I was told I must not go into our room, it was dangerous, so I went to the hospital and waited and watched the people go in and out.  One gentleman with a kind face came out and I made bold to speak to him.  When I said mother had fever he told me nobody could see her, and that she would be taken good care of.  I thought my heart would burst.  I could not bear to stay on the Gallowgate, and so weary days passed in my keeping watch on the hospital.  On Sunday coming, the neighbor who was so kind to me, said she would go with me, for they allowed visitors to see patients on Sunday afternoon.  We started, I trotting cheery in the thought I was about to see my mother.  The clerk at the counter asked the name and disease.  He said no visitors were admitted to the fever-ward.  Could he find out how she was?  He spoke into a tin tube and coming back opened a big book.  ‘She died yesterday,’ he said quite unconcerned.  I could not help it, I gave a cry and fainted.  As we trudged home in the rain, the woman told me they had buried her.

I had now no home.  The landlord fumigated our room with sulphur, took the little furniture for the rent, and got another tenant.  Everybody was kind but I knew they had not enough for themselves, and the resolve took shape, that I would go to the parish where my mother was born.  Often, when we took a walk on the Green, Sunday evenings, she would point to the hills beyond which her father’s home once was, and I came to think of that country-place as one where there was plenty to eat and coals to keep warm.  How to get there I tried to plan.  I must walk, of course, but how was I to live on the road?  I was running messages for the grocer with whom mother had dealt, and he gave me a halfpenny when he had an errand.  These I gave to the woman where I slept and who was so kind to me despite her poverty.  I was on London street after dark when a gentleman came along.  He was half-tipsy.  Catching hold of my collar he said if I would lead him to his house he would give me sixpence.  He gave a number in Montieth row.  I took his hand, which steadied him a little, and we got along slowly, and were lucky in not meeting a policeman.  When we got to the number he gave me, I rang the bell.  A man came to the door, who exclaimed, At it again.  The gentleman stumbled in and I was going away when he recollected me.  Fumbling in his pocket, he picked out a coin and put it into my hand, and the door closed.  At the first lamp I looked at it; sure enough, he had given me a sixpence.  I was overjoyed, and I said to myself, I can leave for Ayrshire now.  I wakened early next morning and began my preparations.  I got speldrins and scones, tying them in the silk handkerchief mother wore round her neck on Sundays.  That and her bible was all I had of her belongings.  Where the rest had gone, a number of pawn tickets told.  I was in a hurry to be off and telling the woman I was going to try the country I bade her goodbye.  She said, God help you, poor boy, and kissed my cheek.  The bells at the Cross were chiming out, The blue bells of Scotland, when I turned the corner at the Saltmarket.