“They have said wrong of Miss Anneys! Impossible!” “No, sir! they have not said wrong. 81 If any man in Allerdale had dared to say wrong, I had torn his tongue from his mouth before I came here; and as for the women, they know well I would hold their husbands or brothers or sons responsible for every ill word they spoke. But they think wrong, and they make me feel it everywhere. They look it, they shy off from Aspatria,—oh, you know well enough the kind of thing going on.” 81 “A wrong thought of Miss Anneys is atrocious. The angels are not more pure.” He said the words softly, as if to himself; and William Anneys stood watching him with an impatience that in a moment or two found vent in an emphatic stamp with his foot. “I have no time to waste, sir. Are you afraid to sup the ill broth you have brewed?” “Afraid!” “I see you have no mind to marry. Well, then, we will fight! I like that better.” “I will fight both you and your brother, 82 make any engagement you wish; but if the fair name of Miss Anneys is in danger, I have a prior engagement to marry her. I will keep it first. Afterward I am at your service, Squire, yours and your brother’s; for I tell you plainly that I shall leave my wife at the church door and never see her again.” 82 “I care not how soon you leave her; the sooner the better. Will the eleventh of this month suit you?” “Make it the fifteenth. To what church will you bring my fair bride?” “Keep your scoffing for a fitter time. If you look in that way again, I will strike the smile off your lips with a hand that will leave you little smiling in the future.” And he passed his walking-stick to his left, and doubled his large right hand with an ominous readiness. “We may even quarrel like gentlemen, Mr. Anneys.” “Then don’t you laugh like a blackguard, that’s all.” “Answer me civilly. At what church 83 shall I meet Miss Anneys, and at what hour on the fifteenth?” 83
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