Nancy’s cheeks grew red with anger, but even as hot words rose to her tongue her judgment cooled them, and her thoughts ran on ahead and reviewed the situation. Baldwin and Jagger were at enmity; and though a word in the older man’s ear might start the fires of his wrath against the newcomer, they were not likely to burn the more fiercely at the knowledge that this young man was Jagger’s rival for her affections. The effect might be quite opposite, for the large contempt in which Baldwin held the Drakes, both father and son, might lead him to favour another suitor.
Nancy had remained standing and she held Inman by a haughty stare whilst these thoughts crossed her mind at telegraphic speed.
“You don’t leave your meaning to be guessed at, anyway,” she said in her most freezing tones; “but a woman isn’t like a hare; she can choose who she lets hunt her, and I don’t choose to be hunted by you. Those are plain words, Mr. Inman, and I hope you appreciate them.”
“I do,” he replied. “I’m a moorman and you’re a moorwoman. Moor-folk don’t go by round-about ways when there’s a straight cut. I tell you as I told you before that I love you and would make you my wife. ‘Not like a hare!’ Of course you aren’t. I want no woman for a wife who’s like a hare. An oily towns-man would have turned the tables on you and crooned out that he was hunting a ‘dear’; but I don’t deal in soft nothings. Maybe Jagger Drake does; I heard him this afternoon when he whined like a whipped dog, and I took his measure. If you marry him you’ll have a baby in your arms to start with——”
“I’ve listened to you long enough,” Nancy broke in at this point with increased hauteur. “Who’s been coupling my name with Jagger Drake’s I don’t know, but it’s no concern of either theirs or yours; and as there’s sure to be some eyes spying on us, and I’ve no wish to have my character taken away, as it’s likely enough it will be if I stop talking with a strange man, the first night he’s in the village, I’ll just wish you good-bye; and if you take my advice you’ll set off back where you came from to-morrow morning.”
“One minute then,” he replied, as she turned away with a frown on her face. “We mayn’t have another opportunity as good as this for understanding one another. You call me a stranger, and you propose to treat me as a stranger. So be it, I learn my lessons quickly, and I shan’t worry you, you may rely on that. But I’ve buried my mother since you saw me last, and I’ve a mind to get back to the moors. If I stop with Mr. Briggs I can help to ginger up the business, though it’s plain enough to see that he thinks himself God Almighty and wants no help. But if he won’t have me, or if you think fit to put a spoke in the wheel, I’ll just start for myself and maybe get our young friend Jagger to help me. Soft as he is there are sure to be some old women who’ll fancy him for their work, and I’ll bet between us we can make things hum. Whichever way I go, your road’ll cross mine, Miss Nancy, and we’ll go on arm in arm before the end; but it shall be of your own free will, I promise you that!”