the last.
sitting alone in the breakfast parlour of the rosebud, one morning in june, miss stivergill read the following paragraph in her newspaper:— “gallant rescue.—yesterday forenoon a lady and her daughter, accompanied by a gentleman, went to the landing-wharf at blackfriars with the intention of going on board a steamer. there were some disorderly men on the wharf, and a good deal of crowding at the time. as the steamer approached, one of the half-drunk men staggered violently against the daughter above referred to, and thrust her into the river, which was running rapidly at the time, the tide being three-quarters ebb. the gentleman, who happened to have turned towards the mother at the moment, heard a scream and plunge. he looked quickly back and missed the young lady. being a tall powerful man, he dashed the crowd aside, hurled the drunk man—no doubt inadvertently—into the river, sprang over his head, as he was falling, with a magnificent bound, and reached the water so near to the young lady that a few powerful strokes enabled him to grasp and support her. observing that the unfortunate cause of the whole affair was lulling helplessly past him with the tide, he made a vigorous stroke or two with his disengaged arm, and succeeded in grasping him by the nape of the neck, and holding him at arm’s-length, despite his struggles, until a boat rescued them all. we believe that the gentleman who effected this double rescue is named aspel, and that he is a city missionary. we have also been informed that the young lady is engaged to her gallant deliverer, and that the wedding has been fixed to come off this week.”
laying down the paper, miss stivergill lifted up her eyes and hands, pursed her mouth, and gave vent to a most unladylike whistle! she had barely terminated this musical performance, and recovered the serenity of her aspect, when miss lillycrop burst in upon her with unwonted haste and excitement.
“my darling maria!” she exclaimed, breathlessly, flinging her bonnet on a chair and seizing both the hands of her friend, “i am so glad you’re at home. it’s such an age since i saw you! i came out by the early train on purpose to tell you. i hardly know where to begin. oh! i’m so glad!”
“you’re not going to be married?” interrupted miss stivergill, whose stern calmness deepened as her friend’s excitement increased.
“married? oh no! ridiculous! but i think i’m going deranged.”
“that is impossible,” returned miss stivergill, “you have been deranged ever since i knew you. if there is any change in your condition it can only be an access of the malady. besides, there is no particular cause for joy in that. have you no more interesting news to give me?”
“more interesting news!” echoed miss lillycrop, sitting down on her bonnet, “of course i have. now, just listen: peter pax—of the firm of blurt, pax, jiggs, and company, antiquarians, bird-stuffers, mechanists, stamp-collectors, and i don’t know what else besides, to the queen—is going to be married to—whom do you think?”
“the queen of sheba,” replied miss stivergill, folding her hands on her lap with a placid smile.
“to—tottie bones!” said miss lillycrop, with an excited movement that ground some of her bonnet to straw-powder.
miss stivergill did not raise her eyes or whistle at this. she merely put her head a little on one side and smiled.
“i knew it, my dear—at least i felt sure it would come to this, though it is sooner than i expected. it is not written anywhere, i believe, that a boy may not marry a baby, nevertheless—”
“but she’s not a baby,” broke in miss lillycrop.
“tottie is seventeen now, and pax is twenty-four. but this is not the half of what i have to tell you. ever since pax was taken into partnership by mr enoch blurt the business has prospered, as you are aware, and our active little friend has added all kinds of branches to it—such as the preparation and sale of entomological, and ichthyological, and other -ological specimens, and the mechanical parts of toy-engines; and that lad jiggs has turned out such a splendid expounder of all these things, that the shop has become a sort of terrestrial heaven for boys. and dear old fred blurt has begun to recover under the influence of success, so that he is now able to get out frequently in a wheel-chair. but the strangest news of all is that mister enoch blurt got a new baby—a girl—and recovered his diamonds on the self-same day!”
“indeed!” said miss stivergill, beginning to be influenced by these surprising revelations.
“yes, and it’s a curious evidence of the energetic and successful way in which things are managed by our admirable post-office—”
“what! the union of a new baby with recovered diamonds?”
“no, no, maria, how stupid you are! i refer, of course, to the diamonds. have you not seen reference made to them in the papers?”
“no. i’ve seen or heard nothing about it.”
“indeed! i’m surprised. well, that hearty old letter-carrier, solomon flint, sent that ridiculously stout creature whom he calls dollops to me with the last report of the postmaster-general, with the corner of page eleven turned down, for he knew i was interested in anything that might affect the blurts. but here it is. i brought it to read to you. listen: ‘on the occasion of the wreck of the trident in howlin’ cove, on the west of ireland, many years ago, strenuous efforts were made by divers to recover the cape of good hope mails, and, it will be recollected, they were partially successful, but a portion which contained diamonds could not be found. diving operations were, however, resumed quite recently, and with most satisfactory results. one of the registered-letter-bags was found. it had been so completely imbedded in sand, and covered by a heavy portion of the wreck, that the contents were not altogether destroyed, notwithstanding the long period of their immersion. on being opened in the chief office in london, the bag was found to contain several large packets of diamonds, the addresses on which had been partially obliterated, besides about seven pounds weight of loose diamonds, which, having escaped from their covers, were mixed with the pulp in the bottom of the bag. every possible endeavour was used by the officers of the department to discover the rightful owners of those packets which were nearly intact, and with such success that they were all, with very little delay, duly delivered. the remaining diamonds were valued by an experienced broker, and sold—the amount realised being about 19,000 pounds. after very great trouble, and much correspondence, the whole of the persons for whom the loose diamonds were intended were, it is believed, ascertained, and this sum proved sufficient to satisfy the several claimants to such an extent that not a single complaint was heard.’”
“how strange! why did you not tell me of this before, lilly?”
“because mr blurt resolved to keep it secret until he was quite sure there was no mistake about the matter. now that he has received the value of his diamonds he has told all his friends. moreover, he has resolved to take a house in the suburbs, so that fred may have fresh country air, fresh milk, and fresh eggs. peter pax, too, talks of doing the same thing, being bent, so he says, on devoting himself to the entomological department of his business, in order that he may renew his youth by hunting butterflies and beetles with tottie.”
“it never rains but it pours,” said miss stivergill. “surprises don’t come singly, it appears.—have you read that?” she handed her friend the newspaper which recounted the “gallant rescue.”
miss lillycrop’s countenance was a study which cannot be described. the same may be said of her bonnet. when she came to the name of aspel her eyeballs became circular, and her eyebrows apparently attempted to reach the roots of her hair.
“maria dear!” she cried, with a little shriek, “this only reminds me that i have still more news to tell. you remember sir james clubley? well, he is dead, and he has left the whole of his property to george aspel! it seems that sir james went one night, secretly, as it were, to some low locality where aspel was preaching to poor people, and was so affected by what he heard and saw that he came forward at the close, signed the pledge along with a number of rough and dirty men, and then and there became a total abstainer. this, i am told, occurred a considerable time ago, and he has been a helper of the temperance cause ever since. sir james had no near relatives. to the few distant ones he possessed he left legacies, and in his will stated that he left the rest of his fortune—which, although not large, is considerable—to george aspel, in the firm belief that by so doing he was leaving it to further the cause of christianity and temperance.”
“come, now, don’t stop there,” observed miss stivergill calmly, “go on to tell me that phil maylands has also had a fortune left him, or become postmaster-general and got married, or is going to be.”
“well, i can’t exactly tell you that,” returned miss lillycrop, “but i can tell you that he has had a rise in the post-office savings bank, with an increase of salary, and that may declines to marry aspel unless he agrees to live with her mother in the cottage at nottinghill. of course aspel has consented—all the more that it is conveniently situated near to a station whence he can easily reach the field of his missionary labours.”
“does he intend to continue these now that he is rich?” asked miss stivergill.
“how can you ask such a question?” replied her friend, with a slightly offended look. “aspel is not a man to be easily moved from his purpose. he says he will labour in the good cause, and devote health and means to it as long as god permits.”
“good!” exclaimed miss stivergill with a satisfied nod.—“now, lilly,” she added, with the decision of tone and manner peculiar to her, “i mean to make some arrangements. the farmer next to me has a very pretty villa, as you are aware, on the brow of the hill that overlooks the whole country in the direction of london. it is at present to let. mr blurt must take it. beside it stands a cottage just large enough for a new-married couple. i had already rented that cottage for a poor friend. he, however, knows nothing about the matter. i will therefore have him put somewhere else, and sub-let the cottage to mr and mrs pax. lastly, you shall give up your insane notion of living alone, come here, with all your belongings, and take up your abode with me for ever.”
“that’s a long time, dear maria,” said miss lillycrop, with a little smile.
“not too long, by any means, lilly. now, clear that rubbish off the chair—it’s well got rid of, i never liked the shape—go, put yourself to rights, use one of my bonnets, and come out for a walk. to-morrow you shall go into town and arrange with pax and blurt about the villa and the cottage to the best of your ability. it’s of no use attempting to resist me, lilly—tell them that—for in this affair i have made up my mind that my will shall be law.”
reader, what more need we add—except that miss stivergill’s will did eventually become law, because it happened to correspond with the wishes of all concerned. it is due, also, to solomon flint to record that after his long life of faithful service in the post-office he retired on a small but comfortable pension, and joined the “rosebud colony,” as pax styled it, taking his grandmother along with him. that remarkable piece of antiquity, when last seen by a credible witness, was basking in the sunshine under a rustic porch covered with honeysuckle, more wrinkled, more dried-up, more tough, more amiable—especially to her cat—and more stooped in the previous century than ever. mr bright, the energetic sorter, who visits solomon whenever his postal duties will allow, expresses his belief that the old lady will live to see them all out, and mr bright’s opinion carries weight with it; besides which, phil maylands and may aspel with her husband are more than half inclined to agree with him. time will show.
pegaway hall still exists, but its glory has departed, for although mrs square still keeps her one watchful eye upon its closed door, its walls and rafters no longer resound with the eloquence, wit, and wisdom of boy telegraph messengers, although these important servants of the queen still continue—with their friends the letter-carriers—to tramp the kingdom “post haste,” in ceaseless, benignant activity, distributing right and left with impartial justice the varied contents of her majesty’s mails.
the end
