Latitude 19 degree Part 36

"Don't shoot!" said the Skipper; adding, with neither breath nor grammar, "It's me," Another gasp to get his breath, and then the words, "She's consented."

"Whose consented to what?" roared I.

"Why, Cynthy. She's consented to be married to you."

"Oh, she has, has she? Well, then, Captain Schuyler, you can go and tell your niece that it usually takes two to make a bargain."

"That's polite," returned the Skipper. "Ain't you ashamed of yourself after all the fuss I've had to get her to come round?"

"Ashamed!" returned I. "I should think you would be ashamed of yourself to propose such a thing;" and then, my feelings being too strong for me, I subsided with the brilliant exclamation, "The idea!"

The Skipper looked sheepish.

"Yes, it's all my idea," he began eagerly, but I cut him short.

"Are you really insane," said I, "or are you only feigning lunacy?"

"I'm as sane as you are," said he, "and a great deal saner. Imagine it"--he addressed a supposit.i.tious audience--"here's a man asked to marry a lovely young girl, plain but amiable----"

"That's where you're wrong," said I. "She hasn't a plain hair in her head, and she's d.a.m.ned unamiable. Go on and tell some more lies."

"Now think of his gettin' so mad as that--at an old man who only wants to do him a favour."

"You've made me ridiculous, that's what you've done; you've made me a laughing stock, and I won't stand it, Captain Schuyler, I----"

"Oh, come, come, now, Jones! I want to tell you my idea. I know just how much you love that girl, and I know just as well that she don't care two straws for you."

"The devil you do!" said I sulkily.

"But something's got to be done! That girl has only me, her old Uncle, to look after her. I'm an old man, Jones. Perhaps I shan't be able to stand all that you young people may have to. If anything happens to me, I want to feel that Cynthy has a protector."

"I should always do my best to take care of your niece, Captain Schuyler," said I; "but how do you know she doesn't care two straws for me?"

"Why she says she doesn't, and any one can see it with half an eye. I reelly believe," said the Skipper, pointing his remark with a very h.o.r.n.y forefinger, "that she would like the Bo's'n, or even the Minion, better."

"And yet you insult us both by asking us to marry each other."

"No, I ain't. I'm asking _her_ to marry _you_. Lord, Jones, I ain't thinking of you. Now, you see, it's this way, Jones. You're more in her station of life. To be sure, you haven't the proud lineage of William Brown--his mother's great aunt is a Schuyler--but you're nearer to it than the Bo's'n, besides which your position aboard the Yankee Blade was enough. And then, you know, it isn't a reel marriage. You can give each other up at any time. She expects firmly to marry William when she gets home. He'll be waitin' for her on the dock. I presume she's told you?"

"Yes, she has told me," said I.

"You see, if you were married to Cynthy, and anything should happen, and she needed a protector----Oh, darn it all, Jones, can't you see what I mean?"

"What did you mean by saying that she has consented?"

"Why, she has, she reelly has. I put it to her in such a way that she says she sees my point, and she will go through the form of marriage----"

"A hollow mockery!" I broke in. "I won't consent."

"What, after all the trouble I've taken? You must, Jones. You can't refuse a la----"

"We have no clergyman," argued I. My heart thumped at the bare idea of standing up and holding Cynthia's hand before witnesses.

"I'm one," said the Skipper, drawing himself up proudly, so that I began to think that his recently developed fad for playing chaplain was at the root of his desire for this marriage. "A captain is always a clergyman on the high seas."

"On the high seas!" returned I, looking sarcastically round at the mossy hillside.

"Don't be a fool, Jones! See there!" He parted the low-sweeping branches. I looked out to sea, where a little bit of the wreck showed over the white-capped surface of the water.

He pointed with his short finger.

"You see that deck there? That represents power, Jones, one man power.

I'm absolute monarch there, Jones. I'm clergyman on those bits of planks, Jones. There I'm prophet, Jones. There I'm priest, Jones, and there I'm king."

"You are not," said I, my orthodox blood boiling in my veins. "You're an old blasphemer, Captain Schuyler!"

"Well, you'll see whether I am or not. I'm goin' to marry you to Cynthy on that deck, just as sure as I sit here."

"How did she happen to consent?" asked I, beginning to weaken at this delicious prospect.

"All on my account," said the Skipper. "Now stop askin' questions and come along."

I wondered why Cynthia had consented. I could not understand it. As for me, my brain was on fire at the thought, and I made up my mind then and there that when the words were spoken that made Cynthia mine William Brown might stand on the dock and whistle for his bride until the millennium. I felt in my waistcoat pocket for the little ring. Yes, there it was, quite safe. It would come into use more quickly than I had imagined. My thoughts were such happy ones that I arose with beaming face and started toward the cave.

"Oh, you needn't be in a hurry; she don't want you. Besides, she's got her dress to wash. Lazy's going to help her."

"You told me to come," said I appealingly.

"Yes, because she told me to take you away out of her sight. Promised her we'd take the boat and pull along the beach aways, and leave her free. The dress won't take long to dry in the sun and wind."

So it was to be a mock marriage, after all!

"I hope you've got some money, Jones," said the Skipper. "Not that I am anxious for a rich husband for my niece, but it's always well----"

I smiled consciously, feeling that the Skipper would be perfectly satisfied with my share of the fortune hidden by the Bo's'n for our mutual benefit.

"I don't own the Belleville copper mines, it is true," said I, "but what I own is rather more negotiable than their products. I will tell you a secret, Captain, if you will promise me never to tell a soul, not even your niece."

"Honest Ingun!" said the Skipper.

I leaned over and whispered in his ear in exultant tones:

"I shall never need to go to sea after this trip, Captain." I was just on the point of telling him more, but my promise to the Bo's'n suddenly came to mind, and I shut my lips over my teeth as if they were screwed together.

"The reason I ask you is this," said the Skipper. "I shan't have anything to leave my niece, and my sister Mary 'Zekel is no better off than I am. You see," said Captain Schuyler, "there's usually a rich branch in a family and a poor one. I belong to the poor branch. We couldn't all be educated--money wouldn't hold out. I've got a brother who's fit to be a professor. Nothin' he don't know. Just as pleasant to me as if I was the most learned man in the world. That's the nice thing about the Schuylers. None of 'em ashamed of their relations. My mother was a cousin of the general's. I suppose you think I've got no right to the name of Schuyler, but I'd like to know who is nearer to a man than his own mother? Suppose my father's name wasn't Schuyler. I claim that I have just as much right to the hawk as if I was one of the rich ones, and my name is Schuyler as well as my mother's. Same blood runs in my veins. Maybe a poor quality of blood, but it's got Schuyler into it, and you can't get it out."

The day pa.s.sed with a combination of haste and speed that I have never known equalled. It dragged when I thought that the setting sun would see Cynthia my wife. It flew when I thought how she would scorn me, flout me, and hate the very idea of being bound to me.

"Remember, Jones, it's only a 'sort-of' bond, not actual marriage," said the Skipper for the twentieth time as we pulled slowly along the sh.o.r.e, looking for a fresh supply of oysters.