"Yes," answered Michael—his companion started at the word—"to forget the Mercy of to-night, but to remember another—the Mercy of old days; to forget her conceited and wilful, to remember her kind and winsome. You would not wish me remember the first—would you, Mercy?"
The maiden said nothing in reply; and Sinson, encouraged by her silence, drew her with gentle force to a seat on a bank of turf.
"Do you smell the wild thyme, Mercy?" he continued. "They call it a figure of love, rewarding with sweetness even what bruises it. It is so I have answered all your coldness. Mind you not the St. John's Eve, when the folks had caught you in the rope? Who fought his way to your help? And then you sat by my side on this very bank under the hawthorn; and when I asked, might I woo you?—you know what you said. And have I ever failed in my suit? Did I ever court another? When you were cross, and would not dance with me, did I seek any one else? Whose colours did I wear when I threw, one after another, all the best of Penwith? Yet, from that first evening, never could I win a civil word. And now I am called far away, Mercy will give me no hope. When I come back, she will be another's."
"No," said the maiden, and stopped short.
"Then why will she not be mine now?" asked Michael. "Why will she not go with me to London; there to be wed, and live together in happiness? Shall it not be so, dear Mercy? Alone in the great town, I shall always be thinking of Mercy—be thinking that she may be listening to Edward Owen, whom he has often thrown for her sake——"
"And shalt throw him again," interrupted a manly voice. "Shalt throw him again, or take a fall thyself."
The individual whom Michael had named stood before the astonished pair. Sinson sprang to his feet. Was it the duskiness of the evening, or passion, that made his face so dark?
"Owen," he said, in a fierce whisper, "thou wert best stand off now, or mayst get more than a fall."
"Come on!" cried his antagonist, without attempting to disguise his anger. "Come on, villain! I'm ready for you."
Fortunately perhaps for Michael, who was not in a mood to fight or wrestle fairly, Mercy interposed.