My thoughts flew, I know not why, to Buck Walker, Ben’s father—“asked me privately this morning if I knew whether it was true, that you and George Mellor were strongly suspected of being of the party that broke into Mr. S———’s mill at Marsh. And others, too, have hinted at the same thing, and one of my brothers who labours in the Lord’s vineyard at Milnsbridge says that it is common talk in those parts that George Mellor and his cousin from Slaithwaite way are the head and front of the grave doings that now distract the country and add crime and violence to poverty and hunger.”
“Drat that George Mellor, that ever I should live to say so of my sister’s son. And him coming here so much of late and making him welcome to the best of everything, nothing too good for him, and couldn’t be more done by if he were my own son. As is nothing but right by your own sister’s son, and him wi’ a stepfather that would aggravate a saint. Who’d ha thowt it o’ George, leading yar Ben, that wouldn’t harm a flea an’ scarce pluck to say boo to a goose, into all maks o’ mullock, an’ dragging decent women out of their bed by th’ hair o’ th’ head, an’ goodness only knows what beside. But I’ll lock thee in this very night wi’ mi own hands, and out o’ this house tha doesn’t stir fra sunset to sunrise, or my name’s not Sarah Bamforth. An’ let George show his face here again if he dare. An’ so nicely as I had it all planned out too. Aw made no doubt he wer’ companying that pale faced lass o’ Parson Booth’s, an’ a rare catch for her aw thowt it would be to have a fine, handsome, well–set–up young man i’ th’ family that would bring some blood an’ bone into th’ breed, as it’s easy to see their father’s had all run to furin gibberish an’ book learning, so at he’d none to give his own childer, poor warmbly things.” Thus my mother.
“Well, Ben, has ta nowt to say for thissen?” said my father, not angrily, but with an unspoken reproach in his voice: and my conscience smote me sore.
“You see, Ben,” said Mr. Webster, perhaps noticing my silence and to give me time to gather my thoughts. “You see, Ben, a young man like you is scarcely his own master. If you had been ’Siah, now, it would have been different. A decent man is your servant, Brother Bamforth, and helps my infirmity mightily when he lights me home of a dark night, a decent man though with still a strong leaven of the old Adam and much given to the vanities of the flesh and idle conversation. But ’Siah is his own master though your man. His family is under his own hat. He has neither kith nor kin, that he knows of, and he stands, so to speak, on his own bottom. But you, Ben, are your father’s son, and what you may do, be it for good or be it for evil, must reflect on your father’s name and on this honoured house.”
Ah! there was the rub. It was the thought of that had given me many a sleepless night, and made black care walk daily by my side.
“Cannot ta speak, man?” my mother cried. “Are ta going to sit theer as gaumless as th’ town fool, wi niver a word to throw at a dog. Who yo’ breed on aw cannot tell, not o’ my side. It’s not his bringing up, Mr. Webster, it’s the company he’s fallen into lately.”
But what to say I could not think. All sorts of old proverbs came into my head—“a little word’s a bonny word,” “least said, soonest mended,” and so on. I loved my mother. I honoured my father. I revered Mr. Webster. But my secret was not my own; there was, too, that terrible oath. I wished for the thousandth time that I had had nought to do with the Luds: and there were the three faces turned to me, all question, and waiting for me to find speech to answer.
“Father,” I said at length, “Have you ever known me tell you a lie?”
“Never, Ben,” he said with hearty emphasis.
“Would you have me begin now?”