"I'm coming home," he said, his voice breaking. "Not now, not to-night, but in a little while. I'll ask the old man to forgive me and see if we can't get along better."
"Davey! Davey!" she cried softly, looking into his face, a new joy in her own. "Oh, but they are sad days, these! Have you heard what they are saying of your father? They tell me that you have been over the ranges."
"Yes," Davey said. She scarcely recognised his voice. "It's because of father—because of what they're saying—I'm coming home. I won't have them say it ... after all he's done ... do you think I'm going to let him lose it, if I can help it."
There was a passionate vibration in his voice.
"How did it happen? I saw you on Friday and followed you home."
"Oh, my boy!" Her hand trembled on his shoulders. "It was you then? What's come to your father I don't know at all. He's not the same man he used to be. It's that man at the Black Bull. He's got hold of him—I don't know how ... but he's been drinking there often now, and he never used to be a drinking man—your father. I think it was his disappointment with you at first ... I'm not blaming you, Davey. It wasn't to be expected you'd do anything but what you did. I'm not blaming you. But there were the long evenings by ourselves, after you'd gone. He sat eating his heart out about it before the fire, and I couldn't say a word. He was thinking of you all the time—but his pride wouldn't let him speak. He was seeing the ruin of his hopes for you. He meant you to be a great man in the district. Then McNab began talking to him. Your father thinks McNab's doing him a good turn in some way, but I feel it's nothing but evil will come to us from him. The sight of the man makes me shiver and I wonder what harm it is he is planning for us."
Her voice went to Davey's heart.
"I know, mother," he said. "But it'll be all right soon. The old man'll pull up when I come home. I'll tell him I mean to be all he wants me to be. I was a fool before, though I don't think I could go on in the old way even now. But he'll be reasonable if I go the right way about asking him. I've a deal more sense than I had. I've sobered down a lot ... can see things straighter. I won't be having any dealings with McNab again—and I'll get father to cut him. The pair of us'll be more than equal to him. But I've got to finish my job with Conal first ... it wouldn't be playing the game to leave him just now."
"Is it Conal you've been working with, Davey?" her eyes went up to his anxiously.
"Yes," he said.