“It’s no harm, maybe, to them that think no harm,” she said; “no, it ain’t me that settles them—who is it? It must be either God or the devil. And God don’t trouble Himself with the like of that—He has more and better to do; so it must be the devil; and I don’t hold with it, unless I’m forced for a living. I can’t think as it’s laid to you then.”
“I wish you’d just do it once to please me, mother; it couldn’t do no harm.”
She shook her head, but looked at him with questioning eyes.
“Suppose it was to please a gentleman, as I am more in debt to than I can ever pay—more than I want ever to pay,” cried Dick, “except in doing everything to please him as long as I live. You may say it ain’t me as can do this, and that I’m taking it out of you; but you’re all I have to help me, and it ain’t to save myself. Mother, it’s Mr Ross as has heard somehow how clever you are; and if you would do it just once to please him and me!”
She did not answer for a few minutes. Dick thought she was struggling with herself to overcome her repugnance. Then she replied, in an altered and agitated voice, “For him I’ll do it—you can bring him to-morrow.”
“How kind you are, mother!” said Dick, gratefully. “College breaks up the day after to-morrow,” he added, in a dolorous voice. “I don’t know what I shall do without him and all of them—the place won’t look the same, nor I shan’t feel the same. Mayn’t he come to-night? I think he’s going off to-morrow up to Scotland, as they’re all talking of. Half of ’em goes up to Scotland. I wonder what kind of a place it is. Were we ever there?”
“Once—when you were quite a child.”
“’Twas there the t’other little chap died?” said Dick, compassionately. “Poor mammy, I didn’t mean to vex you. I wonder what he’d have been like now if he’d lived. Look here, mother, mayn’t he come to-night?”
“If you like,” she said, trying to seem calm, but deeply agitated by this reference. He saw this, and set it down naturally to the melancholy recollections he had evoked.
“Poor mother,” he said, rising from his dinner, “you are a feelin’ one! all this time, and you’ve never forgotten. I’ll go away and leave you quiet; and just before lock-up, when it’s getting dark, him and me will come across. You won’t say nothing you can help that’s dreadful if the cards turn up bad?—and speak as kind to him as you can, mother dear, he’s been so kind to me.”