PROPOSALS
Heaven, forming each on other to depend,
As master, or as servant, or as friend,
Bids each on other for assistance call,
Till one man’s weakness makes the strength of all.
Wants, frailties, passions closer still ally
The common interest, or endear the tie.
To those we owe true friendship, love sincere,
Each home-felt joy that life inherits here.
POPE.
Ronald Bruce came in smiling. All the family arose to receive him.
“Don’t let me disturb you, pray. How do you do, Mr. Palmer! And you,
madam!” said the young man, shaking hands with John, bowing to Susan,
and then pressing the hand of Em. before he finally subsided into the
chair set for him by Tom.
“Hope you left the commodore and all the family well, sir?” hospitably
inquired John.
“Quite well, thank you, Mr. Palmer. And I have no doubt, if they had
known I was coming here, they would have sent kindest remembrances to
you and your daughter,” replied Ronald Bruce.
“Oh! They didn’t know you were coming, then?”
“No. They were all taking their Sunday afternoon naps in their chambers
when I left home.”
“Ah! Well, I am very glad to see you, Lieutenant, I am sure! Always take
such pleasure in your sea stories! It’s almost like going to sea myself
to hear you! And—well, I was thinking only to-day that the first time I
should see you I would ask you how you spend Sundays on board ship. How
_do_ you, anyhow?”
“Well,” laughed the young man, “as variously as you do on land. It
depends on the character of the captain of the ship at sea, as it does
on the master of the house ashore. Of course, much of the routine of
ship duty must go on, just as some housework must be done. If the
captain of the ship is a religious man we have divine service in the
forenoon. In the afternoon every one spends his leisure as he pleases. I
remember one Sunday afternoon——”
And here, to please his desired father-in-law, Ronald Bruce launched
into a sea story that soon absorbed all the attention of the family
party.
Even old ’Sias and Aunt Monica stepped in and sat down in an obscure
corner to listen. And not until it was finished could Mrs. Whitlock make
up her mind to steal away and prepare an extra supper for the guest.
Then old Monica and Uncle ’Sias followed to lend their aid.
“I never see such idiwuts as John Palmer and Susan is! Do they think as
that young hossifer comes here for the pleasure of seeing them, I
wonder? Why don’t they all make some excuse and leave the young folks
together and give ’em a chance!” burst forth Mrs. Whitlock as soon as
she found herself in the kitchen.
“If he comes here after Miss Em., dey is right not to give him a chance
to court her, ’cause no good can’t come out’n that; he being of a rich
young gentleman, an’ she——”
“A _lady_, every inch of her,” broke in Mrs. Whitlock, cutting Aunt
Monica’s speech short.
“And so she may be in her ways an’ manners, an’ I don’t deny so she is.
But, la! dat ain’t what _his_ people would look at. Ole Marse Commodore
Bruce is particular. Why, chillun, I used to know dat ole man good, an’
hear him talk, when he came to our old Marse Captain Wyndeworth’s oyster
suppers. Bless patience, honeys, _blood_ was his first ’sideration an’
_money_ was his second, an’ dat was all he would look at. An’ ’less our
young gal had blood an’ money, he’d never ’sent to ’ceiving _her_ inter
de Bruce famberly.”
“I’d risk it,” said Ann Whitlock, as she addressed herself to the task
of preparing a dainty supper for the guest to tempt him to repeat his
visits, if other inducements besides Em. should be necessary.
Meanwhile, in the parlor, John Palmer engaged the visitor’s attention
exclusively, keeping him so busy in telling sea stories that the young
man was in peril of having to draw upon his imagination, as well as upon
his memory.
Ronald got no opportunity of speaking a single word in confidence to Em.
Even when supper was announced and he drew the girl’s arm within his own
to take her to the table, the family massed so closely that he could not
even get a chance to breathe a syllable in her ear on the way to the
dining-room.
While the family were at supper Ann Whitlock busily prepared the spare
room upstairs for the accommodation of their guest, saying to herself as
she laid hickory logs across the andirons to build a cheerful fire:
“_I_ will make everything as pleasant as possible for him, anyhow, so as
to ’tice him to come often. And I’ll ’courage ’em to get married, too,
no matter what nobody says. Once they’re safe married nobody can’t
unmarry ’em. That’s so!”
After supper, when the family were regathered around the parlor fire,
the sea stories were resumed, and never had a story-teller a more
attentive and appreciative audience than had Ronald Bruce in John Palmer
and his household.
When the usual bedtime came, however, Susan Palmer began to grow
restless, and as soon as Mr. Bruce came to the end of the tale he was
then telling she got up and lighted a candle and put it in the hand of
her husband, saying:
“I reckon, John, as Mr. Bruce is about tired, and you’d better show him
to his room.”
“Now I do reckon he can find it for himself!” said John, laughing, as he
passed the candle over to Ronald, and added: “It’s the same room you
occupied before, sir, and you know the way to it.”
“Certainly,” replied the young man smilingly; and then more gravely he
added: “I came here, Mr. Palmer, especially to seek a private interview
with you on a matter of very great importance to me, at least. Can you
give me a few moments alone before I leave here to-morrow morning?”
“Why, of course I can,” said John, staring with surprise and curiosity.
Mr. Bruce then bowed good-night to the circle, raised the hand of Em. to
his lips and left the room.
“Now I wonder what in the name o’ sense he’s got to say to you, John? Do
you know?” eagerly inquired Susan Palmer as soon as their visitor had
disappeared.
“Oh, something about crops, or stocks, or something! You know his uncle
wants him to give up the sea and attend to agriculture, and he knows no
more o’ that than I do of navigation,” said John.
“Yes, I s’pose that’s it,” concluded Susan.
“I never did see two such old goneys in my life!” muttered Ann Whitlock
to herself. “Between them both, they’ll ruin that gal’s fortin, I know
they will!”
But nothing more was said, as the family were even then separating to
retire.
As Em. went up to bid her father good-night she whispered these
enigmatical words into his ear:
“Oh, father, please, _please_ don’t deny him!” And she was gone before
the startled and perplexed John could gather his scattered senses and
ask what she meant.
Early the next morning Ronald Bruce arose, dressed in haste and hurried
downstairs to seek the promised interview with his host.
He found John in the parlor waiting for him.
“Good-morning, Mr. Bruce! Fine, bright morning, sir, though we had heavy
frost last night. Hope you slept well, sir,” said Palmer.
“Thanks, yes, very well,” replied the young man, telling an involuntary
fib, for he had not slept a wink and had not meant to say so.
“I’ll just turn the key of this door, and we’ll be safe from
interruption,” said John, suiting the action to the word.
Then placing a chair for his guest and taking another for himself, he
sat down and said:
“Now I am ready to hear all that you have got to say, Lieutenant; but I
warn you that I don’t know much more about crops and stocks than you do
yourself.”
“‘Crops and stocks!’” echoed the young man in surprise.
“Yes! Wasn’t that what you wished to consult me upon?”
“Bless me, no!”
“What was it, then?” inquired Palmer in surprise.
Young Bruce hesitated in some confusion. The fact that the
father-in-law-elect seemed so utterly unprepared to hear the honor that
was intended him, had the natural effect of making the proposal doubly
embarrassing to the suitor.
He paused for a few moments longer and then broke the ice suddenly by
saying:
“Mr. Palmer, I love your daughter Emolyn, and I have reason to know that
she likes me. I came here to pray you to make us both happy by
consenting to our marriage.”
If I were to tell you that John’s hair stood on end, I should not much
exaggerate. His eyes fairly started from his head as he stared at the
speaker, and faltered forth:
“Now look a here, young gentleman, look a here! Quiet yourself like and
think a bit. You _can’t_ know what you’re a-talking about!”
“Yes, I do!” impatiently replied the young man, giving his dark head an
irritable shake.
“Well, then, maybe I didn’t understand you right,” said John helplessly.
“Then I will repeat what I said. I asked you if you would do me the
honor of giving me your daughter for a wife,” repeated Ronald.
“Dear me! Dear me! What a pity! I never thought of such a thing! I am
very sorry,” muttered John in a meditative way.
Ronald Bruce sat watching and waiting until he lost the last remnant of
patience and broke forth with:
“Mr. Palmer, do you understand my question _now_?”
“Yes—yes! Don’t get excited! I know what you said! And I know, too, what
my girl meant when she asked me last night not to deny you! Lord help
me! I feel awful cut up about it!” sighed John, running his fingers
through his shock of “pepper and salt” hair.
The young officer looked somewhat fallen in his selfesteem as he gazed
upon the overseer, who evidently did not feel the honor conferred upon
him as he should have done, and he inquired somewhat sulkily:
“Why should you feel ‘cut up,’ as you call it, by my proposal?”
“Oh, because it is like you have been making love to my child, and maybe
getting her to be fond of you!” replied John with a profound sigh that
seemed to come from the depth of his heart.
“Well, that is just exactly what I have been doing—in the hope of
winning her for my wife, with your consent. I come now to ask that
consent; I only wait for that!” said Ronald earnestly. “And I don’t see
why you should take the matter so very deeply to heart,” he added rather
sullenly.
John groaned and sighed, but answered nothing.
“May I hope for your consent to my proposal, Mr. Palmer?” at length
inquired the suitor.
“No, Mr. Bruce! It can’t be, and it oughtn’t to be! I am hurt to the
very bottom of my heart to have to say it, but I must say it. No, Mr.
Bruce, you can’t have Em. for your wife!” said John Palmer firmly.
The young man turned pale with astonishment, mortification and anger.
“May I ask you _why_ you reject me? Have you any objection to me
personally?” he hotly demanded, as he arose and stood before John.
“To you personally as you stand there, sir, I could have no possible
objection. You are a very well made young man, sound in wind and limb,
of steady habits and good temper, though a little spirited. No, to you
personally I would have no objection. And if you were only a young
journeyman mechanic, or a young workman, I do not know any man in the
world to whom I would sooner give my girl as a wife, or whom I would
sooner welcome as a son-in-law; because I like you, Lieutenant Bruce!
And if it would not sound queer from a man’s lips, I might almost say, I
love you! _That_ is what makes it so awfully cutting to have to refuse
you! Oh, I wish you were a workman!”
“So do I, since you seem to consider it an indispensable condition; but
if you approve of me as I am, why not accept me as I am?” inquired the
young man, now half inclined to laugh and half to weep.
John shook his gray-black head in sorrowful silence.
“I can’t help being an officer in the navy; but I can help continuing to
be so, and I will resign my commission and take up farming if you will
give me Em.! I’ll do it at once, next week, to-day!”
“Yes, and repent week after week, or even to-morrow! No, it will not do,
Mr. Bruce! You are a gentleman born and not fit for Em. You can’t unmake
yourself and make yourself over again, and therefore you can never be
fit for Em. You must give up all thoughts of her at once and forever! I
say it, and by all my soul’s hopes I mean it, young sir.”
“But, good Heaven! I can not and will not give her up! To do so would be
the ruin of our lives’ happiness!” exclaimed Ronald.
“Nonsense, young gentleman. To _marry_ would be the ruin of your lives!
Listen to me, sir. You and Em. are both too young to know yourselves, or
to know life. Of course, you think now that if you could marry you would
be perfectly happy. And so you might be for a few short weeks, while the
novelty lasted. But you are a gentleman—she a poor man’s child. You have
been differently brought up; these differences would crop out in course
of time. You might repent of your marriage, think you could have done so
much better if you could have married a lady of your own class, and so
on——”
“Believe me, sir——” began the suitor.
“Stop! hear me out,” said the father. “You might even come to despise my
child, and to make her feel that she was despised. That would break her
heart, and then—why, I might break your head!”
Ronald Bruce sprang to his feet and began to stride up and down the room
in a sort of frenzy.
“What in the deuce do you take me for, Mr. Palmer,” he indignantly
exclaimed, “that you should think me capable of such baseness! Or what
do you take your daughter for, that you should deem it even possible
that any man should ever ‘despise’ her! If you were not her father, I
would not stand quietly to hear her maiden dignity so affronted!”
“You’re not standing so very quietly just at the present speaking, young
gentleman, unless tearing up and down the room like a madman means your
idea of standing quietly! Come, Mr. Bruce! Come, Mr. Bruce! You have no
better friend on earth than I am. And the very friendliest thing I could
do for you would be to put my foot down on the notion of you marrying my
daughter. And what’s more, no girl ever had a lovinger father than Em.
has in me, and the kindest thing I can do for her is to prevent her from
becoming your wife.”
“I swear by all my hopes of salvation that I will make Emolyn Palmer my
wife in the face of all the world and in defiance of all opposition!”
exclaimed the young man, so transported with fury that he lost all
self-command and sense of propriety.
“Now I wonder why I don’t lift him by the scruff of his neck and the
slack of his pants and pitch him out of the window?” thought John Palmer
to himself. “Why? Because, with all his impudence, he loves my Em., poor
fellow, almost as hard as I did her mother, and I am sorry for him. So
I’ll be gentle with him.”
“You have no right,” broke forth the young man once more, as he strode
up and down the floor—“you have no right—no one has any right to
separate two young people who love each other as I and Emolyn do! No
right to ruin both our lives for the sake of gratifying your own
particular whims of pride or prudence! I told my uncle and my mother so
yesterday, and I tell you so to-day.”
“Whe-ew!” exclaimed John. “So you mean to marry my daughter whether I
will or not?”
“I will marry my Emolyn in defiance of all insane opposition!”
“Very well. We’ll see. Please sit down here. I am going to send for
Emolyn,” said John Palmer.
Ronald Bruce threw himself into the chair and waited.
John Palmer went to the window, tapped upon it and called one of the
boys who was chopping wood in the yard and who immediately approached.
“Ned, tell your sister Em. to come in here. I want to speak to her,”
said the father.
The boy ran off to do his errand.
John Palmer unlocked the door and set it open.
In a few moments Em. entered the room.
She looked very much flushed and embarrassed, and her color came and
went as she glanced from her lover to her father. She seemed to feel
that her fate was being weighed in the balance of the moment, and that a
second might decide it for weal or woe.
“Good-morning, father. Good-morning, Mr. Bruce,” she faltered in low
tones, compelling herself to this act of politeness, although her very
heart seemed fainting within her for fear.
Ronald Bruce bowed low to her salutation, while John Palmer held out his
hand and said:
“Come here, my girl, I have something to say to you.”
Em. went to him.
He encircled her with one arm and drew her close to his side while he
said:
“Em., my child, this good young gentleman here has done us the honor to
ask me for you as his wife—as most likely you know.”
Em. gave a quick, short nod and caught her breath.
“You did know, of course. Well, my daughter, there is no young man in
the world that I like better than him—just as there is no young woman in
the world that I love better than you. So, having the lasting happiness
of both in view, I must decline this marriage for you, my Em.”
“_Oh, father!_” she breathed almost under her breath.
“His friends would never consent to receive my child as a relative, Em.
I would never consent for you to enter any family who would not be as
_proud_ to receive you as I should be to give you. Besides this, unequal
marriages never end well. Where a gentleman marries a poor girl, however
much he may seem to have loved her at first, he grows tired of her,
perhaps ashamed of her, and ceases to love her, maybe begins to hate
her——”
“Oh, father! father!” moaned the girl in a low tone of anguish.
“Mr. Palmer, you must not say these things to your daughter! They are
cruel, unmanly, and what is more, untrue, as far as I am concerned,”
hotly interposed Ronald Bruce.
“They are hard and bitter words, I know, young people,” said John
Palmer, keeping his temper. “But bitters are tonics to cure weakness.
Now, my Em., to _you_ I speak. You are my child. This young gentleman
here declares that he will marry you in defiance of his relations and
yours, and all the world and the rest of mankind, as the late General
Taylor used to say. The question, then, is this, my child: whether you
will marry him without my consent and against my wishes? Answer, Em.!”
“Emolyn, pause! Do not commit yourself hastily by a promise that will
drive me mad and make yourself miserable!” impetuously exclaimed the
lover. “Take time to consider, Emolyn! Tell your father that you must
have time!” he earnestly pleaded.
Em. raised her head. Her face was pale, and her eyes were full of tears;
but she answered firmly:
“Ronald, you know my heart; I must not take time to consider whether I
shall obey my dear father or not. I must not marry without his consent—I
will not, dear father! Ronald, listen and be sure of this—if it should
ever be right that we should marry, my dear father will consent; for he
has nothing except our welfare in view. But do not mistake me, be sure
of this also, that I will never marry without his consent,” Em. added,
and covered her face with her hands to conceal the tears that were ready
to stream from her eyes.
“There, young gentleman, you have your answer from her as well as from
me. She will not marry without my consent. If it should ever happen to
be proper for you to marry I will give my consent. As that is not at all
likely to occur, why, you had better not hope for it. And let me repeat,
in this I have nothing but your happiness and hers at heart,” said John
in earnest kindliness.
Ronald Bruce stamped viciously, exclaiming:
“If there is anything in the world I detest, it is to suffer a grievous
wrong and to be told that it is intended as a benefit.”
“Yes, I know,” said John. “Children always rebel ag’in the physic that
is to cure ’em, or the whipping that is to reform ’em, although we
always tell ’em it’s for their good. But ‘sich is life.’”