“I tell you a gude wife will do ’most anything for a husband an’ give her body an’ soul to un; but she expects summat in return. She wants his love an’ worship for hers; but a mother do give all—all—all—an’ never axes nothin’ for it. Just a kiss maybe, an’ a brightening eye, or a kind word. That’s her pay, an’ better’n gawld, tu. She’m purty nigh satisfied wi’ what would satisfy a dog, come to think on it. ’T is her joy to fret an’ fume an’ pine o’ nights for un, an’ tire the A’mighty’s ear wi’ plans an’ suggestions for un; aye, think an’ sweat an’ starve for un all times. ’T is her joy, I tell ’e, to smooth his road, an’ catch the brambles by his way an’ let ’em bury their thorns in her flesh so he shaa’n’t feel ’em; ’t is her joy to hear him babble of all his hopes an’ delights; an’ when the time comes she’ll taake the maid of his heart to her awn, though maybe ’t is breakin’ wi’ fear that he’ll forget her in the light of the young eyes. Ax your awn mother if what I sez ban’t God’s truth. We as got the bwoys be content wi’ that little. We awnly want to help theer young shoulders wi’ our auld wans, to fight for ’em to the last. We’ll let theer wives have the love, we will, an’ ax no questions an’—an’ we’ll break our hearts when the cheel ’s took out o’ his turn—break our hearts by inches—same as I be doin’ now.”
“An’ doan’t I love, tu? Weern’t he all the world to me, tu? Isn’t my heart broken so well as yours?” sobbed Chris.
“Hear this, you wummon as talks of a broken heart,” answered the elder almost harshly. “Wait—wait till you ’m the mother of a li’l man-cheel, an’ see the shining eyes of un a-lookin’ into yourn while your nipple’s bein’ squeezed by his naked gums, an’ you laugh at what you suffered for un, an’ hug un to you. Wait till he’m grawed from baby to bwoy, from bwoy to man; wait till he’m all you’ve got left in the cold, starved winter of a sorrowful life; an’ wait till he’m brought home to ’e like this here, while you’ve been sittin’ laughin’ to yourself an’ countin’ dream gawld. Then turn about to find the tears that’ll comfort ’e, an’ the prayers that’ll soothe ’e, and the God that’ll lift ’e up; but you won’t find ’em, Chris Blanchard.”
The girl listened to this utterance, and it filled her with a sort of weird wonder as at a revelation of heredity. Mrs. Hicks had ever been taciturn before her, and now this rapid outpouring of thoughts and phrases echoed like the very speech of the dead. Thus had Clement talked, and the girl dimly marvelled without understanding. The impression passed, and there awoke in Chris a sudden determination to whisper to this bereaved woman what she could not even tell her own mother. A second thought had probably changed her intention, but she did not wait for any second thought. She acted on impulse, rose, put her arms round the widow, and murmured her secret. The other started violently and broke her motionless posture before this intelligence.
“Christ! And he knawed—my son?”
“He knawed.”
“Then you needn’t whisper it. There’s awnly us three here.”
“An’ no others must knaw. You’ll never tell—never? You swear that?”
“Me tell! No, no. To think! Then theer’s real sorrow for you, tu, poor soul—real, grawin’ sorrow tu. Differ’nt from mine, but real enough. Yet—”
She relapsed into a stone-like repose. No facial muscle moved, but the expression of her mind appeared in her eyes and there gradually grew a hungry look in them—as of a starving thing confronted with food. The realisation of these new facts took a long time. No action accompanied it; no wrinkle deepened; no line of the dejected figure lifted; but when she spoke again her voice had greatly changed and become softer and very tremulous.