Rebecca hesitated—looked at her son doubtfully for a minute or so before she made up her mind to admit him, weighed the possibilities of the case, and then took her key and unlocked the gate. If it had been practicable to keep this returned prodigal outside without peril to herself, she would have done it, but she knew her son’s disposition too well to trifle with feelings which were apt to express themselves with a savage freedom.
‘Come in,’ she said, sulkily, ‘and eat your fill, and go your ways when you’ve eaten. It was an ill wind for me that blew you this way.’
‘That’s not over-kind from a mother,’ responded the nomad, carelessly. ‘I’ve had work enough to find you since you gave us the slip at Westerham fair.’
‘You might have been content to lose me, considering the little store you ever set by me,’ retorted Rebecca, bitterly.
‘Well, perhaps I might have brought myself to look at it in that light, if I hadn’t heard of you two or three months ago from a mate of mine in the broom trade, who happened to pass this way last summer, and saw you here, squatting in the sun like a toad. He made a few inquiries about you—out of friendliness to me—in the village yonder, and heard that you were living on the fat of the land, and had enough to spare. Living in service—you, that were brought up to something better than taking any man’s wages—and eating the bread of dependence. So I put two and two together, and thought perhaps you’d contrived to save a little bit of money by this time, and would help me with a pound or two if I looked you up. It would be hard lines if a mother refused help to her son.’
‘You treated me so well when we were together that I ought to be very fond of you, no doubt,’ said Rebecca. ‘Come in, and eat. I’ll give you a meal and a night’s lodging if you like, but I’ll give you no more, and you’d better make yourself scarce soon after daybreak. My master is a magistrate, and has no mercy on tramps.’
‘Then how did he come to admit you into his service? You hadn’t much of a character from your last place, I take it.’
‘He had his reasons.’
‘Ay, there’s a reason for everything. I should like to know the reason of your getting such a berth as this, I must say.’
He followed his mother into the lodge. The room was furnished comfortably enough, but dirt and disorder ruled the scene. Of this, however, the wanderer’s eye took little note as he briefly surveyed the chamber, dimly lighted by a single tallow candle burning in a brass candlestick on the mantel-piece. He flung himself into the high-backed Windsor arm-chair, drew it to the table, and sat there waiting for refreshment, his darkly bright eyes following Rebecca’s movements as she took some dishes from a cupboard, and set them on the board without any previous ceremony in the way of spreading a cloth or clearing the litter of faded cabbage-leaves and stale crusts which encumbered one side of the table.