Short Cruises Read online

  FARMER ROSE sat in his porch smoking an evening pipe. By his side, in acomfortable Windsor chair, sat his friend the miller, also smoking, andgazing with half-closed eyes at the landscape as he listened for thethousandth time to his host's complaints about his daughter.

  "The long and the short of it is, Cray," said the farmer, with an air ofmournful pride, "she's far too good-looking."

  Mr. Cray grunted.

  "Truth is truth, though she's my daughter," continued Mr. Rose, vaguely."She's too good-looking. Sometimes when I've taken her up to market I'veseen the folks fair turn their backs on the cattle and stare at herinstead."

  Mr. Cray sniffed; louder, perhaps, than he had intended. "Beautiful thatrose-bush smells," he remarked, as his friend turned and eyed him.

  "What is the consequence?" demanded the farmer, relaxing his gaze. "Shelooks in the glass and sees herself, and then she gets miserable anduppish because there ain't nobody in these parts good enough for her tomarry."

  "It's a extraordinary thing to me where she gets them good looks from,"said the miller, deliberately.

  "Ah!" said Mr. Rose, and sat trying to think of a means of enlighteninghis friend without undue loss of modesty.

  "She ain't a bit like her poor mother," mused Mr. Cray.

  "No, she don't get her looks from her," assented the other.

  "It's one o' them things you can't account for," said Mr. Cray, who wasvery tired of the subject; "it's just like seeing a beautiful flowerblooming on an old cabbage-stump."

  The farmer knocked his pipe out noisily and began to refill it. "Peoplehave said that she takes after me a trifle," he remarked, shortly.

  "You weren't fool enough to believe that, I know," said the miller."Why, she's no more like you than you're like a warming-pan--not somuch."

  Mr. Rose regarded his friend fixedly. "You ain't got a very nice way o'putting things, Cray," he said, mournfully.

  "I'm no flatterer," said the miller; "never was, and you can't pleaseeverybody. If I said your daughter took after you I don't s'pose she'dever speak to me again."

  "The worst of it is," said the farmer, disregarding his remark, "shewon't settle down. There's young Walter Lomas after her now, and shewon't look at him. He's a decent young fellow is Walter, and she's beenand named one o' the pigs after him, and the way she mixes them uptogether is disgraceful."

  "If she was my girl she should marry young Walter," said the miller,firmly. "What's wrong with him?"

  "She looks higher," replied the other, mysteriously; "she's alwaysreading them romantic books full o' love tales, and she's never tired o'talking of a girl her mother used to know that went on the stage andmarried a baronet. She goes and sits in the best parlor every afternoonnow, and calls it the drawing-room. She'll sit there till she's past themarrying age, and then she'll turn round and blame me."

  "She wants a lesson," said Mr. Cray, firmly. "She wants to be taught herposition in life, not to go about turning up her nose at young men andnaming pigs after them."

  "What she wants to understand is that the upper classes wouldn't look ather," pursued the miller.

  "It would be easier to make her understand that if they didn't," saidthe farmer.

  "I mean," said Mr. Cray, sternly, "with a view to marriage. What youought to do is to get somebody staying down here with you pretending tobe a lord or a nobleman, and ordering her about and not noticing hergood looks at all. Then, while she's upset about that, in comes WalterLomas to comfort her and be a contrast to the other."

  Mr. Rose withdrew his pipe and regarded him open-mouthed.

  "Yes; but how--" he began.

  "And it seems to me," interrupted Mr. Cray, "that I know just the youngfellow to do it--nephew of my wife's. He was coming to stay a fortnightwith us, but you can have him with pleasure--me and him don't get onover and above well."

  "Perhaps he wouldn't do it," objected the farmer.

  "He'd do it like a shot," said Mr. Cray, positively. "It would be funfor us and it 'ud be a lesson for her. If you like, I'll tell him towrite to you for lodgings, as he wants to come for a fortnight's freshair after the fatiguing gayeties of town."

  "Fatiguing gayeties of town," repeated the admiring farmer."Fatiguing--"

  He sat back in his chair and laughed, and Mr. Cray, delighted at theprospect of getting rid so easily of a tiresome guest, laughed too.Overhead at the open window a third person laughed, but in so quiet andwell-bred a fashion that neither of them heard her.

  The farmer received a letter a day or two afterwards, and negotiationsbetween Jane Rose on the one side and Lord Fairmount on the other weresoon in progress; the farmer's own composition being deemed somewhatcrude for such a correspondence.

  "I wish he didn't want it kept so secret," said Miss Rose, ponderingover the final letter. "I should like to let the Crays and one or twomore people know he is staying with us. However, I suppose he must havehis own way."

  "You must do as he wishes," said her father, using his handkerchiefviolently.

  Jane sighed. "He'll be a little company for me, at any rate," sheremarked. "What is the matter, father?"

  "Bit of a cold," said the farmer, indistinctly, as he made for the door,still holding his handkerchief to his face. "Been coming on some time."

  He put on his hat and went out, and Miss Rose, watching him from thewindow, was not without fears that the joke might prove too much for aman of his habit. She regarded him thoughtfully, and when he returned atone o'clock to dinner, and encountered instead a violent dust-stormwhich was raging in the house, she noted with pleasure that his sense ofhumor was more under control.

  "Dinner?" she said, as he strove to squeeze past the furniture which waspiled in the hall. "We've got no time to think of dinner, and if we hadthere's no place for you to eat it. You'd better go in the larder andcut yourself a crust of bread and cheese."

  Her father hesitated and glared at the servant, who, with her head boundup in a duster, passed at the double with a broom. Then he walked slowlyinto the kitchen.

  Miss Rose called out something after him..

  "Eh?" said her father, coming back hopefully.

  "How is your cold, dear?"

  The farmer made no reply, and his daughter smiled contentedly as sheheard him stamping about in the larder. He made but a poor meal, andthen, refusing point-blank to assist Annie in moving the piano, went andsmoked a very reflective pipe in the garden.

  Lord Fairmount arrived the following day on foot from the station, andafter acknowledging the farmer's salute with a distant nod requested himto send a cart for his luggage. He was a tall, good-looking young man,and as he stood in the hall languidly twisting his mustache Miss Rosedeliberately decided upon his destruction.

  "These your daughters?" he inquired, carelessly, as he followed his hostinto the parlor.

  "One of 'em is, my lord; the other is my servant," replied the farmer.

  "She's got your eyes," said his lordship, tapping the astonished Annieunder the chin; "your nose too, I think."

  "That's my servant," said the farmer, knitting his brows at him.

  "Oh, indeed!" said his lordship, airily.

  He turned round and regarded Jane, but, although she tried to meet himhalf-way by elevating her chin a little, his audacity failed him and thewords died away on his tongue. A long silence followed, broken only bythe ill-suppressed giggles of Annie, who had retired to the kitchen.

  "I trust that we shall make your lordship comfortable," said Miss Rose.

  "I hope so, my good girl," was the reply. "And now will you show me myroom?"

  Miss Rose led the way upstairs and threw open the door; Lord Fairmount,pausing on the threshold, gazed at it disparagingly.

  "Is this the best room you have?" he inquired, stiffly.

  "Oh, no," said Miss Rose, smiling; "father's room is much better thanthis. Look here."

  She threw open another door and, ignoring a gesticulating figure whichstood in the hall below, regarded him anxiously. "If you would preferfat
her's room he would be delighted for you to have it Delighted."

  "Yes, I will have this one," said Lord Fairmount, entering. "Bring me upsome hot water, please, and clear these boots and leggings out."

  Miss Rose tripped downstairs and, bestowing a witching smile upon hersire, waved away his request for an explanation and hastened into thekitchen, whence Annie shortly afterwards emerged with the water.

  It was with something of a shock that the farmer discovered that he hadto wait for his dinner while his lordship had luncheon. That meal, underhis daughter's management, took a long time, and the joint when itreached him was more than half cold. It was, moreover, quite clear thatthe aristocracy had not even mastered the rudiments of carving, butpreferred instead to box the compass for tit-bits.

  He ate his meal in silence, and when it was over sought out his guest toadminister a few much-needed stage-directions. Owing, however, to theubiquity of Jane he wasted nearly the whole of the afternoon before heobtained an opportunity. Even then the interview was short, the farmerhaving to compress into ten seconds instructions for Lord Fairmount toexpress a desire to take his meals with the family, and his dinner atthe respectable hour of 1 p.m. Instructions as to a change of bedroomwere frustrated by the reappearance of Jane.

  His lordship went for a walk after that, and coming back with a boredair stood on the hearthrug in the living-room and watched Miss Rosesewing.

  "Very dull place," he said at last, in a dissatisfied voice.

  "Yes, my lord," said Miss Rose, demurely.

  "Fearfully dull," complained his lordship, stifling a yawn. "What I'm todo to amuse myself for a fortnight I'm sure I don't know."

  Miss Rose raised her fine eyes and regarded him intently. Many a lesserman would have looked no farther for amusement.

  "I'm afraid there is not much to do about here, my lord," she saidquietly. "We are very plain folk in these parts."

  "Yes," assented the other. An obvious compliment rose of itself to hislips, but he restrained himself, though with difficulty. Miss Rose benther head over her work and stitched industriously. His lordship took upa book and, remembering his mission, read for a couple of hours withouttaking the slightest notice of her. Miss Rose glanced over in hisdirection once or twice, and then, with a somewhat vixenish expressionon her delicate features, resumed her sewing.

  "Wonderful eyes she's got," said the gentleman, as he sat on the edge ofhis bed that night and thought over the events of the day. "It's prettyto see them flash."

  He saw them flash several times during the next few days, and Mr. Rosehimself, was more than satisfied with the hauteur with which his guesttreated the household.

  "But I don't like the way you have with me," he complained.

  "It's all in the part," urged his lordship.

  "Well, you can leave that part out," rejoined Mr. Rose, with someacerbity. "I object to being spoke to as you speak to me before thatgirl Annie. Be as proud and unpleasant as you like to my daughter, butleave me alone. Mind that!"

  His lordship promised, and in pursuance of his host's instructionsstrove manfully to subdue feelings towards Miss Rose by no means inaccordance with them. The best of us are liable to absent-mindedness,and he sometimes so far forgot himself as to address her in tones ashumble as any in her somewhat large experience.

  "I hope that we are making you comfortable here, my lord?" she said, asthey sat together one afternoon.

  "I have never been more comfortable in my life," was the gracious reply.

  Miss Rose shook her head. "Oh, my lord," she said, in protest, "think ofyour mansion."

  His lordship thought of it. For two or three days he had been thinkingof houses and furniture and other things of that nature.

  "I have never seen an old country seat," continued Miss Rose, claspingher hands and gazing at him wistfully. "I should be so grateful if yourlordship would describe yours to me."

  His lordship shifted uneasily, and then, in face of the girl'spersistence, stood for some time divided between the contending claimsof Hampton Court Palace and the Tower of London. He finally decided uponthe former, after first refurnishing it at Maple's.

  "How happy you must be!" said the breathless Jane, when he had finished.

  He shook his head gravely. "My possessions have never given me anyhappiness," he remarked. "I would much rather be in a humble rank oflife. Live where I like, and--and marry whom I like."

  There was no mistaking the meaning fall in his voice. Miss Rose sighedgently and lowered her eyes--her lashes had often excited comment. Then,in a soft voice, she asked him the sort of life he would prefer.

  In reply, his lordship, with an eloquence which surprised himself,portrayed the joys of life in a seven-roomed house in town, with agreenhouse six feet by three, and a garden large enough to contain it.He really spoke well, and when he had finished his listener gazed at himwith eyes suffused with timid admiration.

  "Oh, my lord," she said, prettily, "now I know what you've been doing.You've been slumming."

  "Slumming?" gasped his lordship.

  "You couldn't have described a place like that unless you had been,"said Miss Rose nodding. "I hope you took the poor people some nice hotsoup."

  His lordship tried to explain, but without success. Miss Rose persistedin regarding him as a missionary of food and warmth, and spoke feelinglyof the people who had to live in such places. She also warned himagainst the risk of infection.

  "You don't understand," he repeated, impatiently. "These are nicehouses--nice enough for anybody to live in. If you took soup to peoplelike that, why, they'd throw it at you."

  "Wretches!" murmured the indignant Jane, who was enjoying herselfamazingly.

  His lordship eyed her with sudden suspicion, but her face was quitegrave and bore traces of strong feeling. He explained again, but withoutavail.

  "You never ought to go near such places, my lord," she concluded,solemnly, as she rose to quit the room. "Even a girl of my station woulddraw the line at that."

  She bowed deeply and withdrew. His lordship sank into a chair and,thrusting his hands into his pockets, gazed gloomily at the driedgrasses in the grate.

  During the next day or two his appetite failed, and other well-knownsymptoms set in. Miss Rose, diagnosing them all, prescribed by stealthsome bitter remedies. The farmer regarded his change of manner withdisapproval, and, concluding that it was due to his own complaints,sought to reassure him. He also pointed out that his daughter's opinionof the aristocracy was hardly likely to increase if the only member sheknew went about the house as though he had just lost his grandmother.

  "You are longing for the gayeties of town, my lord," he remarked onemorning at breakfast.

  His lordship shook his head. The gayeties comprised, amongst otherthings, a stool and a desk.

  "I don't like town," he said, with a glance at Jane. "If I had my choiceI would live here always. I would sooner live here in this charming spotwith this charming society than anywhere."

  Mr. Rose coughed and, having caught his eye, shook his head at him andglanced significantly over at the unconscious Jane. The young manignored his action and, having got an opening, gave utterance in thecourse of the next ten minutes to Radical heresies of so violent a typethat the farmer could hardly keep his seat. Social distinctions werecondemned utterly, and the House of Lords referred to as a humandust-bin. The farmer gazed open-mouthed at this snake he had nourished.

  "Your lordship will alter your mind when you get to town," said Jane,demurely.

  "Never!" declared the other, impressively.

  The girl sighed, and gazing first with much interest at her parent, whoseemed to be doing his best to ward off a fit, turned her lustrous eyesupon the guest.

  "We shall all miss you," she said, softly. "You've been a lesson to allof us."

  "Lesson?" he repeated, flushing.

  "It has improved our behavior so, having a lord in the house," said MissRose, with painful humility. "I'm sure father hasn't been like the sameman since you'v
e been here."

  "What d'ye mean Miss?" demanded the farmer, hotly.

  "Don't speak like that before his lordship, father," said his daughter,hastily. "I'm not blaming you; you're no worse than the other men abouthere. You haven't had an opportunity of learning before, that's all. Itisn't your fault."

  "Learning?" bellowed the farmer, turning an inflamed visage upon hisapprehensive guest. "Have you noticed anything wrong about my behavior?"

  "Certainly not," said his lordship, hastily.

  "All I know is," continued Miss Rose, positively, "I wish you were goingto stay here another six months for father's sake."

  "Look here--" began Mr. Rose, smiting the table.

  "And Annie's," said Jane, raising her voice above the din. "I don't knowwhich has improved the most. I'm sure the way they both drink their teanow--"

  Mr. Rose pushed his chair back loudly and got up from the table. For amoment he stood struggling for words, then he turned suddenly with agrowl and quitted the room, banging the door after him in a fashionwhich clearly indicated that he still had some lessons to learn.

  "You've made your father angry," said his lordship.

  "It's for his own good," said Miss Rose. "Are you really sorry to leaveus?"

  "Sorry?" repeated the other. "Sorry is no word for it."

  "You will miss father," said the girl.

  He sighed gently.

  "And Annie," she continued.

  He sighed again, and Jane took a slight glance at him cornerwise.

  "And me too, I hope," she said, in a low voice.

  "Miss you!" repeated his lordship, in a suffocating voice. "I shouldmiss the sun less."

  "I am so glad," said Jane, clasping her hands; "it is so nice to feelthat one is not quite forgotten. Of course, I can never forget you. Youare the only nobleman I have ever met."

  "I hope that it is not only because of that," he said, forlornly.

  Miss Rose pondered. When she pondered her eyes increased in size andrevealed unsuspected depths.

  "No-o," she said at length, in a hesitating voice.

  "Suppose that I were not what I am represented to be," he said slowly."Suppose that, instead of being Lord Fairmount, I were merely a clerk."

  "A clerk?" repeated Miss Rose, with a very well-managed shudder. "Howcan I suppose such an absurd thing as that?"

  "But if I were?" urged his lordship, feverishly.

  "It's no use supposing such a thing as that," said Miss Rose, briskly;"your high birth is stamped on you."

  His lordship shook his head.

  "I would sooner be a laborer on this farm than a king anywhere else," hesaid, with feeling.

  Miss Rose drew a pattern on the floor with the toe of her shoe.

  "The poorest laborer on the farm can have the pleasure of looking at youevery day," continued his lordship passionately. "Every day of his lifehe can see you, and feel a better man for it."

  Miss Rose looked at him sharply. Only the day before the poorest laborerhad seen her--when he wasn't expecting the honor--and received anepitome of his character which had nearly stunned him. But hislordship's face was quite grave.

  "I go to-morrow," he said.

  "Yes," said Jane, in a hushed voice.

  He crossed the room gently and took a seat by her side. Miss Rose, stillgazing at the floor, wondered indignantly why it was she was notblushing. His Lordship's conversation had come to a sudden stop and thesilence was most awkward.

  "I've been a fool, Miss Rose," he said at last, rising and standing overher; "and I've been taking a great liberty. I've been deceiving you fornearly a fortnight."

  "Nonsense!" responded Miss Rose, briskly.

  "I have been deceiving you," he repeated. "I have made you believe thatI am a person of title."

  "Nonsense!" said Miss Rose again.

  The other started and eyed her uneasily.

  "Nobody would mistake you for a lord," said Miss Rose, cruelly. "Why, Ishouldn't think that you had ever seen one. You didn't do it at allproperly. Why, your uncle Cray would have done it better."

  Mr. Cray's nephew fell back in consternation and eyed her dumbly as shelaughed. All mirth is not contagious, and he was easily able to refrainfrom joining in this.

  "I can't understand," said Miss Rose as she wiped a tear-dimmed eye--"Ican't understand how you could have thought I should be so stupid."

  "I've been a fool," said the other, bitterly, as he retreated to thedoor. "Good-by."

  "Good-by," said Jane. She looked him full in the face, and the blushesfor which she had been waiting came in force. "You needn't go, unlessyou want to," she said, softly. "I like fools better than lords."

  ALF'S DREAM