# A Lion Rampant

It all started with a boa-constrictor—no, two boa-constrictors. Then came an elephant: a piece of turf: a lion. … Was there ever such a wooing?
A LION RAMPANT
BY MARY ROBERTS RINEHART AUTHOR OF "THE ROOM BEYOND," "HIS FATHER'S SON," ETC.
WE had hardly realized what it was going to be, until the night of the bankers' dinner. They held a sort of jubilee when the worst of the panic was over, and they could abolish the clearing-house certificates—something like burning the mortgage on a church.
It was after two o'clock when father started home. We had given up our automobiles during the hard times, and father took what Jim calls the one-fifty car, which means a dollar-and-a-half cab. He got out at the corner, and started up the walk to the house. Just at the hydrangea clump he saw the limb of a tree lying across the cement. Father kicked at it, but it only yielded a little and settled back into place, so he lighted a match and stooped down to look at it.
Fortunately, Jim was out late too. He got out of another cab at the corner, and almost ran into father, who was standing on the curb and trying to light his fountain pen with a match. It was by the flare of the match that Jim recognized him.
"Why, hello, dad!" he said. This was Jim's story, later. "Aren't you ashamed to set me such an example?"
Father tried to smile, and said he had eaten too much, and he thought he'd better walk around the square before he turned in; but Jim coaxed him back, and they started for the house. Half-way up the path father stopped.
"I don't think I'll go in, after all," he protested. "I'll—I'll wander around the garden. There's nothing like night air when you've overeaten."
"Fudge!" said Jim. "You come to my room, and I'll give you some soda."
"Two glasses of champagne, James," father said, almost hysterically, "and a thimbleful of Benedictine—that is all, I give you my word; and yet, to save my life, I cannot help thinking that that limb of a tree lying across the path there beside you is—moving!"
Jim looked. Then he stepped back and lighted a match. It was moving, thickening up until it was twice as thick as a man's arm, and inching along slimily. And it was a boa-constrictor!
Of course, when both of them saw it, they knew it was real. Jim said it had its head lifted, and that it was at least eight inches thick. Then, as it seemed to be hunching itself together, they turned around—or, no, they didn't turn; they backed down to the gate and stared at each other solemnly.
"We'd better try the back door," Jim suggested; so they went to the corner and cut across the Frisbee grounds, burning matches to see that they didn't step on another boa-constrictor; and sure enough, when they had got over the fence, and father had sprained his knee, there was another curled up like a rubber fire-hose on the back-door mat.
It seemed to be asleep, and Jim wanted to step over it and ring the bell, but father wouldn't have it. He said he could see it shaking the very tip of its tail, as if it was angry.
"I'm going to pull the fire-alarm," he said furiously; "and after I drown out this menagerie, I'm going to go across the street and kill somebody at that amusement park."
There was what mother called a catchpenny park just across the street. The place was called Eden Garden.
They got to the alarm-box, and father gave the thing a jerk. Jim was enjoying himself immensely; he leaned back against the Frisbees' stone fence, and told father to send in a general alarm while he was at it. And the top of the fence moved under his arm! It was another snake, and the last they saw of it, Jim said, it was prying the cover off a sewer-drop, trying to get into the ground.
About that time people began to run through the park gates, and a young man came across to father. He had a blanket over his arm, and there was a swarthy man with him. carrying a basket. When they saw father, they stopped.
"What's burning?" the young man asked.
"Nothing," father snorted, giving the thing another jerk. "Some of the snakes have got out of Eden, and I'm sending for St. Patrick." The engines were coming up the street by this time, Jim said, and father had worked himself into a frenzy. "I'll show them," he choked, "that respectable members of the community cannot be bitten by snakes!"
"Bitten!" exclaimed the young man. "Where did she bite you?"
"It doesn't matter whether she bit me on the leg or on the back porch," father snarled, and then the engines came.
It was Suzanne, mother's maid, who roused us. When mother saw the engines, she said she had been warned by a fortune-teller that she would be burned alive, and told Suzanne to save herself and me. I went down-stairs to the front door, and there was no sign of fire anywhere, except what the firemen were raking out of the engines. On the veranda step was a good-looking young man, in a pair of slippers and an automobile-coat, and an Indian in a white turban. Between them they were trying to coax a snake into a basket.
"Nice little girl!" the young man was saving. "That's a lady. Quick, now!"
When the lid was on the basket, the young man turned to me.
"We thought it was Isabel," he explained, "and she is as quiet as a dove; but this happened to be Emma Louise, and she is having a tantrum."
"What is burning?" I demanded, for the house seemed quiet.
"Nothing," the young man said, evidently trying not to notice what I had on, "except an elderly gentleman, who is burning with rage. I am sorry my pets have annoyed you, Miss Atwood." He knew my name! "I am Balsinger, of Eden Garden, just across the street. We are neighbors, you see. You can go on, Kubar. If you care to come over any time, Miss Atwood, I would be glad to send you a pass."
"You need not trouble," I said coldly.
He seemed in no hurry to go. He stood looking at me, and I think he remembered he had no collar on, for he turned up his coat.
"I'm thinking of changing the name," he persisted, undaunted. "Paradise Place—how would that do? Alliterative, you know, Eden Garden—Paradise! Funny, too, our gatekeeper's name is Peter. Won't you let me send you a pass?"
"It would be quite useless, thank you," I replied.
This time he seemed to understand that his garden was not an agreeable subject, for he lifted his hat, and with a brief assurance that he would keep his serpents in Eden after that, he swung down the path.
Mother was a Peabody, and the Peabodys once owned all that part of the city. We lived in the old Peabody house, and most of the estate had been sold to desirable people. Just across, however, there were fifteen acres of building-lots that mother refused to sell, because she could not be sure what kind of people would buy them. There were plenty of new people crazy to live on North End Avenue; but rather than sell to them, we pastured cows for years in the heart of the city. The papers used to compute the interest going to waste, and said that every blade of grass the cows ate was worth something like fifty cents.
Father knew what was going to happen when he got mother to lease the land for five years. Nobody would build, we knew, on such a lease, and the rental seemed surprisingly large. We never dreamed of the truth—that we were to have a white-and-gilt, electric-studded, shoot-the-chuting amusement park on the Peabody land.
A man named Balsinger had secured the property, and all through the spring his men hammered and sawed. They put up a fifteen-foot white fence, and a gate with towers like a medieval drawbridge. The whole place blazed with electric-lights, and all summer—we didn't dare go away anywhere, for fear we might meet our neighbors—all summer a band played over the gate, and drank beer, and wiped its mouth on its gold-braided sleeve.
We were very cool to father. We had to eat dinner to rag-time, and Evans, who had been in the Peabody family for years, took to serving things with jerks, and going around the table in a sort of dance step, keeping time to the music. If it happened to be a slow, dreamy waltz, dinner would last for hours.
So you can understand how I felt toward Mr. Balsinger. I could not forget, although he looked like a gentleman, that his peanuts littered our pavements, that red tissue-paper from his popcorn blew over our lawns, that his menagerie howled at feeding-time, that his mob streamed past our house on summer evenings, wheeling some of the babies and carrying the rest. Worst of all, it was his elephant that got loose one day, and played diabolo with mother's Pomeranian and a clothes-line. The next morning, when I was examining the lawn, covered with tracks like inner-plates, he had the effrontery to come over.
"I am at your feet again, Miss Atwood," he began, taking off his hat.
"Why, are these your tracks?" I asked icily.
"I am more sorry than I can say," he said abjectly. "He's usually a good-tempered beast, Tommy is. But—if you don't mind my saying it—never shoot an ammonia pistol into an elephant's trunk. He is sure to be unpleasant."
"He stuck his trunk through the dining-room screen," I said accusingly.
"He only wanted peanuts," Mr. Balsinger pleaded. "It took about four pecks to obliterate the memory of that ammonia."
It was mother who had used the pistol, but I did not consider it necessary to explain. It was queer, now that I saw him in daylight, to notice how black his eyelashes were, while his eyes were rather light gray.
"I will have the turf as good as new by afternoon," he said, seeing me look at it.
"I think it hardly possible," I answered shortly. "It has taken a hundred years of cultivation to make it what it is."
He did not seem impressed.
"I'll have as good a lawn as that in Eden by next summer," he said coolly. "If I don't, I'll get down on my hands and knees and eat it. Do you like moving pictures?"
"No."
I was standing, waiting, but he was not in a hurry to go. His eyes were not so light, after all.
"I'm sorry. There's a good prize-fight this week, and a trip up the Nile by motor-boat. Took them both myself." Mother had come out from the breakfast-room, and was eying us through her lorgnon. "Been over a number of times," the owner of Eden was saying. "Went over first in a cattle-boat, and tended cattle. Stoked a liner to get back. Always had to hustle. Used to get up at four o'clock and drive the ice-wagon at college. Went into the show business with a sick bear that I bought for three dollars and a bottle of whisky. That's eight years ago."
Mr. Balsinger had thrust his hands into his pockets, and was staring reminiscently across at the white paint and tan-bark paths of his Eden. From there his eyes came back slowly to the velvety turf at his feet.
"A hundred years, eh!" he said. "A century of weeding and cultivation!" He looked at me whimsically. "I suppose eight years hardly counts, does it, Miss Atwood?"
"Hardly."
Mother was still looking, so I did not dare to smile. It was almost impossible not to, his cheerfulness was so infectious. He started to go; then he turned around and looked square into my eyes.
"I'm not so sure of that, either. This is the day of quick results. It's a question of wanting a thing badly enough."
"What are you talking about?" I called, for he had started. "Do you mean—Eden?"
"No," he said. "I mean—paradise!" And with that he went. It was most unusual, any way you think about it.
After that, for three weeks I saw him only when he flew past, driving a dizzy red-and-white automobile, with "Eden Garden" in gilt letters on the bonnet. He had put an army of gardeners at work, cutting and rolling his lawns, and they began to look really creditable. On the Fourth the crowd was terrible. Father said he wasn't going to countenance the outrage by watching the fireworks, so he went to bed early. In the middle of "The Fall of Pompeii," however, he sent Evans down for mother. It seemed that a rocket stick had come down and hit him on the head. He said he had not been near the window, and that the thing must have turned a double somersault to get in at him.
Next day a pass to Eden Garden came to me in the mail. There was no card, but stuck through the edge were half a dozen blades of new grass, about an inch and a half long. And that very evening mother's sister at Lakewood ate a bad oyster, and they sent for mother. Father took her to the train, and he did not come back. Jim and I were alone after dinner, and quite by accident I mentioned the pass.
"Burn it?" Jim said. "Not on your life! Get your hat, like a good girl, Alicia, and I'll go over with you."
I had no excuse. I was perfectly aware that the moment I set foot under the medieval bridge, my great-great-grandmother, who was a Van Zandt, would turn right over in her grave under the pavement of the Dutch Reformed Church.
We went brazenly beneath the band, past Peter the gatekeeper, under the electric sign that read, "If you have laughs, prepare to shed them now"—and the thing was done. We walked along beside a lagoon, in a perfect frenzy of light, and the first thing we saw was father! He was standing in front of a Japanese shop, rolling balls of some sort. We watched him pay the Jap a bill and get a queer-looking little hairpin-tray. Just as we were wondering what he would do with it, he went up to a pretty woman with a baby in a perambulator, and held out the tray.
"Pray accept it, with my compliments, madam," he said in his finest manner. "It is for the young lady in the carriage."
The baby wasn't a girl at all; any one but father could have seen that. The woman took the tray and stood staring after him as he sauntered along with his hands behind him, and the next we saw of him he was going on a trip to the north pole. We saw him once again that night, coming down a roller-coaster. He had his hat over his eyes, so that no one would know him, and a woman behind had got hold of his collar and was screaming her head off. Having the sanction of the family, so to speak, I felt better; and when we met Mr. Balsinger, and discovered that he belonged to Jim's "frat," it was only proper to be nice to him. He was, in a manner, our host.
After that we went often. We would wait until father and mother were in the midst of double Canfield, buying the deck for fifty cents and getting a nickel for every card they got out—for mother won't really gamble—and then Jim and I would slip over to the park. Sometimes Jim would wander away and leave Mr. Balsinger to me, and he was really most interesting. I must admit that there were times when I had to try very hard to remember the ice-wagon and the cattle-ship and the automobile with "Eden Garden" on it. And all the time the lawns were growing marvelously.
Then, the first thing we knew at home, Jim had accepted the assistant managership of the park. There was a scene, of course, with mother, father's rage being mitigated by the fact that it was the first time Jim had ever wanted to do anything.
"It's business," Jim said. "I'm not going to lead the camel, mother, or peddle popcorn. I tell you, that fellow Balsinger is a comer, and little Jimmy is going to trot along too!"
Burgoyne Estep came back from the Adirondacks in the middle of July, and proposed to me. Up to the instant I saw him, I had expected to accept him, but at the last minute I said no. The truth was that that very morning a man from the park had come across the street, carrying a gorgeous green-and-gilt basket. And lying in it, with a card in an envelope, as if it had been a bouquet, was a neatly cut piece of turf, well covered with strong young grass. There was nothing but the card. Fortunately, mother was not up at the time.
That evening father came home in a terrible temper. He slammed down the evening paper on the hall table, and shouted for mother. He stamped up-stairs, and in five minutes I was sent for. Mother was in her dressing-room, and father was walking up and down, talking to himself. When I went in he stopped in front of me.
"Oh, it's you, is it?" he demanded. "What do you mean by encouraging this nickel-in-the-slot fellow—this Balsinger?"
"I never did," I said. "I—I hardly know him."
"There!" father shouted triumphantly, wheeling on mother. "It's the fellow's audacity. I told you so. I set him back properly. I told him what I thought of his impertinence. I said we expected something better than a razzle-dazzle on our daughter's coat of arms!"
"If you mean, father," I began, "that the person across the street has dared to go to you—"
"Dared! Why, confound his impudence, he did more than that! He said I made him regret he had not married you first, and telegraphed for my consent afterward!"
I could have wept with fury, but when I took the whole thing to Jim, he only laughed.
"A razzle-dazzle on his coat of arms!" he said promptly. "Why, bless your little heart, a good electric-studded razzle-dazzle is worth more than a duke's coronet, nowadays. And, anyhow, Balsinger has evidently made up his mind to get you, so you're as good as got."
I am sure there was never such another wooing. Mother decided to take me away at once, although it was not necessary; nothing could have induced me to enter Eden again. But she thought it best to wait until after the 12th of September. That was the anniversary of Great-grandfather Peabody's birth, and on that date the Peabody heirs were obliged, according to his will, to go back to the old place for at least part of the day. If the idea was to keep its founder fresh in the family mind, it succeeded. Every one spoke of him unfeelingly; and after the old house burned down, it became a sort of basket picnic, with all the relatives flying back to Bar Harbor or Lenox as soon as they decently could. The farm could not be sold, under the will, and no one would rent it; so it had become a tangle of woods and underbrush and weeds, with about a half-acre cleared around Great-grandfather Peabody's tombstone. And it was there we always picnicked.
Mother pretended she liked to go, but none of the rest made any effort. Father snarled about eating cold food, and Evans gave notice twice when the 12th came on a rainy day. This year it was more than usually awful, for I was in disgrace. Aunt Louise was still suffering from the bad oyster, so we had it to ourselves.
This brings in Mr. Pickwick, although, when Jim mentioned his project to me, I never dreamed he would choose the 12th of September.
"Here's the idea, Alicia," Jim said. "You see, Balsinger is a crackerjack at taking moving pictures, and he's got an idea. We are going to have a lion hunt, out in the country somewhere, with me stationed on an elephant and firing blanks as fast as my loader can hand 'em to me. Maybe we'll have the other elephant out, too, with natives on him, to make it look natural. Balsinger is going to have the camera outfit on the back of a runabout, with a piece of meat fastened to it, and Mr. Pickwick tied to it with a thin line. Start the wagon and the machine, and we ought to get a corking picture of old Pickwick on the trail, drooling for blood."
"Suppose he should break loose!" I shuddered.
Jim laughed.
"Pickwick?" he said. "Why, he's so tame he thinks he's a cat, and he tries to crawl in every lap he sees. The children ride him, and scratch his back for him, and feed him peanuts that he can't chew because he hasn't any teeth. Gentle? Why, he won't bite a flea for fear he might hurt it. The only trouble is to find a place wild enough near town. By Jove, the Peabody farm!"
I forgot the whole thing at once. The next time the red-and-white automobile passed the house, I looked over the driver's head without bowing. After that, for three days he went past looking straight ahead, and I knew that he had realized the outrageousness of his conduct. Then, on the fourth day, he deliberately waited to catch my eye. I had to see him, and there was nothing to do but to bow. It was really extraordinary. I had not exchanged a word with him for a week, and yet in that time he had proposed for my hand, been rejected, quarreled with me, and made it up.
It was typical of Jim to forget Founder's Day, as we called the G. G. F.'s birthday, and to set the picture-taking for the 12th. Of course, we didn't know it then. We drove out to the farm, father and mother and the Peabody lawyer, Mr. Whittle. Evans went along with a hamper, and I had the annual bouquet for the grave.
"It is a barbarous piece of business," father growled to mother. "I don't know why your grandfather thought such a lot of his birthday. It was the one time in his life when all the credit went to somebody else."
By the time we got there it was high noon, and very warm. They were all so disagreeable that I left them there, father and Mr. Whittle playing cribbage on top of the tombstone, and mother reading a novel under a tree. Evans had put the wine to cool in the creek, and was wiping the mud off his shoes. I slipped away into the woods, and very soon I came to the ruins of what had been the original Peabody homestead. There were vines to hide the ugliness of its charred logs—yes, it was a log house—and near by was what had been a spring-house. There was nothing left but some of the wall, and the spring had spread out and formed a little lake bordered by the old garden gone wild—sunflowers and four-o'clocks going to seed, purple phlox and coral honeysuckle, and under foot a tangle of ripe clover.
No doubt my Great-grandmother Peabody made butter there, and suddenly I wished that we had always stayed at the old place, and that I could make butter, and marry some one who hadn't three generations behind him. I had a terrible feeling that the true state of the family was represented by the pallid hollyhocks of the garden around me, rather than by the prosperous turf at home. It was only natural that I should think of Mr. Balsinger, and from that to seeing him upside down in the pool was only a step.
He was standing just across, by the spring-house wall, and he had a leather leash in his hand. When he saw me he stopped staring and took off his hat. It was clear that he was glad to see me.
"I was looking for a beast," he called cheerfully, "and I find beauty. Is there any way to cross this moat that surrounds the family castle?"
"You needn't cross in this direction," I replied indignantly. The family castle, indeed!
"But I do need to," he called. He was jumping from one log to another. "It's the first time I have seen you without a background of relatives, in all the time I have known you."
He was over.
"You have never known me at all," I began; "and to do as you did, going to father, and saying—"
"That's just it, Alicia," he broke in eagerly. "It was the only way to know you. Every time I looked across the street, you hid behind a hedge composed of past ancestors and present family. You will have to admit that the family was always present."
"You said," I reminded him angrily, "that you wished you had run away with me and married me first, and then telegraphed father!"
"So I do," he said calmly. "When you think about a girl so much that you let somebody stick you with a white elephant that's been bleached with peroxide and ammonia, it's time to get the girl."
"I am not surprised, if this is your ordinary method of getting what you want," I stormed. "I never heard of such a thing. You—you act as if you were bargaining for a two-headed calf—with as much sentiment."
He was really astonished.
"Sentiment?" he echoed. "Why I'm afraid to start about that for fear I can't stop. I went to your father first, to do the honest thing, but—sentiment? Why, girl, I love you so much that you'll have to love me! You can't help it. Look up at me."
He caught both my hands, and there were queer little tingles where the Peabody pride was oozing out of my fingertips. His bare palms were hot, and he was very close, looking down straight into my eyes.
"Love?" I temporized. "But why—why didn't you say—"
Suddenly, as if he had seen what he wanted to see, he threw up his head with a quick gesture, and drew my hands high up on his shoulders.
"You!" he said. "You, too! Isn't it wonderful?"
"Let me go!" I cried, panic-stricken. "You know it's impossible. They would never listen to me. What—are—you—going—to—do?"
"Do?" he mocked. "I am going to kiss you, Alicia. If you don't approve of it, close your eyes. I love you, love you, girl! In all the world there is only—you!" He kissed me then—quite a number of times—and last, lingeringly, on the mouth. "Our betrothal kiss," he exulted, still holding me close. "Yes, our kiss, my lady, for you kissed me, too!"
Suddenly he freed me, and stood gazing over my head at something beyond me.
"Great Scott!" he said, as a shout came from the direction of the clearing, and another, a sort of view halloo, from behind us in the woods. "I forgot all about him!"
"Forgot what?"
"Nothing," he evaded, "only—I'll have to go. I forgot something that can't wait. I—" His voice trailed off; he was still staring into the woods. "I mayn't have another chance," he said. "I don't care what happens—I am going to kiss you good-by."
"Not if there is any hurry."
I edged away from him. There was another halloo, closer now.
"Stay right where you are," he said suddenly. "Or perhaps you'd better get out on that log. That's better. Now, no matter what happens, don't move away from there—not a foot, not an inch!"
"I don't see why—" I began, but he was gone, running through the underbrush with his head low. Once he stopped and broke off a branch of a sapling, then on again and out of sight. I stood on the log for some time. Then—it seemed so silly, and he had no right to be so peremptory, when we weren't even really engaged—I started slowly toward the clearing.
There seemed to be a good many people around. Twice excited-looking men ran across my path, and one of them yelled something to me—I couldn't hear what. Then I came to the edge of a little hill, with the clearing just below me; and suddenly I understood what was going on.
Our trap had been drawn into the center of the opening, and the horses taken out. The backs of the seats were turned over, and lunch had been spread on them; but no one was eating. Standing huddled together on the extemporized table were father and mother and Mr. Whittle, while Evans stood in the back of the trap, with a bottle of sauterne poised and a face as white as milk. Sitting on the tombstone, his tongue out with the heat, his moth-eaten mane ruffling in the breeze, his tail waving benevolence and expectation, was Mr. Pickwick.
Just as I came in sight, father reached down and fumbled over the table, his eyes glued to the lion.
"Confound it!" he groaned. "He's had the last sandwich. Evans, haven't you anything else? Where's that lobster salad?"
"I beg your pardon, I think you finished it, sir," Evans quavered, without turning around. "I—I think there's some cake, sir."
Mr. Whittle eagerly stooped and found the cake. As he raised himself, Pickwick, who had been purring with a noise like distant thunder, raised an impatient paw and smartly tapped a wheel of the trap. Mr. Whittle dropped the cake as if he had been shot, and it was gone in two gulps. Father was wild.
"What do you mean by doing that?" he demanded fiercely. "We could have made that last an hour. You—you are infernally careless, Whittle!"
"Never mind," said Mr. Whittle with affected cheerfulness. "It may finish him. He's had enough caviar and lobster to kill almost anything. Try these olives on him."
But Mr. Pickwick liked the cake. He waited for more, and none coming, he raised himself on his aged legs and tried to crawl into the trap. Mother slapped at him with her parasol, and he drew his head back and shut his eyes, wincing like a tabby cat.
"Don't do that!" father yelled. "Don't—do—that! You'll make him angry. Good old fellow, nice old fellow! Confound the luck, he don't like those olives!"
At first I had been terribly frightened, but now I could see a dozen men posted around the clearing, behind trees. I even thought I could make out Jim, with a helmet and puttees, and near him a man in a gray suit like Mr. Balsinger's, only he had a black box in front of him, fastened around his neck with a strap.
Mr. Pickwick sat down suddenly and pursued something along his tail to the tip. Then he began to circle around the trap, rubbing against the wheels and purring, with father and the rest turning like tops to keep facing him. What with excitement and the sun, the Peabody blood began to boil, and mother stooped unexpectedly and gave Mr. Pickwick three smart slaps with her parasol. He was so surprised that he gave a little yelp, and then he ran away, looking back over his shoulder to see if she was coming after him, and scurrying low like a scared cat. Just outside the clearing he ran into a keeper, and after a little scuffle he was captured. Of course, they didn't see that. Father had dropped to the back of a seat and was mopping his face, while mother was trying to look as if banging wild beasts on the nose with a linen parasol was a mere bagatelle.
"A lion!" father exploded. "Upon my soul, I wouldn't have believed it. If it wasn't ten miles from town, I should suspect that idiot Balsinger and his Noah's Ark! I never heard of such a thing. Evans, get the horses. We'll have to get away before he comes back."
But Evans wouldn't put a foot on the ground. He said the trap might take root and grow there, for all he cared. I wouldn't have thought Evans had it in him. And then, tardily enough, they remembered me.
"Alicia!" mother said, jumping up and turning white; and I must give her credit for starting to get out of the trap. But at that moment Mr. Balsinger himself appeared and heard her.
"She is quite safe," he said. "The lion has been captured, and there is no harm done. If you will tell me where your horses are—"
"No harm!" father choked. "I knew you had something to do with this. Confound your impudence! I'll teach you to endanger my life, and then come and say there's no harm done!"
I saw him reach for the whip and Mr. Balsinger fold his arms without moving; then I ran headlong down the hill through the bushes. When I got to the clearing, Evans and Mr. Whittle were holding father, and Mr. Balsinger was standing in the same place, with a red line across his cheek and blood coming from a cut on his ear. Father was beside himself.
"I tell you, you'll never marry her!" he was shouting. "Don't you dare to defy me, you, making me the center of a circus performance! You and your snakes and your lions and your impudence!"
"Father, aren't you ashamed?" I demanded. "Look what you have done. He is bleeding."
"Blood!" father sneered. "It isn't blood; it's pink lemonade. Let go of me, Whittle!"
"Evans," Mr. Balsinger said quietly, "I have a little family matter to discuss with Mr. Atwood. Suppose you go for the horses."
Evans went; people had a way of doing what Mr. Balsinger told them. Then he turned to me.
"Alicia," he said, "I mean to wait until October, but under the circumstances we had better be married the last of this month—say the 25th; you could get some things together by that time."
Mr. Whittle was alone, and small. Father shook him off and began to get out of the trap.
"I am sorry things had to be as they have been," Mr. Balsinger went on, not glancing at father. "I'm sorry, too, to appear to threaten; but really, if your father doesn't control himself better, I shall have to do it."
"Do what?" Mr. Whittle demanded from the trap.
"You see, Alicia, although the escape of Mr. Pickwick was unpremeditated—being the fault of your brother, who dropped the rope—still, having come out to get a moving picture, and the opportunity presenting itself just now, I succeeded in obtaining what will be the most popular exhibition film in the country. That bit where the gentleman dropped the cake, and the other, when your mother valiantly whacked the ferocious beast on the nose with her parasol—I wouldn't sell those poses for half a million dollars. By hurrying"—he looked at the sky—"I think I can use the film to-night. The Emmanuel Church is having its picnic to-day at the park, and—"
Mother gave a little gasp and sat up straight.
"You wouldn't dare—" she began.
"What wouldn't I dare—for you, Alicia?" he asked me. "Of course, if I were a member of the family, I wouldn't think of exhibiting it in what is, perhaps, not a favorable light. Real terror is unmistakable. It cannot be faked."
"Surely no gentleman would do such a dastardly thing!" said mother again feebly.
"Not unless he was compelled to, Alicia. Of course, it could be arranged. If, for instance, your father will admit that this is blood on my handkerchief, and not pink lemonade—"
Father—"I'll be hanged if I will. I don't want to speak to you!"
Mr. Balsinger—"And that instead of a razzle-dazzle on my coat of arms, I may have a lion rampant—"
Father—"I'll sue you. I'll get out an injunction!"
Mr. Balsinger (wheeling)—"By to-night!"
Mother—"Alicia, you are not in earnest about marrying this person?"
Alicia—"I don't know. I—"
Mr. Balsinger—"Are you?"
Alicia (feebly)—"Yes."
Mr. Balsinger (to father)—"Blood or pink lemonade?"
Father (sullenly)—"Blood."
Mr. Balsinger—"And a razzle-dazzle on my coat of arms?"
Father—"A lion, confound you!"
"That's bully!" Mr. Balsinger said heartily. "Now we are all happy and friendly again, and we'll forget that film. Alicia, my automobile is just across that field in the road—I left it there so that you would not have to walk far."
"Get into the trap, Alicia," mother ordered.
I stood between them, uncertain for a moment. Then—I saw his eyes, and for all his sureness, they were strained and anxious.
"G-good-by, mother," I said, and held out my hand to him.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1958, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 65 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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