"Good mother, listen to me. If I bought him, you sold him. Perhaps I did wrong to tempt you—perhaps I did wrong to hope to buy for myself what God was not pleased to give me. I was very young, and one makes many mistakes when one is young. I thought I was childless and unhappy, but I know now that only those are childless who have had children and lost them.
"Do you know that in all the years my son was with me, I do not think there was a day when I did not think of you? I used to wonder if you regretted him, and I lived in dread of your getting him back; and when he ran away, I knew you had. I never agreed with the lawyer's plans—my husband will tell you so—I always wanted to find you to speak to you myself. I knew what you must feel, and I thought I should like you to know that I knew it.
"Night after night I lay awake and thought what I would say to you when we met. I thought I would tell you that I could quite understand that our ways might become irksome to Christian, if he inherited a love for outdoor life, and for moving from place to place. I thought I would say that perhaps I was wrong ever to have taken him away from his own people; but as it was done and could not be undone, we might perhaps make the best of it together. I hope you understand me, though you say nothing? You see, if he is a gipsy at heart, he has also been brought up to many comforts you cannot give him, and with the habits and ideas of a gentleman. You are too clever, and too fond of him, to mind my speaking plainly. Now there are things which a gentleman might do if he had the money, which would satisfy his love of roving as well. Many rich gentlemen dislike the confinement of houses and domestic ways as much as Christian, and they leave their fine homes to travel among dangers and discomforts. I could find the money for Christian to do this by and by. If he likes a wandering life, he can live it easily so—only he would be able to wander hundreds of miles where you wander one, and to sleep under other skies and among new flowers, and in forests to which such woods as these are shrubberies. He need not fall into any of the bad ways to which you know people are tempted by being poor. I have thought of it all, night after night, and longed to be able to tell you about it. He might become a famous traveller, you know; he is very clever and very fond of books of adventure. This young gentleman will tell you so. How proud we should both be of him! That is what I have thought might be if you did not hide him from me, and I did not keep him from you.
"And as to religion—dear good mother, listen to me. Look at me—see if religion has been a fashion or a plaything to me. If it had not stood by me when my heart was as heavy as yours, what profit should I have in it?
"Christian's grandmother—you are his grandmother, I know, and have the better right to him—if you cannot agree to my plans—if you won't let me help you about him—if you hide him from me, and I must live out my life and never see his dear face again—spare me the hope of seeing it when this life is over.
"If I did my best for your grandson—and you know I did—oh! for the love of Christ, our only Refuge, do not stand between him and the Father of us all!
"If you have felt what he must suffer if he is poor, and if you know so well how little it makes sure of happiness to be rich—if in a long life you have found out how hard it is to be good, and how rare it is to be happy—if you know what it is to love and lose, to hope and to be disappointed in one's hoping—let him be religious, good mother!
"If you care for Christian, leave him the only strength that is strong enough to hold us back from sin, and to do instead of joy."
The tinker-mother lifted her head; but before she could say a word, the young gentleman burst into indignant speech.
"Gertrude, I can bear it no longer. Not even for you, not even for the chance of getting Christian back. It's empty swagger to say that I wish to God I'd the chance of giving my life to get him back for you. But you must come home now. I've bitten my lip through in holding my tongue, but I won't see you kneel another minute at the feet of that sulky old gipsy hag."