TIMOTHY CHUBB

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue XXIV, 14 December 1895, Page 743

TIMOTHY CHUBB

AND THE COLD PUNCH.

BY

FRANCIS COURTENAY BAYLOR.

IMOTHY CHUBB was a warm-hearted, pigVjJJra headed, high-tempered ’man. He was a good farmer, as the bursting barns, caregay fully-protected hav-ricks, fine cattle, neat fences, and beautifully-tilled fields of his five hundred acre farm attested. He was an ardent granger, and hated all railroads, their presidents, corporations, employees, ways, means, and methods with a fierceness that would have delighted Dr. Johnson, and alarmed most people who heard him talk of them for the first time, while the particular railroad that ran straight through one of his best meadows—the Southern and Central —was the Mordecai at his gate, a stench in his nostrils, the bane of his existence. He was a strict but just and even generous master, and never lacked for men to * handle ’ his crops, harvest when he would. He was an agressive, not to say merciless neighbour in the matter of stray sheep, predatory pigs, open gates, and broken fences, but a not unkindly one outside of these high agricultural crimes and misdemeanors, having been known to take off his coat and work much harder than any hired labourer in order to help save a friend’s crop threatened by rain, and as liberal with his machines and seeds and tools, as with advice how to make the best use of them, if his sound, sensible, but dictatorial orders about ‘ top-dressing ’ and ‘subsoiling,’ and ‘rotation,’ and the like can be called advice. He had been a peppery, masterful, but substantially indulgent husband to a meek spouse, who never contradicted him in her life, except upon one occasion when she found herself unavoidably obliged to die in the face of his most positively expressed statement that she was getting well rapidly, and would be ‘ out of that bed in less than a week.’ He was an imperious but really devoted father to his only child, a daughter, Lucy Merriman Chubb by name, and by nature a creature far meeker, shyer, and more timid than ever her mother bad been. Lucy was eighteen years old in the summer of 1883, when she returned from boarding-school to Clover Farm.

bringing ' a diploma ’ (framed) that Admirable Crichton could never have honestly won, a great heap of tattered, dog’s-eared, bescribbled school-books, treating of history, moral philosophy, physical geography, chemistry, astronomy, botany, trigonometry, etc. (whose contents it is unnecessary to say she knew by heart, and remembered and practised all her life long) ; some blank books in which had been carefully copied a whole series of her valuable and original compositions on the * Mind of Man,’ "The Evils of Infidelity,’ ‘ Reflections on the Universe,’ • Meditations on the True and Beautiful’ (representing a prodigious amount of mental effort extending over a period of two years, during which she wrestled for three days out of every month with the loftiest prob-

lems that could occupy the attention of a Newton as conscientiously as any she-philosopher of eighteen that ever lived to become the attraction of something stronger than gravitation not wholly unconnected with apples) ; an album containing the autographs of twenty-five altogether congenial and utterly devoted friends ; the last Fashion Bazaar (for • a sweet polonaise ’ exactly ' adapted to slender figures’), and a delightful conviction that life would now begin to be interesting, romantic, brilliant, as full of delicious fruition as it had always been of delicious promise. In other words Lucy was ‘ finished ; ’ but not in the sense of being done for. A more healthy-minded, sweet-tempered, wholesome maiden, a prettier one (if you like brunettes), and a pleasanter one for human nature’s daily food, you could not have found in the whole State of Illinois. Not that she was extiaordinarily gifted, witty, musical, or even vivacious ; but because she was a sweet, unselfish, gentle young girl, full of kind thoughts for others, quietly cheerful, contented, fond of her father and home, and doing twenty things a day to brighten both, as a matter of course, too, not as a ‘ mission ’ a pleasure to herself rather than duty to others. The high-shouldered old house with its steep roof, its heavy porch, its pleasant old orchard stretching away at the back, its homely, home-like environment of sheds and barns, hay-ricks, feeding-troughs and horse pond, its noisy fowls and placid cattle, took on a special and particular air of its own, an added charm that was over and above its own look of peaceful plenteousness, when Lucy came home. Lucy’s neat, trim figure was to be seen here, there, and everywhere. Lucy’s basket, and garden-hat, gloves, keys, and other feminine possessions were all about the place. She seemed to pervade the whole farm in a wonderful way. Her pony was in the nearest meadow ; her spick and span little carriage was sitting with its feet up in the coach house, and could be plainly seen from the road that curved that way and then led off to the fields. Her flowers bloomed gayly in new beds made for them in the old garden. Her sewing was left on the circular bench under the great elm along with Tupper’s ‘ Poems’ and ‘ Thaddeus of Warsaw,’ or some one of the Waverley novels, with which she was ‘ improving ’ herself. And she herself was among the currant bushes, in the dairy, the poultry-yard, the kitchen, in which last place, indeed, she achieved gastronomic triumphs that made glad the heart and genial the temper of her father. He had told her that she was not to do anything ; that he had all the ‘ help ' he needed, and that there was no necessity for her ‘to turn her hand to anything. ’ But Lucy was eminently domestic in her tastes, and ener-

getic in her character, and she could no more have idled away her days in fine ladical fashion than she could have devoted her nights to squaring the circle. She took a turn at • The Antiquary ’ or ‘ Plutarch’s Lives ’ between times, when she was making preserves, because she had been told that she had a mind to improve, and was anxious to do her duty by herself as well as by other people. But her confections were nev> r burnt in consequence of her absorbing interest in S.otch dialect or Roman consuls, and her pretty face showed a much more profound interest in the colour of her strawberries, and anxiety to have them satisfactory in quantity as well a s quality, and ‘ come out even ' with her jars when it wa s time to bottle them, than it ever did during the proces s

of improving herself by a patent method, that had the effect of making her turn over the pages very rapidly, but only to see how long the chapter was, and wish it a good deal shorter. Her father was delighted with her conduct and character in every particular. He felt himself to be as directly the author of all that was admirable in it as of the abundant wheat crop that he had planted and was about to harvest. He was always convinced that everything that he did was right and could not but turn out well. .Every thought almost that he could spare from the engrossing business of his life, his farming, was given to her. He settled in his own mind exactly what her future was to be. He was ambitious for her ; she should be as much of a lady as anybody ; she should marry a professional man of uieans and standing, and of his own selection. No farmer, with unsound views about everything 1 from a to izzard.’need apply, or hope to live off him, and manage A>.s- farm. The house was a different thing with her in it, but he must not be such a fool as to suppose that he could keep a pretty girl like that to light it up. What he could and would do was to marry her to the right man, and he flattered himself that be was the very person to decide who the right man was. Women never knew what they wanted, nor were they satisfied when they got it. When harvest was over he would settle that thing. There was youug Lathrop the lawyer—here ensilage pushed Lawyer Lathrop, and Lucy, and all thoughts of marrying and giving in marriage quite out of his mind, and if he ever thought of them again for the next six weeks, it was with an agricultural serenity of conviction that there was ' plenty of time.’ There was plenty of everything at Clover Farm, and the processes to which he had been accustomed were all slow ones of ploughing, and sowing, and waiting for the early and latter rain to moisten, for snows to protect, and sun to ripen, and all the patient forces that gradually wake from their sleep the living things in the darkness of the earth’s bosom, that tassel in silken tufts and laugh in bearded grain, and flowers, and fruits, and all manner of good gifts. But in Siberia it is said that the crops are planted, come to perfection, and are harvested within six weeks, owing to certain climatic conditions ; and it is certain that in far less time an affection that has stood the test of half a century’s wear and tear has been known to be planted, and to grow down to the roots of things and up to the heavens, if not to come to perfection; so that it was not remarkable that Lucy and John But I must introduce John properly. He introduced himself at Clover Farm not long after Lucy’s diploma was framed and hung up in the parlour, making close connection with it even for a railroad man. It is very curious how things get about. The lilacs in the garden are bare, or budding, and there is not a bee to be seen for miles around. They bloom, and lo I an army of winged despoilers settle upon every cluster. The cherries and strawberries are allowed to bud and bloom without hearing the rustle of so much as two pinfeathers, and encouraged, they go farther. But when the rain has cried over certain little excrescences formed slowly and painfully on stems and branches ; when the sun has kissed the most delicious juices into them ; when they are round, perfect, sweet, ripe, hark ! Here they come ! Birds, birds, birds '. The most scientific head-gardener could never tell with anything like the same accuracy when that moment has arrived. In the same way, when a charming girl gets home from school, pastors and masters, and teachers and governesses, and old men and children, and old women and maidens may not be aware of the fact, or may only learn of it slowly in the most indirect and roundabout ways ; but if there is a youth within a radius of fifty miles, there w : ll be one person who will know the when, and where, and a great deal beside—who she is her name, her abode, her looks, dress, manner very likely—and ail this before the stage coach that brought her has reached the next town, very often, if the girl be particularly pretty or attractive. Lucy had not finished unpacking her trunk, and shedding tears of sentimental regret over the life and companions that she had forever left behind her at Zion Hall; she had not arranged her work-box and desk and album and elegant portfolio of selected drawings and prize books about her room, or begun to take any sort of interest in the life she was to lead, the familiar surroundings that yet wore such a strange air, when John Deering found himself absolutely obliged to walk through Mr Chubb’s ‘yard ’ (and to pass, too, directly under the parlour windows) in order to get to his mother’s house, as he came out from Midford to spend Sunday, as usual, at home. Nothing but dire necessity, of course, could have induced him to decide upon a route that took him a mile and more out of his way with the thermometer standing at ninety degrees. It is to be hoped that he felt repaid for the exertion by the mere glimpse that he got of Lucy (after swiftly reconnoitering the whole building) at an upper window, industriously engaged in brushing the dust from her travelling-dress. She did not see him, and if she had it would have made no difference, for John was not one to strike the most susceptible maiden dumb with his manly beauty, and the idol of Lucy’s heart (of whom she was thinking at the moment) was her very dearest, darlingest friend, Genevieve Thompson, to whom she had just written sixteen pages of protestation and undying affection. It must have been a satisfactory glimpse on the whole, for he immediately wanted another ; and an unsatisfactory one, for it never seemed a complete experience. Every visit of John’s for the next six weeks required to be patched with another, and the fact that he had just been to the house seemed to serve only as an imperative reason for going again as soon as possible. He and Lucy had known each other very well as children, but had not seen each other for several years. The consequence was, that after the first conventional crust had been broken between them, four and twenty blackbirds began straightway to sing ; or, to drop metaphor, everything combined to lead their thoughts and talk back to the (as it now appeared) delightful time when they had walked hand-in-handin the flowery paths of happy childhood. Mr Chubb, intent upon seed-corn and prize pigs and a

new floor for the stable, had not the faintest notion of what was going on in the dairy, under the great cherrytree, among the rows of old-fashioned four o’clocks in the dear old garden, on the horse-hair sofa in the best parlour ; and if he had known of it he would have scouted the idea of * two young fools like that thinking of marrying,’ or of his daughter daring to dream in her wildest moments of disposing of her own heart, hand, and future. He met John sometimes in the hall, or about the place, and nodded to him with careless good-nature ; stopped him once or twice to ask him if his mother would sell 1 that red Alderney cow of hers ;’ how wheat was quoted at Midford. But give him a thought as a possible suitor for his Lucy, * the lawyer’s lady,’ as he already called her in his own mind, he never did. He had known 1 that boy always ’ he told Lucy, who listened with eager, smiling interest, expecting to hear John finely praised the next moment —a hope dashed cruelly to the ground by his adding reflectively a moment later : * He’s freckled worse than ever ; he’s a regular turkeyegg. ’ Such language applied to the beloved object is certainly not gratifying to anybody, and Lucy was disgusted, but only dared to bring out a mild : ‘ Oh, father ! He isn’t at all ! His skin is so fine and white and delicate that every little blemish such as no one would ever see on you—or me ’ (hastily) ‘ is noticed at once on him. He’s a little sunburnt now, but it will a'l come off. And those things don’t matter in a man, one bit.’ ‘That’s so,’ agreed Mr Chubb, ramming tobacco into his pipe, and with no suspicion that he had been making an extremely offensive astronomical observation and finding spots on the sun. ‘He used to be ’round here a good deal when he was a child, riding the horses to pasture and feeding the threshing machine. A nice little chap,’ Mr Chubb resumed. ‘ but I’ve not seen him ’bout for two or three years. What’s he doing, anyway ?’ To this query poor Lucy, whose dearest wish it was that a good understanding should be brought about between her father and John. Lucy, the constitutional coward, could give no reply except the evasive one : ‘ He’s in some sort of business in Midford.’ She simply could not say that John was the freight agent of the Southern and Central Narrow Gauge Line, knowing her father’s prejudice to railroads in general, and rabid hatred of that railroad in particular. Her idea was that if she could keep this damaging fact in the background until her father knew what John was, all would be well. No one could know John and not accept any and everything connected with him. She counselled John to keep the thing from him. But John, who was a most manly and honest fellow, would make no promise of the kind. ‘There’s nothing to be ashamed of,’he said. ‘l’ve got a clean record all through ; that anybody is welcome to see. I am not going to tell any minnows or whales about it. I expect to be general freight agent at Sudbury in two years, and I don’t see but what it’s as good a business as raising pigs and popcorn. If your father don’t like railroading, I am very sorry, but he’ll have to lump it, that’s all. I was intended for a farmer by my mother, you know, but it didn’t suit me at all ; it was too slow—like waiting for judgment day ; so I got me a place on the road, and have worked up to where you see me Don’t you worry your little head about that, I’ll fix that all right. I’ll tell him.’ ‘John, I forbid you to say one word about it until I give you permission,’ said timid Lucy. ‘He’d forbid you the house. We never could see each other as we have been doing. Promise me that you won’t.’ ‘ Well, I won’t then, unless he asks me about it,’ said John, ‘ But I will if he does, and more too. What business has he got taking up such notions, if he is your father ?’ The crop that year turned out splendidly on Mr Chubb’s hands. There had not been such a yield for fifteen years. Not a farmer in the county had any fault to find with it, and that told its own story. Mr Chubb was radiant. ‘ It means five thousand clear laid by in Midford Bank. That’s what it means !’ he said to Lucy. * And now I can attend to other things—other things.’ Not three days later Lucy was summoned downstairs to see ‘ a gentleman,’and thinking that there was but one man in the world, stopped to put on her freshest and most becoming muslin gown, the better to please John, whom she had not seen for a lover’s eternity of four days. But she was disappointed to find quite another visitor seated on the horsehair sofa immediately under the famous diploma that ought to have proclaimed her Mistress of Hearts, so charmingly simple and sweet did she look in her bravery. It was Mr Lathrop, who came to meet her, and shook hands, and seemed to her to stay forever, although she had told him that her father had gone to Midford for the day. Somehow, with vague yet acute feminine suspicion and comnrehension, she disliked him on the spot; disliked his pallor, disliked his Roman nose, disliked his lisp : disliked most of all his flattering speeches and profuse compliments ; was not even agreeably impressed by his neat dress, although, as a rule, she liked men to be what she called ‘ stylish,’ and thought it the only thing that John lacked—no, not lacked, either. That idea she could never have connected with John, if he had been minus an arm, leg, or eye. Let us say that it was the one thing that she thought might be added to John.

After this a most amusing sentimental ‘ Box and Cox ’ situation existed at Clover Farm. On most days of the week Lawyer Lathrop simpered affably and prattled politely to and at Miss Lucy, who suffered many things at his hands, and accepted only such attentions as she could not decline with her father ‘ bossing ’ the affair and match-making in his own determined fashion. And every evening John Deering contrived to have an hour at least with his charmer, aud needed nor desired the least assistance in doing his own wooing Mr Chubb’s favourite poison was faithfully and regularly administered, he holding bottle and spoon ; the antidote as regularly and most efficaciously given by a private practitioner who understood the patient’s

symptoms and malady, and sympathized with her deeply. Poor Lucy needed sympathy, you may be sure, for between the three men she was almost distracted. She had long since given up her correspondence with Genevieve Thompson under the pressure of her woes and difficulties. She could only fly for refuge to her ‘ Aunt Harriet,’ as she called a distant, elderly, intensely romantic, and very admirable cousin who had lived with them at Clover Farm ever since the death of Mrs Chubb. And what that lady had to listen to from Lucy in the way of rhapsodies and praises of one lover, and ridicule and abhorrence of another, and lamentations over the misery of having the one taken from her and the other thrust upon her, will never be known. The conjectures, confidences, hopes, plans that were poured out upon that kind-hearted kinswoman would have utterly wearied and disgusted anyone less unselfish and attached ; but Miss Harriet was never tired of hearing them. She longed and pined to be a.dea ex mnchina. and bring Cousin Timothy to bo->k, and get him to ‘ bless you my children,’ and send them off to Niagara happypairing, and honeymooning. But she was ‘ a poor relation,’ and Mr Chubb was not a man to take advice from his nearest and richest of kin. Besides, Lucv implored her not to interfere. John came over rather earlier than usual one afternoon and caught, or was caught by Mr Chubb on the front verandah. ‘Sit down: sit down,’ said Lucy’s father. ‘How’s corn going at Midford to-day, do you know I It was being thrown away yesterday. That’s the worst of farming. If the year’s bad, you’ve got nothing to sell. If it’s good, nobody will buy what you’ve got.’ And Lucy’s lover sat down, glad of a chance ‘ to make connection,’ in professional parlance, with a gentleman who had a little daughter as well as a big crop to dispose of. The two chatted on pleasantly enough for some time, John listening attentively and respectfully to the future father-in-law of his hopes and keeping an eye on the door to see if Lucy would come out, and all went well until Mr Chubb, mounting his hobby, began to give his opinion of railroads and everything that was connected with them. Warming with his subject, he past-parti-cipled the whole institution from presidents to Pullman porters, from securities to sleepers, and the Athanasian creed is mild and characterless compared to the richness and depth and variety of his curses against the very telegraph poles that countenanced such iniquity. John’s first feeling was one of dismay. It had come. His face got redder and redder, and finally he blurted out: ‘ Mr Chubb, sir, I am a railroad man. I’m the freight agent of the Southern and Central,’ when he could no longer control himself. ‘ Then you are a fool, or a knave, and you’vegot the rascally busiuessandthievin,’ lyin’ set of companions that ever was, outside of the penitentiary—that’s all I’ve got to say about it,’ announced Mr Chubb, rising in a turkey cock access of fury from his arm-chair. The glove was thrown down now, and John picked it up. and a pretty quarrel ensued, with this pleasant result-that John was ordered off the premises. Dark were the days that followed. Miss Harriet' tripped about the house actually and morally on tiptoe, going as‘delicately ’ as King Agag. Lucy, that pearl of a girl, was dissolved peiennial in tears, which she had either just shed, was shedding, or would shed. John vanished. Lawyer Lathrop alone remained the same, came early, stayed late, brought gifts ; was blind, deaf, dumb, apparently, where Lucy was concerned—that is, to her melancholy looks and vexed speeches ; he proposed finally and was accepted—by Mr Chubb. He had heard all about John and hated him. He loved Lucy (to call an odious sentiment by a fine name), although he was perfectly aware of the state of her feelings. The fact was that he had sentimentally the cuticle of a hippopotamus. Lucy was lovely. Lucy would have Clover Farm and shekels some day. What were hearts and darts, and tears, and ‘ taradiddle foolishness ’ when compared with the solid advantages to be gained by such an alliance ? So Lucy was informed one day that she was to marry a man she detested ; very much as she might have been told that she was to change her dress. ‘ I’ve settled the whole thing. It is to be on the 25th of this month.’ Mr Chubb announced. ‘There’s no use putting off a thing when it’s got to be done. I’ve spoken to your Aunt Harriet ; she’ll get whatever you want in the way of wedding finery, and I’ll see to the rest. All you’ve got to do is to get ready, my dear. Lathrop’s a first-rate match for any girl, first-rate. Correct man ; long-headed, even for a lawyer. Got a verdict against the Southern and Central, yesterday, for ten thousand—that Brownlow case. He’s the very man for you. Got money laid by, and’ll take good care of you. Smart, deep fellow ; sure to get on, if he isn’t one to palaver the women.’ Now, if Lucy, who had listened stupified to all this, had been a girl of spirit, the question of marrying Mr Lathrop would have been ‘settled’ indeed, then and there, if not exactly as Papa Chubb proposed Not all the king’s horses, nor all the king’s men, nor all the fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers, uncles, aunts, cousins,or friendsin Christendom could have pushed her another step in that direction. But Lucy was very timid, very gentle, and all her life-long had trembled before her big, burly, imperious parent. She cried, of course, sobbed piteously, vowed passionately that she never, never, never would marry Samuel Lathrop while she lived, and fled up to her room and into Miss Harriet’s sympathetic arms, leaving her father vexed, but not seriously disturbed, convinced that she would ‘ come to her senses and give in.’ And in the end, as he had thought, she gave in. ‘ Chateeeu e/ui parleva xe reneire.’ She consented to listen to Mr Lathrop. She had to listen to her father. The thing was ‘settled’ to suit Mr Chubb, who again, and this time formally, accepted the lawyer that had got a verdict against the Southern and Central. It was the most endearing fact that lie knew of, that spruce, respectable, cold-blooded member of the Midford bar, for whom he had no great liking, except so far as he really

represented his own plan for securing certain advantages for his daughter. And so it came about that in two weeks from the time it was first mooted Mr Chubb’s point was carried. Lucy was engaged, not to her ‘dearest John,’ as she had often pictured to herself; John, whose photograph she put under her pillow every night, and of whom her heart and thoughts were full, but to Mr Samuel Lathrop, of Midford. Miss Harriet was aghast ; Mr Chubb, openly jubilant; Mr Lathrop fishily gratified and satisfied ; John Deering in despair. Matters were at this stage, and all was brisk preparation for the wedding when one evening Lucy went to her room. Her fiance had spent the whole afternoon with her, and she had been only too thankful to see him drive off and to go to her room, where she cried and bathed her face, and cried again, and took off her hateful engagement ring and felt again comparatively free and happy, or at least less miserable. She was sitting there thinking of the same thing, or rather person, that always filled her mind, when Miss Harriet came in, looking excited. • My dear,’ she said, * he’s downstairs, and says he must see you.’ • He ’ was John Deering to Miss Harriet, and Lucy, of course, knew who ‘ he ’ was, and never confounded him for one moment with the late-departed Samuel. • I can’t see him. 1 can’t see him. You must go down and tell him so. After the way I’ve treated him ’ began Lucy, getting very pale, and bursting again into the ever-at-hand sobs. ‘ He says he will see you,’ replied Miss Harriet. * Poor fellow ! You’d better go down. He may do something desperate.’ A fear of John’s doing something ‘ desperate ’ was one of Lucy’s haunting terrors, but then to see him as Mr Samuel Lathrop’s fiancie! • What does he want, auntie ?’ she asked. • Oh, I can’t, I can’t !’ ‘ You can’t help yourself. Ifyou don’t go down, child, you may regret it,’ said Miss Harriet. ‘ What are you afraid of? He knows you’re engaged, for he told me so. Go along downstairs. ’ Thus urged, Lucy went down, and John turned as pale as she was when he saw her. He was sitting on the horse-hair sofa, where she never sat now, partly because it reminded her of the days when she and John had spent so many happy hours side by side on its slippery, uncompromisingly hard surface, but chiefly because she could not so well regulate the exact and respectful distance that she wished observed between herself and her fiance there as when she took a chair. There were no demonstrations to fear from John. He did not so much as offer to shake hands. He had come to tell her something. And this was it, briefly told without the clauses and pauses of the agitated speaker, the interruptions and comments of the listener. Mr Chubb, a few days before, had sold his large crop to a firm in Fenton, a hundred miles away. It had been shipped and had got safely as far as a town midway between Midford and Fenton —Fairfield. A strike was imminent, and all traffic about to be stopped. John was at Fairfield ; had found it out ; knew that Mr Chubb’s crop was on the track, and, for love of Lucy, had at the very last moment contrived to get ‘ every blessed car ’ sent off safely to Fenton just before the storm came that had ruined many shippers and done great injury even to such a powerful corporation as the Southern and Central. This was the gist of the interview. But a good deal beside crept into it. John learned that Lucy still loved him, and was sacrificing herself to her father’s ‘ notions.’ Lucy was humiliated and delighted at once by this fresh proof that John was ‘the noblest creature in the world. ’ They parted with love and hope botn revived. Lucy thought that her father would be so touched by John’s ‘ splendid conduct ’ that he would relent and repay him the only coin he would take. John determined that he ‘ would make a fight for it,’ as he put it in his own thoughts. But alas 1 it was Miss Harriet who was melted, and sang John’s praises, and cried on Lucy’s neck, and declared that Lucy and John were ‘ made for each other,’ and that it was ‘ monstrous to part them.’ Mr Chubb was vastly pleased, delighted, indeed, but he had no idea of doing’anything more than thanking John, which he did that very night in cordial terms, and with a feeling that he was behaving handsomely, for he had a pen-and-ink-phobia, and never wrote a letter if he could possibly get out of it. Perhaps he preferred that way of expressing his sense of the obligation for other reasons. He knew very well, now, from both Lucy and Miss Harriet, what John's feelings toward Lucy was, and of her affection for him. For one moment he even thought of ‘ settling ’ the matter all over again, and very differently. He had but a contemptuous opinion of women, however—their love, their hate, their intellect, their influence and character generally ; and he soon convinced himself that it was too late, and that one man was not only as good as another, but better too, in this case. So nothing was changed. The wedding was to be, or he would know why, he said angrily. Miss Harriet and Lucy were bidden to get ready tor it and say no more. Miss Harriet and Lucy being what the French call perfect ‘muttons,’ looked unutterable appeals, wept, saida great deal behind Mr Chubb’s back, obeyed. And John Deering raged inwardly, protested on paper, tried to get another interview with Lucy, failed, and was checkmated all around for the time being. On the day before the one fixed for the wedding he made his last attempt, and it was as he was riding slowlv back to Midford with the heaviest heart in the world that Mr Lathrop’s new buggy, resplendent with paint and varnish, and drawn by a fast trotter, came bowling along en route to Clover Farm. Mr Lathrop was dressed in his best, and felt at his best. Recognizing John as he passed by him, he very kindly and delicately pulled a paper from his pocket and flourished it at him, calling out: , • See here ! License ! You can come to the wedding if you like. Do !’ Mr Lathrop was not a man of many impulses, but he could not resist the temptation to taunt his rival. And John would have liked nothing better than to have

dragged him out of the buggy and laid his own whip over his shoulders. All the natural savage in him was aroused. He was not in a state of nature, though, in Africa or Ceylon or the Sioux country, where men may savagely resent barbarous treatment, and though by no means in a state of grace, he was presently jogging again toward Midford, and again in these civilised United States and the nineteenth century, with nothing but a red flush on his face to tell of his range and grief. The day came. The wedding was to be at the farm. It was to be a quiet affair, only a few neighbours and friends being invited. It was to be at eleven o’clock sharp. The knot indissoluble was to be tied by the Methodist minister of Midford, Mr Caruthers. Early as were the hours usually kept at Clover Farm, every member of the family for various reasons was awake on that particular morning long before the usual time, perhaps because none of them had slept well and some of them had not closed an eye at all. Miss Harriet, who as housekeeper had * the repast ’ (as she elegantly termed the wedding collation) very much on her mind, rose and dressed by lamp-light, peeped into Lucy’s room, and found the poor girl a very spectacle for pallor and swollen eyes, and general dishevelled despair, had a final cry with her, returned to her own room and went downstairs with her mother’s manuscript cookbook under her arm, and her hands full of silverware. Lucy got up, and by way of preparing herself to become the wife of Mr Lathrop, got out a villainous and most unflattering photograph of John, and all the letters and presents, pressed flowers and other sentimental souvenirs that had come from or were associated with him, and spent two hours looking at them as well as she could for her tears. Mr Chubb, the originator and promoter of this successful matrimonial scheme, was by no means as happy as might have been expected. He, too, had had a bad night of it. For one thing, only the evening before he had been informed by a neighbour that Mr Lathrop had been made the attorney of the Southern and Central by its astute president. There could not have been unpleasanter news communicated. His son-in-law the representative of that road ! The thought was intolerable, and worse still he couldn’t help it, couldn’t help anything ; for, angry as he was, he felt that it was too late to break off the engagement he had made, though he thought of it for the first five minutes. He was afraid of public opinion ; he was ashamed to ask it of Lucy after his high-handed course in the matter. And then, for another thing, he had been assailed by a whole host of doubts and fears now that his point was carried. Lucy had been a good daughter to him always— kind, affectionate, obedient. Had he as he phrased and summed up the account between them * acted square and fair ?’ Perhaps he was a little hipped, for as a general thing he was firmly convinced of his own wisdom and was not given to admitting as a mere possibility even that he could be wrong. It is certain that he was out of sorts, and was up and dressed before the first auroral flushin the east above the elms opposite his window announced that the day was at hand.

Some uneasy influence from the farm must have penetrated as far as Midford, for John Deering also had tumbled and tossed away the night on the creaking and shackling structure that did duty for a bed at his boarding house. What should he do ? What could he do to prevent Lucy, his Lucy whom he loved, and who loved him, from being sacrificed by ‘a brutal father’ to a ‘ beast ’ of a lover. John thought in strong language,

and even so his feelings were so inadequately expressed that he got up and walked the floor still thinking, thinking, and groaning aloud, and clinching his fist and biting his lips like the heaviest of stage villains instead of the worthiest and most simple hearted of men. At last be came to a conclusion, a conclusion so bold and startling that it almost stunned even him just at first. He would see Lucy again. He would get her to elope with him, if there was anything in love or a lover’s eloquence, appeals, commands, despairs. This decided upon, he too arrayed himself and rushed out of the house, stumbling over the milkman and his cans at the door in his eagerness to secure a license (with which he means to begin the work of spiking the enemy’s guns), utterly unmindful of the fact that it would be at least two hours before any office would be open, any official at his post. It was only Mr Lathrop who slept the placid sleep of the victor untroubled by any doubts, fears, or alarms. When Miss Harriet had ‘seen to’ a dozen things that were down in her mental memorandum, she gave herself up to ten minutes’ intense study of her Virginian mother’s receipt for ‘ Bermondsey punch,’ chin in hand, seated on the back verandah. She then rose, and with a purposeful air took her way to the pantry to put into instant execution the instructions so clearly given. Bermondsey punch had always been in her family. It was a thing that no one who had once tasted ever forgot. It was natural that she should have thought of it at once when there was a wedding in question, even a wedding that she disliked and would have given a great deal to avert. She had a duty to society to perform and she meant to do that duty ; but her soft heart and head were full of troubled, unhappy thoughts of Lucy and John, and unavailing regrets and wishes—so full indeed, that she was completely unconscious when the time came to do as she was bidden and ‘ stir in slowly one pint of old Bourbon previously mulled ’ that she had exactly doubled the quantity of spirit and halved the quantity of water ordered, by her absent-minded use of the pint and quart pots at hand. Quite satisfied with her work, on the contrary, she carefully covered the bowl when she had done, set in on the second shelf, and went off to attend to other matters. Breakfast that morning was a mere mockery of a meal, and was over in ten minutes, Mr Chubb and Miss Harriet being alike eager to get over it, and Lucy still in her room. It was about an hour after this that Mr Chubb, who had been prowling over the house restlessly ever since he had come downstairs, wandered aimlessly into the pantry. He stood there for a moment, looking idly at the cakes and cream and other toothsome dishes about him, with the interest that such dainties always arouse in a breast that is honest, and conscious of a capacity to enjoy and digest them at the proper time, and all at once he spied the punch-bowl above his head. Now it is a generally conceded and perfectly indisputable fact, that men have absolutely no curiosity ; so it must have been that Mr Chubb felt it to be his duty to inform himself at once as to what that bowl contained. At any rate, he got it down, uncovered it, and examined it attentively. Some light was thrown on the subject by another organ than his eyes, namely, his nose The little rings of lemon-peel that floated temptingly on the surface were agreeably corroborative of the theory suggested by the second sense, and a third was called to Mr Chubb’s aid. He tasted it. It was all that Bermondsey punch was famous for, and more, as we know. He tasted it again and again. It improved on acquain-

tance, like all really good things. Mr Chubb got down a glass and filled it—a cracked glass perhaps, for somehow it had to be filled more than once, and it could not have been that Mr Chubb, who was habitually temperate, and had voted at a late election against saloons and the selling of any and all spirits, could have had much to do with another fact —that it would not stay filled. When, however, the bowl was replaced finally, Mr Chubb’s countenance was charmingly cheerful, and his heart was glad. Gone was his gloom, his doubts, his discontent. A world that had Bermondsey punch in it was the world for Mr Chubb after all, and he went off to array himself for the great occasion. Mr Chubb was not ordinarily as sensitive a plant as the man who killed himself because he was so tired of dressing and undressing himself; but he must have found it exhausting work on this occasion, for in about

ten minutes he was back in the pantry, and having administered restoratives to himself, was presently so far ref’-eshed and recruited that he put on his hat and walked off into the grounds singing an air that he had picked up from the minstrels in Midford some time before. Ou he sauntered and sung, and sung and sauntered, until he came to a summer-house, that he had built for Lucy, at the foot of the lawn. Here he turned in, feeling that he would rather sit down than not, and here, at the very door, he met —John Deering. John was aghast, and stammered out something intended to be an explanation of his being there, and would have escaped, if he could, but Mr Chubb would not have it so. To come to a place with the intention of carrying off a man's daughter, and to be met and carried off by that daughter’s father instead, is certainly a disconcerting and extraordinary experience that would confound the most accomplished Lovelace for a moment; and John felt himself taken into custody when Mr Chubb ran his arm through his and led him back into the summer-house, where he had been hiding for the last half-hour, waiting for a chance to get speech with Lucy, sight of Miss Harriet. ‘ Mr Chubb, sir, I didn’t know—l didn’t mean ’ he began, and got as red as his own cravat, but was not allowed to get any further. ‘Sit down, John, my dear old John! I always liked you, John. You are the finest young fellow in the country —a long ways the finest on the face of the earth. You are the best friend I’ve got in the world, John. Saved my crop for me—yes —you did—l love you, John, like a son,’ began Mr Chubb, still clutching his arm and beaming Bermondsey upon him. ‘l’ve always loved you, ever since you were a little boy ’round here riding the horses to pasture. Yes, John, there ain’t anybody I care more for than Ido for you. There ain’t anything I won’t do for you. Why, you saved my crop, don’t you know that? Thousands of dollars! Thousands of dollars ! Time of that there strike that I wish had of ruined that railroad.’ John had never heard of Bermondsey punch ; and when this speech began he was the most astonished young man on this continent. But before MrChubb had finished, John had inferred the existence of Bermondsey punch, as a savant reconstructs a megatherium from a single bone, arguing backward from effect to cause. So he smiled, first to himself, and then at Mr Chubb soothingly, and replied that he wasn't in the Southern and Central any longer, and had never liked the work, still less his treatment as an employee of the road. Out flamed Mr Chubb at once, and if words could have destroyed the Southern and Central, every trace of that powerful institution would have been swept from the State at once. But words couldn’t; on the contrary, the whistle of a train passing at the bottom of Clover Karin was to be heard that very moment. Mr Chubb heard it, and raged more furiously. And now Mr Lathrop came in for a share of abuse. John, who was getting utterly impatient, feeling that

time was getting on, suddenly saw a gleam of light. He seized Mr Chubb by the coat in his eagerness, and begged, implored him not to let Lathrop marry Lucy. • Who says that that scoundrel attorney of the road—--I'll tell you about that, John. Who says he’s going to marry my daughter ?’ John could scarcely believe his ears. He trembled like a leaf in his agitation and desire to turn this mood of Mr Chubb's to good account. He could scarcely get out : ‘O, sir ! Mr Chubb, it’s to-day. Stop it ! Go right up to the house and stop it! Don’t let him marry her ! She will be miserable for life ! That’s the reason. I don’t ask you to do it because I love her, though I do, with all mv heart and soul ; and always will ; but it’s because I know she will be miserable with that man—that scoundrel.’ ' Yes, cold-blooded, white-livered rascal-attorney of the Southern and Central, I’ll tell you about that. Sit down. John.’ agreed Mr Chubb. ‘Oh ! no, sir. Don’t. Don’t sit down,’ urged John, seizing him by the arm ; ‘goup to the house. Let’s go up there together. He sha’n’t have Lucy—never! never !’ ‘No, never. Sha’n’t have my daughter. Always hated him. Hate him like poison. Who says he’s going to marry my daughter ? You marry her yourself, John. Come along. Marry her yourself. Got my farm, got every bushel of my crop—infernal rates ! Sha’n’t have my daughter at all. He’s done took the position of attorney of the road. Just like him. I’ll tell you about that. This is the way of that thing—’ Here Mr Chubb tried again to sit down, and his purpose was again frustrated by John. ‘ There isn’t a minute to lose, sir,’ said he, taking Mr Chubb’s arm this time and leading on toward the house. When nearly there he said : *O ! sir ; did you mean what you said ! Will you give Lucy to me ? I came here to-day to get her. I’ve got the license in my pocket this minute. May she be my wife ? Will you give your consent ?’ ‘Yes, yes. Of course. Take her! Take her ! Why haven’t you married her before, John ? I never loved a man like Ido you, John. You’ve got the best head for figures, and the best disposition, and you are thought better of than any young man in this whole country-side, and ’ Here they arrived at the steps, and Mr Chubb, again showing symptoms of sitting down on the top one, John hurriedly guided him to, and deposited him in, his favourite arm-chair instead. It was now ten o’clock. He dashed up stairs and knocked at Lucy’s door. She opened it. She was all ready for the sacrifice and looked a lovely image of woe. She cried out ‘John,’and fell back a few steps. This was movement one. Movement two was a rush into John’s arms, and a piteous outcry, 1 O ! don’t let them take me from you !’ John explained how matters stood as soon as he could take the necessary time. Lucy was amazed, overjoyed, not difficult to persuade. At half-past ten several guests and the minister had arrived. At thirty-one minutes past Lucy and John marched into the room, and were married immediately in front of the horse hair sofa, Mr Chubb, all beaming blandness and Bermondsey, beside them ; Miss Harriet, all tearful delight, opposite ; the company much pleased and excited by this conclusion of a romance that they had been interested in for months. At a quarter to eleven Mr and Mrs Deering were driving rapidly into Midford to take a train eastward, and Mr Lathrop was driving rapidly out to Clover Farm to take a wife. The two carriages passed each other on the turnpike, and as they did so Jon thrust out his head and a hand in which a folded paper was grasped. ‘ See this ? License ! Sorry you couldn't come to the wedding !’ he cried, and dashed on. Lawyer Lathrop caught a glimpse of Lucy. He half understood, but to make certain drove on to the farm, had a violent scene with Mr Chubb, and got back to Midford in a blue-black temper, the only person dissatisfied with the result of the cold-punch act.