I do not suppose the girl took me, for women have but scant appreciation of irony, but she spoke glibly enough.
"I—I am thrown out into the night, sir!" she cries. "I have nowhere to go!"
Now you may imagine how this touched me, and what I felt; but she was innocent as a lamb and as foolish, as you might detect from her voice, to say nothing of her face, the which I saw later. So I considered a moment.
"That's just my case," said I. "And I was going to wake up some fat villain, to take me in and sup me. But," says I, "if you will find me the particular villain, fat or lean and cock or cockatrice, that has thrown out a ba-lamb like you, miss, well, 'tis he or she I will have awake and out, and something more beside, rip me if I don't!"
I had put her down as a child from her stature, which was small, and her body, which was slight, but I was to be undeceived in that presently.
"'Tis my uncle," she sobbed. "He has shut the door on me. He will not let me in. He vows he has done with me."
"Maybe," said I, "he has some cause for his anger. But uncles are not hard masters even to young misses that know not the world nor their own minds."
"Nay," she says, "he has a reason for his anger, and he will not relent. He has threatened me before, and he is full of burning fury. He will not have me back," she said in a voice of hesitating timidity; and, seeming of a sudden to have taken in the shame of her situation, she began to withdraw into the night.
"Not so fast, young madam," said I, "you have broken my mare's leg, I believe, and I must have a talk with you. What's the reason?" says I.
She paused, and then in a tremulous quick voice said, "He will not hear that George Riseley shall marry me."