THE INGENIOUS DEVICES WITH WHICH SHEPPARD LEE PREPARED THE WAY FOR THE
ELOPEMENT.
I had scarce brought my friend Tickle upon the stage, and introduced
him into my uncle's family, before my mind began to misgive me. I
suspected that, instead of being content to play the stalking-horse for
my sole advantage, he would take the opportunity to advance his own
interest, and gain, if he could, my cousin Pattie for himself.
To remove all temptation, and bind him more closely to be faithful, I
told him of my adventure with Alicia (taking care, however, to conceal
her name, for I did not wish to forego my advantages in that quarter
until convinced I could do so without loss), described her claim to the
sixty thousand dollars (for, of course, I trebled her inheritance), and
concluded by engaging to make her over to him the moment I was myself
secure of Pattie, which would be the moment Pattie was secure of an
independence.
Upon this promise Tickle made me a thousand protestations of friendship
and disinterestedness, and I felt my mind more easy.
He acted his part, assisted by Pattie, who at my suggestion feigned
suddenly to be violently in love with him, and besieged her father
to the same end as myself: the old gentleman at last com plied, and
actually executed the deed of gift which I mentioned before; by which
he secured to her the revenue accruing upon a sum of forty thousand
dollars, the principal, which he retained in his own hands in trust,
to revert to her at his death; and to this deed I was myself made a
witness.
With these terms, as it seemed there were no better to be had, I
allowed myself to be satisfied; and trusting to a final reconciliation
with my uncle Wilkins to augment the dowry, I ran to my cousin Pattie
and informed her of her good fortune.
She was filled with repture, and began fairly to dance with joy; she
told me I was the best and sweetest of cousins, and vowed she would
love me to her dying day. Her joyous spirits fired my own, and I
answered in terms equally ecstatic. In short, we agreed to elope that
very night, and arranged our plan accordingly. It was agreed I should
have a carriage in waiting at the corner of the street during the
evening, and that Pattie, who was to feign herself unwell, as an excuse
for not going to Mrs. Pickup's first ball, which was to take place
that evening, should find some means to get her father out of the way;
immediately after which I, having disposed of the redoubtable Sammy, by
depositing him in the aforesaid Mrs. Pickup's drawing-room, was to make
my appearance, and bear her in triumph to a reverend divine, previously
secured for the ceremony.
Having settled all these things, and sealed our engagement with a kiss,
my adorable cousin admitted me to a secret which nearly froze my blood
with horror.
She informed me that my friend Tickle, disregarding all his vows
of fidelity, had been busy ever since I brought him into the house
besieging her on his own account; that he had taken every occasion to
undermine me in her affections, by disparaging my good qualities both
of soul and mind, and especially by assuring her I was a "great ass
and fortune-hunter" (those were his very words); and, finally, that he
had so used the power his knowledge of our secret had given him, by
occasional threats of betraying it to her father, that she had been
compelled to accept his addresses, and make him the same promise she
had just made me--that is, to elope with him. The perfidious fellow had
by some means got wind of the deed of gift; and while I was engaged
in signing it, he had paid my cousin a visit with the same object as
myself, and she had promised to decamp with him. Nay, at this moment
the villain was engaged in securing his carriage and his parson, with
the prospect of chousing me out of my wife and fortune!
My horror was, however, soon dissipated. My cousin Pattie had made the
engagement only in self-defence, and she looked upon the whole affair
as the best joke in the world. "How we will cheat him," said she; "the
base fellow!" and she danced about, smiling, and laughing, and crying
together, so that it was a delight to see her. "Yes," said she, with
uncommon vivacity, "we will cheat him, for I'm sure he deserves no
better; for I'm sure he's just as much of a goose and fortune-hunter as
he said _you_ were; and I'm sure I despise a goose and fortune-hunter
above all things; and I'm sure I know how to treat a goose and
fortune-hunter as well as anybody. How we'll laugh at him to-morrow!
How he'll stare when he finds I'm gone! how papa will stare too! How
Sammy will stare, and how he'll whistle! Oh dear! I _do_ love to cheat
people of all things; I do, cousin Ikey; and, ods fishes, I'm almost
half minded to cheat you too!"
And with that she flung her arms round my neck, gave me a kiss, and ran
laughing away to prepare for the hour of elopement.
There was an extraordinary coincidence between the situation of my
cousin Pattie and myself. She had agreed to run away with two different
people at the same moment; and so had I. The day before my uncle proved
unusually crusty and self-willed, and I began to think I should never
effect my point with him; and, what was equally dispiriting, I fell
among duns, who persecuted me with astonishing rancour; my uncle's
appearance, as it seemed, serving rather to sharpen than to allay their
appetites for payment. Being thus goaded on by doubt and dunning, I
resolved to make sure of Goldfist's daughter; which I did by visiting
her as soon as night came, and proposing an elopement on the following
evening; and this it was the more easy to put into execution, since her
father, as she told me, was fast in bed with a sciatica, or some such
vulgar disorder.
No one could be more willing and delighted than the fair Alicia; and it
appeared that, in anticipation of the happy event, she had already made
all her preparations, having, as she assured me, arranged with a friend
of hers, at whose house she designed the ceremony to be performed,
ordered secretly a whole trunk full of bride's clothes, and notified an
old schoolmate whom she had engaged to wait upon her.
I thought, upon my soul, she was taking matters pretty easily, and
acting somewhat independently; but she was ignorant of the world, as I
said before, and knew no better. I was still more disgusted with the
thought of being shown off among her friends, and told her a bridemaid
was wholly superfluous; but she had made her mind up as to what was
right on such an occasion, and I judged it proper to submit. It was
agreed I should meet her at her friend's house, at nine o'clock in the
evening; and "she hoped," very modestly, I thought, "that I would bring
some nice pretty fellow to wait on me, that would make a good match
with her dear Julia, who was the nicest dear soul in the world."
This "nice dear soul," as I afterward discovered, and as I think proper
to inform the reader now, that he may understand into what a slough of
democracy I was rushing, was no less a personage than a cousin-german
of Mr. Snip, my tailor; and her appointment to the honour of waiting
upon the bride of the distinguished I. D. Dawkins was productive of a
casualty expected neither by herself nor by my adored Alicia.
I laughed in my sleeve at that hint of my Alicia; and yet I did, after
all, provide myself with an attendant, and one who was perhaps better
suited than any other person I could have lighted on, as an offset
and pendent to the "fair Julia." This was my cousin, Sammy Wilkins;
and the reason of my appointing him was this. He was, although the
stupidest creature on earth, of a meddling and prying nature, and
had an extraordinary fancy to go sneaking after me whithersoever I
went--from admiration and affection, perhaps; but of that I was not
certain; and, at all events, he was a great burden to me. He discovered
my repeated visits to Skinner's house, and was seized with a stupid
curiosity to know the reason; and, what was still worse, he made so
many observations on my attentions to, and secret conferences with,
his sister Pattie, that it was clear he suspected there was something
in the wind there too. Being kept in eternal torment lest he should
discover more than I liked, or, by his indiscreet tattling, awake the
suspicions of others, I saw no better means of averting the mischief,
and turning his eyes from his sister, than by taking him aside, and
telling him, with many injunctions to secrecy, that I was courting old
Skinner's rich daughter, and wished to have him wait upon me at the
wedding.
Such confidence, coupled with the intention to do him so much honour,
entirely overcame his rustic imaginations. He swore he approved of
marrying rich wives, and was looking out for one himself, and hoped I
would put him on the track of one; which I promised, and the clownish
juvenile was content. He looked forward to the great event with a
measure of glee I had never seen him roused to before, and he ordered a
new coat of Snip, that he might do honour to his service.
It is quite true, I never really intended he should trouble himself in
the matter; but when the fated evening came, when the loving Alicia,
arrayed in satin and white roses, was awaiting her lover, who was
preparing to run away with her rival, I thought it better to despatch
him to my charmer than to leave him at Mrs. Pickup's, whence he might
stray at a moment's warning, and, indeed, with no warning at all. It
was quite necessary to have him out of the way; for which reason I sent
him to the house where Alicia was in waiting, with a special message
to the lady, to make his introduction the more easy, and a thousand
instructions in relation to nothing.
It was fortunate that my cousin Sammy, though as great a rustic as
ever lived, was, as little troubled with bashfulness as wisdom. Hence
I found no difficulty in despatching him to my inamorata, whom he had
never laid eyes on, and to her friends, with regard to whom I was in
the same predicament. I promised to follow him in a short time, and
thus, to my great joy, succeeded in getting him out of the way.