’Is it for me? You dear, dear generous boy. How sweet of you. I’ll wear it in my dress. When you’re beside me life is such a joy, You bring the sun to solitariness.’ She brushed his jacket with a light caress, His arms went round her fast, she yielded meek; He had the happiness to kiss her cheek. ’My dear, my dear.’ ’My very dear, my Jim, How very kind my Jimmy is to me; I ache to think that some are harsh to him; Not like my Jimmy, beautiful and free. My darling boy, how lovely it would be If all would trust as we two trust each other.’ And Jimmy’s heart grew hard against his mother. She, poor old soul, was waiting in the gloom For Jimmy’s pay, that she could do the shopping. The clock ticked out a solemn tale of doom; Clogs on the bricks outside went clippa-clopping, The owls were coming out and dew was dropping. The bacon burnt, and Jimmy not yet home. The clock was ticking dooms out like a gnome. ’What can have kept him that he doesn’t come? O God, they’d tell me if he’d come to hurt.’ The unknown, unseen evil struck her numb, She saw his body bloody in the dirt, She saw the life blood pumping through the shirt, She saw him tipsy in the navvies’ booth, She saw all forms of evil but the truth. At last she hurried up the line to ask If Jim were hurt or why he wasn’t back. She found the watchman wearing through his task; Over the fire basket in his shack; Behind, the new embankment rose up black. ’Gurney?’ he said. ’He’d got to see a friend.’ ’Where?’ ’I dunno. I think out Plaister’s End. Thanking the man, she tottered down the hill, The long-feared fang had bitten to the bone. The brook beside her talked as water will That it was lonely singing all alone, The night was lonely with the water’s tone, And she was lonely to the very marrow. Love puts such bitter poison on Fate’s arrow. She went the long way to them by the mills, She told herself that she must find her son. The night was ominous of many ills; The soughing larch-clump almost made her run, Her boots hurt (she had got a stone in one) And bitter beaks were tearing at her liver That her boy’s heart was turned from her forever. She kept the lane, past Spindle’s, past the Callows’, Her lips still muttering prayers against the worst, And there were people coming from the sallows, Along the wild duck patch by Beggar’s Hurst. Being in moonlight mother saw them first, She saw them moving in the moonlight dim, A woman with a sweet voice saying ’Jim.’ Trembling she grovelled down into the ditch, They wandered past her pressing side to side. ’O Anna, my belov’d, if I were rich.’ It was her son, and Anna’s voice replied, ’Dear boy, dear beauty boy, my love and pride.’ And he: ’It’s but a silver thing, but I Will earn you better lockets by and bye.’