By the noise in the hall I judged Andrew McCulloch was come back unexpected, and I judged he might come in ambitious and inquiring, and not easy to take as he came. I started for the open doors, and got through one of them hasty, and shut it behind. It was soon enough to escape Andrew, and too soon to see if it was the right door. It was dark there except for the starlight through a window, showing crockery on shelves. The place was no more than a pantry.
I've been in different circumstances by sea and land, but I didn't recollect at that moment ever being planted in just those, and it seemed to me a couple, that could plant an experienced seaman that way must be ingenious as well as open-minded. I heard Andrew McCulloch talking to himself like the forerunnings of an earthquake, and I says:
"An experienced seaman might get out, but not that way. Experienced seamen don't put off on the windward side. But," I says, "it seems to me experience and ingenuity could keep a hotel."
With that I put up the window softly and climbed out and dropped to the ground. I went round the house looking for ingenious couples, and then across the yard, and there they sat on the same fence, with their feet hooked as previous, and they appeared to feel calm and candid.
"As to hotel keeping," I says, climbing on the fence, "it's a good life,--" and there I stopped.
I looked over at the old churchyard on the Green. It was dark and still over there. The rows of flat tombstones were grey, like planted ghosts.
"Hic Jacet" means "here lies," as I'm told. Those folks that once got their "Hic jacets" over them wouldn't ever get up to argue the statement; but those that left good memories behind, I guessed they were glad of it. As for the living, if they were elderly, they'd best go to bed. With that I got down from the fence.
"Madge," I says, "do you know why I'm backing you?"
"Yes," she says, "I know."
How the nation did she know?
"Happen Billy Corliss may want to run away still" I says, "and maybe you'll be asking, 'Where to?' and maybe he'll remark, 'Pemberton's.'
Then if you and he should drop into Pemberton's most any time, with a notion of connubiality, I guess likely he'd have prospects to modify Andrew McCulloch with afterward, 'Pemberton's seaside Hotel. Peaceful Patronage Welcome. No Earthquakes nor Revolutions Allowed.'"
Then I left them on the fence and came back to Greenough.
CHAPTER XV.
CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE.
When Captain Buckingham ended, it was late and dark, the afternoon long gone into evening. The storm still roared around Pemberton's, and we five sat anchored close to the chimney. It might have been a quarter of an hour went by, and it was past time when Pemberton or Stevey Todd should be getting the supper ready, when there came a sudden tumult in the hall without, and some one bounced in, the snow flying after him, and he cried, "I've eloped and I want a minister!" That was how he stated it: "I've eloped and I want a minister!"
Then Pemberton said:
"I dare say now you're right there," and Captain Buckingham said nothing, nor looked up.
I knew it must be Billy Corliss, though I didn't know him, nor did Uncle Abimelech, nor Stevey Todd. He might have blown down from Labrador, or eloped out of Nova Scotia.
Pemberton and Corliss went out together. Then Stevey Todd spoke up cautiously:
"When I look at it," he said, "when I asks myself: 'Is he right or is he not?' I don't hear no objections. And further," he said, leaning forward and speaking low, "it's my opinion there's a woman out there."
Uncle Abimelech lifted his eyes from the kettle that hung over the fire, and stared about and seemed to be alarmed.
"Where?" said Uncle Abimelech.
Stevey Todd pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. Uncle Abimelech followed the direction slowly along the dark ceiling, and seeing nothing alarming there, seemed relieved. He turned back to the fire and muttered:
"She throwed kettles, some."
Then Corliss came in again and after him Pemberton, and with them was a tall girl in layers of cloaks and veils, and layers of snow, which being taken off, she came out as balmy and calm as a tropic coast, and enough to make a man forget his old troubles and lay in new ones. Captain Buckingham only looked at her, and said nothing.
Corliss was a slim young man with a candid manner. For two that had run away to look for matrimony in the snow they both seemed remarkably calm.
He looked us over, and inquired our names, and appeared to be satisfied with them, and to like the looks of us.
"Why, that's good," he said. "Now, Miss Madge McCulloch is Mr.
Pemberton's granddaughter, as you likely know, and she's ambitious to be Mrs. Billy Corliss. That's a good idea, isn't it? But there are parental objections, hot but reasonable. Parent has no sort of an opinion of me, and wants her to run parental establishment. Both reasonable, aren't they?" he said in his candid way. Madge McCulloch was kneeling before the fire and warming her hands. She looked up and laughed.
"You'd better hurry, Billy, or the minister will be snowed in."
"Why, that's reasonable, too," he said, "I was only going to say that those reasons, as stated, were warm;" and he once more went out with Pemberton.
After a time she laughed again.
"If daddy should come here, what do you think would happen?" and she looked at Captain Buckingham, who looked at her and said nothing, his thin brown face as still as an Indian's.
Stevey Todd said cautiously:
"I'd almost think, Miss, in that case, you'd be in hot water."
"It's in the kettle," said Uncle Abimelech, and Madge McCulloch, "So it is! I wonder if there's tea."
Then she and Stevey Todd laid the table, and we sat watching her make tea, and saw no objections.
"Shall I tell you about it?" she said calmly, pouring tea.
"If so be it's agreeable, Miss," said Stevey Todd; and Uncle Abimelech said, "I takes no sugar in mine," but Captain Tom was silent.
She said she had run out of the back door before it was beginning to grow dusk, and climbed the fence and gotten into Corliss' sleigh, but she was afraid they were seen by neighbours; so that it appeared likely Andrew McCulloch would hear about their going. "He might come after by-and-by, and do something that would be very hot,--Wouldn't it?"
Stevey Todd said, "It might be as you say, Miss," and Uncle Abimelech, "It's better when it's hot," looking into his teacup as if disappointed, but Captain Tom said nothing.
"It was snowing and drifting," she went on, "and we kept falling into ditches, but at last we saw the light of the hotel by the roadside and were glad."
So Billy Corliss had come and bounced at the door, and said he wanted a minister, and quite right he was with respect to those circumstances and Madge McCulloch, as Stevey Todd hinted, though cautiously.
When Pemberton and Corliss came back with the minister, it was clear that Pemberton agreed with Stevey Todd on that point. It may be he was not in the habit of agreeing with Andrew McCulloch. Certainly he gave Madge McCulloch away in marriage to Billy Corliss. And she, saying that she wanted a maid-of-honour, chose Uncle Abimelech for that purpose, which seemed scarcely reasonable, but the minister married them and went his way. Then Stevey Todd could not get over thinking he would have been a better maid-of-honour than Uncle Abimelech, more suitable and more according to the talents of each, and he said this, though indirectly and warily; and Uncle Abimelech said that he recollected licking Stevey Todd thirty years back on the _Hebe Maitland_, "took him across his knee and whaled him good;" and Stevey Todd, though cautiously, seemed to hint that some one who might be Abe Dalrimple, couldn't do it again, and in other respects resembled a dry codfish. Billy Corliss stood up and said:
"Gentlemen, the elements are raging. In the town of Adrian the ear of imagination detects explosions. But Pemberton's is dedicated to peace and connubiality."
Then they retired with their connubiality, and paid us no more attention, and Pemberton, Captain Buckingham, Stevey Todd, Uncle Abimelech, and I sat by the fire.
Uncle Abimelech seemed to have something on his mind that he would like to get off, for his eyes wandered uneasily, and he muttered:
"Kettles."
"Throwed 'em, did she?" said Pemberton to encourage him, and Uncle Abimelech said: