A REMARKABLE EXAMPLE, SHOWING THAT A WISE MAN, WHEN HE RISES IN THE
MORNING, LITTLE KNOWS WHAT HE MAY DO BEFORE NIGHT.
—Now I love,
And so as in so short a time I may;
Yet so as time shall never break that so,
And therefore so accept of Elinor.
ROBERT GREENE.
One summer evening the Doctor on his way back from a visit in that
direction, stopt, as on such opportunities he usually did, at Mr.
Bacon's wicket, and looked in at the open casement to see if his
friends were within. Mr. Bacon was sitting there alone, with a book
open on the table before him; and looking round when he heard the
horse stop, “Come in Doctor,” said he, “if you have a few minutes to
spare. You were never more welcome.”
The Doctor replied, “I hope nothing ails either Deborah or yourself?”
“No,” said Mr. Bacon, “God be thanked! but something has occurred
which concerns both.”
When the Doctor entered the room, he perceived that the wonted
serenity of his friend's countenance was overcast by a shade of
melancholy thought; “Nothing,” said he, “I hope has happened to
distress you?”—“Only to disturb us,” was the reply. “Most people would
probably think that we ought to consider it a piece of good fortune.
One who would be thought a good match for her, has proposed to marry
Deborah.”
“Indeed!” said the Doctor; “and who is he?” feeling, as he asked the
question, an unusual warmth in his face.
“Joseph Hebblethwaite, of the Willows. He broke his mind to me this
morning, saying that he thought it best to speak with me before he
made any advances himself to the young woman: indeed he had had no
opportunity of so doing, for he had seen little of her; but he had
heard enough of her character to believe that she would make him a
good wife; and this, he said, was all he looked for, for he was well
to do in the world.”
“And what answer did you make to this matter-of-fact way of
proceeding?”
“I told him that I commended the very proper course he had taken, and
that I was obliged to him for the good opinion of my daughter which he
was pleased to entertain: that marriage was an affair in which I
should never attempt to direct her inclinations, being confident that
she would never give me cause to oppose them; and that I would talk
with her upon the proposal, and let him know the result. As soon as I
mentioned it to Deborah, she coloured up to her eyes; and with an
angry look, of which I did not think those eyes had been capable, she
desired me to tell him that he had better lose no time in looking
elsewhere, for his thinking of her was of no use. Do you know any ill
of him? said I; No, she replied, but I never heard any good, and
that's ill enough. And I do not like his looks.”
“Well said, Deborah!” cried the Doctor: clapping his hands so as to
produce a sonorous token of satisfaction.
“Surely, my child, said I, he is not an ill-looking person? Father,
she replied, you know he looks as if he had not one idea in his head
to keep company with another.”
“Well said, Deborah!” repeated the Doctor.
“Why Doctor, do you know any ill of him?”
“None. But as Deborah says, I know no good; and if there had been any
good to be known, it must have come within my knowledge. I cannot help
knowing who the persons are to whom the peasantry in my rounds look
with respect and good will, and whom they consider their friends as
well as their betters. And in like manner, I know who they are from
whom they never expect either courtesy or kindness.”
“You are right, my friend; and Deborah is right. Her answer came from
a wise heart; and I was not sorry that her determination was so
promptly made, and so resolutely pronounced. But I wish, if it had
pleased God, the offer had been one which she could have accepted with
her own willing consent, and with my full approbation.”
“Yet,” said the Doctor, “I have often thought how sad a thing it would
be for you ever to part with her.”
“Far more sad will it be for me to leave her unprotected, as it is but
too likely that, in the ordinary course of nature, I one day shall;
and as any day in that same ordinary course, I so possibly may! Our
best intentions, even when they have been most prudentially formed,
fail often in their issue. I meant to train up Deborah in the way she
should go, by fitting her for that state of life in which it had
pleased God to place her, so that she might have made a good wife for
some honest man in the humbler walks of life, and have been happy with
him.”
“And how was it possible,” replied the Doctor, “that you could have
succeeded better? Is she not qualified to be a good man's wife in any
rank? Her manner would not do discredit to a mansion; her management
would make a farm prosperous, or a cottage comfortable; and for her
principles, and temper and cheerfulness, they would render any home a
happy one.”
“You have not spoken too highly in her praise, Doctor. But as she has
from her childhood been all in all to me, there is a danger that I may
have become too much so to her; and that while her habits have
properly been made conformable to our poor means, and her poor
prospects, she has been accustomed to a way of thinking, and a kind of
conversation, which have given her a distaste for those whose talk is
only of sheep and of oxen, and whose thoughts never get beyond the
range of their every day employments. In her present circle, I do not
think there is one man with whom she might otherwise have had a chance
of settling in life, to whom she would not have the same intellectual
objections as to Joseph Hebblethwaite: though I am glad that the moral
objection was that which first instinctively occurred to her.
“I wish it were otherwise, both for her sake and my own; for hers,
because the present separation would have more than enough to
compensate it, and would in its consequences mitigate the evil of the
final one, whenever that may be; for my own, because I should then
have no cause whatever to render the prospect of dissolution otherwise
than welcome, but he as willing to die as to sleep. It is not owing to
any distrust in Providence, that I am not thus willing now,—God
forbid! But if I gave heed to my own feelings, I should think that I
am not long for this world; and surely it were wise to remove, if
possible, the only cause that makes me fear to think so.”
“Are you sensible of any symptoms that can lead to such an
apprehension?” said the Doctor.
“Of nothing that can be called a symptom. I am to all appearance in
good health, of sound body and mind; and you know how unlikely my
habits are to occasion any disturbance in either. But I have
indefinable impressions,—sensations they might almost be called,—which
as I cannot but feel them, so I cannot but regard them.”
“Can you not describe these sensations?”
“No better than by saying, that they hardly amount to sensations, and
are indescribable.”
“Do not,” said the Doctor, “I entreat you, give way to any feelings of
this kind. They may lead to consequences, which without shortening or
endangering life, would render it anxious and burthensome, and destroy
both your usefulness and your comfort.”
“I have this feeling, Doctor; and you shall prescribe for it, if you
think it requires either regimen or physic. But at present you will do
me more good by assisting me to procure for Deborah such a situation
as she must necessarily look for on the event of my death. What I have
laid by, even if it should be most advantageously disposed of, would
afford her only a bare subsistence; it is a resource in case of
sickness, but while in health, it would never be her wish to eat the
bread of idleness. You may have opportunities of learning whether any
lady within the circle of your practice, wants a young person in whom
she might confide, either as an attendant upon herself, or to assist
in the management of her children, or her household. You may be sure
this is not the first time that I have thought upon the subject; but
the circumstance which has this day occurred, and the feeling of which
I have spoken, have pressed it upon my consideration. And the inquiry
may better be made and the step taken while it is a matter of
foresight, than when it has become one of necessity.”
“Let me feel your pulse!”
“You will detect no other disorder there,” said Mr. Bacon, holding out
his arm as he spake, “than what has been caused by this conversation,
and the declaration of a purpose, which though for some time
perpended, I had never till now fully acknowledged to myself.”
“You have never then mentioned it to Deborah?”
“In no other way than by sometimes incidentally speaking of the way of
life which would be open to her, in case of her being unmarried at my
death.”
“And you have made up your mind to part with her?”
“Upon a clear conviction that I ought to do so; that it is best for
herself and me.”
“Well then, you will allow me to converse with her first, upon a
different subject.—You will permit me to see whether I can speak more
successfully for myself, than you have done for Joseph
Hebblethwaite.—Have I your consent?”
Mr. Bacon rose in great emotion, and taking his friend's hand prest it
fervently and tremulously. Presently they heard the wicket open, and
Deborah came in.
“I dare say, Deborah,” said her father, composing himself, “you have
been telling Betsy Allison of the advantageous offer that you have
this day refused.”
“Yes,” replied Deborah; “and what do you think she said? That little
as she likes him, rather than that I should be thrown away upon such a
man, she could almost make up her mind to marry him herself.”
“And I,” said the Doctor, “rather than such a man should have you
would marry you myself.”
“Was not I right in refusing him, Doctor?”
“So right, that you never pleased me so well before; and never can
please me better,—unless you will accept of me in his stead.”
She gave a little start, and looked at him half incredulously, and
half angrily withal; as if what he had said was too light in its
manner to be serious, and yet too serious in its import to be spoken
in jest. But when he took her by the hand, and said, “Will you, dear
Deborah?” with a pressure, and in a tone that left no doubt of his
earnest meaning, she cried, “Father, what am I to say? speak for
me!”—“Take her my friend!” said Mr. Bacon, “My blessing be upon you
both. And if it be not presumptuous to use the words,—let me say for
myself, ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace!’”