Presently he said, as though to himself: "If the boy's a coward, no man can lay the sin to me."
"I am not a coward!" I burst out, all a-quiver again, "and I ask your pardon, sir, for daring you to lay whip on me,—knowing your promise!"
Sir William scowled at me.
"To prove it," I went on, desperately, still trembling at the word "coward," "I will give you leave to drive a fish-hook through my hand and cut it out with your knife; and I'll laugh at the pain—as did that Mohawk lad when you cut the pike-hook out of his hand!"
"What the devil have I to do with your fish-hook and your Mohawks!" shouted Sir William, with a hearty oath.
Mortified, I shrank back while he fumed and cracked his whip and swore I was doomed to folly and a most vicious future.
"You assume the airs of a man," he roared—"you with your sixteen unbirched years—you with your gross ignorance and grosser impudence! A vicious lad, a bad, undutiful, sullen lad, ever at odds with the others, never diligent save with the fishing-rod—a lazy, quarrelsome rustic, a swaggering, forest-running fellow, without the polish or the presence of a gentleman's son! Shame on you!"
I set my teeth and shut both eyes, opening one, however, when I heard him move.
"I'll polish you yet!" he said, with an oath; "I'll polish you, and I'll temper you like the edge on a Mohawk hatchet."
"One red belt," I added, impudently, meaning that I defied him.