“Oh, take care o’ that nail at your foot; and oh, that beam to your poor poll—­poor soul! he’s been and hurt himself again.  And did they do it to him? and what was it for?” she resumed in soft cajolery.

“They did it, because—­”

“Yes, my dear; the reason for it?”

“Because, mother, they had a turn that way.”

“Thanks be to Above for leaving your cunning in you, my dear,” said the baffled woman, with sincere admiration.  “And Lord be thanked, if you’re not hurt bad, that they haven’t spoilt his handsome face,” she added.

In the bedroom, he let her partially undress him, refusing all doctor’s aid, and commanding her to make no noise about him and then he lay down and shut his eyes, for the pain was terrible—­galloped him and threw him with a shock—­and galloped him and threw him again, whenever his thoughts got free for a moment from the dizzy aching.

“My dear,” she whispered, “I’m going to get a little brandy.”

She hastened away upon this mission.

He was in the same posture when she returned with bottle and glass.

She poured out some, and made much of it as a specific, and of the great things brandy would do; but he motioned his hand from it feebly, till she reproached him tenderly as perverse and unkind.

“Now, my dearest boy, for my sake—­only for my sake.  Will you?  Yes, you will, my Robert!”

“No brandy, mother.”

“Only one small thimbleful?”

“No more brandy for me!”

“See, dear, how seriously you take it, and all because you want the comfort.”

“No brandy,” was all he could say.

She looked at the label on the bottle.  Alas! she knew whence it came, and what its quality.  She could cheat herself about it when herself only was concerned—­but she wavered at the thought of forcing it upon Robert as trusty medicine, though it had a pleasant taste, and was really, as she conceived, good enough for customers.

She tried him faintly with arguments in its favour; but his resolution was manifested by a deaf ear.

With a perfect faith in it she would, and she was conscious that she could, have raised his head and poured it down his throat.  The crucial test of her love for Robert forbade the attempt.  She burst into an uncontrollable fit of crying.

“Halloa! mother,” said Robert, opening his eyes to the sad candlelight surrounding them.

“My darling boy! whom I do love so; and not to be able to help you!  What shall I do—­what shall I do!”

With a start, he cried, “Where’s the horse!”

“The horse?”

“The old dad ’ll be asking for the horse to-morrow.”

“I saw a horse, my dear, afore I turned to my prayers at my bedside, coming down the street without his rider.  He came like a rumble of deafness in my ears.  Oh, my boy, I thought, Is it Robert’s horse?—­knowing you’ve got enemies, as there’s no brave man has not got ’em—­which is our only hope in the God of heaven!”