can't do good to anybody. You must take him, and set yourself right with the world, or go from here."
"I cannot get away. Would to heaven I could!"
"Then you must marry him. There is no escape from it, for your own sake, Why, girl," the shepherd went on, "if you was his wife you would have a lawful right and place here—this house, these marshes, these cattle would be yours. You would not be dependent on him for anything; you would hold them as a right. Now he can have you and your mother in prison at any time, for you are still his tenants and owe him rent for the Ray. But if you marry him, you cut away his power: he can't proceed against you and your mother for one penny. You would cancel the debt, do away with the obligation. If you was to marry him, and saw your way clear, I fancy you might go away at any time, and he would have no hold on you. Now he has you fast by this claim. And now your character is being ruined by association with him. There," continued the old man, "I doubt I never said so much afore; but I have known you since you was a girl, and I no more like to see you going to the bad than I like to see a field that has been well tilled allowed to be overrun with thistles, or a sheep lie down in the fen and die of rot that might have been saved with a little ointment stuck on in proper time."
Mehalah made no response.
"I dare say it stings," said Dowsing. "I've seen sheep jump with pain when the copperas comes against a raw; but that's better than to lie down and rot away without an effort, and without a word, as you are doing now." He gave her a nod, and went on his way.
Mehalah stepped into his boat and seated herself in her usual manner, with her head in her arms, and sank into her wonted torpor.
"Now, then, young woman!"
Again interrupted, again aroused. There was no rest for her that day.
"Jump on land, will you, young woman, and let this lass step into your boat and get ashore without having to go into the mud?"
"Timothy! that is Mehalah! " exclaimed Phœbe Musset. She was in the boat with Admonition's cousin. "I'd
