mourer had not played him false. When the
good glover parted with his intended son in law, after the judicial
combat had been decided, he found what he indeed had expected, that his
fair daughter was in no favourable disposition towards her lover. But
although he perceived that Catharine was cold, restrained, collected,
had cast away the appearance of mortal passion, and listened with a
reserve, implying contempt, to the most splendid description he could
give her of the combat in the Skinners' Yards, he was determined not
to take the least notice of her altered manner, but to speak of her
marriage with his son Henry as a thing which must of course take place.
At length, when she began, as on a former occasion, to intimate that her
attachment to the armourer did not exceed the bounds of friendship, that
she was resolved never to marry, that the pretended judicial combat
was a mockery of the divine will, and of human laws, the glover not
unnaturally grew angry.

"I cannot read thy thoughts, wench; nor can I pretend to guess under
what wicked delusion it is that you kiss a declared lover, suffer him
to kiss you, run to his house when a report is spread of his death, and
fling yourself into his arms when you find him alone [alive]. All
this shows very well in a girl prepared to obey her parents in a match
sanctioned by her father; but such tokens of intimacy, bestowed on one
whom a young woman cannot esteem, and is determined not to marry, are
uncomely and unmaidenly. You have already been more bounteous of your
favours to Henry Smith than your mother, whom God assoilzie, ever was to
me before I married her. I tell thee, Catharine, this trifling with the
love of an honest man is what I neither can, will, nor ought to endure.
I have given my consent to the match, and I insist it shall take place
without delay, and that you receive Henry Wynd tomorrow, as a man whose
bride you are to be with all despatch."

"A power more potent than yours, father, will say no," replied
Catharine.

"I will risk it; my power is a lawful one, that of a father over a
child, and an erring child," answered her father. "God and man allow of
my influence."

"Then, may Heaven help us," said Catharine; "for, if you are obstinate
in your purpose, we are all lost."

"We can expect no help from Heaven," said the glover, "when we act
with indiscretion. I am clerk enough myself to know that; and that your
causeless resistance to my will is sinful, ev