The whole of his bare, bleak life was known to her; its half-starved beginning; its early merciless buffeting; the upheaval of vast circumstance in the revolutionary history of the times by which he had again and again been thrown back upon his own undefended strength; and stealthily following him from place to place, always closing around him, always seeking to strangle him, or to poison him in some vital spot, that most silent, subtle serpent of life--Poverty.Knowing this, and knowing also the man he had become, she would in secret sometimes liken him to one of those rare unions of delicacy and hardihood which in the world of wild flowers Nature refuses to bring forth except from the cranny of a cold rock.Its home is the battle-field of black roaring tempests; the red lightnings play among its roots ; all night seamless snow-drifts are woven around its heart; no bee ever rises to it from the valley below where the green spring is kneeling;no morning bird ever soars past it with observant song; but in due time, with unswerving obedience to a law of beauty unfolding from within, it sets forth its perfect leaves and strains its steadfast face toward the sun.
These paltry thousands! She realized that they would lift from him the burden of debts that he had assumed, and give him, without further waiting, the libertyof his powers and the opportunities of the world."God bless you!"She said with trembling lips."It makes me happier than it does you.No one else in the whole world is as glad as I am."Silence fell upon them.Both were thinking, but in very different ways--of the changes that would now take place in his life.
"Do you know," he said at length, looking into her face with the quietest smile, that if this lawsuit had gone against me it would have been the first great defeat of my life? Sorely as I have struggled, I have yet to encounter that common myth of weak men, an insurmountable barrier.The imperfection of our lives-- what is it but the imperfection of our planning and doing?
Shattered ideals--what hand shatters them but one's own? I declare to you at this moment, standing here in the clear light of my own past, that I firmly believe I shall be what I will, that I shall have what I want, and that Ishall now go on rearing the structure of my life, to the last detail, just as I have long planned it."She did not answer, but stood looking at him with a new pity in her eyes.After all, was he so young, so untaught by the world? Had a little prosperity already puffed him up?
"There will be this difference, of course," he added."Hitherto I have had to build slowly; henceforth there will be no delay, now that I am free to lay hold upon the material.But, my dear friend, I cannot bear to think of my life as a structure to be successfully reared without settling at once how it is to be lighted from within.And, therefore, I have come to speak to you about--the lamp."As he said this a solemn beauty flashed out upon his face.As though the outer curtain of his nature had been drawn up, she now gazed into the depths and confidences.
Her head dropped quickly on her bosom; and she drew slightly back, as though to escape pain or danger."You must know how long I have loved Amy," he continued in a tone of calmness."I have not spoken sooner, because the circumstances of my life made it necessary for me to wait; and now I wish to ask her to become my wife, and I am here to beg your consent first."For some time she did not answer.The slip of an elm grew beside the picket fence, and she stood passing her fingers over the topmost leaves, with her head lowered so that he could not see her face.At length she said in a voice he could hardly hear:
"I have feared for a long time that this would come; but I have never been able to get ready for it, and I am not ready now."Neither spoke for some time longer; only his expression changed, and he looked over at her with a compassionate, amused gravity, as though he meant to be very patient with her opposition.On her part, she was thinking--Is it possible that the first use he will make of his new liberty is to forge the chain of a new slavery? Is this some weak spot now to be fully revealed in his character? Is this the drain in the bottom of the lake that will in the end bring its high, clear level down to mud and stagnant shallows and a swarm of stinging insects? At last she spoke, but with difficulty:"I have known for a year that you were interested in Amy.You could not have been here so much without our seeing that.But let me ask you one question: Have you ever thought that I wished you to marry her?""I have always beheld in you an unmasked enemy," he replied, smiling.
"Then I can go on," she said."But I feel as though never in my life have Idone a thing that is as near being familiar and unwomanly.Nevertheless, for your sake--for hers--for ours--it is my plain, hard duty to ask you whether you are sure--even if you should have her consent--that my niece is the woman you ought to marry." And she lifted to him her clear, calm eyes, prematurely old in the experience of life.
"I am sure," he answered with the readiness of one who has foreseen the question.
The negro boy approached with a bucket of cold crystal water, and he drank a big gourd full of it gratefully.
"You can go and kindle the fire in the kitchen," she said to the negro."It is nearly time to be getting supper.I will be in by and by.""You have been with her so much!" she continued to Gray after another interval of embarrassment."And you know, or you ought to know, her disposition, her tastes, her ways and views of life.Is she the companion you need now? will always need?""I have been much with her," he replied, taking up her words with humorous gravity."But I have never studied her as I have studied law.I have never cross-examined her for a witness, or prosecuted her as an attorney, or pronounced sentence on her is a judge.I am her advocate--and I am ready to defend her now--even to you!""John!--""I love her--that is all there is of it!""Suppose you wait a little longer."
