Hermione, having come expressly to give sympathy, rebelled against this utter lack of it. The hot blood rushed suddenly to her head.
"Yes," said she, "I did go aboard the yawl and I went below. I was curious to see what it was like. A woman can tell when she is dealing with a gentleman, and Harold Applebo is all of that! No doubt he inherits it from his mother! You ought to be proud to have such a son ... and proud to have me love him, too! You may have had a bad time of it, Captain Heldstrom, but so has he! As for me, I came here to try to help you, and you have all but insulted me! I am not a little girl any more; I am a woman, and I have a woman's feelings ... and ... if you think you can trample over them with your big sea-boots, you can ... can..."
"Hermione!" Heldstrom's compelling voice silenced the outburst on the part of the girl. "I am sorry if I hurt your feelings, my dear little ger'rl," said he, very gently. "Dis circoomstance has given me a bad list to poort. But you are a very yoong girl und dis fella should know better dan to make love to you. Yoost der same, perhaps I haf not been so fair as I might be. I am sorry. I moost t'ink it over by myself. For der present, please do not say anyt'ing to anybody, my dear."
"Of course not, Uncle Chris." Hermione saw that he evidently wished to be alone, so she turned and stole quietly out, leaving Heldstrom sitting upon the big sea-chest, his eyes fixed upon the bulkhead.
In the saloon Hermione found her father, somewhat the worse for the wear and tear of his poker party, but ferociously devouring ham and eggs.
"Been thinkin' it over," said he, crossly, "and I've come to the conclusion that we've had about enough o' this fool Applebo. Folks are beginning to talk. The boys were joshing me last night about my pilot-fish. I'm goin' to tell him to chuck it."
"You needn't bother," Hermione answered; "I have already told him to."
"Huh..." growled Bell, staring at her over his plate. "When did you do that?"
"An hour or so ago. I ran into him out there in the fog."
Bell frowned, hesitated a minute as though undecided whether to be relieved at having the duty taken off his hands or resentful of Hermione's forwardness. Not feeling quite up to a row, intellectually, he said nothing, but attacked his eggs with increased savagery.
"Well, then," said he, presently, "there ain't any use in making the run to Bermuda. Let's go around to Newport; I'm sick of this hole. I've got to run into town this morning, but I'll be out early, and, if the muck has blown off, we'll start right out."
Hermione agreed. Cécile was indifferent, and all places looked alike to Paula and Huntington Wood. And so it was that midnight found the Shark beating out across Massachusetts Bay against a fresh gale from the southeast. Slow she might be, but it had to blow very hard to keep the old schooner from getting to windward, while her great beam and high sides made her comfortable under any weather condition.
Rather to Bell's surprise, for he had expected opposition, Heldstrom made no demur about going to sea in what looked like the start of a hard storm. In fact, the old Norwegian seemed impatient to get under way.
"Yoost a little vind und r'rain..." said he. "Double r'reef der mainsail."
Daylight found the schooner snoring along well off the Cape. It was blowing hard, very hard, and many big fishermen had passed them, flying for the shelter of Provincetown, but so far the only shortening of canvas aboard the Shark was the two reefs in her mainsail.
"It does not look very goot," Heldstrom observed to Bell, who relieved him to take the morning watch. "Der fishermen are all getting in out of it."
"It's blowin' too hard to fish," said Bell, "but it's a fine breeze for a sail. This is just our meat. I'll keep on standin' out on this leg so's to make a reach of it into The Vineyard. It's clear enough."
Heldstrom went below, and Bell, toward the end of his watch, deciding that he was far enough to windward to make a good slant of it into Nantucket Sound, gave the order, "Ready about," and a minute later, when the scant crew had scrambled aft to trim the mainsheet and one hand was standing by to hold the forestaysail aback, Bell turned and made a circular motion with his hand to the quartermaster at the wheel.
"Hard-a-lee...!" he bawled, in his fat, husky voice.
The schooner was by this time in a very nasty, choppy sea-way, the tide setting her strongly against the hard southeaster and the water all about combing and frothing almost like a tide-rip. The old yacht was plunging heavily, and altogether the conditions for bringing her smartly about were far from favourable. To begin with, every pitch of her bluff bows checked her headway; again, the three reefs in her mainsail gave her a bit of a lee helm, while the watch was not strong enough to trim her mainsheet smartly, but merely gathered in the slack of it as she swung up to meet the wind. But, worst of all, the hand who was holding the forestaysail aback let it get away from him just as the sail was about to fill and swing the schooner's head. And so it befell that the schooner missed her stays.
Pitching and bucking and jerking her big, heavy spars, the Shark hung in irons, while the gale thundered through her slack sails and the breaking water all about roared and lashed and flung its wind-driven spray high into the volleying canvas. The big main-boom was lashing up and down in a terrifying manner, and the slackened sheet-ropes rattled and banged their big blocks as though to snatch the heavy iron travellers out by the roots.
Bell was furious. "Missed stays, by the eternal!" he roared. "Who's the scrub that let that headsail go?"
The uproar had brought Heldstrom on deck. There was no particular danger, beyond the straining to the gear one may always expect when a big, heavy sailing-vessel gets in irons and thrashes around in a sea-way. But this has always to be considered.
"Oop here, you lubbers!" thundered the old Norwegian to the watch below. The hands were tumbling up when from forward there came a most appalling crash, and the next instant Bell's horrified eyes saw the bowsprit jerked suddenly upward. The jib-boom was springing like a whip, then snapping its martingale-stays it followed the bowsprit. A sickening, grinding, splintering roar followed.
Heldstrom's great voice rose above the crash and clamour.
"R'run forvards ... all hands...!" he roared. "Here's come der spars!"
Hardly had he spoken when the foremast swayed for an instant, drunkenly, and then came roaring down, the foresail ballooning under it. Heldstrom's warning had not been needed. What was happening was plain to every man on deck. The vicious plunges of the old yacht had carried away the bob-stay, from the terrific strain of the jerking spars. The masts, left thus with no forward stay and no lateral strain from the sails to be shared by the shrouds, were doomed to destruction.
Heldstrom blared out afresh.
"Forvards! All hands r'run forvards...! Forvards, zir!"
His voice was lost in the uproar. The foremast had fallen at a slight angle, which took it across the port rail, a little abaft the beam. Bell, as he watched its descent, had sprung to the starboard side. Olesen, the quartermaster at the wheel, stood fast. He was holding his helm hard up, nautical instinct telling him that, if he could only get the wind over the starboard bow, the wreckage would be carried clear of the hull.
"Leave der v'veel!" bawled Heldstrom, for the mainmast was swaying with every plunge.
Olesen, seeing his efforts of no avail, sprang clear. Even as he did so down came the mainmast, straight aft, its fall at first checked by the forward spread of the shrouds. It demolished everything on the quarter-deck, its upper fragment smashing from the lower across the stern.
A sudden hush followed. That is to say, the hush was a comparative one, for the fallen masts were rolling and grinding back and forth across the decks as the hulk wallowed in the sea. But, while the wind was shrieking and the big combers crashing on all sides, there was no longer the thundering of slack sails nor the slamming and wrenching of heavy gears. And then, as the schooner began to broach to, a new menace arose.
The foremast had broken itself across the vessel's side and the upper fragment, held by a mass of wreckage and the attached sail, floated on the sea and with each successive roll began to batter at the schooner's side. Heldstrom saw that planking and frames could not long withstand such mauling. He rushed aft and secured an axe.
"Catch some turns on that spar!" he thundered.
The foremast, inboard, was quickly secured. The hull had swung slowly, the wreckage abeam acting as a drag. Heavy seas began to break over the port bow, while at each instant the battering of the floating fragment of the foremast became more appalling.
Heldstrom, axe in hand, swarmed out upon the spar. Heavy, crumbling seas threatened to carry him off bodily, and at times, when the schooner rolled into a combing wave, he would quite disappear from sight. In spite of this he continued to work himself out by inches until at the end of the broken spar, where, watching his chance, he hacked through the tangle of ropes, when the floating wreckage drifted astern. His work was barely done when a brimming sea hurtled up abeam, tore the spar from its lashings, and, lifting it bodily, flung it across the schooner's deck.
Bell was the first to reach Heldstrom as he lay crushed beneath the spar. With the aid of Olesen and another man he carried him below, where, at the foot of the companion, he found the three girls with Wood, who was trying to reassure them.
"Dismasted!" panted Bell. "Heldstrom's badly hurt. Look after him."
He went on deck and told the carpenter to sound the well. The hulk, held by the wreckage which had drifted astern, was swinging slowly. All hands on deck were driven forward by the wash of the sea, finally taking refuge on the t'gallant forecastle, for, as has been said, the Shark was of old-fashioned design. Her stern foul of the wreckage and the high bows offering a purchase to the wind, she finally lay stern to the sea, which came in a little on the starboard quarter.
For the moment there seemed no immediate danger, so Bell went below again through the galley hatch. He found Heldstrom unconscious, lying on a transome, his head pillowed on the lap of Hermione, who, very pale but quite composed, was wiping away the blood as it trickled from his lips. Wood was talking in a soothing voice to Cécile. Paula was crouched on the transome, her hand in that of her lover. As Bell was telling them what had happened, the carpenter came in.
"She is leaking badly, zir," said he. "Und der boats vas all smashed to splinders."
"Man the pumps," said Bell, briefly. "There's no danger," he added, in a quiet voice. "There's timber enough in her to float us if she fills flush-up."
All had occurred so quickly as to be almost impossible of realisation. Ten minutes before the ancient yacht had been ploughing staunchly to windward in the teeth of what had become a hard blow. The tearing out of a cubic foot or so of dry-rotted stem and she was become a dismasted, sinking hulk. Even her boats were gone, those not crushed by the falling spars having been torn to splinters by the writhing shrouds.
Of all her people it was hardest, perhaps, for Huntington Wood to appreciate this violent change of condition, the others having lived most of their lives afloat. Cécile, after her first frightened outburst, had got herself in hand and was huddled among the cushions of the transome, white but silent.
"You say she will float?" Wood asked of Bell.
"Yes ... but she's goin' to be deuced uncomfortable, once she's a-wash. She must have spewed out her caulking from the wrenchin' on the maststeps, and like as not she's opened up along the garboard-strake. But we don't need to worry. Somebody'll sight us through the day. This place is like the corner of Fifth Avenue and Twenty-third Street. Cheer up, girls ... and Heldstrom is goin' to pull around all right, you see. I'll take a peep below. Steward, push your eyes back into your head and get me a lantern!"
But nothing did sight the Shark throughout the day, and nightfall found her very deep. She was drifting sluggishly in a northwesterly direction, but, waterlogged as she was, this drift was very slight.
All hands had slaved unceasingly at the pumps. Bell, the grouty valetudinarian, was the pillar of strength upon whom all had come to lean. He had got a wipe across the forehead from a wire shroud and this had plentifully bled him and done him a world of good. Certain ones of the crew had wished to knock together a life-raft, but Bell answered:
"This hulk is the best raft. She'll float you till this place freezes, and then you can skate ashore. Carpenter, empty all the fresh-water tanks. The scuttle butt will last until we leave her and the tanks will float a lot of weight."
After dark Heldstrom regained consciousness. He was still lying in the saloon, and Hermione was crouching at his head. Heldstrom's first words were:
"Are ve filling?"
"Yes," answered Hermione, gently, "but there is no danger. Papa says that she will float."
Heldstrom fought for a minute to get his breath.
"She vill or she vill not. Your fadder figured it out, und he is a navy expert und dey are generally wr'rong. T'eoretically she might float; practically, she might not. Your fadder figures on der floating power of vood, not of punk. Tell him to fire some rockets...."
And he lost consciousness again.
A little after midnight the water drove them from below. A shelter was rigged on the t'gallant forecastle and all hands took refuge there. The wreck was lying stern to sea and the combers were breaking across the waist. The gale had not abated, but the wind was hauling, and now and again there would come a lightening of the sky and a breaking in the scud, through which an old moon shone pallidly.
"Beginnin' to clear," said Bell, cheerfully. "Bet you what you like we will be sighted before first-drink time. Any takers?"
There was no answer. Captain Bell took a few turns on the slippery deck, then paused by the windlass to stare out into the storm-driven murk.
"Too bad the Daffodil went out ahead of us," said he, turning to Hermione. "If ever a shark stood in need of her pilot-fish, then this one does."
At the word "pilot-fish" there came a stir from the tarpaulin-covered figure of Heldstrom. Then the low but resonant tones of the dying Norseman reached the ears of Bell, who was still leaning against the windlass.
"What's that?" asked Bell. "What does he say?"
Hermione raised her pallid face and looked steadfastly into the gloom to leeward.
"What was that he told you, my dear?" asked her father.
"Uncle Chris told me something which I already knew," she answered, in a steady voice. "We have only to wait a little longer. Our Pilot-fish is coming."
CHAPTER XVII
The glass was rising and the dawn coming faintly when the Daffodil stole from the shelter of Provincetown and headed out into the turmoil of Massachusetts Bay. The yawl was under her forestaysail, a storm gaff-trysail, and a scrap of mizzen. Applebo's plan was to reach out to sea, shaping his course around the Cape as the wind hauled, which he felt certain that it would, and not try to beat against the gale with its nasty swell.
For such a boat as the Daffodil there was no great danger. She was solid as a wooden shoe, with an uncommonly high freeboard, a generous beam, and deep enough to stand up against the sling of the foaming crests. Although but thirty feet on the water-line, she was "all boat" and the equivalent of much larger vessels of a different type. Also, she had been constructed for water of this sort, and had a low cabin-trunk and a small, shallow, self-bailing cockpit. Really, the only thing exposed to damage was the man at the wheel, and his first duty was to so handle her as to keep out of danger.
The scud was rapidly breaking away as the Daffodil slipped down past Race Point Light and headed out for the open. The wind was harder, if anything, but as the yawl encountered the first bad water the sun pushed over the horizon and a long, rich beam of golden-yellow flashed out between the sea and the low-flying storm-clouds. It found the little scraps of sail on the Daffodil and bathed them in a golden light.
"An augury...!" said Applebo. "I like that. It cheers me up." And he called to the Finn to take the wheel while he prepared some macaroons and tea.
Well clear of Cape Cod, the yawl got her first taste of what was coming, when Applebo was greatly reassured at her splendid behaviour. Luckily, the tide had turned and was running with the sea, which had lengthened out and, though of dismaying size, appeared to be kindly disposed. A landsman and many deep-sea sailors would have said that every moment was fraught with great peril for the little Daffodil, but Applebo and the Finn were of that species of human amphibian which lives in the closest and most intimate association with the sea—the offshore, small-boat sailor. Such know the sea as none other. The big-ship mariner knows it only as a sailor, but he who goes down to the deep in the little shallop knows it as does the gull; knows each flaw of the breeze as it strikes up from the flank of some mammoth surge; knows the cross-slap of a brimming wave and the upward throw as it mounts to comb.
The day lightened. Suddenly the sun blazed out again to reveal the wind-torn waste as a seething cauldron. The spouting billows leaped to flash their jewelled tiaras in the vivid brilliance of the streaming light. Storm gulls wheeled and wove and darted and screamed their greetings to the day. Petrels darted like swallows. The ocean grew joyous in a wild and lawless abandon, leaping with drunken frenzy, the billows playing like titan creatures of the deep, flashing and flinging their silvery scales, and their shoutings arose in a revel of hoarse clamours that might have been song or curse.
Through this wild carouse drove the Daffodil, and seemed to enjoy her rough handling by these sea-runners, as some buxom wench might take pleasure in a romp with rough sailormen. The wind roared more westerly and cocked aslant the white bonnets of the staggering seas. Spindrift, glittering like gems strewn with a wanton hand, flew clean to the truck of the little yawl, and a rainbow blazed and faded and blazed again under her plunging bows. Brighter grew the sun and harder blew the wind, while back rolled the grey blanket of the storm and showed a patch of sky blue and purple and amethyst, still fringed about with a ragged veil. The sea suggested snow falling on a field of sapphires.
Now, the yawl wallowed in a maelstrom of mad water, while the day grew more and more glorious. All in an hour's time.
Applebo had taken the wheel again, and the Finn was crouched at the foot of the mainmast. He had taken the end of a halliard and caught a turn around his body and the spar, for several times the little vessel had been swept by the heavy crest of a comber. Applebo was at times sitting in water waist-deep.
Suddenly the Finn burst into a wild, inspiring chant and his beautiful, throaty tenor reached Applebo to send the warm blood coursing through his body. He knew the lay. The Finn sang it often at sea when the wind blew. Rising as it did above the deep diapason, Applebo found it good and lent his bass to the chant, and so, to the accompaniment of wind and sea, these two sang their chantey full-throated against the gale. They sang in the Norwegian tongue, and their pæan translated would be thus:—
"We have quenched our winter fires, and our faces turned away
From the land of dead desires to a new and glorious day;
Now the deep unfolds before us; cloud and sun-band score the sea;
In our ears a wind-wave chorus, far astern a darkening lea...."
Seaward plunged the Daffodil, exulting as those she bore. Joyous and full-throated sang Applebo and his Finn, while the high west wind drove back the lowering storm-clouds, as Michael and his angels might have sent fleeing the hosts of Satan. Triumphantly sang Applebo, and, as he sang, a scant ten miles away his father lay dying while Hermione looked upon his death and wondered how long it would be before she met him, just beyond, and if her dear Uncle Chris would guide her steps in that Life as he had in this.
And the Finn, with his second-sight? Perhaps the Finn, warlock that he was and dwelling a little in both worlds, knew that things were as they should be. Perhaps he knew nothing, and all was coincidence. At any rate, it happened that a little later Applebo's eye was caught by a flash of colour that had no part in the chromatic scheme of sky and sea. He saw a flash of red, then lost it, then saw it again.
"What is that?" he bawled, and pointed to leeward.
The Finn looked at him, his head turned far to the side. Applebo noted his odd, flashing smile.
"It is a vessel dismasted and sinking, master. Her people are clinging to her decks, and the sea is washing over them."
* * * * * *
There are a number of nautical problems more simple than that of transferring passengers from a waterlogged hulk to a little yawl in a heavy sea. But Applebo and the Finn belonged, as has been said, to the gull breed, and they went about their task quite naturally.
On sighting the capsized ensign and the wreck beneath it, Applebo dropped down and hove to the yawl as close under the lee of the schooner as he dared. Olesen then drifted astern to the yawl a buoy with a line attached. This line was fast to a snatch-block, riding the hawser and holding in its sister-hooks a bowline in a bight. When Applebo presently got the signal to haul in, there arrived a Swede in a life-preserver, slung in the bowline. The sailor had been sent first to test the apparatus, and from him Applebo quickly learned the details of the disaster.
"You say that Captain Heldstrom is badly hurt?" asked Applebo.
"He iss dying, zir," answered the man.
Paula arrived next, and then Cécile, both badly spent from strain and exposure, Cécile semi-unconscious from her ducking en route, so that, after she had been got clear of her lashings, two of the men had to carry her below. Hermione came next, her blue eyes blazing like sapphires from her colourless face and her high spirit undaunted.
"They tied me in this thing by force!" she cried to Applebo. "I wanted to stay with Uncle Chris. He is conscious now and refuses to be moved."
When only Bell, Olesen, and Heldstrom were left aboard the hulk, Applebo swung himself into the bowline and signalled to Olesen to haul in. The hawser led over the cat-heads, which were a-wash as the sea welled up under them. Applebo swung himself aboard.
Heldstrom was lying on a grating rigged up so that it was clear of the swash across the deck. As Applebo looked over him he opened his eyes. They were bright and intent as ever, but it needed but a glance at the waxy face to see that the end was very near.
"My son..." he said, and closed his eyes again.
Bell, who thought that his mind was wandering, looked at Applebo.
"How are we to move him?" he asked. "Every bone in his body must be broken!"
Heldstrom's eyes opened again.
"You moost not move me," he said. "I vill go down wit' der schooner. It does not matter. Efery bone in my body iss broken, but I do not care, because my hear'rt vas broken long ago. Now leave me, for der wessel iss wery deep."
The three men stared at each other, perplexed. To lash a man in Heldstrom's condition into a life-preserver, sling him into the bowline, and drag him through the sea to the yawl seemed a useless cruelty. Yet, how could they leave him?
"Are you floating or sinking?" asked Applebo.
"We've been like this since daylight. Olesen says she's still settling a little...."
For several minutes they stood there, irresolute, unable to decide what they should do. As long as Heldstrom lived there was no thought of leaving him. To try to move him, on the contrary, would be merely to kill him outright. No doubt it occurred to all three that the wreck might suddenly refuse to rise from one of her slow, heavy plunges and that in that case there would be no time for them to gain the yawl! Applebo had thought of this when he went aboard her, and had instructed the Finn to stand by to slip the hawser if he saw the hulk about to sink.
"You two go aboard the yawl!" said Applebo. "I will stay until the end ... or till she sinks."
Bell turned to Olesen.
"Get in the bowline...!" said he.
Olesen hesitated.
"Obey orders, my man!" snapped Bell. Olesen, trained to discipline, climbed sulkily into the apparatus and, scorning the life-preserver, was hauled aboard the Daffodil. Once aboard, Applebo hauled back the sling.
"You go, sir," said he.
"Go yourself!" snapped Bell. "Think I'm goin' to leave an old friend like that? Go yourself."
"He is my father," said Applebo.
Leaning on the windlass, with the fresh nor'wester roaring out of a sky like crystal, the spray flying over them, and the water swashing about their feet, Applebo told his story to Bell while the two waited for Heldstrom to die. And, as he finished and Bell was staring at him with round goggle eyes, his fat face haggard and colourless, there came from somewhere in the water-soaked hull an odd, jarring explosion and a mass of froth welled up into the waist.
"There goes one o' the water-tanks," said Bell. "I had 'em emptied and plugged, to buoy us. She may sink now."
The concussion seemed to have aroused Heldstrom. He opened his eyes.
"Go...!" said he. "I t'ink she vas settling."
Neither man moved. And then it seemed as though Heldstrom for the first time understood.
"Ho!" he cried, and the strength came into his voice again and the brightness into his eyes.
"So it vas because of me that you wait? Ha ... that it is fine! But you must not!" He looked at Bell. "You have dose little ger'rls..." The blue eyes softened. "Go, my old friend. Gif me your hand und go...!"
Bell, the tears gushing from his eyes, took the bloodless hand in his, squeezed, then dropped it. Heldstrom looked at Applebo.
"Kiss me ... my son," said he.
Applebo knelt and kissed him.
A sea broke in the waist and the wash boiled thigh-deep over the quarter-deck. It splashed over Heldstrom as he lay on the staging. The cold water seemed to rouse him. He hove himself upright and flung both arms aloft.
"To God....!" he cried, and fell back, dead.
Bell looked at Applebo.
"We've no time to lose..." said he. "She's going."
"I'll take his body with me to the yawl," said Applebo. "I suppose you want to be the last to leave your ship."
"Of course," said Bell, quietly.
CHAPTER XVIII
Our saga closes far from the sea and the sad tales it has to tell. Here were fresh odours of moss and fern in place of the salt ones of brine and sedge. The murmur of the wind in the tall pines is sweeter far than wave-talk ... but there were other murmurs of which we must take account.
At the foot of a tall pine were Hermione and Applebo. Behind them the late autumn woods and at their feet a small expanse of crystal water, smooth as a mirror except where broke by the rush of some avid trout. A glorious jewel of a lake was this, rimmed about with emeralds and rubies, set in gold and reflecting an azure as pure as it is possible for an Adirondack sky to hold.
On the far shore nestled a little camp in a clump of beeches and a thin column of blue wood-smoke rose straight into the still, spicy air. From the shadowed bank to the right came the flash of a canoe-paddle and a splash of crimson colour.
If Hermione and her lover were Nereid and Triton when we saw them down there by the sea, here, then, they were of the forest. A Diana in hunter's green was the girl; a little green felt hat with a partridge feather, green flannel blouse, short skirt, gaitered as to her shapely limbs, bright of cheek and eye, and the red ribbon in her glossy hair.
Applebo, for his part, smacked more of the Engadine than of the North Woods, being, as was usual with him, slightly overdressed. He had arrived at the camp but two hours before, driving a badly treated motor-car, of which the Finn was the inefficient mechanician. Nor did it appear to the occupants of the camp, watching them arrive, that there existed between the fabric and its crew that perfect sympathy to be found when they were aboard the Daffodil. The name of this voiturette was the "Cowslip," but as Wood, standing with his arm around Paula, whispered in her coral ear, a better name would have been the "Side-slip."
"Just what did papa say," enquired Hermione, "when you told him that you wanted to marry me?"
"He said: 'The...' Well, you can imagine what he said ... hand me the pepper; these trout are just au point!"
"What did you say?"
"I did not say anything. I should have known better than to have tackled him when he was cooking. But, as he seems to do nothing but cook, that would mean to hang about indefinitely, and I've got to start back in two hours."
"Well ... what did he say, finally?" demanded Hermione, with impatience..
Applebo gave her his laziest and most maddening look. Hermione reached for her stick, and he proceeded more briskly.
"He said, after the trout were finished, 'Huh ... h'm ... so you want to marry Cécile, do you?"
"'No, sir,' said I; 'Hermione.'
"'Why,' said he, 'Hermione! What are you talkin' about? Why, you cradle-robber, Hermione's only a kid!"
Hermione snorted.
"I told him," continued Applebo, with maddening languor, "that I quite agreed with him; that you were a simple, untutored child, quite too young to know your own mind, impulsive, undisciplined..."
Thwack!
"Ow...!"
"What else?" demanded Hermione, ominously.
"I explained to him that, while in the majority of cases it was a very undesirable thing for a girl to be married as young as nineteen, yet in our case there might be certain advantages...."
"Such as..."
"Well..." Applebo regarded her warily, edging a little away. "I pointed out the fact that, if a man ever expected to live in peace with a lady of such violent disposition as his youngest daughter's, it was of inestimable advantage to catch her young and then train her...."
Thwack!!
"Ouch! Do you think that is a nice way to treat your fiancé?"
"What did papa say to that?"
"He heartily agreed with me. After that he gave his consent and we had a drink on it. He had several. Then he happened to think of a partridge that he'd left in the oven, and bolted off. I had a feeling that, if anything had gone wrong with the partridge, he might blame me and withdraw his favour, so I escaped and came here to tell you the glad news. And you whack me with a stick..."
Thwack!!!
But the lady who tames lions must not forget that, after all, they are far stronger than she, and the next second Hermione found herself in an embrace which left her not so much as the power to wriggle, while her breathing was momentarily suspended by certain processes which, while damaging to the respiration, are never fatal, owing to their stimulating effect upon the heart.
And this no doubt was precisely what she wanted!
THE END