"Ah, yes, and who took the side of a stranger against his own children? What of your good Michael Sunlocks now, sir? Is he longing for you? Or have you never had the scribe of a line from him since he turned his back on you, four years ago?"
Then Greeba's eyes flashed with anger. "For shame," she cried, "for shame! Oh, you mean, pitiful men, to bait and badger him like this."
Jacob threw up his head and laughed, and Mrs. Fairbrother said, "Chut, girl, you're waxing apace with your big words, considering you're a chit that has wasted her days in London and hasn't learned to muck a byre yet."
Adam did not hear her. He sat like a man who is stunned by a heavy blow. "Not for myself," he mumbled, "no, not for myself, though they all think it." Then he turned to his sons and said, "You think I came to beg for bed and board for myself, but you are wrong. I came to demand it for the girl. I may have no claim upon you, but she has, for she is one with you all and can ask for her own. She has no home with her father now, for it seems that he has none for himself; but her home is here, and here I mean to leave her."
"Not so fast, sir," said John. "All she can ever claim is what may one day be hers when we ourselves come into anything. Meantime, like her brothers, she has nothing but what she works for."
"Works for, you wagtail?" cried Adam; "she is a woman! Do you hear?—a woman?"
"Woman or man, where's the difference here?" said Gentleman John, and he snapped his fingers.
"Where's the difference, you jackanapes? Do you ask me where's the difference here? Here? In grace, in charity, in unselfishness, in faith in the good; in fidelity to the true, in filial love and duty! There's the difference, you jackanapes."
"You are too old to quarrel with, sir; I will spare you," said Gentleman John.
"Spare me, you whipper-snapper! You will spare me! But oh, let me have patience! If I have cursed the day I first saw my wife let me not also curse the hour when she first bore me children and my heart was glad. Asher, you are my firstborn, and heaven knows what you were to me. You will not stand by and listen to this. She is your sister, my son. Think of it—your only sister."