“Tell your mother, laddie.”
Then he went on with his story. How he had taken to college work in earnest with Sandy Begg, how he had enjoyed it and been successful with it, and how the thought had come into his mind that after all he might go on again and redeem his character by doing now what he had failed to do when the way was made easy to him.
“I think my father would be pleased, mother, if he could ken. When I think of him I canna forget that I gave him a sore heart at the time when his troubles were coming thick upon him. I would like to do as he wished me to do, now that the way seems open.”
“Is the way open?” asked his mother gravely. “If you take that way, all that you have been doing and learning for the last years will be an utter loss. I have ay liked to think of you as following in your father’s steps to overtake success as he did.”
“I am not the man my father was, as no one should ken better than my mother.”
“But if you were to fall in with this man’s offer, you could take the road your father took with fewer steps and less labour, and I might see you a prosperous man yet before I die. And all the good your father did, whether openly or in secret, would begin again in his son’s life, and some of it, at least, your mother might see. I canna but long for the like of that, John.”
“I would try to do my best, mother. But my best would fall far short of what my father did.”
“Oh, fie! John, laddie! What ails ye at yourself the nicht, man? Do I no’ ken my ain son by this time, think ye? Ay, do I. Better, maybe, than he kens himsel’.”
“There can be small doubt of that, mother. Only your kind eyes see fewer faults and failings than he kens of himself. And, mother, I am afraid the man who had my father for his good friend has done me an ill turn. He has, in a measure, taken away the motive for my work, and so I can have little pleasure in it.”
“But, John, you will have your ain life to live and your ain work to do when your mother is dead and gone. I have been pleased and proud to have my son for breadwinner, and to ken that he was pleased and proud for the same reason. But for all that, I am glad that you are set free to think of your ain life. You are wearing on, lad, and it would be a great gladness for me to see you in your ain house with wife and bairns about you before I die. Ye can let yourself think of it now, since I am off your hands.”