"I don"t understand you," he replied, with a look of embarra.s.sment.
"Why," she proceeded, "here have you, in a few minutes, made up a match between two persons who never were intended to be married at all; you have got the sanction of two families to a union which neither of them even for a moment contemplated. Dear me, sir, may not a lady and gentleman become acquainted without necessarily falling in love?"
"Ah, but, in your case, my dear Miss Goodwin, it would be difficult--impossible I should say--to remain indifferent, if the gentleman had either taste or sentiment; however, I a.s.sure you I am sincerely glad to find that I have been mistaken."
"G.o.d bless me, Mr. Woodward," said Mrs. Goodwin, "did you think they were sweethearts?"
"Upon my honor, madam, I did--and I was very sorry for it."
"Mr. Woodward," replied Alice, "don"t mistake me; I am inaccessible to flattery."
"I am delighted to hear it," said he, "because I know that for that reason you are not and will not be insensible to truth."
"Unless when it borrows the garb of flattery, and thus causes itself to be suspected."
"In that case," said Woodward, "nothing but good sense, Miss Goodwin, can draw the distinction between them--and now I know that you are possessed of that."
"I hope so, sir," she replied, "and that I will ever continue to observe that distinction. Mamma, I want more thread," she said: "where can I get it?"
"Up stairs, dear, in my work-box."
She then bowed slightly to Woodward and went up to find her thread, but in fact from a wish to put an end to a conversation that she felt to be exceedingly disagreeable. At this moment old Goodwin came in.
"You will excuse me, I trust, Mr. Woodward," said he, "I was down in the dining-room receiving rents for------." He paused, for, on reflection, he felt that this was a disagreeable topic to allude to; the fact being that he acted as his daughter"s agent, and I had been on that and the preceding day receiving her rents. "Martha," said he, "what! about luncheon? You"ll take luncheon with us, Mr. Woodward?"
Woodward bowed, and Mrs. Goodwin was about to leave the room, when he said:
"Perhaps, Mrs. Goodwin, you"d be good enough to remain for a few minutes." Mrs. Goodwin sat down, and he proceeded: "I trust that my arrival home will, under Providence, be the means of reconciling and reuniting two families who never should have been at variance. Not but that I admit, my dear friends,--if you will allow me to call you so,--that the melancholy event of my poor uncle"s death, and the unexpected disposition of so large a property, were calculated to try the patience of worldly-minded people--and who is not so in a more or less I degree?"
"I don"t think any of your family is," replied Goodwin, bluntly, "with one exception."
"O! yes, my mother," replied Woodward, "and I grant it; at least she was so, and acted upon worldly principles; but I think you will admit, at least as Christians you must, that the hour of change and regret may come to every human heart when its errors, and its selfishness, if you will, have been clearly and mildly pointed out. I do not attribute the change that has happily taken place in my dear mother to myself, but to a higher power; although I must admit, as I do with all humility, that I wrought earnestly, in season and out of season, since my return, to bring it about; and, thank heaven, I have succeeded. I come this day as a messenger of peace, to state that she is willing that the families should be reconciled, and a happier and more lasting union effected between them."
"I am delighted to hear it, Mr. Woodward," said Goodwin, much moved; "G.o.d knows I am. Blessed be the peace-maker, and you are he; an easy conscience and a light heart must be your reward."
"They must," added his wife, wiping her eyes; "they must and they will."
"Alas!" proceeded Woodward, "how far from Gospel purity is every human motive when it comes to be tried by the Word! I will not conceal from you the state of my heart, nor deny that in accomplishing this thing it was influenced by a certain selfish feeling on my part; in one sense a disinterested selfishness I admit, but in another a selfishness that involves my own happiness. However, I will say no more on that subject at present. It would scarcely be delicate until the reconciliation is fully accomplished; then, indeed, perhaps I may endeavor, with fear and trembling, to make myself understood. Only until then, I beg of you to think well of me, and permit me to consider myself as not unworthy of a humble place in your affections."
Old Goodwin shook him warmly by the hand, and his wife once more had recourse to her pocket-handkerchief. "G.o.d bless you, Mr. Woodward!"
he exclaimed, "G.o.d bless you, I now see your worth, and know it; you already have our good-will and affections, and, what is more, we feel that you deserve them."
"I wish, my dear sir," said the other, "that Miss Goodwin understood me as well as you and her respected mother."
"She does, Mr. Woodward," replied her father; "she does, and she will too."
"I tremble, however," said Woodward, with a deep sigh; "but I will leave my fate in your hands, or, I should rather say in the hands of Heaven."
Lunch was then announced, and they went down to the front parlor, where it was laid out. On entering the room Woodward was a good deal disappointed to find that Miss Goodwin was not there.
"Will not Miss Goodwin join us?" he asked.
"Certainly," said her father; "Martha, where is she?"
"You know, my dear, she seldom lunches," replied her mother.
"Well, but she will now," said Goodwin; "it is not every day we have Mr.
Woodward; let her be sent for. John, find out Miss Goodwin, and say we wish her to join us at luncheon."
John in a few moments returned to say that she had a slight headache, and could not have the pleasure of coming down.
"O, I am very sorry to hear she is unwell," said Woodward, with an appearance of disappointment and chagrin, which he did not wish to conceal; or, to speak the truth, which, in a great measure, he a.s.sumed.
After lunch his horse was ordered, and he set out on his way to Rathfillan, meditating upon his visit, and the rather indifferent reception he had got from Alice.
Miss Goodwin, though timid and nervous, was, nevertheless, in many things, a girl of spirit, and possessed a great deal of natural wit and penetration. On that day Woodward exerted himself to the utmost, with a hope of making a favorable impression upon her. He calculated a good deal upon her isolated position and necessary ignorance of life and the world, and in doing so, he calculated, as thousands of self-sufficient libertines, in their estimate of women, have done both before and since.
He did not know that there is an intuitive spirit in the female heart which often enables it to discover the true character of the opposite s.e.x; and to discriminate between the real and the a.s.sumed with almost infallible accuracy. But, independently of this, there was in Woodward"s manner a hardness of outline, and in his conversation an unconscious absence of all reality and truth, together with a cold, studied formality, dry, sharp, and presumptuous, that required no extraordinary penetration to discover; for the worst of it was, that he made himself disagreeably felt, and excited those powers of scrutiny and a.n.a.lysis that are so peculiar to the generality of the other s.e.x. In fact, he sought his way home in anything but an agreeable mood. He thought to have met Alice an ignorant country girl, whom he might play upon; but he found himself completely mistaken, because, fortunately for herself, he had taken her upon one of her strong points. As it was, however, whilst he could not help admiring the pertinence of her replies, neither could he help experiencing something of a bitter feeling against her, because she indulged in them at his own expense; whilst against O"Connor, who bantered him with such spirit and success, and absolutely turned him into ridicule in her presence, he almost entertained a personal resentment. His only hope now was in her parents, who seemed as anxious to entertain his proposals with favor as Alice was to reject them with disdain. As for Alice herself, her opinion of him is a matter with which the reader is already acquainted.
Our hero was about half way home when he overtook a thin, lank old man, who was a rather important character in the eyes of the ignorant people at the period of which we write. He was tall, and so bare of flesh, that when asleep he might pa.s.s for the skeleton of a corpse. His eyes were red, cunning, and sinister-looking; his lips thin, and from under the upper one projected a single tooth, long and yellow as saffron. His face was of unusual length, and his parchment cheeks formed two inward curves, occasioned by the want of his back teeth. His breeches were open at the knees; his polar legs were without stockings; but his old brogues were foddered, as it is called, with a wisp of straw, to keep his feet warm. His arms were long, even in proportion to his body, and his bony fingers resembled claws rather than anything! else we can now remember.
They (the claws): were black as ebony, and resembled in length and sharpness those of a cat when she is stretching herself after rising from the! hearth. He wore an old _barrad_ of the day, the greasy top of which fell down upon the collar of his old cloak, and over his shoulder was a bag which, from its appearance, must have contained something not very weighty, as he walked on without seeming to travel as a man who carried a burden. He had a huge staff in his right hand, the left having a hold of his bag. Woodward at first mistook him for a mendicant, but upon looking at him more closely, he perceived nothing of that watchful and whining cant for alms which marks the character of the professional beggar. The old skeleton walked on, apparently indifferent and independent, and never once put himself into the usual posture of entreaty. This, and the originality of his appearance, excited Woodward"s curiosity, and he resolved to speak to him.
"Well, my good old man, what may you be carrying in the bag?"
The man looked at him respectfully, and raising his hand and staff, touched his barrad, and replied:
"A few yarribs, your honor."
"Yarribs? What the deuce is that?"
"Why, the yarribs that grow, sir--to cure the people when they are sick."
"O, you mean herbs."
"I do, sir, and I gather them too for the potecars."
"O, then you are what they call a herbalist."
"I believe I am, sir, if you put that word against (to) a man that gethers yarribs."
"Yes, that"s what I mean. You sell them to the apothecaries, I suppose?"
"I do a little, sir, but I use the most of them myself. Sorra much the potecars knows about the use o" them; they kill more than they cure wid "em, and calls them that understands what they"re good for rogues and quacks. May the Lord forgive them this day! _Amin, acheernah!_ (Amen, O Lord!)"
"And do you administer these herbs to the sick?"
"I do, sir, to the sick of all kinds--man and baste. There"s nothing like them, sir, bekaise it was to cure diseases of all kinds that the Lord, blessed be His name! _amin, acheernah!_ planted them in the earth for the use of his cratures. Why, sir, will you listen to me now, and mark my words? There never was a complaint that follied either man or baste, brute or bird, but a yarrib grows that "ud cure it if it was known. When the head"s hot wid faver, and the heart low wid care, the yarrib is to be found that will cool the head and rise the heart."
"Don"t you think, now," said Woodward, imagining that he would catch him, "that a gla.s.s of wine, or, what is better still, a good gla.s.s of punch, would raise the heart better than all the herbs in the universe?"