{Illustration: “I WILL TEACH THEE TO ANSWER THY ELDERS” Page 84 Hugh Wynne}
{Transcriber’s Note: In the illustration, two men and a woman stand in a room. One of the men is holding a stick over his head; the woman has grabbed his hand at the wrist. The other man looks on.}
“Wouldst thou laugh?” he cried. “Has it gone that far?” and he raised his stick. My Aunt Gainor jerked it out of his hand, and, standing, broke it over her knee as if it had been a willow wand.
He fell back, crying, “Gainor! Gainor!”
“My God! man,” she cried, “are you mad? If I were you I would take some heed to that hot Welsh blood. What would my good Marie say? Why have you not had the sense to make a friend of the boy? He is worth ten of you, and has kept his temper like the gentleman he is.”
It was true. I had some queer sense of amusement in the feeling that I really was not angry; neither was I ashamed; but an hour later I was both angry and ashamed. Just now I felt sorry for my father, and shared the humiliation he evidently felt.
My aunt turned to her brother, where, having let me go, he stood with set features, looking from her to me, and from me to her. Something in his look disturbed her.
“You should be proud of his self-command. Cannot you see that it is your accursed repression and dry, dreary life at home that has put you two apart?”
“I have been put to scorn before my son, Gainor Wynne. It is thy evil ways that have brought this about. I have lost my temper and would have struck in anger, when I should have reflected, and, after prayer, chastised this insolence at home.”
“I heard no insolence.”