’Uncle Langford, I must speak to you.’ ’I am busy, I have to go to the church. It is the rural dean’s visitation. I am churchwarden.’ ’I will not detain you long.’ ’I will not be detained at all.’ ’I must speak to you, uncle. You are too—too cruel! you have come between me and happiness.’ ’Get along. Don’t think anything you say will make me leave Langford to you.’ ’It is not that. I have not given that a thought. But, Honor——’ ’What of Honor?’ asked Taverner sharply, stopping. ’I love her, uncle—I love her with my whole heart. I always have loved her, more or less, but now I love her as I can love no one else.’ ’Oh, that is it!’ exclaimed the old man, bending his brows, and disguising his agitation and annoyance by striking the stones out of the road with the end of his stick. ’A boy’s fancy, light as thistle-seed; and a boy’s head is as full of fancies as a thistle is of seed.’ ’Nothing of the sort,’ said the young man vehemently. ’There is no one but Honor can make me what I know I ought to become. I have never had a mother or a sister to guide me. I have grown up unchecked, unadvised, and now I want my dear, dear Honor to help me to be what I should be, and am not. Uncle! you sneer at Chimsworthy because it is full of docks, and thistles, and rushes, but I am like that—worthy land, and none but Honor can weed me. Why do you come cruelly in between us, and kill her happiness as well as mine? Her you cannot make other than noble and true, but me!—me, without her you will ruin. I must have Honor! I cannot live without her. Oh, uncle, uncle! what are you doing? It is unworthy of you to use poor Honor’s necessity to wring from her her consent. You know she only gives it to save her brother. Why, because she is generous, would you take advantage of her generosity?’ The lad pleaded with earnestness, vehemence, and with tears in his voice. Taverner looked at him, and thought, ’How like he is to his mother! This is Blandina’s face and Blandina’s voice. He is not a Nanspian, he is a Langford.’ But he said roughly, ’Pshaw! let me go by. The rural dean is waiting. Do not you mistake me for a weathercock to be turned by every breath. You must get over your fancy—it is a fancy—or change it to regard for Honor as your aunt. Do not attempt to move me. What is settled is settled.’ As Hillary still interposed himself between Langford and his course the old man raised his stick. ’Come! must I strike you?’ he said angrily. ’I’ve spoken to you more freely than you deserve. Stand aside. I am not to be turned from my way by you or any other.’ He went forward headlong, striking about him with his stick, and was not to be further stayed. He went, as he said, to the church to meet the rural dean, but not only because summoned—he went also to see him as surrogate, and obtain a marriage licence.