“Well-nigh heart-broken with poverty, my lord.”
“There is some mistake,” resumed the Count. “How is this?” said he, looking towards the bailiff; and then, calling to his son in the window, “Casimir, how is this?”
The bailiff answered first:—
“Randolphe is wretchedly poor, my lord, as you say; but there is no one of your people hereabouts who is less so.”
The youth’s reply was, that in the question of arrangements for receiving the Dauphiness, he supposed the principal peasants belonging to the chateau would be spoken to; and he had mentioned Randolphe, understanding him to be one of them.
Marie saw that this youth was the one who had stared her out of countenance at the stile, the afternoon before: the same who had talked with her brothers on the verge of the wood.
The Count was for dismissing his visitors at once, saying that they would not answer his purpose for the arrangements of which he had meant to speak with them. They were not, however, let off so easily as they had now begun to hope. The young man asked some questions from the window, which put it into the Count’s head to ask more, till Randolphe thought it prudent not to keep back his story, but to request the Count’s consent to Marie’s marriage, as if that had been his own part of his errand this morning.
The Count evidently cared nothing about the matter, and would have given his consent as a matter of course, if his son Casimir had been anywhere but in the room. As it was, there were so many questions, the inquiries about Charles were so minute, that Marie grew vexed and angry, and by a look invited her father to say something about the Count’s time and be gone. The youth who was reading certainly pitied her, for he said, without raising his eyes from his newspaper,—
“Be quiet, Casimir. Casimir, how can you? Do leave these poor people to make themselves happy their own way. It is no concern of yours.”
“It is my father’s concern that his people should not live on his land when they cannot do service for it. Why, it appears they have not anything like a cottage to go to. My father cannot look to them for anything. You see, sir, you can depend upon them for nothing, in their present circumstances: and I do not see how you can consent to their marrying yet. If this fellow Charles, now, would do his duty, and serve for three years, there would be some chance for their settling comfortably afterwards. They would lose nothing by waiting, if they settled comfortably at last.”