He did not smile now, as he saw his mother sitting there absorbed, gazing out for his return, and not seeing him now that he had returned. Instead, he stepped forward, and quietly laid a hand upon her shoulder, not with any attempt to surprise or startle her, but as if he knew that she would accept it as the announcement of his presence.
He was right. The strong figure in the chair did not start away. No exclamation came from the straight mouth of the face now turned toward him. Evidently the nerves of these two were not of the sort readily stampeded.
The young man’s mother at first did not speak to him. She only reached up her own hand to take that which lay upon her shoulder. They remained thus for a moment, until at last the youth stepped back to lean his rifle against the wall.
“I am late, mother,” said he at length, as he turned and, seating himself at her feet, threw his arm across her lap—himself but boy again now, and not the hunter and the man.
She stroked his dark hair, not foolishly fond, but with a sort of stern maternal care, smoothing it back in place where it belonged, straightening out the riot it had assumed. It made a mane above his forehead and reached down his neck to his shoulders, so heavy that where its dark mass was lifted it showed the skin of his neck white beneath.
“You are late, yes.”
“And you waited—so long?”
“I am always waiting for you, Merne,” said she. She used the Elizabethan vowel, as one should pronounce “bird,” with no sound of “u”—“Mairne,” the name sounded as she spoke it. And her voice was full and rich and strong, as was her son’s; musically strong.
“I am always waiting for you, Merne,” said she. “But I long ago learned not to expect anything else of you.” She spoke with not the least reproach in her tone. “No, I only knew that you would come back in time, because you told me that you would.”
“And you did not fear for me, then—gone overnight in the woods?” He half smiled at that thought himself.