“Hush, sir!” (drowning my voice)—“I’ll oblige you for once. You shall have my consent—and the plum, we mustn’t forget the plum—let me see! When shall it be? To-day’s Sunday—isn’t it! Well, then, you shall be married precisely—precisely, now mind!—when three Sundays come together in a week! Do you hear me, sir! What are you gaping at? I say, you shall have Kate and her plum when three Sundays come together in a week—but not till then—you young scapegrace—not till then, if I die for it. You know me—I’m a man of my word—now be off!” Here he grinned at me viciously, and I rushed from the room in despair.
A very “fine old English gentleman” was my granduncle, Rumgudgeon, but, unlike him of the song, he had his weak points. He was a little, pursy, pompous, passionate, semi-circular somebody, with a red nose, a thick skull, a long purse, and a strong sense of his own consequence. With the best heart in the world, he contrived, through a predominate whim of contradiction, to earn for himself, among those who only knew him superficially, the character of a curmudgeon. Like many excellent people, he seemed possessed with a spirit of tantalization, which might easily, at a casual glance, be mistaken for malevolence. To every request, a positive “No!” was his immediate answer; but in the end—in the long, long end—there were exceedingly few requests which he refused. Against all attacks upon his purse he made the most sturdy defence; but the amount extorted from him at last, was generally in direct ratio with the length of the siege and the stubbornness of the resistance. In charity, no one gave more liberally, or with a worse grace.
For the fine arts, especially for the belles-lettres, he entertained a profound contempt. Thus my own inkling for the Muses had excited his entire displeasure. He assured me one day, when I asked him for a new copy of Horace, that the translation of “Poeta nascitur, non fit”[456-1] was “a nasty poet for nothing fit”—a remark which I took in high dudgeon. His repugnance to the “humanities” had, also, much increased of late, by an accidental bias in favor of what he supposed to be natural science. Somebody had accosted him in the street, mistaking him for a no less personage than Doctor Dubble L. Dee, the lecturer upon quack physics. This set him off at a tangent; and just at the epoch of this story, my granduncle, Rumgudgeon, was accessible and pacific only upon the points which happened to chime in with the hobby he was riding.
I had lived with the old gentleman all my life. My parents in dying had bequeathed me to him as a rich legacy. I believe the old villain loved me as his own child—nearly if not quite as well as he loved Kate—but it was a dog’s existence that he led me after all. From my first year until my fifth, he obliged me with very regular floggings. From five to fifteen, he threatened me, hourly, with the House of Correction. From fifteen to twenty not a day passed in which he did not promise to cut me off with a shilling. I was a sad dog it is true, but then it was a part of my nature—a point of my faith.
In Kate, however, I had a firm friend, and I knew it. She was a good girl, and told me very sweetly that I might have her (plum and all) whenever I could badger my granduncle, Rumgudgeon, into the necessary consent. Poor girl! she was barely fifteen, and without this consent her little amount in the funds was not come-at-able until five immeasurable summers had “dragged their slow length along.” What then to do? In vain we besieged the old gentleman with importunities. It would have stirred the indignation of Job himself to see how much like an old mouser he behaved to us two little mice. In his heart he wished for nothing more ardently than our union. He had made up his mind to this all along. In fact he would have given ten thousand pounds from his own pocket (Kate’s plum was her own) if he could have invented anything like an excuse for complying with our very natural wishes. But then we had been so imprudent as to broach the matter ourselves. Not to oppose it under the circumstances, I sincerely believe, was not in his power.
My granduncle was, after his own fashion, a man of his word, no doubt. The spirit of his vows he made no scruple of setting at naught, but the letter was a bond inviolable. Now it was this peculiarity in his disposition of which Kate’s ingenuity enabled us one fine day, not long after our interview in the drawing-room, to take a very unexpected advantage.
It happened then—so the Fates ordered it—that among the naval acquaintances of my betrothed were two gentlemen who had just set foot upon the shores of England, after a year’s absence, each, in foreign travel. In company with these gentlemen, Kate and I, preconcertedly, paid uncle Rumgudgeon a visit on the afternoon of Sunday, October the tenth—just three weeks after the memorable decision which had so cruelly defeated our hopes. For about half an hour the conversation ran upon ordinary topics; but at last we contrived, quite naturally, to give it the following turn:
Capt. Pratt. “Well, I have been absent just one year. Just one year to-day, as I live—let me see! yes!—this is October the tenth. You remember, Mr. Rumgudgeon, I called this day year, to bid you good-bye. And by the way, it does seem something like a coincidence, does it not—that our friend, Captain Smitherton, has been absent exactly a year also, a year to-day?”