"But so much I need make no
secret of, that I bear the lady you refer to the most tender
affection, and I could not fancy, even in a dream, a better fortune
than to get her."
"I was sure of it, I felt certain of you, David," he cried, and
reached out his hand to me.
I put it by. "You go too fast, Mr. Drummond," said I. "There are
conditions to be made; and there is a difficulty in the path, which
I see not entirely how we shall come over. I have told you that,
upon my side, there is no objection to the marriage, but I have
good reason to believe there will be much on the young lady's."
"This is all beside the mark," says he. "I will engage for her
acceptance."
"I think you forget, Mr. Drummond," said I, "that, even in dealing
with myself, you have been betrayed into two-three unpalatable
expressions. I will have none such employed to the young lady. I
am here to speak and think for the two of us; and I give you to
understand that I would no more let a wife be forced upon myself,
than what I would let a husband be forced on the young lady."
He sat and glowered at me like one in doubt and a good deal of
temper.
"So that is to be the way of it," I concluded. "I will marry Miss
Drummond, and that blithely, if she is entirely willing. But if
there be the least unwillingness, as I have reason to fear--marry
her will I never."
"Well well," said he, "this is a small affair. As soon as she
returns I will sound her a bit, and hope to reassure you--"
But I cut in again. "Not a finger of you, Mr. Drummond, or I cry
off, and you can seek a husband to your daughter somewhere else,"
said I. "It is I that am to be the only dealer and the only judge.
I shall satisfy myself exactly; and none else shall anyways meddle-
-you the least of all."
"Upon my word, sir!" he exclaimed, "and who are you to be the
judge?"
"The bridegroom, I believe," said I.
"This is to quibble," he cried. "You turn your back upon the fact.
The girl, my daughter, has no choice left to exercise. Her
character is gone."
"And I ask your pardon," said I, "but while this matter lies
between her and you and me, that is not so."
"What security have I!" he cried. "Am I to let my daughter's
reputation depend upon a chance?"
"You should have thought of all this long ago," said I, "before you
were so misguided as to lose her; and not afterwards when it is
quite too late. I refuse to regard myself as any way accountable
for your neglect, and I will be browbeat by no man living. My mind
is quite made up, and come what may, I will not depart from it a
hair's breadth. You and me are to sit here in company till her
return: upon which, without either word or look from you, she and
I are to go forth again to hold our talk. If she can satisfy me
that she is willing to this step, I will then make it; and if she
cannot, I will not."
He leaped out of his chair like a man stung. "I can spy your
manoeuvre," he cried; "you would work upon her to refuse!"
"Maybe ay, and maybe no," said I. "That is the way it is to be,
whatever."
"And if I refuse?" cries he.
"Then, Mr. Drummond, it will have to come to the throat-cutting,"
said I.
What with the size of the man, his great length of arm in which he
came near rivalling his father, and his reputed skill at weapons, I
did not use this word without trepidation, to say nothing at all of
the circumstance that he was Catriona's father. But I might have
spared myself alarms. From the poorness of my lodging--he does not
seem to have remarked his daughter's dresses, which were indeed all
equally new to him--and from the fact that I had shown myself
averse to lend, he had embraced a strong idea of my poverty. The
sudden news of my estate convinced him of his error, and he had
made but the one bound of it on this fresh venture, to which he was
now so wedded, that I believe he would have suffered anything
rather than fall to the alternative of fighting.