The suggestion was Slaughter’s, the last part of it made in a significant whisper.
“Them’s just my sentiments,” said Buck, speaking louder and with more determination. “I’d have put ’em in practice before this, if Alf Brandon had showed the pluck to agree to it. Durned if I wouldn’t!”
“What!” said the young planter, affecting ignorance of the suggested scheme, “carry the collector off? Is that what you mean?”
“Oh! you’re very innocent, Alf Brandon, you are, my sucking dove!”
It was Slaughter who spoke.
“Yes,” said Buck, who answered to the interrogatory, “carry him off, and so far that there’ll be no danger o’ his coming back again. That’s what we mean. Have you got anything better to propose? If you have, let’s hear it. If not, what’s the use of all this palaverin’?”
“Well,” said Brandon, “I’ve been thinking we might carry something else off that might answer our purpose as well, and without getting us into any scrape worth talking about.”
“Carry what off? The girl—Rook’s daughter?”
“No, no; Brandon don’t mean that, and don’t need it. He is going to take her to church, and there’s no danger about his getting consent.”
It was Buck who made the remark, and with some bitterness, being himself one of Lena Rook’s unsuccessful admirers.