“It's just in reality that I am yours!” protested Richard; but his mother broke in.
“Would you dare, John,” she cried, “to wish him ours to his loss?”
“No, no, Jane! You know me! It was but a touch of what you call the old Adam—and I the old John! We've got to take care of each other! We're all agreed about that!”
“And you do it, father, and that's before any agreeing about it!”
“Come and let's have our tea!” said the mother; “and Richard shall tell us how it worked round that the old gentleman knew him. I remember him young enough to be no bad match for your mother, and that's enough to say for any man—as to looks, I mean only. There wasn't a more beautiful woman than my sister Robina in all England—and I'm bold to say it—not that it wants much boldness to say the truth!”
“It wants nearly as much at this moment as I have got,” returned Richard; for his narrative required, as an essential part of it, that he should tell what had made him go to his father.
He had but begun when a black cloud rose on his mother's face, and she almost started from her seat.
“I told you, Richard, you were to have nothing to do with those creatures!” she cried.
“Mother,” answered Richard, “was it God or the devil told me I must be neighbour to my own brother and sister? Hasn't my father done them wrong enough that you should side with him and want me to carry on the wrong? I heard the same voice that made you run away with me. You were ready to be hanged for me; I was ready to lose my father for them. He too said I must have done with them, and I told him I wouldn't. That was why I got you to put me on journeyman's wages, uncle. They were starving, and I had nothing to give them. What am I in the world for, if not to set right, so far as I may, what my father has set wrong? You see I have learned something of you, uncle!”
“I don't see what,” returned Tuke.