Read the book: «Sweethearts at Home», page 7

"I am her brother. She is my sister," Hugh John repeated, with his usual quiet persistency. "She is not yours in any way. Therefore I cannot take from you what you never possessed."

"I love her, and I will kill you, Hugh John Picton Smith!" moaned poor Nipper, his whole body shaking with impotent anger.

"Very well, you can try, though you are older," said Hugh John; "only, if I win, you will let Elizabeth Fortinbras alone."

"All right," said Nipper, "I agree. And if I lick you, you will stop prejudicing her against me!"

"You won't win!" prophesied Hugh John still more quietly.

And that is why Elizabeth Fortinbras' afternoons and evenings at New Erin Villa were thenceforward full of peace. Also why no young butcher hung any more over the counter, and why Mr. Nipper Donnan spent his evenings in the kitchen with Meg Linwood. It explains also why, when he came to say good-by to Elizabeth Fortinbras, Hugh John had a split lip.

Yet the girl asked no questions of her champion. She did not appear to notice the slight wound, and she sent away Hugh John with a single token of (sisterly) gratitude, and the curious reflection that a split lip does not spoil kissing nearly so much as a fellow might think.

XIII
"UNTO US AS A DAUGHTER"

November 2. The same Age.

[It is really the first of the month, but I date it the second, because the first is a Sunday, you see.]

After the fine weather of July came a horrid rainy spell. Now I don't mind so much when the days are short, the trees bare, and the time for winter lamps and winter fires is come. Then you can just shut yourself up, get some books you have been promising yourself for a long time to look at – and there you are.

But deluged park, dripping shrubbery, Esk-water growling turbidly at the foot of the Low Park, all the noble marine architecture of the two Torres Vedrases deep under swirling froth – that is what I hate, and especially with light to see it by – oh, good fourteen to sixteen hours of it. Pitter, patter on the roof, a sprinkle of broad drops on the window-panes from the trees swishing in the wind outside. After the first three days it grows unbearable.

It was a weary time, and a mockery for any one to call "holidays," especially after such a noble summer and autumn. But it cleared after Hugh John had been a week or two at college. During the wet weather I often went into the shop to see Elizabeth Fortinbras. I could now, you see, because Nipper Donnan was not always there.

More than once, however, I encountered his father, Butcher Donnan, who went about smiling and rubbing his hands – as if he had stopped the whole business. Of course I let him think so. For it is no good setting Grown-ups right. They always know better.

Well, and do you know, every time I went Elizabeth asked all about Hugh John, and if I had heard from him. At first I thought, as, of course, any girl would, that Elizabeth was only foxing to take me in. But afterwards I found out that they really did not write to one another. She owned, though, to having kissed him good-by. But that was only on account of his split lip and what he had done about Nipper.

Hugh John's explanation of his silence, given later, was that there were no sorrel stalks near the college, and that if Elizabeth really wanted anything, he knew that she would write and ask him.

Now, on the face of it, you would never believe this. It simply could not be, you would say. Yet it was. Even Nipper, who held out longest, ended by believing it. I, who had a sneaking liking for a love-story, of any sort, was secretly disappointed. Mrs. Donnan could not move in her kitchen for Nipper, who came home early now to talk to Meg Linwood.

Have you ever noticed that when any one has got a back-set in love, or what they think is love, they are quite apt to fly off at a tangent, and marry the least likely person in the world?

To the common eye, no one could have been less likely to engage Nipper's attention – with his lost love still in the front shop – than Meg Linwood in the back.

She was plump, rotund, rosy, where Elizabeth Fortinbras was slender, willowy, like Diana in the pictures and statues of her in the old Art Journals and Illustrated London News of the Exhibition year – I mean 1851. (As a child I always liked those volumes. There were such a lot of pictures in them, and so little reading.)

But it was lost labor advising Nipper Donnan. He would show Elizabeth Fortinbras what she had missed. He would have the finest shop, the best meat, the most regularly paid monthly accounts, the biggest, squarest stone house with stables for the smartest trap to drive out his wife in. And then Elizabeth would awake to her folly. But too late! Too late! Elizabeth's goose was cooked.

Nipper avoided the first outbreak of parental wrath by running off with Meg Linwood, and Mrs. Donnan consoled her husband by her usual reflection that all was for the best. There are, indeed, very few things breakable about a butcher's shop, and if Meg had stayed at New Erin Villa, a complete set of crockery would have been required at an early date.

From Dumfries and Glasgow, Nipper sent very brief letters expressive of a desire to come to terms with his father. He was married. That could not be altered or amended. Meg came of a respectable family, and (save the breakages) no fault could be found with her.

True, Mrs. Donnan sighed. She would rather have seen Nipper going proudly down the aisle with another than Meg Linwood on his arm. As for Butcher Donnan himself, as soon as he got over dwelling upon the thrashing he meant to give Nipper when he caught him, the outlines of a broader, farther reaching, less arbitrary settlement began to form themselves in his mind.

He saw his lawyer, Mr. John Liddesdale, and what they said to one another bore fruit afterwards. But it was a busy ten days for Butcher Donnan. He had to spend the early morning of every day in the down town shop. He had the rooms above it cleaned out, new furniture installed – and he abused his son as he went.

"The young fool!" was the best word for Nipper, forgetting that he himself had married at eighteen. Each afternoon he was out in the blue and gold van with the collapsible rain-hood. In the evenings he looked into the ashes of the kitchen fire and thought. It was then that Elizabeth proved herself above rubies to the old folks of New Erin.

"Faith, didn't I tell ye, from the first," cried Butcher Donnan, slapping his thigh mightily, "that's the girl, Cynthia! Nothing she will not turn her hand to – as smart as a jay, and all as sweet and natural as the Queen of Sheba coming it over Solomon!"

"It strikes me, Butcher Donnan," said his wife, "that for an old man you are getting wonderfully fond o' the lass!"

She was smiling also, a loving, caressing, motherly smile, showing mostly about the eyes, as she spoke of Elizabeth Fortinbras, which was very good to see.

"Fond of her, is it?" cried Donnan. "I declare, I'm as fond of her as I wad ha' been o' my own daughter, if it had pleased Mary an' the saints to give us one!"

"And why not?" said Mrs. Donnan, bending suddenly towards her husband, and startling him with the earnestness of her regard.

"Why not – Cynthia, woman? You have been talking to Mr. Liddesdale?"

"Not I," said his wife, smiling. "You should not talk in your sleep, that's all, Butcher Donnan, if you want to keep your little secrets."

"Ah, wife, wife, it's you that are the wonderful woman," cried the Butcher-Pastry-Cook; "but if that be so, faith, it's just as well I don't sleep with that Thief-o'-the-Wurrld Kemp, our sugar merchant. But what say you, wife?"

"I say what you say, Butcher Donnan!"

"Do you think she would accept? Would she come to us and be our daughter?"

"By this and that," said his wife, "mind, I take it for granted that you have done what is right by Nipper, and that he and Meg may come home when they like?"

"Not before Saturday!" said the Butcher; "furniture and all won't be in. And if I saw Nipper for the first time on any other day than the blessed Sabbath, I might be tempted even then to break his silly head!"

This from Butcher Donnan was equal to a stage benediction from another. But his wife looked for more light, and in answer to the question in her eyes he told her all.

"Oh, Nipper is all right. He gets more than he deserves, the rascal. I will let him off what he still owes me on the business. The shop and dwelling-house shall be put in his name, and that's a deal more than ever I dreamed of having at his age. As for the dollars – well, we will see about those, when you and I have done with them!"

"What do you think about asking Elizabeth?" said his wife.

It was at this moment that I chanced to come in, and had the whole story told me by Mrs. Donnan. Elizabeth had cycled down to her father's house, and so was safely out of the way. Only our conference was interrupted by the various calls upon Mr. Donnan to answer the sharp "cling" of the bell in the outer shop.

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 ONLY

CANARY ISLANDS COCOA-NUT

CANDY

A 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.