“Papist!” she repeated angrily; “no more a papist than you are! Why, I sent him up a slice o’ powdered beef was last Friday, with a bit of garnishing, parsnips and what not, and he eats it up every scrap, and asks for another plateful. Papist! says you! and what if he were? I tell you if he was the Pope o’ Rome, come to live respectable on my first floor, he’s a sight more to my mind for a lodger than his friend the captain! Papists, indeed! If I wanted to lay my hand on a papist, I needn’t to travel far for to seek one. Though, I will say, my lady’s liker a hangel nor a Frenchwoman, and if all the papists was made up to her pattern, why for my part, I’d up and cry ‘Bless the Pope!’ with the rankest on ’em all!”
It was obvious that this northern district took no especial credit to itself for the bigotry of its Protestantism, and Mrs. Dodge, though a staunch member enough of the reformed religion, allowed no scruples of conscience to interfere with the gains of her hostelry, nor perhaps entertained any less kindly sentiments towards the persecuted members of the Church of Rome, that they formed some of her best customers, paying handsomely for the privacy of their apartments, while they ate and drank of the choicest during their seclusion.
But this unacknowledged partiality was a bone of contention between his sweetheart’s aunt and Slap-Jack. The latter prided himself especially on being what he termed True-Blue, holding in great abhorrence everything connected with Rome, St. Germains, and the Jacobite party. He allowed of no saints in the calendar except Lady Hamilton, whom he excepted from his denunciations by some reasoning process of his own which it is needless to follow out. Nevertheless Alice knew right well that such an argument as now seemed imminent was the sure forerunner of a storm. “Aunt,” said she softly, “I’ve looked out all the table linen, and done my washing-up till supper-time. If you want nothing particular, I’ll run out and get a breath of fresh air off the moor before it gets dark.”
“And it’s time for me to be off, Aunt Dodge!” exclaimed Slap-Jack, as Alice knew full well he would. “Bless ye, we shall beat to quarters at the Hill, now in less than half an hour, and being a warrant-officer, as you may say, o’ course it’s for me to set a good example to the ship’s company. Fare ye well, Mrs. Dodge, and give the priest a wide berth, if he comes alongside, though I’ll never believe as you’ve turned papist, until I see you barefoot at the church door, in a white sheet with a candle in your hand!”
With this parting shot, Slap-Jack seized his hat and ran out, leaving Mrs. Dodge to smile blandly over the fire, fingering her gold cross, and thinking drowsily, now of her clean sanded floor, now of her bright dishes and gaudy array of crockery, now of her own comely person and the agreeable manners of her lodger overhead.
Meanwhile it is scarcely necessary to say, that although Slap-Jack had expressed such haste to depart, he lingered in the cold wind off the moor not far from the house door, till he saw Alice emerge for the mouthful of fresh air that was so indispensable, but against which she fortified herself with a checked woollen shawl, which she muffled in a manner he thought very becoming, round her pretty head.
Neither need I describe the start of astonishment with which she acknowledged the presence of her lover, as if he was the very last person she expected to meet; nor the assumed reluctance of her consent to accompany him a short distance on his homeward way; nor even the astonishment she expressed at his presumption in adjusting her muffler more comfortably, and exacting for his assistance the payment that is often so willingly granted while it is so vehemently refused. These little manœuvres had been rehearsed very often of late, but had not yet begun to pall in the slightest degree. The lovers had long ago arrived at that agreeable phase of courtship, when the reserve of an agitating and uncertain preference has given way to the confidence of avowed affection. They had a thousand things to talk about, and they talked about them very close together, perhaps because the wind swept bleak and chill over the moor in the gathering twilight. It was warmer no doubt, and certainly pleasanter, thus to carry two faces under one hood.
It is impossible to overhear the conversation of people in such close juxtaposition, nor is it usually, we believe, worth much trouble on the part of an eavesdropper. I imagine it consists chiefly of simple, not to say idiotic remarks, couched in corresponding language, little more intelligible to rational persons than that with which a nurse endeavours to amuse a baby, whose demeanour, by the way, generally seems to express a dignified contempt for the efforts of its attendant. When we consider the extravagances of speech by which we convey our strongest sentiments, we need not be surprised at the follies of which we are guilty in their indulgence. When we recall the absurdities with which an infant’s earliest ideas of conversation must be connected, can we wonder what fools people grow up in after life?
It was nearly dark when they parted, and a clear streak of light still lingered over the edge of the moor. Alice indeed would have gone further, but Slap-Jack had his own ideas as to his pretty sweetheart being abroad so late, and the chance of an escort home, from Captain Bold returning not quite sober on the wicked bay mare; so he clasped her tenderly in his arms, receiving at the same time a hearty kiss given ungrudgingly and with good-will, ere she fleeted away like a phantom, while he stood watching till the last flutter of her dress disappeared through the gloom. Then he, too, turned unwillingly homeward, with a prayer for the woman he loved on his lips.
If Alice looked round, it was under the corner of her muffler, and she sped back to her gleaming saucepans, her white dishes, and the warm glow of her aunt’s kitchen, with a step as light as her happy maiden heart.