Then the Ballawhaine fell to slandering the poor woman in her grave, declaring that she could not know who was the father of her child, and protesting that no son of hers should ever see the colour of money of his. Saying this with a snarl, he brought down his right hand with a thump on to the table. There was a big hairy mole near the joint of the first finger.
“Aisy, sir, if you plaze,” said Pete; “she was telling me you gave her this.”
He turned up the corner of his jersey, tugged out of his pocket, from behind his flaps, the eighty Manx bank-notes, and held them in his right hand on the table. There was a mole at the joint of Pete's first finger also.
The Ballawhaine saw it. He drew back his hand and slid it behind him. Then in another voice he said, “Well, my lad, isn't it enough? What are you wanting with more?”
“I'm not wanting more,” said Pete; “I'm not wanting this. Take it back,” and he put down the roll of notes between them.
The Ballawhaine sank into the chair, took a handkerchief out of his tails with the hand that had been lurking there, and began to mop his forehead. “Eh? How? What d'ye mean, boy?” he stammered.
“I mane,” said Pete, “that if I kept that money there is people would say my mother was a bad woman, and you bought her and paid her—I'm hearing the like at some of them.”
He took a step nearer. “And I mane, too, that you did wrong by my mother long ago, and now that she's dead you're blackening her; and you're a bad heart, and a low tongue, and if I was only a man, and didn't know you were my father, I'd break every bone in your skin.”
Then Pete twisted about and shouted into the dark part of the hall, “Come along, there, my ould cockatoo! It's time to be putting me to the door.”
The English footman in the scarlet breeches had been peeping from under the stairs.