“Yes, father, you can tell it if you will, but ye must tell it all, an’ keep nothing back, or I shall have to tell it myself; for I am determined that my child shall know just what a wicked temper can bring one to, if it’s let to go on and get the mastery.”
As Mag said this she turned wearily to the little stand where her basket of clothes for mending stood, and seated herself by it, but not to sew. Pushing the candle and work away from her, she put her folded arms upon the table and dropped her head upon them, turning her face away from the others.
Philip had become much interested in the story of the heroic girl who had risked so much to save the miners, and he was anxious to hear more about her; but the old man seemed in no hurry to go on with the story. He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, refilled it, took an unnecessarily long time in lighting it, and made various delays, till at last an uneasy movement of his daughter made him start off on it at last.
“Well, this lass as I’m telling of,” he began, turning to Phil, “this brave one that the whole of the men was willing to lay down their lives for, got all over her hurts and bruises, and was ’round on her feet again as well as ever. They was feared, they was, both doctor an’ parson, that the spine of her back had gotten a bending that would never get out of it; but no fear for her—when she left her bed (an’ it was all the broken bones could do to keep her in it at all) she was as straight as a Maypole, an’ there couldn’t have been a face more bonny than hers, an’ it grew bonnier every day till it was more trouble than ever to me—to the father, I mean—to know a way to look after one that was like a young queen for beauty.
“She had no liking those times for going down into the mines, or, for that matter, for work of any kind. There was many an honest lad among the workmen that fair doated on the sight of her, but she had no care for one of them; an’ her father was content to have it so, for he was proud of his handsome daughter, an’ secretly he was believing in his heart that there was none quite good enough to be a husband for her.
“Well, just about the time I’m telling ye of there began to be strange stories floating around among the women-folks, about a grand young man who wore fine clothes an’ seemed to have nothing better to do than to hang around the cottage and keep the girl I’m telling ye of from doing her house-work.
“It would have been all right enough most probably, an’ spared a world of trouble to all concerned, if she had only been quite honest and spoken out to her father, telling him about her friend an’ that he meant all fair an’ square by her. But girls is odd an’ shy in their ways sometimes, an’ maybe this girl was afraid her old father would be angry, an’ rough perhaps with the young man, so she said never a word; an’ then one day when the old man came home from his work rather earlier than usual an’ not feeling extra good-humored as it happened, there was the young man just as the neighbors had said, a-sitting quite at home in the cottage, painting away on a bit of cloth stretched on a frame, an’ it took only half an eye to see that it was a picture of the girl he was making. Well, then there was a great row, the old man accusing his daughter of deceiving him, an’ calling the young man some rather unhandsome names; but I must say he kept his temper very well until the girl began to cry an’ her father said something foolish about young gentlemen making love to simple village girls an’ breaking their hearts for their own amusement. At that the young painter turned very white, an’ quick as a flash he walked straight over to the girl an’ putting his arm around her waist he said, ‘Don’t cry, dear, an’ listen to me, for in your father’s presence I ask you to become my wife as soon as the minister can say the words.’
“An’ so they were married, these two, an’ now, my girl, you must tell the rest. I know it is hard for you to do it, but I cannot bring my tongue to it.”