"Now shame on you," cried the girl, interrupting him. "Will you say slander of a man behind his back? And to me, too, that know it is slander? And is that the way to change my mind?"
"I have no hopes of that, Mercy," answered the rustic. "And, for your sake, I hope Michael's a better man than I think. Remember the evening under the thorns on the cliff. It is for you and not for me I say it. And methinks you haven't heard much of Michael since he went away to London."
"Then I didn't ask your advice, Mr. Edward," said Mercy, "and you may as well keep it till I do. I dare say I can take care of myself. And very likely Michael has quite plenty to do in London without the writing of letters. And I expect he'll be down here before long, for I hear say that Pendar'l's getting ready for the ladies, if they're not there already. And then you can tell him what you think, like a man. So I wish you a good evening."
"Good evening, Mercy," returned the young man, sadly, and they proceeded on their respective ways.
Ready as the maiden was to defend her lover to another, she could not so easily excuse him to herself. And the anxiety, for the relief of which she had made her pilgrimage to St. Madron's Well, had come back before she reached her mother's cottage at Trevethlan, darkened rather than alleviated by the result of the expedition.
CHAPTER V.
Di, majorum umbris tenuem et sine pondere terram,
Spirantesque crocos, et in urnà perpetuum ver,
Qui præceptorem sancti voluere parentis
Esse loco.
Juvenal.
Light lie the earth upon the shades of those,
Flowers deck their graves, Spring dwell with their repose,
Of old who deemed the teacher should supply
The parent's holy rule, heart, hand, and eye.