My father took the hatchet up again.
'It's no business of mine; I've no call to stop him if he wants to go.'
'He doesn't want to go; he has got no home, and mother said he was to be my brother.'
'I don't know how that may be,' my father said slowly.
I was thunderstruck. 'But mother said so, and you promised, father.'
He looked at me.
'I made some sort of a promise may be, as I would have promised anything then, to keep her quiet.'
He sighed, and drew the back of his hand across his eyes—the only outward sign of sorrow I ever saw him give.
'Then Cuthbert may stay.'
My father made a few strokes at the wood without answering. At last he said, 'Look you, Willie; it's a great deal to ask of a poor man.'