And I won't be forced
out of a word of it by fear."
"But for love of your mother you might keep it under, and think it all
inside you, without bringing of it out, in the presence of your elders.
You know what your father is--a man as never yet laid his tongue to a
thing without doing of it--right or wrong, right or wrong; and this time
he hath right, and the law, and the Lord, and the King himself, to the
side of him. And a rope's-end in his pocket, Dan, as I tried to steal
away, but he were too wide-awake. Such a big hard one you never did
see!"
"A rope's end for me, well turned twenty years of age!" cried Daniel,
with a laugh, but not a merry one; "two can play at that game, mother.
I'll not be ropes ended by nobody."
"Then you'll be rope-noosed;" the poor mother fell into the settle, away
from the fire-light, and put both hands over her eyes, to shut out the
spectacle of Dan dangling; "or else your father will be, for you. Ever
since the Romans, Dan, there have been Tugwells, and respected ten times
more than they was. Oh do 'e, do 'e think; and not bring us all to the
grave, and then the gallows! Why I can mind the time, no more agone than
last Sunday, when you used to lie here in the hollow of my arm, without
a stitch of clothes on, and kind people was tempted to smack you in
pleasure, because you did stick out so prettily. For a better-formed
baby there never was seen, nor a finer-tempered one, when he had his
way.
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