“You ought to shut your doors against me now, instead of running out to meet me,” said he; “for I am not clear that I have a farthing in the world, except what is in this portmanteau. I have been fool enough to leave all I have earned in the hands of a gentleman, who can give me only his bond for my wages. But I am glad I am out of his house, at any rate.”
“And I am glad you are in mine,” said farmer Gray, receiving him with a warmth of hospitality which brought tears of gratitude into Stafford’s eyes. Rose smiled upon her father, and said nothing; but set him his arm-chair, and was very busy arranging the tea-table. Mrs. Gray beckoned to her guest, and made him sit down beside her; telling him he should have as good tea at Rosanna as ever he had in Warwickshire; “and out of Staffordshire ware, too,” said she, taking her best Wedgwood teacups and saucers out of a cupboard.
Robin, who was naturally gay and fond of rallying his friends, could not forbear affecting to express his surprise at Stafford’s preferring an Irishwoman, of all women in the world. “Are you quite sure, Stafford,” said he, “that you are not mistaken? Are you sure my sister has not wings on her shoulders?”
“Have you done now, Robin?” said his mother; who saw that Stafford was a good deal abashed, and had no answer ready. “If Mr. Stafford had a prejudice against us Irish, so much the more honourable for my Rose to have conquered it; and, as to wings, they would have been no shame to us natives, supposing we had them; and of course it was no affront to attribute them to us. Have not the angels themselves wings?”
A timely joke is sometimes a real blessing; and so Stafford felt it at this instant: his bashfulness vanished by degrees, and Robin rallied him no more. “I had no idea,” said he, “how easy it is to put an Englishman out of countenance in the company of his mistress.”
This was a most happy evening at Rosanna. After Rose retired, which she soon did, to see after the household affairs, her father spoke in the kindest manner to Stafford. “Mr. Stafford,” said he, “if you tell me that you are able to maintain my girl in the way of life she is in now, you shall have her: this, in my opinion and in hers, is the happiest life for those who have been bred to it. I would rather see Rose matched to an honest, industrious, good-humoured man, like yourself, whom she can love, than see her the wife of a man as grand as Sir Hyacinth O’Brien. For, to the best of my opinion, it is not the being born to a great estate that can make a man content or even rich: I think myself a richer man this minute than Sir Hyacinth; for I owe no man any thing, am my own master, and can give a little matter both to child and stranger. But your head is very naturally running upon Rose, and not upon my moralizing. All I have to say is, win her and wear her; and, as to the rest, even if Sir Hyacinth never pays you your own, that shall not stop your wedding. My sons are good lads, and you and Rose shall never want, whilst the mill of Rosanna is going.”
This generosity quite overpowered Stafford. Generosity is one of the characteristics of the Irish. It not only touched but surprised the Englishman; who, amongst the same rank of his own countrymen, had been accustomed to strict honesty in their dealings, but seldom to this warmth of friendship and forgetfulness of all selfish considerations. It was some minutes before he could articulate a syllable; but, after shaking his intended father-in-law’s hand with that violence which expresses so much to English feelings, he said, “I thank you heartily; and, if I live to the age of Methusalem, shall never forget this. A friend in need is a friend indeed. But I will not live upon yours or your good sons’ earnings; that would not be fair dealing, or like what I’ve been bred up to think handsome. It is a sad thing for me that this master of mine can give me nothing, for my seven years’ service, but this scrap of paper (taking out of his pocket-book a bond of Sir Hyacinth’s). But my mother, though she has her prejudices, and is very stiff about them, being an elderly woman, and never going out of England, or even beyond the parish in which she was born, yet she is kind-hearted; and I cannot think will refuse to help me, or that she will cross me in marriage, when she knows the thing is determined; so I shall write to her before I sleep, and wish I could but enclose in the cover of my letter the picture of Rose, which would be better than all I could say. But no picture would do her justice. I don’t mean a compliment, like those Sir Hyacinth paid to her face, but only the plain truth. I mean that a picture could never make my mother understand how good, and sweet-tempered, and modest, Rose is. Mother has a world of prejudices; but she is a good woman, and will prove herself so to me, I make no doubt.”
Stafford wrote to his mother a long letter, and received, in a fortnight afterwards, this short answer:
“Son George, I warned you not to fall in love with an Irishwoman, to which I told you I could never give my consent.
“As you bake, so you must brew. Your sister Dolly is marrying too, and setting up a shop in Warwick, by my advice and consent: all the money I can spare I must give, as in reason, to her who is a dutiful child; and mean, with her and grand-children, if God please, to pass my latter days, as fitting, in this parish of Little Sonchy, in Old England, where I was born and bred. Wishing you may not repent, or starve, or so forth, which please to let me know,