I don't know the story of their wooing. I
imagine it was carried on clandestinely and, I am certain, with
portentous gravity, at the back of copses, behind hedges . . .
"Why was it carried on clandestinely?" I inquired.
"Because of the lady's father. He was a savage sentimentalist who had
his own decided views of his paternal prerogatives. He was a terror; but
the only evidence of imaginative faculty about Fyne was his pride in his
wife's parentage. It stimulated his ingenuity too. Difficult--is it
not?--to introduce one's wife's maiden name into general conversation.
But my simple Fyne made use of Captain Anthony for that purpose, or else
I would never even have heard of the man. "My wife's sailor-brother" was
the phrase. He trotted out the sailor-brother in a pretty wide range of
subjects: Indian and colonial affairs, matters of trade, talk of travels,
of seaside holidays and so on. Once I remember "My wife's sailor-brother
Captain Anthony" being produced in connection with nothing less recondite
than a sunset. And little Fyne never failed to add "The son of Carleon
Anthony, the poet--you know.
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