"Be serious, sir. I will not have you degrade yourself in the eyes of the neighbourhood by such conduct, for it means disgrace. What would the Days say--Sir John and Glynne? If it had been she, I would not have cared." "Let the Days be," he said gruffly. "I will," said Mrs Rolph; "but listen, Rob, dear; think of poor Madge." "Hang poor Madge! Look here, once for all, mother; I'm not a witch in Macbeth. I don't want three ounces of a red-haired wench--nor seven stone neither." "Rob! Shame!" "I'm not going to have Madge rammed down my throat. If I'm to marry, she's not in the running." "What? when you know my wishes?" "Man marries to satisfy his own wishes, not his mother's. I have other ideas." "Then what are they, sir?" said Mrs Rolph scornfully. "That's my business," he said, taking out his cigar-case. "Then, am I to understand that you intend to form an alliance with the family of our keeper?" said Mrs Rolph sarcastically. "Bah!" roared her son fiercely; and he strode out of the room and banged the door. "Gone!" cried Mrs Rolph, wringing her hands and making her rings crackle one against the other. "I was mad to have the wretched girl here. What fools we women are." Her son was saying precisely the same as he marched away. "Does she think me mad?" he growled. "Marry freckle-faced Madge!--form an alliance with Ben Hayle's Judy! Not quite such a fool. I'll go and do it, and show the old girl a trick worth two of that. She's as clean-limbed a girl as ever stepped, and there's a look of breed in her that I like. Must marry, I suppose. Ck! For the sake of the estate, join the two then--I will--at once. It will stop their mouths at home, and make an end of the Madge business. She'll be all right, and begin kissing and hugging her and calling her dearest in a week. That's the way to clear that hedge, so here goes." He stopped, took a short run and cleared the hedge at the side of the lane in reality to begin with, before striking off through one of the adjacent fir woods, so as to reach the sandy lanes and wild common on the way to Brackley. Volume 1, Chapter III. CONCERNING VIRGO AND GEMINI. "And what does Glynne say?" "Well, Sir John, she don't say much; it isn't her way to say a deal." "Humph! No; you're quite right. But I should have thought that she would have said a good deal upon an occasion like this." "Yes, I thought she would have roused up a little more; but she has been very quiet ever since I went into training for the event." "Hang it all, Rolph, don't talk about marriage as if it were a bit of athletic sport." "No, of course not. It was a slip." "Well, tell me what she did say." "That I was to talk to you." "Humph! Well, you have talked to me, and I don't know what to say." "_Say yes_, sir, and then the event's fixed." "Exactly, my dear boy, but I might say _yes_, and repent." "Oh no, you won't, sir, I'm precious fond of her; I am, indeed. Have been since a boy."