“Say? Say, ‘Get your ugly great carcase out of the way, and let poor Samson have room to breathe.’”
“Nay, she would not; she’d say, ‘Here’s my wicked young black sheep as leaped out of the fold to go among the wolves, properly punished, and I’m very glad of it.’”
“Well, then, I’m very glad she isn’t here to listen to her ugly son Nat telling such a pack of lies.”
“Nay, it’s the truth.”
“Not it,” said Samson, cheerily. “My poor old mother couldn’t say such words as that. She’d more likely say, ‘If I didn’t know you two boys was my twins, I should say that Nat belonged to some one else, and was picked up by accident.’”
“Nay, she wouldn’t; she’d be ashamed of you.”
“Never was yet, Nat; and if I wasn’t lying here too weak and worn-out to move, I’d get up and punch your ugly head, Nat, till you could see better, and make you feel sorry for saying such wicked things about my poor old mother.”
“She’s my mother as much as she is yours.”
“Yes, poor old soul; and sick and sorry she is to have such a son as you.”
“Nay, it’s sick and sorry she is to have a son as deserts his king, and goes robbing and murdering all over the country with a pack of ruffians scraped from everywhere.”