’I ‘m drunk!’ he bawled.  ‘Will that do for ye?’

Mrs. Mel stood with her two hands crossed above her apron-string, noting his sullen lurking eye with the calm of a tamer of beasts.

‘You go out of the room; I’m drunk!’ Dandy repeated, and pitched forward on the bed-post, in the middle of an oath.

She understood that it was pure kindness on Dandy’s part to bid her go and be out of his reach; and therefore, on his becoming so abusive as to be menacing, she, without a shade of anger, and in the most unruffled manner, administered to him the remedy she had reserved, in the shape of a smart box on the ear, which sent him flat to the floor.  He rose, after two or three efforts, quite subdued.

‘Now, Dandy, sit on the edge of the bed.’

Dandy sat on the extreme edge, and Mrs. Mel pursued: 

‘Now, Dandy, tell me what your master said at the table.’

’Talked at ’em like a lord, he did,’ said Dandy, stupidly consoling the boxed ear.

‘What were his words?’

Dandy’s peculiarity was, that he never remembered anything save when drunk, and Mrs. Mel’s dose had rather sobered him.  By degrees, scratching at his head haltingly, he gave the context.

“’Gentlemen, I hear for the first time, you’ve claims against my poor father.  Nobody shall ever say he died, and any man was the worse for it.  I’ll meet you next week, and I’ll bind myself by law.  Here’s Lawyer Perkins.  No; Mr. Perkins.  I’ll pay off every penny.  Gentlemen, look upon me as your debtor, and not my father."’

Delivering this with tolerable steadiness, Dandy asked, ‘Will that do?’

‘That will do,’ said Mrs. Mel.  ’I’ll send you up some tea presently.  Lie down, Dandy.’

The house was dark and silent when Evan, refreshed by his rest, descended to seek his mother.  She was sitting alone in the parlour.  With a tenderness which Mrs. Mel permitted rather than encouraged, Evan put his arm round her neck, and kissed her many times.  One of the symptoms of heavy sorrow, a longing for the signs of love, made Evan fondle his mother, and bend over her yearningly.  Mrs. Mel said once:  ’Dear Van; good boy!’ and quietly sat through his caresses.

‘Sitting up for me, mother?’ he whispered.

‘Yes, Van; we may as well have our talk out.’

‘Ah!’ he took a chair close by her side, ’tell me my father’s last words.’

‘He said he hoped you would never be a tailor.’

Evan’s forehead wrinkled up.  ‘There’s not much fear of that, then!’

His mother turned her face on him, and examined him with a rigorous placidity; all her features seeming to bear down on him.  Evan did not like the look.

‘You object to trade, Van?’

’Yes, decidedly, mother-hate it; but that’s not what I want to talk to you about.  Didn’t my father speak of me much?’

’He desired that you should wear his militia sword, if you got a commission.’