Black Morris’s swarthy features flushed up to the roots of his hair, his old temper leaped at once to the tip of his tongue, and his hand was involuntarily closed, for “a word and a blow” was his mode of argument. The remembrance that the speaker was Lucy’s father restrained him, and he replied,—
“Look here, Nathan Blyth, when you say I loaf about other folk’s property, you say more than you know; an’ as for settling down, give me your daughter Lucy for a wife, and I’ll be the steadiest fellow in Nestleton, aye, and in all Waverdale besides!”
“Marry Lucy!” exclaimed Natty, shocked at the idea of entrusting his darling to the keeping of such a reckless ne’er-do-weel, “I’d rather see her dead and in her grave! and so, good-night!”
Turning on his heel, Nathan Blyth went indoors, and Black Morris stood with lowering brow and flashing eyes. Shaking his fist at the closed door, he thundered out an oath, and said,—
“Mine or nobody’s, you ——, if I swing for it;” and strode homeward in a towering rage.
O Nathan Blyth! Nathan Blyth! Your hasty and ill-considered words have sown dragon’s teeth to-night! The time is coming, coming on wings as black as Erebus, when you will wish your tongue had cleaved to the roof of your mouth before you uttered them. You have beaten a ploughshare to-night which shall score as deep a furrow through your soul as ever did coulter from the ringing anvil by your smithy hearth.
