Tales and Novels — Volume 02: Popular TalesEdgeworth, Maria
General
Tales and Novels — Volume 02: Popular Tales
Edgeworth, Maria
Fiction
compliment, like those Sir Hyacinth paid to her face, but only the plain
truth. I mean that a picture could never make my mother understand how
good, and sweet-tempered, and modest, Rose is. Mother has a world of
prejudices; but she is a good woman, and will prove herself so to me, I
make no doubt.”
Stafford wrote to his mother a long letter, and received, in a fortnight
afterwards, this short answer:
“Son George, I warned you not to fall in love with an Irishwoman, to
which I told you I could never give my consent.
“As you bake, so you must brew. Your sister Dolly is marrying too, and
setting up a shop in Warwick, by my advice and consent: all the money I
can spare I must give, as in reason, to her who is a dutiful child;
and mean, with her and grand-children, if God please, to pass my latter
days, as fitting, in this parish of Little Sonchy, in Old England, where
I was born and bred. Wishing you may not repent, or starve, or so forth,
which please to let me know,
“I am your affectionate mother,
“DOROTHY STAFFORD.”
All Stafford’s hopes were confounded by this letter: he put it into
farmer Gray’s hands, without saying a word; then drew his chair away
from Rose, hid his face in his hands, and never spoke or heard one word
that was saying round about him for full half an hour; till, at last,
he was roused by his friend Robin, who, clapping him on his back, said,
“Come, Stafford, English pride won’t do with us; this is all to punish
you for refusing to share and share alike with us in the mill of
Rosanna, which is what you must and shall do now, for Rose’s sake, if
not for ours or your own. Come, say done.”
Stafford could not help being moved. All the family, except Rose, joined
in these generous entreaties; and her silence said even more than their
words. Dinner was on the table before this amicable contest was settled,
and Robin insisted upon his drinking a toast with him, in Irish ale;
which was, “Rose Gray, and Rosanna-mill.”
The glass was just filled and the toast pronounced, when in came one of
Gray’s workmen, in an indescribable perspiration and rage.
“Master Robin, master John! Master,” cried he, “we are all ruined! The
mill and all--”
“The mill!” exclaimed every body starting up.
“Ay, the mill: it’s all over with it, and with us: not a turn more will
Rosanna-mill ever take for me or you; not a turn,” continued he, wiping
his forehead with his arm, and hiding by the same motion his eyes, which
ran over with tears.
“It’s all that thief Hopkins’s doing. May every guinea he touches, and
every shilling, and tester, and penny itself, blister his fingers, from
this day forward and for evermore!”
“But what has he done to the mill?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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