She would have been as much too
good for me. But she WAS too good for him; he wasn't free and frank
enough for her. I don't reproach his memory with it, poor fellow; I only
want to put her before you as she really was. For myself, I'll keep her
old picture in my mind; and thinking of that, and what has altered her,
I'll stand her friend, and try to win her back to peace. And damme,
sir,' cried Gabriel, 'with your pardon for the word, I'd do the same if
she had married fifty highwaymen in a twelvemonth; and think it in the
Protestant Manual too, though Martha said it wasn't, tooth and nail,
till doomsday!'
If the dark little parlour had been filled with a dense fog, which,
clearing away in an instant, left it all radiance and brightness, it
could not have been more suddenly cheered than by this outbreak on the
part of the hearty locksmith. In a voice nearly as full and round as his
own, Mr Haredale cried 'Well said!' and bade him come away without more
parley. The locksmith complied right willingly; and both getting into a
hackney coach which was waiting at the door, drove off straightway.
They alighted at the street corner, and dismissing their conveyance,
walked to the house.
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