“Positive!”
“Then turn your eyes here, lad:—Meg Braintree was more than your nurse.—She's your own mother!—Now I'll let go thy wrist; for I've got a grip at thy heart. There, thee bee'st vree! Why doesn't go?—I doan't hold thee: go, if thee canst.”
“Saul, you surely are not in your senses!”
“May be I bean't, for trouble turns a man's brain;—but you be, bean't'ee? You can't ha' vorgot how often I ha' pushed Bob off my knee to put you upon it. Why did I do so?—'cause thee wert my zon, and he were'Zquire Ztapleton's.—Haven't I hugged thee up to my breast, until thee'st a' squalled wi' the squeeze, when nobody was by?—I'd a grudge against the'zquire;—why, thee know'st well enough;—zo I made Meg, who nursed'ee both, change buoy for buoy. I thought to ha' made a vine vellow o' my zon at the'zquire's expence, little thinking I should ever want un to zave my life. I thought, when you was a man, to ha' comed up to'ee and zaid, 'Zquire, I be your vather,—zo and zo were the case,—make me comvortable, or I'll be a tell-tale.' That were my project; to zay nothing of having a bit of revenge upon the'zquire!—Lord, Lord! how I ha' chuckled to myzelf thinking on't Can any man zay I ever used Bob like my own zon? Answer me that. D—n un! I always hated un, vor his vather's zake: though the lad's a good lad, and, if he were mine, I should love un;—and I do, zometimes, I dunno' why:—but I ha; drashed un,—and while I were drashing un, I've a'most thought, I were drashing the vather o' un. But I ha' done un a good turn when he didn't know it. I ha' kissed un when he were asleep,—a'most upon the zly, like, even to myzelf. And when he broke his leg, I tended upon un, as you do know; and he's a' loved me zo, ever zince, that I ha' scores and scores o' times been zorry for it; for I do hate un because he's the zon of his vather:—but what be the matter wi' 'ee? What's amiss? Why d'ye stare and glower zo?”
“Saul Braintree,” said Martin, “whether your words are true or not—and what you mention, I have observed—you have made me the most wretched being on earth; for whatever comes to pass, I must still suspect—Margaret, my heart tells me, may be—Oh! that horrid may, which is worse than certainty—may be—nay, I cannot pronounce it! Oh! Saul! if I could but believe you—if I could but make up my mind, even to the worst, it would be a comfort.”
“Martin Braintree,—for that be your name,” said Saul, “didn't I warn'ee about Peggy? Didn't I—when I saw you were getting vond of her—didn't I try to offend'ee, zo az to keep'ee from coming to our cottage? Didn't I insult'ee?—but you wouldn't take it.”
“You did, Saul, grossly insult me; but my love,—perhaps, my accursed love,—made me overlook it What a gulph of horror is opened before me! Peggy my sister! and you—you my father!—It cannot—it is not so, Saul. Unsay what you have said, and I will save you.”
“I won't unsay it; it's out now, and I can't help it. If thou still doubt'st, Martin, go down and ask my wife—ask Meg; if thou still doubt'st, lad,—ask thy own heart—young as thee bee'st—if a vather could let a zon be hung for a crime of which thic zon bean't guilty!”
“And is Robert innocent, then?”
“Ay, lad, as thou art”