‘No, you ought not; and I shall not accept your company. Good-morning, sir!’ And she went off over one of the stone stiles with which the spot abounded, leaving the friendly sailor standing in the field.
He sighed again, and, observing the camp not far off, thought he would go to his brother John and ask him his opinion on the sorrowful case. On reaching the tents he found that John was not at liberty just at that time, being engaged in practising the trumpeters; and leaving word that he wished the trumpet-major to come down to the mill as soon as possible, Bob went back again.
‘’Tis no good looking for her,’ he said gloomily. ‘She liked me well enough, but when she came here and saw the house, and the place, and the old horse, and the plain furniture, she was disappointed to find us all so homely, and felt she didn’t care to marry into such a family!’
His father and David had returned with no news.
‘Yes, ’tis as I’ve been thinking, father,’ Bob said. ‘We weren’t good enough for her, and she went away in scorn!’
‘Well, that can’t be helped,’ said the miller. ‘What we be, we be, and have been for generations. To my mind she seemed glad enough to get hold of us!’
‘Yes, yes—for the moment—because of the flowers, and birds, and what’s pretty in the place,’ said Bob tragically. ‘But you don’t know, father—how should you know, who have hardly been out of Overcombe in your life?—you don’t know what delicate feelings are in a real refined woman’s mind. Any little vulgar action unreaves their nerves like a marline-spike. Now I wonder if you did anything to disgust her?’
‘Faith! not that I know of,’ said Loveday, reflecting. ‘I didn’t say a single thing that I should naturally have said, on purpose to give no offence.’
‘You was always very homely, you know, father.’
‘Yes; so I was,’ said the miller meekly.