“Matters not, matters not!—the meaning is very much the same.”
“Oh, my son,” said the mother, clinging to his neck, “will you, indeed, desert me? can you leave me in my old age? I have none, none but you! You know how I have loved—you know I will always love you.”
“And I love you, mother—and love him too, though he treats me as an outcast—I will always love you, but I will never more enter my father's dwelling. He has degraded me with his whip—he has attempted my life with his bludgeon. I forgive him, but will never expose myself again to his cruelties or indignities. You will always find me a son, and a dutiful one, in all other respects.”
He turned away with Mr. Calvert, and slowly proceeded down the pathway by which he had approached the eminence. He gave Stevens a significant look as he passed him, and lifted one of the pistols which he still carried in his hands, in a manner to make evident his meaning. The other smiled and turned off with the group, who proceeded by the route along the hills, but the last words of the mother, subdued by sobs, still came to the ears of the youth:—
“Oh, my son, come home! come home!”
“No! no! I have no home—no home, mother!” muttered the young man, as if he thought the half-stifled response could reach the ears of the complaining woman.
“No home! no hope!” he continued—“I am desolate.”
“Not so, my son. God is our home; God is our companion; our strength, our preserver! Living and loving, manfully striving and working out our toils for deliverance, we are neither homeless, nor hopeless; neither strengthless, nor fatherless; wanting neither in substance nor companion. This is a sharp lesson, perhaps, but a necessary one. It will give you that courage, of the great value of which I spoke to you but a few days ago. Come with me to my home; it shall be yours until you can find a better.”
“I thank you—oh! how much I thank you. It may be all as you pay, but I feel very, very miserable.”