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Read Ebook: The Parson O' Dumford by Fenn George Manville
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Ebook has 3315 lines and 94761 words, and 67 pages
he'll do will be to go and tell my mother, and then there'll be no end of a row."
"But she loves you very much, Dick."
"Worships me," said Dick, complacently.
"Of course," said the girl, softly; and her foolish little eyes seemed to say, "She couldn't help it," while she continued, "and she'd let you do as you like, Dick."
"Well, but you see the devil of it is, Daisy, that I promised her I wouldn't see you any more."
"Why did you do that?" said the girl, sharply.
"To save rows--I hate a bother."
"Richard, you were ashamed of me, and wouldn't own me," said Daisy, bursting into tears.
"Oh, what a silly, hard-hearted, cruel little blossom it is," said Richard, trying to console her, but only to be pushed away. "All I did and said was to save bother, and not upset the old girl. That's why I want it all kept quiet. Here, as I tell you, I could be waiting for you over at Chorley, we could pop into the mail as it came through, off up to London, be married by licence, and then the old folks would be in a bit of a temper for a week, and as pleased as Punch afterwards."
"Oh, no, Richard, I couldn't, couldn't do that," said the girl, panting with excitement.
"Yes, you could," he said, "and come back after a trip to Paris, eh, Daisy? where you should have the run of the fashions. What would they all say when you came back a regular lady, and I took you to the house?"
"Oh, Dick, dear Dick, don't ask me," moaned the poor girl, whose young head was in a whirl. "I couldn't--indeed I couldn't be so wicked."
"So wicked! no, of course not," said Richard, derisively--"a wicked little creature. Oh, dear, what would become of you if you married Richard Glaire!"
"You're teasing me," she said, "and it's very cruel of you."
"Horribly," said Richard. "But you will come, Daisy?"
"I couldn't, I couldn't," faltered the girl.
"Yes, you could, you little goose."
"Dick, my own handsome, brave Dick," she whispered, "let me tell father."
He drew back from her coldly.
"You want to be very obedient, don't you?"
"Oh, yes, dear Richard," she said, looking at him appealingly.
"You set such a good example, Daisy, that I must be very good too."
"Yes, dear," she said, innocently.
"Yes," he said, with a sneer; "so you go and tell your father like a good little child, and I'll be a good boy, too, and go and tell my mother, and she'll scold me and say I've been very naughty, and make me marry Eve."
"Oh, Richard, Richard, how can you be so cruel?" cried the poor girl, reproachfully.
"It isn't I; it's you," he said, smiling with satisfaction as he saw what a plaything the girl's heart was in his hands. "Are you going to tell your father?"
"Oh, no, Dick, not if you say I mustn't."
"Well, that's what I do say," he exclaimed sharply.
"Very well, Dick," she said, sadly.
"And look here, Daisy, my own little one," he whispered, kissing her tear-wet face, "some day, when I ask you, it shall be as I say, eh?"
"Oh, Dick, darling, I'll do anything you wish but that. Don't ask me to run away."
"Do you want to break off our match?" he said, bitterly.
"Oh, no--no:--no--no."
"Do you want to make my home miserable?"
"You know I don't, Richard."
"Because, I tell you I know my mother will never consent to it unless she is forced."
"But you are your own master now, Richard," she pleaded.
"Not so much as you think for, my little woman. So come, promise me. I know you won't break your word if you do promise."
"No, Dick, never," she said, earnestly; and if there had been any true love in the young fellow's breast he would have been touched by the trusting, earnest reliance upon him that shone from her eyes as she looked up affectionately in his face.
"Then promise me, Daisy, dear," he whispered; "it is for the good of both of us, and--Hang it all, there's Slee."
Daisy was sent off as we know, and the tears fell fast as she hastened home, feeling that love was very sweet, but that its roses had thorns that rankled and stung.
"Oh, Dick, Dick," she sobbed as she went on, "I wish sometimes that I'd never seen you, for it is so hard not to do whatever you wish."
She dried her eyes hastily as she neared home, and drew her breath a little more hardly as about a hundred yards from the gate she saw Tom Podmore, who looked at her firmly and steadily as they passed, and hardly responded to her nod.
"He knows where I've been. He knows where I've been," whispered Daisy to herself as she hurried on; and she was quite right, for her conscious cheeks hoisted a couple of signal flags of the ruddiest hue--signals that poor Tom could read as well as if they had been written down in a code, and he ground his teeth as he turned and watched her.
"She's such a good girl that any one might troost her," he muttered, as he saw her go in at the gate, "or else I'd go and tell Joe all as I knows. But no, I couldn't do that, for it would hurt her, just as it would if I was to half kill Dick Glaire. She'll find him out some day perhaps--not as it matters to me though, for it's all over now."
He walked back, looking over the green fence as he passed, and Mrs Banks waved her hand to him from the window; but his eyes were too much occupied by the sight of Daisy leaning over her father, and he walked on so hurriedly that he nearly blundered up against a great stalwart figure coming the other way.
THE VICAR'S FRIENDS.
"What cheer, owd Tommy?" cried the stalwart figure, pulling a short black pipe out of his mouth.
"Hallo, Harry," said Tom, quietly, at least as quietly as he could, for the words were jerked out of his mouth by the tremendous clap on the shoulder administered by the big hammerman.
"What's going to be done, Tommy?" growled the great fellow. "I'm 'bout tired o' this. I wants to hit something."
He stretched out his great sinewy arm, and then drawing it back, let it fly again with such force that a man would have gone down before it like a cork.
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