“He’s a master now,” said Mossman, snappishly.
“So much the better—he may be the readier to help you, for you could work it up to him when you are well. At any rate, something must be done to-night, for the bairns canna want ower Sunday.”
“I quarrelled wi’ him over a game at draughts,” said Mossman, stubbornly, “and I havena spoken to him for ten years, and I winna now. He’d only crow over me.”
“You were at the schule thegither, and apprentices in the same shop. I dinna believe he would laugh at ye,” persisted the wife, “but if ye like I’ll gang mysel’.”
“I winna gang, and I winna let you be seen in such rags,” said her husband, determinedly.
“I’ll gang then, faither,” eagerly cried Johnny. “I dinna care though he laughs at me, if he only helps us.”
Johnny was kissed by his mother for the brave speech, and the darkness hid the tear that came with it, though Johnny felt the tear all the same. It fired his mind and made him blurt out a thought which otherwise he would have kept in his own head.
“It couldn’t be so very bad to steal a loaf,” he remarked with a wistful look round on the hungry ones. “I felt near doing it this mornin’ when a baker asked me to help his board off his heid. The smell o’ the new bread just took my heart, and I was like to bolt wi’ ane.”
His father’s bony fingers gripped him by the ear, and the touch was no gentle one.
“If ever you turn thief while I’m living,” he fiercely hissed out, “never come near me or look me in the face again! I wad rather see you deid, ay, and mysel’ too,” he brokenly added, with a quiver getting into his tones.