What the sacrifice would have been to Dick, I dare not calculate. In these three years he had become known to everybody about, and was universally liked and trusted. He was his master’s right-hand man. He had begun to know what comfort was, what it was to have a little money, (delightful sensation!) what it was to get on in the world. The tramp-boys about the roads, and the new lads who were taken on at the rafts, attracted his sympathy, but it was the sympathy of a person on a totally different level—who had indeed been as they were, but who had long gone over their heads, and was of a class and of habits totally different. Had Lord Hightowers been called upon to divest himself of his title, and become simple John Seton in an engineer’s workshop, the humiliation would not have been comparable to that which Dick would have endured had he been compelled to degrade himself again into a vagrant, a frequenter of fairs and races. Indeed I think Lord Hightowers would rather have liked the change, being of a mechanical turn,—while to Dick the thought was death. It made him sick and faint to think of the possibility. But, on the other hand, was he to let his mother pine and die like a caged eagle? or let her go away from him, to bear all the inevitable privations alone?
One day the subject was finally forced upon his consideration in such a way that he could not disregard it. When he went home to his early dinner, she was gone. Everything was arranged for him with more care than usual, his meal left by the fire, his table laid, and the landlady informed him that his mother had left word she would not be back till night. Dick did not run wildly off in search of her, as some people would have done. He had to look after his work, whatever happened. He swallowed his dinner hastily, a prey to miserable thoughts. It had come then at last, this misfortune which he had so long foreseen! Could he let her wander off alone to die of cold and weariness behind some hedge? After the three years’ repose, her change of habits, and the declining strength which he could not deceive himself about, how could she bear those privations alone? No, it was impossible. Dick reviewed the whole situation bitterly enough, poor fellow. He knew what everybody would say: how it was the vagrant blood breaking out in him again; how it was, once a tramp always a tramp; how it was a pity—but a good thing, on the whole, that he had done nothing wild and lawless before he left. And some would regret him, Dick thought, brushing his hand across his eyes—“the gentlemen” generally, among whom he had many fast friends. Dick decided that he would do nothing rash. He would not give up his situation, and give notice of leaving to the landlady, till he had first had a talk with his mother; but he “tidied” the room after his solitary dinner with a forlorn sense of the general breaking up of all his comforts—and went to his afternoon’s work with a heavy heart.
It was quite late when she came home. He could hear by her steps upon the stair that she was almost too tired to drag one foot after another, as he ran to open the door for her. Poor soul! she came in carrying a basket of primroses, which she held out to him with a pathetic smile. “Take them, Dick; I’ve been far to get ’em, and you used to be fond of them when you were little,” she said, dropping wearily into the nearest seat. She was pale, and had been crying, he could see; and her abstract eyes looked at him humbly, beseechingly, like the eyes of a dumb creature, which can express a vague anguish but cannot explain.
“Was it for them you went, mother?” cried Dick, with momentary relief: but this was turned into deeper distress when she shook her head, and burst out into a low moaning and crying that was pitiful to hear.
“No,” she said,—“no, no, it wasn’t for them; it was to try my strength; and I can’t do it, Dick—I can’t do it, no more, never no more. The strength has gone out of me. I’m dying for free air and the road—but I can’t do it, no more, no more!”
Poor Dick went and knelt down by her side, and took her hand into his. He was glad, and conscience-stricken, and full of pity for her, and understanding of her trouble. “Hush, mother! hush!” he said; “don’t cry. You’re weakly after the long winter, as I’ve seen you before——”
“No, lad, no,” she cried, rocking herself in her chair; “no, I’ll never be able for it again—no more, no more!”
Dick never said a word of the tumult in his own mind: he tried to comfort her, prophesying—though heaven knows how much against his own interests!—that she would soon feel stronger, and coaxed her to eat and drink, and at length prevailed upon her to go to bed. Now that they had become comparatively rich, she had the little room behind which had once been Dick’s, and he was promoted to a larger chamber up-stairs. He sat up there, poor fellow, as long as he could keep awake, wondering what he must do. Could it be that he was glad that his mother was less strong? or was it his duty to lose no time further, but to take her away by easy stages to the open air that was necessary for her, and the fields that she loved? Dick’s heart contracted, and bitter tears welled up into his eyes. But he felt that he must think of himself no longer, only of her. That was the one thing self-evident, which required no reasoning to make clear.
The next day a letter came from Valentine Ross, the first sign of his existence all this time, which changed entirely the current of affairs.