--'THEN IT MUST COME TO THE THROAT-CUTTING,' says I, 'FOR I
WILL NO MORE HAVE A HUSBAND FORCED ON THAT YOUNG LADY, THAN WHAT I
WOULD HAVE A WIFE FORCED UPON MYSELF.' These were my words, they
were a friend's words; bonnily have I paid for them! Now you have
refused me of your own clear free will, and there lives no father
in the Highlands, or out of them, that can force on this marriage.
I will see that your wishes are respected; I will make the same my
business, as I have all through. But I think you might have that
decency as to affect some gratitude. 'Deed, and I thought you knew
me better! I have not behaved quite well to you, but that was
weakness. And to think me a coward, and such a coward as that--O,
my lass, there was a stab for the last of it!"
"Davie, how would I guess?" she cried. "O, this is a dreadful
business! Me and mine,"--she gave a kind of a wretched cry at the
word--"me and mine are not fit to speak to you. O, I could be
kneeling down to you in the street, I could be kissing your hands
for forgiveness!"
"I will keep the kisses I have got from you already," cried I.
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