IN WHICH SHEPPARD LEE FINDS THAT HE HAS MADE THE FORTUNE OF HIS
FRIENDS, WITHOUT HAVING GREATLY ADVANTAGED HIS OWN.
As we reached the foot of the staircase, the house door opened, and in
came my friend Tickle, dragged along--not by our dear and faithless
Pattie, as we fondly supposed, but by the raging Nora Magee.
"Help, murder, help!" cried my friend Tickle.
"Och, murder, and twenty murders more upon ye, ye chatin crathur! and
won't ye marry me?" cried Nora Magee.
My uncle Wilkins and myself rushed forward, lost in amazement, and
separated the fury from her prey. "What is the matter?" cried both, "and
where is Pattie?"
"The devil is the matter," cried Jack, panting and blowing; "and where
Pattie is I know no more than you. I thought I was running away with
her until I reached the squire's; and then I found I had this wild
Indian under her cloak, who insisted I should marry her, or else--"
"Ay, ye murderin, faithless villain!" said Nora Magee, "I'll marry ye,
or I'll have the breaches of promise and the damages out of ye! Och,
but I have the law of ye; for didn't my Missus Pattie promise ye should
marry me? I say, ye ugly-faced, hin-souled Tickle that they call ye, I
have the law of ye, and I'll be married before the squire, or I'll have
the breaches out of ye!"
"My breeches," said Jack, "you may have, and my coat and waistcoat too;
for may I be hanged and quartered if I am not cheated out of my very
skin."
"Where's my daughter Pattie?" said my uncle Wilkins. He looked at me,
and I looked at him; it was plain my cousin Pattie had not run away
with my friend Tickle.
Where could she be? I began to recover my spirits, when they were
suddenly put to flight by a knock at the door, which being opened, a
letter was thrown in, the messenger instantly taking to his heels, so
that no one beheld him. It was a letter to my uncle Wilkins. He opened
it and read the following words:--
DEAR PAPA AND HONOURED FATHER:
"This is to inform you that I don't like Mr. Tickle, and so can't
marry him; and hope you will excuse me for following my own fancies,
being now independent, as you have made me, for which I will remain
your dutiful, loving daughter for life Give my love to cousin Dully,
and tell him I consider him my best friend next to my dear papa and
my dear husband--for, oh, papa, I'm really married, and going off
travelling to-morrow.
"Hope you'll forgive us, papa, and shall ever love and pray for you, and
rest your loving, dutiful children,
"_PATTIE_ and DANNY BAKER."
"_Danny Baker!_" roared my uncle; "_Danny_ Baker!" groaned I. The clodhopper
had got her, and I had been only toiling in his service!
"Oh, you villain!" said my uncle Wilkins, "this is all your doings!"
"Sir," said I, "no hard words."
"You're a villain!" said my uncle; "you wanted to steal her yourself,
and I a'n't sorry Danny Baker has choused you out of her; and for that
reason I don't care if I forgive him. Yes, sir, I'll forgive Danny
Baker; but for you, sir, I owe you a debt--"
"If you do," said Tickle, "pay him." But we took no notice of him--my
uncle because he was enraged, and I because I was devoured by the
greatness of my misfortune. In truth, the loss of my cousin Pattie was
so unexpected, that it had astounded me out of my faculties. I was
reduced to a mere automaton, conscious, indeed, of being in a horrible
quandary, but incapable of seeing my way out of it; when I suddenly
heard the voice, as I thought (or some one very like it), of my cousin
Sammy at the door.
This roused me at once; I remembered that at this moment my Alicia was
waiting for me, and I fell into a rapture.
"Uncle Wilkins," said I, "you may say what you please; Jack Tickle, you
are a rascal; Nora Magee, you are a jade; but it is all one to I. D.
Dawkins. I will marry my Miss Skinner."
As I spoke I looked upon the door, which, opening, disclosed a sight
that petrified me, body and soul together. It was the apparition of
my Alicia, in bridal array, leaning upon the arm of my cousin Sammy,
and followed by a brace of youthful damsels decked in white flowers,
all of whom stalked into the door with the solid step of flesh and
blood, and advanced towards my uncle; my Alicia looking as silly and
shame-faced as could be, while Sammy, on the contrary, held up his head
and strutted like a turbaned Turk in the midst of his harem.
"What the deuse is all this?" said Jack Tickle. As for me, I could not
speak a word, being a hundred fold more amazed than before. I looked at
my Alicia, who, seeing me, began to blush, and bridle, and simper, and
hold fast to Sammy's arm. As for Sammy, he looked not a whit the less
Turkish, but marched up to his father as if charging him at the head of
a regiment.
The old gentleman was as much astonished as myself, and at last cried
out,
"Ods bobs! what's the matter, Sam? have you been running away, too?"
"No," said my cousin Sammy, "I reckon I'm not gone yet; but I've come
to get ready: and first, dad, as in duty bound, let's have a bit of
your blessing, if you've no objection, on me and my wife."
"Your wife!!!" said I, and said no more.
"Well," said my cousin Sammy, "I reckon I may say so; for you see,
Dawkins, my boy, when I saw 'Lishy here, I liked her; and when July
here came and told us as how you had run off with sister Pat Wilkins,
why, then, said I, I may as well speak up for myself; and so, as the
parson was ready, and 'Lishy dressed up to be married already, we made
but short work of the courtship; and now, as the saying is, one and one
_is_ one: this here is my wife, for better and for worse, and I hope
neither you nor father has any objection."