May Agnes Fleming
The Gypsy Queen's Vow
“Now, what in the name of Diana and all her nymphs is coming?” mentally exclaimed Pet, as she watched in surprise his embarrassment. “The cool, self-possessed, dignified Mr. Rozzel Garnet blushing like a boiled lobster before poor little Pet Lawless! Snakes and sarpints, and varmints generally, the world’s coming to an end – that’s certain!”
Then aloud:
“Mr. Garnet, I desired you to fire away, which translated from the original Greek, means go ahead, and say whatever you want to. No need to be bashful about it seeing it’s only me.”
The flush on Mr. Garnet’s cheek deepened, as he said:
“Perhaps, Miss Petronilla, what I am about to say may be unexpected, but it can hardly take you by surprise. The change in my manner toward you for the last few months must have prepared you for it.”
He stopped short, and began walking up and down. Pet stuck both hands in her apron-pockets, and stood waiting, “like Patience on a monument,” for what was to come next.
“It’s no gunpowder-plot, or hanging matter, now, is it?” she began. “For though I wouldn’t mind setting the Chesapeake on fire, or blowing up the Alleghanies, I’ve an immense respect for the laws of my country, Mr. Garnet, and would not like to undermine the Constitution, or anything of that sort. Any common matter, though, from riding a steeple-chase to fighting a duel, and I’m yours to command.”
“Miss Lawless, may I beg of you to be serious for a few moments – this is no jesting matter,” said the gentleman, looking annoyed.
“Well, my goodness! ain’t I serious? I’ll leave it to the company, generally, if I’m not as solemn as a hearse. If you’d only condescend to look at me instead of watching the flowers in the carpet, you would see my face is half a yard long.”
“Then, Miss Lawless, to come to the matter at once – for I know you do not like long prefaces – I love you, I worship you, Petronilla! Petronilla, dearer then life! may I hope one day to possess this dear hand?”
Now, if our Pet had been sentimental, she would have blushed becomingly, burst into tears, or covered her face with her hands, maybe; but Pet wasn’t a bit sentimental, and so, arching her eyebrows, and opening her eyes till they were the size of two saucers, she gave utterance to her complete amazement in a long, shrill whistle.
Garnet approached her, and would have taken her hand, only as they were still stuck in her apron-pockets, she didn’t appear to have such a thing about her. Accordingly, therefore, he attempted do the next best thing, that is, put his arms around her waist; but Pet very coolly edged away saying:
“Hands off, Mr. Garnet, until better acquainted. I don’t believe in having coat-sleeves round my waist – as a general thing. Just say that over again, will you; it was mighty interesting!”
And Pet flung herself into an arm-chair, and put her feet upon an ottoman with a great display of carelessness and ankles, and stared Mr. Garnet composedly in the face.
“Cruel girl! You know your power, and thus you use it. Oh, Petronilla! my beautiful one! have I nothing left to hope for?”
“That’s a question I can’t take it upon myself to answer,” said Pet. “There’s your next quarter’s salary, though, you can hope for that.”
“Is that meant as a taunt? Oh, Petronilla! you little know how deeply, how devotedly I love you! I could give my life to make you happy.”
“Thanky, Mr. Garnet – shows a highly Christian spirit in you: but, at the same time, I guess I won’t mind it. As to your loving me, I have not the slightest doubt about it. I’m such an angel in female form that I don’t see how people can help loving me, any more than they can help the toothache. So you needn’t go telling me over again you love me, because you’ve said it two or three times already; and the most interesting things get tiresome, you know, when repeated too often.”
“Capricious, beautiful fairy! how shall I win you to seriousness? Fairest Petronilla, I would serve for this little hand even as Jacob served for Rachel!”
“Mr. Garnet, it’s real polite of you to say so, but you’ll excuse me for saying I’d a good deal rather you wouldn’t. You’ve been here six years now, and if I thought I was to undergo six more like them, I’d take the first bar of soft-soap I could find and put an immediate end to my melancholy existence.”
“Mocking still! Oh, beautiful Petronilla! how shall I reach this willful heart?”
“There’s no heart there, Mr. Garnet; it took a trip to the fast city of Gotham three years ago, and hasn’t come back since.”
“With Raymond Germaine?” he said, with a sharp flash of his eyes.
“Ex-actly; you’ve struck the right thing in the middle – hit the nail straight on the head – jumped, with your accustomed sagacity, at my exact meaning. After all, you’re not half so stupid as you look, Mr. Garnet.”
“Miss Lawless,” he broke out, angrily, “this levity is as unbecoming as it is unnecessary. I have asked you a question, which, as a lady, you are bound to answer.”
“Mr. Garnet, look here,” said Pet: “did papa hire you to knock reading, writing and spelling into me, or to make love?”
“Miss Lawless!”
“Perhaps, though,” said Pet, in a musing tone, “it’s customary with tutors when winding-up a young lady’s education, to put her through a severe course of love-making, that she may know how to act and speak properly when occasion requires. Mr. Garnet, excuse me, I never thought of it before; I see it all now. Just begin at the beginning again, if it’s not too much trouble, and you’ll see how beautifully I’ll go through with it.”
He started up passionately, and bit his lip till it bled.
“Once for all, Miss Lawless,” he exclaimed, stifling his impotent rage, and striding fiercely up to her – “once for all, I demand an answer. I love you – will you be my wife?”
“Well, upon my word, Mr. Rozzel Garnet,” said Pet, confusedly, “you have the mildest and pleasantest way of your own I ever witnessed. Here you come stamping up to me as if about to knock me down, and savagely tell me you love me! Love away, can’t you, but don’t get in a rage about it! I’m sure you’re perfectly welcome to love me till you’re black in the face, if you’ll only take things easy.”
“Miss Lawless, forgive me; I’m half-mad, and scarce know what I said.”
“I forgive you,” said Pet, stretching out her hands as if about to warm them; “go, sin no more. I thought you were a little light in the head myself; but then it didn’t surprise me, as it’s about the full of the moon, I think.”
“Miss Lawless, I did think you were too much of a lady to despise and scoff at true affection thus. If I have the misfortune to be poor, that does not make me the less sensitive to insult.”
“Now, Mr. Garnet, look here,” said Pet, rising. “I’m getting tired of this scene, and may as well bring it to an end at once. Your love I fully understand; you have several reasons for loving me – several thousands, in fact, but we won’t speak of them. As to insulting you, I flatly deny it; and if you think I have done so, just refer me to a friend, and I’ll fight a duel about it to-morrow. Scoffing at true affection is another thing I’m not in the habit of doing, neither in despising people for being poor; you know both these things as well as I do. But, Mr. Garnet, I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man in the world, and I was to go to my grave a forlorn, hatchet-faced old maid for refusing you. If it’s any consolation to you to know it, I wouldn’t marry you to save your neck from the hangman – your soul from you know who – or your goods and chattels, personal, from being turned, neck and crop, into the street. Now, there!”
His face blanched with rage; his eyes gleamed with a serpent-like light; his thin lips quivered, and for a moment he stood glaring upon her as if he could have torn her limb from limb. But there was a dangerous light in her eye, too, as she stood drawn up to her full height, with reddening cheeks, and defiant, steady gaze, staring him still straight in the face. So they stood for an instant, and then the sense of the ludicrous overcame all else in Pet’s mind, and she burst into a clear, merry peal of laughter.
“Well, upon my word, Mr. Garnet, if this is not as good as a farce; here we are, staring at each other, as if for a wager, and looking as savage as a couple of uncivilized tigers. I dare say, it would be a very nice way to pass time on an ordinary occasion; but as it’s drawing near dinner-time, and I have a powerful appetite of my own, you’ll excuse me for bidding you a heartrending adieu, and tearing myself away. If you have anything more to say, I’ll come back, after dinner, and stand it like a martyr.”
“Not so fast, Miss Petronilla Lawless!” said Garnet, grasping her by the arm, his sallow face fairly livid with rage; “since it has been your good pleasure to laugh me to scorn, and mock at the affection I have offered, just hear me. I swear to you, the day shall come when you will rue this! There is but a step between love and hatred and that step I have taken. Remember, you have made me your deadliest enemy, and I am an enemy not to be scorned! Girl, beware!”
“Well, now, I declare,” said Pet, “if this is not as good as a play and moral. I’m afraid you’re only plagiarizing, though, Mr. Garnet, for that melodramatic ‘girl, beware!’ sounds very like something I read in the ‘Pink Bandit of the Cranberry Cove.’ Confess, now, you’ve been reading it – haven’t you? – and that’s an extract from it; and, at the same time, you’ll oblige me by letting go my arm. It’s not made of cast-iron, though you seem to think it is.”
“Laugh, girl!” he said, hoarsely, “but the day will come when you shall sue to me, and sue in vain, even as I have done to-day. Then you will know what it is to despise Rozzel Garnet.”
“Why, you horrid old fright!” exclaimed Pet, with flashing eyes, “I sue to you, indeed! I guess not, my good teacher! How dare you threaten me, sir, your master’s daughter! Upon my word and honor, Mr. Rozzel Garnet, I have the best mind ever was to have you horsewhipped out of the house by my servants. A pretty chivalrous gentleman you are, to stand up there and talk to a lady like this! I declare to goodness! if I hadn’t the temper of an angel, I wouldn’t stand it!”
Still he held her, glaring in her face with his threatening eyes, and half-choked with passion.
“Let me go,” said Pet, jerking herself first one way, and then another, to free herself from his tenacious grasp. “I vow I’ll go and tell papa every blessed word of this, and if you stay another night under the same roof with me, my name’s not Petronilla. Take your claw from my arm, will you? and let me go!”
Pet jerked and pulled in vain; Mr. Garnet held her fast, and smiled a grim, sardonic smile at her futile efforts.
“Spit and snarl, my little kitten,” he said mockingly; “see what a sparrow you are in my grasp. Go you shall not, till it is my good pleasure to release you!”
With a sharp, passionate cry of rage, Petronilla darted down like lightning, and sunk her sharp, white teeth into his hand. The red blood spurted from a little circlet of wounds, and with an oath of pain and fury, he sprung back from the little wild-cat. No sooner was his hold released, than Pet darted like a flash through the door, turned the key in the lock and held him captive.
“Aha! Mr. Garnet!” she cried, exultingly; “little kittens can bite as well as snarl, you see. You caught a Tartar that time – didn’t you? You’re a model gentleman; you’re the saint that ought to be canonized on the spot; you’re the refined scholar – ain’t you? I’ll leave you, now, to discover the charms of solitude, while I go and tell papa the lesson I have taught you this morning. A little fasting and solitary imprisonment won’t hurt your blood in the least. Bon jour, Seigneur Don Monsieur Moustache Whiskerando! May your guardian-angel watch over you till I come back, and keep you from bursting a blood-vessel in your rage. If anything should happen to so precious an individual, society might as well shut up shop at once, so the gods have a care of you, Mr. Rozzel Garnet!” And off danced Pet.
In the dining-room she found her father awaiting her.
“Where is Mr. Garnet?” he asked as she entered.
“Mr. Garnet will not be down to dinner,” said Pet, inwardly determining to keep that gentleman as long imprisoned as she could.
The judge, without troubling himself to inquire further, took his seat, and proceeded to administer condign punishment to the good things spread before him, assisted by Pet, whose appetite was by no means impaired by the pleasant scene she had just passed through, and whose stony conscience was not in the least troubled with remorse for having locked a young gentleman up without his dinner.
About ten minutes after, the judge started to leave the room, and Pet, guessing where he was going, called to him:
“Papa!”
“Well,” said the judge, pausing, and turning round.
“Where are you going?”
“To the library, Miss Lawless,” said the judge, with dignity.
“Well, look here, papa, there’s a prisoner of war in there.”
“What, Miss Lawless?” said the judge, knitting his brows in perplexity.
“A prisoner I have taken – captivated – locked up! In other words, the pupil has turned teacher and locked her master up, as mothers do refractory children, to bring him to his senses.”
“Miss Lawless,” said the judge, in his most stately manner, “I have no time to listen to your nonsense. If you have anything to say – say it. If not, hold your tongue, and learn to be respectful when you address your father.”
“Well, I never!” ejaculated Pet. “No matter how seriously, sensibly, or solemnly I talk, people say I’m talking nonsense. But that’s just my fate; everything awful and horrid is destined to happen to me; and if I say a word against it, I’m told I’m imprudent and ungrateful, and dear knows what. Now, I told you I have locked my teacher up, and you tell me you have no time to listen to my nonsense. I guess Mr. Garnet finds it an unpleasant truth, anyway.”
“Petronilla! what do you mean?” said her father, beginning to think there might be method in this madness.
“Why, that I’ve locked Mr. Garnet up in the library for not behaving himself,” said Pet, promptly.
“Locked him up!”
“Yes, sir; and served him right, too, the hateful old ghoul!”
“Locked your teacher up?”
“Yes, sir; teachers require locking up as well as pupils.”
“Miss Lawless, it’s not possible that you have been guilty of such an outrageous act!” said the judge, with an awful frown.
“Yes, it is possible,” said Pet; “and he deserves twice as much for what he did. Oh, wouldn’t I like to be a man for one blessed half-hour, that I could horsewhip him within an inch of his life!”
“Good Heavens! what a visitation this mad girl is! What has Mr. Garnet done, you dreadful girl?”
“Dreadful girl!” burst out Pet, indignantly, “there’s the way I’m abused for taking my own part. Your daughter’s teacher has been making all sorts of love to me all the whole blessed morning!” and thereupon Pet commenced with a “full, true, and authentic” account of her morning interview in the library.
As the judge listened, the scowl on his brow grew blacker and blacker till his face was like the double-refined essence of a thunderbolt. But when Pet mentioned his threats and indignity in refusing to free her, his rage burst all bounds, and his wrath was a sight to see.
“The villain! the scoundrel! the blackleg! the low-bred hound! to dare to talk to my daughter in such a way! I vow to Heaven I have a good mind to break every bone in his body! To insult my daughter under her father’s roof, and threaten her like this! Petronilla, where is the key? I’ll kick the impertinent puppy out of the house.”
“The key’s in the door,” said Pet. “I expect he’s in a sweet frame of mind by this time.”
Up-stairs, in a highly choleric state, marched the judge, and turning the key in the library-door, he confronted Mr. Garnet, who was striding up and down the room in a way not particularly beneficial to the carpet, with flashing eyes, scowling brows, and an awful expression of countenance generally, and began, in a tone of withering sarcasm:
“So, Mr. Garnet, you have done my daughter the honor to propose for her hand this morning, and when that digit was refused you, you caught her, and had the impudence to insult her in her father’s house. Oh! you’re a model teacher of youth, Mr. Garnet! You’re an exemplary young man to be trusted with the education of a young female. Come, sir, out of my house, and if ever I catch sight of you again, I’ll cane you while I’m able to stand. Off with you this instant.” And the judge, who was as strong as half a dozen broken-down roues like Garnet, caught him by the collar and unceremoniously dragged him down stairs. In vain the quondam teacher strove to free himself, and make his voice heard; not a word would the judge listen to; but upon reaching the hall door, landed him by a well-applied kick on the broad of his back, and then went in, slamming the door in his face.
Crestfallen and mortified, Mr. Garnet picked himself up, and glancing hurriedly around, beheld Petronilla standing laughingly watching him at the window. A very fiend seemed to leap into his eyes then, and shaking his fist at her, he strode off breathing words of vengeance, “not loud, but deep.”
CHAPTER XXV.
MR. TOOSYPEGS IN DISTRESS
“Ah, me! for aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history
The course of true love never did run smooth.”
– Shakespeare.
“Admiral Havenful, it’s kind of you to ask, but I ain’t well at all; I’m very much obliged to you,” said Mr. Toosypegs, in a deeply dejected voice, as he walked into the parlor of the White Squall and took his seat without ever raising his eyes from the floor.
“Stand from under!” growled the admiral, in a tone like a bear with the bronchitis, as he gave his glazed hat a slap down on his head, and looked in a bewildered sort of way at the melancholy face of Mr. O. C. Toosypegs.
“Admiral Havenful, it’s my intention to stand from under as much as possible,” said Mr. Toosypegs, mournfully; “but, at the same time, I’m just as miserable as ever I can be, thank you. I don’t see what I was born for at all, either. I dare say they meant well about it; but at the same time, I don’t see what I was born for,” said Mr. Toosypegs, with increased mournfulness.
The admiral laid both hands on his knees, and leaning over, looked solemnly into Mr. Toosypegs’ face. Reading no expression whatever in that “Book of Beauty” but the mildest sort of despair, he drew himself up again, and grunted out an adjuration to “heave ahead.”
“Admiral Havenful, would you oblige me by not saying that again?” said Mr. Toosypegs, giving a sudden start, and keeping his hand to his stomach with a grimace of intensest disgust. “You mean real well, I know; but it recalls unpleasant recollections that I wish buried in oblivion. Ugh!” said Mr. Toosypegs, with a convulsive shudder.
The admiral looked appealingly at the great painting on the mantel; but as that offered no suggestion, he took off his hat, gave his wig a vigorous scratching, as if to extract a few ideas by the roots, and then clapping it on again, faced around, and with renewed vigor began the attack.
“Now, Mr. Toosypegs, I’m considerable out of my latitude, and if you’ll just keep her round a point or so, I’ll be able to see my way clearer, and discover in which corner the wind sets. What’s the trouble, young man?”
“The trouble, Admiral Havenful, is such that no amount of words can ever express it. No, Admiral Havenful!” exclaimed the unhappy Mr. Toosypegs, “all the words in all the dictionaries, not to mention the spelling books, that ever was printed, couldn’t begin to tell you the way I feel. It worries me so, and preys on my mind at such a rate that my appetite ain’t no circumstance to what it used to be. My Sunday swallow-tails (the one with the brass buttons, Admiral Havenful), that used to barely meet on me, goes clean around me twice now. I don’t expect to live long at this rate, but I guess it’s pleasantest lying in the graveyard than living in this vale of tears,” added Mr. Toosypegs, with a melancholy snuffle.
Once again the perplexed admiral looked helplessly at the picture; but the work of art maintained a strict neutrality, and gave him not the slightest assistance. Then he glanced at Mr. Toosypegs, but still nothing was to be read in those pallid, freckled features, but the mildest sort of anguish. The admiral was beginning to lose patience.
“Belay there! belay!” he roared, bringing his fist down with a tremendous thud on his unoffending knee. “Come to the point at once, Orlando Toosypegs! What the dickens is the matter?”
“Admiral Havenful, don’t swear!” exclaimed Mr. Toosypegs, looking deeply scandalized. “I dare say you mean well; but profane swearing isn’t so edifying as it might be. I’ve a little tract at home that tells about a boy that told another boy to ‘go to blazes!’ and three years after he fell out of a fourth-story window and broke two of his legs, and some of his arms. That shows the way profane swearing is punished. I’ll bring you over the book some day, Admiral Havenful, if you like; it’s a very interesting story to read about.”
The admiral fell back with a groan.
“I haven’t read anything lately but the ‘Lamentations of Jeremiah,’” said Mr. Toosypegs, resuming his former objections; “it’s very soothing to the feelings, though I can’t lay it to heart so much as I would like to, on account of Aunt Priscilla scolding all the time. She means real well, I know, but it ain’t so pleasant to listen to as some things I’ve heard. I laid awake all last night crying, but it don’t seem to do me much good.”
And Mr. Toosypegs wiped his eyes with his handkerchief.
The admiral said nothing; he had evidently given up the point in despair.
“I wouldn’t mention this to anybody but you, Admiral Havenful,” said Mr. Toosypegs; “because my feelings are so dreadfully lacerated it’s a great affliction to me to speak of it. I know you won’t tell anybody that I’ve revealed it, because I would feel real bad about it if you did.”
“Orlando Toosypegs, just stand by a minute, will you?” said the admiral, in the tone of a patient but persecuted saint. “Now, hold on – what have you revealed to me? what have you told me? There’s two questions I’d feel obliged to anybody to answer.”
“Why, my goodness!” said Mr. Toosypegs, in much surprise, “haven’t I told you? Why I thought I had. Well, then, Admiral Havenful, I’ve went and fell in love, and that’s all there is about it.”
“Main topsail haul!” roared the admiral, immeasurably relieved; “who’d ever have thought it? Who is she, Orlando?” said the admiral, lowering his voice to a husky whisper.
“Your niece, Miss Pet Lawless,” said Mr. Toosypegs, blushing deeply.
This announcement took the admiral so much by surprise that he could only give vent to it by another appealing glance at the picture, and a stifled growl of “Splice the main-brace!”
“Admiral Havenful, it’s my intention to splice the main-brace as much as possible. I’m very much obliged to you,” said Mr. Toosypegs, gratefully, “but, at the same time, I’m afraid it won’t do me the least good. I know very well she don’t care anything about me, and will go and marry somebody else some day. By gracious!” exclaimed Mr. Toosypegs, with the energy of desperation, “I’ve a good mind to go and do something to myself, whenever I think of it. Why, it’s enough to make a fellow go and heave himself away into an untimely grave – so it is.”
“Don’t, Orlando, don’t,” said the admiral, in a tone of grave rebuke; “it’s not proper to talk so. When you come to overhaul your conscience, by-and-by, you’ll be sorry for such rash threats. Now, look here – I’m going to talk to you for your own good. Does Pet know you’ve gone and splashed your affections onto her?”
“Good gracious, no!” ejaculated Mr. Toosypegs, in much alarm; “I wouldn’t tell her for anything – no, not for any amount of money you could give me for doing it, Admiral Havenful. – Oh, my goodness! the idea! why, she would laugh at me, Admiral Havenful.”
“Avast there, messmate! avast!” growled the admiral, administering a thump to his glazed hat. “Now, look here. When a young man goes and falls into love with a young woman, what does he do? or, what do they do?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, Admiral Havenful,” said Mr. Toosypegs, looking dejectedly at the carpet; “I never was in love before, you know, and it’s just the queerest feeling ever was. I never experienced anything like it before. It’s not like the colic, or the toothache, or a cramp, or anything: you feel – well, I don’t know as I can describe it; but you kind of feel all over. And whenever I meet Miss Pet suddenly and she turns them two great, black eyes of hers right onto me – my gracious! Admiral Havenful, the state it sets me into! Why, I actually feel as if I’d like to crawl out of the toes of my boots or have the carpet open and swallow me up.”
And, Mr. Toosypegs, carried away by the exciting recollection, got up and paced up and down two or three times, and then dropped back into his seat and began wiping his heated visage with the flaming bandanna so often spoken of.
“Belay! belay!” said the admiral, impatiently; “you’re steering in the wrong direction altogether, Orlando. Now, look here; I asked you, ‘when a young man goes and falls in love with a young woman, what does he do?’ and says you ‘I don’t know, Admiral Havenful.’ Well, now look here; I’ll tell you. When a young man goes and falls in love with a young woman, what does he do? Why, Orlando Toosypegs, he goes and marries her. That’s what he does!”
And hereupon the admiral administered another vigorous slap to his glazed hat, that very nearly stove in the crown of that ill-used head-piece; and leaning back in his chair, looked with excusable triumph and exultation at Mr. Toosypegs.
That young gentleman gave a sudden start, such as people are in the habit of giving when they sit on a tin tack turned up, and got very red, but did not reply.
“Now, look here, Orlando Toosypegs,” reiterated the admiral, bringing the forefinger of his right hand impressively down on the palm of his left, “they goes and gets married. That’s what they does.”
Mr. Toosypegs gave another start, which could only be justified by the idea of another upturned tin tack, and blushed deeper than ever, but still replied never a word.
“They goes and gets married. That there’s what they does,” repeated the admiral, folding his arms and leaning serenely back, like a man who has settled the matter forever. “And now, Orlando Toosypegs, in the words of Scripture,” – here the admiral got up and took off his glazed hat – “‘go thou, and do likewise.’”
And then clapping his hat on again, with a triumphant slap, he sat down and looked Mr. Toosypegs straight and unwinkingly in the face.
“Admiral Havenful, I’m very much obliged to you, I’m sure,” said the “lovyer,” in a subdued tone; “but – but maybe she wouldn’t have me. She might, just as likely as not, say ‘No,’ Admiral Havenful.”
This was a view of the case the admiral had never once taken, and it took him so completely “aback,” to use his own phrase, that he could only cast another appealing glance at the picture and growl a low, bewildered adjuration to society in general, to “Stand from under!”
“I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if she said ‘No,’ Admiral Havenful; not one bit, sir,” said Mr. Toosypegs, mournfully; “it’s my luck, always, to have the most dreadful things happen to me! I declare it’s enough to make a fellow mad enough to go and do something to himself – it actually is.”
“Don’t now, Orlando, don’t now,” said the admiral, severely; “it isn’t proper, you know, and you really shouldn’t. There’s a proverb I’m trying to think of,” said the admiral, knitting his brow in intense perplexity; “you know the Book of Proverbs, Orlando, don’t you? Hold on, now, till I see: ‘Fain’ – no – yes, ‘Fain heart – fain heart never won a fair lady.’” Again the old sailor reverentially removed his hat. “That’s it, Orlando; ‘fain heart never won fair lady.’ Now, look here: you go straight along and ask Firefly if she’s willing to cruise under your flag through life, and if she lays her hand in yours, and says ‘I’m there, messmate!’ by St. Paul Jones! we’ll have such a wedding as never was seen in old Maryland since Calvert came over. Hoorah!” yelled the admiral, waving his hat over his head in an unexpected outburst of delight, that quite startled Mr. Toosypegs.
“Admiral Havenful, I’ll do it! I will, by granny!” exclaimed Mr. Toosypegs jumping up in the excitement of the moment. “I’ll go right straight over to Heath Hill and ask her. Why, she actually might say ‘Yes,’ after all. Oh, my gracious! if she does, won’t it be nice? What will aunt Prisciller say? Admiral Havenful, it was real kind of you to advise me so, and tell me what to do; and I’m ever so much obliged to you – I really am,” said Mr. Toosypegs, bustling around, and putting on his hat, and turning to go.
“Keep her to the wind’s eye!” roared the admiral, in a burst of enthusiasm, as he brought one tremendous sledge-hammer fist down with an awful thump on the table.
“Admiral Havenful, it is my intention to keep her to the wind’s eye as much as possible,” said Mr. Toosypegs, who comprehended the sentence about as much as he would a Chinese funeral-oration. “Good-by, now; I’ll come right back when it’s over, and tell you what she said.”
And like the frog immortalized in Mother Goose, who “would a-wooing go,” Mr. O. C. Toosypegs “set off with his opera-hat,” on that expedition so terrifying to bashful young men – that of going to “pop the question.”
