“Then you're doing worse. _Did_ I say worse? Of course I said worse. Worse, sir, worse! Do you hear me? Worse! You are trapsing around Ballure, and letting that poor girl take notions. I'll have no more of it. Is this what I sent you to England for? Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Keep your place, sir; keep your place. A poor girl's a poor girl, and a Deemster's a Deemster.” “Yes, sir,” said Thomas, suddenly firing up, “and a man's a man. As for the shame, I need be ashamed of nothing that is not shameful; and the best proof I can give you that I mean no dishonour by the girl is that I intend to marry her.” “What? You intend to--what? Did I hear----” The old Deemster turned his good ear towards his son's face, and the young man repeated his threat. Never fear! No poor girl should be misled by him. He was above all foolish conventions. Old Iron Christian was dumbfounded. He gasped, he stared, he stammered, and then fell on his son with hot reproaches. “What? Your wife? Wife? That trollop!--that minx! that--and daughter of that sot, too, that old rip, that rowdy blatherskite--that----And my own son is to lift his hand to cut his throat! Yes, sir, cut his throat----And I am to stand by! No, no! I say no, sir, no!” The young man made some further protest, but it was lost in his father's clamour. “You will, though? You will? Then your hat is your house, sir. Take to it--take to it!” “No need to tell me twice, father.” “Away then--away to your woman--your jade! God, keep my hands off him!” The old man lifted his clenched fist, but his son had flung out of the room. It was not the Deemster only who feared he might lay hands on his own flesh and blood. “Stop! come back, you dog! Listen! I've not done yet. Stop! you hotheaded rascal, stop! Can't you hear a man out then? Come back! Thomas Wilson, come back, sir! Thomas! Thomas! Tom! Where is he? Where's the boy?” Old Iron Christian had made after his son bareheaded down to the road, shouting his name in a broken roar, but the young man was gone. Then he went back slowly, his grey hair playing in the wind. He was all iron outside, but all father within. That day the Deemster altered his will a second time, and his elder son was disinherited. II. Peter succeeded in due course to the estate of Ballawhaine, but he was not a lawyer, and the line of the Deemsters Christian was broken. Meantime Thomas Wilson Christian had been married to Mona Crellin without delay. He loved her, but he had been afraid of her ignorance, afraid also (notwithstanding his principles) of the difference in their social rank, and had half intended to give her up when his father's reproaches had come to fire his anger and to spur his courage. As soon as she became his wife he realised the price he had paid for her. Happiness could not come of such a beginning. He had broken every tie in making the one which brought him down. The rich disowned him, and the poor lost respect for him.