She relapsed into motionless silence and, herself now wholly tearless, watched the tears of Chris, who had sunk down on the floor between the mother and son.

“Why for do you cry an’ wring your hands so hard?” she asked suddenly.  “You’m awnly a girl yet—­young an’ soft-cheeked wi’ braave bonny eyes.  Theer’ll be many a man’s breast for you to comfort your head on.  But me!  Think o’ what’s tearin’ my auld heart to tatters—­me, so bleared an’ ugly an’ lonely.  God knaws God’s self couldn’t bring no balm to me—­none, till I huddle under the airth arter un; but you—­your wound won’t show by time the snaw comes again.”

“You forget when you loved a man first if you says such a thing as that.”

“Theer’s no eternal, lasting fashion o’ love but a mother’s to her awn male childer,” croaked the other.  “Sweethearts’ love is a thing o’ the blood—­a trick o’ Nature to tickle us poor human things into breeding ’gainst our better wisdom; but what a mother feels doan’t hang on no such broken reed.  It’s deeper down; it’s hell an’ heaven both to wance; it’s life; an’ to lose it is death.  See!  Essterday I’d ‘a’ fought an’ screamed an’ took on like a gude un to be fetched away to the Union; but come they put him in the ground, I’ll go so quiet as a lamb.”

Another silence followed; then the aged widow pursued her theme, at first in the same dreary, cracked monotone, then deepening to passion.

“I tell you a gude wife will do ‘most anything for a husband an’ give her body an’ soul to un; but she expects summat in return.  She wants his love an’ worship for hers; but a mother do give all—­all—­all—­an’ never axes nothin’ for it.  Just a kiss maybe, an’ a brightening eye, or a kind word.  That’s her pay, an’ better’n gawld, tu.  She’m purty nigh satisfied wi’ what would satisfy a dog, come to think on it.  ’T is her joy to fret an’ fume an’ pine o’ nights for un, an’ tire the A’mighty’s ear wi’ plans an’ suggestions for un; aye, think an’ sweat an’ starve for un all times.  ’T is her joy, I tell ‘e, to smooth his road, an’ catch the brambles by his way an’ let ’em bury their thorns in her flesh so he shaa’n’t feel ’em; ‘t is her joy to hear him babble of all his hopes an’ delights; an’ when the time comes she’ll taake the maid of his heart to her awn, though maybe ‘t is breakin’ wi’ fear that he’ll forget her in the light of the young eyes.  Ax your awn mother if what I sez ban’t God’s truth.  We as got the bwoys be content wi’ that little.  We awnly want to help theer young shoulders wi’ our auld wans, to fight for ’em to the last.  We’ll let theer wives have the love, we will, an’ ax no questions an’—­an’ we’ll break our hearts when the cheel ‘s took out o’ his turn—­break our hearts by inches—­same as I be doin’ now.”

“An’ doan’t I love, tu?  Weern’t he all the world to me, tu?  Isn’t my heart broken so well as yours?” sobbed Chris.