“The day Oi was married,” he chuckled, “Oi never offered to sleep the noight afore—ne yet the noight arter! He, he!”
“Go away, Gran’fer!” she begged frantically. “Let me go to sleep.”
“Ay, ay, goo to sleep, my little mavis. Nobody shan’t touch ye. What a pity we ate up that wedding-cake! But Oi had to cut a shiver to stop his boggin’ and crakin’, hadn’t Oi, dearie?”
“Quite right. Better eat wedding-cake than humble-pie!” she jested desperately.
“Ef he comes sniffin’ around arter you’re married, Oi’ll snap him in two like this whip!”
“Don’t break my whip!” She clutched at the beribboned butt.
“That’s my whip, Jinny! Let that go!”
“Well, go to bed then!” With a happy thought, she lit the tallow candle on her bedside chair and tendered it to him. It operated as mechanically upon his instinctive habits as she had hoped.
“Good night, dearie,” he said, and very soon she heard him undressing as usual, and his snore came with welcome rapidity. Then she sprang out of bed, pulled on some clothes, and ran out to release the angry and mystified Methusalem from the shafts and to receive his nuzzled forgiveness in the stable. But when she got back to bed, sleep long refused to come; the sense of her tragic situation was overwhelming. Even the great peace of the moonlit night could not soak into her. It was impossible to go to the wedding now, she felt. When at last sleep came, she was again incomprehensibly Queen Victoria hemmed in by foes, and protected only by “The Father of the Fatherless” with his black whiskers. She awoke about dawn, unrefreshed and hungry, but a cold sponging from the basin her grandfather had prepared enabled her to cope with the labours of the day. She looked forward with apprehension to the scene with the old man when he should realize that the grand match was indeed off, but she could think of nothing better than going about in her dirtiest apron to keep his mind off the subject. The precaution proved unnecessary. He slept so late and so heavily—as if a weight was off his mind—that when he at last awoke he seemed to have slept the delusion off, as though it were something too recent to remain in his memory. As for the scene in the small hours, that had apparently left no impress at all upon his brain. In fact, so jocose and natural was he at breakfast, which she purposely made prodigal for him, that the optimism of the morning sun, which came streaming in, almost banished her own memory of it too: it seemed as much a nightmare as her desperate struggle against the foes of Victoria-Jinny. The lure of the wedding jaunt revived, and the thought of the domestic economy she would be achieving thereby, made her sparing of her own breakfast. She had a bad moment, however, when her grandfather suddenly caught sight of the horseless cart outside.
“Stop thief!” he cried, jumping up agitatedly.