“But if—if—sir, the marriage were distasteful to him, could it be for the happiness and welfare of either?”
“The boy has been complaining to you? Nay, madam, I blame you not. You have ever been the boy’s best friend according to knowledge; but he ought to know that his honour and mine are engaged. It is true that Mistress Martha is not a Court beauty, such as his eyes have unhappily learnt to admire, but I am acting verily for his true good. ‘Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain.’”
“Most true, sir; but let me say one more word. I fear, I greatly fear, that all young spirits brook not compulsion.”
“That means, they will not bow their stiff necks to the yoke.”
“Ah, sir! but on the other hand, ‘Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.’ Forgive me, sir; I spoke but out of true affection to your son, and the fear that what may seem to him severity may not drive him to some extremity that might grieve you.”
“No forgiveness is needed, madam. I thank you for your interest in him, and for your plain speaking according to your lights. I can but act according to those vouchsafed unto me.”
“And we both agree in praying for his true good,” said Mrs. Woodford.
And with a mutual blessing they parted, Mrs. Woodford deeply sorry for both father and son, for whom she had done what she could.
It was her last interview with any one outside the house. Another attack of spasms brought the end, during the east winds of March, so suddenly as to leave no time for farewells or last words. When she was laid to rest in the little churchyard within the castle walls, no one showed such overwhelming tokens of grief as Peregrine Oakshott, who lingered about the grave after the Doctor had taken his niece home, and was found lying upon it late in the evening, exhausted with weeping.
Yet Sedley Archfield, whose regiment had, after all, been sent to Portsmouth, reported that he had spent the very next afternoon at a cock-fight, ending in a carouse with various naval and military officers at a tavern, not drinking, but contributing to the mirth by foreign songs, tricks, and jests.