"Then why d’you say you didn’t seduce her?" cried David. Mr. Screech looked at him in a pitying and highly superior manner. "Better let your father talk," he said. "You childless men be rather narrow in your opinions. He’s more sensible and more patient. Because a maiden changes her state and starts out to bud, it don’t follow nobody’s seduced her. If anybody was seduced, ’tis me, standing here afore you." He grinned genially at the humour of the situation. David uttered an inarticulate sound of anger; Mr. Bowden settled himself in his chair. "Explain yourself, William," he said. "Well, I will. Perhaps you may remember when you forbade the match, that your daughter was a bit savage about it." "She was. I allowed for that." "You didn’t allow enough. You didn’t know what a clever girl Dorcas was; and you didn’t know how well she understood me. None ever understood me like her. I was merely a sort of a mongrel man--good for nought--in your opinion. You didn’t know how witty I could be if I chose; or what a lot of brains there was in my head. But she knowed and she trusted me. Pluck! Talk about this here prizefighter’s pluck and your Rhoda’s pluck--Good Lord! there’s more valour in Dorcas than the whole pack of you! She’s a marvel, she is. This be her work, master, not mine. After her big sister catched her with me and boxed her ears, she soon knowed what to do. And she done it; and I was very pleased to help. And here we are." Mr. Bowden gasped. "Do you mean to say a daughter of mine axed you to get her in the family way?" he asked. "That’s the English of it," answered Mr. Screech. "There was nothing else she could do. ’Anything to oblige you, Dorcas,’ I said, and my bosom swelled with rejoicing to think the maiden I loved best in the world could trust me like that. ’’Twill larn my father and that self-righteous David and Rhoda to mind their own business in future,’ said Dorcas to me; and I’m sure I hope it will. You must all try to be sensibler without a doubt." David felt an inclination to crush and smite the hairy and insolent Screech; but nothing could be gained by such an act. "And how do we stand now, please?" inquired Mr. Bowden, very humbly. "In a very awkward fix, of course," answered Billy. "Here’s my dear Dorcas going to have a babby, and me wrapped up in her, and my mother cruel fond of her, and her own people all shocked out of their skins at her; and yet I ban’t allowed to make an honest woman of her; because you’ve sworn afore witnesses that you’d sooner see her dead than Mrs. William Screech. It do seem a pity; but of course we all know the man you are--never known to call back an opinion. Dorcas and me be halves of a flail--one nought without t’other; but you’ve spoken. I shall be very pleased to help with the child, however; and I hope you’ll bring it up well to the Warren House." This was too much for David. "If you give us any more of your cheek, I’ll smash you where you sit," he said.