The terrible being who had thus arrived upon them had fallen down on the floor, apparently in a fit. He was lying writhing and struggling before the fire, his face distorted, his eyes glaring, foam and blood on his mouth. She went in and bent over him, then knelt down by him. She had not seen him since he was a boy. He had been twelve years old when he had gone away. She looked at him now, knowing before she looked who it was. Heaven help her! had she ever been light of heart, peaceful, happy, though this was coming? Was it years ago since she stood at her door and heard Dick whistling and the bees humming? She knew who it was even before she looked. She knew him for all his convulsed face, his terrible struggles and contortions. Abel! her son--who was a gentleman, who was too grand for his own people. The dog, faithful brute, with a truer memory than even the mother's, was licking the terrible face. She gave a great outcry, words and sobs together. "It's Watch that knows him, and not me, first!" she said. Then she got water and dashed in his face, and rubbed his stiffened hands. She did not even know what to do for him. She knelt by his side, her face too as pale as death, unconscious cries coming from her--"Oh my lad! Oh be still! Oh let him be, good Lord, let him be!" She did not know what she said. And Dick, with a face blanched to the colour of his linen, kept plucking at her sleeve and calling softly, "Mother?" She took no notice for a long time, then irritated by the repetition turned upon him sharply, "What is it, lad?" Dick could not get any question out of his parched lips, he only looked at her and then at the writhing figure on the floor, "Can you not see for yourself?" she cried, with a groan in which there was a kind of wild incredulous laugh. "Can you not tell without asking? It's my boy Abel, him that's a gentleman; our pride and our joy!"