drop a few silent tears, and then resign herself to my wishes; but by these silly delays nothing rational can be effected.”
“But, dearest husband,” objected the coaxing wife, “may not Catherine be as happy with William the clerk as with Robert the gamekeeper? Indeed you do not know him: he is so clever, so good, so kind”
“But no marksman,” interrupted the forester. “The situation which I hold here has been possessed by my family for more than two hundred years, and has always descended down in a straight line from father to son. If, instead of this girl, Anne, you had brought me a boy, all would have been well; he would have had my situation, and the wench, if she had been in existence, might have chosen for her bridegroom him whom she loved best; now the thing is impossible. My son-in-law must also be my successor, and must therefore be a marksman. I shall have, in the first place, some trouble to obtain the trial for him; and in the second, if he should not succeed, truly, I shall have thrown my girl away: so a clever huntsman she shall have. But observe, if you do not like him, I do not exactly insist upon Robert: find another active clever fellow for the girl, I will resign my situa-
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