BOOK II.
RESOLUTIONS.
CHAPTER I.
There was a hardness in his cheek,
There was a hardness in his eye.—Peter Bell.
“I beg you will not misunderstand me, Mrs Oswald; I vow to you that this girl shall never cross my threshold, and if William persists in his folly he must choose between her and me; for assuredly he shall not keep his place with both. I tell you her father was a fool and a weakling, and you know the injury he did me. My mind is made up; before I receive this girl (I care nothing for her own good qualities—they do not concern me in the slightest) as my daughter, I will disown my son. If he wants to prolong her poverty, and to make himself a servant all his life, let him persist in his madness; and if you encourage him further in it, the consequences lie with yourselves. I have toiled and laboured to enrich him, and if he thwarts me thus, he shall rue it!”
The speaker was a wiry, dark man, about the middle height, with a face in which you could read habitual obstinacy. It had redeeming qualities; you could see how a great enough matter might elevate the constitutional pertinacity into brave determination, and the eyes were intelligent and clear; but the rigid muscles of his mouth wore their sternest expression to-day, and a cloud lowered darkly upon his face. He was standing with his back to the fire in a good-sized, comfortable dining-room, the front windows of which looked out upon the Main Street of Fendie. The house was withdrawn a little from the line of the neighbouring buildings, in modest dignity, and bore over its portico and stone pillars the important title “Bank;” and the obstinate gentleman in the dining-room within was Mr George Oswald, at that time the sole representative of banking interests in the borough of Fendie.
The very emphatic speech which we have already recorded, was addressed to his wife, who sat opposite to him. She was very calmly engaged with her sewing, though her face was sufficiently grave to show that her husband’s words were not mere empty breath. When he had concluded, she raised her head.
“I cannot see what necessity there is for making any vows to me, George. If you are determined not to hear what I say, and what William says about this very sweet and innocent girl, of course you must have your own way, as you always have; but as for your vows—you know that is quite unnecessary.”