me, and
say a kind word now and then. Ah! Mercy Vint, thou hast spoiled me for
living alone."

This vacillation exhausted Mrs. Vint's patience. "What are ye sighing
about, ye foolish man?" said she, contemptuously; "you have got it all
your own way. If 't is a wife ye want, ask Mercy, and don't take a nay.
If ye would have a housekeeper, you need not want one long. I'll be
bound there's plenty of young women where you came from as would be glad
to keep the 'Vine' under you. And, if you come to that, our Mercy is a
treasure on the farm, but she is no help in the inn, no more than a wax
figure. She never brought us a shilling, till you came and made her sing
to your bass-viol. Nay, what you want is a smart, handsome girl, with a
quick eye and a ready tongue, and one as can look a man in the face, and
not given to love nor liquor. Don't you know never such a one?"

"Not I. Humph, to be sure there is Caroline Ryder. She is handsome, and
hath a good wit. She is a lady's maid."

"That's your woman, if she'll come. And to be sure she will; for to be
mistress of an inn, that's a lady's maid's Paradise."

"She would have come a few months ago, and gladly. I'll write to her."

"Better talk to her, and persuade her."

"I'll do that, too; but I must write to her first."

"So do then; but whatever you do, don't shilly-shally no longer. If
wrestling was shilly-shallying, methinks you'd bear the bell, you or
else Paul Carrick. Why, all his trouble comes on 't. He might have wed
our Mercy a year agone for the asking. Shilly-shally belongs to us that
be women. 'T is despicable in a man."

Thus driven on all sides, Griffith rode and inspected the "Vine" (it was
only seven miles off); and, after the usual chaffering, came to terms
with the proprietor.

He fixed the day for his departure, and told Mrs. Vint he must ride into
Cumberland first to get some money, and also to see about a housekeeper.

He made no secret of all this; and, indeed, was not without hopes Mercy
would relent, or perhaps be jealous of this housekeeper. But the only
visible effect was to make her look pale and sad. She avoided him in
private as before.

Harry Vint was loud in his regrets, and Carrick openly exultant.
Griffith wrote to Caroline Ryder, and addressed the letter in a feigned
hand, and took it himself to the nearest post-town.

The letter came to hand, and will appear in that sequence of events on
which I am now about to enter.

CHAPTER X