My father took the stool
on which Elsie had been sitting. When he had lowered himself upon it,
his face was nearly on a level with that of the old woman, who took no
notice of him, but kept rocking herself to and fro and moaning. He
laid his hand on hers, which, old and withered and not very clean, lay
on her knee.
"How do you find yourself to-night, Mrs. Gregson?" he asked.
"I'm an ill-used woman," she replied with a groan, behaving as if it
was my father who had maltreated her, and whose duty it was to make an
apology for it.
"I am aware of what you mean, Mrs. Gregson. That is what brought me to
inquire after you. I hope you are not seriously the worse for it."
"I'm an ill-used woman," she repeated. "Every man's hand's against
me."
"Well, I hardly think that," said my father in a cheerful tone. "_My_
hand's not against you now."
"If you bring up your sons, Mr. Bannerman, to mock at the poor, and
find their amusement in driving the aged and infirm to death's door,
you can't say your hand's not against a poor lone woman like me."
"But I don't bring up my sons to do so. If I did I shouldn't be here
now. I am willing to bear my part of the blame, Mrs. Gregson, but to
say I bring my sons up to that kind of wickedness, is to lay on me
more than my share, a good deal.--Come here, Ranald."
I obeyed with bowed head and shame-stricken heart, for I saw what
wrong I had done my father, and that although few would be so unjust
to him as this old woman, many would yet blame the best man in the
world for the wrongs of his children.
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