Then
how can I tell you of what priests are here, or where mass is to be
said? You would not have done so to one who was not a Catholic, six
months ago."
The man sneered visibly.
"There is no need," he said. "It is Mr. Simpson who is to say mass
to-morrow, and it is at Tansley that it will be said, at six o'clock in
the morning. If I choose to tell the justices, you cannot prevent it."
(He turned round in a flare of anger.) "Do you think I shall tell the
justices?"
Robin said nothing.
"Do you think I shall tell the justices?" roared the old man
insistently.
"No, sir. Now I do not."
The other growled gently and sank back.
"But if you think that I will permit my son to flout and to my face in
my own hall, and not to trust his own father--why, you are immeasurably
mistaken, sir. So I ask you again how far you intend to thwart and
disobey me."
A kind of despair surged up in the boy's heart--despair at the
fruitlessness of this ironical and furious sort of talk; and with the
despair came boldness.
"Father, will you let me speak outright, without thinking that I mean to
insult you? I do not; I swear I do not. Will you let me speak, sir?"
His father growled again a sort of acquiescence, and Robin gathered his
forces. He had prepared a kind of defence that seemed to him reasonable,
and he knew that his father was at least just. They had been friends,
these two, always, in an underground sort of way, which was all that the
relations of father and son in such days allowed.
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