“Pray, is there any one else that I should have married, Dan?” cried my father, half angrily; “for it seems to me that you have quite a passion for finding out alliances for me.”
“Polly, they say, will have three hundred thousand pounds,” said Dan, slowly, “and is a fine girl to boot. I assure you, Watty, I saw her the other day, seated in the library here; and with all the splendor of your stained-glass windows, your gold-fretted ceiling, and your gorgeous tapestries, she looked just in her place. Hang me, if there was a particle of the picture in better style or taste than herself.”
“How came she here?” cried my father, in amazement. And MacNaghten now related all the circumstances of Fagan's visit, the breakfast, and the drive.
“And you actually sat with three hundred thousand pounds at your side,” said my father, “and did not decamp with it?”
“I never said she had the money in her pocket, Watty. Egad! that would have been a very tempting situation.”
“How time must have changed you, Dan, when you could discuss the question thus calmly! I remember the day when you 'd have won the race, without even wasting a thought on the solvency of the stakeholder.”
“Faith, I believe it were the wisest way, after all, Watty,” said he, carelessly; “but the fact is, in the times you speak of, my conscience, like a generous banker, never refused my drafts; now, however, she has taken a circumspect turn, and I 'm never quite certain that I have not overdrawn my account with her. In plain words, I could not bring myself to do with premeditation what once I might have done from recklessness.”
“And so the scruple saved Polly?” cried my father.
“Just so; not that I had much time to reflect on it, for the blacks were pulling fearfully, and Dan had smashed his splinter-bar with a kick. Still, in coming up by the new shrubbery there, I did say to myself: 'Which road shall I take?' The ponies were going to decide the matter for me; but I turned them short round with a jerk, and laid the whip over their flanks with a cut,—the dearest, assuredly, I ever gave to horseflesh, for it cost me, in all likelihood, three hundred thousand.”
“Who 'd have ever thought Dan MacNaghten's conscience would have been so expensive!”