“If you plaize, sir, I never had seed un from Adam. And I showed un the wrong way, to get a little time.”
“Then go now, and show him the right way, John. I am always ready to see any one.”
Sir Roland knew well that this was not true. He had said it without thinking; and, with his pure love of truth, he began to condemn himself for saying it. He knew that he liked no strangers now, nor even any ordinary friends; and he was always sorry to hear that any one made demand to see him. Before he could repent of his repentance, the door was opened, and in walked a man of moderate stature, sturdy frame, and honest, ruddy, and determined face, well shaven betwixt grey whiskers. Sir Roland had never been wont to take much heed of the human countenance; therefore he was surprised to find himself rushing to a rash conclusion—“an honest man, if ever there was one; also a very kind one.”
The Grower came forward, without any sign of humility, awkwardness, sense of difference, or that which is lowest of all—intense and shallow self-assertion. He knew that he was not of Sir Roland’s rank; and he had no idea of defying it: he was simply a man, come to speak to a man, for the love of those dependent on him, in the largeness of humanity. At the same time, he was a little afraid of going too far with anything. He made a bow (by no means graceful, but of a tidy English sort, when the back always wants to go back again), and then, as true Englishmen generally do, he waited to be spoken to.
“I am very sorry,” Sir Roland said, “that you have had trouble in finding me. We generally manage to get on well; but sometimes things go crooked. Will you come and sit down here, and tell me why you came to see me?”
Martin Lovejoy made another bow, of pattern less like a tenterhook. He had come with a will to be roughly received; and lo, there was nothing but smoothness. Full as he was of his errand, and the largest views of everything, he had made up his mind to say something fierce; and here was no opportunity. For he took it for granted, in his simple way, that Sir Roland knew thoroughly well who he was.
“I am come to see you, Sir Roland Lorraine,” he began, with a slightly quivering voice, after declining the offered chair; “not to press myself upon you, but only for the sake of my daughter.”
“Indeed!” the other answered, beginning to suspect; “are you then the father of that young lady——”
“I am the father of Mabel Lovejoy. And sorry I should be to be her father, if—if—I mean, sir, if she was anybody else’s daughter. But being as it is, she is my own dear child; and no man has a better one. And if any one says that she threw herself at the feet of your son, for the sake of his name, Sir Roland, that man is a liar.”
“My good sir, I know it. I never supposed that your daughter did anything of the kind. I have heard that the fault was my son’s altogether.”