I pulled out the King’s paper which I had all ready, and thrust it down before the lantern that he had put on the table:  and I waited till he had read it through.

“There, Cousin!” I said when he was staring on me again, “that is enough warrant for both you and me, I think.  Have you anything to say?”

He began to bluster.

“Cousin,” I said, “if I have any patience it is because Dolly has given it back to me.  You had best not say too much.  You have done all the harm you could; and it is only by God’s mercy that it has not been greater.”

He said that he was Dolly’s father and could do as he pleased.  Besides, she herself had consented.

“I know that,” I said, “because she has told me so; and that it was in despair that she went, because we two fools bungled our business.  Well, you may be her father; but the Scripture tells us that a woman must leave her father and cleave to her husband; and that is what I am to be to her.”

Well; when I said that, there was the Devil to pay—­we three standing there in the cold chamber, with the draughts playing upon poor Tom’s legs.  He looked a very piteous object, very much fallen from that fine figure that he had presented when I had first set eyes on him; but he strove to compensate by emphasis what he lacked in dignity.  He said that he had changed his mind; that even third cousins once removed should not marry; that he had now other designs for his daughter; that I had no right to dictate to him in his own house.  He waxed wonderfully warm; but even then, in the first flush of his resistance I thought I saw a kind of wavering.  I sat with one leg across the corner of the great table until he was done; while Dolly sat in a chair, turning her merry eyes from the one to the other of us.  For myself, I felt no lack of confidence.  I had beaten the daughter; now I was to beat the father.

When he had finished, and drew breath, I stood up.

“Very bravely said, Cousin, bare legs and all,” I said.  “We will speak of it all again to-morrow.  But now for a bite; we have been riding since noon.”

It was very strange to go upstairs again after a mouthful or two, and a glass of warm ale, and see my chamber again from which I had departed in such unhappiness near a twelvemonth ago.  James had made a little fire for me, before which I drew off my boots and undressed myself.  For it was from this very chamber that I had gone forth in such despair, when Dolly had said that she would not have me:  and now, here I was in it again, all glowing with my ride and my drink and my great content, having kissed Dolly just now in her father’s presence as a symbol of our troth.  And so I went to bed and dreamed and woke and dreamed again.

We had our talk out next morning, Tom pacing up and down the Great Chamber, until I entreated him for God’s sake to sit down and save my stiff neck.  He was very high at first; but I was astonished how quickly he came down.