Margaret smiled for the first time this many days. "Luke loves dried puddings dearly," said she: "and I made them to his mind. 'Tis them he comes a-courting here." Then she suddenly turned red. "But if I thought he came after your son's wife that is, or ought to be, I'd soon put him to the door."
"Nay, nay; for Heaven's sake let me not make mischief. Poor lad! Why, girl, Fancy will not be bridled. Bless you, I wormed it out of him near a twelvemonth agone."
"Oh, mother, and you let him!?"
"Well, I thought of you. I said to myself, 'If he is fool enough to be her slave for nothing, all the better for her. A lone woman is lost without a man about her to fetch and carry her little matters.' But now my mind is changed, and I think the best use you can put him to is to marry him."
"So then his own mother is against him, and would wed me to the first comer. Ah, Gerard, thou hast but me; I will not believe thee dead till I see thy tomb, nor false till I see thee with another lover in thine hand. Foolish boy, I shall ne'er be civil to him again."
Afflicted with the busybody's protection, Luke Peterson met a cold reception in the house where he had hitherto found a gentle and kind one. And by-and-by, finding himself very little spoken to at all, and then sharply and irritably, the great, soft, fellow fell to whimpering, and asked Margaret plump if he had done anything to offend her.
"Nothing. I am to blame. I am curst. If you will take my counsel you will keep out of my way awhile."
"It is all along of me, Luke," said the busybody.
"You, Mistress Catherine. Why what have I done for you to set her against me?"
"Nay, I meant all for the best. I told her I saw you were looking towards her through a wedding-ring. But she won't hear of it."