It was the Tailor’s mother who spoke.  She was a very old woman, and helpless.  She was not quite so bright in her intellect as she had been, and got muddled over things that had lately happened; but she had a clear memory for what was long past, and was very pertinacious in her opinions.  She knew the private history of almost every family in the place, and who of the Trouts were buried under which old stones in the churchyard; and had more tales of ghosts, doubles, warnings, fairies, witches, hobgoblins, and such like, than even her grandchildren had ever come to the end of.  Her hands trembled with age, and she regretted this for nothing more than for the danger it brought her into of spilling the salt.  She was past housework, but all day she sat knitting hearth-rugs out of the bits and scraps of cloth that were shred in the tailoring.  How far she believed in the wonderful tales she told, and the odd little charms she practised, no one exactly knew; but the older she grew, the stranger were the things she remembered, and the more testy she was if any one doubted their truth.  “Bairns are a blessing!” said she.  “It is the family motto.”

“Are they?” said the Tailor emphatically.

He had a high respect for his mother, and did not like to contradict her, but he held his own opinion, based upon personal experience; and not being a metaphysician, did not understand that it is safer to found opinions on principles than on experience, since experience may alter, but principles cannot.

“Look at Tommy,” he broke out suddenly.  “That boy does nothing but whittle sticks from morning till night.  I have almost to lug him out of bed o’ mornings.  If I send him an errand, he loiters; I’d better have gone myself.  If I set him to do anything, I have to tell him everything; I could sooner do it myself.  And if he does work, it’s done so unwillingly, with such a poor grace; better, far better, to do it myself.  What housework do the boys ever do but looking after the baby?  And this afternoon she was asleep in the cradle, and off they went, and when she awoke, I must leave my work to take her. I gave her her supper, and put her to bed.  And what with what they want and I have to get, and what they take out to play with and lose, and what they bring in to play with and leave about, bairns give some trouble, Mother, and I’ve not an easy life of it.  The pay is poor enough when one can get the work, and the work is hard enough when one has a clear day to do it in; but housekeeping and bairn-minding don’t leave a man much time for his trade.  No! no!  Ma’am, the luck of the Trouts is gone, and ’Bairns are a burden,’ is the motto now.  Though they are one’s own,” he muttered to himself, “and not bad ones, and I did hope once would have been a blessing.”

“There’s Johnnie,” murmured the old lady, dreamily.  “He has a face like an apple.”

“And is about as useful,” said the Tailor.  “He might have been different, but his brother leads him by the nose.”