but that her father stopped the pretty project by a peremptory
countermove, and packed her off, in spite of her tears, to the said
uncle on the Atlantic cliffs; after which he went up to Burrough, and
laughed over the whole matter with Mrs. Leigh.

"I am but a burgher, Mrs. Leigh, and you a lady of blood; but I am too
proud to let any man say that Simon Salterne threw his daughter at your
son's head;--no; not if you were an empress!"

"And to speak truth, Mr. Salterne, there are young gallants enough in
the country quarrelling about her pretty face every day, without making
her a tourney-queen to tilt about."

Which was very true; for during the three years of Amyas's absence, Rose
Salterne had grown into so beautiful a girl of eighteen, that half North
Devon was mad about the "Rose of Torridge," as she was called; and
there was not a young gallant for ten miles round (not to speak of her
father's clerks and 'prentices, who moped about after her like so many
Malvolios, and treasured up the very parings of her nails) who would
not have gone to Jerusalem to win her. So that all along the vales of
Torridge and of Taw, and even away to Clovelly (for young Mr. Cary was
one of the sick), not a gay bachelor but was frowning on his fellows,
and vying with them in the fashion of his clothes, the set of his ruffs,
the harness of his horse, the carriage of his hawks, the pattern of his
sword-hilt; and those were golden days for all tailors and armorers,
from Exmoor to Okehampton town. But of all those foolish young lads
not one would speak to the other, either out hunting, or at the archery
butts, or in the tilt-yard; and my Lady Bath (who confessed that there
was no use in bringing out her daughters where Rose Salterne was in the
way) prophesied in her classical fashion that Rose's wedding bid fair