nd fancy
took her." [I looked at Mary, who cast down her eyes.] "Now these women
do a mint of mischief among men, and it seldom ends well; and I'd sooner
see you in your coffin to-morrow, Mary, than think you should be one of
this flaunting sort. Ben Jones was quite in for it, and wanted for to
marry her, and she had turned off a fine young chap for him, and he used
to come there every night, and it was supposed that they would be
spliced in the course of a month; but when I goes there she cuts him
almost altogether, and takes to me, making such eyes at me, and drinking
beer out of my pot, and refusing his'n, till poor Jones was quite mad
and beside himself. Well, it wasn't in human natur' to stand those
large blue eyes (just like yours, Mary), darting fire at a poor fellow;
and when Jones got up in a surly humour, and said it was time to go
away, instead of walking home arm in arm, we went side by side, like two
big dogs with their tails as stiff up as a crowbar, and ready for a
fight; neither he nor I saying a word, and we parted without saying
good-night. Well, I dreamed of your mother all that night, and the next
day went to see her, and felt worser and worser each time, and she
snubbed Jones, and at last told him to go about his business. This was
'bout a month after I had first seen her; and then one day Jones, who
was a prize-fighter, says to me, `Be you a man?' and slaps me on the
ear. So, I knowing what he'd been a'ter, pulls off my duds, and we sets
to. We fights for ten minutes or so, and then I hits him a round blow
on the ear, and he falls down on the _hard_, and couldn't come to time.
No wonder, poor fellow! for he had gone to eternity." [Here old
Stapleton paused for half a minute, and passed his hand across his
eyes.] "I was tried for manslaughter; but it being proved that he came
up and struck me first, I was acquitted, after lying two months in gaol,
for I couldn't get no bail; but it was because I had been two months in
gaol that I was let off. At first, when I came out, I determined never
to see your mother again; but she came to me, and wound round me, and I
loved her so much that I couldn't shake her off. As soon as she found
that I was fairly hooked, she began to play with others; but I wouldn't
stand that, and every fellow that came near her was certain to have a
turn out with me, and so I became a great fighter; and she, seeing that
I was the best man, and that no one else would come to