"Now look here, young man," cried Mrs. Cramp, taking her handkerchief from her troubled face, "what right had you to do that? By what right did you play upon those young girls with your silly speeches and your flirting ways, if you meant nothing?--nothing to either of them?"
"I am sorry for it now, ma'am," said Scott, eating humble pie; "I wouldn't have done it for the world had I foreseen this. It was just a bit of flirting and nothing else. And neither of them ever thought it was anything else; they knew better; only they became snappish with one another."
"Did not think you meant marrying?" cried the Squire sarcastically, fixing Scott with his spectacles.
"Just so, sir. Why, how could I mean it?" went on Scott in his simple way. "I've no money, while my mother lives, to set up a wife or a house; she wouldn't let me. I joked and laughed with the two girls, and they joked and laughed back again. I don't care what they may have said between themselves--they _knew_ there was nothing in it."
Scott was right, so far. All the world, including the Chandlers and poor Juliet, knew that Scott was no more likely to marry than the man in the moon.
"And you could stand by quietly last night when they were having, it seems, this bitter quarrel, and not stop it?" exclaimed Mrs. Cramp.
"They would not listen to me," returned Scott. "I went between them; spoke to one, spoke to the other; told them what they were quarrelling about was utter nonsense--and the more I said, the more they wrangled. Johnny Ludlow saw how it was; he came up at the end of it."
Cherry Dawson was sent for downstairs, and came in between Sally and Joan, limp and tearful and shaking with fright. Mrs. Cramp questioned her.
"It was all done in fun," she said with a sob. "Juliet and I teased one another. It was as much her fault as mine. Fred Scott needn't talk. I'm sure _I_ don't want him. I've somebody waiting for me at Edgbaston, if I choose. Scott may go to York!"
"Suppose you mind your manners, young woman: you've done enough mischief in my house without forgetting _them_," reproved Mrs. Cramp. "I want to know when you last saw Juliet."
"We came in together after the quarrel. She ran up to her room; I joined the rest of you. As she did not come down to supper, I thought she had gone to bed. O-o-o-o-o!" shivered Cherry; "and she says she'll haunt me! I shall never dare to be alone in the dark again."