He paused, and looked the boy over from bead to foot.
“So, ye're not only an idler! a wastrel! a liar!”—he spat the words out. “Ye're—God help ye—a thief!”
“I'm no thief!” the boy returned hotly. “I did but give to a mon what ma feyther—shame on him!—wrongfully kept from him.”
“Wrangfully?” cried the little man, advancing with burning face.
“'Twas honorably done, keepin' what wasna your'n to keep! Holdin' back his rights from a man! Ay, if ony one's the thief, it's not me: it's you, I say, you!”—and he looked his father in the face with flashing eyes.
“I'm the thief, am I?” cried the other, incoherent with passion. “Though ye're three times ma size, I'll teach ma son to speak so to me.”
The old strap, now long disused, hung in the chimney corner. As he spoke the little man sprang back, ripped it from the wall, and, almost before David realized what he was at, had brought it down with a savage slash across his son's shoulders; and as he smote he whistled a shrill, imperative note:
“Wullie, Wullie, to me!”
David felt the blow through his coat like a bar of hot iron laid across his back. His passion seethed within him; every vein throbbed; every nerve quivered. In a minute he would wipe out, once and for all, the score of years; for the moment, however, there was urgent business on hand. For outside he could hear the quick patter of feet hard-galloping, and the scurry of a huge creature racing madly to a call.
With a bound he sprang at the open door; and again the strap came lashing down, and a wild voice: