“But that won’t keep them off the parish, will it?”
“You let the parish alone! If I ’aven’t got money, I’ve got honour; that’s better than all the money. I don’t want no money to tell me what’s right and what isn’t.”
“Come, come!”
“The children’s mine—every one o’ them. Takin’ children away from their father! that’s a fine thing to be backin’ up like this!”
His eyes moved from side to side, like the eyes of an animal in pain, and his voice was hoarse as though a lump had risen in his throat.
“Look ’ere! I’m fonder of them children than what people might think. I’ll never sleep again till I know where they are.”
“How can I tell you where they are without telling you where their mother is?”
“They’re mine—the law gives ’em to me. ’Oo are you to go against the law?”
“We went over that just now.”
“When she married me she took me for better or worse, didn’t she? Man an’ wife should settle their own affairs. They don’t want no one else to interfere with them!”