Indeed, father, I know nothing of your affairs. How should I? But I am sure I should never be happy as the wife of Alfred Brandon.
An why? What hev yur get agin him? Hes a good-lookin feller doggoned good-lookin.
It has nothing to do with his looks.
What then? His karracktur, I spose?
You know it is not good.
Dum karracktur! What signify that? Ef all the young weemen in these parts war to wait till they got a husband o good karracktur, theyd stay a long spell single, I reckn. Alf Brandon aint no worse nor other people; an, whats o far more konsequince, he air richer than most. Yed be a fool, gurl, a dod-rotted eedyit, not to jump at the chance. An dont you get it into yur head that Im gwine to let it slip. Willin or not, yeve got to be the wife o Alf Brandon. Refuse? an by the Eturnal, ye shall be no longer my darter? Ye hear that?
I hear you, father. It is very painful to hear you; and painful, too, for me to tell you, that your threat cannot change me. Im sure I have been obedient to you in everything else. Why should you force me to this?
Wal, said the hardened man, apparently relenting, I acknowledge yeve been a good gurl; but why shed yur now speil all the chances o our gettin a good livin by yur obstinateness in bizness? I tell ye that my affairs air jest at this time a leetle preecarious. I owe Alf Brandon money a good grist ot an now his fathers dead he may be on me fort. Beside, youre o full age, an oughter be spliced to somebody. Whos bettern Alf Brandon?
Had Jerry arrived a little sooner at his house, or approached it with greater caution, he might have received
a more satisfactory answer to his question. As it was, he got none, his daughter remaining silent, as if not caring to venture a reply.
She had averted her eyes, displaying some slight embarrassment. Something of this the old man must have noticed, as evinced by the remark that followed:
Poor white, ye aint a gwine to marry wi my consent I dont care what be his karracktur; an ef yeve been makin a fool o yurself wi sich, an gin any promise, yeve got to get out o it best way ye kin.
Neither was there any rejoinder to this; he sat for a time in silence, as if reflecting on the probability of some such complication.
He had never heard of his daughter having bestowed her heart on any one; and, indeed, she had gained some celebrity for having so long kept it to herself.
For all that, it might have been secretly surrendered; and this would, perhaps, account for her aversion to the man he most wished her to marry.
I heerd a shot as I war coming along the road. It war the crack o a rifle, an sounded as ef twar somewhar near the house. Hez anybody been hyar?
The question was but a corollary to the train of thought he had been pursuing.
Fortunately for the young girl, it admitted of an evasive answer, under the circumstances excusable.
There has been no one at the house since you left. There was a shot though; I heard it myself.
Whar away?
I think down by the creek maybe in the woods beyond the orchard.
Thar aint nothin in them woods, ceptin squrrl. Whos been squrrl shootin this time o day?
Some boys, perhaps?
Boys! Hey! whats that dog a draggin out from mong the peach trees? Snake, by the Eturnal! a rattler too! The hound aint killed that varmint himself?
The old hunter, yielding to curiosity, or some undeclared impulse, stepped down from the porch, and out to where the hound had come to a stop, and was standing by the body of the snake.
Driving the dog aside, he stooped over the dead reptile to examine it.
Shot through the skull! he muttered to himself; an wi a rifle, o sixty to the pound. That eres been a hunters gun. Who ked it be? Its been done this side of the crik, too; seems as the dog haint wetted a hair in fetchin ot.
Turning along the trail of the snake which, to his experienced eye, was discernible in the grass he followed it, till he came to the spot where the snake had been killed.
Shot hyar for sartin. Yes; thars the score o the bullet arter it had passed through the varmints brainpan; an thars the shoe track o him as fired the shot. No boy that; but a full growed man! Who the durnation hez been trespassin mong my peach trees?
He bent down over the track, and carefully scrutinised them. Then rising erect, he followed them to the bank of the creek, where he saw the same footprints, more conspicuously outlined in the mud.
Stranger for sartin! muttered he; no sich futmark as that beout these settlements not as I know on. Who the durnation kin it a-been?
It was strange he should take so much trouble about a circumstance so slight; or show such anxiety to discover who had been the intruder. He was evidently uneasy about something of more importance to him than the trespass among his peach trees.
That gurl must a heerd the shot plainer than shes been tellin me o, an seed moren shes confessed to. Thars somethin on her mind, I haint been able to make out any how. She shall be put thro a chapter o kattykism.
Lena, gurl! he continued, going back towards the porch, still occupied by his daughter; dye mean to say ye seed nobody beout hyar to-day?