“Oh! never think of that, Tom. No one does. I don’t, and I don’t care if I do. It isn’t that: but uncle cannot bear to be thwarted. Can’t you let it drop?”
“Faith, I’d only be too glad. But it is Mr. Tinker that attacked me, and there is only one way to stop the law that I know of. Your uncle must give the word. But he wont, and I can’t.”
“Couldn’t you just let him have his own way; it will please him, and it won’t hurt you, nor your precious Co-op either.”
“I don’t know what you call hurting me: it will just ruin me, and what’s worse it will ruin a dozen others or so, poor Ben Garside among them.”
“But couldn’t you go lower down the stream? Mr. Sy——, I mean somebody,…. I mean” and here Dorothy lost herself altogether, and stood dumb-founded.
But Tom’s mind had seized upon the first suggestion of her words and he was unconscious of her embarrassment.
“Yes, if some good fairy would transport Co-op Mill below Wilberlee, we might manage very well. Say we had that carpet we read of in the Arabian Nights. But what’s the use of talking? I cannot stop the litigation, and your uncle wont.”
“Couldn’t you allow him the name of a victory if he promised to let things go on just as they were, and you had nothing to pay those greedy lawyers? I’m sure he is not an unreasonable man, only you’ve crossed him, somehow, Tom.”
“I couldn’t send him more water or power if I tried, I know that.”
“And do you think he doesn’t know it? Will you just go to him and humble yourself to him. I’ll engage he shall meet you half-way.”