousekeeper.

“George? George who?” ses Alfred, very severe.

“Why your uncle, of course,” ses the ’ousekeeper. “Do you think I’ve got a houseful of Georges?”

Young Alf sat staring at her and couldn’t say a word. He noticed that the room ’ad been altered, and that there was a big photygraph of her stuck up on the mantelpiece. He sat there fidgeting with ’is feet—until the ’ousekeeper looked at them—and then ’e got up and walked upstairs.

His uncle, wot was sitting on his bed when ’e went into the room and pretended that he ’adn’t heard ’im come in, shook hands with ’im as though he’d never leave off.

“I’ve got something to tell you, Alf,” he ses, arter they ’ad said “How d’ye do?” and he ’ad talked about the weather until Alf was fair tired of it.

“I’ve been and gone and done a foolish thing, and ’ow you’ll take it I don’t know.”

“Been and asked the new ’ousekeeper to marry you, I s’pose?” ses Alf, looking at ’im very hard.

His uncle shook his ’ead. “I never asked ’er; I’d take my Davy I didn’t,” he ses.

“Well, you ain’t going to marry her, then?” ses Alf, brightening up.

His uncle shook his ’ead agin. “She didn’t want no asking,” he ses, speaking very slow and mournful. “I just ’appened to put my arm round her waist by accident one day and the thing was done.”

“Accident? How could you do it by accident?” ses Alf, firing up.

“How can I tell you that?” ses George Hatchard. “If I’d known ’ow, it wouldn’t ’ave been an accident, would it?”

“Don’t you want to marry her?” ses Alf, at last. “You needn’t marry ’er if you don’t want to.”

George Hatchard looked at ’im and sniffed. “When you know her as well as I do you won’t talk so foolish,” he ses. “We’d better go down now, else she’ll think we’ve been talking about ’er.”

They went downstairs and ’ad tea together, and young Alf soon see the truth of his uncle’s remarks. Mrs. Pearce—that was the ’ousekeeper’s name—called his uncle “dear” every time she spoke to ’im, and arter tea she sat on the sofa side by side with ’im and held his ’and.

Alf lay awake arf that night thinking things over and ’ow to get Mrs. Pearce out of the house, and he woke up next morning with it still on ’is mind. Every time he got ’is uncle alone he spoke to ’im about it, and told ’im to pack Mrs. Pearce off with a month’s wages, but George Hatchard wouldn’t listen to ’im.

“She’d ’ave me up for breach of promise and ruin me,” he ses. “She reads the paper to me every Sunday arternoon, mostly breach of promise cases, and she’d ’ave me up for it as soon as look at me. She’s got ’eaps and ’eaps of love-letters o’ mine.”

“Love-letters!” ses Alf, staring. “Love-letters when you live in the same house!”

“She started it,” ses his uncle; “she pushed one under my door one morning, and I ’ad to answer it. She wouldn’t come down and get my breakfast till I did. I have to send her one every morning.”

“Do you sign ’em with your own name?” ses Alf, arter thinking a bit.

“No,” ses ’is uncle, turning red.

“Wot do you sign ’em, then?” ses Alf.

“Never you mind,” ses his uncle, turning redder. “It’s my handwriting, and that’s good enough for her. I did try writing backwards, but I only did it once. I wouldn’t do it agin for fifty pounds. You ought to ha’ heard ’er.”

“If ’er fust husband was alive she couldn’t marry you,” ses Alf, very slow and thoughtful.

“No,” ses his uncle, nasty-like; “and if I was an old woman she couldn’t marry me. You know as well as I do that he went down with the _Evening Star_ fifteen years ago.”

“So far as she knows,” ses Alf; “but there was four of them saved, so why not five? Mightn’t ’e have floated away on a spar or something and been picked up? Can’t you dream it three nights running, and tell ’er that you feel certain sure he’s alive?”

“If I dreamt it fifty times it wouldn’t make any difference,” ses George Hatchard. “Here! wot are you up to? ’Ave you gone mad, or wot? You poke me in the ribs like that agin if you dare.”

“Her fust ’usband’s alive,” ses Alf, smiling at ’im.

“_Wot?_” ses his uncle.

“He floated away on a bit o’ wreckage,” ses Alf, nodding at ’im, “just like they do in books, and was picked up more dead than alive and took to Melbourne. He’s now living up-country working on a sheep station.”

“Who’s dreaming now?” ses his uncle.

“It’s a fact,” ses Alf. “I know a chap wot’s met ’im and talked to ’im. She can’t marry you while he’s alive, can she?”

“Certainly _not_,” ses George Hatchard, trembling all over; “but are you sure you ’aven’t made a mistake?”

“Certain sure,” ses Alf.

“It’s too good to be true,” ses George Hatchard.

“O’ course it is,” ses Alf, “but she won’t know that. Look ’ere; you write down all the things that she ’as told you about herself and give it to me, and I’ll soon find the chap I spoke of wot’s met ’im. He’d meet a dozen men if it was made worth his while.”

George Hatchard couldn’t understand ’im at fust, and when he did he wouldn’t ’ave a hand in it because it wasn’t the right thing to do, and because he felt sure that Mrs. Pearce would find it out. But at last ’e wrote out all about her for Alf; her maiden name, and where she was born, and everything; and then he told Alf that, if ’e dared to play such a trick on an unsuspecting, loving woman, he’d never forgive ’im.

“I shall want a couple o’ quid,” ses Alf.

“Certainly not,” ses his uncle. “I won’t ’ave nothing to do with it, I tell you.”

“Only to buy chocolates with,” ses Alf.

“Oh, all right,” ses George Hatchard; and he went upstairs to ’is bedroom and came down with three pounds and gave ’im. “If that ain’t enough,” he ses, “let me know, and you can ’ave more.”

Alf winked at ’im, but the old man drew hisself up and stared at ’im, and then ’e turned and walked away with his ’ead in the air.

He ’ardly got a chance of speaking to Alf next day, Mrs. Pearce being ’ere, there, and everywhere, as the saying is, and finding so many little odd jobs for Alf to do that there was no time for talking. But the day arter he sidled up to ’im when the ’ouse-keeper was out of the room and asked ’im whether he ’ad bought the chocolates.

“Yes,” ses Alfred, taking one out of ’is pocket and eating it, “some of ’em.”

George Hatchard coughed and fidgeted about. “When are you going to buy the others?” he ses.

“As I want ’em,” ses Alf. “They’d spoil if I got ’em all at once.”

George Hatchard coughed agin. “I ’ope you haven’t been going on with that wicked plan you spoke to me about the other night,” he ses.

“Certainly not,” ses Alf, winking to ’imself; “not arter wot you said. How could I?”

“That’s right,” ses the old man. “I’m sorry for this marriage for your sake, Alf. O’ course, I was going to leave you my little bit of ’ouse property, but I suppose now it’ll ’ave to be left to her. Well, well, I s’pose it’s best for a young man to make his own way in the world.”

“I s’pose so,” ses Alf.

“Mrs. Pearce was asking only yesterday when you was going back to sea agin,” ses his uncle, looking at ’im.

“Oh!” ses Alf.

“She’s took a dislike to you, I think,” ses the old man. “It’s very ’ard, my fav’rite nephew, and the only one I’ve got. I forgot to tell you the other day that her fust ’usband, Charlie Pearce, ’ad a kind of a wart on ’is left ear. She’s often spoke to me about it.”

“In—deed!” ses Alf.

“Yes,” ses his uncle, “_left_ ear, and a scar on his forehead where a friend of his kicked ’im one day.”

Alf nodded, and then he winked at ’im agin. George Hatchard didn’t wink back, but he patted ’im on the shoulder and said ’ow well he was filling out, and ’ow he got more like ’is pore mother every day he lived.

“I ’ad a dream last night,” ses Alf. “I dreamt that a man I know named Bill Flurry, but wot called ’imself another name in my dream, and didn’t know me then, came ’ere one evening when we was all sitting down at supper, Joe Morgan and ’is missis being here, and said as ’ow Mrs. Pearce’s fust husband was alive and well.”

“That’s a very odd dream,” ses his uncle; “but wot was Joe Morgan and his missis in it for?”

“Witnesses,” ses Alf.

George Hatchard fell over a footstool with surprise. “Go on,” he ses, rubbing his leg. “It’s a queer thing, but I was going to ask the Morgans ’ere to spend the evening next Wednesday.”

“Or was it Tuesday?” ses Alf, considering.

“I said Tuesday,” ses his uncle, looking over Alf’s ’ead so that he needn’t see ’im wink agin. “Wot was the end of your dream, Alf?”

“The end of it was,” ses Alf, “that you and Mrs. Pearce was both very much upset, as o’ course you couldn’t marry while ’er fust was alive, and the last thing I see afore I woke up was her boxes standing at the front door waiting for a cab.”

George Hatchard was going to ask ’im more about it, but just then Mrs. Pearce came in with a pair of Alf’s socks that he ’ad been untidy enough to leave in the middle of the floor instead of chucking ’em under the bed. She was so unpleasant about it that, if it hadn’t ha’ been for the thought of wot was going to ’appen on Tuesday, Alf couldn’t ha’ stood it.

For the next day or two George Hatchard was in such a state of nervousness and excitement that Alf was afraid that the ’ousekeeper would notice it. On Tuesday morning he was trembling so much that she said he’d got a chill, and she told ’im to go to bed and she’d make ’im a nice hot mustard poultice. George was afraid to say “no,” but while she was in the kitchen making the poultice he slipped out for a walk and cured ’is trembling with three whiskies. Alf nearly got the poultice instead, she was so angry.

She was unpleasant all dinner-time, but she got better in the arternoon, and when the Morgans came in the evening, and she found that Mrs. Morgan ’ad got a nasty sort o’ red swelling on her nose, she got quite good-tempered. She talked about it nearly all supper-time, telling ’er what she ought to do to it, and about a friend of hers that ’ad one and ’ad to turn teetotaler on account of it.

“My nose is good enough for me,” ses Mrs. Morgan, at last.

“It don’t affect ’er appetite,” ses George Hatchard, trying to make things pleasant, “and that’s the main thing.”

Mrs. Morgan got up to go, but arter George Hatchard ’ad explained wot he didn’t mean she sat down agin and began to talk to Mrs. Pearce about ’er dress and ’ow beautifully it was made. And she asked Mrs. Pearce to give ’er the pattern of it, because she should ’ave one like it herself when she was old enough. “I do like to see people dressed suitable,” she ses, with a smile.

“I think you ought to ’ave a much deeper color than this,” ses Mrs. Pearce, considering.

“Not when I’m faded,” ses Mrs. Morgan.

Mrs. Pearce, wot was filling ’er glass at the time, spilt a lot of beer all over the tablecloth, and she was so cross about it that she sat like a stone statue for pretty near ten minutes. By the time supper was finished people was passing things to each other in whispers, and when a bit o’ cheese went the wrong way with Joe Morgan he nearly suffocated ’imself for fear of making a noise.

They ’ad a game o’ cards arter supper, counting twenty nuts as a penny, and everybody got more cheerful. They was all laughing and talking, and Joe Morgan was pretending to steal Mrs. Pearce’s nuts, when George Hatchard held up his ’and.

“Somebody at the street door, I think,” he ses.

Young Alf got up to open it, and they ’eard a man’s voice in the passage asking whether Mrs. Pearce lived there, and the next moment Alf came into the room, followed by Bill Flurry.

“Here’s a gentleman o’ the name o’ Smith asking arter you,” he ses, looking at Mrs. Pearce.

“Wot d’you want?” ses Mrs. Pearce rather sharp.

“It is ’er,” ses Bill, stroking his long white beard and casting ’is eyes up at the ceiling. “You don’t remember me, Mrs. Pearce, but I used to see you years ago, when you and poor Charlie Pearce was living down Poplar way.”

“Well, wot about it?” ses Mrs. Pearce.

“I’m coming to it,” ses Bill Flurry. “I’ve been two months trying to find you, so there’s no need to be in a hurry for a minute or two. Besides, what I’ve got to say ought to be broke gently, in case you faint away with joy.”

“Rubbish!” ses Mrs. Pearce. “I ain’t the fainting sort.”

“I ’ope it’s nothing unpleasant,” ses George Hatchard, pouring ’im out a glass of whisky.

“Quite the opposite,” ses Bill. “It’s the best news she’s ’eard for fifteen years.”

“Are you going to tell me wot you want, or ain’t you?” ses Mrs. Pearce.

“I’m coming to it,” ses Bill. “Six months ago I was in Melbourne, and one day I was strolling about looking in at the shop-winders, when all at once I thought I see a face I knew. It was a good bit older than when I see it last, and the whiskers was gray, but I says to myself—”

“I can see wot’s coming,” ses Mrs. Morgan, turning red with excitement and pinching Joe’s arm.

“I ses to myself,” ses Bill Flurry, “either that’s a ghost, I ses or else it’s Charlie—”

“Go on,” ses George Hatchard, as was sitting with ’is fists clinched on the table and ’is eyes wide open, staring at ’im.

“Pearce,” ses Bill Flurry.

You might ’ave heard a pin drop. They all sat staring at ’im, and then George Hatchard took out ’is handkerchief and ’eld it up to ’is face.

“But he was drownded in the _Evening Star_,” ses Joe Morgan.

Bill Flurry didn’t answer ’im. He poured out pretty near a tumbler of whisky and offered it to Mrs. Pearce, but she pushed it away, and, arter looking round in a ’elpless sort of way and shaking his ’ead once or twice, he finished it up ’imself.

“It couldn’t ’ave been ’im,” ses George Hatchard, speaking through ’is handkerchief. “I can’t believe it. It’s too cruel.”

“I tell you it was ’im,” ses Bill. “He floated off on a spar when the ship went down, and was picked up two days arterwards by a bark and taken to New Zealand. He told me all about it, and he told me if ever I saw ’is wife to give her ’is kind regards.”

“_Kind regards_!” ses Joe Morgan, starting up. “Why didn’t he let ’is wife know ’e was alive?”

“That’s wot I said to ’im,” ses Bill Flurry; “but he said he ’ad ’is reasons.”

“Ah, to be sure,” ses Mrs. Morgan, nodding. “Why, you and her can’t be married now,” she ses, turning to George Hatchard.

“Married?” ses Bill Flurry with a start, as George Hatchard gave a groan that surprised ’imself. “Good gracious! what a good job I found ’er!”

“I s’pose you don’t know where he is to be found now?” ses Mrs. Pearce, in a low voice, turning to Bill.

“I do not, ma’am,” ses Bill, “but I think you’d find ’im somewhere in Australia. He keeps changing ’is name and shifting about, but I dare say you’d ’ave as good a chance of finding ’im as anybody.”

“It’s a terrible blow to me,” ses George Hatchard, dabbing his eyes.

“I know it is,” ses Mrs. Pearce; “but there, you men are all alike. I dare say if this hadn’t turned up you’d ha’ found something else.”

“Oh, ’ow can you talk like that?” ses George Hatchard, very reproachful. “It’s the only thing in the world that could ’ave prevented our getting married. I’m surprised at you.”

“Well, that’s all right, then,” ses Mrs. Pearce, “and we’ll get married after all.”

“But you can’t,” ses Alf.

“It’s bigamy,” ses Joe Morgan.

“You’d get six months,” ses his wife.

“Don’t you worry, dear,” ses Mrs. Pearce, nodding at George Hatchard; “that man’s made a mistake.”

“Mistake!” ses Bill Flurry. “Why, I tell you I talked to ’im. It was Charlie Pearce right enough; scar on ’is forehead and a wart on ’is left ear and all.”

“It’s wonderful,” ses Mrs. Pearce. “I can’t think where you got it all from.”

“Got it all from?” ses Bill, staring at her. “Why, from ’im.”

“Oh, of course,” ses Mrs. Pearce. “I didn’t think of that; but that only makes it the more wonderful, doesn’t it?—because, you see, he didn’t go on the _Evening Star_.”

“_Wot_?” ses George Hatchard. “Why you told me yourself—”

“I know I did,” ses Mrs. Pearce, “but that was only just to spare your feelings. Charlie _was_ going to sea in her, but he was prevented.”

“Prevented?” ses two or three of ’em.

“Yes,” ses Mrs. Pearce; “the night afore he was to ’ave sailed there was some silly mistake over a diamond ring, and he got five years. He gave a different name at the police-station, and naturally everybody thought ’e went down with the ship. And when he died in prison I didn’t undeceive ’em.”

She took out her ’andkerchief, and while she was busy with it Bill Flurry got up and went out on tiptoe. Young Alf got up a second or two arterwards to see where he’d gone; and the last Joe Morgan and his missis see of the happy couple they was sitting on one chair, and George Hatchard was making desprit and ’artrending attempts to smile.

A DISTANT RELATIVE

A DISTANT RELATIVE

Mr. Potter had just taken Ethel Spriggs into the kitchen to say good-by; in the small front room Mr. Spriggs, with his fingers already fumbling at the linen collar of ceremony, waited impatiently.

“They get longer and longer over their good-bys,” he complained.

“It’s only natural,” said Mrs. Spriggs, looking up from a piece of fine sewing. “Don’t you remember—”

“No, I don’t,” said her husband, doggedly. “I know that your pore father never ’ad to put on a collar for me; and, mind you, I won’t wear one after they’re married, not if you all went on your bended knees and asked me to.”

He composed his face as the door opened, and nodded good-night to the rather over-dressed young man who came through the room with his daughter.

The latter opened the front-door and passing out with Mr. Potter, held it slightly open. A penetrating draught played upon the exasperated Mr. Spriggs. He coughed loudly.

“Your father’s got a cold,” said Mr. Potter, in a concerned voice.

“No; it’s only too much smoking,” said the girl. “He’s smoking all day long.”

The indignant Mr. Spriggs coughed again; but the young people had found a new subject of conversation. It ended some minutes later in a playful scuffle, during which the door acted the part of a ventilating fan.

“It’s only for another fortnight,” said Mrs. Spriggs, hastily, as her husband rose.

“After they’re spliced,” said the vindictive Mr. Spriggs, resuming his seat, “I’ll go round and I’ll play about with their front-door till—”

He broke off abruptly as his daughter, darting into the room, closed the door with a bang that nearly extinguished the lamp, and turned the key. Before her flushed and laughing face Mr. Spriggs held his peace.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, eying him. “What are you looking like that for?”

“Too much draught—for your mother,” said Mr. Spriggs, feebly. “I’m afraid of her asthma agin.”

He fell to work on the collar once more, and, escaping at last from the clutches of that enemy, laid it on the table and unlaced his boots. An attempt to remove his coat was promptly frustrated by his daughter.

“You’ll get doing it when you come round to see us,” she explained.

Mr. Spriggs sighed, and lighting a short clay pipe—forbidden in the presence of his future son-in-law—fell to watching mother and daughter as they gloated over dress materials and discussed double-widths.

“Anybody who can’t be ’appy with her,” he said, half an hour later, as his daughter slapped his head by way of bidding him good-night, and retired, “don’t deserve to be ’appy.”

“I wish it was over,” whispered his wife. “She’ll break her heart if anything happens, and—and Gussie will be out now in a day or two.”

“A gal can’t ’elp what her uncle does,” said Mr. Spriggs, fiercely; “if Alfred throws her over for that, he’s no man.”

“Pride is his great fault,” said his wife, mournfully.

“It’s no good taking up troubles afore they come,” observed Mr. Spriggs. “P’r’aps Gussie won’t come ’ere.”

“He’ll come straight here,” said his wife, with conviction; “he’ll come straight here and try and make a fuss of me, same as he used to do when we was children and I’d got a ha’penny. I know him.”

“Cheer up, old gal,” said Mr. Spriggs; “if he does, we must try and get rid of ’im; and, if he won’t go, we must tell Alfred that he’s been to Australia, same as we did Ethel.”

His wife smiled faintly.

“That’s the ticket,” continued Mr. Spriggs. “For one thing, I b’leeve he’ll be ashamed to show his face here; but, if he does, he’s come back from Australia. See? It’ll make it nicer for ’im too. You don’t suppose he wants to boast of where he’s been?”

“And suppose he comes while Alfred is here?” said his wife.

“Then I say, ‘How ’ave you left ’em all in Australia?’ and wink at him,” said the ready Mr. Spriggs.

“And s’pose you’re not here?” objected his wife.

“Then you say it and wink at him,” was the reply. “No; I know you can’t,” he added, hastily, as Mrs. Spriggs raised another objection; “you’ve been too well brought up. Still, you can try.”

It was a slight comfort to Mrs. Spriggs that Mr. Augustus Price did, after all, choose a convenient time for his reappearance. A faint knock sounded on the door two days afterwards as she sat at tea with her husband, and an anxious face with somewhat furtive eyes was thrust into the room.

“Emma!” said a mournful voice, as the upper part of the intruder’s body followed the face.

“Gussie!” said Mrs. Spriggs, rising in disorder.

Mr. Price drew his legs into the room, and, closing the door with extraordinary care, passed the cuff of his coat across his eyes and surveyed them tenderly.

“I’ve come home to die,” he said, slowly, and, tottering across the room, embraced his sister with much unction.

“What are you going to die of?” inquired Mr. Spriggs, reluctantly accepting the extended hand.

“Broken ’art, George,” replied his brother-in-law, sinking into a chair.

Mr. Spriggs grunted, and, moving his chair a little farther away, watched the intruder as his wife handed him a plate. A troubled glance from his wife reminded him of their arrangements for the occasion, and he cleared his throat several times in vain attempts to begin.