CHAPTER IV.
How Philip and I Behaved as Rivals in Love.
I was always impatient, and restless to settle uncertainties. One fine morning in the Spring of 1773, Philip and I were breaking the Sabbath by practising with the foils in our back garden. Spite of all the lessons I had taken from an English fencing-master in the town, Phil was still my superior in the gentlemanly art. After a bout, on this sunshiny morning, we rested upon a wooden bench, in the midst of a world of white and pink and green, for the apple and cherry blossoms were out, and the leaves were in their first freshness. The air was full of the odour of lilacs and honeysuckles. Suddenly the matter that was in my mind came out.
"I wish you'd tell me something, Phil—though 'tis none of my business,—"
"Why, man, you're welcome to anything I know."
"Then, is there aught between Margaret and you—any agreement or understanding, I mean?"
Phil smiled, comprehending me thoroughly.
"No, there's nothing. I'm glad you asked. It shows there's no promise between her and you, either."
"I thought you and I ought to settle it between ourselves about—Margaret. Because if we both go on letting time pass, each waiting to see what t'other will do, some other man will slip in, and carry off the prize, and there will both of us be, out in the cold."