“Say it, lass—say it out honest, lass—is what I say true?”
“No,” she cried, gazing full in his eyes. “It’s a cruel, cruel lie. Let me go. I’ll tell Tom now—every word—everything that man has said, and—”
Jock let his great hand sink from Polly’s little arm to her wrist, and led her to a chair, she being helpless against his giant strength.
“Nay,” he said, “thou shan’t tell him. It would half kill him first, and then he’d go and kill parson’s boy.”
“Yes, yes; he would, he would,” sobbed Polly. “I dared not tell him, and it’s been breaking my heart. But I won’t bear it. Go away from here. How dare you say such things to me?”
“Howd thy tongue, lass,” said Jock, in a deep growl, and his strong will mastered hers. “Hearken to me, Polly. I beg thy pardon, lass, and I can read it in thy pretty eyes that all I said was a lie. I beg thy pardon, lass.”
“How could you—how dare you?” sobbed Polly. “Tom, Tom! come here—come here!”
“Hush! he can’t hear thee, lass,” growled Jock. “I’ve seen so much that I thought thou wast playing a bad game against Tom; but I was wrong, my little lass, and I say forgive me.”
“Let me go and tell Tom all now,” she sobbed. “I shan’t be happy till I do.”
“Dost want to mak’ thyself happy,” growled Jock, sinking into his old Lincolnshire brogue, after losing much by absence in other counties—“happy, half breaking. Tom’s heart, and getting murder done? If thou dost—go!”