“What you lookin’ at, mum?” I asked her, once.
“A glory,” she answered.
“Glory!” said I. “They’s no glory out there. The night falls. ’Tis all black an’ cold on the hills. Sure, I sees no glory.”
“’Tis not a glory, but a shadow,” she whispered, “for you!”
Nor was I now ever permitted to see her in disarray, but always, as it seemed to me, fresh from my sister’s clever hands, her hair laid smooth and shining, her simple gown starched crisp and sweetly smelling of the ironing board; and when I asked her why she was never but thus lovely, she answered, with a smile, that surely it pleased her son to find her always so: which, indeed, it did. I felt, hence, in some puzzled way, that this display was a design upon me, but to what end I could not tell. And there was an air of sad unquiet in the house: it occurred to my childish fancy that my mother was like one bound alone upon a long journey; and once, deep in the night, when I had long lain ill at ease in the shadow of this fear, I crept to her door to listen, lest she be already fled, and I heard her sigh and faintly complain; and then I went back to bed, very sad that my mother should be ailing, but now sure that she would not leave me.
Next morning my father leaned over our breakfast table and laid his broad hand upon my mother’s shoulder; whereupon she looked up smiling, as ever she did when that big man caressed her.
“I’ll be havin’ the doctor for you,” he said.
She gave him a swift glance of warning—then turned her wide eyes upon me.
“Oh,” said my father, “the lad knows you is sick. ’Tis no use tryin’ t’ keep it from un any more.”
“Ay,” I sobbed, pushing my plate away, for I was of a sudden no longer hungry, “I heared you cryin’ las’ night.”