“I beg your pardon,” said Rowland, “I am very much obliged to you: I know you have been all that.”
“A mother, and mair,” said Mrs. Brown. “No mony mothers would have done for them what I’ve done, watching every step they took, that ye might find them good bairns, no spendthrifts, nor wasters of your substance, but knowing the value of money, and using their discretion. I’ve given him the siller for his clubs and things, for I’m told that’s the fashion now-a-days, and he’s aye had a shilling in his pouch for an occasion. If he had been my own I would never have held him with half as tight a hand, for he would have been making his week’s wages if he had been a son of mine, and wouldna have been depending upon either you or me.”
“That’s just the pity of it,” said Rowland. “He has fallen between two stools, neither a working lad nor a gentleman’s son. That proves, Jane, we have both been in the wrong, and I, more than you, for I should have known better. We have made a terrible mistake.”
“I’ve made nae mistake,” said Mrs. Brown. The tears were near which would soon choke her voice, and she spoke quickly to get out as much as she could before the storm came. “You may be in the wrang, Maister Rowland, but I’m no in the wrang. I’ve just acted on principle from beginning to end, to save him from the temptation of riches. They’re a great temptation. If he had been learned to dash his way about like young MacColl, or the most of the lads that have had a father before them, what would ye have said to me? You will see that laddie dashing about a’ Glesco in his phaeton, or whatever ye ca’t; and his grandmother was just a howdie in the High Street, nae mair. Would ye have likit that, Jims Rowland? folk saying ‘set a beggar on horseback,’ and a’ the rest, to a son of yours, and calling to mind the stock he came of, that was just working folk, though aye respectable. I’m no the one to bring up a lad to that. If ye had wanted him made a prodigal o’, ye should have pit him in other hands. I’ve just keeped him in his right place. And ye tell me it’s a mistake, and my fault and terrible wrong. Lord forgive ye, Jims Rowland! How dare ye say it’s a mistake to me, that has been a mother to them—and mair!”
Rowland, like other men, was made very uncomfortable by the sight of the woman crying, but he held his ground. “I am very sorry to seem ungrateful, Jane. I am not ungrateful. You’ve given them a happy childhood, which is everything. But we must try a different system now. I can’t have a young man stumbling and stammering before me, as if he had something on his conscience. I am not going to watch every step he takes. He must learn to take steps on his own account, and understand that he’s a responsible creature. If you have taken his money from him——”
Mrs. Brown jumped up as if she had received a blow. She rushed to the door of the room, which she flung open, calling upon “Archie! Archie!” in a voice broken by angry sobs. The lad came stumbling downstairs not knowing what was wrong, and appeared with his still somewhat sullen face, asking “What’s the matter?” in a tone which was half-alarmed and half-defiant. She seized him by the arm and dragged him into the room, then flying to a little desk, opened it, flinging back the lid, and seizing the unfortunate bit of paper, flung it again in Archie’s face. “Hae;” she said, “there it’s till ye. Me taken his money? Me that have just done everything for them, and never thought of mysel’. Me! taken his money!” Mrs. Brown’s voice rose to a shriek, and then she fell into a chair and burst into a more renewed and violent passion of tears.
“What have ye been saying to her to make her like that?” said Archie, turning to his father. “I was not wanting your money, and if she put it away it was no harm. Her take your money! She cares nothing for money but to get things for May and me. Aunty,” he said, going up to her, putting his hand on her shoulder, “I’ll just put a notice in the Herald to-morrow. If he is my father, I’ll not be dependent upon him. What right has he to fling his dirty money in a man’s face, and come into this house like a wild beast and make you cry. He made his money himself, and he can spend it himself. I’ll make what I want for mysel’.”
But oh the puppies, barking with their ridiculous noses in his hand, sprawling over old Rankin’s bed! They suddenly came before Archie’s mental vision, and made his voice waver. No such luxuries as Rankin’s puppies could be in the lot of a poor young clerk in an office, making perhaps a pound a week—and he the great railway man’s son that was rolling in wealth!—a sense of the great injustice of it made Archie’s voice harsh. Who should all that money be for but for him? And the rich father, the hoped for incarnation of wealth, was there scolding about a miserable note, accusing Aunty Jane of having taken the money! The lad went and stood at the back of her chair, putting himself on her side, defying the other who thought so much of his filthy siller! Let him keep his siller! he had made it himself and he could spend it on himself. Archie for his part would do the same. But as he uttered these noble sentiments, an almost overwhelming sense of the wickedness of it, of the cruelty of the unjust father, and of the unimaginable wrong to himself flooded Archie’s mind. He could have cried too with anger and the intolerable sense of wrong.
Rowland stood for a minute or two contemplating the scene, and then he burst into a laugh. The climax was too ridiculous, he said to himself, for any serious feeling. And yet it was not a pleasant climax to come to, after so many years.