Under the Waves by Robert Michael Ballantyne (mobile ebook reader txt) 📕

telegram. This threw Miss Pritty into a state of unutterable confusion, because of her efforts to tell the truth and conceal the truth at one and the same time. After this they spent a very happy evening together, during the course of which Mr Hazlit took occasion to ask Edgar to accompany him into a little pigeon-hole of a room which, in deference to a few books that dwelt there, was styled the library.

"Mr Berrington," he said, sitting down and pointing to a chair, "be seated. I wish to have a little private conversation with you. We are both practical men, and know the importance of thoroughly understanding each other. When I saw you last--now about two years ago--you indicated some disposition to--to regard--in fact to pay your addresses to my daughter. At that time I objected to you on the ground that you were penniless. Whether right or wrong in that objection is now a matter of no importance, because it turns out that I was right on other grounds, as I now find that you did not know your own feelings, and did not care for her--"

"Did not _care_ for her?" interrupted Edgar, in sudden amazement, not unmingled with indignation.

"Of course," continued Mr Hazlit, with undisturbed calmness, "I mean that you did not care for her sufficiently; that you did not regard her with that unconquerable affection which is usually styled `love', and without which no union can be a happy one. The proof to me that your feeling towards her was evanescent, lies in the fact that you have taken no notice either of her or of me for two years. Had you gained my daughter's affections, this might have caused me deep regret, but as she has seldom mentioned your name since we last saw you, save when I happened to refer to you, I perceive that her heart has been untouched-- for which I feel exceedingly thankful, knowing as I do, only too well, that we cannot command our affections."

Mr Hazlit paused a moment, and Edgar was so thunderstruck by the unexpected nature of his host's discourse, that he could only stare at him in mute surprise and unbelief in the evidence of his own ears.

"Now," resumed Mr Hazlit, "as things stand, I shall be very happy indeed that we should return to our old intimacy. I can never forget the debt of obligation we owe to you as our rescuer from worse than death--from slavery among brutalised men, and I shall be very happy indeed that you should make my little cottage by the sea--as Aileen loves to style it--your abode whenever business or pleasure call you to this part of the country."

The merchant extended his hand with a smile of genuine urbanity. The youth took it, mechanically shook it, let it fall, and continued to stare in a manner that made Mr Hazlit feel quite uneasy. Suddenly he recovered, and, looking the latter earnestly in the face, said:--

"Mr Hazlit, did you not, two years ago, forbid me to enter your dwelling?"

"True, true," replied the other somewhat disconcerted; "but the events which have occurred since that time warranted your considering that order as cancelled."

"But you did not _say_ it was cancelled. Moreover your first objection still remained, for I was nearly penniless then, although, in the good providence of God, I am comparatively rich now. I therefore resolved to obey your injunctions, sir, and keep away from your house and from your daughter's distracting influence, until I could return with a few of those pence, which you appear to consider so vitally important."

"Mr Berrington," exclaimed the old gentleman, who was roused by this hit, "you mistake me. My opinions in regard to wealth have been considerably changed of late. But my daughter does not love you, and if you were as rich as Croesus, sir, you should not have her hand without her heart."

Mr Hazlit said this stoutly, and, just as stoutly, Edgar replied:--

"If I were as rich as Croesus, sir, I would not _accept_ her hand without her heart; but, Mr Hazlit, I am richer than Croesus!"

"What do you mean, sir?"

"I mean that I am rich in the possession of that which a world's wealth could not purchase--your daughter's affections."

"Impossible! Mr Berrington, your passion urges you to deceive yourself."

"You will believe what she herself says, I suppose?" asked Edgar, plunging his hand into a breast-pocket.

"Of course I will."

"Well then, listen," said the youth, drawing out a small three-cornered note. "A good many months ago, when I found my business to be in a somewhat flourishing condition, I ventured to write to Aileen, telling her of my circumstances, of my unalterable love, and expressing a wish that she would write me at least one letter to give me hope that the love, which she, allowed me to _understand_ was in her breast _before_ you forbade our intercourse, still continued. This," he added, handing the three-cornered note to the old gentleman, "is her reply."

Mr Hazlit took the note, and, with a troubled countenance, read:--

"Dear Mr Berrington,--I am not sure that I am right in replying to
you without my father's knowledge, and only prevail on myself to do so
because I intend that our correspondence shall go no further, and what
I shall say will, I know, be in accordance with his sentiments. My
feelings towards you remain unchanged. We cannot command feelings,
but I consider the duty I owe to my dear father to be superior to my
feelings, and I am resolved to be guided by his expressed wishes as
long as I remain under his roof. He has forbidden me to have any
intercourse with you: I will therefore obey until he sanctions a
change of conduct. Even this brief note should not have been written
were it not that it would be worse than rude to take no notice of a
letter from one who has rendered us such signal service, and whom I
shall never forget.--Yours sincerely, Aileen Hazlit."

The last sentence--"and whom I shall never forget"--had been carefully scribbled out, but Edgar had set himself to work, with the care and earnest application of an engineer and a lover, to decipher the words.

"Dear child!" exclaimed Mr Hazlit, in a fit of abstraction, kissing the note; "this accounts for her never mentioning him;" then, recovering himself, and turning abruptly and sternly to Edgar, he said:--"How did you dare, sir, to write to her after my express prohibition?"

"Well," replied Edgar, "some allowance ought to be made for a lover's anxiety to know how matters stood, and I fully intended to follow up my letter to her with one to you; but I confess that I did wrong--"

"No, sir, no," cried Mr Hazlit, abruptly starting up and grasping Edgar's hand, which he shook violently, "you did _not_ do wrong. You did quite right, sir. I would have done the same myself in similar circumstances."

So saying, Mr Hazlit, feeling that he was compromising his dignity, shook Edgar's hand again, and hastened from the room. He met Aileen descending the staircase. Brushing past her, he went into his bed-room, and shut and locked the door.

Much alarmed by such an unwonted display of haste and feeling, Aileen ran into the library.

"Oh! Mr Berrington, what _is_ the matter with papa?"

"If you will sit down beside me, Aileen," said Edgar, earnestly, tenderly, and firmly, taking her hand, "I will tell you."

Aileen blushed, stammered, attempted to draw back, but was constrained to comply. Edgar, on the contrary, was as cool as a cucumber. He had evidently availed himself of his engineering knowledge, and fitted extra weights of at least seven thousand tons to the various safety-valves of his feelings.

"Your father," he began, looking earnestly into the girl's down-cast face, "is--"

But hold! Reader; we must not go on. If you are a boy, you won't mind what followed; if a girl, you have no right to pry into such matters. We therefore beg leave at this point to shut the lids of our dexter eye, and drop the curtain.


CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.


THE LAST.

One day Joe Baldwin, assisted by his old friend, Rooney Machowl, was busily engaged down at the bottom of the sea, off the Irish coast, slinging a box of gold specie. He had given the signal to haul up, and Rooney had moved away to put slings round another box, when the chain to which the gold was suspended snapt, and the box descended on Joe. If it had hit him on the back in its descent it would certainly have killed him, but it only hit his collar-bone and broke it.

Joe had just time to give four pulls on his lines, and then fainted. He was instantly hauled up, carefully unrobed, and put to bed.

This was a turning-point in our diver's career. The collar-bone was all right in the course of a month or two, but Mrs Baldwin positively refused to allow her goodman to go under water again.

"The little fortin' you made out in Chiny," she said one evening while seated with her husband at supper in company with Rooney and his wife, "pays for our rent, an' somethin' over. You're a handy man, and can do a-many things to earn a penny, and I can wash enough myself to keep us both. You've bin a 'ard workin' man, Joe, for many a year. You've bin long enough under water. You'll git rheumatiz, or somethin' o' that sort, if you go on longer, so I'm resolved that you shan't do it-- there!"

"Molly, cushla!" said Machowl, in a modest tone, "I hope you won't clap a stopper on my goin' under water for some time yit--plaze."

Molly laughed.

"Oh! It's all very well for you to poke fun at me, Mister Machowl," said Mrs Baldwin, "but you're young yet, an' my Joe's past his prime. When you've done as much work as he's done--there now, you've done it at last. I told you so."

This last remark had reference to the fact that young Teddy Machowl, having been over-fed by his father, had gone into a stiff blue-in-the-face condition that was alarming to say the least of it. Mrs Machowl dashed at her offspring, and, giving him an unmerciful thump on the back, effected the ejection of a mass of beef which had been the cause of the phenomena.

"What a bu'ster it is--the spalpeen," observed Rooney, with a smile, as he resumed the feeding process, much to Teddy's delight; "you'll niver do for a diver if you give way to appleplectic tendencies o' that sort. Here--open your mouth wide and shut your eyes."

"Well, well, it'll only be brought in manslaughter, so he won't swing for it," remarked Mrs Baldwin, with a shrug of her shoulders. "Now, Joe," she continued, turning to her husband, "you'll begin at once to look out for a situation above water. David Maxwell can finish the job you had in hand,--speakin' of that, does any one know where David is just now?"

"He's down at the bottom of a gasometer," answered Joe; "leastwise he was