S. R. Crockett

“ Miss Crow pretended to teach, and Polly pretended to learn, and one knew as much about the matter as the other.
Miss Crow passed the time in telling Polly how many people had been in love with her, and the hopes she had of as many more. Polly begged the loan of a pier-glass from her mother, and thought, as she pretended before it, smiling at herself and sweeping imaginary trains, how soon her turn would come to have scores of lovers all willing and anxious to drown themselves for her sake, like Miss Principia Crow. ”

“ Nipper Donnan knew that he had always hated her husband, that, while as good as engaged to Colonel Carter's daughter, he was walking the lanes with Elizabeth Fortinbras—yes, and plotting and planning to get a fortune for her—a fortune which would make beggars of her husband and herself, and strip an only son of his inheritance.
To the angry woman Hugh John made no reply. He only kept silence, with that gentle irony which is his present manner with those who grow quarrelsome—that is, if they are not of his own sex and (approximately) age. ”

“ It was the week before Hugh John went to college that what I am going to tell took place. September is almost always nice about Edam—with the corn standing white in stooks all down the valley, waving blonde half-way up the sides of the wide glen, and looking over into it from the heights of Kingside still as green as grass. Yes, in our part September is wonderfully quiet and windless—generally, that is. Yet withal, there is the stir of harvest about the farm-town, the merry whirr of the "reaper" over the hedge, and always the clatter of voices as the workers go homeward in the twilight. ”

“ If you put your eye to the glass (said Hugh John) you will see where one of my greatest friends lives—Mr. Butcher Donnan. Or rather he used to be a butcher. For now he has given up his trade to his son Nipper, and regrets it every minute of his waking day.
Yes, that two-storied cottage with the garden in front, ablaze with flowers, with creepers clambering as high as the roof, that is "New Erin Villa," and the home of the most discontented man in Edam. Butcher Donnan has nothing to do. He hangs over his gate, and almost prays stray passers-by to stop and gossip. ”

“ They always tell me that I am a little in love with Elizabeth myself, and I am not ashamed of it. Once, from his hiding-place, Hugh John showed me a young dainty fawn come stepping lightly through the wood. I saw it skip airily across the Esk below the second Torres Vedras, ascend the bank in three bounds, walk demurely across the road like a maiden coming out of church, look about her as if gathering her skirts for something daring, and then, with one sidelong bound, swift and light, lo, she was over the high paling and lost in the wood! ”

“ 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!" ”

“ None, that is, for most of us. But Sir Toady, already singing his song of triumph, had reckoned without his Hugh John!
That austere stickler for "The Proper-Thing-To-Do-You-Know" made one dash for the rapidly covering causeway, over which the tawny Solway water was already lapping and curling in little oozy whorls, like a very soap-suddy pot coming to the boil. He had only time to shout, "You, Sis, stay where you are! Take care of the Maid. I will make it all right with The-Folk-Over-There!" ”

“ And do you know, all the time he was what Sir Toady calls "a regular rip." Only he was a real colonel's son, and had been tried everywhere—only no one would have him about on any account.
But old Dr. Morton did what Thomasina said, and got this young fellow dressed out in new clothes, till he looked as smart as a paper of new pins. Then who so proud as Thomasina! She was so glad that Harry had turned out so well that she said she would marry him. Then he was fearfully noble, and said that he wasn't worthy of her, but that he would wait for the day when he would lay the world at her feet. ”

“ I said to Hugh John, a little impatiently.
"Oh," said Hugh John, "you see, I have fought Nipper so long that there is a kind of hereditary household enmity."
"Nonsense," I said; "why, I saw Fuz talking to the old fellow for an hour the other day, the two of them sitting and smoking as thick as thieves. Besides, there's Toady!"
"Yes," said Hugh John. "Father has no sense of the dignity of the house or of what a 'vendetta' means. He always says that if he has a chance of getting to heaven on that clause about forgiving your enemies, he does not care a dump. ”

“ I, being a girl, am suspected of inaccuracy, Sir Toady of "monkeying," and Maid Margaret of knowing nothing about the matter.
But Hugh John may be inaccurate. He may be "monkeying" in secret, and he may know less than any one else about any matter. Nevertheless he is accredited like a plenipotentiary. He moves like Diogenes, his tub unseen about him. A calm certainty accompanies him. He inspires confidence, blind as that of a bank cashier in the multiplication table. ”

“ To return to Sir Toady, we were at the time at the little seaside village of the Scaur. Mark Hill is behind it, and Rough Island in front. Nothing could possibly be more delightful. At every low tide, for two or three hours we could walk on a long pebbly trail which led seaward, the wash of the tides coming from two directions round the pleasant green shoulders of the Isle, epauletted with purple heather, and buttoned down the front with white sheep. ”

“ But Hugh John had thought all this out. Trust him for that. He took a gnawed bone out of an inner pocket, removed the wrapping of newspaper, leaned far over, and threw it with the long, sweeping curve of a boomerang upon the path in front of the dog's nose.
John Chesnay's retriever made a rush, a snap, and then sidled sidelong into the thick copse-wood. The rest of the dogs were after him in a moment. I had seen him glancing from side to side as if to watch for the fall of the bone. He knew it would come, and that even if the devil took the hindmost, the foremost would be sure of the bone. ”

“ And again it was Hugh John who, with his eyelids half closed and looking at the bright landscape through the long three-draw telescope, cut the knot with a carelessly breathed suggestion.
"Why not ask Elizabeth Fortinbras?"
"They would never dare!" said I. "Old Fortinbras thinks himself no end of a swell!"
"Yes," said Hugh John, with tranquil irony, "he has failed in at least four businesses—last of all in a stamp-shop at East Dene, while the Donnans have only succeeded in one—and are on the point of making another fortune in the second. ”

“ And I am sure the hero won't be either of the two you think—not, that is, Hugh John or Nipper Donnan.
But I am going to tell the story of the strangest, the delicatest friendship I have ever seen—that of Hugh John, my brother, and Elizabeth Fortinbras.
He is the youngest hero you can imagine, but somehow is much more like a young man who has shaved himself very close than the schoolboy he is.
Nothing puts Hugh John out. When he has some big festival to attend along with father, he sits quiet and self-possessed, doing his part without a quiver on his face. ”

“ I asked Hugh John why he had never taken Sir Toady up to his Cave of the Winds, and he said, "Oh, Toady—he would be getting out boxes to stuff with beetles, and skirmishing for birds' eggs. He's all right in a wood, that Toadums—better than me—but no good on the hillside, and too larky all round in places where you can be seen miles off."
"And what do you do up here yourself?" I said.
"I am by myself," he answered. "I think—I read!"
"But you have a room to yourself in the house. You can go there!" ”

“ Silently I march, my feet deep in last year's fallen leaves—the little worn footpath full of them from side to side.'
"Oh, and this is finest of all," said Hugh John, hurrying on, "but don't tell any one. I make you a partner of my solitude. It lasts just a little while. It is selfish, if you like, but sometimes it is good to live alone! Do you know what Senancour says love is?" ”

“ I cannot stay with your father and mother unless you stop pestering me. And then you talk about fighting. Why, Hugh John is nearly five years younger than you are——"
"He is as tall!" growled Nipper.
"Taller!" corrected Elizabeth coolly. "But if you behave like a whole menagerie of brutes, that won't make me care more about you. Hugh John is my brother; I have no other!"
"Umph!" snorted Nipper, "he doesn't come and sit out by Esk-waterside with his sisters."
I know that at that moment Hugh John's eye sought the deep purple stain of the Cave of Mystery, where he and I so often sat together. ”

“ Now (said Hugh John, shaking his wise head) if they would only listen to me and start a confectioner's shop, they would both be chirpy as the day is long, and in the winter time long after dark—she over her dishes and patty-pans in the kitchen, and he in a white cap and apron behind the counter, talking to everybody, busy as honey-bees in clover-time, radiating sweetness and coining money.
And underneath the white apron Donnan could wear the butcher's "steel" if he liked, just to make him feel like himself. ”

“ From the Cave of Mystery high up on Hugh John's hill we could see it crawling along the roads (really it was going quite fast) , like a lumpy cerulean beetle, the like of which for brilliance is not to be found in Curtis.
And the driver was Butcher Donnan himself. He knew all the farmers, and as he had made one fortune already, as fortunes went in Edam, the people were the readier to deal with him. Sometimes even the poorest would save up a penny for one of Mrs. Donnan's sponge-cakes. ”

“ It seems as if there would never again be such hues on the mountains, never such richness on the heather, never sunsets so arrogant (yes, I got the word that time) as those when I was little.
But what, you ask, are the lines? Well, you won't think anything of them. I know you will laugh.
They are just—but oh! I am ashamed to put them down to be printed. For they are just altogether mine—all little girls who have been lonely little girls will know what I mean. Boys are pigs and will laugh—except Hugh John. ”

“ Elizabeth was in the front shop, busy as a bee among the sweet things, white-aproned, and wearing dainty white armlets of linen which came from the wrist to above the elbow. Then these two looked at each other as only girls do—or perhaps more exactly, attractive young women of about the same age. Boys are different—they behave just like strange dogs on being introduced, sulky and ready to snarl. A young man seems to be wondering how such a contemptible fellow as that other fellow could possibly have gained admittance to a respectable house. ”

“ But really I put all that down to the cold and headache of which Cissy complained in a postscript—and, not even there, was there a hint as to the other half of the crooked sixpence! Which is a record for one woman—girl, I mean—writing to another.
Hugh John was anything but sentimental, and it was not his habit to take out the relic wrapped in the tissue-paper oftener than the rearrangement of his scanty finances compelled. He would just give his pocket a slap, and if he felt a lump—why, he thought no more about the matter. ”