“Dame, I have much to gossip over with ye about our Bess. She is a dangerous wench and needs a master. There’ll be no peace with us, dame, till the girl is stalled.” Isaac, kindling to his subject, began to talk to the old woman, significantly, about betrothing the girl to Dan without delay. He had much to put forward in justification of the measure. Bess’s beauty had become an apple of discord in the hamlet; all the young men wanted her, and Black Dan would put up with no rival. Isaac spoke mysteriously of the need for good-fellowship among the forest-folk; there must be no mating of Bess to a bachelor outside the hamlet; she was one of them and with them she must remain. Old Ursula looked surly and displeased during the patriarch’s harangue. The match was little to her liking, and she distrusted Dan’s ability to make marriage bearable to such a woman as Bess. “I may as well tell ye, Isaac,” she said, sourly, “that the wench does not care a brass button for your Dan.” “Who does she fancy then, dame, eh?” “I thought once she was for liking young David. She is a powerful-tempered wench is Bess, and she don’t like being driven.” Isaac puffed at his pipe and frowned. “Odd’s my life,” he said, “the wench must be taught her place. My Dan’s the first man in the forest, eh? What better lad does the wench look for? I’ll wager that we will soon persuade her.” “You be careful of Bess,” quoth the old woman, solemnly. “Careful, dame! That’s the very text I’m preaching on. How much does the wench remember, eh? Deuce take me, sister, we have reared her here, and here she must remain. And Dan will be breaking all the youths’ heads unless he has her, and have her he shall.” Isaac laid down his pipe and, leaning forward with his hands spread to the fire, began to speak further to the old woman in his grim and didactic way. There was an expression of almost ferocious earnestness on his thin and clever face, and it was difficult to believe that an old man could be possessed of so much fire and vigor. Isaac had ruled the hamlet these forty years; his will had been law unto them all. Old Ursula’s one feeling was known to the patriarch well enough. He played upon it that night as she sat in the ingle-nook and listened. The dame kept a stockingful of guineas hid under the floor in one of the upper rooms. She would often go up secretly and play with the pretty golden pieces, counting and recounting them, letting them fall and jingle in her lap. “A hundred gold guineas, dame,” said Isaac at the end of his persuading. “I’ll bring them to you on the betrothal day. Why, look you, the wench will be spry and gay enough when she is mated. Unbroken fillies are always wild.” Ursula nodded over the fire, stroked the black cat reflectively, and watched Isaac’s face with her greedy eyes. “You take your oath on it?” she asked. The patriarch grinned, and drew a leather pouch from the tail-pocket of his coat. He jingled it and tossed it into his sister’s lap.