At last the two men came and would have lifted up the mother, but she would not let them. She lay there in the dust a while, moaning and listening in a daze to that strange song, yet knowing nothing, only moaning on.
And yet she could not moan long either, for a guard came from the gaol gate and prodded her most rudely with his gun and roared at her, “Off with you, old hag—” and the two men grew afraid and forced the mother to her feet and set her on the ass again and turned homeward slowly. But before they reached the southern gate they paused a while beside a wall and waited.
They waited until they heard a great roar go up, and then the two men looked at each other and at the old mother. But if she heard it or knew what it was, she made no sign. She sat drooping on the beast, and staring into the dust beneath its feet.
Then they went on, having heard the cry, and they met the crowd scattering and shouting this and that. The men said nothing nor did the old mother seem to hear, but some cried out, “A very merry death they died, too, and full of courage! Did you see that young bold maid and how she was singing to the end and when her head rolled off I swear she sang on a second, did she not?”
And some said, “Saw you that lad whose red blood spurted out so far it poured upon the headsman’s foot and made him curse?”
And some were laughing and their faces red and some were pale, and as the two men and the mother passed into the city gate, there was a young man there whose face was white as clay and he turned aside and leaned against the wall and vomited.
But if she saw or heard these things the mother said no word. No, she knew the lad was dead now; dead, and no use silver or anything; no use reproach, even if she could reprove. She longed but for one place and it was to get to her home and search out that old grave and weep there. It came across her heart most bitterly that not even had she any grave of her own dead to weep upon as other women had, and she must go and weep on some old unknown grave to ease her heart. But even this pang passed and she only longed to weep and ease herself.
When she was before their door again she came down from the ass and she said pleading to her elder son, “Take me out behind the hamlet—I must weep a while.”
The cousin’s wife was there and heard it and she said kindly, shaking her old head and wiping her eyes on her sleeves, “Aye, let the poor soul weep a while—it is the kindest thing—”
And so in silence the son led his mother to the grave and made a smooth place in the grass for her to sit upon and pulled some other grass and made it soft for her. She sat down then and leaned her head upon the grave and looked at him haggardly and said, “Go away and leave me for a while and let me weep.” And when he hesitated she said again most passionately, “Leave me, for if I do not weep then I must die!”
So he went away saying, “I will come soon to fetch you, mother,” for he was loath to leave her there alone.
Then did the mother sit and watch the idle day grow bright. She watched the sun come fresh and golden over all the land as though no one had died that day. The fields were ripe with late harvest and the grain was full and yellow in the leaf and the yellow sun poured over all the fields. And all the time the mother sat and waited for her sorrow to rise to tears in her and ease her broken heart. She thought of all her life and all her dead and how little there had been of any good to lay hold on in her years, and so her sorrow rose. She let it rise, not angry any more, nor struggling, but letting sorrow come now as it would and she took her measure full of it. She let herself be crushed to the very earth and felt her sorrow fill her, accepting it. And turning her face to the sky she cried in agony, “Is this atonement now? Am I not punished well?”
And then her tears came gushing and she laid her old head upon the grave and bent her face into the weeds and so she wept.
On and on she wept through that bright morning. She remembered every little sorrow and every great one and how her man had quarreled and gone and how there was no little maid to come and call her home from weeping now and how her lad looked tied to that wild maid and so she wept for all her life that day.
But even as she wept her son came running. Yes, he came running over the sun-strewn land and as he ran he beckoned with his arm and shouted something to her but she could not hear it quickly out of all her maze of sorrow. She lifted up her face to hear and then she heard him say, “Mother—mother—” and then she heard him cry, “My son is come—your grandson, mother!”
Yes, she heard that cry of his as clear as any call she ever heard her whole life long. Her tears ceased without her knowing it. She rose and staggered and then went to meet him, crying, “When—when—”
“But now,” he shouted laughing. “This very moment born—a son—I never saw a bigger babe and roaring like a lad born a year or two, I swear!”
She laid her hand upon his arm and
