The Blue Pavilions | Page 4

back.
"I say, Jemmy, do you think we could fight?"
"Not decently."
"I was thinking that. I don't see another way out of it, though."
He kicked the plantain out of the ground, and, looking up, said very softly--"Meg's a widow."
Captain Jeremy Runacles sat down on the rustic bench. A hot flush had sprung into his face and a light leapt in his eyes; but he said nothing. Captain Barker cocked his head on one side and went on--
"Yes, you lied, Jemmy. That fellow, as I guess, ran off and left her, finding that the old man had the courage to die without coming to reason. He went back to his regiment, sailed, and was drowned in a ditch. She's back at the old house, and in want."
"You've seen her?"
"Look here, Jemmy. You and I are a couple of tomfools; but we try to play fair."
"Upon my soul, Jack," observed Captain Jemmy, rising to his feet again, "we can't fight. You're too good a fellow to kill."
"H'mph, I was thinking that."
As if by consent, the pair began to pace up and down the turf, one on either side of the gravelled path. At the end of three minutes Captain Jack looked up.
"After all, you've been married once, whereas I--"
"That doesn't count," the other interrupted. "I married in an unguarded moment. I was huffed with Meg."
"No, I suppose it doesn't count."
They resumed their walk. Captain Jemmy was the next to speak.
"It seems to me Meg must decide."
"Yes, but we must start fair."
"The devil! we can't propose one in each ear. And if we race for it--"
"You must give me half a mile's start."
"But we can write."
"Yes; and deliver our letters together at the door."
"On the other hand, I've always heard that women look upon a written proposal of marriage as rather tame."
"That objection would hardly apply to two in one day. And, besides, she knows about us."
"We'll write," said Captain Jemmy.
He went into the pavilion to search for pens and paper, while Captain Barker stepped down to the Fish and Anchor to borrow a bottle of ink.
"There must be preliminaries," the little man observed, returning and setting the ink down in the centre of the rustic table, on which already lay a bundle of old quills and some quarto sheets of yellow paper.
"As for instance?"
"Imprimis, a thick folio book for me to sit on. The carpenter built this table after your measure."
"I will fetch one."
"Also more beer."
"I will draw some."
"Thirdly, a time-keeper. My stomach's empty, but it can hold out for another hour. We'll give ourselves an hour; start together and finish together."
Captain Runacles fished a silver whistle from his waistcoat pocket and blew on it shrilly. The blue and white door of the pavilion was opened, and a slight old man in a blue livery appeared on the step and came ambling down the path. The weight of an enormous head, on the top of which his grey wig seemed to be balanced rather than fitted, bowed him as he moved. But he drew himself up to salute the two captains.
"Glad to welcome ye, Captain John, along with master here. Hey, but you've aged--the pair o' ye."
"Simeon," said his master, "draw us some beer. Aged, you say?"
"Aye--aged, aged: a trivial, remediless complaint, common to folk. Valiant deeds ye'll do yet, my masters; but though I likes to be hopeful, the door's closin' on ye both. Ye be staid to the eye, noticeably staid. The first sign o't, to be marked at forty or so, is when a woman's blush pales before wine held to the light; the second, and that, too, ye've passed--"
"Hurry, you old fool! As it happens you've been proving us a pair of raw striplings."
"Hee-hee," tittered the old man sardonically, and catching up the tankards trotted back to the house, with his master at his heels. Captain Barker, left alone, rearranged his neckcloth, contemplated his crooked legs for a moment with some disgust, and began to trot up and down the grass-plot, whistling the while with great energy and no regard for tune.
The pair reappeared in the doorway--Captain Runacles bearing an hour-glass and a volume of "Purchas," and Simeon the tankards, crowned with a creamy froth.
"Have you picked your quill?"
"Yes," answered the hunchback, settling himself on top of the brown folio. "No, 'tis a split one."
The pens were old, and had lain with the ink dry upon them ever since the outbreak of the Dutch War. The two men were half a minute in finding a couple that would write. Then Captain Runacles turned the hour-glass abruptly; and for an hour there was no sound in the pavilion garden but the scratching of quills, the murmur of pigeons on the roof, and the creaking of the gilded vane above them.
CHAPTER II.
THE DICE-BOX.
That same afternoon, at four o'clock, Captain Barker and Captain