“A boy like me!” said Thomas, feigning indignation, and stretching himself to his full height. “Where would you be getting your men, mother?”
“You are man enough, laddie,” said his mother, “and a good one you will come to be, I doubt. And you, too, Hughie, lad,” she added, turning to him. “You will be like your father.”
“I dunno,” said Hughie, his face flushing scarlet. He was weary and sick of his secret, and the sight of the loving comradeship between Thomas and his mother made his burden all the heavier.
“What's wrong with yon laddie?” asked Mrs. Finch, when Hughie had gone away to bed.
“Now, mother, you're too sharp altogether. And how do you know anything is wrong with him?”
“I warrant you his mother sees it. Something is on his mind. Hughie is not the lad he used to be. He will not look at you straight, and that is not like Hughie.”
“Oh, mother, you're a sharp one,” said Thomas. “I thought no one had seen that but myself. Yes, there is something wrong with him. It's something in the school. It's a poor place nowadays, anyway, and I wish Hughie were done with it.”
“He must keep at the school, Thomas, and I only wish you could do the same.” His mother sighed. She had her own secret ambition for Thomas, and though she never opened her heart to her son, or indeed to any one, Thomas somehow knew that it was her heart's desire to see him “in the pulpit.”
“Never you mind, mother,” he said, brightly. “It'll all come right. Aren't you always the one preaching faith to me?”
“Yes, laddie, and it is needed, and sorely at times.”