"Oh! if you did, Martin!" replied Saul, "you'd ruin us both. I wouldn't have'ee do so, vor the hope I've a' got of living a week over the next zpring assize. If you did 'larm the house, Martin, you'd drop from a young 'zquire into a poacher's zon, and hang your own vather to boot."
"Ah! doan't'ee look round the room that vashion:--you be zure there be no one listening?"
"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?"