“‘MY SON, MY BEST-LOVED CHILD’”
“My son, my best-loved child!” she cried, weeping. “Do not break my heart by leaving me. I did not know until this moment how much I loved you. It is hard for a parent to plead with a child, but I beg, I implore you, if you have any regard for your mother’s peace of mind, to give up the sea.” And with sobs and tears, such as George had never before seen her shed, she clung to him and covered his face and hair, and even his hands, with kisses.
The boy stood motionless, stunned by an outbreak of emotion so unlike anything he had ever seen in his mother before. Calm, reticent, and undemonstrative, she had showed a Spartan firmness in her treatment of her children until this moment. In a flash like lightning George saw that it was not that foolish letter which had influenced her, but there was a fierceness of mother love, all unsuspected in that deep and quiet nature, for him, and for him alone. This trembling, sobbing woman, calling him all fond names, and saying to him, “George, I would go upon my knees if that would move you,” his mother! And the appeal overpowered him as much by its novelty as its power. Like her he began to tremble, and when she saw this she held him closer to her, and cried, “My son, will you abandon me, or will you abandon your own will this once?”
There was a short pause, and then George spoke, in a voice he scarcely knew, it was so strange:
“Mother, I will give up my commission.”
CHAPTER XII
As soon as George had spoken he disengaged himself gently from his mother’s arms. She was still weeping, but blessing him.
“God will reward you, my son, for this yielding to your mother!” she cried.
“I don’t know, mother, whether I deserve a reward or not,” he answered, in the same strange voice in which he had first spoken. “I am not sure whether I am doing right or not, but I know I could not do otherwise. I did not yield to your command, but to your entreaty. But let me go, mother.” And before she could stop him he was out of the room, and she heard his quick step up the stairs and his door locked after him.
He tore off his uniform as if every shred of it burned him, put on his ordinary clothes, and then, sitting down on the bed, gazed blankly before him.