pretty woman weeps (for I could have sworn she was pretty enough), and so down I popped off Calypso and approached her.
"Why," said I, "I love not to see a miss like you in tears, and as for my words, pray forget them. I thought you was some blundering, hulking bully that was meat for my bodkin, or my whip, if no more. But as it is," says I, "there's no more ado. So dry your eyes, my dear, for I am no ogre to eat pretty children."
"Oh," she says, with a gulp, "I was not afraid of you. I only feared I had angered you justly."
"Oh!" I said, trying for a look at her face in the darkness. "Why, I see you are a very brave girl, for sure. That I'll swear you are. And if those pearly drops be not for me, why, I should like to know what opened the wells, my dear? and then I will see if you have broken the mare's leg with your onset, and get on to bed like any honest, sober man that leaves the witching hours to maids and misses and innocent children, as is only right and proper."
I do not suppose the girl took me, for women have but scant appreciation of irony, but she spoke glibly enough.
"I—I am thrown out into the night, sir!" she cries. "I have nowhere to go!"
Now you may imagine how this touched me, and what I felt; but she was innocent as a lamb and as foolish, as you might detect from her voice, to say nothing of her face, the which I saw later. So I considered a moment.
"That's just my case," said I. "And I was going to wake up some fat villain, to take me in and sup me. But," says I, "if you will find me the particular villain, fat or lean and cock or cockatrice, that has thrown out a ba-lamb like you, miss, well, 'tis he or she I will have awake and out, and something more beside, rip me if I don't!"
I had put her down as a child from her stature, which was small, and her body, which was slight, but I was to be undeceived in that presently.
"'Tis my uncle," she sobbed. "He has shut the door on me. He will not let me in. He vows he has done with me."
"Maybe," said I, "he has some cause for his anger. But uncles are not hard masters even to young misses that know not the world nor their own minds."
"Nay," she says, "he has a reason for his anger, and he will not relent. He has threatened me before, and he is full of burning fury. He will not have me back," she said in a voice of hesitating timidity; and, seeming of a sudden to have taken in the shame of her situation, she began to withdraw into the night.
"Not so fast, young madam," said I, "you have broken my mare's leg, I believe, and I must have a talk with you. What's the reason?" says I.
She paused, and then in a tremulous quick voice said, "He will not hear that George Riseley shall marry me."
"Oh, ho!" said I, "I begin to smell powder. And he has turned you out of doors?"
"No," she faltered. "He would not admit me."
"I begin to see beyond my nose," I said; "you were walking with this George, and returned late?" She hesitated. "Why, come," I said, rallying her, "I'd ha' done the same myself, although you would not credit it of a prim and proper youth like me. You was back late?"
"Yes," says she in a low voice.
"Well," said I, "old hunks shall take you in, never fear; so come along of me, and show me where Nunky lives and fumes and fusses."
At that I threw Calypso's bridle over my arm, and began to go along the road, the little miss walking by my side, something reluctant, as I guessed, but cheering as she went. Her uncle, says she, was a draper in the city with a good custom and a deep purse, while this George was but a 'prentice with small prospects.
"Well, I have no prospects myself," said I, "but I warrant I can get what I want in the end. 'Tis the same with George. Let him worry at it as a dog a bone. I'll wager he is a handsome fellow to have taken a pretty girl's eyes."
"He is very handsome," says miss, with enthusiasm; "and he is the best judge of calico in the city."
"Damme!" says I, smacking my thigh as we walked on together quite friendly, "damme! that's the lad for my money, and I don't wonder at you," said I.
Whereat, poor chit, she brings me forth tales of her blessed George's goodness and estimable virtues, and how his master trusted him, and how his neighbours loved him.
"Well," I said, "best let 'em not love him too much, or maybe this paragon will slip you."
And on that she came to a halt, and falling very tremulous again, pointed at a house.
"'Tis my uncle's," she says, "but there are no lights and he is gone to bed."
"So shall you," said I, and forthwith went up and banged upon the door.
Now I could guess very much what had happened in that house, and how old hunks had taken a fit of choler and, choking on it, had sent his niece packing for a peccadillo. To be sure she was out over-late for virtuous maids, but what's a clock in the balance with lovers' vows? And if any was to blame, 'twas this same George that should have been swinged, not pretty miss like a dove. Thought I to myself—old hunks slams the door in an Anabaptist frenzy, and, presently after, while setting on his night-cap and a-saying his prayers, remembers and considers what a fool he is, and how the girl is under his authority and malleable, and that he has pitched her into the roads to come by what she may on a lone night. What does that come to, then, but this, that Nunky sits uneasy, and a-tremble at the first knock, and ready to open and take miss to his arms? Well, I was right about the readiness to open, but as for the rest you shall hear.
The door comes open sharply, and there was an old fat fellow with a candle in his hand, glaring at me.
"Who are you?" says he, for my appearance took him by surprise.
"Well," says I in a friendly way, "I'm not Old Rowley, nor am I the topsman, but something in between, and what that is matters nothing. But I found a poor maid astray on the heath, and have taken the liberty to fetch her home safe and secure."
He pushed his head further out, holding the candle so as to throw the light into the road. "It's you, Nelly!" said he, sharply. "Have I not said I have done with you? Go to your lover, you baggage!" and he made a motion to pull to the door, but my foot was inside.
"Softly," said I, "softly, gaffer. This is your niece, I believe," nodding over my arm to miss.
"Well," he snarled, "as she is mine and not yours I can do what I like with her."
"Oh! is that how the wind blows?" said I. "Then, sink me! but I shall have to go to school again to learn morals. But there is one thing I have no need to learn again, and that's how to knock sense and discretion into a thick head," said I, meaningly, and at the same time I threw the bridle over Calypso's ears and stood free before the old villain.
He looked at me a moment, the flame of the candle wagging before his face, and the grease guttering down the candlestick. "You do not understand, sir," he said in a quieter voice. "I have to give my niece lessons; I have to teach her by severity; but since it is probable that she has been sufficiently frightened by this night's adventure, and come to reason, let her enter." And so saying, he stepped back and held the door wide.
That he was of a savage, uncontrollable temper was evident, but I had not reckoned with the old bear's cunning, and I vow I was to blame for it. So old a hand as Dick Ryder should not have been caught by so simple a trick. Yet he was miss's uncle, and how was I to suspect him so deeply? At anyrate, the facts are that, on seeing him alter so reasonably, and step back with the invitation on his lips and in his bearing, I too stepped back from the doorway to leave way for miss to enter. Then of a sudden bang goes the door to, shaking the very walls of the house, and a great key is turned on the inside, groaning rustily.
I will confess I felt blank, but I recovered in a moment, when out of the window above the old rascal stuck his head.
"Let her go back to her lover!" he says with a sneer. "Or maybe you can take her yourself. I want no soiled pieces in a Christian house," and then the head was withdrawn, the window shut tight, and the house was plunged in darkness.
You may suppose how this usage annoyed me, who am not wont to be treated in so scurvy a fashion, or to come out of any contest so shabbily. I was, on the instant, for flying