He was an English boy of her own age, and he was only staying in the island for his holidays. The second time she saw him it was in the grounds at Glenfaba, while his mother was returning a call indoors. She gave him a little tap on the arm and he had to run after her—down a bank and up a tree, where she laughed and said. “Isn't it nice?” and he could see nothing but her big white teeth.
His name was Francis Horatio Nelson Drake, and he was full of great accounts of the goings-on in the outer world, where his school was, and where lived the only “men” worth talking about. Of course he spoke of all this familiarly and with a convincing reality which wrapped Glory in the plumage of dreams. He was a wonderful being, altogether, and in due time (about three days) she proposed to him. True, he did not jump at her offer with quite proper alacrity, but when she mentioned that it didn't matter to her in the least whether he wanted her or not, and that plenty would be glad of the chance, he saw things differently, and they agreed to elope. There was no particular reason for this drastic measure, but as Glory had a boat, it seemed the right thing to do.
She dressed herself in all her Confirmation finery, and stole out to meet him under the bridge where her boat lay moored. He kept her half an hour waiting, having sisters and other disadvantages, but “once aboard her lugger,” he was safe. She was breathless, and he was anxious, and neither thought it necessary to waste any time in kissing.
They slipped down the harbour and out into the bay, and then ran up the sail and stood off for Scotland. Being more easy in mind when this was done, they had time to talk of the future. Francis Horatio was for work—he was going to make a name for himself. Glory did not see it quite in that light. A name, yes, and lots of triumphal processions, but she was for travel—there were such lots of things people could see if they didn't waste so much time working.
“What a girl you are!” he said derisively; whereupon she bit her lip, for she didn't quite like it. But they were nearly half an hour out before he spoiled himself utterly. He had brought his dog, a she-terrier, and he began to call her by her kennel name and to say what a fine little thing she was, and what a deal of money they would make by her pups. That was too much for Glory. She couldn't think of eloping with a person who used such low expressions.
“What a girl you are!” he said again; but she did not mind it in the least. With a sweep of her bare arm she had put the tiller hard aport, intending to tack back to Peel, but the wind had freshened and the sea was rising, and by the swift leap of the boat the boom was snapped, and the helpless sail came napping down upon the mast. Then they tumbled into the trough, and Glory had not strength to pull them out of it, and the boy was of no more use than a tripper. She was in her white muslin dress, and he was nursing his dog, and the night was closing down on them, and they were wobbling about under a pole and a tattered rag. But all at once a great black yacht came heaving up in the darkness, and a grown-up voice cried, “Trust yourself to me, dear.”
It was John Storm. He had already awakened the young girl in her, and thereafter he awakened the young woman as well. She clung to him like a child that night, and during the four years following she seemed always to be doing the same. He was her big brother, her master, her lord, her sovereign. She placed him on a dizzy height above her, amid a halo of goodness and grandeur. If he smiled on her she flushed, and if he frowned she fretted and was afraid. Thinking to please him, she tried to dress herself up in all the colours of the rainbow, but he reproved her and bade her return to her jersey. She struggled to comb out her red curls until he told her that the highest ladies in the land would give both ears for them, and then she fondled them in her fingers and admired them in a glass.
He was a serious person, but she could make him laugh until he screamed. Excepting Byron and “Sir Charles Grandison,” out of the vicar's library, the only literature she knew was the Bible, the Catechism, and the Church Service, and she used these in common talk with appalling freedom and audacity. The favourite butt of her mimicry was the parish clerk saying responses when he was sleepy.
The parson: “O Lord, open thou our lips” (no response). “Where are you, Neilus?”
The clerk (awakening suddenly in the desk below): “Here I am, your reverence—and our mouth shall show forth thy praise.”