_Bailiff"s Daughter_.--"Oh, well! doubtless I shall be able to dispose of them on my way home, though times is "ard!"
_True Love_.--"Do you mean that you will "peddle" them along the road?"
_Bailiff"s Daughter_.--"You understand me better than usual,--in fact to perfection."
He dismounts and strides to the back of the cart, lifts the covers, seizes the rabbits, flings some silver contemptuously into the basket, and looks about him for a place to bury his bargain. A small boy approaching in the far distance will probably bag the game.
_Bailiff"s Daughter_ (modestly).--"Thanks for your trade, sir, rather ungraciously bestowed, and we "opes for a continuance of your past fyvors."
_True Love_ (leaning on the wheel of the trap).--"Let us stop this nonsense. What did you hope to gain by running away?"
_Bailiff"s Daughter_.--"Distance and absence."
_True Love_.--"You knew you couldn"t prevent my offering myself to you sometime or other."
_Bailiff"s Daughter_.--"Perhaps not; but I could at least defer it, couldn"t I?"
_True Love_.--"Why postpone the inevitable?"
_Bailiff"s Daughter_.--"Doubtless I shrank from giving you the pain of a refusal."
_True Love_.--"Perhaps; but do you know what I suspect?"
_Bailiff"s Daughter_.--"I"m not a suspicious person, thank goodness!"
_True Love_.--"That, on the contrary, you are wilfully withholding from me the joy of acceptance."
_Bailiff"s Daughter_.--"If I intended to accept you, why did I run away?"
_True Love_.--"To make yourself more desirable and precious, I suppose."
_Bailiff"s Daughter_ (with the most confident coquetry).--"Did I succeed?"
_True Love_.--"No; you failed utterly."
_Bailiff"s Daughter_ (secretly piqued).--"Then I am glad I tried it."
_True Love_.--"You couldn"t succeed because you were superlatively desirable and precious already; but you should never have experimented.
Don"t you know that Love is a high explosive?"
_Bailiff"s Daughter_.--"Is it? Then it ought always to be labelled "dangerous," oughtn"t it? But who thought of suggesting matches? I"m sure I didn"t!"
_True Love_.--"No such luck; I wish you would."
_Bailiff"s Daughter_.--"According to your theory, if you apply a match to Love it is likely to "go off.""
_True Love_.--"I wish you would try it on mine and await the result. Come now, you"ll have to marry somebody, sometime."
_Bailiff"s Daughter_.--"I confess I don"t see the necessity."
_True Love_ (morosely).--"You"re the sort of woman men won"t leave in undisturbed spinsterhood; they"ll keep on badgering you."
_Bailiff"s Daughter_.--"Oh, I don"t mind the badgering of a number of men; it"s rather nice. It"s the one badger I find obnoxious."
_True Love_ (impatiently).--"That"s just the perversity of things. I could put a stop to the protestations of the many; I should like nothing better--but the pertinacity of the one! Ah, well! I can"t drop that without putting an end to my existence."
_Bailiff"s Daughter_ (politely).--"I shouldn"t think of suggesting anything so extreme."
_True Love_ (quoting).--""Mrs. Hauksbee proceeded to take the conceit out of Pluffles as you remove the ribs of an umbrella before re-covering."
However, you couldn"t ask me anything seriously that I wouldn"t do, dear Mistress Perversity."
_Bailiff"s Daughter_ (yielding a point).--"I"ll put that boldly to the proof. Say you don"t love me!"
_True Love_ (seizing his advantage).--"I don"t! It"s imbecile and besotted devotion! Tell me, when may I come to take you away?"
_Bailiff"s Daughter_ (sighing).--"It"s like asking me to leave Heaven."
{Phoebe and Gladwish: p115.jpg}
_True Love_.--"I know it; she told me where to find you,--Th.o.r.n.ycroft is the seventh poultry-farm I"ve visited,--but you could never leave Heaven, you can"t be happy without poultry, why that is a wish easily gratified.
I"ll get you a farm to-morrow; no, it"s Sat.u.r.day, and the real estate offices close at noon, but on Monday, without fail. Your ducks and geese, always carrying it along with you. All you would have to do is to admit me; Heaven is full of twos. If you shall swim on a crystal lake--Phoebe told me what a genius you have for getting them out of the muddy pond; she was sitting beside it when I called, her hand in that of a straw-coloured person named Gladwish, and the ground in her vicinity completely strewn with votive offerings. You shall splash your silver sea with an ivory wand; your hens shall have suburban cottages, each with its garden; their perches shall be of satin-wood and their water dishes of mother-of-pearl. You shall be the Goose Girl and I will be the Swan Herd--simply to be near you--for I hate live poultry. Dost like the picture? It"s a little like Claude Melnotte"s, I confess. The fact is I am not quite sane; talking with you after a fortnight of the tabbies at the Hydro is like quaffing inebriating vodka after Miffin"s Food! May I come to-morrow?"
_Bailiffs Daughter_ (hedging).--"I shall be rather busy; the Crossed Minorca hen comes off to-morrow."
_True Love_.--"Oh, never mind! I"ll take her off to-night when I escort you to the farm; then she"ll get a day"s advantage."
_Bailiff"s Daughter_.--"And rob fourteen prospective chicks of a mother; nay, lose the chicks themselves? Never!"
_True Love_.--"So long as you are a Goose Girl, does it make any difference whose you are? Is it any more agreeable to be Mrs. Heaven"s Goose Girl than mine?"
_Bailiff"s Daughter_.--"Ah! but in one case the term of service is limited; in the other, permanent."
_True Love_.--"But in the one case you are the slave of the employer, in the other the employer of the slave. Why did you run away?"
_Bailiff"s Daughter_.--"A man"s mind is too dull an instrument to measure a woman"s reason; even my own fails sometimes to deal with all its delicate shades; but I think I must have run away chiefly to taste the pleasure of being pursued and brought back. If it is necessary to your happiness that you should explore all the Bluebeard chambers of my being, I will confess further that it has taken you nearly three weeks to accomplish what I supposed you would do in three days!"
_True Love_ (after a well-spent interval).--"To-morrow, then; shall we say before breakfast? All, do! Why not? Well, then, immediately after breakfast, and I breakfast at seven nowadays, and sometimes earlier. Do take off those ugly cotton gloves, dear; they are five sizes too large for you, and so rough and baggy to the touch!"