pat of my foot and mimic stamp.
“Well, you lasses be queer cattle; ye’re angry wi’ me now, cos ye think I got into mischief — ye do, Maud; ye know’t, ye buxsom little fool, down there at Wolverhampton; and jest for that ye’re ready to turn me off again the minute I come back; ‘tisn’t fair.”
“I don’t understand you, sir; and I beg that you’ll leave me.”
“Now, didn’t I tell ye about leavin’ ye, Maud? ’tis the only think I can’t compass for yer sake. I’m jest a child in yere hands, I am, ye know. I can lick a big fellah to pot as limp as a rag, by George!”—(his oaths were not really so mild)—“ye see summat o’ that t’other day. Well, don’t be vexed, Maud; ’twas all along o’ you; ye know, I wor a big jealous, ‘appen; but anyhow I can do it; and look at me here, jest a child, I say, in yer hands.”
“I wish you’d go away. Have you nothing to do, and no one to see? Why can’t you leave me alone, sir?”
“‘Cos I can’t, Maud, that’s jest why; and I wonder, Maud, how can you be so ill-natured, when you see me like this; how can ye?”
“I wish Milly would come,” said I peevishly, looking toward the door.
“Well, I’ll tell you how it is, Maud, I may as well have it out. I like you better than any lass that ever I saw, a deal; you’re nicer by chalks; there’s none like ye — there isn’t; and I wish you’d have me. I ha’n’t much tin — father’s run through a deal, he’s pretty well up a tree, ye know; but though I baint so rich as some folk, I’m a better man, ‘appen; and if ye’d take a tidy lad, that likes ye awful, and ‘id die for your sake, why here he is.”
“What can you mean, sir?” I exclaimed, rising in indignant bewilderment.
“I mean, Maud, if ye’ll marry me, you’ll never ha’ cause to complain; I’ll never let ye want for nout, nor gi’e ye a wry word.”
“Actually a proposal!” I ejaculated, like a person speaking in a dream.
I stood with my hand on the back of a chair, staring at Dudley; and looking, I dare say, as stupefied as I felt.
“There’s a good lass, ye would na deny me,” said the odious creature, with one knee on the seat of the chair behind which I was standing, and attempting to place his arm lovingly round my neck.
This effectually roused me, and starting back, I stamped upon the ground with actual fury.
“What has there ever been, sir, in my conduct, words, or looks, to warrant this unparalleled audacity? But that you are as stupid as you are impertinent, brutal, and ugly, you must,, long ago, sir, have seen how I dislike you. How dare you, sir? Don’t presume to obstruct me; I’m going to my uncle.”
I had never spoken so violently to mortal before.
He in turn looked a little confounded; and I passed his extended but motionless arm with a quick and angry step.
He followed me a pace or two, however, before I reached the door, looking horridly angry, but stopped, and only swore after me some of those “wry words” which I was never to have heard. I was myself, however, too much incensed, and moving at too rapid a pace, to catch their import; and I had knocked at my uncle’s door before I began to collect my thoughts.
“Come in,” replied my uncle’s voice, clear, thin, and peevish.
I entered and confronted him.
“Your son, sir, has insulted me.”
He looked at me with a cold curiosity steadily for a few seconds, as I stood panting before him with flaming cheeks.
“Insulted you?” repeated he. “Egad, you surprise me!”
The ejaculation savoured of “the old man,” to borrow his scriptural phrase, more than anything I had heard form him before.
“How?” he continued; “how has Dudley insulted you, my dear child? Come, you’re excited; sit down; take time, and tell me all about it. I did not know that Dudley was here.”
“I— he — it is an insult. He knew very well — he must know I dislike him; and he presumed to make a proposal of marriage to me.”
“O— o — oh!” exclaimed my uncle, with a prolonged intonation which plainly said, Is that the mighty matter?
He looked at me as he leaned back with the same steady curiosity, this time smiling, which somehow frightened me, and his countenance looked to me wicked, like the face of a witch, with a guilt I could not understand.
“And that is the amount of your complaint. He made you a formal proposal of marriage!”
“Yes; he proposed for me.”
As I cooled, I began to feel just a very little disconcerted, and a suspicion was troubling me that possibly an indifferent person might think that, having no more to complain of, my language was perhaps a little exaggerated, and my demeanour a little too tempestuous.
My uncle, I dare say, saw some symptoms of this misgiving, for, smiling still, he said —
“My dear Maud, however just, you appear to me a little cruel; you don’t seem to remember how much you are yourself to blame; you have one faithful friend at least, whom I advise your consulting — I mean your looking-glass. The foolish fellow is young, quite ignorant of the world’s ways. He is in love — desperately enamoured.
Aimer c’est craindre, et craindre c’est souffrir.
And suffering prompts to desperate remedies. We must not be too hard on a rough but romantic young fool, who talks according to his folly and his pain.”
Chapter 49.
An Apparition
“BUT, AFTER ALL,” he suddenly resumed, as if a new thought had struck him, “is it quite such folly after all? It really strikes me, dear Maud, that the subject may be worth a second thought. No, no, you won’t refuse to hear me,” he said, observing me on the point of protesting. “I am, of course, assuming that you are fancy free. I am assuming, too, that you don’t care twopence about Dudley, and even that you fancy you dislike him. You know in that pleasant play, poor Sheridan — delightful fellow! — all our fine spirits are dead — he makes Mrs. Malaprop say there is nothing like beginning with a little aversion. Now, though in matrimony, of course, that is only a joke, yet in love, believe me, it is no such thing. His own marriage with Miss Ogle, I know, was a case in point. She expressed a positive horror of him at their first acquaintance; and yet, I believe, she would, a few months later, have died rather than not have married him.”
I was again about to speak, but with a smile he beckoned me into silence.
“There are two or three points you must bear in mind. One of the happiest privileges of your fortune is that you may, without imprudence, marry simply for love. There are few men in England who could offer you an estate comparable with that you already possess; or, in fact, appreciably increase the splendour of your fortune. If, therefore, he were in all other respects eligible, I can’t see that his poverty would be an objection to weigh for one moment. He is quite a rough diamond. He has been, like many young men of the highest rank, too much given up to athletic sports — to that society which constitutes the aristocracy of the ring and the turf, and all that kind of thing. You see, I am putting all the worst points first. But I have known so many young men in my day, after a madcap career of a few years among prizefighters, wrestlers, and jockeys — learning their slang and affecting their manners — take up and cultivate the graces and the decencies. There was poor dear Newgate, many degrees lower in that kind of a frolic, who, when he grew tired of it, became one of the most elegant and accomplished men in the House of Peers. Poor Newgate, he’s gone, too! I could reckon up fifty of my early friends