CHAPTER XV SISTER v. SWEETHEART
There had not been, so far as I could recollect, anything that could be called even a tiff—if such a wretched syllable can find its way into the heaven seventy-seventh—between the lovely Dariel and myself; but on the other hand I had left her rather more abruptly than courtesy would warrant, because of the grievous tranquillity she displayed in speaking of a fellow (a Prince Hafer, as she called him), who possessed almost every hateful merit, and was eager to bring it in, to cut out mine, by some underhand and undermining fraud. What had I done to be treated like this? Was there no claim established on my part? Was it nothing to have come down the hill that evening, at the risk of my neck and Old Joe's as well, and then to put up with a strained conscience for a month, and then to catch no fish every day, for it might be a week of hook and barb, and then to run a frightful risk of hydrophobia, and then to let my duty and the business of the farm—however, there was not much to be said about that; but what had I done that no message came, that I should be left to cool my heels, without even a distant sigh in token of some little anxiety about me?
"Send Allai to me to-morrow night," I had said as plainly as possible, "and you shall hear all about young Nickols." It was no young Nickols—that was my mistake, or my jealousy had rejuvenised him; but that could not alter the intention.
Was it to be supposed that Dariel, the gentle, and sensible, and simple-hearted Dariel had taken offence at my hasty departure, and resolved to have no more to say to me?
I passed a very anxious and uncomfortable time, endeavouring vainly to turn my whole attention to the doings and the interests of other people, who certainly had a strong claim upon me; but still a certain feeling would arise in my kindest and largest moments, that it was scarcely just on my part to neglect with such severity my entire duty to myself. Who was farmer Bandilow, who was Lord Melladew, Jackson Stoneman, or even sister Grace, that I should have no one to think about but them? Let the whole parish, and the county too, rush into the Union, and break stones, or be stone-broken, by means of this new crack; but love is immortal, Love is Lord of all; what had I done to make him hold his blessed tongue like this?
I strode about, and strove about, and let everybody know that when I was put upon I could stand up against it; and my dear sister Grace, who had ideas of her own, such as I had spoiled her into when she was my childhood's pet, was beginning to smell—oh, vile metaphor!—a rat; because I would not always do exactly what she wanted, and once I had the courage to tell her, that there were other girls in the world besides Grace Cranleigh. Her state of mind at this was enough to prove to mine, that the great truth thus pronounced was a good one for the world; and I venture, with some tenderness, to intimate as much. But how much better for me, as for every man so placed, if, instead of using tongue, I had plunged both hands into my pockets—a proceeding which puzzles and checkmates the female race, because they cannot gracefully do the like—and then had walked off with a whistle, which adds pari ratione to their outer insight.
"Then I am right," said Grace, catching her advantage, as a girl always does, before it is even on the hop; "there is some sly girl, without the sense of right to come and ask me what I think of it, who has laid her snares too cleverly for my dear brother George, my only brother, I might say. For Harold is too far above us in intellect to be counted as one of the family. Oh, it is so sad, so sad and cruel to me!"
"Explain yourself," I answered, hitting by a fluke on the very best thing to be said to a girl, because she never knows how to do it. And what had Harold done, to be set in the sky, like that?