CHAPTER XXII.

IN WHICH SHEPPARD LEE FINDS THAT HE HAS MADE THE FORTUNE OF HIS FRIENDS, WITHOUT HAVING GREATLY ADVANTAGED HIS OWN.

As we reached the foot of the staircase, the house door opened, and in came my friend Tickle, dragged along--not by our dear and faithless Pattie, as we fondly supposed, but by the raging Nora Magee.

"Help, murder, help!" cried my friend Tickle.

"Och, murder, and twenty murders more upon ye, ye chatin crathur! and won't ye marry me?" cried Nora Magee.

My uncle Wilkins and myself rushed forward, lost in amazement, and separated the fury from her prey. "What is the matter?" cried both, "and where is Pattie?"

"The devil is the matter," cried Jack, panting and blowing; "and where Pattie is I know no more than you. I thought I was running away with her until I reached the squire's; and then I found I had this wild Indian under her cloak, who insisted I should marry her, or else--"

"Ay, ye murderin, faithless villain!" said Nora Magee, "I'll marry ye, or I'll have the breaches of promise and the damages out of ye! Och, but I have the law of ye; for didn't my Missus Pattie promise ye should marry me? I say, ye ugly-faced, hin-souled Tickle that they call ye, I have the law of ye, and I'll be married before the squire, or I'll have the breaches out of ye!"

"My breeches," said Jack, "you may have, and my coat and waistcoat too; for may I be hanged and quartered if I am not cheated out of my very skin."

"Where's my daughter Pattie?" said my uncle Wilkins. He looked at me, and I looked at him; it was plain my cousin Pattie had not run away with my friend Tickle.

Where could she be? I began to recover my spirits, when they were suddenly put to flight by a knock at the door, which being opened, a letter was thrown in, the messenger instantly taking to his heels, so that no one beheld him. It was a letter to my uncle Wilkins. He opened it and read the following words:--

DEAR PAPA AND HONOURED FATHER:

"This is to inform you that I don't like Mr. Tickle, and so can't marry him; and hope you will excuse me for following my own fancies, being now independent, as you have made me, for which I will remain your dutiful, loving daughter for life Give my love to cousin Dully, and tell him I consider him my best friend next to my dear papa and my dear husband--for, oh, papa, I'm really married, and going off travelling to-morrow.

"Hope you'll forgive us, papa, and shall ever love and pray for you, and rest your loving, dutiful children,

"_PATTIE_ and DANNY BAKER."

"_Danny Baker!_" roared my uncle; "_Danny_ Baker!" groaned I. The clodhopper had got her, and I had been only toiling in his service!

"Oh, you villain!" said my uncle Wilkins, "this is all your doings!"

"Sir," said I, "no hard words."

"You're a villain!" said my uncle; "you wanted to steal her yourself, and I a'n't sorry Danny Baker has choused you out of her; and for that reason I don't care if I forgive him. Yes, sir, I'll forgive Danny Baker; but for you, sir, I owe you a debt--"

"If you do," said Tickle, "pay him." But we took no notice of him--my uncle because he was enraged, and I because I was devoured by the greatness of my misfortune. In truth, the loss of my cousin Pattie was so unexpected, that it had astounded me out of my faculties. I was reduced to a mere automaton, conscious, indeed, of being in a horrible quandary, but incapable of seeing my way out of it; when I suddenly heard the voice, as I thought (or some one very like it), of my cousin Sammy at the door.

This roused me at once; I remembered that at this moment my Alicia was waiting for me, and I fell into a rapture.

"Uncle Wilkins," said I, "you may say what you please; Jack Tickle, you are a rascal; Nora Magee, you are a jade; but it is all one to I. D. Dawkins. I will marry my Miss Skinner."

As I spoke I looked upon the door, which, opening, disclosed a sight that petrified me, body and soul together. It was the apparition of my Alicia, in bridal array, leaning upon the arm of my cousin Sammy, and followed by a brace of youthful damsels decked in white flowers, all of whom stalked into the door with the solid step of flesh and blood, and advanced towards my uncle; my Alicia looking as silly and shame-faced as could be, while Sammy, on the contrary, held up his head and strutted like a turbaned Turk in the midst of his harem.

"What the deuse is all this?" said Jack Tickle. As for me, I could not speak a word, being a hundred fold more amazed than before. I looked at my Alicia, who, seeing me, began to blush, and bridle, and simper, and hold fast to Sammy's arm. As for Sammy, he looked not a whit the less Turkish, but marched up to his father as if charging him at the head of a regiment.

The old gentleman was as much astonished as myself, and at last cried out,

"Ods bobs! what's the matter, Sam? have you been running away, too?"

"No," said my cousin Sammy, "I reckon I'm not gone yet; but I've come to get ready: and first, dad, as in duty bound, let's have a bit of your blessing, if you've no objection, on me and my wife."

"Your wife!!!" said I, and said no more.

"Well," said my cousin Sammy, "I reckon I may say so; for you see, Dawkins, my boy, when I saw 'Lishy here, I liked her; and when July here came and told us as how you had run off with sister Pat Wilkins, why, then, said I, I may as well speak up for myself; and so, as the parson was ready, and 'Lishy dressed up to be married already, we made but short work of the courtship; and now, as the saying is, one and one _is_ one: this here is my wife, for better and for worse, and I hope neither you nor father has any objection."