“Then why didn’t you give it to Mr Gordon?”
“Do be quiet, my dear. How you do talk. I really think you’re half crazy.”
“I was, mother, to stop with old ‘going, going, gone’ so long. Never mind; I’m going to have land of my own, and a house in the woods, where I can go and shoot bears and wolves.”
“There, Mr Gordon, my dear, that’s how he has been going on ever since he came home.”
“Hold your plate for some more gravy,” said Esau to me. “That’s the worst part of it. I shan’t have mother to make hot steak pies and lovely crusts.”
“It isn’t half so good as I should like to make it, Esau,” said the poor little woman sadly; “but do be a good boy, and leave off all that dreadful talk. Mr Gordon don’t go on like that.”
“No, but he thinks all the more, mother.”
“He don’t, I’m sure. Now do you, Mr Gordon?”
“I’m afraid I’ve quite made up my mind to go, Mrs Dean,” I said sadly.
“Oh, my dear, don’t,” she cried. “It’s too dreadful. Right on the other side of the world, where there’s bears and wolves, and for all we know perhaps savage Red Indians.”