grieving you too much, lest it should throw you down again;
for we have all a respect for you still, though not so much as
to have it be the ruin of my son; but if it be as you say, we have
all wronged you very much.’
‘As to the truth of what I say, madam,’ said I, ‘refer you to
your son himself; if he will do me any justice, he must tell you
the story just as I have told it.’
Away goes the old lady to her daughters and tells them the
whole story, just as I had told it her; and they were surprised
at it, you may be sure, as I believed they would be. One said
she could never have thought it; another said Robin was a fool;
a third said she would not believe a word of it, and she would
warrant that Robin would tell the story another way. But the
old gentlewoman, who was resolved to go to the bottom of it
before I could have the least opportunity of acquainting her
son with what had passed, resolved too that she would talk
with her son immediately, and to that purpose sent for him,
for he was gone but to a lawyer’s house in the town, upon
some petty business of his own, and upon her sending he
returned immediately.
Upon his coming up to them, for they were all still together,
‘Sit down, Robin,’ says the old lady, ‘I must have some talk
with you.’ ‘With all my heart, madam,’ says Robin, looking
very merry. ‘I hope it is about a good wife, for I am at a great
loss in that affair.’ ‘How can that be?’ says his mother; ‘did
not you say you resolved to have Mrs. Betty?’ ‘Ay, madam,’
says Robin, ‘but there is one has forbid the banns.’ ‘Forbid,
the banns!’ says his mother; ‘who can that be?’ ‘Even Mrs.
Betty herself,’ says Robin. ‘How so?’ says his mother. ‘Have
you asked her the question, then?’ ‘Yes, indeed, madam,’ says
Robin. ‘I have attacked her in form five times since she was sick,
and am beaten off; the jade is so stout she won’t capitulate nor
yield upon any terms, except such as I cannot effectually grant.’
‘Explain yourself,’ says the mother, ‘for I am surprised; I do
not understand you. I hope you are not in earnest.’
‘Why, madam,’ says he, ‘the case is plain enough upon me,
it explains itself; she won’t have me, she says; is not that plain
enough? I think ’tis plain, and pretty rough too.’ ‘Well, but,’
says the mother, ‘you talk of conditions that you cannot grant;
what does she want–a settlement? Her jointure ought to be
according to her portion; but what fortune does she bring you?’
‘Nay, as to fortune,’ says Robin, ‘she is rich enough; I am
satisfied in that point; but ’tis I that am not able to come up
to her terms, and she is positive she will not have me without.’
Here the sisters put in. ‘Madam,’ says the second sister, ”tis
impossible to be serious with him; he will never give a direct
answer to anything; you had better let him alone, and talk no
more of it to him; you know how to dispose of her out of his
way if you thought there was anything in it.’ Robin was a little
warmed with his sister’s rudeness, but he was even with her,
and yet with good manners too. ‘There are two sorts of people,
madam,’ says he, turning to his mother, ‘that there is no
contending with; that is, a wise body and a fool; ’tis a little
hard I should engage with both of them together.’
The younger sister then put in. ‘We must be fools indeed,’
says she, ‘in my brother’s opinion, that he should think we can
believe he has seriously asked Mrs. Betty to marry him, and
that she has refused him.’
‘Answer, and answer not, say Solomon,’ replied her brother.
‘When your brother had said to your mother that he had asked
her no less than five times, and that it was so, that she positively