第32章

"Think! why haven't you the courage to ask her? Do you stick to it, you want to have _her_--that's the thing?""There's no other woman I want to marry," said Godfrey, evasively.

"Well, then, let me make the offer for you, that's all, if you haven't the pluck to do it yourself.Lammeter isn't likely to be loath for his daughter to marry into _my_ family, I should think.

And as for the pretty lass, she wouldn't have her cousin--and there's nobody else, as I see, could ha' stood in your way.""I'd rather let it be, please sir, at present," said Godfrey, in alarm."I think she's a little offended with me just now, and Ishould like to speak for myself.A man must manage these things for himself.""Well, speak, then, and manage it, and see if you can't turn over a new leaf.That's what a man must do when he thinks o' marrying.""I don't see how I can think of it at present, sir.You wouldn't like to settle me on one of the farms, I suppose, and I don't think she'd come to live in this house with all my brothers.It's a different sort of life to what she's been used to.""Not come to live in this house? Don't tell me.You ask her, that's all," said the Squire, with a short, scornful laugh.

"I'd rather let the thing be, at present, sir," said Godfrey."Ihope you won't try to hurry it on by saying anything.""I shall do what I choose," said the Squire, "and I shall let you know I'm master; else you may turn out and find an estate to drop into somewhere else.Go out and tell Winthrop not to go to Cox's, but wait for me.And tell 'em to get my horse saddled.And stop:

look out and get that hack o' Dunsey's sold, and hand me the money, will you? He'll keep no more hacks at my expense.And if you know where he's sneaking--I daresay you do--you may tell him to spare himself the journey o' coming back home.Let him turn ostler, and keep himself.He shan't hang on me any more.""I don't know where he is, sir; and if I did, it isn't my place to tell him to keep away," said Godfrey, moving towards the door.

"Confound it, sir, don't stay arguing, but go and order my horse,"said the Squire, taking up a pipe.

Godfrey left the room, hardly knowing whether he were more relieved by the sense that the interview was ended without having made any change in his position, or more uneasy that he had entangled himself still further in prevarication and deceit.What had passed about his proposing to Nancy had raised a new alarm, lest by some after-dinner words of his father's to Mr.Lammeter he should be thrown into the embarrassment of being obliged absolutely to decline her when she seemed to be within his reach.He fled to his usual refuge, that of hoping for some unforeseen turn of fortune, some favourable chance which would save him from unpleasant consequences--perhaps even justify his insincerity by manifesting its prudence.

And in this point of trusting to some throw of fortune's dice, Godfrey can hardly be called specially old-fashioned.Favourable Chance, I fancy, is the god of all men who follow their own devices instead of obeying a law they believe in.Let even a polished man of these days get into a position he is ashamed to avow, and his mind will be bent on all the possible issues that may deliver him from the calculable results of that position.Let him live outside his income, or shirk the resolute honest work that brings wages, and he will presently find himself dreaming of a possible benefactor, a possible simpleton who may be cajoled into using his interest, a possible state of mind in some possible person not yet forthcoming.

Let him neglect the responsibilities of his office, and he will inevitably anchor himself on the chance that the thing left undone may turn out not to be of the supposed importance.Let him betray his friend's confidence, and he will adore that same cunning complexity called Chance, which gives him the hope that his friend will never know.Let him forsake a decent craft that he may pursue the gentilities of a profession to which nature never called him, and his religion will infallibly be the worship of blessed Chance, which he will believe in as the mighty creator of success.The evil principle deprecated in that religion is the orderly sequence by which the seed brings forth a crop after its kind.