CHRISTY.
(standing on tiptoe, from boyish habit, to hang his hat up, though he is quite tall enough to reach the peg, and speaking with callous placidity, considering the nature of the announcement). Father’s dead too.
MRS. DUDGEON.
(stupent). Your father!
CHRISTY.
(sulkily, coming back to the fire and warming himself again, attending much more to the fire than to his mother). Well, it’s not my fault. When we got to Nevinstown we found him ill in bed. He didn’t know us at first. The minister sat up with him and sent me away. He died in the night.
MRS. DUDGEON.
(bursting into dry angry tears). Well, I do think this is hard on me—very hard on me. His brother, that was a disgrace to us all his life, gets hanged on the public gallows as a rebel; and your father, instead of staying at home where his duty was, with his own family, goes after him and dies, leaving everything on my shoulders. After sending this girl to me to take care of, too! (She plucks her shawl vexedly over her ears.) It’s sinful, so it is; downright sinful.
CHRISTY.
(with a slow, bovine cheerfulness, after a pause). I think it’s going to be a fine morning, after all.
MRS. DUDGEON.
(railing at him). A fine morning! And your father newly dead! Where’s your feelings, child?
CHRISTY.
(obstinately). Well, I didn’t mean any harm. I suppose a man may make a remark about the weather even if his father’s dead.
MRS. DUDGEON.
(bitterly). A nice comfort my children are to me! One son a fool, and the other a lost sinner that’s left his home to live with smugglers and gypsies and villains, the scum of the earth!
Someone knocks.
CHRISTY.
(without moving). That’s the minister.