The vicar winced as if he had been struck. But he found words again.
"If you can do without the money," he said, "so much the better. But----"
"Blow the money!" cried the old man, with the same violence. Notwithstanding his words, he stood in awe of his son, and was trying to gain courage by working himself into a passion. "What is money?" he continued. "I want no money! I am coming to live with you. You are going to be married. I heard of it, though you kept it close, my boy! I heard of it, and I said to myself, 'Good! I will go and live with my boy. And his wife shall take care of my little comforts.'"
The younger man shivered. He thought of Patty, and he looked at the old man before him, sly, vicious, gin-sodden--and his father! "You do not want to live with me," he answered coldly. "You could not bear to live with me for one week, and you know it. Will you tell me what you do want, and why you have left Glasgow?"
"To congratulate you!" his father answered, with a drunken chuckle. "Walter Jones and Patty Stanton--third time of asking! Oh, I heard of it! But not through you. Why," he continued, with a quick change to ferocity, "would you not ask your own father to your wedding, you ungrateful boy?"
"No," the vicar replied sternly, "he being such as he is, I would not."
"Oh, you are ashamed of him, are you? You have kept him dark, I fancy?" the old man replied, grinning with wicked enjoyment as he saw how his son winced at each sentence, how his colour went and came. "Well, now you will have the pleasure of introducing me to the squire, and to daughter Patty, and to all your friends. It will be a pleasant surprise for them. I'll be bound you said I was dead."
"I have not said you were dead."
"Don't you wish I was?"
"God keep me from it!" the vicar groaned.