"I repeat it, Sparks, I'll make a proposal for you in all form, aided and abetted by everything recommendatory and laudatory I can think of; I'll talk of you as a Peninsular of no small note and promise; and observe rigid silence about your Welsh flirtation and your Spanish elopement."

"You'll not blab about the Dalrymples, I hope?"

"Trust me; I only hope you will be always equally discreet: but now--when shall it be? Should you like to consider the matter more?"

"Oh, no, nothing of the kind; let it be to-morrow, at once, if I am to fail; even that--anything's better than suspense."

"Well, then, to-morrow be it," said I.

So I wished him a good-night, and a stout heart to hear his fortune withal.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

A MISTAKE.

I ordered my horses at an early hour; and long before Sparks--lover that he was--had opened his eyes to the light, was already on my way towards Gurt-na-Morra. Several miles slipped away before I well determined how I should open my negotiations: whether to papa Blake, in the first instance, or to madame, to whose peculiar province these secrets of the home department belonged; or why not at once to Baby?--because, after all, with her it rested finally to accept or refuse. To address myself to the heads of the department seemed the more formal course; and as I was acting entirely as an "envoy extraordinary," I deemed this the fitting mode of proceeding.

It was exactly eight o'clock as I drove up to the door. Mr. Blake was standing at the open window of the breakfast-room, sniffing the fresh air of the morning. The Blake mother was busily engaged with the economy of the tea-table; a very simple style of morning costume, and a nightcap with a flounce like a petticoat, marking her unaffected toilet. Above stairs, more than one head _en papillate_ took a furtive peep between the curtains; and the butler of the family, in corduroys and a fur cap, was weeding turnips in the lawn before the door.

Mrs. Blake had barely time to take a hurried departure, when her husband came out upon the steps to bid me welcome. There is no physiognomist like your father of a family, or your mother with marriageable daughters.

Lavater was nothing to them, in reading the secret springs of action, the hidden sources of all character. Had there been a good respectable b.u.mp allotted by Spurzheim to "honorable intentions," the matter had been all fair and easy,--the very first salute of the gentleman would have p.r.o.nounced upon his views. But, alas! no such guide is forthcoming; and the science, as it now exists, is enveloped in doubt and difficulty. The gay, laughing temperament of some, the dark and serious composure of others; the cautious and reserved, the open and the candid, the witty, the sententious, the clever, the dull, the prudent, the reckless,--in a word, every variety which the innumerable hues of character imprint upon the human face divine are their study. Their convictions are the slow and patient fruits of intense observation and great logical accuracy. Carefully noting down every lineament and feature,--their change, their action, and their development,--they track a lurking motive with the scent of a bloodhound, and run down a growing pa.s.sion with an unrelenting speed. I have been in the witness-box, exposed to the licensed badgering and privileged impertinence of a lawyer, winked, leered, frowned, and sneered at with all the long-practised tact of a _nisi prius_ torturer; I have stood before the cold, fish-like, but searching eye of a prefect of police, as he compared my pa.s.sport with my person, and thought he could detect a discrepancy in both,--but I never felt the same sense of total exposure as when glanced at by the half-cautious, half-prying look of a worthy father or mother, in a family where there are daughters to marry, and "n.o.body coming to woo."

"You're early, Charley," said Mr. Blake, with an affected mixture of carelessness and warmth. "You have not had breakfast?"

"No, sir. I have come to claim a part of yours; and if I mistake not, you seem a little later than usual."

"Not more than a few minutes. The girls will be down presently; they're early risers, Charley; good habits are just as easy as bad ones; and, the Lord be praised! my girls were never brought up with any other."

"I am well aware of it, sir; and indeed, if I may be permitted to take advantage of the _apropos_, it was on the subject of one of your daughters that I wished to speak to you this morning, and which brought me over at this uncivilized hour, hoping to find you alone."

Mr. Blake's look for a moment was one of triumphant satisfaction; it was but a glance, however, and repressed the very instant after, as he said, with a well got-up indifference,--

"Just step with me into the study, and we're sure not to be interrupted."

Now, although I have little time or s.p.a.ce for such dallying, I cannot help dwelling for a moment upon the aspect of what Mr. Blake dignified with the name of his study. It was a small apartment with one window, the panes of which, independent of all aid from a curtain, tempered the daylight through the medium of cobwebs, dust, and the ill-trained branches of some wall-tree without.

Three oak chairs and a small table were the only articles of furniture, while around, on all sides, lay the _disjecta membra_ of Mr. Blake's hunting, fishing, shooting, and coursing equipments,--old top-boots, driving whips, odd spurs, a racing saddle, a blunderbuss, the helmet of the Galway Light Horse, a salmon net, a large map of the county with a marginal index to several mortgages marked with a cross, a stable lantern, the rudder of a boat, and several other articles representative of his daily a.s.sociations; but not one book, save an odd volume of Watty c.o.x's Magazine, whose pages seemed as much the receptacle of brown hackles for trout-fishing as the resource of literary leisure.

"Here we'll be quite cosey, and to ourselves," said Mr. Blake, as, placing a chair for me, he sat down himself, with the air of a man resolved to a.s.sist, by advice and counsel, the dilemma of some dear friend.

After a few preliminary observations, which, like a breathing canter before a race, serves to get your courage up, and settle you well in your seat, I opened my negotiation by some very broad and sweeping truisms about the misfortunes of a bachelor existence, the discomforts of his position, his want of home and happiness, the necessity for his one day thinking seriously about marriage; it being in a measure almost as inevitable a termination of the free-and-easy career of his single life as transportation for seven years is to that of a poacher. "You cannot go on, sir," said I, "trespa.s.sing forever upon your neighbors' preserves; you must be apprehended sooner or later; therefore, I think, the better way is to take out a license."

Never was a small sally of wit more thoroughly successful. Mr. Blake laughed till he cried, and when he had done, wiped his eyes with a snuffy handkerchief, and cried till he laughed again. As, somehow, I could not conceal from myself a suspicion as to the sincerity of my friend's mirth, I merely consoled myself with the French adage, that "he laughs best who laughs last;" and went on:--

"It will not be deemed surprising, sir, that a man should come to the discovery I have just mentioned much more rapidly by having enjoyed the pleasure of intimacy with your family; not only by the example of perfect domestic happiness presented to him, but by the prospect held out that a heritage of the fair gifts which adorn and grace a married life may reasonably be looked for among the daughters of those themselves the realization of conjugal felicity."

Here was a canter, with a vengeance; and as I felt blown, I slackened my pace, coughed, and resumed:--

"Mary Blake, sir, is, then, the object of my present communication; she it is who has made an existence that seemed fair and pleasurable before, appear blank and unprofitable without her. I have, therefore, to come at once to the point, visited you this morning, formally to ask her hand in marriage; her fortune, I may observe at once, is perfectly immaterial, a matter of no consequence [so Mr. Blake thought also]; a competence fully equal to every reasonable notion of expenditure--"

"There, there; don't, don't!" said Mr. Blake, wiping his eyes, with a sob like a hiccough,--"don't speak of money! I know what you would say, a handsome settlement,--a well-secured jointure, and all that. Yes, yes, I feel it all."

"Why, yes, sir, I believe I may add that everything in this respect will answer your expectations."

"Of course; to be sure. My poor dear Baby! How to do without her, that's the rub! You don't know, O'Malley, what that girl is to me--you can't know it; you'll feel it one day though--that you will!"

"The devil I shall!" said I to myself. "The great point is, after all, to learn the young lady's disposition in the matter--"

"Ah, Charley, none of this with me, you sly dog! You think I don't know you. Why, I've been watching,--that is, I have seen--no, I mean I've heard--They--they,--people will talk, you know."

"Very true, sir. But, as I was going to remark--"

Just at this moment the door opened, and Miss Baby herself, looking most annoyingly handsome, put in her head.

"Papa, we're waiting breakfast. Ah, Charley, how d'ye do?"

"Come in, Baby," said Mr. Blake; "you haven't given me my kiss this morning."

The lovely girl threw her arms around his neck, while her bright and flowing locks fell richly upon his shoulder. I turned rather sulkily away; the thing always provokes me. There is as much cold, selfish cruelty in such _coram publico_ endearments, as in the luscious display of rich rounds and sirloins in a chop-house to the eyes of the starved and penniless wretch without, who, with dripping rags and watering lip, eats imaginary slices, while the pains of hunger are torturing him!

"There's Tim!" said Mr. Blake, suddenly. "Tim Cronin!--Tim!" shouted he to, as it seemed to me, an imaginary individual outside; while, in the eagerness of pursuit, he rushed out of the study, banging the door as he went, and leaving Baby and myself to our mutual edification.

I should have preferred it being otherwise; but as the Fates willed it thus, I took Baby's hand, and led her to the window. Now, there is one feature of my countrymen which, having recognized strongly in myself, I would fain proclaim; and writing as I do--however little people may suspect me--solely for the sake of a moral, would gladly warn the unsuspecting against. I mean, a very decided tendency to become the consoler, the confidant of young ladies; seeking out opportunities of a.s.suaging their sorrow, reconciling their afflictions, breaking eventful pa.s.sages to their ears; not from any inherent pleasure in the tragic phases of the intercourse, but for the semi-tenderness of manner, that harmless hand-squeezing, that innocent waist-pressing, without which consolation is but like salmon without lobster,--a thing maimed, wanting, and imperfect.

Now, whether this with me was a natural gift, or merely a "way we have in the army," as the song says, I shall not pretend to say; but I venture to affirm that few men could excel me in the practice I speak of some five-and-twenty years ago. Fair reader, do pray, if I have the happiness of being known to you, deduct them from my age before you subtract from my merits.

"Well, Baby, dear, I have just been speaking about you to papa. Yes, dear--don't look so incredulous--even of your own sweet self. Well, do you know, I almost prefer your hair worn that way; those same silky ma.s.ses look better falling thus heavily--"

"There, now, Charley! ah, don't!"

"Well, Baby, as I was saying, before you stopped me, I have been asking your papa a very important question, and he has referred me to you for the answer. And now will you tell me, in all frankness and honesty, your mind on the matter?"

She grew deadly pale as I spoke these words, then suddenly flushed up again, but said not a word. I could perceive, however, from her heaving chest and restless manner, that no common agitation was stirring her bosom.

It was cruelty to be silent, so I continued:--

"One who loves you well, Baby, dear, has asked his own heart the question, and learned that without you he has no chance of happiness; that your bright eyes are to him bluer than the deep sky above him; that your soft voice, your winning smile--and what a smile it is!--have taught him that he loves, nay, adores you! Then, dearest--what pretty fingers those are! Ah, what is this? Whence came that emerald? I never saw that ring before, Baby!"

"Oh, that," said she, blushing deeply,--"that is a ring the foolish creature Sparks gave me a couple of days ago; but I don't like it--I don't intend to keep it."

So saying, she endeavored to draw it from her finger, but in vain.

"But why, Baby, why take it off? Is it to give him the pleasure of putting it on again? There, don't look angry; we must not fall out, surely."

"No, Charley, if you are not vexed with me--if you are not--"