Page:The Prussian officer, and other stories, Lawrence, 1914.djvu/82

 The minister listened without sympathy, quite neutral.

“And the lad as would have been a support to my old age! What is going to become of us?” she said.

The clergyman, justly, did not believe in the cry of poverty, but wondered what had become of the son.

“Has anything happened to Alfred?” he asked.

“We’ve got word he’s gone for a Queen’s sailor,” she said sharply.

‘He has joined the Navy!” exclaimed Mr. Lindley. “I think he could scarcely have done better—to serve his Queen and country on the sea. . .”

“He is wanted to serve me,” she cried. “And I wanted my lad at home.”

Alfred was her baby, her last, whom she had allowed herself the luxury of spoiling.

“You will miss him,” said Mr. Lindley, “that is certain. But this is no regrettable step for him to have taken—on the contrary.”

“That’s easy for you to say, Mr. Lindley,” she replied tartly. “Do you think I want my lad climbing ropes at another man’s bidding, like a monkey——?”

“There is no dishonour, surely, in serving in the Navy?”

“Dishonour this dishonour that,” cried the angry old woman. “He goes and makes a slave of himself, and he’ll rue it.”

Her angry, scornful impatience nettled the clergyman, and silenced him for some moments.