I was about to answer when Mary interrupted.
“Nay, father,” she cried, looking him fearlessly in the face; “it was I that proffered my love. He would not ask me, though I tried to make him. I had to tell him that I loved him, and make him ask me to marry him!”
Was it fancy that the flicker of a smile passed at that moment over the grim countenance of the Bull?
His wife was again about to speak, but he turned fiercely on her and bade her be silent.
“And now,” he said, turning to his daughter, “what do you propose to do with your man when ye have ‘speered’ him?”
He used the local country expression for a proposal of marriage. “I will marry him here and now,” she said; adding hastily, “that is, if he will have me.”
“Ye had better speer him that too!” said her father, grimly.
“I will do better,” cried Mary Gordon. “I will acknowledge him!”
And holding up my hand in hers she cried aloud: “I take you for my husband, Quintin MacClellan!” She looked up at me with a challenge in her eye.
“My wife!” was all that I could utter.