! No, no! I say no, sir, no!"

The young man made some further protest, but it was lost in his father's
clamour.

"You will, though? You will? Then your hat is your house, sir. Take to
it--take to it!"

"No need to tell me twice, father."

"Away then--away to your woman--your jade! God, keep my hands off him!"

The old man lifted his clenched fist, but his son had flung out of the
room. It was not the Deemster only who feared he might lay hands on his
own flesh and blood.

"Stop! come back, you dog! Listen! I've not done yet. Stop! you
hotheaded rascal, stop! Can't you hear a man out then? Come back! Thomas
Wilson, come back, sir! Thomas! Thomas! Tom! Where is he? Where's the
boy?"

Old Iron Christian had made after his son bareheaded down to the road,
shouting his name in a broken roar, but the young man was gone. Then
he went back slowly, his grey hair playing in the wind. He was all iron
outside, but all father within.

That day the Deemster altered his will a second time, and his elder son
was disinherited.

II.

Peter succeeded in due course to the estate of Ballawhaine, but he was
not a lawyer, and the line of the Deemsters Christian was broken.

Meantime Thomas Wilson Christian had been married to Mona Crellin
without delay. He loved her, but he had been afraid of her ignorance,
afraid also (notwithstanding his principles) of the difference in their
social rank, and had half intended to give her up when his father's
reproaches had come to fire his anger and to spur his courage. As
soon as she became his wife he realised the price he had paid for her.
Happiness could not come of such a beginning. He had broken every tie
in making the one which brought him down. The rich disowned him, and the
poor lost respect for him.

"It's positively indecent," said one. "It's potatoes marrying herrings,"
said another. It was little better than hunger marrying thirst.

In the general downfall of his fame his profession failed him. He lost
heart and ambition. His philosophy did not stand him in good stead, for
it had no value in the market to which he brought it. Thus, day by day,
he sank deeper into the ooze of a wrecked and wasted life.

The wife did not turn out well. She was a fretful person, with a good
face, a bad shape, a vacant mind, and a great deal of vanity. She
had liked her husband a little as a lover, but when she saw that her
marriage brought her nobody's envy, she fell into a long fit of th