“No! but to have you other than what you are will break my heart. What can you do?”
“Be always the same John Thornton in whatever circumstances; endeavouring to do right, and making great blunders; and then trying to be brave in setting to afresh. But it is hard, mother. I have worked and planned. I have discovered new powers in my situation too late—and now all is over. I am too old to begin again with the same heart. It is hard, mother.”
He turned away from her, and covered his face with his hands.
“I can’t think,” said she, with gloomy defiance in her tone, “how it comes about. Here is my boy—good son, just man, tender heart—and he fails in all he sets his mind upon: he finds a woman to love, and she cares no more for his affection than if he had been a common man; he labours, and his labour comes to nought. Other people grow rich, and hold their paltry names high and dry above shame.”
“Shame never touched me,” said he, in a low tone: but she went on.
“I sometimes have wondered where justice was gone to, and now I don’t believe there is such a thing in the world—now you are come to this; you, my own John Thornton, though you and I may be beggars together—my own dear son!”
She fell upon his neck, and kissed him through her tears.
“Mother!” said he, holding her gently in his arms, “who has sent me my lot in life, both of good and evil?”
She shook her head. She would have nothing to do with religion just then.
“Mother,” he went on, seeing that she would not speak. “I, too, have been rebellious; but I’m striving to be so no longer. Help me, as you helped me when I was a child. Then you said many good words—when my father died, and we were sometimes sorely short of comforts—which we shall never be now; you said brave, noble, trustful words then, mother, which I have never forgotten, though they may have lain dormant. Speak to me again in the old way, mother. Do not let us have to think that the world has too much hardened our hearts. If you would say the old good words, it would make me feel something of the pious simplicity of my childhood. I say them to myself, but they would come differently from you, remembering all the cares and trials you have had to bear.”