Franklin shook his head mutely, but Battersleigh showed only impatience with him.  “Go on with your plans, man,” said he, “an’ pay no attintion to the gyurl!  Make ready the house and prepare the bridal gyarments.  Talk with her raysonable, an’ thin thry unraysonable, and if she won’t love ye peaceful, thin thry force; an’ she’ll folly ye thin, to the ind of the earth, an’ love ye like a lamb.  It’s Batty has studied the sex.  Now, wance there was a gyurl—­but no; I’ll not yet thrust mesilf to spake o’ that.  God rist her asy ivermore!”

“Yes,” said Franklin sadly, “that is it.  That is what my own answer has been.  She tells me that there was once another, who no longer lives—­that no one else—­”

Battersleigh’s face grew grave in turn.  “There’s no style of assault more difficult than that same,” said he.  “Yet she’s young; she must have been very young.  With all respect, it’s the nature o’ the race o’ women to yield to the livin’, breathin’ man above the dead an’ honoured.”

“I had my hopes,” said Franklin, “but they’re gone.  They’ve been doing well at the Halfway House, and I’ve been doing well here.  I’ve made more money than I ever thought I should, and I presume I may make still more.  I presume that’s all there is—­just to make money, and then more, if you can.  Let it go that way.  I’ll not wear my heart on my sleeve—­not for any woman in the world.”

Franklin’s jaws set in fashion still more stern than their usual cast, yet there had come, as Battersleigh did not fail to notice, an older droop to the corners of his mouth, and a loss of the old brilliance of the eye.

“Spoken like a man,” said Battersleigh, “an’ if ye’ll stick to that ye’re the more like to win.  Nivver chance follyin’ too close in a campaign ag’inst a woman.  Parallel an’ mine, but don’t uncover your forces.  If ye advance, do so by rushes, an’ not feelin’ o’ the way.  But tin to wan, if ye lie still under cover, she’ll be sendin’ out skirmishers to see where ye are an’ what ye are doin’.  Now, ye love the gyurl, I know, an’ so do I, an’ so does ivery man that ivver saw her, for she’s the sort min can’t help adorin’.  But, mind me, kape away.  Don’t write to her.  Don’t make poetry about her—­God forbid!  Don’t do the act o’ serrynadin’ in anny way whativver.  Make no complaint—­if ye do she’ll hate ye, like as not; for when a gyurl has wronged a man she hates him for it.  Merely kape still.  Ye’ve met your first reverse, an’ ye’ve had your outposts cut up a bit, an’ ye think the ind o’ the worrld has come.  Now, mind me, ould Batty, who’s seen the lands; only do ye attind to dhrill an’ sinthry-go an’ commissariat, till in time ye find your forces in thrim again.  By thin luk out fer heads stickin’ up over the hills on the side o’ the inimy, who’ll be wonderin’ what’s goin’ on.  ’Go ‘way,’ she says to you, an’ you go.  ‘Come back,’ she whispers to herself, an’ you don’t hear it.  Yet all the time she’s wonderin’ pfwhy you don’t!”