“Mayhap I am,” said the blacksmith, significantly shaking his head. He was snared as neatly by this simple face as ever was a swallow by a linnet hidden in a cage among the grass.
“And that Ralph, too, the great lounderan fellow, he treats me like dirt, that he does.”
“But you'll pay him out now, won't you, Joseph?” said Liza, as though glorying in the blacksmith's forthcoming glory.
“Liza, my lass, shall I tell you something?” Under the fire of a pair of coquettish little eyes, his head as well as his heart seemed to melt, and he became eagerly communicative. Dropping his voice, he said,—
“That Ralph's not gone away at all. He'll be at his father's berrying, that he will.”
“Nay!” cried Liza, without a prolonged accent of surprise; and, indeed, this fact had come upon her with so much unexpectedness that her curiosity was now actually as well as ostensibly aroused.
“Yes,” said Mr. Garth; “and there's those as knows where to lay hands on him this very day—that there is.”
“I shouldn't be surprised, now, if yon Robbie Anderson has been up to something with him,” said Liza, with a curl of the lip intended to convey an idea of overpowering disgust at the conduct of the absent Robbie.
“And maybe he has,” said Mr. Garth, with a ponderous shake of the head, denoting the extent of his reverse. Evidently “he could an' he would.”
“But you'll go to them, won't you, Joseph? That is them as wants them—leastways one of them—them as wants him will go and take him, won't they?”