“Poh-poh, Dancey; I am not deserving of your daughter’s thanks. What I did in her behalf was only a duty; which I should equally have felt bound to perform for the humblest individual on the ground. Indeed your beautiful daughter did not seem to stand in need of my interference. She had already found a sufficiently chivalric champion in bold Robin Hood—”
“Ah! sir,” interrupted the deer-stealer, bending down towards his patron, and speaking in a tone of serious confidence, “That’s just where the trouble be. She han’t thanked him; and the poor fellow’s beside hisself, because she won’t make more o’ him. I do all I can to get her take on to him; for I believe Wull Walford to be a worthy lad: an’ he mean well for my gurl. But ’taren’t no use, sir, ne’er a bit on’t. As the sayin’ be, one man may take a horse to the water, but forty can’t make the anymal drink, if he an’t a mind to.”
“I think, friend Dancey,” quietly rejoined the cavalier, “you’ll do well to leave your daughter free to follow her own inclinations—especially in a matter of the kind you speak of. Perhaps her instincts of what’s best for her, in that regard, may be more trustworthy than yours.”
“Ah! sir,” sighed the fond parent of the beautiful Betsey, “If I’d leave her free to foller her own ways, she’d go clear to the devil—she would. Not that she’s a bad sort, my Bet aren’t. No—no—she be a good-hearted gurl, as I’ve already sayed; but she’s too forrard, sir—too forrard, and proud enough to have inclinings for them as be far above her. That’s why she looks down upon Wull: because ye see, sir, he be only a poor woodman; tho’ that’s as much as I be myself.”
The cavalier might have suspected the beautiful Betsey of having other reasons for disliking “Wull Walford;” but it was not the time to talk upon such a theme; and, without further parley he changed the conversation to the business for which he had summoned the old woodman into his presence.
“Here are six letters I want you to deliver,” said he, taking that number from the table.
“You perceive,” he added, holding them up to the light of the lamp, “that I have numbered the letters—in the order in which you will arrive at the houses where you are to deliver them—so that there may be no mistake. I need not add, Dancey, that each is to be delivered with your own hand, or else not at all.”
“I understand what you mean, sir. I don’t part wi’ ere a one o’ ’em, ’cept to the party hisself. You can trust Dick Dancey for that.”
“I know it, Dick; and that’s why I’m giving you all this trouble. I only wish you could have taken these others; but it’s impossible. They’re for a different section of the county; and must go by another hand.”
“Wull Walford’s wi’ me, sir. Ye sent for him too, didn’t ye?”