God help me, trouble will never end, I think. What d'ye mean by trouble?
Speak out, man, can't ye? Is he ill! My boy! tell me, is he ill?" in a hurried voice of terror. "Na, na, that's not it. He's well enough. All he bade me say was, 'Tell mother I'm in trouble, and can't come home to-night.'" "Not come home to-night! And what am I to do with Alice? I can't go on, wearing my life out wi' watching. He might come and help me." "I tell you he can't," said the man. "Can't, and he is well, you say? Stuff! It's just that he's getten like other young men, and wants to go a-larking. But I'll give it him when be comes back." The man turned to go; he durst not trust himself to speak in Jem's justification.
But she would not let him off. She stood between him and the door, as she said, "Yo shall not go till yo've told me what he's after. I can see plain enough you know, and I'll know, too, before I've done." "You'll know soon enough, missis!" "I'll know now, I tell ye. What's up that he can't come home and help me nurse? Me, as never got a wink o' sleep last night wi' watching." "Well, if you will have it out," said the poor badgered man, "the police have got hold on him." "On my Jem!" said the enraged mother. "You're a downright liar, and that's what you are. My Jem, as never did harm to any one in his life. You're a liar, that's what you are." "He's done harm enough now," said the man, angry in his turn, "for there's good evidence he murdered young Carson, as was shot last night." She staggered forward to strike the man for telling the terrible truth; but the weakness of old age, of motherly agony, overcame her, and she sank down on a chair, and covered her face. He could not leave her. When next she spoke, it was in an imploring, feeble, child-like voice. "Oh, master, say you're only joking. I ax your pardon if I have vexed ye, but please say you're only joking. You don't know what Jem is to me." She looked humbly, anxiously up at him. "I wish I were only joking, missis; but it's true as I say. They've taken him up on charge o' murder. It were his gun as were found near th' place; and one o' the police beard him quarrelling with Mr Carson a few days back, about a girl." "About a girl" broke in the mother, once more indignant, though too feeble to show it as before. "My Jem was as steady as----" she hesitated for a comparison wherewith to finish, and then repeated, "as steady as Lucifer, and he were an angel, you know. My Jem was not one to quarrel about a girl." "Aye, but it was that, though. They'd got her name quite pat. The man bad heard all they said. Mary Barton was her name, whoever she may be." "Mary Barton! the dirty hussy! to bring my Jem into trouble of this kind.
I'll give it her well when I see her: that I will. Oh! my poor Jem!" rocking herself to and fro. "And what about the gun? What did ye say about that?" "His gun were found on the spot where the murder were done." "That's a lie for one, then. A man has got the gun now, safe and sound.
I saw it not an hour ago." The man shook his head. "Yes, he has indeed. A friend o' Jem's, as he'd lent it to." "Did you know the chap?" asked the man, who was really anxious for Jem's exculpation, and caught a gleam of hope from her last speech. "No! I can't say as I did. But he were put on as a workman." "It's maybe only one of them policemen, disguised." "Nay; they'd never go for to do that, and trick me into telling on my own son. It would be like seething a kid in its mother's milk; and that th' Bible forbids." "I don't know," replied the man. Soon afterwards he went away, feeling unable to comfort, yet distressed at the sight of sorrow; she would fain have detained him, but go he would.
And she was alone. She never for an instant believed Jem guilty; she would have doubted if the sun were fire, first: but sorrow, desolation, and at times anger, took possession of her mind. She told the unconscious Alice, hoping to rouse her to sympathy; and then was disappointed, because, still smiling and calm, she murmured of her mother, and the happy days of infancy.