"Nothing else?" sneered the unlucky William.

Susan gave him such a look.

"And that interests me more than anything you can say to me--if you won't be offended," snapped Susan.

William bit his lip.

"Well, then, I won't come this evening, eh! Susan?"

"No, don't, that is a good soul."

"Les femmes sont impitoyables pour ceux qu'elles n'aiment pas." This is a harsh saying, and of course not pure truth; but there is a deal of truth in it.

William was proud, and the consciousness of his own love for her made him less able to persist, for he knew she might be so ungenerous as to retort if he angered her too far. So he altered the direction of his battery. He planted himself at the gate of Gra.s.smere Farm, and as Meadows got off his horse requested a few words with him. Meadows ran him over with one lightning glance, and then the whole man was on the defensive. William bluntly opened the affair.

"You heard me promise to look on Susan as my sister, and keep her as she is for my brother that is far away."

"I heard you, Mr. William," said Meadows with a smile that provoked William as the artful one intended it should.

"You come here too often, sir."

"Too often for who?"

"Too often for me, too often for George, too often for the girl herself.

I won't have George's sweetheart talked about."

"You are the first to talk about her; if there's scandal it is of your making."

"I won't have it--at a word."

Meadows called out, "Miss Merton, will you step here."

William was astonished at his audacity; he did not know his man.

Susan opened the parlor window.

"What is it, Mr. Meadows?"

"Will you step here, if you please?" Susan came. :Here is a young man tells me I must not call on your father or you."

"I say you must not do it often enough to make her talked of."

"Who dares to talk of me?" cried Susan, scarlet.

"n.o.body, Miss Merton. n.o.body but the young man himself; and so I told him. Is your father within? Then I'll step in and speak with him anyway." And the sly Meadows vanished to give Susan an opportunity of quarreling with William while she was hot.

"I don't know how you came to take such liberties with me," began Susan, quite pale now with anger.

"It is for George's sake," said William doggedly.

"Did George bid you insult my friends and me? I would not put up with it from George himself, much less from you. I shall write to George and ask him whether he wishes me to be your slave."

"Don't ye do so. Don't set my brother against me," remonstrated William ruefully.

"The best thing you can do is to go home and mind your farm, and get a sweetheart for yourself, and then you won't trouble your head about me more than you have any business to do."

This last cut wounded William to the quick.

"Good-evening, Susan."

"Good-evening."

"Won't you shake hands?"

"It would serve you right if I said no! But I won't make you of so much importance as you want to be. There! And come again as soon as ever you can treat my friends with respect."

"I shan't trouble you again for a while," said William sadly. "Good-by.

G.o.d bless you, Susan dear."

When he was gone the tears came into Susan's eyes, but she was bitterly indignant with him for making a scene about her, which a really modest girl hates. On her reaching the parlor Mr. Meadows was gone, too, and that incensed her still more against William. "Mr. Meadows is affronted, no doubt," said she, "and of course he would not come here to be talked of; he would not like that any more than I. A man that comes here to us out of pure good nature and nothing else."

The next market-day the deep Meadows did not come. Susan missed him and his talk. She had few pleasures, and this was one of them. But the next after he came as usual, and Susan did not conceal her satisfaction. She was too shy and he too wise to allude to William's interference. They both ignored the poor fellow and his honest, clumsy attempt.

William, discomfited but not convinced, determined to keep his eye upon them both. "I swore it and I'll do it," said this honest fellow. "But I can't face her tongue; it goes through me like a pitchfork; but as for him"--and he clinched his fist most significantly; then he revolved one or two plans in his head, and rejected them each in turn. At last a thought struck him. "Mr. Levi! he 'twas that put me on my guard. I'll tell him." Accordingly he recounted the whole affair and his failure to Mr. Levi. The old man smiled. "You are no match for either of these. You have given the maiden offense, just offense."

"Just offence! Mr. Levi. Now don't ye say so; why, how?"

"By your unskillfulness, my son."

"It is all very well for you to say that, sir, but I can tell you women are kittle folk--manage them who can? I don't know what to do, I'm sure."

"Stay at home and till the land," replied Isaac, somewhat dryly. "I will go to Gra.s.smere Farm."

CHAPTER IX.

"You going to leave us, Mr. Eden, and going to live in a jail? Oh!

Mr. Eden, I can't bear to think of it. You to be cooped up there among thieves and rogues, and perhaps murderers?"

"They have the more need of me."

"And you, who love the air of heaven so; why, sir, I see you take off your very hat at times to enjoy it as you are walking along; you would be choked in a prison. Besides, sir, it is only little parsons that go there."

"What are little parsons?"

"Those that are not clever enough or good enough to be bishops and vicars, and so forth; not such ones as you."

"How odd! This is exactly what the Devil whispered in my ear when the question was first raised, but I did not expect to find you on his side."