John, laddie! What ails ye at yourself the nicht, man? Do I
no' ken my ain son by this time, think ye? Ay, do I. Better, maybe,
than he kens himsel'."

"There can be small doubt of that, mother. Only your kind eyes see
fewer faults and failings than he kens of himself. And, mother, I am
afraid the man who had my father for his good friend has done me an ill
turn. He has, in a measure, taken away the motive for my work, and so I
can have little pleasure in it."

"But, John, you will have your ain life to live and your ain work to do
when your mother is dead and gone. I have been pleased and proud to
have my son for breadwinner, and to ken that he was pleased and proud
for the same reason. But for all that, I am glad that you are set free
to think of your ain life. You are wearing on, lad, and it would be a
great gladness for me to see you in your ain house with wife and bairns
about you before I die. Ye can let yourself think of it now, since I am
off your hands."

"May ye live to see all you wish, mother. It winna be this while,
though. There's time enough for the like of that."

"Well, that's true. There's no' to say much time lost at
four-and-twenty. But I am growing an old Woman and frail, and I mayna
have so very many years before me. And ye needna put marriage off till
middle life as your father did. Though he ay said had we met sooner it
might have been different even with him. And it would be a wonderful
thing for me to see my son's wife and bairns before I die," repeated she
softly.

John rose and moved about the room. He had to do it with caution, for
there was no space for more than two or three of his long, impatient
strides between the four walls. His impulse was to rush out to the
darkening lanes or even to the more distant hills, that he might have it
out with himself there.

For his mother's words had moved him and a pair of wistful, brown eyes
were looking at him from the dying embers and from the darkness without.
He was saying to himself that the way lay straight before him if he
chose to take it--the way to moderate success in life, a competence
before his youth was past, and, as his mother had said, a wife and a
happy home.

And would all this content him? Who could say? No thought of these
things had troubled him, or even come into his mind till now. And no
such thoughts would have come now, he told himself, if it had not been
for his mother's words and a pair of bon