Snowflakes and Sunbeams Part 39

Long as he had been desiring it, however, Kate thought it must have been nothing compared with the time that elapsed ere he said anything else; so she bent over a flower which she held in her hand, and said in a low voice, "Indeed, Harry, what is it?"

Harry was desperate now. His usually flexible tongue was stiff as stone and dry as a bit of leather. He could no more give utterance to an intelligible idea than he could change himself into Mr. Kennedy's gray cat--a change that he would not have been unwilling to make at that moment. At last he seized his companion's hand, and exclaimed, with a burst of emotion that quite startled her,--

"Kate, Kate! O dearest Kate, I love you! I _adore_ you! I--"

At this point poor Harry's powers of speech again failed; so being utterly unable to express another idea, he suddenly threw his arms round her, and pressed her fervently to his bosom.

Kate was taken quite aback by this summary method of coming to the point. Repulsing him energetically, she exclaimed, while she blushed crimson. "O Harry--Mr Somerville!" and burst into tears.

Poor Harry stood before her for a moment, his head hanging down, and a deep blush of shame on his face.

"O Kate," said he, in a deep tremulous voice, "forgive me; do--do forgive me! I knew not what I said. I scarce knew what I did" (here he seized her hand). "I know but one thing, Kate, and tell it you _will,_ if it should cost me my life. I love you, Kate, to distraction, and I wish you to be my wife. I have been rude, very rude. Can you forgive me, Kate?"

Now, this latter part of Harry's speech was particularly comical, the comicality of it lying in this, that while he spoke, he drew Kate gradually towards him, and at the very time when he gave utterance to the penitential remorse for his rudeness, Kate was infolded in a much more vigorous embrace than at the first; and what is more remarkable still, she laid her little head quietly on his shoulder, as if she had quite changed her mind in regard to what was and what was not rude, and rather enjoyed it than otherwise.

While the lovers stood in this interesting position, it became apparent to Harry's olfactory nerves that the atmosphere was impregnated with tobacco smoke. Looking hastily up, he beheld an apparition that tended somewhat to increase the confusion of his faculties.

In the opening of the bower stood Mr. Kennedy, senior, in a state of inexpressible amazement. We say inexpressible advisedly, because the extreme pitch of feeling which Mr. Kennedy experienced at what he beheld before him cannot possibly be expressed by human visage. As far as the countenance of man could do it, however, we believe the old gentleman's came pretty near the mark on this occasion. His hands were in his coat pockets, his body bent a little forward, his head and neck outstretched a little beyond it, his eyes almost starting from the sockets, and certainly the most prominent feature in his face: his teeth firmly clinched on his beloved pipe, and his lips expelling a mult.i.tude of little clouds so vigorously that one might have taken him for a sort of self-acting intelligent steam-gun that had resolved utterly to annihilate Kate and Harry at short range in the course of two minutes.

When Kate saw her father she uttered a slight scream, covered her face with her hands, rushed from the bower, and disappeared in the wood.

"So, young gentleman," began Mr. Kennedy, in a slow, deliberate tone of voice, while he removed the pipe from his mouth, clinched his fist, and confronted Harry, "you've been invited to my house as a guest, sir, and you seize the opportunity basely to insult my daughter!"

"Stay, stay, my dear sir," interrupted Harry, laying his hand on the old man's shoulder and gazing earnestly into his face. "Oh, do not, even for a moment, imagine that I could be so base as to trifle with the affections of your daughter. I may have been presumptuous, hasty, foolish, mad if you will, but not base. G.o.d forbid that I should treat her with disrespect, even in thought! I love her, Mr. Kennedy, as I never loved before. I have asked her to be my wife, and--she--"

"Whew!" whistled old Mr. Kennedy, replacing his pipe between his teeth, gazing abstractedly at the ground, and emitting clouds innumerable.

After standing thus a few seconds, he turned his back slowly upon Harry, and smiled outrageously once or twice, winking at the same time, after his own fas.h.i.+on, at the river. Turning abruptly round, he regarded Harry with a look of affected dignity, and said, "Pray, sir, what did my daughter say to your very peculiar proposal?"

"She said ye--ah! that is--she didn't exactly _say_ anything, but she--indeed I--"

"Humph!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the old gentleman, deepening his frown as he regarded his young friend through the smoke. "In short, she said nothing, I suppose, but led you to infer, perhaps, that she would have said yes if I hadn't interrupted you."

Harry blushed, and said nothing.

"Now, sir," continued Mr. Kennedy, "don't you think that it would have been a polite piece of attention on your part to have asked _my_ permission before you addressed my daughter on such a subject, eh?"

"Indeed," said Harry, "I acknowledge that I have been hasty, but I must disclaim the charge of disrespect to you, sir. I had no intention whatever of broaching the subject to-day, but my feelings, unhappily, carried me away, and--and--in fact--"

"Well, well, sir," interrupted Mr. Kennedy, with a look of offended dignity, "your feelings ought to be kept more under control. But come, sir, to my house. I must talk further with you on this subject. I must read you a lesson, sir--a lesson, humph! that you won't forget in a hurry."

"But, my dear sir--" began Harry.

"No more, sir--no more at present," cried the old gentleman, smoking violently as he pointed to the footpath that led to the house, "Lead the way, sir; I'll follow."

The footpath, although wide enough to allow Kate and Harry to walk, beside each other, did not permit of two gentlemen doing so conveniently--a circ.u.mstance which proved a great relief to Mr.

Kennedy, inasmuch as it enabled him, while walking behind his companion, to wink convulsively, smoke furiously, and punch his own ribs severely, by way of opening a few safety-valves to his glee, without which there is no saying what might have happened. He was nearly caught in these eccentricities more than once, however, as Harry turned half round with the intention of again attempting to exculpate himself--attempts which were as often met by a sudden start, a fierce frown, a burst of smoke, and a command to "go on." On approaching the house, the track became a broad road, affording Mr. Kennedy no excuse for walking in the rear, so that he was under the necessity of laying violent restraint on his feelings--a restraint which it was evident could not last long. At that moment, to his great relief, his eye suddenly fell on the gray cat, which happened to be reposing innocently on the doorstep.

"_That's_ it! there's the whole cause of it at last!" cried Mr.

Kennedy, in a perfect paroxysm of excitement, flinging his pipe violently at the unoffending victim as he rushed towards it. The pipe missed the cat, but went with a sharp crash through the parlour window, at which Charley was seated, while his father darted through the doorway, along the pa.s.sage, and into the kitchen. Here the cat, having first capsized a pyramid of pans and kettles in its consternation, took refuge in an absolutely una.s.sailable position. Seeing this, Mr. Kennedy violently discharged a pailful of water at the spot, strode rapidly to his own apartment, and locked himself in.

"Dear me, Harry, what's wrong? my father seems unusually excited," said Charley, in some astonishment, as Harry entered the room, and flung himself on a chair with a look of chagrin.

"It's difficult to say, Charley; the fact is, I've asked your sister Kate to be my wife, and your father seems to have gone mad with indignation."

"Asked Kate to be your wife!" cried Charley, starting up, and regarding his friend with a look of amazement.

"Yes, I have," replied Harry, with an air of offended dignity. "I know very well that I am unworthy of her, but I see no reason why you and your father should take such pains to make me feel it."

"Unworthy of her, my dear fellow!" exclaimed Charley, grasping his hand and wringing it violently; "no doubt you are, and so is everybody, but you shall have her for all that, my boy. But tell me, Harry, have you spoken to Kate herself?"

"Yes, I have."

"And does she agree?"

"Well, I think I may say she does."

"Have you told my father that she does?"

"Why, as to that," said Harry, with a perplexed smile, "he didn't need to be told; he made _himself_ pretty well aware of the facts of the case."

"Ah! I'll soon settle _him_," cried Charley. "Keep your mind easy, old fellow; I'll very soon bring him round." With this a.s.surance, Charley gave his friend's hand another shake that nearly wrenched the arm from his shoulder, and hastened out of the room in search of his refractory father.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

The course of true love, curiously enough, runs smooth for once; and the curtain falls.

Time rolled on, and with it the sunbeams of summer went--the snowflakes of winter came. Needles of ice began to shoot across the surface of Red River, and gradually narrowed its bed. Crystalline trees formed upon the window-panes. Icicles depended from the eaves of the houses. Snow fell in abundance on the plains; liquid nature began rapidly to solidify, and not many weeks after the first frost made its appearance everything was (as the settlers expressed it) "hard and fast."

Mr. Kennedy, senior, was in his parlour, with his back to a blazing wood-fire that seemed large enough to roast an ox whole. He was standing, moreover, in a semi-picturesque att.i.tude, with his right hand in his breeches pocket and his left arm round Kate's waist. Kate was dressed in a gown that rivalled the snow itself in whiteness. One little gold clasp shone in her bosom; it was the only ornament she wore. Mr. Kennedy, too, had somewhat altered his style of costume. He wore a sky-blue, swallow-tailed coat, whose maker had flourished in London half-a-century before. It had a velvet collar about five inches deep, fitted uncommonly tight to the figure, and had a pair of bright bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, very close together, situated half-a-foot above the wearer's natural waist. Besides this, he had on a canary-coloured vest, and a pair of white duck trousers, in the fob of which _evidently_ reposed an immense gold watch of the olden time, with a bunch of seals that would have served very well as an anchor for a small boat.

Although the dress was, on the whole, slightly comical, its owner, with his full, fat, broad figure, looked remarkably well in it, nevertheless.

It was Kate's marriage-day, or rather marriage-evening; for the sun had set two hours ago, and the moon was now sailing in the frosty sky, its pale rays causing the whole country to s.h.i.+ne with a clear, cold, silvery whiteness.

The old gentleman had been for some time gazing in silent admiration on the fair brow and cl.u.s.tering ringlets of his daughter, when it suddenly occurred to him that the company would arrive in half-an-hour, and there were several things still to be attended to.

"h.e.l.lo, Kate!" he exclaimed, with a start, "we're forgetting ourselves.

The candles are yet to light, and lots of other things to do." Saying this, he began to bustle about the room in a state of considerable agitation.

"Oh, don't worry yourself, dear father!" cried Kate, running after him and catching him by the hand. "Miss Cook.u.mwell and good Mrs.

Taddipopple are arranging everything about tea and supper in the kitchen, and Tom Whyte has been kindly sent to us by Mr. Grant, with orders to make himself generally useful, so _he_ can light the candles in a few minutes, and you've nothing to do but to kiss me and receive the company." Kate pulled her father gently towards the fire again, and replaced his arm round her waist.

"Receive company! Ah, Kate, my love, that's just what I know nothing about. If they'd let me receive them in my own way, I'd do it well enough; but that abominable Mrs. Taddi-what's her name-has quite addled my brains and driven me distracted with trying to get me to understand what she calls _etiquette_."

Kate laughed, and said she didn't care _how_ he received them, as she was quite sure that, whichever way he did it, he would do it pleasantly and well.