“And then there’s the horse,” she continued. “Maybe you met it down the road a while ago?”
“We did, ma’am,” said the sergeant.
“Well, when he came in Tomas went to tie him up, for he’s a caution at getting out and wandering about the road, the way you’d break your neck over him if you weren’t minding. After a while I told the boy to come in, but he didn’t come, so I went out myself, and there was himself and the horse with their arms round each other’s necks looking as if they were moonstruck.”
“Faith, he’s the queer lad!” said the sergeant. “What do you be making love to the horse for, Tomas?”
“It was all I could do to make him come in,” she continued, “and then I said to him, ‘Sit down alongside of me here, Tomas, and keep me company for a little while’—for I do be lonely in the night time—but he wouldn’t stay quiet at all. One minute he’d say, ‘Mother, there’s a moth flying round the candle and it’ll be burnt,’ and then, ‘There was a fly going into the spider’s web in the corner,’ and he’d have to save it, and after that, ‘There’s a daddy-long-legs hurting himself on the window-pane,’ and he’d have to let it out; but when I try to kiss him he pushes me away. My heart is tormented, so it is, for what have I in the world but him?”
“Is his father dead, ma’am?” said the sergeant kindly.
“I’ll tell the truth,” said she. “I don’t know whether he is or not, for a long time ago, when we used to live in the city of Bla’ Cliah, he lost his work one time and he never came back to me again. He was ashamed to come home I’m thinking, the poor man, because he had no money; as if I would have minded whether he had any money or not—sure, he was very fond of me, sir, and we could have pulled along somehow. After that I came back to my father’s place here; the rest of the children died on me, and then my father died, and I’m doing the best I can by myself. It’s only that I’m a little bit troubled with the boy now and again.”
“It’s a hard case, ma’am,” said the sergeant, “but maybe the boy is only a bit wild not having his father over him, and maybe it’s just that he’s used to yourself, for there isn’t a child at all that doesn’t love his mother. Let you behave yourself now, Tomas; attend to your mother, and leave the beasts and the insects alone, like a decent boy, for there’s no insect in the world will ever like you as well as she does. Could you tell me, ma’am, if we have passed the first turn on this road, or is it in front of us still, for we are lost altogether in the darkness?”
“It’s in front of you still,” she replied, “about ten minutes down the road; you can’t miss it, for you’ll see the sky where there is a gap in the trees, and that gap is the turn you want.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” said the sergeant; “we’d better be moving on, for there’s a long tramp in front of us before we get to sleep this night.”