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—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
grumbling 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 canna 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,