"You speak like an Englishman," he answered, looking at me very gravely; "other men equally brave would decline, through the force of superstition. But I have only begun my objections yet. For instance, what would your own friends have to say about this question? You have not mentioned it yet, I suppose, as nothing was likely to come of it. But without that, you must know pretty nearly how your friends would take it."
I answered in so many words that they left me to follow my own judgment now; that while things continued as they were, it would be wrong of me to forsake them, as they could never get on without me; but that a change for the better might be expected now with all confidence, for England was sick of that farce so ridiculously called "free-trade," and then the land might feed her sons again, instead of giving them nothing but a weedy grave.
"It is the standing joke of Europe," he replied; "there is nothing to compare with it in history. Your benevolence is of the highest order, because so purely unconscious. But it will require another generation to restore your sanity, unless you have a war that blocks your supplies; and then how simple! That man who can fast for forty days may challenge the nation, when war is declared, and outlive them all, though they eat all they can get. But let me not interrupt you."
What is the loaf compared to love? The dealers and the middlemen have the chief pull of the former. Turn me into a Radical, if the labourer gets an ounce the more for his fourpence, than he often did of old, when his right hand stood him in good stead, and his Saturday night was certain. But a foreigner is allowed to show the common-sense, which an Englishman is hooted down for hinting.
"We shall never be as we were," I said, "we shall always be poor, Sûr Imar. And I am only a younger son. If it is your duty to repel me for that reason, I have nothing more to say."
"We will not part like this," he answered, feigning, as every man should do, to be blind when another man is moved; "there are many things in your way, my friend; but I will not make the worst of them. You have my respect and liking, which I do not give to every one. But in spite of all I have gone through or perhaps by reason of it, I have some romance about me still. You say that you love my daughter, and I thoroughly believe it. But does she love you?"
"I have no reason to think so yet. What right have I to hope for it? She is far above me in every way. But if you do not forbid me—why I could try—I could try my best, you know."
It was almost more than he could do to look with becoming gravity at the sadly waning phase of hope depicted on my countenance. He smiled, because he could not help it. And I smiled, to keep time with him.
"You are honest, at any rate," he said, "and that you have been from first to last. Of English modes of wooing, I know nothing; and they are not like ours. But this strikes me as an unusual thing; though perhaps all you ask is what you would call 'a fair field and no favour.' You shall have it, as far as I am concerned; though I will not pledge myself afterwards. But remember that in a month or so, we return to our native mountains."