Gloomily he rode into the yard, and consigned Uncle Ned to the care of Phil Hague, his man-of-all-work, who advanced smiling, to meet him, undeterred by the black looks of his master.
“By me sowl, cap’n, dear, it’s a fine lather yez given owld Uncle Ned. Is it fur ye’ve rode?”
“No,” shortly replied the captain.
“Is that so? Thin what’s the matter wid the baste? Shure he’s not looked so wary loike since – since Master Harry – ”
“Shut up, you fool!” thundered the captain. “It’s your business to take care of him, and not to ask impertinent questions.” And he stamped into the house, muttering, “Am I never to hear the last of that boy?”
Phil scratched his head, and looked after the captain.
“Shure there’s an aist wind blowin’, an’ we’ll have to be afther scuddin’ under bare poles, jist.”
Gloomily the captain stalked through the various sections of his establishment, until he reached the front sitting-room, and found himself in the presence of his wife.
Mrs. Thompson was the queen of Cleverly society. The mention of her name in any company was enough to make the most silent tongue suddenly eloquent. She was plump in person and plump in virtues. Her face was just round and full enough to please everybody. No one had such rosy cheeks as Mrs. Thompson, “at her time of life too!” There was the kindliest light in her grey eyes, and the jolliest puckers about her mouth; and the short gray curls that flourished all over her head formed a perfect crown of beauty – nothing else. Cleverly folks were proud of her, and well they might be. She was everybody’s friend. She not only ministered to the wants of the needy, but she sought them out. She was the first at the bedside of the sick, and the last to give them up, for she was as well skilled in domestic medicine as she was in domestic cooking, and superior in both. She was a wondrous helper, for she knew just where to put her hands, and an enchanting talker, for she never spoke ill of anybody. She was a devout sister of the church, promulgating the true religious doctrines of faith, hope, and charity with no sanctimonious face, but purifying and warming with the incense of good deeds and the sunshine of a life cheerful, hopeful, and energetic. She had her cross to bear – who has not? – but she so enveloped it in the luxuriant branches of the tree of usefulness rooted in her own heart, that its burden lay easy on her broad, matronly shoulders.
On the captain’s entrance she was seated in a low rocking-chair, darning one of her husband’s socks. She looked up, with a smile upon her face.
“Ah, father! back early to-day!”
“Father!” snapped the captain, as he flung himself upon a sofa. “Why will you insist on calling me by that name? Haven’t I repeatedly asked you not to?”
“So you have Paul, so you have; and I’ve repeatedly disobeyed you,” cheerfully answered the good woman. “I didn’t mean to; but women are so forgetful! I’ll be more careful in future, fath – Dear me, there it is again!”
“There, there! what’s the use of talking to you? But I won’t have it. I tell you I’m no father. I won’t be a father. When that boy took the reins in his own hands, I cut him out of my heart. I’ll never, never own him!”
Mrs. Thompson bit her lips. Evidently the cross was bearing down hard upon her. Only an instant, and the smile came back.
“You rode up from the bridge. Been over to Delia’s?”
“Yes, I’ve been over to Delia’s. That woman, and that woman’s young ones, will drive me crazy.”
“Then I wouldn’t go over there, if I were you. Let me be your messenger in future.”
“No, marm. I’ve taken this case into my own hands, and I mean to finish it. When Sleeper disappeared, I told you not to go near them, for I knew that you would be just foolish enough to fix them up so comfortably, she would lead an idle life; and I wasn’t going to have anything of the kind going on. She’s got to come to hard work, and she might as well commence first as last. Its a mystery to me how she’s got along so well as she has.”
It was no mystery to Mrs. Thompson. She had been forbidden to go, but not to send; and many and heavy had been the burdens her messengers had carried across the river to the little brown house on the hill.
“But I’ve settled things now,” continued the captain. “Next Monday the young ones go to school.”
“Next Monday! No, no; don’t send them then!” cried Mrs. Thompson, with a shade of alarm in her manner.
“And why not? I’d like to know. Next Monday the term begins.”
“Yes; but – but hadn’t you better wait a few days?”
“Wait? wait? I won’t wait a moment after the doors open. Next Monday they go, bright and early.”
“Just as you say, Paul,” said Mrs. Thompson, with a sigh. “How is Delia? looking well?”
“No; she looks bad. Think she might, with that grumbling old crone fastened on to her.”
“Old crone! Why, Paul, whom do you mean?”
“Hulda Prime. She’s dropped in there to ‘help!’ Help make her miserable; that’s all she’ll do. Plaguy old busybody, meddling in other people’s affairs! I wish the town was well rid of her.”
“She is rather an encumbrance – that’s a fact,” quietly replied Mrs. Thompson. “But we are never troubled with her.”
“She knows better than to come near me,” said the captain, with a wise shake of the head. “Why, she had the impudence to taunt me with having turned my own son out of doors!”
“Indeed!” said his wife, hardly able to conceal a smile.
“Yes, she did; and she’d heard that, spite of me, the boy had gone through college. Plague take her!”
“Indeed! Well, Aunt Hulda never picks her words. She is sometimes very aggravating.”
“Aggravating! She’s insolent. The idea of her daring to talk so to me! O, if there was only a law to shut the mouths of such meddling old tattlers, I’d spend every cent I have but what I’d lock her up where her voice could never be heard!”
The captain, unable longer to keep quiet, here rose, dashed about the room two or three times, then darted out, and his angry tirade died away in the distance as he made his way to the barn.
Mrs Thompson sat quiet a moment, then burst into such a merry peal of laughter that the Canary in the cage above her head was inspired, and burst into a torrent of song. The audacity of Aunt Hulda seemed to affect Mrs. Thompson far less severely than it did her husband, for that was the cause of her mirth.
Had Captain Thompson really been a bad man, his frequent outbursts of passion might have terrified, and his fierce threats have pained her; but a long acquaintance with the defect in his otherwise good disposition had made these stormy passages too familiar to be dreaded. His one defect – Mrs. Thompson’s cross – was obstinacy. Give the man his own way, and he was ready for any good act or work: thwart him in the slightest particular, and he was immovable. And so Mrs. Thompson, like a wise woman, never openly arrayed herself against his wishes or opinions. And yet the captain would have been astonished, had he calmly investigated the matter, to find how seldom he really had his own way. This shrewd woman knowing it was useless to combat his stubborn spirit, was continually setting up safety-rods to attract this destructive fluid where it could do no harm; contriving plans for him to combat, herself triumphing in their downfall, while he exulted in his supposed victory.
Miss Becky’s career was a case in point. She had been pained to see and hear of the girl’s wild, mischievous pranks, and felt it was time she should be sent to school. She took occasion one day when, in sight of the