An Elaborate Elopement

"An Elaborate Elopement" is a humorous novella by W. W. Jacobs, known for his wit and keen observations of human nature. Set in a coastal town, the story revolves around a comically intricate scheme to elope, involving a cast of quirky characters and a series of misunderstandings. Jacobs skillfully intertwines romance and comedy, showcasing the absurdity of the characters' plans and the unexpected obstacles they face. Through his engaging narrative and sharp dialogue, Jacobs highlights themes of love, aspiration, and the folly of overcomplicating life's simplest desires.

• Fiction

								
I have always had a slight suspicion that the following narrative is
not quite true. It was related to me by an old seaman who, among other
incidents of a somewhat adventurous career, claimed to have received
Napoleon’s sword at the battle of Trafalgar, and a wound in the back at
Waterloo. I prefer to tell it in my own way, his being so garnished
with nautical terms and expletives as to be half unintelligible and
somewhat horrifying. Our talk had been of love and courtship, and after
making me a present of several tips, invented by himself, and
considered invaluable by his friends, he related this story of the
courtship of a chum of his as illustrating the great lengths to which
young bloods were prepared to go in his days to attain their ends.

It was a fine clear day in June when Hezekiah Lewis, captain and part
owner of the schooner Thames, bound from London to Aberdeen, anchored
off the little out-of-the-way town of Orford in Suffolk. Among other
antiquities, the town possessed Hezekiah’s widowed mother, and when
there was no very great hurry—the world went slower in those days—the
dutiful son used to go ashore in the ship’s boat, and after a filial
tap at his mother’s window, which often startled the old woman
considerably, pass on his way to see a young lady to whom he had
already proposed five times without effect.

The mate and crew of the schooner, seven all told, drew up in a little
knot as the skipper, in his shore-going clothes, appeared on deck, and
regarded him with an air of grinning, mysterious interest.

“Now you all know what you have got to do?” queried the skipper.

“Ay, ay,” replied the crew, grinning still more deeply.

Hezekiah regarded them closely, and then ordering the boat to be
lowered, scrambled over the side, and was pulled swiftly towards the
shore.

A sharp scream, and a breathless “Lawk-a-mussy me!” as he tapped at his
mother’s window, assured him that the old lady was alive and well, and
he continued on his way until he brought up at a small but pretty house
in the next road.

“Morning, Mr. Rumbolt,” said he heartily to a stout, red-faced man, who
sat smoking in the doorway.

“Morning, cap’n, morning,” said the red-faced man.

“Is the rheumatism any better?” inquired Hezekiah anxiously, as he
grasped the other’s huge hand.

“So, so,” said the other. “But it ain’t the rheumatism so much what
troubles me,” he resumed, lowering his voice, and looking round
cautiously. “It’s Kate.”

“What?” said the skipper.

“You’ve heard of a man being henpecked?” continued Mr. Rumbolt, in
tones of husky confidence.

The captain nodded.

“I’m chick-pecked,” murmured the other.

“What?” inquired the astonished mariner again.

“Chick-pecked,” repeated Mr. Rumbolt firmly. “CHIK-PEKED. D’ye
understand me?”

The captain said that he did, and stood silent awhile, with the air of
a man who wants to say something, but is half afraid to. At last, with
a desperate appearance of resolution, he bent down to the old man’s
ear.

“That’s the deaf ’un,” said Mr. Rumbolt promptly.

Hezekiah changed ears, speaking at first slowly and awkwardly, but
becoming more fluent as he warmed with his subject; while the
expression of his listener’s face gradually changed from incredulous
bewilderment to one of uncontrollable mirth. He became so uproarious
that he was fain to push the captain away from him, and lean back in
his chair and choke and laugh until he nearly lost his breath, at which
crisis a remarkably pretty girl appeared from the back of the house,
and patted him with hearty good will.

“That’ll do, my dear,” said the choking Mr. Rumbolt. “Here’s Captain
Lewis.”

“I can see him,” said his daughter calmly. “What’s he standing on one
leg for?”

The skipper, who really was standing in a somewhat constrained
attitude, coloured violently, and planted both feet firmly on the
ground.

“Being as I was passing close in, Miss Rumbolt,” said he, “and coming
ashore to see mother”—

To the captain’s discomfort, manifestations of a further attack on the
part of Mr. Rumbolt appeared, but were promptly quelled by the
daughter.

“Mother?” she repeated encouragingly,

“I thought I’d come on and ask you just to pay a sort o’ flying visit
to the Thames.”

“Thank you, I’m comfortable enough where I am,” said the girl.

“I’ve got a couple of monkeys and a bear aboard, which I’m taking to a
menagerie in Aberdeen,” continued the captain, “and the thought struck
me you might possibly like to see ’em.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the damsel in a flutter. “Is it a big bear?”

“Have you ever seen an elephant?” inquired Hezekiah cautiously.

“Only in pictures,” replied the girl.

“Well, it’s as big as that, nearly,” said he.

The temptation was irresistible, and Miss Rumbolt, telling her father
that she should not be long, disappeared into the house in search of
her hat and jacket, and ten minutes later the brawny rowers were gazing
their fill into her deep blue eyes as she sat in the stern of the boat,
and told Lewis to behave himself.

It was but a short pull out to the schooner, and Miss Rumbolt was soon
on the deck, lavishing endearments on the monkey, and energetically
prodding the bear with a handspike to make him growl. The noise of the
offended animal as he strove to get through the bars of his cage was
terrific, and the girl was in the full enjoyment of it, when she became
aware of a louder noise still, and, turning round, saw the seamen at
the windlass.

“Why, what are they doing?” she demanded, “getting up anchor?”

“Ahoy, there!” shouted Hezekiah sternly. “What are you doing with that
windlass?”

As he spoke, the anchor peeped over the edge of the bows, and one of
the seamen running past them took the helm.

“Now then,” shouted the fellow, “stand by. Look lively there with them
sails.”

Obeying a light touch of the helm, the schooner’s bow-sprit slowly
swung round from the land, and the crew, hauling lustily on the ropes,
began to hoist the sails.

“What the devil are you up to?” thundered the skipper. “Have you all
gone mad? What does it all mean?”

“It means,” said one of the seamen, whose fat, amiable face was marred
by a fearful scowl, “that we’ve got a new skipper.”

“Good heavens, a mutiny!” exclaimed the skipper, starting
melodramatically against the cage, and starting hastily away again.
“Where’s the mate?”

“He’s with us,” said another seaman, brandishing his sheath knife, and
scowling fearfully. “He’s our new captain.”

In confirmation of this the mate now appeared from below with an axe in
his hand, and, approaching his captain, roughly ordered him below.

“I’ll defend this lady with my life,” cried Hezekiah, taking the
handspike from Kate, and raising it above his head.

“Nobody’ll hurt a hair of her beautiful head,” said the mate, with a
tender smile.

“Then I yield,” said the skipper, drawing himself up, and delivering
the handspike with the air of a defeated admiral tendering his sword.

“Good,” said the mate briefly, as one of the men took it.

“What!” demanded Miss Rumbolt excitedly, “aren’t you going to fight

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