She relapsed into motionless silence and, herself now wholly tearless, watched the tears of Chris, who had sunk down on the floor between the mother and son.

"Why for do _you_ cry an' wring your hands so hard?" she asked suddenly.

"You'm awnly a girl yet--young an' soft-cheeked wi' braave bonny eyes.

Theer'll be many a man's breast for you to comfort your head on. But me!

Think o' what's tearin' my auld heart to tatters--me, so bleared an'

ugly an' lonely. G.o.d knaws G.o.d's self couldn't bring no balm to me--none, till I huddle under the airth arter un; but you--your wound won't show by time the snaw comes again."

"You forget when you loved a man first if you says such a thing as that."

"Theer's no eternal, lasting fashion o' love but a mother's to her awn male childer," croaked the other. "Sweethearts' love is a thing o' the blood--a trick o' Nature to tickle us poor human things into breeding 'gainst our better wisdom; but what a mother feels doan't hang on no such broken reed. It's deeper down; it's h.e.l.l an' heaven both to wance; it's life; an' to lose it is death. See! Essterday I'd 'a' fought an'

screamed an' took on like a gude un to be fetched away to the Union; but come they put him in the ground, I'll go so quiet as a lamb."

Another silence followed; then the aged widow pursued her theme, at first in the same dreary, cracked monotone, then deepening to pa.s.sion.

"I tell you a gude wife will do 'most anything for a husband an' give her body an' soul to un; but she expects summat in return. She wants his love an' worship for hers; but a mother do give all--all--all--an' never axes nothin' for it. Just a kiss maybe, an' a brightening eye, or a kind word. That's her pay, an' better'n gawld, tu. She'm purty nigh satisfied wi' what would satisfy a dog, come to think on it. 'T is her joy to fret an' fume an' pine o' nights for un, an' tire the A'mighty's ear wi'

plans an' suggestions for un; aye, think an' sweat an' starve for un all times. 'T is her joy, I tell 'e, to smooth his road, an' catch the brambles by his way an' let 'em bury their thorns in her flesh so he shaa'n't feel 'em; 't is her joy to hear him babble of all his hopes an'

delights; an' when the time comes she'll taake the maid of his heart to her awn, though maybe 't is breakin' wi' fear that he'll forget her in the light of the young eyes. Ax your awn mother if what I sez ban't G.o.d's truth. We as got the bwoys be content wi' that little. We awnly want to help theer young shoulders wi' our auld wans, to fight for 'em to the last. We'll let theer wives have the love, we will, an' ax no questions an'--an' we'll break our hearts when the cheel 's took out o'

his turn--break our hearts by inches--same as I be doin' now."

"An' doan't I love, tu? Weern't he all the world to me, tu? Isn't my heart broken so well as yours?" sobbed Chris.

"Hear this, you wummon as talks of a broken heart," answered the elder almost harshly. "Wait--wait till you 'm the mother of a li'l man-cheel, an' see the shining eyes of un a-lookin' into yourn while your nipple's bein' squeezed by his naked gums, an' you laugh at what you suffered for un, an' hug un to you. Wait till he'm grawed from baby to bwoy, from bwoy to man; wait till he'm all you've got left in the cold, starved winter of a sorrowful life; an' wait till he'm brought home to 'e like this here, while you've been sittin' laughin' to yourself an' countin'

dream gawld. Then turn about to find the tears that'll comfort 'e, an'

the prayers that'll soothe 'e, and the G.o.d that'll lift 'e up; but you won't find 'em, Chris Blanchard."

The girl listened to this utterance, and it filled her with a sort of weird wonder as at a revelation of heredity. Mrs. Hicks had ever been taciturn before her, and now this rapid outpouring of thoughts and phrases echoed like the very speech of the dead. Thus had Clement talked, and the girl dimly marvelled without understanding. The impression pa.s.sed, and there awoke in Chris a sudden determination to whisper to this bereaved woman what she could not even tell her own mother. A second thought had probably changed her intention, but she did not wait for any second thought. She acted on impulse, rose, put her arms round the widow, and murmured her secret. The other started violently and broke her motionless posture before this intelligence.

"Christ! And he knawed--my son?"

"He knawed."

"Then you needn't whisper it. There's awnly us three here."

"An' no others must knaw. You'll never tell--never? You swear that?"

"Me tell! No, no. To think! Then theer's real sorrow for you, tu, poor soul--real, grawin' sorrow tu. Differ'nt from mine, but real enough.

Yet--"

She relapsed into a stone-like repose. No facial muscle moved, but the expression of her mind appeared in her eyes and there gradually grew a hungry look in them--as of a starving thing confronted with food. The realisation of these new facts took a long time. No action accompanied it; no wrinkle deepened; no line of the dejected figure lifted; but when she spoke again her voice had greatly changed and become softer and very tremulous.

"O my dear G.o.d! 't will be a bit of Clement! Had 'e thought o' that?"

Then she rose suddenly to her feet and expression came to her face--a very wonderful expression wherein were blended fear, awe, and something of vague but violent joy--as though one suddenly beheld a loved ghost from the dead.

"'T is as if all of un weern't quite lost! A li'l left--a cheel of his!

Wummon! You'm a holy thing to me--a holy thing evermore! You'm bearin'

sunshine for your summertime and my winter--if G.o.d so wills!"

Then she lifted up her voice and cried to Chris with a strange cry, and knelt down at her feet and kissed her hands and stroked them.

"Go to un," she said, leaping up; "go to Clem, an' tell un, in his ear, that I knaw. It'll reach him if you whisper it. His soul ban't so very far aways yet. Tell un I knaw, tu--you an' me. He'd glory that I knawed.

An' pray henceforrard, as I shall, for a bwoy. Ax G.o.d for a bwoy--ax wi'out ceasin' for a son full o' Clem. Our sorrows might win to the Everlasting Ear this wance. But, for Christ's sake, ax like wan who has a right to, not fawning an' humble."

The woman was transfigured as the significance of this news filled her mind. She wept before a splendid possibility. It fired her eyes and straightened her shrivelled stature. For a while her frantic utterances almost inspired Chris with the shadow of similar emotions; but another side of the picture knew no dawn. This the widow ignored--indeed it had not entered her head since her first comment on the confession. Now, however, the girl reminded her,--

"You forget a little what this must be to me, mother."

"Light in darkness."

"I hadn't thought that; an the gert world won't pity me, as you did when I first told you."

"You ban't feared o' the world, be you? The world forgot un. 'T was your awn word. What's the world to you, knawin' what you knaw? Do 'e want to be treated soft by what was allus h.e.l.l-hard to him? Four-and-thirty short years he lived, then the world beginned to ope its eyes to his paarts, an' awnly then--tu late, when the thread of his days was spun.

What's the world to you and why should you care for its word, Chris Blanchard?"

"Because I am Chris Blanchard," she said. "I was gwaine to kill myself, but thought to see his dear face wance more before I done it. Now--"

"Kill yourself! G.o.d's mercy! 'T will be killing Clem again if you do!

You caan't; you wouldn't dare; theer's black d.a.m.nation in it an' flat murder now. Hear me, for Christ's sake, if that's the awful thought in you: you'm G.o.d's chosen tool in this--chosen to suffer an' bring a bwoy in the world--Clem's bwoy. Doan't you see how't is? 'Kill yourself'! How can 'e dream it? You've got to bring a bwoy, I tell 'e, to keep us from both gwaine stark mad. 'T was foreordained he should leave his holy likeness. G.o.d's truth! You should be proud 'stead o' fearful--such a man as he was. Hold your head high an' pray when none's lookin', pray through every wakin' hour an' watch yourself as you'd watch the case of a golden jewel. What wise brain will think hard of you for followin' the chosen path? What odds if a babe's got ringless under the stars or in a lawful four-post bed? Who married Adam an' Eve? You was the wife of un 'cordin' to the first plan o' the livin' G.o.d; an' if He changed His lofty mind when't was tu late, blame doan't fall on you or the dead.

Think of a baaby--his baaby--under your breast! Think of meetin' him in time to come, wi' another soul got in sheer love! Better to faace the people an' let the bairn come to fulness o' life than fly them an' cut your days short an' go into the next world empty-handed. Caan't you see it? What would Clem say? He'd judge you hard--such a lover o' li'l childer as him. 'T is the first framework of an immortal soul you've got unfoldin', like a rosebud hid in the green, an' ban't for you to nip that life for your awn whim an' let the angels in heaven be fewer by wan. You must live. An' the bwoy'll graw into a tower of strength for 'e--a tower of strength an' a gla.s.s belike wheer you'll see Clem rose again."

"The shame of it. My mother and Will--Will who's a hard judge, an' such a clean man."

"'Clean'! Christ A'mighty! You'd madden a saint of heaven! Weern't Clem clean, tu? If G.o.d sends fire-fire breaks out--sweet, livin' fire. You must go through with it--aye, an' call the bwoy Clem, tu. Be you shamed of him as he lies here? Be you feared of anything the airth can do to you when you look at him? Do 'e think Heaven's allus hard? No, I tell 'e, not to the young--not to the young. The wind's mostly tempered to the shorn lamb, though the auld ewe do oftentimes sting for it, an' get the seeds o' death arter shearing. Wait, and be strong, till you feel Clem's baaby in your arms. That'll be reward enough, an' you won't care no more for the world then. His son, mind; who be you to take life, an'

break the buds of Clem's plantin'? Worse than to go in another's garden an' tear down green fruit."

So she pleaded volubly, with an electric increase of vitality, and continued to pour out a torrent of words, until Chris solemnly promised, before G.o.d and the dead, that she would not take her life. Having done so, some new design informed her.

"I must go," she said; "the moon has set and dawn is near. Dying be so easy; living so hard. But live I will; I swear it, though theer's awnly my poor mad brain to shaw how."

"Clem's son, mind. An' let me be the first to see it, for I feel't will be the gude pleasure of G.o.d I should."

"An' you promise to say no word, whatever betides, an' whatever you hear?"

"Dumb I'll be, as him theer--dumb, countin' the weeks an' months."

"Day's broke, an' I must go home-along," said Chris. She repeated the words mechanically, then moved away without any formal farewell. At the door she turned, hastened back, kissed the dead man's face again, and then departed, while the other woman looked at her but spoke no more.

Alone, with the struggle over and her object won, the mother shrank and dwindled again and grew older momentarily. Then she relapsed into the same posture as before, and anon, tears bred of new thoughts began to trickle painfully from their parched fountains. She did not move, but let them roll unwiped away. Presently her head sank back, her cap fell off and white hair dropped about her face.

Fingers of light seemed lifting the edges of the blind. They gained strength as the candle waned, and presently at c.o.c.k-crow, when unnumbered clarions proclaimed morning, grey dawn with golden eyes brightened upon a dead man and an ancient woman fast asleep beside him.

CHAPTER XVII

MISSING