“Well, he can’t go to-night; he shall go in the morning. There! He may stop with her for a week, an’ ye like, for all the good he is to me.”
“Mother’s looking for him to-night, and he ought to go. The dying——”
“Now just you drop it, for he can’t be spared,” interrupted Hill. “The goods might be stole, with all the loose characters there is about, and that fool of a Macintosh won’t go in of himself. He’s a regular coward! Davvy must keep him company—it’s not so much he does for his keep—and he may start for Worcester by daylight.”
Whenever Hill came down upon her with this resolute decision, it struck her timid forthwith. The allusion to the boy’s keep was an additional thrust, for it was beginning to be rather a sore subject. An uncle at Worcester, who had no family and was well to do, had partly offered to adopt the lad; but it was not yet settled. Davy was a great favourite with all the relatives; Miss Timmens, the schoolmistress, doted on him. Mrs. Hill, not venturing on further remonstrance, made the best of the situation.
“Davy, you are to go to Worcester the first thing in the morning,” she said, when he came back from washing his hands. “So as soon as you’ve been home and had a bit o’ breakfast, you shall run off to the train.”
Tea over, Hill went out on some business, saying he should be in at eight, or thereabouts, to go with Davy to the cottage. As the hour drew near, David, sitting over the fire with his mother in pleasant talk, as they loved to do, asked if he should read before he went: for her habit was to read the Bible to him, or cause him to read to her, the last thing.
“Yes, dear,” she said. “Read the ninety-first Psalm.”
So David read it. Closing the book when it was over, he sat with it on his knee, thoughtfully.
“If we could only see the angels, mother! It is so difficult to remember always that they are close around, taking care of us.”
“So it is, Davy. Most of us forget it.”