rsion to that match. He contended that the fellow was very good with
sheep, but was not fit for any girl to marry. For one thing, he used
to go along the hedges muttering to himself like a dam' fool; and then,
these foreigners behave very queerly to women sometimes. And perhaps he
would want to carry her off somewhere--or run off himself. It was not
safe. He preached it to his daughter that the fellow might ill-use her
in some way. She made no answer. It was, they said in the village, as if
the man had done something to her. People discussed the matter. It was
quite an excitement, and the two went on 'walking out' together in the
face of opposition. Then something unexpected happened.

"I don't know whether old Swaffer ever understood how much he was
regarded in the light of a father by his foreign retainer. Anyway the
relation was curiously feudal. So when Yanko asked formally for an
interview--'and the Miss too' (he called the severe, deaf Miss Swaffer
simply _Miss_)--it was to obtain their permission to marry.
Swaffer heard him unmoved, dismissed him by a nod, and then shouted the
intelligence into Miss Swaffer's best ear. She showed no surprise, and
only remarked grimly, in a veiled blank voice, 'He certainly won't get
any other girl to marry him.'

"It is Miss Swaffer who has all the credit of the munificence: but in
a very few days it came out that Mr. Swaffer had presented Yanko with
a cottage (the cottage you've seen this morning) and something like an
acre of ground--had made it over to him in absolute property. Willcox
expedited the deed, and I remember him telling me he had a great
pleasure in making it ready. It recited: 'In consideration of saving the
life of my beloved grandchild, Bertha Willcox.'

"Of course, after that no power on earth could prevent them from getting
married.

"Her infatuation endured. People saw her going out to meet him in the
evening. She stared with unblinking, fascinated eyes up the road where
he was expected to appear, walking freely, with a swing from the hip,
and humming one of the love-tunes of his country. When the boy was born,
he got elevated at the 'Coach and Horses,' essayed again a song and a
dance, and was again ejected. People expressed their commiseration for
a woman married to that Jack-in-the-box. He didn't care. There was a
man now (he told me boastfully) to whom he could sing and talk in the
language of his country, and show how to dance by-and-by.

"But I don