Sweethearts at Home

"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. Or words that mean just the same. And as for Sir Toady – well, give him liberty to go into the woods at night – only an excuse, mind you, and there is no sin that he will not commit – short, that is, of mutiny. Neither of them knows how to conduct a family quarrel on proper lines. I – you and I, I mean, have to sustain the honor of the house, eh, Sis?"

"Oh, nonsense, Hugh John," I said; "you know you have always been good friends with Nipper. And it was you that brought the whole of them here to listen to the Scott Redcap Tales at the Feudal Tower!"

"That was quite another matter," said Hugh John, hard pushed for an explanation. "It was a sort of Ossianic gathering where all the chiefs came to Morven, and made truce to listen to the tales and songs of the minstrel!"

"Oh, very likely," I said; "but why not put father or Sir Toady on to advise Butcher Donnan? There is need of such a shop as that in Edam. I have often felt the want myself."

Hugh John agreed, and added that he had too. But he said that Sir Toady could not be expected to act, seeing that he had already "sucked up" to the maker of the strawberry shortcake, not to mention the maple-sugar toffee. He could therefore get as much as he wanted for himself without paying, owing to Mrs. Donnan's weakness!

"And do you think that a young dev – imp like Sir Toady does not know when he is well off?" concluded Hugh John. "As for father, he has too much to do to bother his head about things like that – at least I shan't ask him; no, Sis, if anybody, it is you who ought to suggest to Butcher Donnan, or better, to Mrs. Donnan – "

"But," said I, "he is a violent man, and would not listen to a word his wife says. You know that very well!"

Hugh John considered, throwing his chin into the air with a gesture which, if he had not worn his hair of military shortness, would have cast it back elegantly and poetically. But he disdained such things.

"Oh, yes," he said, "Donnan makes a lot of noise, I know. He pretends to authority, but – don't tell anybody – he has it not. His wife can wear him down! She seems to submit. His authority at home is undisputed. So he tires of it, and finishes by letting her have her own way. That is the secret. Of course at the least word of objection it would be, 'What ho! my highest of high horses!' And crying aloud he would mount and ride. But Mrs. Donnan never gives him a chance. She knows better. And as he is really a good-hearted man – if he does bully, she just waits till he is sorry for it! It does not take long."

Thus in the depths of the cave, his chin on his hands and his eye glued to the telescope, spake the Philosopher of Esk Water Side.

I could not but admit that in the main he was right. Hugh John follows a truth with a certain slow, patient, tireless, sleuth-hound trot, which never puts him out of breath. But in the end he finishes by getting there. And now without ever moving he extorted from me the promise that, when I could (and as soon as I could) I should take in hand the task of restoring the married happiness of Mr. and Mrs. Donnan – retired from business, and fallen into the practice of idleness as a profession, and unhappiness as the wages thereof.

IX

THE NEW SHOP

Aged about Fifteen. The Cave, in July.

It wasn't a job I liked. Nor would almost anybody. Still people can't say very much to a girl, and I had been at school and so had lost my – what shall I call it? – "sensitiveness."

As Sir Toady says, the golden rule is a first-rate thing – when you leave school. Even with a little addition, it flourishes there too. But you don't want to set up as a Christian martyr at school, I can tell you. It was very noble in the time of St. Francis, and Dr. Livingstone, and these people, and now-a-days there are people to whom we have to send our sixpences – people we never see. Perhaps I shall be one when I am older, but at school – these are Sir Toady's words – you find out what boy has a down on you and down him first! It saves trouble.

Afterwards you can be as sweet and child-like as possible, and go about the world taking people in with blue Madonna eyes all your life. But at school, if you don't want to have the life of a dog, it has got to be different.

Hugh John, of course, says that the principle of school life is for everybody to obey one person. But, you see, that person is Hugh John. If they don't, most likely he will hammer them. And afterwards he will prove how they were wrong. He will do it at length, and at breadth, and at depth, and unto the fourth dimension, till even fellows who can stand up to his fists give in to him so as not to get lectured – or "jawed" as they ignorantly call it. For really what Hugh John says could be taken down and printed right off in a book.

And you have got to believe it, too. For he is always ready to support his opinion, in the same manner as the Highland chief in Kidnapped. "If any gentleman is not preceesely satisfied, I shall be proud to step outside with him."

Joined to this faculty for laying down the law, he possesses an admirable barbaric power of enforcing it, which would have been invaluable in feudal times, and is not without its uses even now.

Well, three days after I went and called on Mrs. Donnan. It came about quite naturally. She is a first-class person to call upon. No fuss or anything – only you have to catch her on the hop. This time I saw her in the garden gathering gooseberries, and in a moment she had her sunbonnet half off her head, and the basket dropped in the furrow, but I was upon her before she could get away.

"Oh, Mrs. Donnan, do let me help you!" I said.

"But, Miss – " she began, not knowing how to go on.

"I should love it," I added quickly, "and I promise not to eat a single one. In fact I shall whistle all the time!"

"Oh, miss," she said, all in a flurry, "you know it is not that! You or any of your family are only too welcome to come, and take as many as they like."

"If you want to keep any for the preserving pot," I said, smiling at her, "I should advise you not to say that to my entire family. There are certain members of it who are capable of cleaning up the branches as your dog Toby there would clean a bone!"

"Oh, you mean Master Toady," she said, all dimples in a moment at the recollection. "He comes here often. But the garden is large, and bless him! even he can't eat more than he can. More than that, he often leaves a rabbit, or even a brace – and my man havin' been a butcher, is remarkable fond of a bit o' game."

"Yes," I said, "my brother's shootings are like your garden, extensive. Still, it is a wonder how he can keep them up on a shilling a day, and all but twopence of it deferred pay!"

"It is a wonder, now I come to think of it!" said the good lady meditatively. "He must be a careful lad with his money!"

"What I wonder at," – I went on talking as soon as I had got her settled back again at the picking of the gooseberries – "is that you never thought of making the prettiest little shop-window in the world of your cakes and pasties and jams and candies. You know nobody can make them in the least like you. Besides, I have spoken to my father and others who know lots more about it, and every one is sure that such a thing would be a great boon to Edam, and that you are the very person to take it in hand. It would not be like an ordinary shop. For every one knows that your husband has made his fortune and retired. But it would give you something to do. Shall I speak to Mr. Donnan about it?"

The poor woman flushed with pleasure at the very idea. So much I could see. Yet she hesitated.

"HE would never consent – his position – his politics – Oh, no!" Mrs. Donnan considered that I had better not speak to the master – at least not then.

However, I thought differently, and it was after the good lady had asked me to stay to tea that my chance came.

Donnan came in, fanning himself with his broad-brimmed Panama. Things had not been going well that afternoon. Nipper had been busy on account of a rush of trade, and had not welcomed his father's criticisms too gratefully. You see, the old man was accustomed to find fault with Nipper's management, and that day there had been a shortage of ice in the shop and a corresponding shortage in Nipper's temper.

Also, Mr. Donnan's more general perambulation had not turned out well. Some rude and vagrant boys had dug out the pet wasp-nest he had been saving up for the next dark night, and there were green flies all over his best Lasalle rose-tree. Two of his best Dorkings had "laid away."

"I don't want any tea to-day, Cynthia!" he grumbled crossly. And without looking at me he went to the sofa and threw himself down with a heavy creaking of furniture.

"My dear," said his wife, "surely you have not seen this young lady who has come to do you the honor of taking tea with you?"

"Nonsense," said I, "as long as there are such cakes to be had at New Erin Villa, the honor is all on my side."

But the polite Irishman was already on his feet.

"Miss Sweetheart – Miss Sweetheart!" he said, "what a blind old hedge-carpenter ye must have thought me! And you your own folks' daughter, and your father treating me like a long-lost brother, and instructin' me on hist'ry and the use of the globes!"

So we had tea, the prettiest little tea imaginable, with Mrs. Donnan going about as soft-footed as a pussy cat, and purring like one too.

Butcher Donnan looked after her with a kind of sudden bitterness. "It's all very well for her," he said; "she makes her life out of such things, but what is there for me to do? I'm about at the end of my tether!"

"Why, help her!" said I.

"Help her!" he muttered, not understanding. "Me, Butcher Donnan – why, the girl is mazed! I can't do housework!"

But I soon showed him I was not so mazed as he thought. He was tired of doing nothing. He wanted a change. Very well then; here was this little house right at the top of Edam Common, with the railway station opposite, and everybody's business taking him that way two or three times a day. What Edam wanted was a confectioner's shop. His wife was dying to have one. He would look a fine figure of a man in a white overall and cap! Hugh John had said it!

He whistled softly, and his little, deep-set eyes twinkled.

"I might ha' known," he said, "when I saw that long-legged brother of yours looking at me as if to calculate what I was good for. He's the fellow to make plans. Now the other – "

Here he laughed as he remembered Sir Toady Lion.