“Biddy,” said I, “tell me one thing, as you will answer for it at the last day—which of us two, Tim or I, is the son of Mike Gallagher, and which is the son of Terence Gorman?”
She turned very white and sank into a chair. But I had no time to parley, and I urged her to speak.
“As I hope for salvation,” said she, and her breath came hard and her bosom heaved fast, “the one of you that has the mole between his shoulder-blades is the Gorman’s boy.”
“It is Tim then,” I exclaimed, and hastened to my horse.
Chapter Thirty Two.
Dutch justice.
I should be no better than a hypocrite were I to deny that, as I rode my weary, borrowed nag back that morning along the Delft road, there shot in and out of the turmoil of my feelings a sharp pang of disappointment.
It was no disloyalty to Tim; it was no greediness for name and wealth. It was but the dashing of a passing hope that I might find myself, after all, a gentleman, and so prove worthy to be regarded by Miss Kit as something more than a trusty servant. As a Gorman, and her cousin, I might claim her with the best of her suitors. As the son of Mike Gallagher, boatman and smuggler, myself but a plain boatswain, how durst I suppose, for all her kindness and gentleness, she could comprehend me in the ranks of her equals?