Poor Spalding stood the very personification of misery and wretchedness during the recital of these circumstances, that laid prostrate all his dearest hopes, and wrested from him that happiness which he had fondly believed was within his grasp. For some time he made no reply to, or remark on, what had just been communicated to him; but at length, taking Marion again by the hand.
"Well, Marion," he said, with a strong effort to suppress the emotion with which he was struggling, "this is dreadful news to me; but I do not blame you; or, rather, I cannot but commend you for the step you are going to take, although it be to the destruction of my peace and happiness in this world. But is there no way of averting this evil? Is there no way of saving your father but by your——" Here he suddenly stopped short. His feelings overcame him; and he could not come out with the two words necessary to finish the sentence; he could not bring himself to add, "marrying Maitland."
"Nane, nane, Richard," said Marion, who well knew what he would have said; "there's nae ither way left us—nane, nane, Richard."
"But," replied the latter, "your father said, Marion, you told me, that he will not ask you to make this sacrifice, until he sees that the factor is determined to proceed against him, and that there is no other means of satisfying his demands. Now, as it will be some days before he can ascertain the former, will ye promise me, Marion, that ye will take all the time that circumstances will afford you before you commit yourself further with Maitland? Will you promise me this, Marion?—and, in the meantime, I'll stir heaven and earth to save you from the fate that's threatening you."
This promise poor Marion readily gave; and, somewhat comforted by it, Richard left the house, to try every method he could think of, to avert the misfortune that threatened him. But, alas! what could he do? Where was he to raise £150 some odds, which was the amount of William Waterstone's debt to his landlord? Under the excitation of the moment during his interview with Marion, and under the blind and bewildering impulses excited by it, he thought he might, by some means or other, accomplish it. But, on coming to act on the vague and indefinite notions on this subject which first presented themselves to him, he found them burst like soap-bells in his grasp, until even he himself, sanguine as he was, became convinced that the pursuit was hopeless, and that his Marion was indeed lost to him for ever.
In the meantime, the dreaded crisis approached. Step after step had been taken by the factor in the process against William Waterstone, until at length it arrived at a consummation. His effects were sequestrated, and a day of sale announced. Still the poor man entertained hopes that the last and final proceeding would not be had recourse to—that, in short, no sale would actually take place; and in this desperate belief he had still delayed committing himself with Maitland regarding his daughter, although he had dropped some hints to that person of a tendency to encourage his hopes. From this delusion, however, he was now about to be roughly awakened. The day of sale arrived, and with it came the auctioneer; and, as the morning advanced, several persons were seen hovering about at a little distance. These were intending purchasers, whose respect for poor Waterstone, and whose sympathy for his unhappy situation, induced them thus to keep aloof, with the view of saving his feelings as much as possible, until their purpose there should render it necessary for them to approach nearer to the melancholy scene.
These appearances were far too serious to leave the slightest ground for the indulgence of any further hopes from the lenity of the prosecutor; and William Waterstone felt this. He saw now that the sacrifice which he had thus delayed till the twelfth hour must be made—that his daughter must pledge herself to become the wife of John Maitland; and with a heavy heart he now put on his bonnet to go down to that person, to enter into a full and final explanation with regard to this matter, and his own distressed situation. Poor Marion's doom was now, then, about to be irrevocably sealed. Her father was already at the door, on his way to fix her destiny, when he was suddenly arrested by a person, wrapped up in a travelling mantle, and who was about entering the house at the same moment, seizing him by the hand.
"Father!" exclaimed the apparent stranger.
William Waterstone looked unconsciously for an instant at the person who addressed him. It was his son.
"John!" said the father, at length, coldly, and returning the former's eager salutation with marked indifference.