CHAPTER CIV.

A REMARKABLE EXAMPLE, SHOWING THAT A WISE MAN, WHEN HE RISES IN THE MORNING, LITTLE KNOWS WHAT HE MAY DO BEFORE NIGHT.

                              —Now I love,
And so as in so short a time I may;
Yet so as time shall never break that so,
And therefore so accept of Elinor.
                                                 ROBERT GREENE.

One summer evening the Doctor on his way back from a visit in that direction, stopt, as on such opportunities he usually did, at Mr. Bacon's wicket, and looked in at the open casement to see if his friends were within. Mr. Bacon was sitting there alone, with a book open on the table before him; and looking round when he heard the horse stop, “Come in Doctor,” said he, “if you have a few minutes to spare. You were never more welcome.”

The Doctor replied, “I hope nothing ails either Deborah or yourself?” “No,” said Mr. Bacon, “God be thanked! but something has occurred which concerns both.”

When the Doctor entered the room, he perceived that the wonted serenity of his friend's countenance was overcast by a shade of melancholy thought; “Nothing,” said he, “I hope has happened to distress you?”—“Only to disturb us,” was the reply. “Most people would probably think that we ought to consider it a piece of good fortune. One who would be thought a good match for her, has proposed to marry Deborah.”

“Indeed!” said the Doctor; “and who is he?” feeling, as he asked the question, an unusual warmth in his face.

“Joseph Hebblethwaite, of the Willows. He broke his mind to me this morning, saying that he thought it best to speak with me before he made any advances himself to the young woman: indeed he had had no opportunity of so doing, for he had seen little of her; but he had heard enough of her character to believe that she would make him a good wife; and this, he said, was all he looked for, for he was well to do in the world.”

“And what answer did you make to this matter-of-fact way of proceeding?”

“I told him that I commended the very proper course he had taken, and that I was obliged to him for the good opinion of my daughter which he was pleased to entertain: that marriage was an affair in which I should never attempt to direct her inclinations, being confident that she would never give me cause to oppose them; and that I would talk with her upon the proposal, and let him know the result. As soon as I mentioned it to Deborah, she coloured up to her eyes; and with an angry look, of which I did not think those eyes had been capable, she desired me to tell him that he had better lose no time in looking elsewhere, for his thinking of her was of no use. Do you know any ill of him? said I; No, she replied, but I never heard any good, and that's ill enough. And I do not like his looks.”

“Well said, Deborah!” cried the Doctor: clapping his hands so as to produce a sonorous token of satisfaction.

“Surely, my child, said I, he is not an ill-looking person? Father, she replied, you know he looks as if he had not one idea in his head to keep company with another.”

“Well said, Deborah!” repeated the Doctor.

“Why Doctor, do you know any ill of him?”

“None. But as Deborah says, I know no good; and if there had been any good to be known, it must have come within my knowledge. I cannot help knowing who the persons are to whom the peasantry in my rounds look with respect and good will, and whom they consider their friends as well as their betters. And in like manner, I know who they are from whom they never expect either courtesy or kindness.”

“You are right, my friend; and Deborah is right. Her answer came from a wise heart; and I was not sorry that her determination was so promptly made, and so resolutely pronounced. But I wish, if it had pleased God, the offer had been one which she could have accepted with her own willing consent, and with my full approbation.”

“Yet,” said the Doctor, “I have often thought how sad a thing it would be for you ever to part with her.”

“Far more sad will it be for me to leave her unprotected, as it is but too likely that, in the ordinary course of nature, I one day shall; and as any day in that same ordinary course, I so possibly may! Our best intentions, even when they have been most prudentially formed, fail often in their issue. I meant to train up Deborah in the way she should go, by fitting her for that state of life in which it had pleased God to place her, so that she might have made a good wife for some honest man in the humbler walks of life, and have been happy with him.”

“And how was it possible,” replied the Doctor, “that you could have succeeded better? Is she not qualified to be a good man's wife in any rank? Her manner would not do discredit to a mansion; her management would make a farm prosperous, or a cottage comfortable; and for her principles, and temper and cheerfulness, they would render any home a happy one.”

“You have not spoken too highly in her praise, Doctor. But as she has from her childhood been all in all to me, there is a danger that I may have become too much so to her; and that while her habits have properly been made conformable to our poor means, and her poor prospects, she has been accustomed to a way of thinking, and a kind of conversation, which have given her a distaste for those whose talk is only of sheep and of oxen, and whose thoughts never get beyond the range of their every day employments. In her present circle, I do not think there is one man with whom she might otherwise have had a chance of settling in life, to whom she would not have the same intellectual objections as to Joseph Hebblethwaite: though I am glad that the moral objection was that which first instinctively occurred to her.

“I wish it were otherwise, both for her sake and my own; for hers, because the present separation would have more than enough to compensate it, and would in its consequences mitigate the evil of the final one, whenever that may be; for my own, because I should then have no cause whatever to render the prospect of dissolution otherwise than welcome, but he as willing to die as to sleep. It is not owing to any distrust in Providence, that I am not thus willing now,—God forbid! But if I gave heed to my own feelings, I should think that I am not long for this world; and surely it were wise to remove, if possible, the only cause that makes me fear to think so.”

“Are you sensible of any symptoms that can lead to such an apprehension?” said the Doctor.

“Of nothing that can be called a symptom. I am to all appearance in good health, of sound body and mind; and you know how unlikely my habits are to occasion any disturbance in either. But I have indefinable impressions,—sensations they might almost be called,—which as I cannot but feel them, so I cannot but regard them.”

“Can you not describe these sensations?”

“No better than by saying, that they hardly amount to sensations, and are indescribable.”

“Do not,” said the Doctor, “I entreat you, give way to any feelings of this kind. They may lead to consequences, which without shortening or endangering life, would render it anxious and burthensome, and destroy both your usefulness and your comfort.”

“I have this feeling, Doctor; and you shall prescribe for it, if you think it requires either regimen or physic. But at present you will do me more good by assisting me to procure for Deborah such a situation as she must necessarily look for on the event of my death. What I have laid by, even if it should be most advantageously disposed of, would afford her only a bare subsistence; it is a resource in case of sickness, but while in health, it would never be her wish to eat the bread of idleness. You may have opportunities of learning whether any lady within the circle of your practice, wants a young person in whom she might confide, either as an attendant upon herself, or to assist in the management of her children, or her household. You may be sure this is not the first time that I have thought upon the subject; but the circumstance which has this day occurred, and the feeling of which I have spoken, have pressed it upon my consideration. And the inquiry may better be made and the step taken while it is a matter of foresight, than when it has become one of necessity.”

“Let me feel your pulse!”

“You will detect no other disorder there,” said Mr. Bacon, holding out his arm as he spake, “than what has been caused by this conversation, and the declaration of a purpose, which though for some time perpended, I had never till now fully acknowledged to myself.”

“You have never then mentioned it to Deborah?”

“In no other way than by sometimes incidentally speaking of the way of life which would be open to her, in case of her being unmarried at my death.”

“And you have made up your mind to part with her?”

“Upon a clear conviction that I ought to do so; that it is best for herself and me.”

“Well then, you will allow me to converse with her first, upon a different subject.—You will permit me to see whether I can speak more successfully for myself, than you have done for Joseph Hebblethwaite.—Have I your consent?”

Mr. Bacon rose in great emotion, and taking his friend's hand prest it fervently and tremulously. Presently they heard the wicket open, and Deborah came in.

“I dare say, Deborah,” said her father, composing himself, “you have been telling Betsy Allison of the advantageous offer that you have this day refused.”

“Yes,” replied Deborah; “and what do you think she said? That little as she likes him, rather than that I should be thrown away upon such a man, she could almost make up her mind to marry him herself.”

“And I,” said the Doctor, “rather than such a man should have you would marry you myself.”

“Was not I right in refusing him, Doctor?”

“So right, that you never pleased me so well before; and never can please me better,—unless you will accept of me in his stead.”

She gave a little start, and looked at him half incredulously, and half angrily withal; as if what he had said was too light in its manner to be serious, and yet too serious in its import to be spoken in jest. But when he took her by the hand, and said, “Will you, dear Deborah?” with a pressure, and in a tone that left no doubt of his earnest meaning, she cried, “Father, what am I to say? speak for me!”—“Take her my friend!” said Mr. Bacon, “My blessing be upon you both. And if it be not presumptuous to use the words,—let me say for myself, ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace!’”