"Doubtless. I may therefore rely on seeing her?"
"It is to tell you so that I'm here. Oh! sir, you will be good to her. She loves you fondly."
"Tush! What do I seek her for except to be kind?" Then he said, "Will she consent, think you, to what I desire--to--to--a speedy marriage?"
"She loves you," Mrs. Pottle replied, with a gleam in her eye, "while, as for the marriage--well! young, tender though she is, and full of a maiden's fears, she longs for it."
"She shall be gratified," Beau Bufton said, smirking and pulling at his chin so that Mrs. Pottle stared at him, wondering in her own mind if he were trying to pull it off. "I do avow she shall as soon as may be. I will go seek your parson here----"
"Not here," Mrs. Pottle said, laying on his arm a finger, which he noticed had lost the top joint--it had, in truth, been shot off by a spent bullet in an attack made by the Ariadne and Kingston on five Spanish galleys, the shot coming through the scuttle of a cabin in which she was calmly cooking--"not here. You must do that in London town. She is a maiden averse to talk and gossip. She would not suffer----"
"I will do it wher'er she pleases, so that she is mine. Now go, good woman, and tell her I shall be there. I must make a meal first and also remove the dust from off my clothes. Go now."
"There was a promise," Mrs. Pottle said, with an appearance of hesitation, of modesty, which sat strangely on her rough face. "The gentleman, your friend, he gave a promise of reward----"
"Curse me!" replied the Beau; "you waiting-women, you go-betweens, are all alike. Damme! I know there was a promise of five hundred guineas. But--when we leave the church--when all is over. Do you think I have such a sum on me now?"
"Not now, dear gentleman. Oh! no. Not now. But a little earnest. A little----"