"Stay, sir," cried Mary, her face as red as a peony. He looked back. "I thought yo' wanted a kiss t'other night." "Aye, but yo' refused me smartly." "Well," and here Mary drooped her head and played with the corner of her apron. "Well--I've, I've changed my mind." And Tom laughed a great laugh and stooped over my cousin and she raised her crimson face to his. "Gad! Bamforth, my lad, I'd change places with you this minute and risk Jack Ketch. Good luck and good day." And Long Tom strode down the stairs. There were three other mounted soldiers in the yard. "A false scent again," we heard him say. "Only an old woman in a fever. The bird's flown." "It isn't often you stay upstairs so long with an old woman, sergeant!" laughed a trooper; and they shook their reins and clattered out of the yard, the hens scurrying with beating wings, and the ducks waddling, quacking loudly, out of their way. I made to thank Mary, but she fled from my room and I saw her no more all that day, and when, the next morning, she brought me, instead of the bowl of porridge on which I break my fast when hearty, a dish of tea and a buttered egg, and I would have drawn her to my heart, as surely lover may draw his mistress, Mary held aloof. "Why, Mary, lass, surely tha'll give me a kiss now?" "And why now?" she said, as cold as ice. "Why, after what yo' said yesterday to Long Tom, 'at yo' an' me wer' engaged to be wed." "Oh! that wer' nowt. I just said it because I thowt it might help thee." "And then, don't yo' mind, Mary, that neet after I'd fought Long Tom at Marsden--how yo' come behind th' chair an' kissed me." "Well, what o' that?" "Dost ta mean to say, after that, tha cares nowt about me more nor common?" "It it comes to that, Ben, didn't yo' see me do much th' same wi Long Tom yesterday?" "In truth, I did, Mary. And I think it was unnecessary, not to say unmaidenly." "Thank yo', Ben. I'll mind my manners better i' future. But at least yo' mun see that yo' munnot argy from what aw did when yo'r eye wer' blacked i' Marsden; for bi the same token Long Tom might leap to conclusions. And heigh-ho! Long Tom's a proper sort o' man, and I'm awmost stalled o' Sloughit. Sup thi tea, Ben, afore it gets cold, an' if tha'rt in such a hurry to get wed, remember yo'r more nor hauf promised to Faith Booth."