"How should I? I never saw the vagabond's ugly face before."
"Why, it's William Morgan—how strange you shouldn't recognise him!"
"Well, if it were twenty William Morgans, that's no reason you should sit with your hand in his like the sign of the fire-office over our stable-door."
"Oh, he's such an old friend! Recollect, sir, we grew up together, and now how can you keep your anger against him? He has saved your life."
"After first startling me into the water. No, no; I'll have none of the Morgans here. I'll go and get changed, and then I'll finish what I was going to tell you when Morgan came to the door."
I was inflexible; I wouldn't let one of the Morgans into my house. Miss Letitia wrote a letter of four pages, and Miss Sophia enclosed a sonnet. Nothing would do. I resolved to keep Martha all to myself; and, for fear of other adventures in the bower, I gave her positive orders not to leave the house. I set people to watch her. I threatened to hang her Ayah with my own hands, and showed her the very bough of the tree I would do it on, if Martha was allowed to speak to any body but myself. I resolved to marry her in a week; and, merely to prevent her being harassed by the Morgans in the interval, I took all these precautions. After that, I determined to pardon the whole family, and had even prepared a letter asking them all to dinner on our wedding-day. Martha did not seem inconsolable. Day after day passed away; and, to show how easy I was in my mind, I went on with the last chapter of my novel, leaving all the middle part to be filled up at my leisure.
One morning—it was last Wednesday—I went into the study, and had just taken pen in hand, when I recollected that that was the very day I had summoned all the labourers on the estate to resist the approach of the levellers and engineers of a disgusting railway that was determined to force itself right through my garden and close under the dining-room windows. I went out to the barn—all the men were there. I gave orders to them to warn the intruders off; if they resisted, to knock them down without ceremony and keep them in custody till I could get them before a magistrate. Having satisfied my mind on these points, I felt so sure of my object being gained in both respects—that is, Martha and the railway—that I dispatched my letter to old Morgan, inviting the whole family to dine with me on Friday, the day I had fixed on for the marriage. Martha sat by my side in the study, and went on with the everlasting Ottoman square. I read to her—
"'Is it in the circle of possible events—is it a contingency to be calculated on in the decrees of fate,' exclaimed Theodore Fitzhedingham—(this was the finest bit out of my last chapter)—'that the girl I have loved—the paragon I have worshipped—the angel I have adored, is, indeed no longer the humbly born maid I thought her but the descendant of princes—the kinswoman of emperors—the inheritrix of kings?'
"'It certainly is far from false, nay, it is absolutely true,' returned Maria Valentine de Courcy, with a condescending smile, 'that I am not the person you have taken me for, but oh! beloved Theodore—faithful Fitzhedingham, need I tell you that my love is unaltered, my affections are unabated, my heart unchanged'"——
"Sir! sir!" cried voice at the door, "they be come." I hurried out; my servant was armed with the poker, I seized the hall tongs as I passed through; and on the lawn, in the coolest possible manner, were about half a dozen fellows smoking their cigars, and occasionally looking through a bright brass instrument upon a three-legged stand, and noting down the result with the greatest nonchalance.