The Parson O' Dumford. Fenn George Manville

your position, remember that you are only a workman’s son, and that you mean to marry a workman’s daughter, and bring her home here as the wife of the master of Dumford Works.”

      “Confound it all!” muttered Richard, biting his nails.

      “He smiles at the notion of your being engaged to Eve, for he believes you to be honourable and a gentleman, while I, your mother, am obliged to know that your designs are evil, that you plot the ruin of a poor, weak girl – I wake up, in short, to know that my son is behaving like a scoundrel.”

      “Hold your tongue!” cried Richard, hoarsely; and leaping up, he took two or three turns backwards and forwards in the room, before throwing himself once more in his chair.

      “But you’ve not spoken to Joe Banks?” he cried.

      “I have, this morning,” said Mrs Glaire, and then, her voice trembling, and the judgelike tone giving way to one of appeal, she threw herself at the young man’s knees, clasping them with her arms, and then catching at and holding his hand. “Dick, my boy – my darling – I was obliged to speak – I am obliged to speak to you. You know how, since you became of age, I have delivered everything into your hands – how I have kept back from interfering – how I have been proud to see the boy I brought into the world rich and powerful. You know I have never stood in the way, though you have poured out like water on your betting and gambling the money your father and I saved by dint of scraping and saving.”

      “Oh, that’s it, is it?” said Richard, with a sneer.

      “No,” cried his mother, appealingly, “it is not, Dick, my boy; it is that I wish to make you see your danger before it is too late. You mad, infatuated boy, can you not see that by what you have done you have set all your workmen against you? You see how you are treated to-day!”

      “Oh yes,” said Richard; “and I’ve got the marks upon me.”

      “Who stood by you, faithfully and true, as he has always stood by our house in similar times of danger – danger not brought on by folly? – Banks, your father’s old fellow-workman – a man as true as steel.”

      “Oh yes, Joe Banks is right enough,” muttered Richard.

      “And yet you, Dick – oh, Dick, Dick, my boy, think what you are doing – you would reward him for his long services by doing him the greatest injury man could do to man. Are you mad?”

      “If I’m not, you’ll drive me mad,” cried Richard, trying to shake off his mother’s tight embrace.

      “No, no, Dick, you shall not leave me yet,” cried Mrs Glaire, in impassioned tones, as the tears now streamed down her cheeks. “You must – you shall listen to me. Can you not see that besides maddening the poor man by the cruel wrong you would do, you will make him your deadly enemy; that the works would be almost helpless without him; and that he is the strong link that holds the workpeople to our side? For they respect him, and – ”

      “Go on. They don’t respect me, you were going to say,” said Richard, petulantly. “Oh, mother, it’s too bad. You’ve got hold of some cock-and-bull bit of scandal, set about by one of the chattering fools of the place – old Bullivant, very likely – and you believe it.”

      “Richard, my boy,” said Mrs Glaire, rising and standing before him, “can you not be frank and candid with your own mother?”

      “You won’t let me,” he said; “you do nothing but bully me.”

      “When I tell you of your danger; when I remind you that you are standing on the edge of a precipice – ”

      “Oh, hang the precipice!” he cried; “you said that before.”

      “When I warn you of the ruin, and beg of you on my knees, my boy, if you like, not to pursue this girl – not to yield to a weak, mad passion that will only bring you misery and regret to the end of your days, for you would never marry her.”

      “Well, it isn’t likely,” he said, brutally.

      “Dick – Dick,” cried Mrs Glaire, passionately, roused by the callous tone in which he spoke, “are you in your right senses, or have you been drinking? It cannot be my boy who speaks!”

      “Well, there, all right, mother, I’ll own to it all,” he said, flippantly, and then he winced as the poor woman cast her arms round his neck, and strained him to her breast.

      “I knew you would, my boy, as soon as the good in your nature got the upper hand. And now, Dick, you’ll promise me you won’t see Daisy Banks any more.”

      “All right, mother, I won’t.”

      “Thankyou, Dick. God bless you for this. But I must talk to you a little more. I have something else to say.”

      “What, to-night?” he said, with a weary yawn.

      “Yes, to-night. Just a few words.”

      “Go on then, only cut it short.”

      “I wanted to say a few words to you about Eve.”

      “Oh, bother Eve,” he muttered. “Well, go on.”

      “Don’t you think, Dick, my boy, you’ve been very neglectful of poor Eve lately?”

      “Been as attentive as I ever have.”

      “No, no, Dick; and listen, dear; try and be a little more loving to her.”

      “Look here, mother,” cried Richard, impatiently; “I’ve promised all you want.”

      “Yes, yes, my boy.”

      “Well, if you get always trying to thrust Eve down my throat, I shall go away.”

      “Richard!”

      “I’m tired of being bored about her.”

      “But your future wife! Dick, my boy – there, only a few more words – will you take my advice?”

      “Yes – no – yes; well, there, I’ll try.”

      “Don’t you think, then, that had better come off soon?”

      “That! What?”

      “Your marriage.”

      “No, indeed I don’t, so I tell you. I don’t mean to be tied up to any woman’s apron-string till I have had my fling. There, good night; I’m going to bed.”

      Mrs Glaire made an effort to stay him, but he brushed by her, turned at the door, said, “Good night,” and was gone.

      As the door closed, Mrs Glaire sank into the chair her son had so lately occupied, and sat thinking over their conversation.

      Would he keep his word? Would he keep his word? That was the question that repeated itself again and again, and the poor woman brought forward all her faith to force herself to believe in her son’s sense of honour and truth, smiling at last with a kind of pride at the victory she had won.

      But as she smiled, lighting her candle the while, and then extinguishing the lamp, a shiver of dread passed through her at the recollection of the events of the day; and at last, when she passed from the room a heavy shadow seemed to follow her. It was the shadow of herself cast by the light she carried, but it seemed to her like the shadow of some coming evil, and as she went upstairs and passed her son’s door, from beneath which came the odour of tobacco, she sighed bitterly, and went on wondering how it would end, for she had not much faith in his promise.

      Volume One – Chapter Twelve.

      More Trouble at the Works

      “I shall have to do something about these people,” said the vicar, as he descended, after making a hasty toilet.

      His way out lay through the room appropriated by the objects of his thoughts, and on opening the door it was to find Mr Simeon Slee’s toilet still in progress. In fact, that gentleman was seated in a chair, holding a tin bowl of water, and his wife was washing his face for him, as if he were a child.

      They took no notice of the interruption,