“Come in, poor fellow, come in. Don’t lie there perishing—come in, and I’ll give you a cup of tea. I’ve just brewed some, and a good strong cup will warm you.”
As she spoke she went and laid her hand on the boy’s arm.
“I’m a thief,” he said without stirring; “you won’t let in a thief?”
Something in the hoarse, whispered tones went straight to her heart.
“Of all people on earth, those I ’ave most feeling for are poor repentant thieves,” she said. “If you’re one of them, you ’ave a sure welcome. Why, there!” she continued, seeing he still lay at her feet and sobbed, “I’ve a lad of my own, who was a thief, and ’as repented. He’s in prison, but I feel he ’ave repented.”
“Would you let in your own lad?” asked the figure in the snow, in still that strange muffled voice.
“Let him in!” cried the widow; “let in my own lad! What do you take me for? I’m off to his prison to-morrow, and ’ome he shall come with all the love in his mother’s heart, and the prodigal son never had a better welcome than he shall have.”
Then the boy in the snow got up, and stumbled into the passage, and stumbled further, into the bright little room, and turning round, fixed his eyes on the widow’s face, and before she could speak, threw his arms round the widow’s neck. “Mother,” he said, “I’m that repentant lad.”
Jenks had been let out of prison a day sooner than his mother had calculated upon.
He had come back—humbled—sorry—nay more, clothed, and in his right mind: ready to sit at the feet of that Jesus whom once he persecuted. All the story of how these things had come to pass, all the story of that sermon which had touched his heart, all the story of that simple, childish letter, of those two locks of hair, he told to his happy and rejoicing mother.