“You are quite right, sir,” he said. “I have no intention of marrying for the second time. What I was saying to Miss Naomi doesn’t matter to you. It was not at all what you choose to suppose; it was something of quite another kind, with which you have no concern. Be pleased to understand once for all, Mr. Silas, that not so much as the thought of making love to the young lady has ever entered my head. I respect her; I admire her good qualities; but if she was the only woman left in the world, and if I was a much younger man than I am, I should never think of asking her to be my wife.” He burst out suddenly into a harsh, uneasy laugh. “No, no! not my style, Mr. Silas--not my style!” Something in those words, or in his manner of speaking them, appeared to exasperate Silas. He dropped his clumsy irony, and addressed himself directly to John Jago in a tone of savage contempt. “Not your style?” he repeated. “Upon my soul, that’s a cool way of putting it, for a man in your place! What do you mean by calling her ‘not your style?’ You impudent beggar! Naomi Colebrook is meat for your master!” John Jago’s temper began to give way at last. He approached defiantly a step or two nearer to Silas Meadowcroft. “Who is my master?” he asked. “Ambrose will show you, if you go to him,” answered the other. “Naomi is _his_ sweetheart, not mine. Keep out of his way, if you want to keep a whole skin on your bones.” John Jago cast one of his sardonic side-looks at the farmer’s wounded left hand. “Don’t forget your own skin, Mr. Silas, when you threaten mine! I have set my mark on you once, sir. Let me by on my business, or I may mark you for a second time.” Silas lifted his beechen stick. The laborers, roused to some rude sense of the serious turn which the quarrel was taking, got between the two men, and parted them. I had been hurriedly dressing myself while the altercation was proceeding; and I now ran downstairs to try what my influence could do toward keeping the peace at Morwick Farm. The war of angry words was still going on when I joined the men outside. “Be off with you on your business, you cowardly hound!” I heard Silas say. “Be off with you to the town! and take care you don’t meet Ambrose on the way!” “Take _you_ care you don’t feel my knife again before I go!” cried the other man. Silas made a desperate effort to break away from the laborers who were holding him. “Last time you only felt my fist!” he shouted “Next time you shall feel _this!_” He lifted the stick as he spoke. I stepped up and snatched it out of his hand. “Mr. Silas,” I said, “I am an invalid, and I am going out for a walk. Your stick will be useful to me. I beg leave to borrow it.” The laborers burst out laughing. Silas fixed his eyes on me with a stare of angry surprise. John Jago, immediately recovering his self-possession, took off his hat, and made me a deferential bow.