'Surely you do not suspect—you cannot suppose—setting aside all fear of God, think you she could make outcasts of her children!—transmit her name, black with the infamy of being the first unfaithful wife that ever disgraced Glen Eredine! No, no; Cecil would rather be buried under Benarde: ay, silly as he is, Robert would rather lay her head in the grave! No, no, Miss Percy; whatever may be the practice in other countries, we have reason to be thankful that such atrocities are unknown in Eredine.'[29]
Charlotte's warm defence was interrupted by the approach of poor Robert, who was following us home. 'Would ye just please to bid her,' said he, pointing towards Cecil's cottage, 'let me thrash two or three sheaves for her. She has nobody now to do for her; and if ye'll just allow me, it's as sure's death, I'll stay in barn, and never go near house to plague her.'
'I think, Robert,' answered Charlotte, 'it would be very foolish in you to take so much trouble for one who never even speaks to you.'
'Ay, but yoursel' knows I'm no very wise,' said Robert, with a feeble smile. Then, after a few moments' silence, he repeated his request. Miss Graham gave an evasive answer, and he again fell behind; but, during our walk, he came forward again and again to urge his petition, as if he had forgotten having offered it before.
'I beg pardon of Cecil and Glen Eredine, Charlotte,' said I. 'I had forgotten the nature and constancy of this poor young man's attachment, when I suspected her of imprudence. I am sure that a virtuous man alone can feel, a woman of discretion alone can inspire, such disinterested, such unconquerable affection.'
'You are right, Ellen. Looseness of morals on the one side, or even a very venial degree of levity on the other, is fatal to all the loftier forms of passion. I believe even perfect frankness of manners is hostile to them: it leaves too little for the imagination.'
We both walked on musing, till my dream was broken by our arrival at the gate. 'Is your brother reserved?' said I, very consciously.
'I never found him so,' returned Charlotte, laughing; 'but you have so much imagination that I believe it will do, notwithstanding.'
The day approached when this object of universal interest was to arrive; and every stage of his journey, every hour of its duration, was counted a hundred times. 'Four whole days still!'—'To-night he will sleep in Scotland!'—'By this time to-morrow!'—In how many tones of impatience, of exultation, of delight, were these sentences uttered!
The father's joy was the least exclamatory. After the first emotion was past, he seemed to think much expression of his feelings unsuitable to his years; though every thing 'put him in mind what Henry said when he was last at home;' or, 'what Henry did when a boy;' and he every now and then shook Charlotte and me by the hand with such a look of congratulation!