I made as tho’ to leave the house, but Mary stayed me by a touch.
“Say what yo’ have to say before Ben. Yo’ can have nought to say to me he cannot hear.”
“Nay I care not if tha does’na. He may listen if tha likes. All th’ world may know for me. It has to be said, as well now as another time, tho’ it’s a rum courting to be sure. Tha knows aw love thee, Mary; tha knows aw’ve sought thee and only thee this many a month back?”
“I know yo’ve said so, George.”
“And yo’ did not say me nay. Yo’ bid me bide my time, said yo’ did not know yor own mind, that yo’ were ower young to think o’ such things yet, and put me off. But tha did not send me away wi’out hope, Mary, and I thought that in the bottom of your heart there was a tiny seedling that in time would flower to love.”
“And so it might have done, George, but when it was a tender plant, a cold frost came and nipped it.”
“I cannot follow yo’, Mary, I am distraught in mind. All this night I have wandered the fields and in the lanes. A hundred times I have set my face over the hills to leave this cursed country.”
“And your work behind you!” I put in, but he heeded me not.
“But the thought of you, Mary, held me back. I must know your heart, your mind to me. If yo’ will be mine, if yo’ will give me your word to wed me in quieter days, I will quit this work. Things will quieten themselves. A month or two and the Luddites will be forgotten. Our secrets are well kept. The Government will be only too glad to let sleeping dogs lie, and in another country, under another sky under the flag of the free Republic that has spurned the fetters of its English mother, you and I will seek fortune, hand–in–hand.”
“There is blood upon your hand, George Mellor. Mine it shall never clasp again.”