Part 2 (1/2)

What would they say about this in Thrums?

Shovel even insisted on returning him his cap, and for some queer reason, this cut deepest. Tommy about to charge, with his head down, now walked away so quietly that Shovel, who could not help liking the funny little cuss, felt a twinge of remorse, and nearly followed him with a magnanimous offer: to treat him as if he were still respectable.

Tommy lay down on a distant stair, one of the very stairs where _she_ had sat with him. Ladies, don't you dare to pity him now, for he won't stand it. Rage was what he felt, and a man in a rage (as you may know if you are married) is only to be soothed by the sight of all womankind in terror of him. But you may look upon your handiwork, and gloat, an you will, on the wreck you have made. A young gentleman trusted one of you; behold the result. O! O! O! O! now do you understand why we men cannot abide you?

If she had told him flat that his mother, and his alone, she would have, and so there was an end of it. Ah, catch them taking a straight road.

But to put on those airs of helplessness, to wave him that gay good-by, and then the moment his back was turned, to be off through the air on--perhaps on her m.u.f.f, to the home he had thought to lure her from. In a word, to be diddled by a girl when one flatters himself he is diddling! S'death, a das.h.i.+ng fellow finds it hard to bear. Nevertheless, he has to bear it, for oh, Tommy, Tommy, 'tis the common lot of man.

His hand sought his pocket for the penny that had brought him comfort in dark hours before now; but, alack, she had deprived him even of it.

Never again should his pinkie finger go through that warm hole, and at the thought a sense of his forlornness choked him and he cried. You may pity him a little now.

Darkness came and hid him even from himself. He is not found again until a time of the night that is not marked on ornamental clocks, but has an hour to itself on the watch which a hundred thousand or so of London women carry in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s; the hour when men steal homewards trickling at the mouth and drawing back from their own shadows to the wives they once went a-maying with, or the mothers who had such travail at the bearing of them, as if for great ends. Out of this, the drunkard's hour, rose the wan face of Tommy, who had waked up somewhere clammy cold and quaking, and he was a very little boy, so he ran to his mother.

Such a shabby dark room it was, but it was home, such a weary worn woman in the bed, but he was her son, and she had been wringing her hands because he was so long in coming, and do you think he hurt her when he pressed his head on her poor breast, and do you think she grudged the heat his cold hands drew from her warm face? He squeezed her with a violence that put more heat into her blood than he took out of it.

And he was very considerate, too: not a word of reproach in him, though he knew very well what that bundle in the back of the bed was.

She guessed that he had heard the news and stayed away through jealousy of his sister, and by and by she said, with a faint smile, ”I have a present for you, laddie.” In the great world without, she used few Thrums words now; you would have known she was Scotch by her accent only, but when she and Tommy were together in that room, with the door shut, she always spoke as if her window still looked out on the bonny Marywellbrae. It is not really bonny, it is gey an' mean an' bleak, and you must not come to see it. It is just a steep wind-swept street, old and wrinkled, like your mother's face.

She had a present for him, she said, and Tommy replied, ”I knows,” with averted face.

”Such a bonny thing.”

”Bonny enough,” he said bitterly.

”Look at her, laddie.”

But he shrank from the ordeal, crying, ”No, no, keep her covered up!”

The little traitor seemed to be asleep, and so he ventured to say, eagerly, ”It wouldn't not take long to carry all our things to another house, would it? Me and Shovel could near do it ourselves.”

”And that's G.o.d's truth,” the woman said, with a look round the room.

”But what for should we do that?”

”Do you no see, mother?” he whispered excitedly. ”Then you and me could slip away, and--and leave her--in the press.”

The feeble smile with which his mother received this he interpreted thus, ”Wherever we go'd to she would be there before us.”

”The little besom!” he cried helplessly.

His mother saw that mischievous boys had been mounting him on his horse, which needed only one slap to make it go a mile; but she was a spiritless woman, and replied indifferently, ”You're a funny litlin.”

Presently a dry sob broke from her, and thinking the child was the cause, soft-hearted Tommy said, ”It can't not be helped, mother; don't cry, mother, I'm fond on yer yet, mother; I--I took her away. I found another woman--but she would come.”

”She's G.o.d's gift, man,” his mother said, but she added, in a different tone, ”Ay, but he hasna sent her keep.”

”G.o.d's gift!” Tommy shuddered, but he said sourly, ”I wish he would take her back. Do you wish that, too, mother?”

The weary woman almost said she did, but her arms--they gripped the baby as if frightened that he had sent for it. Jealous Tommy, suddenly deprived of his mother's hand, cried, ”It's true what Shovel says, you don't not love me never again; you jest loves that little limmer!”