"Then if he chose to disregard your confession, and to act on his own judgment, what did it matter to you?" "It was wrong to expel Stowell for what I had done and I couldn't stand it," said the boy. "You couldn't stand it! You dunce! If you were younger I should take the whip to you." The Speaker was feeling the superiority of his son's position, but that only made him the more furious. "I suppose you know what this running away will mean when people come to hear of it?" Alick made no answer. "You've given the story a fine start, it seems, and it won't take long to travel." Still Alick made no answer. "Stowell will be the martyr and you'll be the culprit, and that ugly incident of the boy with the broken skull will wear another complexion." "I don't care about that," cried Alick. "You don't care!" "I had to do my duty to my chum, Sir." "And what about your duty to me, and to your mother and to your sisters? Was it your 'duty' to bring disgrace on all of us?" Alick dropped his head. "You shan't do that, though, if I can help it. Go away and wash your dirty face and get something on your stomach. You're going back to Castletown in the morning." "I won't go back to school, Sir," said Alick. "Won't you, though? We'll see about that. I'll take you back." "Then I'll run away again, Sir." "Where to, you jackass? Not to this house, I promise you." "I'll get a ship and go to sea, Sir." "Then get a ship and go to sea, and to hell, too, if you want to. You fool! You damned blockhead!" After the Speaker had swept the boy from the room, his mother was crying. "Only eighteen years for harvest," she was saying, as if trying to excuse him. And then, as if seeking to fix the blame elsewhere, she added, "Who was the girl, I wonder?" "God's sake, woman," cried the Speaker, "what does it matter who she was? Some Castletown huzzy, I suppose." The peacocks were screaming again; they had been screaming for some time, and the front-door bell had been ringing, but in the hubbub nobody had heard them. But now the parlour-maid came to tell the Speaker that Mr. Daniel Collister of Baldromma was in the porch and asking to see him. IV Dan came into the room with his rolling walk, his eyes wild and dark, his billy-cock hat in his hand and his black hair 'strooked' flat across his forehead, where a wet brush had left it. "Good evening, Mr. Spaker! You too, Mistress Gell! It's the twelfth to-morrow, but I thought I would bring my Hollantide rent to-day." "Sit down," said the Speaker, who had given him meagre welcome.