“Well, well, I will be better—yes, I will, if I get over this blow on the head; but oh, how it aches! You must not bewilder me too much.”
So did this interesting conversation cease, by the man’s appeal to his want of strength, when he was asserting a will of his own, which, though bold in words, was but fickle in actions.
Every day, as her patient advanced towards recovery, was poor Margaret more and more convinced that Laud wanted stability of purpose to resist evil,—he was, like every passionate man, self-willed and wicked. Margaret, though at this time uneducated, had been a very attentive listener to all good instruction—she was far from being ignorant of right and wrong. Her principles were good, and through her most eventful years she exhibited but one great error, which was her blind passion for the unhappy man whom she would have made, if she could, a better being; and every day she found a more persevering enemy in Mrs. Mitchel, who counteracted all her salutary influence with Laud. Silent and morose as this woman was at times, she could be loquacious enough when it suited her own purpose.
“I have,” said she, one day, “just left a choice set of fellows upon the beach, as merry a set, Will, as I ever saw, and all rejoicing in your improvement. Luff holds your office until you join them again. They have had fine success lately, since young Barry is laid by the leg. I have brought you a box of raisins, and such a choice can of sweetmeats, as a present from the captain.”
“Ah! they are all good fellows, but I do not think that I shall ever join them again.”
“Pshaw, my lad! this is only a love-fit for the moment.” (Margaret was absent upon an errand.) “If that girl does not know what it is to have a high-spirited young fellow like yourself for a lover, without making him a poor, tame, milk-and-water poodle, why then she ought to make herself always as scarce as she is at this moment. I have no patience with the girl—she does not know her own interest. I suppose she would have you stick to the plough’s tail, or toil all day at the spade, and bring her home a hard-earned pittance at the week’s-end. Pshaw! Will, you are formed for better things.”
“But she’s a good girl, Moggy,” said Will.
“Oh, aye! the girl is well enough, and decent too. I don’t mean to say she would not make a chap a good sort of wife either, but she’s not the sort of girl for you, Will. She’s no spirit about her. She don’t see how a young fellow like you can do better by her, in a bold, dashing way, than by such tame, dull, plodding industry as her family use.”
“No; but then she wishes to see me happy, and I might be popped off the next skirmish.”
“You always look on the black side of things. Here are your fellows making their fortunes rapidly, and you talking of drudging on, in a quiet, stupid way, with the chance of being informed against and executed for your past doings. Young Barry won’t easily forgive you.”