“Nay,” cried the farmer, rising, “I’m never one for half-measures. Let’s have the pair of ’em in now, and put it to ’em straight.”
Before Mrs Wharton had time to protest, he had thrown open the door, and was shouting lustily for Luke and Maimie.
After a moment or two the young couple appeared, Maimie, rather pale and inclined to be tearful, Luke, flushed and determined.
“Coom in, my lad,” shouted Barnes, clapping him cheerily on the back. “Coom your ways in Maimie, too: we’n summat to tell ye.”
“An’ we’n summat to say, too,” said Luke, firmly. “Mother, I know very well what you’re goin’ to say, an’ I’ll ha’ my say out first. You an’ Mester Barnes here are goin’ to make a match on’t. Well, Maimie an’ me has been talkin’ a bit, an’ though we’re not wishful any way to hurt your feelin’s, we’ve made up our minds, both on us, as we’ll not stop here to have strangers set over us.”
Farmer Barnes whistled, and Mrs Wharton, whose wits, as has been said, moved slowly, looked a trifle alarmed.
“So what we’ve settled,” continued Luke, resolutely, yet looking from his mother to the farmer, with a kind of compassion, for he felt that the blow which he found himself obliged to deal them, was of a staggering nature, “what we’ve made up our minds to do is to get wed to each other and go away to earn our own livin’s.”
“An’ a very good notion too,” said Jim approvingly, sidling the while towards Mrs Wharton, and winking solemnly as he intercepted her somewhat startled gaze. “’Tis a very good job as ye’ve settled the matter that way, my lad—’twas the very thing me an’ your mother was thinkin’ o’ proposin’ to ye.”
“Eh, feyther, ye’d never be so cruel as to want to turn me fro’ the door,” gasped Maimie, her ready tears bursting forth.
“Well,” exclaimed Luke, “an’ that’s a pretty thing, I will say. Have ye the face to tell me, mother, as you an’ Mester Barnes had made it up between ye to get shut of us—your own flesh ’an blood, for the sake o’ takin’ up wi’ each other?”