The Squirrel Inn Part 23

"It was a capital notion," said Mr. Tippengray, "for me to take this ladder. In the first place, it enables me to get up to you, and secondly, it prevents Lanigan Beam from getting down from his room."

Miss Mayberry laughed, and the baby crowed in sympathy.

"Why shouldn't he get down, Mr. Tippengray?" said she.

"If he did," was the answer, "he would be sure to interfere with me. He would come here, and I don't want him. I have something to say to you, Miss Mayberry, and I must be brief in saying it, for bystanders, no matter who they might be, would prevent my speaking plainly. I have become convinced, Miss Mayberry, that my life will be imperfect, and indeed worthless, if I cannot pa.s.s it in prosecuting my studies in your company, and with your a.s.sistance. You may think this strong language, but it is true."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PROPOSAL.]

"That would be very pleasant," said the nurse-maid, "but I do not see how you are going to manage it. My stay here will soon come to an end, for if Mrs. Cristie does not return to the city in a week or two, I must leave her. I am a teacher, you know, and before the end of the summer vacation, I must go and make my arrangements for the next term, and then you can easily see for yourself that when I am engaged in a school I cannot do very much studying with you."

"Oh, my dear young lady," cried Mr. Tippengray, "you do not catch my idea. I am not thinking of schools or positions, and I do not wish you to think of them. I wish you to know that you have translated me from a quiet scholar into an ardent lover, and that it would be of no use at all to try to get me back into my original condition. If I cannot be the man I want to be, I cannot be the man I was. I ask you for your hands, your heart, and your intellect. I invite you to join me in pursuing the higher education until the end of our lives. Take me for your scholar and be mine. I pray you give me--"

"Upon--my word!" was the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, loud and distinct, which came up from the foot of the ladder, and stopped Mr. Tippengray's avowal. Miss Mayberry instantly thrust her head out of the window, and Mr. Tippengray looked down. It was Calthea Rose who had spoken, and she stood under the window in company with Mr. and Mrs. Petter. A short distance away, and rapidly approaching, were Mrs. Cristie and Walter Lodloe.

"Here is grat.i.tude!" cried Calthea, in stinging tones. "I came all the way back from Lethbury to see if anything had happened to you and that horse, and this is what I find. The top of a ladder and a child's nurse!

Such a disgrace never fell on this county."

"Never, indeed," cried Mrs. Petter. "I wouldn't have believed it if angels had got down on their knees and sworn it to me. Come down from that ladder, Mr. Tippengray! Come down from it before I make my husband break it to bits beneath you. Come down, I say!"

"Mr. Tippengray," said Mr. Petter, in solemn voice, "in the name of the laws of domesticity and the hearthstone, and in the honorable name of the Squirrel Inn, I command you to come down."

There was but one thing for Mr. Tippengray to do, and that was to come down, and so down he came.

"Disgraceful!" cried Miss Rose; "you ought to be ashamed to look anybody in the face."

"Never would I have believed it," exclaimed Mrs. Petter. "Never, never, if I had not seen it with my own eyes, and in broad daylight too!"

What Mr. Tippengray would have said or done is not known, for at that instant Ida Mayberry leaned far out of the window and claimed the attention of the company.

"Look here!" she cried, "we have had enough of this. Mr. Tippengray has nothing to be ashamed of, and he had a perfect right to climb up this ladder. I want you all to understand that we are engaged to be married."

This announcement fell like a sudden downpour upon the people beneath the window, and they stood silenced; but in an instant the Greek scholar bounded up the ladder, and, seizing Miss Mayberry by the hand, kissed it rapturously.

"I may have been a little abrupt," she said, in a low voice, "but I wasn't going to stand here and let our affair be broken off like that."

At Mr. Tippengray's spontaneous exhibition of tender affection, Mr.

Petter involuntarily and reverently took off his hat, while Mrs. Cristie and Lodloe clapped their hands. The lover, with radiant face, now descended the ladder and received congratulations from everybody except Miss Calthea, who, with her nose pointed about forty-five degrees above the horizon, walked rapidly to the post where she had tied her horse.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MR. PETTER TAKES OFF HIS HAT.]

Miss Mayberry now appeared, with the baby in her arms, and an expression of great satisfaction upon her face. Mrs. Cristie relieved her of the first, but the latter increased as the little company heartily shook hands with her.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LANIGAN BEAM WANTS HIS LADDER.]

"I had supposed it would be different with you, Mr. Tippengray," said Mrs. Petter, "but people ought to know their own minds, and I have no doubt that Calthea would have often made it very hot for you, especially if you did not turn over an entirely new leaf in regard to coming to your meals. But there must be no more laddering; whether it is right or not, it does not look so. When Ida isn't tending to the child, and it's too wet to be out of doors, you can have the little parlor to yourselves. I'll have it dusted and aired."

"Excuse me," said Lodloe, coming forward, "but if you have no further use for that ladder, Mr. Tippengray, I will take it to Lanigan Beam, who is leaning out of his window, and shouting like mad. I presume he wants to come down, and as I have locked the door of my room he cannot descend in that way."

"Poor Lanigan!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Petter, "he doesn't know what he's coming down to. But no matter what he undertakes he is always a day after the fair."

Mr. Petter drew the Greek scholar aside.

"My dear sir," he said expressively, "I have a special reason for congratulating you on your decision to unite your blood and culture with those of another. Had you been entrapped by the wiles of our Lethbury neighbor, a person for whom I have but slight regard, and who is looked upon with decided disapprobation by those as competent to judge as the Rockmores of Germantown, I am afraid, my dear sir, I should have been compelled to sever those pleasant relations which for so many months have held us together, and which I hope may continue for years."

"My good Petter," said Mr. Tippengray, "I have a pleasant house in town, which I hope to occupy with my wife this winter, and I should like it very much if you and Mrs. Petter would make us a visit there, and, if you wish, I'll have some of the Germantown Rockmores there to meet you."

The landlord of the Squirrel Inn stepped back in amazement.

"Do you mean to say," he exclaimed, "that you know the Rockmores?"

"The way of it is this," replied the Greek scholar; "you see, my mother was a Purley, and on the maternal side she belonged to the Kempton-Tucker family, and you know that the head of that family married for his second wife a Mrs. Callaway, who was own sister to John Brent Norris, whose daughter married a Rockmore. So you see we are connected."

"And you never told me!" solemnly exclaimed Mr. Petter.

"No," said his companion; "there are pleasures of revelation, which are enhanced by a delay in realization, and besides I did not wish to place myself in a position which might, perchance, subordinate some of your other guests."

"I must admit that I am sorry," said Mr. Petter; "but your action in the matter proves your blood."

And now, Mrs. Cristie having finished her very earnest conversation with Ida, the newly betrothed pair walked together towards the bluff from which there was such a beautiful view of the valley below.

XXVI

ANOTHER SQUIRREL IN THE TAP-ROOM

"If I had known," said Lanigan Beam, as late that night he sat smoking with Walter Lodloe in the top room of the tower, "that that old rascal was capable of stealing my ladder in order to make love to my girl, I should have had a higher respect for him. Well, I'm done for, and now I shall lose no time in saying good-by to the Squirrel Inn and Lethbury."

"Why so?" asked his companion in surprise. "Was the hope of winning Miss Mayberry the only thing that kept you here?"

"Oh, no," said Lanigan; "it was the hope that Calthea might get old Tippengray. You will remember I told you that, but as she cannot now go off with him, there is n.o.body for her to go off with, and so I must be the one to travel."

Lodloe laughed. "Under the circ.u.mstances then," he said, "you think you couldn't stay in this neighborhood?"

"Not with Calthea unattached," replied Lanigan. "Oh, no! Quite impossible."

When Miss Rose had been convinced that all her plans had come to naught, earnestly and with much severity and singleness of purpose she considered the situation. It did not take her long to arrive at the conclusion that the proper thing for her to do was to marry Lanigan Beam, and to do it without loss of time. Having come to this decision, she immediately began to make arrangements to carry it into effect.

It was utterly vain and useless for Lanigan to attempt to get away from her. She came upon him with a sweet a.s.surance which he supposed had vanished with her earlier years; she led him with ribbons which he thought had faded and fallen into shreds long, long ago; she clapped over his head a bag which he supposed had been worn out on old Tippengray; and she secured him with fetters which he imagined had long since been dropped, forgotten, and crumbled into dust. He did not go away, and it was not long before it was generally understood in the neighborhood that, at last, he and Calthea Rose were to be married.

Shortly after this fact had been made public, Lanigan and Walter Lodloe, who had not seen each other for some days, were walking together on the Lethbury road.

"Yes," said the former, "it is a little odd, but then odd things are all the time happening. I don't know whether Calthea has taken me in by virtue of my first engagement to her, or on some of the others. Or it may be that it is merely a repeal of our last breaking off. Anyway, I found she had never dreamed of anything but marrying me, and though I thought I had a loose foot, I found I hadn't, and there's an end of it.

Besides, I will say for Calthea that her feelings are different from what I supposed they were. She has mellowed up a good deal in the last year or two, and I shall try to make things as easy for her as I can.