'Send Flintwinch here!' In a moment the girl had withdrawn, and the old man stood within the
door. 'What! You're hammer and tongs, already, you two?' he said, coolly
stroking his face. 'I thought you would be. I was pretty sure of it.'
'Flintwinch!' said the mother, 'look at my son. Look at him!'
'Well, I AM looking at him,' said Flintwinch.
She stretched out the arm with which she had shielded herself, and as
she went on, pointed at the object of her anger.
'In the very hour of his return almost--before the shoe upon his foot is
dry--he asperses his father's memory to his mother! Asks his mother
to become, with him, a spy upon his father's transactions through a
lifetime! Has misgivings that the goods of this world which we have
painfully got together early and late, with wear and tear and toil and
self-denial, are so much plunder; and asks to whom they shall be given
up, as reparation and restitution!'
Although she said this raging, she said it in a voice so far from being
beyond her control that it was even lower than her usual tone. She also
spoke with great distinctness. 'Reparation!' said she. 'Yes, truly! It is easy for him to talk of
reparation, fresh from journeying and junketing in foreign lands, and
living a life of vanity and pleasure. But let him look at me, in prison,
and in bonds here. I endure without murmuring, because it is appointed
that I shall so make reparation for my sins. Reparation! Is there none
in this room? Has there been none here this fifteen years?'
Thus was she always balancing her bargains with the Majesty of heaven,
posting up the entries to her credit, strictly keeping her set-off, and
claiming her due. She was only remarkable in this, for the force
and emphasis with which she did it. Thousands upon thousands do it,
according to their varying manner, every day. 'Flintwinch, give me that book!'
The old man handed it to her from the table. She put two fingers between
the leaves, closed the book upon them, and held it up to her son in
a threatening way. 'In the days of old, Arthur, treated of in this
commentary, there were pious men, beloved of the Lord, who would have
cursed their sons for less than this: who would have sent them forth,
and sent whole nations forth, if such had supported them, to be avoided
of God and man, and perish, down to the baby at the breast. But I only
tell you that if you ever renew that theme with me, I will renounce you;
I will so dismiss you through that doorway, that you had better have
been motherless from your cradle. I will never see or know you more. And
if, after all, you were to come into this darkened room to look upon me
lying dead, my body should bleed, if I could make it, when you came near
me.'