Stephen Leacock

“ His graduation day was approaching, and Jamie’s mother was spinning him a pair of breeches against the day. The breeches were to be a surprise. Already they were shaping that way. Oyster McShamus sat reading the Old Testament in silence, while Hannah looked into the peat fire and thought of the beautiful young Laird. Only once the Highlander spoke.
“The McWhinus is back,” he said, and his glance turned towards the old flint-lock musket on the wall. That night Hannah dreamed of the feud, of the Glen and the burn, of love, of lobsters, and of the Laird of Loch Aucherlocherty. ”

“ In the pauses of your work at your city desk, where you have grown rich and avaricious, does it never rise before your mind’s eye, the quiet old homestead that knew you as a boy before your greed of gold tore you away from it? The Old Homestead that stands beside the road just on the rise of the hill, with its dark spruce trees wrapped in snow, the snug barns and the straw stacks behind it; while from its windows there streams a shaft of light from a coal-oil lamp, about as thick as a slate pencil that you can see four miles away, from the other side of the cedar swamp in the hollow. ”

“ The storm was raging again, and the thunder mingled with the roar of the machine as it coursed madly towards the sea. The great eye of the motor blazed in front. The lurid light of it flashed a second on the trees and the burn as it passed, and flashed blinding on the eyes of Oyster as he stood erect on the cliff-side below, musket in hand, and faced the blazing apparition that charged upon him with the old Highland blood surging in his veins. ”

“ Gertrude stood before them. The rose had fallen from her head. The lace had fallen from her ear and the bagstring had come undone from her waist. Her newspapers were crumpled beyond recognition. But dishevelled and illegible as she was, she was still mistress of herself.
“Never,” she said firmly. “Ronald, you shall never make this sacrifice for me.” Then to the Earl, in tones of ice, “There is a pride, sir, as great even as yours. The daughter of Metschnikoff McFiggin need crave a boon from no one.” ”

“ Each morning I go to see Otto beside the river in the meadow.
He sits and paints, and I sit with my hands clasped about my knees and talk to him. I tell him all that I think, all that I read, all that I know, all that I feel, all that I do not feel.
He listens to me with that far-away look that I have learned to love and that means that he is thinking deeply; at times he almost seems not to hear.
The intercourse of our minds is wonderful.
We stimulate one another’s thought.
Otto is my master. ”

“ Once, when her father was from home, Hannah had stood on the roadside, and Ian had stopped the machine and had taken her with him in the car for a ride. Hannah, her heart beating with delight, had listened to him as he explained how the car was worked. Had her father know that she had sat thus beside a McWhinus, he would have slain her where she sat.
The tragedy of Hannah’s love ran swiftly to its close.
Each day she met the young Laird at the burn.
Each day she gave him the finest of her lobsters. She wore a new thistle every day. ”

“ At times she would ride her palfrey along the sands of the sea and call “Guido” to the waves! At other times she would tell it to the grass or even to a stick of cordwood or a ton of coal.
Guido and Isolde, though they had never met, cherished each the features of the other. Beneath his coat of mail Guido carried a miniature of Isolde, carven on ivory. He had found it at the bottom of the castle crag, between the castle and the old town of Ghent at its foot.
How did he know that it was Isolde?
There was no need for him to ask.
His heart had spoken.
The eye of love cannot be deceived. ”

“ After that they were constantly together. They played tennis and ping-pong in the day, and in the evening, in accordance with the stiff routine of the place, they sat down with the Earl and Countess to twenty-five-cent poker, and later still they sat together on the verandah and watched the moon sweeping in great circles around the horizon.
It was not long before Gertrude realised that Lord Ronald felt towards her a warmer feeling than that of mere ping-pong. At times in her presence he would fall, especially after dinner, into a fit of profound subtraction. ”

“ Otto looked and saw Alexis coming. He turned one glance at me: his face was full of infinite meaning.
Then, for my sake, he ran. How noble he looked as he ran. Brave heart! he dared not stay and risk the outburst of his anger.
But Alexis overtook him.
Then beside the river-bank they fought. Ah! but it was terrible to see them fight. Is it not awful when men fight together?
I could only stand and wring my hands and look on in agony!
First, Alexis seized Otto by the waistband of his trousers and swung him round and round in the air. ”

“ Again Hezekiah moved on. In a few moments he met a man whose tall black hat, black waistcoat and white tie proclaimed him a clergyman.
“Good sir,” said Hezekiah, “can you tell me—”
The clergyman pounced upon him with a growl of a hyena, and bit a piece out of his ear. Yes, he did, reader. Just imagine a clergyman biting a boy in open daylight! Yet that happens in New York every minute.
Such is the great cruel city, and imagine looking for work in it. You and I who spend our time in trying to avoid work can hardly realise what it must mean. ”

“ On the very night of his acquittal, Whangus McWhinus, the son of the murdered man, had lain in wait for Shamus McShamus, in the hollow of the Glen road where it rises to the cliff, and had shot him through the bagpipes. Since then the feud had raged with unquenched bitterness for a century and a half.
With each generation the difference between the two families became more acute. They differed on every possible point. They wore different tartans, sat under different ministers, drank different brands of whisky, and upheld different doctrines in regard to eternal punishment. ”

“ She was the most beautiful woman in England. She strode imperiously into the room. She seized a chair imperiously and seated herself on it, imperial side up.
She took off her tiara of diamonds and put it on the tiara-holder beside her and uncoiled her boa of pearls and put it on the pearl-stand.
“You have come,” said the Great Detective, “about the Prince of Wurttemberg.”
“Wretched little pup!” said the Countess of Dashleigh in disgust.
So! A further complication! Far from being in love with the Prince, the Countess denounced the young Bourbon as a pup! ”

“ The Great Detective hurriedly wrapped himself in a pink domino, adjusted a pair of false black whiskers and cried,
“Come in.”
“Come in.”
His secretary entered. “Ha,” said the detective, “it is you!”
He laid aside his disguise.
“Sir,” said the young man in intense excitement, “a mystery has been committed!”
“Ha!” said the Great Detective, his eye kindling, “is it such as to completely baffle the police of the entire continent?”
“They are so completely baffled with it,” said the secretary, “that they are lying collapsed in heaps; many of them have committed suicide.” ”

“ It seemed to burn me like fire!
To-morrow I am to bring Otto to see my father.
But to-night I can think of nothing else but that Otto has touched me.
Next Day.
Otto has touched father! He touched him for ten roubles. My father is furious. I cannot tell what it means.
I brought Otto to our home. He spoke with my father, Ivan Ivanovitch. They sat together in the evening. And now my father is angry. He says that Otto wanted to touch him.
Why should he be angry?
But Otto is forbidden the house, and I can see him only in the meadow. ”

“ Down in the swamp, two miles away, could he have but seen it, there moved a sleigh, and in it a man dressed in a sealskin coat and silk hat, whose face beamed in the moonlight as he turned to and fro and stared at each object by the roadside as at an old familiar scene. Round his waist was a belt containing a million dollars in gold coin, and as he halted his horse in an opening of the road he unstrapped the belt and counted the coins. ”

“ Every year and every month Guido performed for Isolde some new achievement of emprise.
And in the meantime Isolde waited.
It was not that suitors were lacking. Isolde the Slender had suitors in plenty ready to do her lightest hest.
Feats of arms were done daily for her sake. To win her love suitors were willing to vow themselves to perdition. For Isolde’s sake, Otto the Otter had cast himself into the sea. Conrad the Cocoanut had hurled himself from the highest battlement of the castle head first into the mud. ”

“ I have begged him for my sake not to kill Alexis. He has given me his promise.
Another Day.
Ivan Ivanovitch, my father, has heard from Alexis. He will return in fourteen days. The day after his return I am to marry him.
And meantime I have still fourteen days to love Otto.
My love is perfect. It makes me want to die. Last night I tried again to commit suicide. Why should I live now that I have known a perfect love? I placed a box of cartridges beside my bed. I awoke unharmed. They did not kill me. But I know what it means. It means that Otto and I are to die together. I must tell Otto. ”

“ Hezekiah rushed to the door and threw the blazing collar down the elevator shaft. In a moment the iron elevator, with its steel ropes, burst into a mass of flame; then the brass fittings of the door took fire, and in a moment the cement floor of the elevator was one roaring mass of flame. Great columns of smoke burst from the building.
“Fire! Fire!” shouted the crowd.
Reader, have you ever seen a fire in a great city? The sight is a wondrous one. One realises that, vast and horrible as the city is, it nevertheless shows its human organisation in its most perfect form. ”

“ It was no longer that of the haughty nobleman, but of the hunted criminal. “He must marry the girl,” he muttered. “Soon she will know all. Tutchemoff has escaped from Siberia. He knows and will tell. The whole of the mines pass to her, this property with it, and I—but enough.” He rose, walked to the sideboard, drained a dipper full of gin and bitters, and became again a high-bred English gentleman.
It was at this moment that a high dogcart, driven by a groom in the livery of Earl Nosh, might have been seen entering the avenue of Nosham Taws. ”

“ It had been six generations agone at a Highland banquet, in the days when the unrestrained temper of the time gave way to wild orgies, during which theological discussions raged with unrestrained fury. Shamus McShamus, an embittered Calvinist, half crazed perhaps with liquor, had maintained that damnation could be achieved only by faith. Whimper McWhinus had held that damnation could be achieved also by good works. Inflamed with drink, McShamus had struck McWhinus across the temple with an oatcake and killed him. McShamus had been brought to trial. ”

“ It was Xmas Eve.
The light shone from the windows of the homestead farm. The light of the log fire rose and flickered and mingled its red glare on the windows with the calm yellow of the lamplight.
John Enderby and his wife sat in the kitchen room of the farmstead. Do you know it, reader, the room called the kitchen?—with the open fire on its old brick hearth, and the cook stove in the corner. It is the room of the farm where people cook and eat and live. It is the living-room. ”

“ I hastened over, and arrived almost breathless. “Q has been here again,” said Annerly, “and appeared in the same distress as before. A projection of him stood in the room, and kept writing with its finger on the table. I could distinguish the word ‘sovereigns,’ but nothing more.”
“Do you not suppose,” I said, “that Q for some reason which we cannot fathom, wishes us to again leave two sovereigns for him?”
“By Jove!” said Annerly enthusiastically, “I believe you’ve hit it. At any rate, let us try; we can but fail.” ”

“ In this latter respect Lord Ronald took after his father. From the start the lad had shown the greatest promise. At Eton he had made a splendid showing at battledore and shuttlecock, and at Cambridge had been first in his class at needlework. Already his name was whispered in connection with the All-England ping-pong championship, a triumph which would undoubtedly carry with it a seat in Parliament.
Thus was Gertrude the Governess installed at Nosham Taws.
The days and the weeks sped past.
The simple charm of the beautiful orphan girl attracted all hearts. ”

“ And now the descendant of the McWhinuses had come back, and bought out the property of the Laird of Aucherlocherty beside the Glen. Ian McWhinus knew nothing of the feud. Reared in another atmosphere, the traditions of Scotland had no meaning for him. He had entirely degenerated. To him the tartan had become only a piece of coloured cloth. He wore a kilt as a masquerade costume for a Hallowe’en dance, and when it rained he put on a raincoat. He was no longer Scotch. ”

“ Hezekiah threw aside his revolver and received them with folded arms.
“Hayloft,” said the chief of police, “I arrest you for murder, burglary, arson, and conspiracy. You put up a splendid fight, old man, and I am only sorry that it is our painful duty to arrest you.”
As Hayloft appeared below a great cheer went up from the crowd. True courage always appeals to the heart of the people.
Hayloft was put in a motor and whirled rapidly to the police station. ”

“ John Enderby showed all the passion of an uncontrolled nature. At times he would reach out for the crock of buttermilk that stood beside him and drained a draught of the maddening liquid, till his brain glowed like the coals of the tamarack fire before him.
“John,” pleaded Anna, “leave alone the buttermilk. It only maddens you. ”

“ From Jerusalem Guido had sent to her a stick with a notch in it to signify his undying constancy. From Pannonia he sent a piece of board, and from Venetia about two feet of scantling. All these Isolde treasured. At night they lay beneath her pillow.
Then, after years of wandering, Guido had determined to crown his love with a final achievement for Isolde’s sake.
It was his design to return to Ghent, to scale by night the castle cliff and to prove his love for Isolde by killing her father for her, casting her stepmother from the battlements, burning the castle, and carrying her away. ”

“ Hayloft,” said another caller, “I am sorry not to have met you sooner. Our friends here tell me that you have been in New York for some months. I regret, sir, that we did not know you. This is the name of my firm, Mr. Hayloft. We are leading lawyers here, and we want the honour of defending you. We may! Thank you, sir. And now, as we have still an hour or two before the court, I want to run you up to my house in my motor. My wife is very anxious to have a little luncheon with you.”
The court met that afternoon. There was a cheer as Hezekiah entered. ”