Two Knapsacks Part 44

It was delicate work arranging these little Speedwells, and Gratiolas, the Wood-Sorrels, and the smaller Monkey-flower. Hands had to follow very close on one another, and heads to be bent to examine, and sometimes there was just a little brush of brown and golden hair that, strange to say, sent responsive tingles along the nerves, and warm flushes to cheek and brow. What a hopeless idiot he was not to have foreseen the possibility of this, and to have brought home twice the number of specimens! Alas! they were all in the press. But, a happy thought struck him: would Miss Carmichael care to look at the dried ones, some of which had kept their colour very well? Yes, she had a few minutes to spare. So, he brought chairs up to the table, and they sat down, side by side, and he told her all about the flowers and how he got them, and the poetry Wilks and he quoted over them. Then the specimens had to be critically examined, so as to let Miss Carmichael learn the distinctive characteristics of the various orders, and this brought the heads close together again, when suddenly their owners were started by the unexpected clang of the dinner gong. "Thank you so much, Mr.

Coristine," said the lady, frankly; "you have given me a very pleasant half hour." The lawyer bowed his acknowledgment, but said, beneath his moustache: "Half an hour is it? I thought it was a lifetime rolled up in two minutes, no, one."

What did those deceitful men, Errol and Perrowne, mean, by saying they had to go away to get up their Wednesday evening talk, and to visit their paris.h.i.+oners? There they were, in their old places at the table, Mr. Errol at Mrs. Carmichael's right, and apparently on the best of terms with her, and Mr. Perrowne dancing attendance upon Miss Halbert and her invalid father. Mrs. Du Plessis thought she would take up Mr.

Wilkinson's dinner with the colonel's help, as Cecile had been reading to him so long. Accordingly, the Captain talked to that young lady, while Mr. Bangs monopolized Mrs. Carruthers. There was a little commotion, when Mr. Bigglethorpe walked in, and received the sympathetic expressions of the company over his singed face and scorched hands. In spite of these, the sufferer had been up early fis.h.i.+ng, just after the rain. Fortunately, he continued, there was no cleared land about the lakes, hence there were very few gra.s.shoppers washed in by the heavy downpour. Had there been, he wouldn't have got a fish. But he had got fish, a big string of them, in splendid condition. He had left some with his kind entertainers, the Richards, but had plenty remaining, which he had left in the kitchen in care of the young woman with the unp.r.o.nounceable Scripture name. "Now," said the fisherman, "a nime is a very important thing to a man or a woman. Why do people give their children such awful names? Bigglethorpe is Dinish, they say, but Felix Isidore is as Latin as can be. They called me 'fib' at school."

"'Tis the hoighth av impartance to have a good name, say Oi," added Mr.

Terry. "Moy fayther, glory be to his sowl, put a shaint's name an me, an' I put her own mother's name, the Howly Vargin rist her, on Honoria here. 'An', savin' all yer prisinces, there's no foiner Scripcher name than John; how's that, Squoire?"

"It suits me well enough, grandfather," replied Carruthers. The Captain was feeling uneasy. He didn't want Ezekiel to come out, so he asked Miss Du Plessis how her young man was. Such a question would have either roused Miss Carmichael to indignation or have overwhelmed her with confusion, but Miss Du Plessis, calm and unruffled, replied: "I suppose you mean Mr. Wilkinson, Captain Thomas. He has been very much shaken by his wound, but is doing remarkably well."

"Fwhat's Mishter Wilkison's name, Miss Ces.h.i.+le, iv it's a fair quishtyon to ax at yeez?"

"It is Farquhar, is it not, Mr. Coristine?"

Mr. Coristine said it was, and that it was his mother's maiden name. She was a Scotchwoman, he had heard, and a very lovely character. The colonel had just returned from his ministrations. "Did I heah you cohhectly, Mr. Cohistine, when I thought you said that ouah deah young wounded friend's mothah's name was Fahquhah, suh?"

"You did, Colonel Morton."

"And of Scottish pahentage?"

"Yes."

"Do you know if any of her relatives were engaged in the Civil Wahah, our civil wahah?"

"I believe her brother Roderic ran the blockade, and fought for the South, where he fell, in a cavalry regiment."

"Be pleased, suh, to say that again. Rodehic Fahquhah, do you say?"

"His full name, I have seen it among Wilkinson's papers, was Roderic Macdonald Farquhar."

"Tehesa, my deah," said the colonel, his voice and manner full of emotion, as he turned towards his sister-in-law, "you have heard me mention my bosom friend, Captain Fahquhah?"

"Yes, indeed, many times," replied the lady addressed.

"And ouah deah boy upstairs, the pehsehveh of my pooah life, is his nephew, his sistah's son. I was suah there was something drawing me to him. I shall make that brave boy my heih, my pooah deah comhade Fahquhah's nephew. What a fohtunate discovehy. Kindly excuse me, madam, and you my deah ladies, and you Squiah; I must go and tell my deah boy."

So the colonel bowed to Mrs. Carruthers, and went out, with his handkerchief up to his face.

After the colonel left the table, the Captain looked over at his niece, saying: "Too late, Marjorie, my la.s.s, too late! Didn't play your cards right, so you're cut out. s.h.i.+fted his sheet anchor to the t'other bow, Marjorie."

Miss Carmichael was annoyed with good reason, and, in order to put a stop to such uncalled for and vulgar remarks, said, playfully, but with a spice of malice: "Take care, Uncle Thomas, or, as that funny theological student said to the people who were talking in church, 'I'll call out your name before the haill congregation.'" This terrible threat caused Ezekiel to subside, and carry on a less personal conversation with Miss Du Plessis. Then Mr. Terry came to the fore again.

"My little grandchilders' cous.h.i.+n, Mishter Coristine, do be sayin' yer name is Eujane, an' that's Frinch, isn't it?"

"Yes," replied the lawyer; "my mother was of Huguenot descent, and her name was Du Moulin. Some say that the Irish Mullens were once Du Moulins. That I don't know, but I'm not like the man-servant who applied for a situation, saying: 'Me name is Murphy, sorr, but me family came from France.' Coristine, I think, is good Irish."

The name craze spread over the whole table. Miss Halbert thought Basil a lovely name. It was Greek, wasn't it, and meant a king? Mr. Perrowne thought that the sweetest name in the world was Frances or f.a.n.n.y. Mr.

Errol affected Marjorie, and Mrs. Carmichael knew nothing superior to Hugh.

"What made you so savage with the Captain for coupling your name with Wilks?" asked the lawyer in an undertone.

"Because he is the last man in the world I should want my name to be coupled with."

"Oh, but that's hard on Wilks; he's a glorious fellow when you get to know his little ways."

"I don't want to know Mr. Wilkinson's little ways. I am sorry for his wound, but otherwise I have not the remotest sympathy with him. He strikes me as a selfish, conceited man."

"Not a kinder soul breathing, Miss Carmichael."

"Yes, there is."

"Who, then?"

"Yourself."

"Miss Carmichael, you make me the proudest man in the world, but I'm not fit to black Wilks' boots."

"Well, I will not be so rude as to say I think you are. But, never talk that way to me again, if you want me to like you. I will not have you demeaning yourself, even in speech, before Cecile's friend. Now, remember, not a word!"

The test was a severe one between loyalty to his old friend and devoted obedience to the girl he loved. As all the memories of past friends.h.i.+p came before him, he was inclined to be obdurate. Then, he looked at the golden hair which had brushed his awhile ago, and, as the head straightened up, at the pretty petulant lips and the blue eyes, l.u.s.trous with just a moist suspicion of vexation and feeling, and he wavered. He was lost, and was glad to be lost, as he whispered: "May I say it?"

"Yes; speak out, like a man, what you have to say."

"It's a bargain, Marjorie; never again!"

Somehow his right hand met her left, and she did not s.n.a.t.c.h it away too quickly. Then he said: "You won't hate poor Wilks, my old friend, Marjorie?"

She answered "No," and turned her face away to ask some trivial question of the Squire, who knew a good deal more than he saw any necessity for telling.

The kitchen party still kept up its numbers. True, the absence of the constable and Maguffin left two serious blanks in the diversified talk of the table, but the place of these gentlemen was taken by no fewer than six persons, the three Richards and the three jurors, so that the dinner party numbered fifteen, of whom four were women. Old whitehaired Mr. Newberry, with the large rosy face, smooth, save for two little white patches of side-whiskers, took possession of Matilda Nagle, and rejoiced in her kindly ways and simple talk. He was a Methodist, and a cla.s.s-leader and local preacher, but a man against whom no tongue of scandal wagged, and whose genuine piety and kindness of heart were so manifest that n.o.body dreamt of holding up to ridicule his oft homely utterances in the pulpit. If he could do good to the poor demented woman and her afflicted boy, he would, and he knew that his little quaker-bonneted wife would second him in such an effort. So he tried to gain her confidence and the boy's, and, after a while, found that Matilda would like to help Mrs. Newberry in her household duties, and have Monty learn useful work on the farm. When informed by the fatherly juror, in answer to her own questions, that she would not be expected to hurt a fly, and would be allowed to go to church, read her Bible and take care of her boy, she expressed her readiness to go away with him at once. Mr. Newberry felt a few qualms of conscience in connection with fly killing, but, having made an express stipulation that mosquitos and black flies should not be included in the bond, he became easier in mind, and said that, with Mrs. Carruthers and the Squire's permission, he would drive her home in the afternoon. Mr. Johnson and the elder Richards discussed local politics, and the tragedy calling for the inquest; but Mr. Pawkins attached himself to the boys, and consequently to the girls. This gentleman had brought his six feet of bone and muscle, topped with a humorous face, from which depended a Lincoln beard, from the States, and was now, for many years, as he said, "a nettrelized citizen of Kennidy." This disappointment at the absence of the constable was something pitiful, he did so want "to yank and rile the old Britisher." Still, that was not going to deprive him of his innocent amus.e.m.e.nt. He looked around the company and sized it up, deciding that he would leave the old folks alone, and mercifully add to them the crazy people; this still left him a const.i.tuency of nine, with large possibilities for fun.

"Rufus," remarked Mr. Pawkins, "I seen your gal, Christy Hislop, along o' that spry sot up c.o.o.n, Barney Sullivan, daown at the mill. He's a cuttin' you aout for sutten, yes sirree, you see if he ain't."

"What's the use of your nonsense, Mr Pawkins? Barney went home along o'

fayther and old man Hislop, and I guess he turned in to say we was all right."

"If Andrew knowed you'd called him old man Hislop, he'd fire you aout o'

the back door mighty suddent. When I see a spry, set up, young feller and a likely heifer of a gal a saunterin' through the bush, sort o'

poetical like, daown to the mill, it don't take me two shakes to know that suthin's up. You're a poor, rejected, cast off, cut aout strip o'

factory cotton."

"What do you mean, Mr. Pawkins?"

"I mean overalls, and it's all over with you, Rufus." Having planted this well-meant thorn in the breast of the younger Hill, and excited the commiseration of his sisters, the lover of innocent amus.e.m.e.nt turned to Ben, and asked that gentleman, whose attentions to Serlizer were most open and above board, "sence when he got another gal?"

Mr. Toner turned angrily, and asked what Mr. Pawkins was "a givin' him."

"I never see Bridget naow but she's a cryin' and rubbin' her eyes most aout with her cuffs," said the cheerful Pawkins; "she allaowed to me you'd the nighest thing to said the priest was ony waitin' for the word to splice; and here you air, you biggermus delooder, settin' along o'

Newcome's gal as if you'd got a mortgage on her. Arter that, the sight ain't to be sawed that'll make me ashamed o' my feller-creeters, no sirree, boss, hull team to boot, and a big dog under the waggin!" Mr.

Pawkins sniffed vehemently, and Ben and his affianced bride blushed and drew apart.