“You have a mother, then?” said I. “Does she reside in London?”
“She used to live in London,” said the man; “but I am afraid she is long since dead.”
“How did she support herself?” said I.
“Support herself! with difficulty enough; she used to keep a small stall on London Bridge, where she sold fruit; I am afraid she is dead, and that she died perhaps in misery. She was a poor sinful creature; but I loved her, and she loved me. I came all the way back merely for the chance of seeing her.”
“Did you ever write to her,” said I, “or cause others to write to her?”
“I wrote to her myself,” said the man, “about two years ago; but I never received an answer. I learned to write very tolerably over there, by the assistance of the good people I spoke of. As for reading, I could do that very well before I went—my poor mother taught me to read, out of a book that she was very fond of; a strange book it was, I remember. Poor dear!—what would I give only to know that she is alive.”
“Life is very uncertain,” said I.
“That is true,” said the man, with a sigh.
“We are here one moment, and gone the next,” I continued. “As I passed through the streets of a neighbouring town, I saw a respectable woman drop down, and people said she was dead. Who knows but that she too had a son coming to see her from a distance, at that very time.”
“Who knows, indeed,” said the man. “Ah, I am afraid my mother is dead. Well, God’s will be done.”