"Naught. Nobody's got nothing to do with it but master. And he's got everything to do with it; and he's a tyrant and a damned slave-driver, and treats her no better than a plough, or a turnip cutter."
They were silent and Thomas asked a question.
"Have you ever heard tell they port-wine marks be handed down from generation to generation, worse and worse?"
"No, I never did."
"I heard Stockman tell Melindy Bamsey they was."
"I dare say it might be so."
"And yet again, when the subject come up at Ashburton, a publican there said that if a man or woman suffered from such a thing they was doomed never to have no children at all. He said he'd known a good few cases."
"A woman might," answered Lawrence, "because, if they're afflicted that way, they'd be pretty sure to bide single. But it would be a nice question if a marked man couldn't get childer. I wouldn't believe anybody but a doctor on that subject."
Thomas turned this over for ten minutes without answering. Then the subject faded from his mind and he flushed another.
"What about our rise?" he said.