"Weel, God's will be dune, William," replied the broken-hearted woman; "since it is sae, we maun submit; although it is hard, at oor time o' life, and after the lang and sair struggle we hae had to do justice to everybody, to be thrown destitute on the warld. But ye ken it is said, William, by the Psalmist, 'I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread;' and I've nae doot that, wi' God's assistance, we'll find these soothing and comforting words verified in oor ain case."
To this William Waterstone made no reply, but remained gloomily absorbed in his own dismal reflections. These were indeed bitter enough—and bitter also were those of the partner of his bosom, on this melancholy occasion; but they were light compared with those of their unhappy daughter. It was on her that the threatened calamity was to fall with its fullest force, and it was to her that it was to bring the largest share of misery. But this requires explanation; and we proceed to give it.
Marion—for such was her name—had long been wooed in vain by a wealthy suitor who resided at a short distance from her father's house. This person, whose name was Maitland, was a miller to business, and a sufficiently respectable man; but he was precisely three times the age of the young creature whose hand he sought. He was, besides, a widower, with several children, and was otherwise by no means such an object as was likely to attract the eye or engage the affections of a woman younger than the youngest of his own daughters.
But John Maitland was wealthy—a circumstance which, though it was of no weight whatever in the eyes of Marion herself, was of great consequence in those of her parents. They, however, although they secretly wished that their daughter would give a favourable ear to the miller's suit, did not urge her, at least otherwise than by indirect allusions and hints, to admit his addresses; and from even this, seeing that her repugnance to him was unconquerable, they had latterly abstained altogether. Notwithstanding Marion's coldness to him, however, and her dislike of him, which she could not conceal, Maitland continued his visits, and persevered in his suit, although to all but himself it seemed an utterly hopeless one. But Marion's conduct in this matter did not proceed solely from a dislike to Maitland. It was influenced by a double motive—a repugnance to him, and love for another.
The favoured suitor, whose name was Richard Spalding, was a young man, the son of a neighbouring farmer, who had everything to recommend him but wealth, of which he had none. His father was in straitened circumstances; and their united labours—for they tilled and sowed the same fields together—were unable to improve them. Indeed, the situation of the former was almost precisely that of Waterstone. They were tenants of the same proprietor, and old Spalding was also in arrears—arrears which he could not pay—to his landlord.
Having given this sketch of the situation in which Marion stood with regard to affairs of the heart, at the period of our story, we recur to the scene which that digression interrupted.
After another long and silent pause, broken only by the suppressed sobs of the poor girl, and at times by heavy and deep-drawn sighs from her mother, the latter again spoke.
"Oh, my John—my John," she said, "if ye but kent o' this, I'm sure, for a' that's come and gane yet, ye wad stretch out a helping hand to us in this hour o' distress!"
"Betsy!" exclaimed her husband, angrily interrupting her, and starting to his feet with an unwonted energy of manner, "havena I often tell't ye never to name that ingrate, that undutiful son, in my presence?—and how comes it that ye have dared to disregard my injunctions, and that at a time, too, when I'm overwhelmed, rendered desperate, wi' other cares? How could ye, woman, add to my distress, by naming the base fallow before me?"
These were harsh words from a father of his own child; but, so far as circumstances could enable that father to judge, they were not unmerited. William Waterstone's son—his only son—who had been bred a millwright, had gone out to the West Indies some five or six years previous to the period of which we write; and during the last three years of that time his parents had never heard from him, although they had learned that he was not only living, but rapidly accumulating a fortune. A score of letters, at least, his father had written him through the medium of the mercantile house by which he had been first sent out (and which kindly undertook not only to have all his letters forwarded to his son, but offered the same obliging services in the case of communications from the latter to the former), without ever receiving any answer; and this was the more unpardonable, that more than one of these letters contained requests from John Waterstone's father for a little pecuniary assistance to help him out of his difficulties.