On another occasion Joe had been hit with a whip by a stranger, and he expressed his opinion to Mr. Varden about the character of the man who hit him.
“Hold your tongue, sir,” said his father.
“I won’t, father. It’s all along of you that he ventured to do what he did. Seeing me treated like a child, and put down like a fool, he plucks up a heart and has a fling at a fellow that he thinks—and may well think, too—hasn’t a grain of spirit. But he’s mistaken, as I’ll show him, and as I’ll show all of you before long.”
“Does the boy know what he’s saying of!” cried the astonished John Willet.
“Father,” returned Joe, “I know what I say and mean, well—better than you do when you hear me. I can bear with you, but I can not bear the contempt that your treating me in the way you do brings upon me from others every day. Look at other young men of my age. Have they no liberty, no will, no right to speak? Are they obliged to sit mumchance, and to be ordered about till they are the laughingstock of young and old? I am a byword all over Chigwell, and I say—and it’s fairer my saying so now, than waiting till you are dead, and I have got your money—I say, that before long I shall be driven to break such bounds, and that when I do, it won’t be me that you’ll have to blame, but your own self, and no other.”
John never trusted his son, never entered into his plans, and treated even the most sacred things of Joe’s life with contempt.
Joe was about to start to London on business for his father, and he was to ride a mare that was so slow that a young man could not enjoy the prospect of riding her.
“Don’t you ride hard,” said his father.
“I should be puzzled to do that, I think, father,” Joe replied, casting a disconsolate look at the animal.
“None of your impudence, sir, if you please,” retorted old John. “What would you ride, sir? A wild ass or zebra would be too tame for you, wouldn’t he, eh, sir? You’d like to ride a roaring lion, wouldn’t you, sir, eh, sir? Hold your tongue, sir.” When Mr. Willet, in his differences with his son, had exhausted all the questions that occurred to him, and Joe had said nothing at all in answer, he generally wound up by bidding him hold his tongue.