t there is just the one thing that I wish you would bear in
view, if it was only long enough to discuss it quietly; for there is
going to be a collieshangie when we two get home. Take my word for it,
it will need the two of us to make this matter end in peace."

"Ay," said she. There sprang a patch of red in either of her cheeks.
"Was he for fighting you?" said she.

"Well, he was that," said I.

She gave a dreadful kind of laugh. "At all events, it is complete!" she
cried. And then turning on me: "My father and I are a fine pair," she
said, "but I am thanking the good God there will be somebody worse than
what we are. I am thanking the good God that he has let me see you so.
There will never be the girl made that would not scorn you."

I had borne a good deal pretty patiently, but this was over the mark.

"You have no right to speak to me like that," said I. "What have I done
but to be good to you, or try to? And here is my repayment! O, it is too
much."

She kept looking at me with a hateful smile. "Coward!" said she.

"The word in your throat and in your father's!" I cried. "I have dared
him this day already in your interest. I will dare him again, the nasty
pole-cat; little I care which of us should fall! Come," said I, "back to
the house with us; let us be done with it, let me be done with the whole
Hieland crew of you! You will see what you think when I am dead."

She shook her head at me with that same smile I could have struck her
for.

"O, smile away!" I cried. "I have seen your bonny father smile on the
wrong side this day. Not that I mean he was afraid, of course," I added
hastily, "but he preferred the other way of it."

"What is this?" she asked.

"When I offered to draw with him," said I.

"You offered to draw upon James More?" she cried.

"And I did so," said I, "and found him backward enough, or how would we
be here?"

"There is a meaning upon this," said she. "What is it you are meaning?"

"He was to make you take me," I replied, "and I would not have it. I
said you should be free, and I must speak with you alone; little I
supposed it would be such a speaking! '_And what if I refuse_?' says
he.--'_Then it must come to the throat cutting_,' says I, '_for I will
no more have a husband forced on that young lady than what I would have
a wife forced upon myself_.' These were my words, they were a friend's
words; bonnily have I been paid for them! Now you have refused me of
your own clear fr