"Yes, and so was her mother. I remember she used to fill two pails when the grass was good.""I remember her, too. Her horns curled right back, didn't they?
And she always looked so fierce."
"Yes, but she was a kindly cow. And will the churn be ready for the morning?""Yes, mother, we'll have buttermilk for our porridge, sure enough.""Well, you'll need to be up early for that, too early, Thomas, lad, for a boy like you.""A boy like me!" said Thomas, feigning indignation, and stretching himself to his full height. "Where would you be getting your men, mother?""You are man enough, laddie," said his mother, "and a good one you will come to be, I doubt. And you, too, Hughie, lad," she added, turning to him. "You will be like your father.""I dunno," said Hughie, his face flushing scarlet. He was weary and sick of his secret, and the sight of the loving comradeship between Thomas and his mother made his burden all the heavier.
"What's wrong with yon laddie?" asked Mrs. Finch, when Hughie had gone away to bed.
"Now, mother, you're too sharp altogether. And how do you know anything is wrong with him?""I warrant you his mother sees it. Something is on his mind.
Hughie is not the lad he used to be. He will not look at you straight, and that is not like Hughie.""Oh, mother, you're a sharp one," said Thomas. "I thought no one had seen that but myself. Yes, there is something wrong with him.
It's something in the school. It's a poor place nowadays, anyway, and I wish Hughie were done with it.""He must keep at the school, Thomas, and I only wish you could do the same." His mother sighed. She had her own secret ambition for Thomas, and though she never opened her heart to her son, or indeed to any one, Thomas somehow knew that it was her heart's desire to see him "in the pulpit.""Never you mind, mother," he said, brightly. "It'll all come right. Aren't you always the one preaching faith to me?""Yes, laddie, and it is needed, and sorely at times.""Now, mither," said Thomas, dropping into her native speech, "ye mauna be fashin' yersel. Ye'll jist say 'Now I lay me,' and gang to sleep like a bairnie.""Ay, that's a guid word, laddie, an' a'll tak it. Ye may kiss me guid nicht. A'll tak it."Thomas bent over her and whispered in her ear, "Ay, mither, mither, ye're an angel, and that ye are.""Hoots, laddie, gang awa wi' ye," said his mother, but she held her arms about his neck and kissed him once and again. There was no one to see, and why should they not give and take their heart's fill of love.
But when Thomas stood outside the room door, he folded his arms tight across his breast and whispered with lips that quivered, "Ay, mither, mither, mither, there's nane like ye. There's nane like ye." And he was glad that when he went upstairs, he found Hughie unwilling to talk.
The next three days they were all busy with the planting of the potatoes, and nothing could have been better for Hughie. The sweet, sunny air, and the kindly, wholesome earth and honest hard work were life and health to mind and heart and body. It is wonderful how the touch of the kindly mother earth cleanses the soul from its unwholesome humors. The hours that Hughie spent in working with the clean, red earth seemed somehow to breathe virtue into him. He remembered the past months like a bad dream. They seemed to him a hideous unreality, and he could not think of Foxy and his schemes, nor of his own weakness in yielding to temptation, without a horrible self-loathing. He became aware of a strange feeling of sympathy and kinship with old Donald Finch. He seemed to understand his gloom. During those days their work brought those two together, for Billy Jack had the running of the drills, and to Thomas was intrusted the responsibility of "dropping" the potatoes, so Hughie and the old man undertook to "cover" after Thomas.
Side by side they hoed together, speaking not a word for an hour at a time, but before long the old man appeared to feel the lad's sympathy. Hughie was quick to save him steps, and eager in many ways to anticipate his wishes. He was quick, too, with the hoe, and ambitious to do his full share of the work, and this won the old man's respect, so that by the end of the first day there was established between them a solid basis of friendship.
Old Donald Finch was no cheerful companion for Hughie, but it was to Hughie a relief, more than anything else, that he was not much with either Thomas or Billy Jack.
"You're tired," he ventured, in answer to a deep sigh from the old man, toward the close of the day.
"No, laddie," replied the old man, "I know not that I am working.
The burden of toil is the least of all our burdens." And then, after a pause, he added, "It is a terrible thing, is sin."To an equal in age the old man would never have ventured this confidence, but to Hughie, to his own surprise, he found it easy to talk.
"A terrible thing," he repeated, "and it will always be finding you out."Hughie listened to him with a fearful sinking of heart, thinking of himself and his sin.
"Yes," repeated the old man, with awful solemnity, "it will come up with you at last.""But," ventured Hughie, timidly, "won't God forgive? Won't he ever forget?"The old man looked at him, leaning upon his hoe.
"Yes, he will forgive. But for those who have had great privileges, and who have sinned against light--I will not say."The fear deepened in Hughie's heart.
"Do you mean that God will not forgive a man who has had a good chance, an elder, or a minister, or--or--a minister's son, say, like me?"There was something in Hughie's tone that startled the old man. He glanced at Hughie's face.
"What am I saying?" he cried. "It is of myself I am thinking, boy, and of no minister or minister's son."But Hughie stood looking at him, his face showing his terrible anxiety. God and sin were vivid realities to him.
"Yes, yes," said the old man to himself, "it is a great gospel.
