The Maid of Sker

by R. D. Blackmore

Lady Bluett was amazed at the coolness of them, and in her heart disappointed; although she was trying to argue it down, and to say to herself, "How wise of them!" She knew how the Colonel loved this young maid, yet never could bear to think of his nephew taking to wife a mere waif of the sea. The lady had faith in herself that she might in the end overcome this prejudice. But of course if the young ones had ceased to care for it, she could only say that young people were not of the stuff that young people used to be.

While she revolved these things in her tender, warm, and motherly bosom, the gentlemen came from the dining-room, to pay their compliments to the ladies, and to have their tea and all that, according to the recent style of it. They bowed very decently, as they came in, not being topers by any means: and the lady of the house arose and curtsied to them most gracefully. Then Rodney, who had found occasion ere this to salute Colonel Lougher and his visitors, led forward the maid, and presented her to them, with a very excellent naval bow.

"My dear uncle, and friends of the family," he began, while she trembled a little, and looked at him with astonishment; "allow me the favour of presenting to you a lady who will do me the honour of becoming my wife, very shortly, I hope."

The Colonel drew back with a frown on his face. Lady Bluett on the other hand ran up.

"What is the meaning of this?" she cried. "And not a word of it to your own mother! Oh, Andalusia, how shocking of you!"

"I think, sir," said the Colonel, looking straight at the youth, "that you might have chosen a better moment to defy your uncle, than in the presence of his oldest friends. It is not like a gentleman, sir. It cuts me to the heart to say such a thing to the son of my own sister. But, sir, it is not like a gentleman."

The old friends nodded to one another, in approval of this sentiment; and turned to withdraw from a family scene.

"Wait, if you please," cried Rodney Bluett. "Colonel Lougher, I should deserve your reproach, if I had done anything of the kind. My intention is not to defy you, sir; but to please you and gratify you, my dear uncle, as your lifelong kindness to me and to this young lady deserves. And I have chosen to do it before old friends, that your pleasure may be increased by their congratulations. Instead of being ashamed, sir, of the origin of your future niece—or you my dear mother of your daughter, you may well be proud of it. She belongs to one of the oldest families in the West of England. She is the grandchild of Sir Philip Bampfylde of Narnton Court, near Barnstaple. And I think I have heard my mother speak of him as an old friend of my father."

"To be sure, to be sure!" exclaimed Lady Bluett, ere the Colonel could recover himself: "the Bluetts are an old west-country family; but the Bampfyldes even older. Come to me, my pretty darling. There, don't cry so; or if you must, come in here, and I will help you. Rodney, my dear, you have delighted us, and you have done it most cleverly. But excuse my saying that an officer in the army would have known a little better what ladies are, than to have thrown them into this excitement, even in the presence of valued friends. Come here, my precious. The gentlemen will excuse us for a little while."

"Let me kiss Colonel Lougher first," whispered Delushy; all frightened, crying, and quivering as she was, she could not forget her gratitude. So she bowed her white forehead, and drooped her dark lashes under the old man's benevolent gaze.