The boy was silent for a little, and then said, “He will soon be well, and he will not be needing me, and he said I could go.” His voice broke with the remembrance of the parting with his father.
“And why are you going, Ranald?” she said, looking into his eyes.
Again the boy stood silent.
“Why do you go away from your home and your father, and—and—all of us who love you?”
“Indeed, there is no one,” he replied, bitterly; “and I am not for decent people. I am not for decent people. I know that well enough. There is no one that will care much.”
“No one, Ranald?” she asked, sadly. “I thought—” she paused, looking steadily into his face.
Suddenly the boy turned to her, and putting out both his hands, burst forth, his voice coming in dry sobs: “Oh, yes, yes! I do believe you. I do believe you. And that is why I came this way. I wanted to see your door again before I went. Oh, I will never forget you! Never, never, and I am glad I am seeing you, for now you will know—how much—” The boy was unable to proceed. His sobs were shaking his whole frame, and to his shy Highland Scotch nature, words of love and admiration were not easy. “You will not be sending me back home again?” he pleaded, anticipating her. “Indeed, I cannot stay in this place after to-day.”
But the minister's wife kept her eyes steadily upon his face without a word, trying in vain to find her voice, and the right words to say. She had no need of words, for in her face, pale, wet with her flowing tears, and illumined with her gray-brown eyes, Ranald read her heart.
“Oh!” he cried again, “you are wanting me to stay, and I will be ashamed before them all, and the minister, too. I cannot stay. I cannot stay.”
“And I cannot let you go, Ranald, my boy,” she said, commanding her voice to speech. “I want you to be a brave man. I don't want you to be afraid of them.”