These, however, were equally unattended to with the others; and it is not, therefore, to be wondered at that old Waterstone should have charged his son with ingratitude, and considered his conduct undutiful and unnatural. This was, in truth, as we have shown, his father's opinion of the young man; but, oh! what can weaken a mother's love? What can wither the strong and deep-rooted affections of her bosom for the child of her love? The conduct must be infamous indeed that could do this.
Mrs Waterstone, although she did allow that her son ought to have at least written them, yet thought, and, when she dared, spoke, of him with the most tender regard. For his apparent neglect of them, she said, she was sure there was some good reason, that would one day be explained to the satisfaction of them all. What this reason could be she owned she could not conjecture; but that was a circumstance which did not in the least shake her faith in its existence. When her husband, therefore, on the present occasion, upbraided her for naming her son, and accused him of ingratitude and undutiful conduct, she, as she always did in similar circumstances, stepped forward with the ready but unsatisfactory defence alluded to.
"Be patient, guidman, I beseech you," she said—"be patient; and, oh, man, dinna think sae unkindly o' the puir laddie. He'll be able, I warrant, to gie a guid reason for a' this when——"
"Let me hear nae mair o't, Betsy," again interrupted William Waterstone. "We've ither things to think o' enow. Here's ruin staring us in the face, woman—ruin! ruin! utter ruin!" he repeated, in a tone of the deepest and most bitter despair. "Naething can avert it. Without a house to shelter us, as we will sune be, our auld heads maun be exposed to the winds o' heaven and to the pelting o' the storm."
"Never, never, never!" at this moment suddenly exclaimed Marion, who had hitherto been sitting, as already described, absorbed in grief, at the further end of the apartment, with her face buried in her apron. "Never, never, never!" she exclaimed, rushing towards her father, and throwing her arms about his neck; "ye shall never be driven to that strait, sae lang as the means are in my power o' preventing it! Mother, mother, dear mother," she added—and now turning to the parent she named, and throwing herself on her knees before her—"I can stand this nae langer! I'll marry John Maitland, mother, and he'll lend as muckle siller as 'ill tak ye out o' this difficulty. He has often said that he wad help my faither, if I wad promise to become his wife."
"My bairn, my bairn!" replied her mother, overcome with this instance of her child's devoted affection; for well she knew the fearful extent of the sacrifice she had offered to make. "My bairn, my bairn!" she said, bursting into tears, and clasping her daughter closely in her arms—"God's blessing be wi' ye for this dutifu conduct to your puir parents, although it grieves me to the heart, my puir lassie, to see ye driven by oor necessities to become an unwillin bride. But ye see, my bairn, there is nae ither way o' savin us frae beggary in our auld days."
"I ken it, mother—I see it," replied Marion, weeping, and as pale as death; "and my mind's made up. Onything, onything will I endure rather than see ye turned oot o' yer ain house, and thrown destitute on the world."
"A faither's blessin and the blessin o' God be wi' ye, my dochter, for this!" said her father, now interfering for the first time, and laying his hand upon her head as she knelt before her mother. "Ye canna but prosper, my bairn, for such conduct as this; and your marriage, though in the meantime it mayna seem to you to promise much felicity, maun in the end be a happy ane. It canna be otherwise. But, Marion," he added, "I winna let ye mak this sacrifice till a' ither means hae failed me, and till I find that the factor is really determined to carry his threats into execution."
At this moment the latch of the outer door was raised, and Richard Spalding, wholly unaware of the state of matters in William Waterstone's, suddenly walked into the midst of the sorrowing family; and great was his surprise on witnessing the scene of disconsolation which presented itself. He guessed, indeed, in part the cause—for his father, as has been already said, was also under the ban of the new factor; but he little dreamed of the resolution to which it had driven his beloved Marion.
This was now, however, soon to be made known to him. On Richard's entrance, her father, who, as well as his wife, knew well of the attachment between the young couple, after hastily saluting him, left the apartment, and was speedily followed by Marion's mother; their object being to give their daughter an opportunity of informing her lover, with her own mouth, of the resolution she had come to regarding his rival.