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Then there was a ring at the bell; then a scuffling and bumping in the passage: then old Crutty rushed out, and a great laughing and talking, and "HOW ARE YOU?" and so on, was heard at the door; and then the parlor-door was flung open, and Crutty cried out with a loud voice "Good people all! my brother-in-law, Mr. MR. STIFFELKIND! I trembled as I heard the name!
And the old monster produced THOSE VERY BOOTS which Swishtail had made him take back. I DIDN'T marry Miss Crutty: I am not sorry for it though. She was a nasty, ugly, ill-tempered wretch, and I've always said so ever since. And all this arose from those infernal boots, and that unlucky paragraph in the county paper I'll tell you how.
And she did; and it was considered a settled thing from that day. She was really amazingly fond of me. Can any one call me mercenary after that? As a matter of course, Miss Crutty hated Miss Waters. This I thought proper very quickly to check. "Mary," said I, "you know that my love for you is disinterested, for I am faithful to you, though Miss Crutty is richer than you.
The wedding-clothes were ordered; and, to make things secure, I penned a little paragraph for the county paper to this effect: "Marriage in High Life. We understand that Ensign Stubbs, of the North Bungay Fencibles, and son of Thomas Stubbs, of Sloffemsquiggle, Esquire, is about to lead to the hymeneal altar the lovely and accomplished daughter of Solomon Crutty, Esquire, of the same place.
"Come, Stubbs, tell us your adventures." "Psha!" said I, modestly, "there is nothing, indeed, to tell. I have been in love, my dear boy who has not? and I have been jilted who has not?" Clopper swore he would blow his sister's brains out if ever SHE served me so. "Tell him about Miss Crutty," said Dobble. "He! he! Stubbs served THAT woman out, anyhow; she didn't jilt HIM. I'll be sworn."
De Gaptain prefers PUMPS to boots I tink ha! ha!" "Captain indeed! a nice Captain," says Miss Crutty, snapping her fingers in my face, and walking away: "a Captain who has had his nose pulled! ha! ha!" And how could I help it? it wasn't by my own CHOICE that that ruffian Waters took such liberties with me. Didn't I show how averse I was to all quarrels by refusing altogether his challenge?
In the first place, it was taken up as a quiz by one of the wicked, profligate, unprincipled organs of the London press, who chose to be very facetious about the "Marriage in High Life," and made all sorts of jokes about me and my dear Miss Crutty.
And so we did, and so they came: my father and mother, old Crutty in his best wig, and the parson who was to marry us the next day. The coach was to come in at six. And there was the tea-table, and there was the punch-bowl, and everybody ready and smiling to receive our dear uncle from London.
Miss Crutty kissed him; mamma made him a curtsy, and papa made him a bow; and Dr. Snorter, the parson, seized his hand and shook it most warmly: then came my turn! "Vat!" says he. Sare and madam, you should be broud of soch a sonn. And you my niece, if you have him for a husband you vill be locky, dat is all. Vat dink you, broder Croty, and Madame Stobbs, I 'ave made your sonn's boots! Ha ha!"
"And who WAS your dear mamma?" said I: for Miss Crutty's respected parent had been long since dead, and I never heard her name mentioned in the family. Magdalen blushed, and cast down her eyes to the ground. "Mamma was a foreigner," at last she said. "And of what country?" "A German. Papa married her when she was very young: she was not of a very good family," said Miss Crutty, hesitating.
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