“Surely, if you wish it. It will make a difference, but only a cheerful difference. And it is a small thing to do for them who have been ay so friendly.”
“Well, that is settled then, and I will look out for rooms, or for a wee house—that will be better wouldna it, mother dear?”
He did not need to ask. Anything that would please him would please his mother also. But she was not so cheerful and eager about this as she generally was about new plans and arrangements, John thought, and after a little they fell into silence.
John woke his mother out of her morning sleep when he came to bid her good-bye. She had only a single word to say to him:
“Dinna be long in coming home again, John,” said she. And he promised that he would not be long.
He kept his promise, coming even sooner than he was expected, and when his mother saw his face she was glad. For there was on it no sign of either gloom or grieving. It was John, “at his best and bonniest,” she said to herself with a glad heart, as he sat for a little while beside her bed, for his coming was late, as usual. She asked no questions. It was well with him, that was enough for her. As he rose to go, she said:
“I hope you have good news for Allison Bain.” Then John sat down again.
There was not much to tell. John had not seen the man himself. He had been set at liberty before his time was out. As to what sort of a man he was, John had been told that after a month or two, when he had been first wild with anger and shame, and then sullen and indifferent, a change had come over him. A friend had come to visit him more than once, and had encouraged him to bear his trouble patiently, and had given him hope. But he had never spoken about himself or his affairs to any one else. The chances were he had gone home to his own place; but nothing, which his informant could repeat, had been heard from him since he went away.
“Poor Allison Bain!” said Mrs Beaton with a sigh.
“Surely it will be good news to her that he has been free all the summer days, and in his own house,” said John.