“Did I bid ye come hame after school, David?” he asked, concealing his heat beneath a suspicious suavity.
“Maybe. Did I say I would come?”
The pertness of tone and words, alike, fanned his father's resentment into a blaze. In a burst of passion he lunged forward at the boy with his stick. But as he smote, a gray whirlwind struck him fair on the chest, and he fell like a snapped stake, and lay, half stunned, with a dark muzzle an inch from his throat.
“Git back, Bob!” shouted James Moore, hurrying up. “Git back, I tell yo'!” He bent over the prostrate figure, propping it up anxiously.
“Are yo' hurt, M'Adam? Eh, but I am sorry. He thought yo' were going for to strike the lad.”
David had now run up, and he, too, bent over his father with a very scared face.
“Are yo' hurt, feyther?” he asked, his voice trembling.
The little man rose unsteadily to his feet and shook off his supporters. His face was twitching, and he stood, all dust-begrimed, looking at his son.
“Ye're content, aiblins, noo ye've seen yer father's gray head bowed in the dust,” he said.
“'Twas an accident,” pleaded James Moore. “But I am sorry. He thought yo' were goin' to beat the lad.”