“O John!  John!  I’ve been longing for you days and days.  Come inside, my dear lad.  Come in!  I’ll be bound you are hungry.  What will you take?  Have a cup of tea, now, John; it will be four hours before suppertime, you know.”

“Very well, mother.  I haven’t had my tea today, and I am a bit hungry.”

“Poor lad!  You shall have your tea and a mouthful in a few minutes.”

“I’ll go to my room, mother, and wash my face and hands.  I am not fit company for a dame so sweet as you are,” and he lifted his right hand courteously as he passed her.

In less than half an hour there was tea and milk, cold meat and fruit before John, and his mother watched him eating with a beaming satisfaction.  And when John looked into her happy face he wondered at his dream in Edinburgh, and said gratefully to himself,

“All is right with mother.  Thank God for that!”

She did not talk while John was eating, but as he sat smoking in the porch afterwards, she said,

“I want to ask you where you have been all these weeks, John, but Harry isn’t here, and you won’t want to tell your story twice over, will you, now?”

“I would rather not, mother.”

“Your father wouldn’t have done it, whether he liked to or not.  I don’t expect you are any different to father.  I didn’t look for you, John, till next week.”

“But you needed me and wanted me?”

“Whatever makes you say that?”

“I dreamed that you wanted me, and I came home to see.”

“Was it last Sunday night?”

“Yes.”

“About eleven o’clock?”

“I did not notice the time.”

“Well, for sure, I was in trouble Sunday.  All day long I was in trouble, and I am in a lot of trouble yet.  I wanted you badly, John, and I did call you, but not aloud.  It was just to myself.  I wished you were here.”

“Then yourself called to myself, and here I am.  Whatever troubles you, mother, troubles me.”

“To be sure, I know that, John.  Well, then, it is your brother Harry.”

A look of anxiety came into John’s face and he asked in an anxious voice, “What is the matter with Harry?  Is he well?”

“Quite well.”

“Then what has he been doing?”

“Nay, it’s something he wants to do.”

“He wants to get married, I suppose?”

“Nay, I haven’t heard of any foolishness of that make.  I’ll tell you what he wants to do—­he wants to rent his share in the mill to Naylor’s sons.”

Then John leaped to his feet and said angrily, “Never!  Never!  It cannot be true, mother!  I cannot believe it!  Who told you?”

“Your overseer, Jonathan Greenwood, and Harry asked Greenwood to stand by him in the matter, but Jonathan wouldn’t have anything to do with such business, and he advised me to send for you.  He says the lad is needing looking after—­in more ways than one.”

“Where is Harry?”