“Come and sit down a bit, good mother,” said Roland. “I want to talk to you.”
“My dear, I am not in a talking humour,” she answered. “My head aches, and I shall be glad to get to bed. It was a stupid, humdrum evening.”
She was walking to the side table to light her bed-candle, but Roland interposed. He drew the couch close to the fire, settled his mother in it, and took his seat with her. She asked him what he had to say so particularly that night.
“I am going to tell you what it is. But don’t you fly out at me, mother dear,” he coaxingly added. “I find I can’t get along here at all, mother, and I shall be off to Port Natal.”
Lady Augusta did fly out—with a scream, and a start from her seat. Roland pulled her into it again.
“Now, mother, just listen to me quietly. I can’t bear my life at Galloway’s. I can’t do the work. If I stopped at it, I’m not sure but I should do something desperate. You wouldn’t like to see your son turn jockey, and ride in a pink silk jacket and yellow breeches on the race-course; and you wouldn’t like to see him enlist for a soldier, or run away for a sailor! Well, worse than that might come, if I stopped at Galloway’s. Taking it at the very best, I should only be worked into my grave.”
“I will not hear another word, Roland,” interrupted Lady Augusta. “How can you be so wicked and ungrateful?”
“What is there wicked in it?” asked Roland. “Besides, you don’t know all. I can’t tell you what I don’t owe in Helstonleigh, and I’ve not a sixpence to pay it with. You wouldn’t like to see me marched off to prison, mother.”
Lady Augusta gave another shriek.
“And there’s a third reason why I wish to be away,” went on Roland, drowning the noise. “But I’ll not go into that, because it concerns myself alone.”