"You see, Ben," said Mr. Webster, perhaps noticing my silence and to give me time to gather my thoughts. "You see, Ben, a young man like you is scarcely his own master. If you had been 'Siah, now, it would have been different. A decent man is your servant, Brother Bamforth, and helps my infirmity mightily when he lights me home of a dark night, a decent man though with still a strong leaven of the old Adam and much given to the vanities of the flesh and idle conversation. But 'Siah is his own master though your man. His family is under his own hat. He has neither kith nor kin, that he knows of, and he stands, so to speak, on his own bottom. But you, Ben, are your father's son, and what you may do, be it for good or be it for evil, must reflect on your father's name and on this honoured house." Ah! there was the rub. It was the thought of that had given me many a sleepless night, and made black care walk daily by my side. "Cannot ta speak, man?" my mother cried. "Are ta going to sit theer as gaumless as th' town fool, wi niver a word to throw at a dog. Who yo' breed on aw cannot tell, not o' my side. It's not his bringing up, Mr. Webster, it's the company he's fallen into lately." But what to say I could not think. All sorts of old proverbs came into my head--"a little word's a bonny word," "least said, soonest mended," and so on. I loved my mother. I honoured my father. I revered Mr. Webster. But my secret was not my own; there was, too, that terrible oath. I wished for the thousandth time that I had had nought to do with the Luds: and there were the three faces turned to me, all question, and waiting for me to find speech to answer. "Father," I said at length, "Have you ever known me tell you a lie?" "Never, Ben," he said with hearty emphasis. "Would you have me begin now?" "Tha knows better." "Then ask me no questions, father, for the truth I may not tell, and lies I would not. That I am in great trouble you all can see. That I will seek to so bear my trouble that it shall touch only myself, you must trust me. God knows it grieves me to seem wanting in respect or confidence where respect and confidence should need no asking, but in this matter I must tread my own path, for I cannot turn back and yet I dread to go forward. Press me no more, for if you do, I must leave home and that now. I thank you, Mr. Webster, that you have spoken to my parents. This was bound to come, and I have feared it more than ought either Mr. Radcliffe or any on 'em can do. And now, my say's said, an' with your good leave, I'll bid you a fair good night." And I lit my candle, and stooping over, kissed the cheek which my mother for the first time in my life did not offer to me, and went slowly and heavily to bed. Long after I had drawn the clothes over me, I heard the murmur of conversation below, and when the morrow came I had not long to wait before I knew the upshot of the anxious debate that had lasted long after the usual time for bed.