“Your heart cannot foretell, but you might have sense enough to forethink; and it is sure that I little dreamed of this when I brought you here from the naked gloom of Yell.”
“It is true your word brought me here, but I think it was Liot who called me by you.”
“It was not. When my tongue speaks for any Borson, I wish that it may speak no more! I like none of them. Liot is good at need on a winter’s night; but even so, all his stories are of dool and wrong-doing and bloody vengeance. From his own words it is seen that the Borsons have ever been well-hated men. Now, I have forty years more of this life than you have, and I tell you plainly I think little of your choice; whatever sorrow comes of it, mind this: I didn’t give you leave to make it.”
“Nor did I ask your leave, aunt; each heart knows its own; but you have a way to throw cold water upon every hope.”
“There are hopes I wish at the bottom of the sea. To be sure, when ill is fated some one must speak the words that bring it about; but I wish it had been any other but myself who wrote, ‘Come to Lerwick’; for I little thought I was writing, ‘Come to Liot Borson.’ As every one knows, he is the son of unlucky folk; from father to son nothing goes well with them.”
“I will put my luck to his, and you will learn to think better of Liot for my sake, aunt.”
“Not while my life-days last! That is a naked say, and there’s no more to it.”
Matilda’s dislike, however, did not seriously interfere with Liot’s and Karen’s happiness. It was more passive than active; it was more virulent when he was absent than when he was present; and all winter she suffered him to visit at her house. These visits had various fortunes, but, good or bad, the season wore away with them; and as soon as April came Liot began to build his house. Matilda scoffed at his hurry. “Does he think,” she cried, “that he can marry Karen Sabiston when he lists to? Till you are twenty-one you are in my charge, and I will take care to prevent such folly as long as I can.”
“Well, then, aunt, I shall be of age and my own mistress next Christmas, and on Uphellya night[[1]] I will be married to Liot.”
“After that we shall have nothing to say to each other.”