He caught me by the arm, laughing in good-humoured mockery.
"You've had a touch of sentiment, eh, you rogue ?" said he.

"Well, there's little harm in that, since the girl leaves us to-morrow." "Indeed, my lord, there was little harm," said I, long-faced and rueful.
"As little as my lady herself could wish." (At this he smiled and nodded.) "Mistress Barbara will hardly so much as look at me." He grew graver, though the smile still hung about his lips.
"They gossip about you in the village, Simon," said he.

"Take a friend's counsel, and don't be so much with the lady at the cottage.

Come, I don't speak without reason." He nodded at me as a man nods who means more than he will say.

Indeed, not a word more would he say, so that when I left him I was even more angry than when I parted from his daughter.