"I cannot promise Anthony Crymes my love, for I know it never will come. I am glad he is the friend of my brother, and as such I regard him, but I esteem him only for what merits he has in him. I never can love him—never—never!"
"Disobedient hussy!" exclaimed the old man, losing the slight control he had exerted momentarily over himself. "Am I to be set at defiance by you as well as by Anthony? By heaven, I did not think there was such folly in the family. It did not come from me—not from my side. I will be obeyed. I will not have it said in the town that I cannot have my own way with my children."
He looked so angry, so threatening, that Fox interfered. He slipped between Bessie and her father, and said:
"Master Cleverdon, I will have no constraint used. If you attempt to coerce Bessie, then I withdraw at once. I have known and loved her for many years, and would now have hardly dared to offer myself, but that you cast out the suggestion to me. I saw that Bessie did not love me, and I held back, hoping the time might come when she would, perhaps, be guided less by the feelings of the heart and more by the cool reason of the brain. If she refuses me, it shall be a refusal to me, to an offer made in my own way, with delicacy and consideration for her feelings, not with threat and bluster. Excuse plain speaking, Squire, but such are my views on this matter, and this is a matter that concerns Bessie and me first, and you, Master Cleverdon, afterwards."
"Yes," said Magdalen, "your violence, brother, will effect nothing. You will only drive your remaining child from under your roof, as you drove Anthony."
"Be silent, you magpie!" shouted old Cleverdon, but he looked alarmed.
"Now," said Fox, "you have frightened and offended Bessie, and effected no good. Let her walk home, although it is raining, and I will accompany her part of the way, if not the whole, and speak to her in my own manner, and hear her decision from her own lips."
Bessie stood up.
"I am content," she said; "but do not for a moment think that my determination is to be changed. Have with you, Fox. Father, you will follow when your business in the town is over, and will catch me up. You said, I think, that you were going up to Kilworthy to see Mr. Crymes."