Читать книгу The Best Ballantyne Westerns - R. M. Ballantyne - Страница 34

Table of Contents

Love—Old Mr Kennedy puts his foot in it.

One morning, about two weeks after Charley’s arrival at Red River, Harry Somerville found himself alone in Mr Kennedy’s parlour. The old gentleman himself had just galloped away in the direction of the lower fort, to visit Charley, who was now formally installed there; Kate was busy in the kitchen, giving directions about dinner; and Jacques was away with Redfeather, visiting his numerous friends in the settlement: so that, for the first time since his arrival, Harry found himself at the hour of ten in the morning utterly lone, and with nothing very definite to do. Of course, the two weeks that had elapsed were not without their signs and symptoms, their minor accidents and incidents, in regard to the subject that filled his thoughts. Harry had fifty times been tossed alternately from the height of hope to the depth of despair, from the extreme of felicity to the uttermost verge of sorrow, and he began seriously to reflect, when he remembered his desperate resolution on the first night of his arrival, that if he did not “do” he certainly would “die.” This was quite a mistake, however, on Harry’s part. Nobody ever did die of unrequited love. Doubtless many people have hanged, drowned, and shot themselves because of it; but, generally speaking, if the patient can be kept from maltreating himself long enough, time will prove to be an infallible remedy. O youthful reader, lay this to heart; but, pshaw! why do I waste ink on so hopeless a task? Every one, we suppose, resolves once in a way to die of love; so—die away, my young friends, only make sure that you don’t kill yourselves, and I’ve no fear of the result.

But to return. Kate, likewise, was similarly affected. She behaved like a perfect maniac—mentally, that is—and plunged herself, metaphorically, into such a succession of hot and cold baths, that it was quite a marvel how her spiritual constitution could stand it.

But we were wrong in saying that Harry was alone in the parlour. The grey cat was there. On a chair before the fire it sat, looking dishevelled and somewhat blasé in consequence of the ill-treatment and worry to which it was continually subjected. After looking out of the window for a short time, Harry rose, and sitting down on a chair beside the cat, patted its head—a mark of attention it was evidently not averse to, but which it received, nevertheless, with marked suspicion, and some indications of being in a condition of armed neutrality. Just then the door opened, and Kate entered.

“Excuse me, Harry, for leaving you alone,” she said, “but I had to attend to several household matters. Do you feel inclined for a walk?”

“I do indeed,” replied Harry; “it is a charming day, and I am exceedingly anxious to see the bower that you have spoken to me about once or twice, and which Charley told me of long before I came here.”

“Oh, I shall take you to it with pleasure,” replied Kate; “my dear father often goes there with me to smoke. If you will wait for two minutes I’ll put on my bonnet,” and she hastened to prepare herself for the walk, leaving Harry to caress the cat, which he did so energetically, when he thought of its young mistress, that it instantly declared war, and sprang from the chair with a remonstrative yell.

On their way down to the bower, which was situated in a picturesque, retired spot on the river’s bank about a mile below the house, Harry and Kate tried to converse on ordinary topics, but without success, and were at last almost reduced to silence. One subject alone filled their minds; all others were flat. Being sunk, as it were, in an ocean of love, they no sooner opened their lips to speak than the waters rushed in, as a natural consequence, and nearly choked them. Had they but opened their mouths wide and boldly, they would have been pleasantly drowned together; but as it was, they lacked the requisite courage, and were fain to content themselves with an occasional frantic struggle to the surface, where they gasped a few words of uninteresting air, and sank again instantly.

On arriving at the bower, however, and sitting down, Harry plucked up heart, and heaving a deep sigh, said—

“Kate, there is a subject about which I have long desired to speak to you—”

Long as he had been desiring it, however, Kate thought it must have been nothing compared with the time that elapsed ere he said anything else; so she bent over a flower which she held in her hand, and said in a low voice, “Indeed, Harry; what is it?”

Harry was desperate now. His usually flexible tongue was stiff as stone and dry as a bit of leather. He could no more give utterance to an intelligible idea than he could change himself into Mr Kennedy’s grey cat—a change that he would not have been unwilling to make at that moment. At last he seized his companion’s hand, and exclaimed, with a burst of emotion that quite startled her—

“Kate, Kate! O dearest Kate, I love you! I adore you! I—”

At this point poor Harry’s powers of speech again failed; so, being utterly unable to express another idea, he suddenly threw his arms round her, and pressed her fervently to his bosom.

Kate was taken quite aback by this summary method of coming to the point. Repulsing him energetically, she exclaimed, while she blushed crimson, “O Harry—Mr Somerville!” and burst into tears.

Poor Harry stood before her for a moment, his head hanging down, and a deep blush of shame on his face.

“O Kate,” said he, in a deep, tremulous voice, “forgive me; do—do forgive me! I knew not what I said. I scarce knew what I did” (here he seized her hand). “I know but one thing, Kate, and tell it you I will, if it should cost me my life. I love you, Kate, to distraction, and I wish you to be my wife. I have been rude, very rude. Can you forgive me, Kate?”

Now, this latter part of Harry’s speech was particularly comical, the comicality of it lying, in this, that while he spoke he drew Kate gradually towards him, and at the very time when he gave utterance to the penitential remorse for his rudeness, Kate was infolded in a much more vigorous embrace than at the first; and, what is more remarkable still, she laid her little head quietly on his shoulder, as if she had quite changed her mind in regard to what was and what was not rude, and rather enjoyed it than otherwise.

While the lovers stood in this interesting position, it became apparent to Harry’s olfactory nerves that the atmosphere was impregnated with tobacco smoke. Looking hastily up, he beheld an apparition that tended somewhat to increase the confusion of his faculties.

In the opening of the bower stood Mr Kennedy, senior, in a state of inexpressible amazement. We say inexpressible advisedly, because the extreme pitch of feeling which Mr Kennedy experienced at what he beheld before him cannot possibly be expressed by human visage. As far as the countenance of man could do it, however, we believe the old gentleman’s came pretty near the mark on this occasion. His hands were in his coat pockets, his body bent a little forward, his head and neck outstretched a little beyond it, his eyes almost starting from the sockets, and certainly the most prominent feature in his face; his teeth firmly clinched on his beloved pipe, and his lips expelling a multitude of little clouds so vigorously that one might have taken him for a sort of self-acting intelligent steam-gun that had resolved utterly to annihilate Kate and Harry at short range in the course of two minutes.

When Kate saw her father she uttered a slight scream, covered her face with her hands, rushed from the bower, and disappeared in the wood.

“So, young gentleman,” began Mr Kennedy, in a slow, deliberate tone of voice, while he removed the pipe from his mouth, clinched his fist, and confronted Harry, “you’ve been invited to my house as a guest, sir, and you seize the opportunity basely to insult my daughter!”

“Stay, stay, my dear sir,” interrupted Harry, laying his hand on the old man’s shoulder and gazing earnestly into his face. “Oh, do not, even for a moment, imagine that I could be so base as to trifle with the affections of your daughter. I may have been presumptuous, hasty, foolish, mad if you will, but not base. God forbid that I should treat her with disrespect, even in thought! I love her, Mr Kennedy, as I never loved before. I have asked her to be my wife, and—she—”

“Whew!” whistled old Mr Kennedy, replacing his pipe between his teeth, gazing abstractedly at the ground, and emitting clouds innumerable. After standing thus a few seconds, he turned his back slowly upon Harry, and smiled outrageously once or twice, winking at the same time, after his own fashion, at the river. Turning abruptly round, he regarded Harry with a look of affected dignity, and said, “Pray, sir, what did my daughter say to your very peculiar proposal?”

“She said ye— ah! that is—she didn’t exactly say anything, but she—indeed I—”

“Humph!” ejaculated the old gentleman, deepening his frown as he regarded his young friend through the smoke. “In short, she said nothing, I suppose, but led you to infer, perhaps, that she would have said yes if I hadn’t interrupted you.”

Harry blushed, and said nothing.

“Now, sir,” continued Mr Kennedy, “don’t you think that it would have been a polite piece of attention on your part to have asked my permission before you addressed my daughter on such a subject, eh?”

“Indeed,” said Harry, “I acknowledge that I have been hasty, but I must disclaim the charge of disrespect to you, sir. I had no intention whatever of broaching the subject to-day, but my feelings, unhappily, carried me away, and—and—in fact—”

“Well, well, sir,” interrupted Mr Kennedy, with a look of offended dignity, “your feelings ought to be kept more under control. But come, sir, to my house. I must talk further with you on this subject. I must read you a lesson, sir—a lesson, humph! that you won’t forget in a hurry.”

“But, my dear sir—” began Harry.

“No more, sir—no more at present,” cried the old gentleman, smoking violently as he pointed to the footpath that led to the house. “Lead the way, sir; I’ll follow.”

The footpath, although wide enough to allow Kate and Harry to walk beside each other, did not permit of two gentlemen doing so conveniently—a circumstance which proved a great relief to Mr Kennedy, inasmuch as it enabled him, while walking behind his companion, to wink convulsively, smoke furiously, and punch his own ribs severely, by way of opening a few safety-valves to his glee, without which there is no saying what might have happened. He was nearly caught in these eccentricities more than once, however, as Harry turned half round with the intention of again attempting to exculpate himself—attempts which were as often met by a sudden start, a fierce frown, a burst of smoke, and a command to “go on.” On approaching the house, the track became a broad road, affording Mr Kennedy no excuse for walking in the rear, so that he was under the necessity of laying violent restraint on his feelings—a restraint which it was evident could not last long. At that moment, to his great relief, his eye suddenly fell on the grey cat, which happened to be reposing innocently on the doorstep.

“That’s it! there’s the whole cause of it at last!” cried Mr Kennedy, in a perfect paroxysm of excitement, flinging his pipe violently at the unoffending victim as he rushed towards it. The pipe missed the cat, but went with a sharp crash through the parlour window, at which Charley was seated, while his father darted through the doorway, along the passage, and into the kitchen. Here the cat, having first capsized a pyramid of pans and kettles in its consternation, took refuge in an absolutely unassailable position. Seeing this, Mr Kennedy violently discharged a pailful of water at the spot, strode rapidly to his own apartment, and locked himself in.

“Dear me, Harry, what’s wrong? my father seems unusually excited,” said Charley, in some astonishment, as Harry entered the room and flung himself on a chair with a look of chagrin.

“It’s difficult to say, Charley; the fact is, I’ve asked your sister Kate to be my wife, and your father seems to have gone mad with indignation.”

“Asked Kate to be your wife!” cried Charley, starting up and regarding his friend with a look of amazement.

“Yes, I have,” replied Harry, with an air of offended dignity. “I know very well that I am unworthy of her, but I see no reason why you and your father should take such pains to make me feel it.”

“Unworthy of her, my dear fellow!” exclaimed Charley, grasping his hand and wringing it violently; “no doubt you are, and so is everybody, but you shall have her for all that, my boy. But tell me, Harry, have you spoken to Kate herself?”

“Yes, I have.”

“And does she agree?”

“Well, I think I may say she does.”

“Have you told my father that she does?”

“Why, as to that,” said Harry, with a perplexed smile, “he didn’t need to be told; he made himself pretty well aware of the facts of the case.”

“Ah! I’ll soon settle him,” cried Charley. “Keep your mind easy, old fellow; I’ll very soon bring him round.” With this assurance, Charley gave his friend’s hand another shake that nearly wrenched the arm from his shoulder, and hastened out of the room in search of his refractory father.