Sea Urchins. William Wymark Jacobs
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about the pouch. Perhaps he’s waiting for a smoke all this time.”
“There’s no hurry,” said the young man; “perhaps he’s found it.”
“Well, I can’t stop to talk,” said the girl; “I’m busy reading.”
With these heartless words she withdrew into the room, and the discomfited swain, only too conscious of the sorry figure he cut, went slowly back to the harbour, to be met by Mr. Boom with a wink of aggravating and portentous dimensions.
“You’ve took a long time,” he said slyly. “There’s nothing like a little scheming in these things.”
“It didn’t lead to much,” said the discomfited Tarrell.
“Don’t be in a hurry, my lad,” said the elder man, after listening to his experiences. “I’ve been thinking over this little affair for some time now, an’ I think I’ve got a plan.”
“If it’s anything about baccy pouches—” began the young man ungratefully.
“It ain’t,” interrupted Mr. Boom, “it’s quite diff’rent Now, you’d best get aboard your craft and do your duty. There’s more young men won girls’ ‘arts while doing of ther duty than—than—if they wasn’t doing their duty. Do you understand me?”
It is inadvisable to quarrel with a prospective father-in-law, so that Tarrell said he did, and with a moody nod tumbled into his boat and put off to the smack. Mr. Boom having walked up and down a bit, and exchanged a few greetings, bent his steps in the direction of the “Jolly Sailor,” and, ordering two mugs of ale, set them down on a small bench opposite his old friend Raggett.
“I see young Tarrell go off grumpy-like,” said Raggett, drawing a mug towards him and gazing at the fast-receding boats.
“Ay, we’ll have to do what we talked about,” said Boom slowly. “It’s opposition what that gal wants. She simply sits and mopes for the want of somebody to contradict her.”
“Well, why don’t you do it?” said Raggett. “That ain’t much for a father to do surely.”
“I hev,” said the other slowly, “more than once. O’ course, when I insist upon a thing, it’s done; but a woman’s a delikit creeter, Raggett, and the last row we had she got that ill that she couldn’t get up to get my breakfast ready, no, nor my dinner either. It made us both ill, that did.”
“Are you going to tell Tarrell?” inquired Raggett.
“No,” said his friend. “Like as not he’d tell her just to curry favour with her. I’m going to tell him he’s not to come to the house no more. That’ll make her want him to come, if anything will. Now there’s no use wasting time. You begin to-day.”
“I don’t know what to say,” murmured Raggett, nodding to him as he raised the beer to his lips.
“Just go now and call in—you might take her a nosegay.”
“I won’t do nothing so damned silly,” said Raggett shortly.
“Well, go without ‘em,” said Boom impatiently; “just go and get yourselves talked about, that’s all—have everybody making game of both of you, talking about a good-looking young girl being sweet-hearted by an old chap with one foot in the grave and a face like a dried herring. That’s what I want.”
Mr. Raggett, who was just about to drink, put his mug down again and regarded his friend fixedly.
“Might, I ask who you’re alloodin’ to?” he inquired somewhat shortly.
Mr. Boom, brought up in mid-career, shuffled a little and laughed uneasily. “Them ain’t my words, old chap,” he said; “it was the way she was speaking of you the other day.”
“Well, I won’t have nothin’ to do with it,” said Raggett, rising.
“Well, nobody needn’t know anything about it,” said Boom, pulling him down to his seat again. “She won’t tell, I’m sure—she wouldn’t like the disgrace of it.”
“Look here,” said Raggett, getting up again.
“I mean from her point of view,” said Mr. Boom querulously; “you’re very ‘asty, Raggett.”
“Well, I don’t care about it,” said Raggett slowly; “it seemed all right when we was talking about it; but s’pose I have all my trouble for nothing, and she don’t take Dick after all? What then?”
“Well, then there’s no harm done,” said his friend, “and it ‘ll be a bit o’ sport for both of us. You go up and start, an’ I’ll have another pint of beer and a clean pipe waiting for you against you come back.”
Sorely against his better sense Mr. Raggett rose and went off, grumbling. It was fatiguing work on a hot day, climbing the road up the cliff, but he took it quietly, and having gained the top, moved slowly towards the cottage.
“Morning, Mr. Raggett,” said Kate cheerily, as he entered the cottage. “Dear, dear, the idea of an old man like you climbing about! It’s wonderful.”
“I’m sixty-seven,” said Mr. Raggett viciously, “and I feel as young as ever I did.”
“To be sure,” said Kate soothingly; “and look as young as ever you did. Come in and sit down a bit.”
Mr. Raggett with some trepidation complied, and sitting in a very upright position, wondered how he should begin. “I am just sixty-seven,” he said slowly. “I’m not old and I’m not young, but I’m just old enough to begin to want somebody to look after me a bit.”
“I shouldn’t while I could get about if I were you,” said the innocent Kate. “Why not wait until you’re bed-ridden?”
“I don’t mean that at all,” said Mr. Raggett snappishly. “I mean I’m thinking of getting married.”
“Good—gracious!” said Kate, open-mouthed.
“I may have one foot in the grave, and resemble a dried herring in the face,” pursued Mr. Raggett with bitter sarcasm, “but—”
“You can’t help that,” said Kate gently.
“But I’m going to get married,” said Raggett savagely.
“Well, don’t get in a way about it,” said the girl. “Of course, if you want to, and—and—you can find somebody else who wants to, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t! Have you told father about it?”
“I have,” said Mr. Raggett, “and he has given his consent.”
He put such meaning into this remark, and so much more in the contortion of visage which accompanied it, that the girl stood regarding him in blank astonishment.
“His consent?” she said in a strange voice.
Mr. Raggett nodded.
“I went to him first,” he said, trying to speak confidently. “Now I’ve come to you—I want you to marry me!”
“Don’t you be a silly old man, Mr. Raggett,” said Kate, recovering her composure. “And as for my father, you go back and tell him I want to see him.”
She drew aside and pointed to the door, and Mr. Raggett, thinking that he had done quite enough for one day, passed out and retraced his steps to the “Jolly Sailor.” Mr. Boom met him half-way, and having received his message, spent the rest of the morning in fortifying himself for the reception which awaited him.
It would be difficult to say which of the two young people was the more astonished at this sudden change of affairs. Miss Boom, pretending to think that her parent’s reason was affected, treated him accordingly, a state of affairs not without its drawbacks, as Mr. Boom found to his cost Tarrell, on the other hand, attributed it to greed, and being forbidden the house, spent all his time ashore on a stile nearly opposite, sullenly watching events.
For three weeks Mr. Raggett called daily, and after staying to tea, usually wound up the evening