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 facts. 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 brow-beat 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 seat 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 some 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.

A little while longer he continued to dispute with me, until I hit upon
a word