Bulldog and Butterfly | Page 3

themselves were sufficiently decisive, and the voice, though it had something soft and regretful in it, sounded almost as final as the words.
'Let's look at it a bit, my dear,' said John Thistle-wood, grasping in both hands the thick walking-stick he carried, and pressing it firmly against his thighs as he leaned a little forward and looked down upon her. 'Why is it no? And if it's no again to-day, why is it always going to be no?'
'I like you very well, Mr. Thistlewood,' she answered, looking up at him, 'but I don't like you in a marrying way, and I never shall.'
'As for never shall,' said he, 'that remains to be seen.'
He straightened himself as he spoke, and releasing the walking-stick with his left hand put the point of it softly, slowly, and strongly down upon the gravel, dinting the ground pretty deeply with the pressure.
'Let's look at it a little further,' he added.
'It is of no use,' the girl answered pleadingly. 'It hurts us both, and it can do no good at all.'
'Let's look at it a bit further,' he said again. 'This day month you said there was nobody you'd seen you liked better than me. Is that true still?'
'It is quite true,' she answered, 'but it makes no difference.'
'That remains to be seen,' said John Thistlewood again. 'And as for not liking me in a marrying way, that's a thing a maid can't be supposed to know much of.' He waited doggedly as if to hear her deny this, but she made no answer. 'You've known me all your life, Bertha, and you never knew anything again me.'
'Never,' she said, almost eagerly.
'I'm well-to-do,' he went on stolidly, but with all his force, as if he were pushing against a wall too heavy to be moved by any pressure he could bring to bear against it, and yet was resolute to have it down. 'I'm not too old to be a reasonable match for a maid of your years. You've had my heart this five years I waited two afore I spoke at all There's a many--not that I speak it in a bragging way--as would be willing enough to have me.'
'It's a pity you can't take a fancy to one of them,' she said, with perfect simplicity and good faith.
'Perhaps it is,' answered Thistlewood, with a dogged sigh; 'but be that as it may, I can't and shan't. Where my fancy lies it stays. I didn't give my heart away to take it back again. You'll wed me yet, Bertha, and when you do you'll be surprised to think you didn't do it long before.'
At this point the voice of a third person broke in upon the colloquy.
'That caps all!' said the voice. 'There's Mr. Forbes, the Scotch gardener at my Lord Barfield's, tells me of a lad in his parts as prayed the Lord for a good consate of himself. That's a prayer as you'll never find occasion t'offer, John Thistlewood.'
'Maybe not, Mrs. Fellowes,' answered Thistlewood, addressing the owner of the voice, who remained invisible; 'but I wasn't speaking in a braggart way.'
'No--no,' returned the still invisible intruder. 'Wast humble enough about it, doubtless. You'm bound to tek a man's own word about his own feelings. Who is to know 'em if he doesn't?'
'Just so,' said Thistlewood, with great dryness. He appeared to be little if at all disturbed by the interruption, but Bertha was blushing like a peony.
'I sat quiet,' said the girl's mother, leisurely walking round the door with a half-finished gray worsted stocking depending from the knitting-needles she carried in both hands,--' I sat quiet so as not to be a disturbance. It's you for making love to a maid, I must allow, John.'
The girl ran into the house and disappeared from view.
'It's me for speaking my mind, at least, ma'am,' returned John, with unaltered tranquil doggedness.
'Ah!' responded the farmer's wife; 'you're like a good many more of 'em; you'd sooner not have what you want than go the right way to get it.'
Thistlewood digested this in silence, and Mrs. Fellowes set the knitting-needles flashing.
'I've always fancied,' he said in a little while, 'as I had your goodwill in the matter.'
'You've got my goodwill, in a way to be sure,' said the old woman. 'You'd mek the gell a goodish husband if her could find a fancy for you--but the fancy's everything--don't you see, John?'
'I'm not above taking advice, Mrs. Fellowes,' said Thistlewood, digging at the gravel with his walking-stick. 'Will you be so good as to tell me where I'm wrong?'
'There's one particular as you're wrong in,' returned Mrs. Fellowes, knitting away with a determinedly uninteresting air, 'and, I misdoubt me, you can't alter it.'
'What's that?' asked Thistlewood, looking up at her suddenly.
'You're the wrong man, John.'
'That remains to be seen,'