"
She kept looking at me with a hateful smile. "Coward!" said she.
"The word in your throat and in your father's!" I cried. "I have
dared him this day already in your interest. I will dare him
again, the nasty pole-cat; little I care which of us should fall!
Come," said I, "back to the house with us; let us be done with it,
let me be done with the whole Hieland crew of you! You will see
what you think when I am dead."
She shook her head at me with that same smile I could have struck
her for.
"O, smile away!" I cried. "I have seen your bonny father smile on
the wrong side this day. Not that I mean he was afraid, of
course," I added hastily, "but he preferred the other way of it."
"What is this?" she asked.
"When I offered to draw with him," said I.
"You offered to draw upon James More!" she cried.
"And I did so," said I, "and found him backward enough, or how
would we be here?"
"There is a meaning upon this," said she. "What is it you are
meaning?"
"He was to make you take me," I replied, "and I would not have it.
I said you should be free, and I must speak with you alone; little
I supposed it would be such a speaking! 'AND WHAT IF I REFUSE?'
said he.
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