t miserably to
bed.

Before going to her room the mother slipped up quietly to the loft and
found Thomas lying in his bunk, dressed and awake. He was still puzzling
out his ethical problem. His conscience clearly condemned him for his
fight with the master, and yet, somehow he could not regret having stood
up for Jimmie and taken his punishment. He expected no mercy at his
father's hands next morning. The punishment he knew would be cruel
enough, but it was not the pain that Thomas was dreading; he was dimly
struggling with the sense of outrage, for ever since the moment he had
stood up and uttered his challenge to the master, he had felt himself to
be different. That moment now seemed to belong to the distant years
when he was a boy, and now he could not imagine himself submitting to
a flogging from any man, and it seemed to him strange and almost
impossible that even his father should lift his hand to him.

"You are not sleeping, Thomas," said his mother, going up to his bunk.

"No, mother."

"And you have had no supper at all."

"I don't want any, mother."

The mother sat silent beside him for a time, and then said, quietly,
"You did not tell me, Thomas."

"No, mother, I didn't like."

"It would have been better that your father should have heard this
from--I mean, should have heard it at home. And--you might have told me,
Thomas."

"Yes, mother, I wish now I had. But, indeed, I can't understand how it
happened. I don't feel as if it was me at all." And then Thomas told his
mother all the tale, finishing his story with the words, "And I couldn't
help it, mother, at all."

The mother remained silent for a little, and then, with a little tremor
in her voice, she replied: "No, Thomas, I know you couldn't help it, and
I--" here her voice quite broke--"I am not ashamed of you."

"Are you not, mother?" said Thomas, sitting up suddenly in great
surprise. "Then I don't care. I couldn't make it out well."

"Never you mind, Thomas, it will be well," and she leaned over him and
kissed him. Thomas felt her face wet with tears, and his stolid reserve
broke down.

"Oh, mother, mother, I don't care now," he cried, his breath coming in
great sobs. "I don't care at all." And he put his arms round his mother,
clinging to her as if he had been a child.

"I know, laddie, I know," whispered his mother. "Never you fear, never
fear." And then, as if to herself, she added, "Thank the Lord you are
not a coward, whatever."