better? I think you are a sensible fellow for loving her,
and you think me one. And as for who has her, why, you're the eldest;
and first come first served is the rule, and best to keep to it.
Besides, brother Frank, though I'm no scholar, yet I'm not so blind but
that I tell the difference between you and me; and of course your chance
against mine, for a hundred to one; and I am not going to be fool enough
to row against wind and tide too. I'm good enough for her, I hope; but
if I am, you are better, and the good dog may run, but it's the best
that takes the hare; and so I have nothing more to do with the matter
at all; and if you marry her, why, it will set the old house on its legs
again, and that's the first thing to be thought of, and you may just as
well do it as I, and better too. Not but that it's a plague, a horrible
plague!" went on Amyas, with a ludicrously doleful visage; "but so
are other things too, by the dozen; it's all in the day's work, as the
huntsman said when the lion ate him. One would never get through the
furze-croft if one stopped to pull out the prickles. The pig didn't
scramble out of the ditch by squeaking; and the less said the sooner
mended; nobody was sent into the world only to suck honey-pots. What
must be must, man is but dust; if you can't get crumb, you must fain
eat crust. So I'll go and join the army in Ireland, and get it out of
my head, for cannon balls fright away love as well as poverty does; and
that's all I've got to say." Wherewith Amyas sat down, and returned to
the beer; while Mrs. Leigh wept tears of joy.

"Amyas! Amyas!" said Frank; "you must not throw away the hopes of years,
and for me, too! Oh, how just was your parable! Ah! mother mine! to
what use is all my scholarship and my philosophy, when this dear simple
sailor-lad outdoes me at the first trial of courtesy!"

"My children, my children, which of you shall I love best? Which of you
is the more noble? I thanked God this morning for having given me one
such son; but to have found that I possess two!" And Mrs. Leigh laid her
head on the table, and buried her face in her hands, while the generous
battle went on.

"But, dearest Amyas!--"

"But, Frank! if you don't hold your tongue, I must go forth. It
was quite trouble enough to make up one's mind, without having you
afterwards trying to unmake it again."

"Amyas! if you give her up to me, God do so to me, and more also, if I
do not hereby give her up to you!"