within doors with the chair turned bottom upwards.”
“I wish he were a wee bairn lying in my arms again. It were a sore day when I weaned him; and I think life’s been getten sorer and sorer at every turn he’s ta’en towards manhood.”
“Coom, lass, that’s noan the way to be talking. Be thankful to Marcy that thou’st getten a man for the son as stands five foot eleven in’s stockings, and ne’er a sick piece about him. We wunnot grudge him his fling, will we, Bess, my wench. He’ll be coming back in a year, or mebby a bit more; and be a’ for settling in a quiet town like, wi’ a wife that’s noan so fur fra’ me at this very minute. An’ we oud folk, as we get into years, must gi’ up farm, and tak a bit on a house near Lawyer Benjamin.”
And so the good Nathan, his own heart heavy enough, tried to soothe his womenkind. But, of the three, his eyes were longest in closing; his apprehensions the deepest founded.
“I misdoubt me I hanna done well by th’ lad. I misdoubt me sore,” was the thought that kept him awake till day began to dawn. “Summet’s wrong about him, or folk would na look at me wi’ such piteous-like een when they speak on him. I can see th’ meaning of it, thof I’m too proud to let on. And Lawson, too, he holds his tongue more nor he should do, when I ax him how my lad’s getting on, and whatten sort of a lawyer he’ll mak. God be marciful to Hester an’ me, if th’ lad’s gone away! God be marciful! But mebby it’s this lying waking n’ the night through, that maks me so fearfu’. Why, when I were his age, I daur be bound I should ha’ spent money fast enoof, i’ I could ha’ come by it. But I had to arn it; that maks a great differ’. Well! It were hard to thwart th’ child of our old age, and we waiten so long for to have ’un!”
Next morning Nathan rode Moggy the cart horse into Highminster to see Mr. Lawson. Anybody who saw him ride out of his own yard would have been struck with the change in him which, when he returned; a change, more than a day’s unusual exercise should have made in a man of his years. He scarcely held the reins at all. One jerk of Moggy’s head would have plucked them out of his hands. His head was bent forward, his eyes looking on some unseen thing, with long unwinking gaze. But as he drew near home on his return, he made an effort to recover himself.
“No need fretting them,” he said; “lads will be lads. But I didna think he had it in him to be so thowtless; young as he is. Well, well! he’ll mebby get more wisdom i’ Lunnon. Anyways it’s best to cut him off fra such evil lads as Will Hawker, and such-like. It’s they as have led my boy astray. He were a good chap till he knowed them.”
But he put all his cares in the background when he came into the houseplace, where both Bessy and his wife met him at the door, and both would fain lend a hand to take off his great-coat.
“Theer, wenches, theer! ye might let a man alone for to get out on’s clothes! Why, I might ha’ struck thee, lass.” And he went on talking, trying to keep them off for a time from the subject that all had at heart. But there was no putting them off for ever; and, by dint of repeated questioning on his wife’s part, more was got out than he had ever meant to tell, enough to grieve both his hearers sorely; and yet the brave old man still kept the worst in his own breast.
The next day Benjamin came home for a week or two before making his great start to London. His father kept him at a distance, and was solemn and quiet in his manner to the young man. Bessy, who had shown anger enough at first, and had uttered many a sharp speech, began to relent, and then to feel hurt and displeased that her uncle should persevere so long in his cold, reserved manner, and Benjamin just going to leave them. Her aunt went, tremblingly busy, about the clothes-presses and drawers, as if afraid of letting herself think either of the past or the future; only once or twice, coming behind her son, she suddenly stooped over his sitting figure, and kissed his cheek, and stroked his hair. Bessy remembered afterwards—long years afterwards—how he had tossed his head away with nervous irritability on one of these occasions, and had muttered—her aunt did not hear it, but Bessy did— “Can’t you leave a man alone?”
Towards Bessy herself he was pretty gracious. No other words express his manner: it was not warm, nor tender, nor cousinly, but there was an assumption of underbred politeness towards her as a young, pretty woman; which politeness was neglected in his authoritative or rumbling manner towards his mother, or his sullen silence before his father. He once or twice ventured on a compliment to Bessy on her personal appearance. She stood still, and looked at him with astonishment.
“How’s my eyes changed sin last thou sawst them,” she asked, “that thou must be telling me about ’em i’ that fashion? I’d rayther by a deal see thee helping the mother when she’s dropped her knitting-needle and canua see i’ th’ dusk for to pick it up.”
But Bessy thought of his pretty speech about her eyes long after he had forgotten making it, and would have been puzzled to tell the colour of them. Many a day, after he was gone, did she look earnestly in the little oblong looking-glass, which hung up against the wall of her little sleeping-chamber, but which she used to take down in order to examine the eyes he had praised, murmuring to herself, “Pretty soft grey eyes! Pretty soft grey eyes!” until she would hang up the glass again with a sudden laugh and a rosy blush.
In the days, when he had gone away to the vague distance and vaguer place the city called London, Bessy tried to forget all that had gone against her feeling of the affection and duty that a son owed to his parents; and she had many things to forget of this kind that would keep surging up into her mind. For instance, she wished that he had not objected to the home-spun, home-made shirts which his mother and she had had such pleasure in getting ready for him. He might not know, it was true and so her love urged how carefully and evenly the thread had been spun: how, content with bleaching the yarn in the sunniest meadow, the linen, on its return from the weaver’s, had been spread out afresh on the sweet summer grass, and watered carefully night after night when there was no dew to perform the kindly office. He did not know—for no one but Bessy herself did—how many false or large stitches, made large and false by her aunt’s failing eyes (who yet liked to do the choicest part of the stitching all by herself), Bessy had unpicked at night in her own room, and with dainty fingers had restitched; sewing eagerly in the dead of night. All this he did not know; or he could never have complained of the coarse texture; the old-fashioned make of these shirts; and urged on his mother to give him part of her little store of egg and butter money in order to buy newer-fashioned linen in Highminster.
When once that little precious store of his mother’s was discovered, it was well for Bessy’s peace of mind that she did not know how loosely her aunt counted up the coins, mistaking guineas for shillings, or just the other way, so that the amount was seldom the same in the old black spoutless teapot. Yet this son, this hope, this love, had yet a strange power of fascination over the household. The evening before he left, he sat between his parents, a hand in theirs on either side, and Bessy on the old creepie-stool, her head lying on her aunt’s knee, and looking up at him from time to time, as if to learn his face off by heart; till his glances meeting hers, made her drop her eyes, and only sigh.
He stopped up late that night with his father, long after the women had gone to bed. But not to sleep; for I will answer for it the grey-haired mother never slept a wink till the late dawn of the autumn day, and Bessy heard her uncle come up-stairs with heavy, deliberate foot-steps, and go to the old stocking which served him for bank; and count out golden guineas—once he stopped, but again he went on afresh, as if resolved to crown his gift with liberality. Another long pause in which she could but indistinctly hear continued words, it might have been advice, it might be a prayer, for it was in her uncle’s voice; and then father and son came up to bed. Bessy’s room was but parted from her cousin’s by a thin wooden partition, and the last sound she distinctly heard, before her eyes, tired out with crying, closed themselves in sleep, was the guineas clinking down upon each other at regular intervals, as if Benjamin were playing at pitch and toss with his father’s
