‘Do you mean to tell me,’ cried Samson, reaching out a hand and seizing the little fellow by the jacket, ‘do you mean to tell me as you allowed to have enough to that young villin?’
‘No,’ Joe protested. ‘That I niver did. It was the squire as parted us.’
‘You remember this,’ said his father, shaking him to emphasise the promise. ‘If ever you agree to tek a hiding from a Reddy you’ve got one to follow on from me. D’ye hear?’
‘Yes, father.’
‘Tek heed as well as hear. D’ye hear?’
‘Yes, father.’
‘And here’s another thing, mind you. It’s brought to me as you and him shook hands and took on to be friends with one another. Is that trew?’ Joe looked guilty, but made no answer. ‘Is it trew?’ Still Joe returned no answer, and his father changing the hand with which he held him, for his own greater convenience, knocked him off his feet, restored him to his balance, knocked him off his feet again, and again settled him. ‘Now,’ said Samson, ‘is it trew?’
The boy tried to recoil from the uplifted threatening hand, and cried out ‘No!’
‘Now,’ said Samson, rising with a grim satisfaction, ‘that’s a lie. There’s nothin’ i’ the world as I abhor from like a lie I’ll teach thee to tell me lies. Goo into the brewus and tek thy shirt off; March!’
The little girl clung to her mother’s skirts crying and trembling. The mother herself was trembling, and had turned pale.