The next moment I found my body, safe and unhurt, on the hearth of Dame Caddlefurrow's kitchen. There was the dame, seated in her bee-hive chair, staring with surprise, impatience, and anger, at my worship in the barrow. As soon as the clown recovered his lost breath, he proceeded to an explanation of the cause of his introducing such an unsightly and unknown personage as me to her goodly presence. “I ha; zeed the chap,” quoth he, elevating the handles of his wheelbarrow to the top of his shoulders, so as to afford the dame a full view of my person; “I ha' zeed the chap scaures and scaures o' times, skulking about the hill, always and vor ever just about night-vall, when 1 do goa a-voddering the beasts; zo, thinks I, thic jockey bean't loitering about here zo often wi' any good plan in his noddle: moorauver, I ha' zeed un, coming athirt the vields ov a night, just avore harvest, treading down whole zheaves o' wheat at a voot-vall:—that nettled I more nor all; zo I looked out vor un to-night, zlipped un into the dung-barry, walked un down the hill-zide, and drove un through the ould porch ztraight as a vurrow:—zo here a' is, and let un gi'e a'count ov hi'zelf.”
“Ay, let un give an account of himself,” said the sturdy dame; “Who bee'st, 'oesbert?”—To say that I was at the point of dissolution, were needless. I began to mutter a few incoherent sentences, when one of the fellows at the door cried out, “He's Habby Bullwrinkle, the devil's-bird, down in the village.”
“A lawyer!” shouted Mistress Caddlefurrow, in a tone that doomed me, in perspective, to all the horrors of the horse-pond;—“Why, thou bloated raven! thou—”
“Zober—zober, mother,” whispered a voice behind me; and a hand, at the same time, quietly put the enraged widow back towards her bee-hive; “bide a bit; only bide a bit; hearken to reason.” I extricated myself from the barrow, and looked up to see who my protecting angel could possibly be; it was no other than Skelpie. “This gentleman's my vreind,” continued he, looking drolly towards me; “he and I be main vond o' one another; I zeldom goes to chat wi' a lass, but what he is near at hand; zo—d'ye mind?—he often come wi' I to the top of the hill, and bided there, while I just stepped down to court little Ally vor an hour or zo; that's all:—I left un there to-night. I axed the mopus to come in, but he's modest, main modest, vor a chap of his years.” So saying, he resumed his seat, and tendered me the cider-mug and a spare pipe in such a friendly and unsuspicious manner, that told me all was right in a moment. The clowns retired, and the old dame looked on me as kindly as her features would permit, under the impression that I was the chosen friend of her niece's intended husband; for such, I soon discovered, Skelpie was by her considered!—As soon as the storm in my veins had somewhat abated, I looked around for the mild goddess of my idolatry, the lady-like, modest, soft, silver-eyed Ally Budd.
She was drooping in a dark corner, with a check apron thrown over her folded arms, and snoring audibly!
I could not bear to think of the heartless creature for a year after; of course I never hovered over the abode of Dame Caddlefurrow again. Skelpie soon deserted the cold lass for another love; and, after being obliged to dance in her stocking-vamps, according to the custom of the country, at the marriages of her two younger sisters, Ally was wedded to an unlucky miser,—the most miserable character under the sun. But to resume:—after lighting my pipe, I sat for some minutes absorbed in reflections on my late adventure. I did not like Skelpie a whit the better for having shielded me from the wrath of the boisterous widow; a blow from his hand would have been much more acceptable than a favour: I imagined that he was rioting on the idea of having vexed me, by his act of apparent good-nature and kindness; and I construed his silence very much in favour of this vagary of my heated imagination. Presently I heard a noise behind old mother Caddlefurrow's chair, which resembled the faint and irregular chuckling of a woman's half-stifled laugh; and, anon, a tuft of hair, dark as the raven's wing, topped by a pheasant's plume, gleamed over the head of the chair; a white brow, and a pair of laughing black eyes, brim full of tears, followed; and in a few minutes, Kate Skelpie, the wicked, mischievous sister of my deliverer, tumbled out of the recess, which the dame's chair had effectually shaded. She was a round, dumpy lass, full of tricks as a frolicsome colt, with an impertinent cocked nose, and a pair of lips, that were continually in waggish and most alluring motion. I had seen her before at a farmer's merry-making, when she picked me out for a partner, and, notwithstanding my obesity, obliged me to dance down six-and-thirty couple of giggling girls, and roaring men;—keeping up, all the time, as grave a face as ever sat on the shoulders of an undertaker. I pitched and leaped about like a gambolling rhinoceros, to the infinite diversion of the company, and my own solitary grief and dismay. Kate and I were the only persons in the room who looked at all solid. I felt an inkling of affection for the lass, even then,—why, I know not; and the continual crossings I received from Skelpie, determined me to make love under his own roof, where I should, most probably, be sure of peace and quietness in my trysting; as Skelpie usually past the love time of the nights, about at the abodes of the different village toasts. Here was a glorious opportunity of improving my acquaintance with the twinkling-eyed Kate! She was not such a poetical-looking creature as the snoring Ally Budd, nor so tall and comely as the false daughter of Grobstock; nevertheless, Kate Skelpie was a jocund, pretty, and captivating young lass. I courted her, and prospered.
She had no meddling parents to interfere with us; and Skelpie was, of course, absent from home five nights in the week. Many were the pranks which the dear jade played me; but I did not care;—they kept my flame alive, and her occasional kind looks and unsolicited salutes convinced me that I held a place in her heart. In the meantime, however, I carried on the war in another quarter. I had two nights in the week to spare, and these I spent at a farm-house about a mile from the village, with a slender young maiden, named Amaranth Saffem.
One Saturday evening, Skelpie overtook me as I was journeying towards Amaranth's dwelling. He accosted me civilly; and having some serious notions about his sister, I did not scruple to enter into conversation with him. He had not crossed me for above a month; and Kate had informed me, the night before, “that she should have a good bit of gold, if the old chap at the Lands' End would but take it into his head just to die a bit:” these were good reasons for my civility, and we discoursed on the most fashionable village topics with great urbanity and mildness. At length, however, we arrived at Amaranth's door; and then, for the first time, the truth flashed upon each of our minds. We were both evidently bent on a love-visit to the fair Saffern. Skelpie looked rather hurt, methought, and could not help heaving a short sigh. However, we both went in, and found Amaranth alone. It was market-day; and her crippled grandfather, with whom she dwelt, as we both well knew, was gone to, and in all probability would remain at, the next market-town until a late hour, according to his usual custom; otherwise, we should almost as soon have ventured into a tiger's den, to despoil the animal of a whelp, as pay a love-visit to the old man's granddaughter. The miller was a lamb, compared with dame Caddlefurrow; and that lady a dove in deportment, to old Jagger Saffern. But more of him anon.
Amaranth, it was plain, favoured me rather than Skelpie. Without vanity be it spoken, I was, at that time, barring my obesity, which rendered me somewhat unsightly in the eyes of the lean, rather a personable man, and not quite forty. I was by no means particularly solicitous to gain the young Saffem's affections, yet she clung to me in preference to Skelpie, who did all in his power to please her. He was evidently in love, and for the first time in his life, felt the pangs of jealousy in his heart. I was his successful rival!—I, even I, Habakkuk Bullwrinkle, the devil's bird, whom he had so long despised, had succeeded in warping the affections of his Amaranth!—He bit his lip, loured and smiled by fits, and, in vain endeavoured to conceal the state of his heart. Amaranth seemed to rejoice in his torments; she had always been tolerably liberal in her tokens of affection, but, on this occasion, she almost exceeded the bounds of probability. I did not much like it at last; for I began to think she was making a fool of me. We went on in this way for above an hour, when the old cripple's poney suddenly clattered into the court-yard. Skelpie started on his legs in evident alarm. There was no way of escape, but through a back door into a little yard, which was surrounded by a villanous high wall, so smooth, and well-built too, as to defy even Skelpie's clambering capabilities.
We had not been a moment outside the door, before the cripple entered the house. Skelpie was endeavouring with all his might to get over the wall: he clung like a cat to the bare bricks; but, before he had well reached half-way up, his foot slipped, and down he came. I was standing disconsolately underneath him; he fell so suddenly, that I had not time to get out of the way, and Skelpie's ponderous and hard skull struck me full in the pit of my stomach, and sent me staggering against the back door, which naturally gave way with the shock, and I was precipitated, on the broad of my back, in the very middle of the floor. Luckily, I came in contact with the table on which the candle stood, and extinguished the light in my fall. The embers were dying on the hearth, and Skelpie had hauled me by the legs, back into the yard, before the cripple (who waited to reach his loaded blunderbuss before he looked round) could catch more than a vague glimpse of my form and features. The door swung inward, and Skelpie easily held it fast enough to prevent the cripple from pulling it open;—at the same time carefully screening his body behind the wall of the house, from the cripple's bullets, which we expected to hear rattling through the door every moment. He growled like an incensed bear, and muttered curses by wholesale on poor Amaranth, whom we heard whining most piteously. At length, he seemed to take a sudden resolution, chuckled audibly, and proceeded to barricade the door with all the furniture in the room. Here was an end to all our hopes of enfranchisement and safety. But, oh! dear me! what were my feelings, when I heard the cripple hobbling up stairs, and trying to open a little window which commanded the yard! We were in a sad situation; our only choice of avoiding the lynx eyes of Jagger was by getting into two water-butts, which stood in the yard. The windows of the house looked into every corner, so that we could not possibly hope to conceal ourselves behind them. In we went together, but my ill luck still attended me; Skelpie crouched comfortably in the belly of a dry butt, but the one, into which I floundered, was half full of water. The chilling liquid rose to within a foot and a half of the brim, the moment I got in, so that it was impossible for me to crouch, being actually standing on tip-toe, neck high in water! It was a bleak night, but my fever saved my life.