"Be silent!" he said harshly. "You've held y're tongue, though you must have known what's been going on—that he's got into these brawling, roistering ways. McNab told me about them—said that I'd be blaming him when I found out, if he didn't tell me himself. You've screened and hidden the boy."
"Leave mother out of it," Davey said.
"Davey!" she besought him.
"It's all right, mother," he turned from her, impatiently. "We've got to have this out now and be done with it. I'm not going on as I have done. This is what I've got to say."
He eyed Donald Cameron squarely.
"Since I left school four years ago, I've worked on this place—worked harder than two men. And what have I got for it—wages? No. Abuse? Stacks of it! And you're making money, hand over fist."
The contempt in his eyes deepened.
"I know what your bank says. I know what the countryside says about Donald Cameron's money. You're the richest man this side of the ranges....
"But how do we live? You go about in old clothes as if you hadn't a penny to bless yourself with; and I might be anybody's rouseabout for the look of me. Never a penny leaks out of your pockets if you can help it. There's none in them to leak out of mine. Don't you know what people are saying about us? Haven't you heard anybody say: 'There go Cameron and his son! Old Cameron is as mean as they make 'em, and Young Davey's a chip of the old block!' It was hearing that got me down. What's the good of your money to you? What's the good of it to mother? What's the good of it to me? Because you worked hard for it in the beginning, is that any reason why you should hang on to it, when you've got it—be afraid to spend it?
"I might just as well be dead as working always with nothing else in the world to think of but work—always under your thumb, screwed down—not allowed to have a mind of my own. I'd rather get a job on the roads and be free, and have a few shillings in my pocket."