"Fifteen, if it please you, sir," said I, elevating my stature as much
as I was able.

"Humph! my boy; and a pretty time of life it is, too. Your brother
Gerald is taller than you by two inches."

"But I can beat him for all that, uncle," said I, colouring, and
clenching my fist.

My uncle pulled down his right ruffle. "'Gad so, Morton, you're a brave
fellow," said he; "but I wish you were less of a hero and more of a
scholar. I wish you could beat him in Greek as well as in boxing. I
will tell you what Old Rowley said," and my uncle occupied the next
quarter of an hour with a story. The story opened the good old
gentleman's heart; my laughter opened it still more. "Hark ye, sirrah!"
said he, pausing abruptly, and grasping my hand with a vigorous effort
of love and muscle, "hark ye, sirrah,--I love you,--'Sdeath, I do. I
love you better than both your brothers, and that crab of a priest into
the bargain; but I am grieved to the heart to hear what I do of you.
They tell me you are the idlest boy in the school; that you are always
beating your brother Gerald, and making a scurrilous jest of your mother
or myself."

"Who says so? who dares say so?" said I, with an emphasis that would
have startled a less hearty man than Sir William Devereux. "They lie,
Uncle; by my soul they do. Idle I am; quarrelsome with my brother I
confess myself; but jesting at you or my mother--never--never. No, no;
/you/, too, who have been so kind to me,--the only one who ever was.
No, no; do not think I could be such a wretch:" and as I said this the
tears gushed from my eyes.