Shifting Winds: A Tough Yarn by R. M. Ballantyne (freenovel24 .txt) 📗

Chapter Thirty Four. Failures and Hopes Deferred, and Consequences.

Now, it chanced that, about the time of which I write, a noted bank failed, and a considerable sum of money which had been temporarily deposited in it by the committee of the Sailors’ Home at Wreckumoft was lost.

This necessitated retrenchment. All the salaries of officials were lowered—among them Kenneth’s, although the directors assured him that it would be again raised as soon as the Institution recovered from the shock of this loss.

Meanwhile, however, the secretary was compelled to postpone his marriage indefinitely.

Perhaps the shortest way to convey a correct idea of the dire effects of this failure to my reader will be to detail several conversations that took place in regard to it by various parties.

Conversation first was held between the head cook and head waiter of the Sailors’ Home. These worthies were seated on one of the dressers in the kitchen of the establishment;—and a wonderful kitchen it was, with culinary implements so huge as to suggest the idea of giant operators. There was a grate that might have roasted an ox whole. There were pots big enough to have boiled entire sheep, caldrons of soup that a little boy might have swum in, rolls and loaves that would, apparently, have made sandwiches for an army, and cups and saucers, plates and dishes that might have set up any reasonable man for life in the crockery line. But the most astounding vessels in that amazing place were the tea-pot and coffee-pot of the establishment. They stood side by side like giant twins; each being five feet high by a yard in diameter, and the pounds of tea and gallons of water put into these pots night and morning for tea and breakfast seemed almost fabulous. (See note 1.)

“It’s werry unfortinet, werry,” said the presiding spirit of this region.

“So ’tis,” observed the head waiter.

“Werry hard, too,” said the cook, “on a man like me, with a wife and six childer, to have his wages docked.”

“So ’tis—even for a man with a wife and four child’n like me,” said the head waiter; “but it comes hardest on the secretary, poor feller. He was just a-goin’ to get spliced, an’ there he’s ’bliged to put it off. He’s such a good feller too.”

“Ah—it’s werry hard,” said the cook.

“Werry,” said the head waiter.

Having shaken their heads in concert, these worthies dropped the subject as being an unpleasant one.

In Mr Stuart’s drawing-room, referring to the same subject, Miss Penelope Stuart said to Mr George Stuart—

“Well, I’m sure, George, it seems to me that it would be only right and proper to forgive poor Kenneth, not that he’s done anything exactly wrong, but forgiveness is a Christian duty, whether it’s an enemy you’ve hurt, or a friend who has hurt you, that—that, how could he help it, you know, brother, now do be reasonable, and only think of the poor boy having to part with that great cart-horse—though it’ll be the death of him some day whether he parts with it or not, for it’s a dreadful creature, and Dan too—I’m sure the perplexities people are put to by banks failing. Why don’t people prevent them from failing? But the worst is his marriage being put off, and it so near. I do think, brother, you might take him back and—”

“Pray hold your tongue, Peppy,” said Mr Stuart, who was attempting to read the Times, “I’m not listening to you, and if you are pleading for my son Kenneth, let me say to you, once for all, that I have done with him for ever. I would not give him a sixpence if he were starving.”

“Well, but,” persevered the earnest Miss Peppy, “if he were to repent, you know, and come and ask pardon, (dear me, where are those scissors? ah, here they are), surely you would not refuse, (the thimble next—what a world of worries!) to—to give him—”

“Peppy, I have stated my sentiments, pray do not trouble me further in regard to this matter. Nothing can move me.”

Miss Peppy sighed, and retired to pour her regrets into the sympathetic ear of Mrs Niven.

Gaff sat in the chimney-corner of the “Boodwar” smoking his pipe and staring at Shrieky, which, having survived the voyage home, had been hung up in a cage in the little window, and was at that time engaged in calling loudly for Squeaky, who, having also survived the voyage, was grubbing up stones and mud at the front door. Mrs Gaff was seated opposite to him, with Tottie’s head in her lap; for she still solaced herself by smoothing her hair. Billy was sitting on one of the six chairs whittling a piece of wood.

“It’s a bad business,” said Gaff; “bad for everybody consarned; but wust for Mr Stuart.”

“An’ his man,” said Billy.

“And Susan,” said Tottie.

“Gaff,” said Mrs Gaff, “it’s my advice to you to go up to the bank, ask them for a thousand pounds, (if they have as much in the shop at the time, if not, ye can take what they have, and call again for the rest), give it all to Miss Lizzie Gordon, and tell her to go and get married right off. We won’t miss it, Gaff. In fact it seems to me that the more we give away the more we have to give. It’s an awful big fortin’ we’ve comed into. But that’s what I advise.”

“I doubt she wouldn’t take it,” said Gaff.

“Oh yes, she would,” cried his better half.

Billy and Tottie being of the same opinion, Gaff laid aside his pipe, got out the tea-caddy, from which he took his cheque-book, and made Tottie write out a cheque for 1000 pounds, payable to Miss Lizzie Gordon.

“She deserves it well o’ me,” observed Gaff, as he slowly printed his signature on the cheque, “for she gave me the Noo Testament, that’s bin o’ more valley to me than thousands o’ gold an’ silver—God bless her.”

The cheque was taken up and presented by Gaff on the following morning, but to the honest man’s dismay, Lizzie declined it positively, though she accompanied her refusal with many earnest expressions of gratitude, and kissed the seaman’s hard hand at parting.

Gaff returned to the “Boodwar,” lit his German pipe with the cheque, and said, “I knowed she wouldn’t tak’ it—dear girl.”

Kenneth was standing in the bower at the foot of my garden, looking pensively on the distant landscape, which was bathed in the rich glow of the setting sun. His right arm embraced the slender waist of Lizzie—his left encircled the shoulder of Emmie Graham.

“We must have patience, darling,” said Kenneth, with an effort at cheerfulness.

“Our hopes were as bright as that lovely sky some days ago,” said Lizzie.

While she was speaking the sun descended behind a bank of heavy clouds.

“And thus have our hopes gone down,” murmured Kenneth sadly.

“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