The Speaker took two threatening strides forward, and Dan rose to his feet. There was silence again as the two men stood face to face, but this time it was broken by the Speaker's breathing also. Then he turned aside and said, with a shamefaced look: "I'll hear what Kerruish has to say. I have to see him in the morning." "I lave it with you, Sir; I lave it with you," said Dan. "Good-day, Mr. Collister." "Good-day to you, Mr. Spaker! And you, too, Mistress Gell!" said Dan. But having reached the door of the room he stopped and added: "There's one thing more, though. If my girl is to live with me she must work for her meat, and there must be no more sooreying." "That will be all right--I know my son," said the Speaker. "And I know my step-daughter," said Dan. "These things go on. A rolling snowball doesn't get much smaller. Maybe that Captain out of Ireland isn't gone from the island yet--his spirit, I mane. Keep your lad away from Baldromma. It will be best, I promise you." Then the peacocks in the courtyard screamed again and the jolting of a springless cart was heard going over the gravel. The two in the drawing-room listened until the sound of the wheels had died away in the lane to the high road, and then the Speaker said: "That's what comes of having children! We thought it bad for the Deemster to be in the pocket of a man like Cæsar Qualtrough, but to be under the harrow of Dan Baldromma!" "Aw, dear! Aw, dear!" said Mrs. Gell. "He was right about Alick going to sea, though," said the Speaker, and, touching the bell for the parlour-maid, he told her to tell his son to come back to him. Alick was in the dining-room by this time, washed and brushed and doing his best to drink a pot of tea and eat a plate of bread-and-butter, amid the remonstrances of his three sisters, who, seeing events from their own point of view, were rating him roundly on associating with a servant. "I wonder you hadn't more respect for your sisters?" said Isabella. "What are people to think of us--Fenella Stanley, for instance?" said Adelaide. "I declare I shall be ashamed to show my face in Government House again," said Verbena. "Oh, shut up and let a fellow eat," said Alick, and then something about "first-class flunkeys." But at that moment the parlour-maid came with his father's message and he had to return to the drawing-room. "On second thoughts," said the Speaker, "we have decided that you are not to go to sea. We have only one son, and I suppose we must do our best with him. You haven't brains enough for building, so, if you are not to go back to school, you must stay on the land and learn to look after these farms in Andreas." "I'll do my best to please you, Sir," said Alick. "But listen to this," said the Speaker, "Dan Baldromma has been here, and we know who the girl was. There is to be no more mischief in that quarter. You must never see her or hear from her again as long as you live--is it a promise?"