"Well, sir," said Mrs. Vint, "if that comes from your heart, you might take our Mercy apart, and tell her you like her very well, but not enough to marry a farmer's daughter—don't say an inn-keeper's daughter, or you'll be sure to offend her; she is bitter against the 'Packhorse.' Says you, 'This Paul is an honest lad, turn your heart back to him.' And, with that, mount your black horse and ride away, and God speed you, sir; we shall often talk of you at the 'Packhorse,' and nought but good."
Griffith gave the woman his hand, and his breast laboured visibly.
Jealousy was ingrained in the man. Mrs. Vint had pricked his conscience, but she had wounded his foible.
He was not in love with Mercy, but he esteemed her and liked her and saw her value, and, above all, could not bear another man should have her.
Now this gave the matter a new turn. Mrs. Vint had overcome her dislike to him long ago: still he was not her favourite. But his giving her his hand with a gentle pressure, and his manifest agitation, rather won her: and, as uneducated women are your true weathercocks, she went about directly. "To be sure," said she, "our Mercy is too good for the likes of him; she is not like Harry and me: she has been well brought up by her Aunt Prudence, as was governess in a nobleman's house. She can read and write, and cast accounts; good at her sampler, and can churn and make cheeses, and play of the viol, and lead the psalm in church, and dance a minuet, she can, with any lady in the land. As to her nursing in time of sickness, that I leave to you, sir.
"She is an angel," cried Griffith, "and my benefactress: no man living is good enough for her." And he went away, visibly discomposed.
Mrs. Vint repeated this conversation to Mercy, and told her Thomas Leicester was certainly in love with her. "Shouldst have seen his face, girl, when I told him Paul and you were sweethearts. 'Twas as if I had run a knife in his heart."
Mercy murmured a few words of doubt; but she kissed her mother eloquently, and went about rosy and beaming, all that afternoon.
As for Griffith, his gratitude and his jealousy were now at war, and caused him a severe mental struggle.
Carrick, too, was spurred by jealousy, and came every day to the house, and besieged Blercy; and Griffith, who saw them together, and did not hear Mercy's replies, was excited, irritated, alarmed.