“Yes” (with a blush), “and are you?”
I could not blush. Why should I? And yet young people—especially the most ingenuous among them—are apt to flush up on being asked if they are, or are going, to be married. If I could have blushed, I would. As it was I could only say that I was engaged and should marry as soon as I got back.
“Then you have come all this way for me, when you were wanting to get married?”
“Of course I have. My father on his death-bed told me to do so, and to bring you something that I have brought you.”
“What trouble I have given! How can I thank you?”
“Shake hands with me.”
Whereon he gave my hand a stronger grip than I had quite bargained for.
“And now,” said I, “before I tell you what I have brought, you must promise me to accept it. Your father said I was not to leave you till you had done so, and I was to say that he sent it with his dying blessing.”
After due demur George gave his promise, and I took him to the place where I had hidden my knapsack.
“I brought it up yesterday,” said I.