“Oh! Christopher, dear Christopher, this is most wrong.”
“May be,” he answered. “So long as you love me I care not what it is.”
“That you have known these two years, Christopher. I love you well, but, alas! my father will have none of you. Get you hence now, ere he returns, or we both shall pay for it, and I, perhaps, be sent to a nunnery where no man may come.”
“Nay, sweet, I am here to ask his consent to my suit——”
Then at last Sir John broke out.
“To ask my consent to your suit, you dishonest knave!” he roared from the darkness; whereat Cicely sank back into her chair looking as though she would faint, and the strong Christopher staggered like a man pierced by an arrow. “First to take my girl and hug her before my very eyes, and then, when the mischief is done, to ask my consent to your suit!” and he rushed at them like a charging bull.
Cicely rose to fly, then, seeing no escape, took refuge in her lover’s arms. Her infuriated father seized the first part of her that came to his hand, which chanced to be one of her long brown plaits of hair, and tugged at it till she cried out with pain, purposing to tear her away, at which sight and sound Christopher lost his temper also.
“Leave go of the maid, sir,” he said in a low, fierce voice, “or, by God! I’ll make you.”
“Leave go of the maid?” gasped Sir John. “Why, who holds her tightest, you or I? Do you leave go of her.”
“Yes, yes, Christopher,” she whispered, “ere I am pulled in two.”