"Refute what?" said I. "Don't you see, boy, that we really are not in possession of any single fact,—we have not even an allegation?"
I assure you, Tom, that I had to make him read the note over again, word by word, before he was convinced of the case.
As we walked back to the castle, we talked over the affair, and turned it in every possible shape, both of us agreeing that we could not, with any safety, intrust our intelligence to the womankind.
"We 'll watch him," said James; "we 'll keep an eye on him, and wait for Morris."
I own to you my feelings distressed me to that degree I could scarcely enter the house, and as to appearing at supper it was clean out of the question. How could I bring myself to accept the shelter of a man's roof against whom I harbored the very worst suspicions! Could I be Judas enough to sit down at table with one against whom I was hatching exposure and shame! It was bad enough to think that my wife and daughter were there. As for James, he took his place at the board with such an expression in his features that I verily believe Banquo looked a pleasanter guest at Macbeth's banquet. I betook myself to the terrace, and walked there till midnight, watching with eye and ear towards the road that led from Freyburg.
"Night or Blücher!" said the Duke, on the memorable field at Waterloo; but there was the blessing of an alternative in his case. Mine had none. It was Morris or nothing with me, And now I began anathematizing to myself those crusty, secret, cautious natures that are always satisfied when they cry "Stop!" without taking the trouble to say wherefore. What may be a precipice to one man, thought I, is only a step to another! How does he know that his notions of roguery would tally with mine? There 's many a thing they call a cheat in England we might think a practical joke in Ireland. The national prejudices are constantly in opposition; look, for instance, at the opposite view they take of the "Income tax"! Morris, besides, is a strait-laced fellow that would be shocked at a trifle. Maybe it's some tomfoolery about his ancestors, some flaw in the 'scutcheon of Conrad, or Leopold, that lived in the year nine. Egad! I wonder what the Dodds were doing in that century? Or perhaps it is his politics he's hinting at, for I believe the Baron is a bit of a Radical! For that matter, so am I,—at least, occasionally, and when the Whigs are in power; for, as I observed to you once, Tom, "always be a shade more liberal than the Government." It was years and years before I came to see the good policy of that simple rule, but, believe me, it 's well worth remembering. Be a Whig to the Tories; be a Radical to the Whigs; and when Cobden and that batch come in, as they are sure to do sooner or later, there will be yet some lower depth to descend to and cry, "Take me out!"
I was remarking that Morris is quite capable of being shocked at the Baron's politics, and fancying that I am giving my daughter to one of those Organization of Labor and Rights of Man humbugs that are always getting up rows and running away from them. Now, Tom, I hold these fellows mighty cheap. A patriot without pluck is like a steam-engine wanting a boiler. Why, it 's the very essence and vitality of the whole; but still I am not sure that, as the world goes, I 'd be right in refusing him my daughter because he put his faith in Kossuth, and thought the Austrian Empire an unclean thing!
I tell you these ruminations and reasonings of mine that you may perceive how I turned the matter over with myself in a candid spirit, and was led away neither by prejudice nor passion. From ten o'clock till eleven—from eleven till midnight—I walked the terrace up and down, like the Ghost in "Hamlet,"—I hope I'm right in my quotation,—but neither sight nor sound indicated Morris's arrival! "What if he should not come!" thought I. "How can I frame a pretext for putting off the wedding?" There was no opening for delay that I could think of. I had signed no end of deeds and parchments; I had written my name to "acts" of every possible shape and description. The solemnity of the church and my paternal blessing were alone wanting to complete the fifth act of the drama. I racked my brain to invent a plausible, or even an intelligible cause for postponement. Had I been a condemned felon, I could not have tortured my imagination more intensely to find a pretext for a reprieve. But one issue of escape presented itself. I could be dangerously ill,—a sudden attack; at my age a man can always have gout in the stomach! My daughter, of course, could not be married if I was at death's door; and as, happily, there was no doctor in the neighborhood, the feint attack ran no risk of being converted into a serious action. Since the memorable experiment of my mock illness at Ems, I own I had no fancy for the performance, nor could I divest my mind of the belief that all these things are, in a measure, a tempting of Providence. But what else could I do? There was not, so far as I could see, another road open to me.
I was just, therefore, turning back into the house, to take to my bed in a dangerous condition, when I heard the clattering of whips, in that crack-crack fashion your German postilion always announces an arrival. I at once hastened down to the door, and arrived at the same moment that four posters, hot and smoking, drew up a travelling-barouche to the spot. Morris sprang out at once, and, seizing my hand, with what for him expressed great warmth, said,—
"Not too late, I hope and trust?"