Читать книгу The Fighting-Slogan - H. A. Cody - Страница 10
Оглавление"WHICH CUT, GENTLEMEN?"
The genial keeper of The Three Elms was in a quandary. It was hard enough for the specially-prepared dinner to be so long delayed, but to have Squire Andrews and his daughter arrive with the belated lawyers placed him in an awkward predicament. He felt that the city men would not care to have country people with them at dinner. The presence of strangers might interfere with their hilarity and restrain their conversation. On the other hand, the Andrews were so respectable, and such firm friends of his, that he disliked the idea of seating them at a separate table. In his perplexity he referred the matter to several of the lawyers who were warming themselves before the big open fire-place.
"You needn't worry about that, Mr. Harris," Tom Rodgers replied. "Let them have dinner with us. We need a woman to grace the table, and from the glimpse I had of Miss Andrews she'll be most acceptable company. Don't you think so, Dick?"
His question was directed to the youngest member of the party, who was standing at one end of the fire-place. He flushed a little at being thus addressed.
"Oh, Dick's too hungry to be interested in women just now," another laughingly remarked. "Wait until he has had his dinner. It's turkey he wants, and I guess the rest of us are of the same opinion. Hurry up and serve us, Mr. Harris. We'll look after the rustics."
"Why not let the farmer do the carving?" Dick asked. "It would be great fun. He will be sure to get excited when he sees so many hungry lawyers waiting to be served."
"That's a fine idea," Andrew Stobart agreed. "We're out for fun, so we might as well get all we can. It will make up somewhat for our mishap on the ice. Squire Andrews had the laugh on us when we were dumped on the ice. It will be our turn next."
The matter was thus settled, and in anticipation of a good dinner and considerable amusement at the farmer's expense, the men filed into the dining-room.
In the meantime Nell was alone in a room upstairs. She had laid aside her hood and warm coat and was arranging her hair before a small mirror over a bureau. It was luxuriant hair, dark-brown, and rippling like a wind-touched pool in midsummer. Carefully she brushed back several filmy tresses that had wilfully strayed over her glowing cheeks and unwrinkled brow. A sense of dignity was revealed in her shapely well-poised head, and her face exhibited more than an ordinary wealth of beauty and intelligence. Her lustrous brown eyes bore a slight expression of worry as she lowered them from the mirror to the dress she was wearing. Although it was a homespun dress, it was most becoming, and fitted to perfection her well-formed body. But she was thinking of the lawyers downstairs, and of her appearance before them at dinner. She wished that she had worn the dress she kept for special occasions instead of this one which seemed so coarse and mean.
With another glance into the mirror, she ere long left the room and reached the dining-room just as the last lawyer was entering. Her father was already seated at the table, and he motioned her to a chair by his side. He was sitting very erect, silent and grim. He watched the men as they took their seats, and in his eyes was a peculiar expression, almost of triumph.
Squire Andrews truly surmised the reason for his position at the head of the table. Words of explanation were unnecessary, for the expectant look upon the faces of the men before him was all that he needed. He knew that they were waiting for the fun to begin, and he was determined that it should not be at his expense, at any rate. He was too old and shrewd a man to be caught in such a palpable trap. When at length the last chair had been scraped into place, and silence reigned, he looked calmly down over the table.
"Gentlemen," he began, "as you wish me to take the head of the table, I shall, as is my custom in my own house, ask a blessing upon this food."
He bowed his head, and in a clear voice repeated his customary words:
"For these and all other blessings, O Lord, give us thankful hearts."
This ended, he lifted his head, seized the big carving-knife and fork, and looked quizzically at the assembled men.
"Now, gentlemen, which will you have, a bushman's cut or a lumberman's cut?"
A complete silence followed this unexpected announcement, for the lawyers were taken by surprise. They looked at one another, each waiting for some one else to reply.
"What is the difference between the cuts?" Tom Rodgers at last found voice to ask. "Suppose we let you decide."
"No, it's your move, not mine. You lawyers have the credit of knowing everything, so you'll have to settle it yourselves."
Squire Andrews then deliberately carved off a choice piece of the turkey, and transferred it to the top of the pile of plates in front of him. He next helped himself to the vegetables, and then paused before beginning to eat.
"Have you made up your minds yet, gentlemen?" he asked. "You had better hurry up, for this bird is getting cold."
In the meantime the lawyers had been discussing the difference between the "cuts," and finally decided in favor of the one suggestive of a larger helping.
"We'll take the lumberman's cut," Rodgers announced. "We don't know what it's like, but we must have something, for we're almost starved."
There was a note of irritation in his voice, for he, as well as his companions were becoming annoyed at the delay. The farmer was not proving such an easy mark as they had fondly imagined.
"All right, gentlemen," the Squire replied, "let every man help himself. That is the lumberman's cut."
He shoved the turkey over to Nell, who carved off a small slice for herself, and then moved it toward a man seated at her left. She was greatly embarrassed at what had just taken place, and wished that her father had not been so stern and abrupt. She knew that a young man on the opposite side of the table was looking intently at her, and this added to her confusion. Her appetite almost left her, and she longed to leave the room. In a few minutes, however, she regained her composure, for the lawyers had entered into the spirit of the farmer's joke, and were talking and laughing in the most animated manner. Their gaiety was mostly due to the rough usage the turkey was undergoing as it passed from man to man. Some were adept at carving, but several had evidently never handled a carving-knife and fork before, so their sorry efforts met with nothing but disaster. The bird would slip provokingly off the platter, and at times it was more active than it had ever been when alive. Many were the comments and jibes hurled at the exasperated and unskilled carvers before the last man had served himself. The fowl was a wreck, and only the skeleton remained as a mute witness to its unusual dimensions.
Squire Andrews watched with interest all that was taking place. He listened to the various remarks, and at times joined in the laughter. But not until the legless, wingless and fleshless bird had once more reached the head of the table and rested again in front of his plate did he vouchsafe any comment.
"Alas! poor bird! The lawyers have stripped you, all right," he remarked. "They haven't left a scrap of flesh upon your bones. And you're not the only two-legged creature they've treated in the same manner. It's natural with them, I guess."
"Come, come, Squire, you must not be too hard on us," Peter Dobson laughingly protested. "We're not as bad as all that."
"I'm only judging, sir, by the way some of you fellows treated Andy Dekker and Bill Parker up our way. Why, you stripped them cleaner than you did that turkey."
"Don't blame the lawyers for that, Squire," Dobson replied. "I remember that case very well. But it wasn't our fault that your neighbours quarrelled."
"No, I suppose not. But it was mighty fine pickings you got, for all that. And you want to do the same with our country. If that fool Confederation scheme carries, it won't be long before our province will be just like that bird. It will be so picked to pieces that no one will recognize it. And you lawyers will get most of the pickings."
Impulsively Nell lifted her right hand and touched her father's arm.
"Don't talk that way," she pleaded in a low voice.
"Oh, it's all right, Nell," was the reply. "I'm only having a little fun. These men don't mind what I say. They're too busy with the turkey."
"But we're not too busy to listen to what you have to say, Squire," Rodgers declared. "What have you against Confederation, anyway?"
"A great deal, sir. Yes, a great deal, for it will mean the ruination of this province. We're prospering now down here by the sea, with our ship-building, lumbering, and farming. Upper and Lower Canada have been casting greedy eyes upon us for some time back. They want to take all of our revenue, and give us eighty cents a head in return for every man, woman, and child. Why, it means that they'll take a cow from us at every jump, and only give us back a sheepskin."
"Oh, it won't be anything like that, Squire," Edward Benson, a rising young lawyer, replied. "We shall be one big family, and so all the provinces will share alike. We are too provincial now, and think only of ourselves, but if Confederation carries there will be a greater progress, as well as an additional strength and unity."
"Unity! H'm! It will be the unity of rogues picking this province to pieces, just like you picked that turkey. Look at the poor thing now."
Squire Andrews rose to his feet and looked down upon the men before him. The stern expression passed from his face and he was smiling upon them.
"I must be away now, gentlemen," he announced. "But before I go, I want to thank you for this dinner and the enjoyable time you have given us. I'm mighty glad to have taken a little part in your shindy. I hope you will get safely home, and don't get another spill upon the ice. You are all true sports and took your mishap like men. So, good-day, and the best of luck to you all."
"Let us drink to the health of Squire Andrews and his daughter," Tom Rodgers cried, rising to his feet and lifting his glass.
"To the Squire and his daughter!" all responded, as they, too, rose and drained their glasses. This was followed by three rousing cheers and a tiger.
Nell was trembling with excitement as she went upstairs for her coat and hood. Her face was still flushed when she came down a few minutes later, and stood near the fire-place awaiting her father who had gone for the horses. She could hear the lawyers making merry in the dining-room, and knew that they were now drinking more than was good for them.
And as she stood there, the young man who had been observing her so intently across the table, came to her side.
"Excuse me, Miss Andrews," he began. "I am Richard Mason, and I wish to apologise for the way we treated your father to-day. It was really my fault that he was placed at the head of the table. I made the suggestion."
"You need not worry about that, Mr. Mason," Nell brightly replied. "My father is well able to take care of himself, as you have already seen."
"Indeed he is, and that was a great joke he played upon us. We deserved it, too. I am sorry you have to leave so soon, Miss Andrews. But I expect to be up your way next week, and then I hope to see you again."
Nell hardly heard these closing words, for happening to glance toward the kitchen on the right, she saw Drum Rowan seated at a table, intently watching her. She smiled at him, but he gave no sign of recognition, and in another minute he was gone. Nell wondered why he had not come to speak to her, and this was in her mind as she once again took her place on the sled by her father's side. She thought, too, of the young lawyer who had spoken to her, and she mentally compared his neat well-fitting clothes and gentlemanly appearance with Drum's coarse suit and somewhat rough manner. The snap of the whip and her father's voice aroused her.
"Say, Nell, that was the best fun I've had in a long time. A bushman's cut or a lumberman's cut! Ho, ho! That stuck them, all right. They didn't get ahead of an old hayseed after all, Ho, ho!"
