_September 11 of the same year. Going Sixteen now._
Now I suppose you think this is going to be a love-story. But it
isn't--at least not so far. 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. As far as looks go, he could easily be
the chairman. The clean-cut outlines of his face do not denote hardness.
Only he is of the Twentieth Century, and an adept at concealing his
sensations--even from his parents, with whom he is great friends.
But, for all that modernity, there is something essentially knightly,
and even knight-errant, about our Hugh John. An elder time has touched
him. Ideas growing, alas! extinct--are natural to him. A chivalrous
Cromwellian is perhaps the nearest I can come in the way of definition.
For years he was the only one in the house (except Fuz, of course) who
sustained Roundhead as against Cavalier. Yet all his outer man (surely a
boy has an "outer man" when he is six feet high) is that of the
Collegians who rallied about the King at Oxford, and swept away the
train-bands with Rupert the Prince at Marston Moor. But Hugh John agrees
with Mr. Prynne as to the Unloveliness of Love-Locks, and no
Sergeant-Major could carry a closer cropped head of hair.
Also the mind within him is one that abhors restraint. That is, in
thinking. In acting, he obeys as a principle all justly constituted
authorities. Also, if _he_ is in authority, he will insist upon
obedience even unto the shedding of blood.
Only the mind is free and untrammeled. Obedience includes only acts.
Thought with him is free, liberal, critical, large.
But Hugh John is generally shy with the girls who come to our house. He
retires to one of his fastnesses, a lonely David in some unknown Engedi.
He blots himself out. Simply, _he is not_--so far, that is, as the rest
of the house is concerned. But he has the most sharply defined and
sudden affinities. He will see a girl for the first time--the most
reserved, unlikely girl, shy as himself. He will go up to her, and lo!
as like as not, five minutes afterwards they will pair off like two
schoolboys arm in arm.
Grown-up People, after a certain while, forget how their own friendships
were formed--how much was chance, how little intention, and they judge
_us_ in the light of what they now _think_ they were. They are "out"
every time with Hugh John.
For instance, I know Somebody who was afraid he was going to fall in
love with Elizabeth Fortinbras. No such good luck! _I_ knew. The first
time I surprised them having a good talk together I saw that Elizabeth
would take advice from that gray-eyed boy with a man's thoughts which
she would scorn from any one else.
It was the day after we had been to see the Donnans. When I got home,
Hugh John had merely said, "When does Elizabeth begin?"
"Monday," said I; "but how in the world did you know?"
"I did not know _that_!" he answered gravely, as usual.
You simply can't surprise Hugh John. A momentary glitter in a pair of
rather close-lidded gray eyes--that is the most you can expect from him.
It was at the stile at the entrance into the High Wood that I found
them. Elizabeth Fortinbras was seated on the top spar nursing her knees,
and sucking the sorrel stems which Hugh John handed up one by one. They
never looked at one another, but I saw in a moment (trust a girl!) that
I would interrupt their talk. Just fancy _me_ playing gooseberry! No,
thank you, kind sir, she said! Besides, I knew very well that Elizabeth
did not consult her father--and her mother was not worth consulting.
There remained only Hugh John. Of course she could have asked me, but
what girl would have taken my advice when she could get Hugh John's?
I don't know what they said--of course not. I did not ask. But what I
_do_ know is that Elizabeth and Hugh John talked just as he and I would
have done when taking counsel together up in the Cave or at the Feudal
Tower.
Sir Toady was better advised than to attempt to make fun, and though the
Grown-ups might lift their eyebrows, even they had confidence in Hugh
John. Sometimes they asked his advice themselves--though I never heard
of their going so far as to take it. Grown-ups, to my thinking, get
narrow-minded. Perhaps Hugh John will too some day. But now at least he
always just sees the one thing to do, and does it--the one thing another
ought to do, and tells him of it.
Well, he never went to the new confectionery shop. He would pass it
without lifting an eyelid--though I will wager that each time he did so
Elizabeth Fortinbras saw him--and Hugh John knew that she did. And each
was the happier for the knowledge.
To me Elizabeth's determination seemed to brighten all that part of
Edam. It was quite near our house, only just outside the gates. Behind
the counter Elizabeth made a slender figure in black and white. Black
dress well fitting, a present from Mrs. Donnan, large turn-back cuffs,
and a broad Eton collar. It was no wonder that the business throve--I
mean the business which was under the charge of Elizabeth Fortinbras.
The other "down town" suffered exceedingly.
You see, Nipper Donnan could not be in two places at the one time. And
he found he had innumerable occasions to consult his father, or to have
something mended by his mother. He could not possibly obtain the
information or the reparations down town. Hence he spent much of his
time hanging about the new confectionery shop opposite the Market hill.
He became learned in the semophore signaling of the trains on the two
little railways which diverged at Edam Junction. These he explained to
Elizabeth.
His step-mother secretly encouraged him. Nothing would have pleased her
better than for Nipper to "settle down" with such a daughter-in-law. But
she knew, perhaps better than his own mother would have done, that this
strong, incult, fighting Nipper had little chance with a girl like
Elizabeth Fortinbras, whose chief friend and confidant was a certain
gray-eyed lad with a perpendicular frown of thought between his brows.
But Nipper kept on. He thrashed one Hector McLean for blowing a kiss
towards the shop-window from the far side of the Market dyke. All day
long he thought what high and noble thing he could do for Elizabeth's
sake--such as having marble slabs, and water running all the time
between double plate-glass, or dressing all his assistants in blue,
fresh and fresh every day! You see, Nipper's imagination was limited.
But once or twice his father came in and surprised him leaning over the
counter. He regarded his son for a moment with dull, murky eyes; and
then, quite abruptly, ordered him out. The third time this happened he
followed Nipper outside and explained to him the consequences of this
malingering--_imprimis_, he would get his head broken. _Item_, he would
be "backward with his term installment"! _Tertio_, if he were, he need
expect no mercy from his father; and in conclusion, he had better "get
out of that, and stay out!" He, Butcher Donnan, was not a fool. He knew
all about what he was after, if the womenfolk did not! And he was not
going to have it! There! Nipper was warned!
His comings and goings did not, indeed, make much difference to
Elizabeth. Often he was a nuisance, "lounging and suffering"--looking,
as she said afterwards, "like a blue undertaker attached to a
steel-yard." His expression spoiled sales. He looked acid drops. His
jealousies poisoned the very strawberry shortcake on which Mrs. Donnan's
heart prided itself.
On the other hand, he was useful when there were heavy weights to be
lifted, boxes of materials for the little store-room at the back.
Elizabeth could not move these, so she had either to unpack them on the
street, or wait till Butcher Donnan drove his blue-and-gold wagon into
the yard.
But Nipper delighted to show his strength, and would pick up a huge
case, swing it on his shoulder, and deposit it wherever told. These were
his moments of great joy, and almost repaid him for not being able to
eat.
For Nipper's appetite had suffered. He indulged himself in startling
neckties, and, as his girth shrank, the waistcoats which contained it
became more and more gorgeous.
Poor Nipper! He could only gaze and wonder--that is, when there was no
lifting to be done. His tongue forsook him when called upon to answer
the simplest remark. When Elizabeth, taking pity upon him, asked about
his week's receipts, he answered vaguely that he did not know.
Hearing this, she turned about, bearing a tray full of almond-cake fresh
from Mrs. Donnan's hand, and said, "Nipper, do you mean to say you do
not keep track of your sales? Why, you will get cheated right and left.
Bring the books up to-night and I will go over them for you!"
To Nipper this seemed an opportunity too good to be lost. He imagined
their two heads bent over the records of the down town shop, and perhaps
also in time a corresponding approachment of ideas.
Beautiful dream! Foredoomed to failure, however. For Elizabeth, after a
few questions, took up the books to her own room, and on the morrow
furnished the disappointed Nipper with a few startling statistics as to
receipts and expenditure.
"And what would you advise me to do?" said Nipper humbly.
"Oh, I don't know," said Elizabeth. "Ask Hugh John from the House in the
Wood. He will tell you, if anybody can. He advised me to come to help
your mother. If it had not been for him, I should not have been here
now!"
The gleam of jealousy (which is yellow, and not green) in his eyes
altered Nipper's countenance completely.
"Ah, Hugh John indeed!" he thought. That, then, was the explanation, was
it? This coldness was owing to Hugh John--a boy, little more than a
boy--while he, Nipper, was a man, a Councillor, with a shop and income
of his own!
Yet he remembered, when he was already well-nigh Hugh John's present
age, and the cock of all Edam, tying a pale-faced, determined little boy
to a ring in a wall down in the dungeon of an ancient castle. He had
determined then to make the cub give in, and there had been some sick
work with string-twisting and wire-pincers. He did not care to think
about that. But even then the cub had beaten them all. They had been
good friends since--that is, in a way. But was it written in the Book of
Fate (in which Nipper believed) that they should fight for the mastery
on another and far more dangerous arena? It seemed preposterous, but
still--well, he would see Hugh John and put the case to him, as
Elizabeth had said.
Then, so Nipper told himself, he would know! Well--_he might_--supposing
that Hugh John had been even as the young butcher, blushing half-a-mile
away when a lissom, upright form and gait as of wind-blown corn told the
world the important news (for Nipper Donnan) that Elizabeth Fortinbras
was coming up the street in a hurry.
Hugh John listened quietly. Bygones were long bygones between him and
Nipper. The "smoutchies" smoutched no more, but were (most of them) good
servants of the King or honorable citizens of Edam. Already one wore the
V. C., and for his sake and in the general interests of peace Hugh John
tolerated those who remained. He even liked Nipper Donnan, and had no
idea of the gusts of angry fury that were tearing his poor ignorant
heart to pieces.
"Advise you--well, I don't know much about it," said Hugh John. "If it
is a matter of your books, you had better show them to your father. No?
You don't want to do that. Very well, then, tell me what Elizabeth
Fortinbras said--exactly, I mean."
"Said I was to come to you--tell you about the week's deficit, and ask
your advice."
"Then you must tell me _all_ about it!" said Hugh John, calmly
impartial. Nipper gave some figures of entrances and exits, marts and
sales, gross, retail, and monthly book-debts.
"Hum!" said Hugh John, after a minute's thought, "if I were you I should
get rid of the whole indoor crowd, and work the business myself for a
month or two, with a couple of 'prentices _and_ the toe of my boot!"
Hugh John's eyes were distant, grave, thoughtful--Nipper's little,
black, and virulent with suppressed anger. But the Thinker had grown man
of action also, and Nipper felt no security that he could win a victory
against Hugh John even with his fists. As to the mind, he felt
instinctively the grip of his master. _That_ was not to be gainsaid.
"Yes," he said, jerking out his words like leaden pellets on a table, "I
suppose that _is_ the plan. I will fire the whole lot this very night!"
Hugh John nodded quietly.
"It will be best!" he said, and the advice once given, his mind would
have passed to another question had not Nipper recalled him
suspiciously.
"Has my father not been speaking to you?" he growled ungraciously.
"Your father? No, not that I remember!" said Hugh John, staring in
wonder.
"Nor my--Mrs. Donnan, I mean?"
"Never spoke to her in my life, I believe--Sis has, though!"
"_Nor Elizabeth?_"
Nipper's eyes were like gimlets now, but the calm serenity in those of
Hugh John baffled them.
"Elizabeth Fortinbras? Oh, yes," said Hugh John tranquilly, "when she
wants to ask me about anything--as you are doing now--then she speaks to
me."
"_Is that all?_" Nipper's face worked. His lips were bitten so close
that the words had almost to force themselves between the clenched
teeth. Hugh John regarded him a moment gravely, as he did all things,
with gaze unhurried, undismayed. Then he put his hands in his pockets
and turned his back on Nipper with only the words, "Enough for you to
know, anyway!"
And if ever Nipper came near striking any one a dastardly blow from
behind, it was Hugh John who was in danger and at that moment.