you meet him, or keep his company, or put yourself in his power,
I'll send six inches of this "--and he pulled out the glittering
weapon--"into your heart and his; so now be warned and avoid him, and
don't bring down my vengeance on you both."

"I don't see what right you have to bring me over the coals about any
one. My father was forcin' me to marry you; but I now tell you to your
teeth, that I never had the slightest intention of it. No! I wouldn't
take the wealth of the barony, and be the wife of sich a savage
murdherer. No man wid blood upon his hands and upon his sowl, as you
have--a public robber, a murdherer, an outlaw--will ever be my husband.
What right have you to tell me who I'm to spake to, or who I'm not to
spake to?"

"Ah," he replied, "that wasn't your language to me not long ago."

"But you were a different boy then from what you are now. If you had
kept your name free from disgrace and blood, I might have loved you; but
I cannot love a man with such crimes to answer for as you have."

"You accuse me of shedding blood," he replied; "that is false. I have
never shed blood nor taken life; but, on the contrary, did all in my
power to prevent those who have placed me at their head from doin' so.
Yet, when they did it in my absence, and against my orders, the blame
and guilt is charged upon me because I am their leader. As for anything
else I have done, I do not look upon it as a crime; let it rest upon the
oppression that drove me and others to the wild lives we lead. We are
forced to live now the best way we can, and that you know; but as to
this gentleman, you mustn't spake to him at any rate," he proceeded;
"why should you? What 'ud make a man so high in life, and so far above