about it.’
‘By my faith, madam,’ says Robin, ”tis in vain to mince the
matter or tell any more lies about it; I am in earnest, as much
as a man is that’s going to be hanged. If Mrs. Betty would
say she loved me, and that she would marry me, I’d have her
tomorrow morning fasting, and say, ‘To have and to hold,’
instead of eating my breakfast.’
‘Well,’ says the mother, ‘then there’s one son lost’; and she
said it in a very mournful tone, as one greatly concerned at it.
‘I hope not, madam,’ says Robin; ‘no man is lost when a good
wife has found him.’
‘Why, but, child,’ says the old lady, ‘she is a beggar.’
‘Why, then, madam, she has the more need of charity,’ says
Robin; ‘I’ll take her off the hands of the parish, and she and
I’ll beg together.’
‘It’s bad jesting with such things,’ says the mother.
‘I don’t jest, madam,’ says Robin. ‘We’ll come and beg your
pardon, madam; and your blessing, madam, and my father’s.’
‘This is all out of the way, son,’ says the mother. ‘If you are
in earnest you are undone.’
‘I am afraid not,’ says he, ‘for I am really afraid she won’t
have me; after all my sister’s huffing and blustering, I believe
I shall never be able to persuade her to it.’
‘That’s a fine tale, indeed; she is not so far out of her senses
neither. Mrs. Betty is no fool,’ says the younger sister. ‘Do
you think she has learnt to say No, any more than other people?’
‘No, Mrs. Mirth-wit,’ says Robin, ‘Mrs. Betty’s no fool; but
Mrs. Betty may be engaged some other way, and what then?’
‘Nay,’ says the eldest sister, ‘we can say nothing to that. Who
must it be to, then? She is never out of the doors; it must be
between you.’
‘I have nothing to say to that,’ says Robin. ‘I have been
examined enough; there’s my brother. If it must be between
us, go to work with him.’
This stung the elder brother to the quick, and he concluded
that Robin had discovered something. However, he kept
himself from appearing disturbed. ‘Prithee,’ says he, ‘don’t
go to shame your stories off upon me; I tell you, I deal in no
such ware; I have nothing to say to Mrs. Betty, nor to any of
the Mrs. Bettys in the parish’; and with that he rose up and
brushed off.
‘No,’ says the eldest sister, ‘I dare answer for my brother; he
knows the world better.’
Thus the discourse ended, but it left the elder brother quite
confounded. He concluded his brother had made a full
discovery, and he began to doubt whether I had been concerned
in it or not; but with all his management he could not bring
it about to get at me. At last he was so perplexed that he was
quite desperate, and resolved he would come into my chamber
and see me, whatever came of it. In order to do this, he
contrived it so, that one day after dinner, watching his eldest
sister till he could see her go upstairs, he runs after her. ‘Hark
ye, sister,’ says he, ‘where is this sick woman? May not a
body see her?’ ‘Yes,’ says the sister, ‘I believe you may; but
let me go first a little, and I’ll tell you.’ So she ran up to the
door and gave me notice, and presently called to him again.
‘Brother,’ says she, ‘you may come if you please.’ So in he
came, just in the same kind of rant. ‘Well,’ says he at the door
as he came in, ‘where is this sick body that’s in love? How
do ye do, Mrs. Betty?’ I would have got up out of my chair,
but was so weak I could not for a good while; and he saw it,
and his sister to, and she said, ‘Come, do not strive to stand
up; my brother desires no ceremony, especially now you are
so weak.’ ‘No, no, Mrs. Betty, pray sit still,’ says he, and so
sits himself down in a chair over against me, and appeared as