The Mother

Then the mother looked at her elder son and broke out in fresh weeping and she moaned, “I knew we ought to let him have some land. We might have rented a little more and given him a share — but no, this elder son of mine and his wife must hold it all and grudge him everything—”

Then the elder son opened his mouth to speak, but the old cousin said quietly, “Do not speak, my son. Let your mother blame you and ease herself. We all know what you are and what your brother was and how ill he hated any labor on the land or any labor anywhere.”

So the son held his peace. At last the cousin’s son said on, “We asked the gaoler then how much silver it would take to set the lad free, and the gaoler shook his head and said that if the lad were high of place and son of some great rich and mighty man then doubtless silver used could set him free. But being a country lad and poor no man would put his life in danger for all that we could give, and so doubtless he must die.”

At this the mother shrieked, “And shall he die because he is my son and I am poor? We have that land we own and we will sell it to free him. Yes, we will sell it this very night, — there are those in this hamlet—”

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.

But there were many waiting there, for it had been noised about the countryside that there would be this great beheading and many came to see it for a show and brought their children. As soon as the gates were opened they all pressed in, the mother on her ass, and the two men, and they all turned to that piece of ground near the city wall within a certain open space. There in the early morning light a great crowd stood already, thick and pressed and silent with the thought of this vast spectacle of death. Little children clung hard to their parents in nameless fear of what they did not know, and babes cried out and were hushed and the crowd was silent, waiting hungrily, relishing in some strange way and hating, too, the horror that they craved to see.

But the mother and the two men did not stay in the crowd. No, the mother whispered, “Let us go to the door of the gaol and stand there,” for in her poor heart she still held the hope that somehow when she saw her son some miracle must happen, some way must come whereby she could save him.

So the man turned the ass’s head toward the gaol and there it was, and beside its gate set in the high wall spiked with glass along the top they waited. There a guard stretched himself and by him a lantern burned low, the candle spilling out a heap of melted tallow red as blood, until a chill wind blew up suddenly with the dawn and blew the guttering light out. There the three waited in the dusty street, and the mother came down from the ass and waited, and soon they heard the sound of footsteps stirring, and then the sound of many footsteps made on stone and marching and then there was a shout, “Open the gates!”

The guards sprang up then and stood beside the gates erect, their weapons stiff and hard across their shoulders, and so the gates swung open.

Then did the mother strain her eyes to see her son. There came forth many persons, youth tied to youth and two by two, their hands bound with hempen thongs, and each two tied to the two ahead. At first they seemed all young men, and yet here and there were maids, but hard to tell as maids, because their long hair was shorn and they wore the garments that the men did, and there was nothing to show what they were until one looked close and saw their little breasts and narrow waists, for their faces were as wild and bold as any young man’s.

The mother looked at every face, at this one and at that, and suddenly she saw her own lad. Yes, there he walked, his head down, and he was tied to a maid, and his hands fast to hers.

Then the mother rushed forward and fell at his feet and clasped them and gave one loud cry, “My son!”

She looked up into his face, the palest face, his lips white and earthen and the eyes dull. When he saw his mother he turned paler still and would have fallen had he not been bound to the maid. For this maid pulled at him and would not let him fall, nor would she let him stay, and when she saw the old white-haired woman at his feet she laughed aloud, the boldest, mirthless laugh and she cried out high and shrill, “Comrade, remember now you have no mother and no father, nor any dear to you except our common cause!” And she pulled him on his way.

Then a guard ran out and picked the mother up and threw her to one side upon the road and there she lay in the dust. Then the crowd marched on and out of sight and to that southern gate, and suddenly a wild song burst from them and they went singing to their death.

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?”