While Colin, with tears in his eyes, promised implicit compliance with all that had been requested of him, he yet, with the candour and warm-hearted generosity peculiar to his character, declared that Fanny ought to despise him if ever he trusted to the labour of her hands for a single meal, No: he would save all his yearly wages, and bring them home for her and his mother; and in time he should be able to maintain them both by his own labour, without their having any need to struggle for themselves. As for the rest, if anybody ill-used him, he was strong enough to stand his own ground: or, if not, he knew of another way to save himself, which would do quite as well, or better.
“What other way? What do you mean?” asked Fanny very anxiously.
“Oh, nothing,” said Colin; “only, if people do not treat us properly, we are not obliged to stay with them.”
“But you must never think of running away,” she replied, “and going you do not know where. Come back home if they ill-treat you, and you will always be safe with us.”
Their morning meal being now prepared, the three sat down to it with an undefined feeling of sadness which no effort could shake off. Some little extra luxury was placed upon the table for Colin; and many times was he made to feel that—however unconsciously to themselves—both his mother and Fanny anticipated all his slightest wants with unusual quickness; and waited upon him, and pressed him to his last ill-relished meal, with a degree of assiduity which rendered the sense of his parting with them doubly painful.
The hour for going at length arrived. At ten o'clock the village-carrier called for his little box; and at twelve Colin himself was to set out. The last half-hour was spent by his mother in giving him that impressive counsel which under such circumstances a mother best knows how to give; while Fanny stood by, weeping as she listened to it, and frequently sobbing aloud when some more striking observation, some more pointed moral truth, or apposite quotation from the sacred volume, escaped the mother's lips. Twelve o'clock struck. At a quarter past our hero was crossing the fields on the foot-road to Whinmoor; and at about three in the afternoon he arrived at the place of his future abode.
CHAPTER XI.
Describes the greeting which Colin received on his arrival at Snitterton Lodge; together with a very serious quarrel between him and Mr. Palethorpe; and its fearful results.