Shifting Winds: A Tough Yarn

“But, uncle,” observed Emmie, “the sun is still shining behind the clouds.”

“Thank you, Emmie, for the comforting word,” said Lizzie, “and our sun is indeed shining still.”

The trio left off contemplating the sky, and returned in improved spirits to Bingley Hall, where my strong-minded wife had just delivered herself of the following oration:—

“It’s of no use talking to me,” (she was right; I never found it to be of the least use to talk to her.) “Old Stuart is a monster—nobody will convince me to the contrary. I only wish I had the making of the laws, and I would have powerful cures got up for such as he. And his brother-in-law is no better—Crusty indeed, bad though it is, the name is too good for him. Don’t interrupt me. He is not like many of his neighbours, for he has had no provocation. The captain of dragoons has turned out a very good husband, and poor Bella is as happy with him as such a flirt could expect to be.”

I ventured to remark at this point that my wife was wandering from the subject from which she started, but she became extremely angry, and finally put me down and snuffed me out by assuring me that I had been born at least a generation before my time.

Dan Horsey sat on the dresser of my kitchen, switching his boot with a riding-whip, and looking at Susan with an extremely melancholy expression of countenance. Susan was cleaning a silver tea-pot—her usual occupation when Dan was present. Cook—now resigned to her fate—was sighing and peeling potatoes in the scullery.

“Och! darlint, me heart’s heavier than a cart o’ coals,” said Dan. “Bucephalus is to be sowld next week, and I’m to quit in a month!”

Susan sighed.

“To be sure, I’d aisy git another place, but in the meantime that’ll put off our weddin’, jewel, till I don’ know when.”

Susan sighed again, and Dan hit his boot somewhat smartly, as if he were indignant with Fate.

“But it’s wus,” continued Dan, “for masther an’ Miss Gordon than for us, darlint—there, now, don’t toss yer head, mavourneen, ye know we can git spliced av we like whenever I git a noo sitiwation; but masther can’t well throw up the wan he’s got, an’ yit it won’t kape him an’ his wife. Och! worse luck! Av we could only diskiver a goold mine now, or somethin’ o’ that sort.”

“Well, I am sorry for them,” said Susan, with another sigh; “an’ I’m sure I hope that we’ll get over our troubles, all of us, though I don’t see very well how.”

“Arrah! now, don’t look so blue, me angel,” said Dan, rising and putting his arm round Susan. “Me heart is lighter since I comed here and saw yer sweet face. Sure there’s midcine in the glance o’ yer purty blue eye. Come now, cheer up, an’ I’ll ventur a prophecy.”

“What may that be?” asked Susan with a smile.

“That you and I shall be spliced before two months is out. See if we won’t.”

Susan laughed; but Dan stoutly asserted that his prophecies always came true, and then, saying that he was the bearer of a letter to Miss Peppy, he bade Susan adieu, and took himself off.

I turn now to Miss Puff, who happened about this time to be on a visit to us. She was seated one forenoon alone in the dining-room of Bingley Hall, when a loud ring came to the door-bell; a quick step was heard on the stair, and next moment the dining-room door burst open, and my son Gildart rushed into the room.

Gildart was wonderfully changed since the day he had sailed for China. He had grown tall and stout. Moreover he had whiskers—not very bushy, perhaps, but, undeniable whiskers.

“Hallo! Puff!” he exclaimed, rushing towards his old friend with the intention of kissing her; but when Miss Puff rose to receive him, he felt constrained to check himself.

“Why, how you are grown, and so changed!” he said, shaking her hand warmly.

Miss Puff was indeed changed, so much so that her old friends who had not seen her for some time could scarcely have known her. She was no longer fat and inane. Her figure had become slim and graceful; her face had become expressive and remarkably pretty, and her manners were those of a well-bred and self-possessed lady. Gildart felt that he could no more have taken the liberties he had ventured on in former years than he could have flown.

He soon became very chatty, however, and speedily began to question her in regard to his father and mother, (who, she told him, were not at home), and old friends.

“And what of my friend Kenneth Stuart?” said he.

“He is well, poor fellow,” replied Miss Puff; “but he is in unhappy circumstances just now.”

Here she related the circumstances of the bank failure, and the evil consequences that followed, and were still pending over Kenneth and many of their other friends in Wreckumoft.

“That’s a sad business,” said Gildart; “but I don’t see how it can be mended. I fear me it is a case of ‘grin and bear it.’ And your aunt, Miss Puff, what of the adorable Miss Flouncer?”

“She is now Lady Doles.”

“You don’t say so! Well, I had given Sir Richard credit for more sense. How long is it since they married?”

“About two years.”

“Is Sir Richard dead?”

“No, why should you think so?”

“Because if it had been me, I should have succumbed in three months. It’s an awful thing to think of being married to a she-griffin.”

“She is my aunt, Mr Bingley,” said Miss Puff.

“Ah, to be sure, forgive me. But now I must go and search for my father. Adieu. Miss Puff—au revoir.”

Gildart left the room with a strange sensation of emptiness in his breast.

“Why, surely—it cannot be that I—I—am in love with that girl, that stupid, fat—but she’s not stupid and not fat now. She’s graceful and intelligent and pretty—absolutely beautiful; why, botheration, I am in love or insane, perhaps both!”

Thus soliloquising my son entered my study.

The last conversation that I shall record, took place between Mr Stuart senior and Colonel Crusty. It occurred about two weeks after those conversations that have just been narrated. The colonel had been suddenly summoned to see his brother-in-law, “on his death-bed,”—so the epistle that summoned him had been worded by Miss Peppy.

That dinner at which these two friends had enjoyed themselves so much happened to disagree with Mr George Stuart, insomuch that he was thrown into a bilious fever—turned as yellow as a guinea and as thin as a skeleton. He grew worse and worse. Wealth was at his command—so was everything that wealth can purchase; but although wealth procured the best of doctors in any number that the patient chose to order them, it could not purchase health. So Mr Stuart pined away. The doctors shook their heads and gave him up, recommending him to send for his clergyman.

Mr Stuart scorned the recommendation at first; but as he grew worse he became filled with an undefinable dread, and at last did send for his pastor. As a big cowardly boy at school tyrannises over little boys and scoffs at fear until a bigger than he comes and causes his cheek to blanch, so Mr Stuart bullied and scorned the small troubles of life, and scoffed at the anxieties of religious folk until death came and shook his fist in his face; then he succumbed and trembled, and confessed himself, (to himself), to be a coward. One result of the clergyman’s visit was that Mr Stuart sent for Colonel Crusty.

“My dear Stuart,” said the colonel, entering the sick man’s room and gently taking his wasted hand which lay outside the counterpane, “I am distressed to find you so ill; bless me, how thin you are! But don’t lose heart. I am quite sure you have no reason to despond. A man with a constitution like yours can pull through a worse illness than this. Come, cheer up and look at the bright side of things. I have seen men in hospital ten times worse than you are, and get better.”

Mr Stuart shook, or rather rolled, his head slowly on the pillow, and said in a weak voice—

“No, colonel, I am dying—at least the doctors say so, and I think they are right.”

“Nonsense, my dear fellow,” returned the colonel kindly, “doctors are often mistaken, and many a man recovers after they have given him up.”

“Well, that may be or it may not be,” said Mr Stuart with a sudden access of energy, “nevertheless I believe that I am a dying man, and I have sent for you on purpose to tell you that I am an ass—a consummate ass.”

“My dear Stuart,” remonstrated the colonel, “really, you are taking a very warped view of—”

“I—am—an—ass,” repeated the sick man, interrupting his friend; “more than that, you are an ass too, colonel.”

The colonel was a very pompous and stately man. He had not been honoured with his true title since he left school, and was therefore a good deal taken aback by the plain-speaking of his friend. He attributed the words, however, to the weak condition of Mr Stuart’s mind, and attempted to quiet him, but he would not be quieted.

“No, no, colonel; it’s of no use trying to shut our eyes to the fact. You and I have set our hearts on the things of this world, and I have now come to see that the man who does that is a fool.”

“My dear fellow,” said the colonel soothingly, “it is bodily weakness that induces you to think so. Most people speak thus when they are seriously ill; but they invariably change their opinion when they get well again.”