But the elder son spoke up at this talk of his land and he said, “And how then will we live? We can scarcely live even as it is and if we rent more and at these new and ruinous rates we have now we shall be beggars. All we own is this small parcel of land and I will not sell it, mother. No, the land is mine--I will not sell it.” And when he said this his wife spoke up, to say the only thing she had said all the time, for she had sat there quietly listening, her pale face grave and showing nothing and she said, “There is the son I have in me to think of now.” And the man said heavily, “Aye, it is he I think of.” Then was the old mother silent. Yes, she was silent and she wept a while and thereafter all that night whenever fresh words broke forth there was but this one answer to them all. * * * * * When the dim dawn came near, for they had sat the night through, the mother gathered some strange strength she had and said, “I will go myself. Once more I will go into the town and wait to see my little son if he must go out to die.” And they laid their hands upon her arm and begged her not to go, and the son said earnestly, “Mother, I will go and fetch him--afterwards--for if you see the sight you yourself will die.” But she said, “What if I die?” She washed her face and combed the bit of gray hair left on her head and put a clean coat on herself as ever she was used to do when she went townwards, and she said simply, “Go and fetch my cousin’s ass. You will let me have it, cousin?” “Oh, aye,” the cousin said helplessly and sadly. So the son and cousin’s son went and fetched the ass and set the old mother on its back and they walked to the town beside it, a lantern in the son’s hand, for dawn was still too faint to walk by. Now was the mother weak and quiet and washed by her tears, and she went almost not knowing what she did, but clinging to the ass’s back. Her head hung down and she did not look once to see the dawn. She stared down into the pale dusty road that scarcely showed yet through the darkness. The men were silent, too, at that grave hour, and so they went winding with the road to the south and entered in toward the southern gate that was not opened yet as they came because the day was still so early.