“You’ve had time and plenty, I’m sure!” he retorted with rough scorn. “Time to look round at all the lads and begin again. Time to look round at the married folk an’ all, and see who’s suited and who baint. But there’s got to be an end of your daft shilly-shally now. Seems to me you think it’s nobbut a game.” “Nay, then, that’s just what I don’t!” she flashed back in wrath. “It’s because I take it so serious-like that I don’t mean to be pushed. There’s times it seems to me that serious I don’t know how folk ever come to it at all. ’Tisn’t as if it was just a bit of a bargain over a cow or a two-three sheep. It’s you and me beginning our lives right over again from the start, and maybe both on us finding we’re different folk from what we thought. I’m suited well enough as I am, and I’d be a fool not to stop and think. I’ll not wed till I’m that set on the lad I’ll find myself fair running to kirk, and I’m a long way off yet from being as nicked in the head as yon! I don’t say but what I think a deal of you, because I do. I’m not breaking my heart over you, that’s all. If you want to gang, you can gang, ay, and right off the reel, but I won’t stir finger or foot until I choose!” “Ay, but there’s the old man, I tell ye!” Thomas had blurted out. “I’m in a cleft stick, seemingly, atween you and him. They’ll turn him out of his spot if I waint promise to take hold.” “Eh, now, if that isn’t terble hard!” She fell silent, thinking after her passionate speech, studying his lowering, fretted face, and seeing all in a moment how they stood. “But there’s never two minds about it, surely?” she added, in a troubled voice. “You’ll have to see to your father one way or t’other, you and Bob. And you’ll never to goodness miss the chance o’ the farm?” He turned his eyes on her with their dogged, miserable look. “Ay, but I will, if I can’t have you an’ all.” “You’ve had your answer to that till I’m fair tired.” She turned away from him, staring vexedly at the hedge. “Ay, well, then, that’s all there is to it, I reckon. Father and farm’ll have to see to themselves.” “You can have a housekeeper to do for you,” Agnes said. “An’ a bonny makeshift an’ all, for a man as wants a wife!” “Other folks do with them all right.” “Well, I want nowt wi’ ’em, so that’s flat.” “But you’ll have to do summat o’ the sort,” she protested angrily, troubled and also afraid. Her own particular cleft stick was becoming plainer with every minute that passed. “You’ll have to have somebody about the place, and it’s fair wicked to talk o’ missing the farm. What, you’ve been wanting a spot of your own for long enough, I’m sure, and now you can do what’s right by your dad at the same time.” “You wouldn’t ha’ minded him about the house? If things was fixed, I’m meaning ... if we were wed....”