Now I knaw
'twas God spoke; now I knaw that her's none o' my gettin'. 'Who honoreth
his faither shall 'a' joy o' his awn childern.' Shall I, as weer a pattern
son, be cussed wi' a strumpet for a darter?"
"You'm speakin' a hard thing o' dead bones, then. The Chirgwins is upland
folks o' long standin', knawn so far as the Land's End, an' up Drift an'
down Lizard likewise."
"She've lied to me," was his answer; "she've lied oftentimes; she'm false
to whatever I did teach her; she've sawld herself--she've--no more on
it--no more on it but awnly this: I call 'pon God A'mighty to bear witness
she'm no Tregenza--never--never."
"'Tweer her mother in the gal; but doan't 'e say more 'bout that, Michael.
Poor dear sawl, she'm dead an' gone, an' she loved 'e wi' all her 'eart, as
I, what knawed her, can testify to."
"No more o' that," he said, "the gal's comin'. Thank God she ban't no cheel
o' mine--thank God, as 'ave tawld me 'tedn' so. He whispered it, an' I put
it away an' away. Now I knaws. You bide here, Thomasin Tregenza, and I'll
speak what's fittin'."
Thus in one moment this hideous conviction was stamped upon the man's soul
for life. He judged the dead mother by the daughter and visited the child's
sin upon the parent's memory. Any conclusion more monstrous, more directly
opposed to every natural instinct, can hardly be conceived, but the man had
been strangling natural instincts for fifty years.
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