“Arthur, wait one moment,” exclaimed Coverdale, laying his hand on his friend’s arm to detain him; “I have something important to say to you;—isn’t she an angel, my dear boy?”
“Why really, my good fellow, between friends, and seeing that you appear to attach so much importance to the fact, I should say, taking into consideration the evidence in the case, and coming to the point without any unnecessary prolixity, that she was by no means an angel, but simply a very pleasant little female mortal, and—ahem! my poor sister, sir.”
“Psha! you stupid old humbug!” returned Harry, giving him a playful push, which caused him involuntarily to leap over a flower-bed; “do just listen to me for a minute, and give me a sensible answer if you can. It’s all very pretty for my darling Alice, and you and I, to settle this matter so sweetly and easily; but remember, there’s the governor to bring round, and Crane and his confounded £20,000 a-year to beat out of the field; it strikes me we’re in an awful fix, and about to become an interesting young couple. What is to be the next move, eh?”
“Oh, the affair lies in a nutshell,” returned Hazlehurst. “Fortunately, my father has always appreciated you properly, and now the unusual degree of influence you have acquired over him will stand you in good stead. He may be a little annoyed at first, when he finds he must relinquish his favourite design of purchasing old Crane’s farm; but he is very fond of Alice, and very proud of her.”
“He’d be a most unnatural old heathen if he wasn’t,” muttered Harry, sotto voce.
“Consequently,” continued Hazlehurst, not heeding the interruption, “when he perceives the immeasurable advantages to be obtained by allowing her to marry a man she loves, and who is in every way deserving of her affection, instead of an old scarecrow, who will be in his dotage (I believe he is so already, more or less!) while Ally is still quite a young woman, he cannot hesitate for a moment in giving his consent. You had better speak to him the instant breakfast is over; depend upon it you’ll find him all amiability.”
“Depend upon it I shall find him nothing of the kind,” returned Coverdale, snappishly; then, seeing the look of surprise that spread over his friend’s countenance, he continued, dejectedly:—“Ah, my dear boy, you little know the extent to which I’ve been putting my foot in it since you went away. Tom tells me I annoyed your governor three or four days ago, by taking the nonsense out of that beast of a horse old Crane had the stupidity to give Alice; a brute which would have broken her sweet neck, if I hadn’t luckily been at hand to catch her as she was falling. Then, to improve the matter, last night we all drank wine enough, and the Head of the Family got a little too much into it to be good for its proprietor; accordingly, he forced me to give my opinion about Free-trade, and then pitched into me for so doing, and declared I’d insulted him: upon which I lost my temper, and said something rude; and, to come to the point, as you call it, he is now as savage as a bear with me, and all the blessed influence you’ve been paying me such pretty compliments about, if it ever existed, is scattered to the winds. I dare not speak to him, it would be worse than useless; he’d be only too glad to refuse me at once, lest he should lose such a good opportunity of paying me off for last night. Ah!” he continued, “you may well look puzzled,—you would not like to have many clients with such a talent as I possess for unconsciously cutting their own throats! What’s to be done?—divide the wires of the electric telegraph at King’s Cross Station, and then take Alice along the Great Northern to Gretna Green—though Gretna Green has been done brown by some recent act, has it not, and the harmonious and hymeneal blacksmith retired into private life? Come, advise, for I can hit upon nothing; only remember one thing,—since Alice is good enough to say she will have me, married I must and will be, if all the fathers in England were to set themselves against it!”