"Come, come, Lord Neville! Do you expect to drive the wedge head foremost? Ere you ask so great a gift, give me some good reasons for expecting it." "We love each other, sir." "So! but you must forethink, and straightforward is the best course. You cannot live on love—you two. No, sir!" "I have my sword and the Lord General’s favour. And my mother left me an estate in Fifeshire. ’Tis no great matter, but it is between me and the wolf’s mouth." "Very good for a young man; for a married man, very poor. If you were wanting to know how in God’s name you were to provide for your household and pay your debts, would it do to ask your sword, or to send to Fifeshire—or to the stars—for the gold? That is a father’s question, sir." "It is a lover’s also. I have enough for our necessities, and somewhat for our comfort,—and we are both willing to take love as security for our contentment." And though the words were such ordinary ones, the young man’s heart throbbed in them, and the father felt it. "Well, well," he answered, "yet I could wish you were altogether an Englishman." "My mother was of a noble Scotch family, the Cupars of Fife. I would not willingly lose anything she gave me, sir." "Lord Neville, I have seen the Scots in the late unhappy war, enough of them, and more than enough—greedy creatures, never losing sight of the spoil. I saw a good deal of the country also—beggary, nakedness, hunger, ever-lasting spite, envy and quarreling. But in every land God has His elect and reserve, and I doubt not that Lady Neville was among them." "She was the purest-hearted of women. A word against her goes to my heart like a sword." "Nay, nay, I meant no unkindness in particular; I spoke of generalities. You are not a Scot, but I hear that you are a Presbyterian. If you marry my daughter, I wish you to become an Independent." "’Twould be an impossible thing, sir. I sucked Presbyterianism in my mother’s milk. Even in heaven, it would grieve her to know I had become an apostate." "An apostate! The veriest nonsense. There is not an ounce of difference between a Presbyterian and an Independent—but the ounce is the salt and the savour. You will become an Independent. The Lord General is an Independent." "He never asked me to become one." "You never asked him for his daughter, his youngest child, his darling." "Forgive me, sir; Mistress Swaffham has no objection to my faith." "Because, if men have not every good quality, some woman invents all they lack for them. Mistress Swaffham assures herself she can change your creed." "I hope that she judges me of better mould. I can no more change a letter in my creed than a feature in my face." "That is John Knoxism! It won’t do, Lord Neville. If I was asking you to become a Fifth Monarchy Man, or one of those unbaptised, buttonless hypocrites, who call themselves Quakers, you might talk about the letters of your creed. Pooh! Pooh!"