d then he claps his head on his hands as though he were
fretting o'er summat. `Aren't you well, Sammul?' says I. `Quite well,
mother,' says he, very short like. So I just turns me round to go out,
when he jumps up and says, `Mother:' and I could see by the tears in his
eyes that he were very full. `Mother,' says he again, and then he
crouches him down again. You wouldn't believe, how strange I felt--you
might have knocked me down with a feather; so I just goes across to old
Jenny's to ax her to come and look at him, for I thought he mightn't be
right in his head. I wasn't gone many minutes, but when I got back our
Sammul were not there, but close by where he were sitting I seed summat
lapped up in a piece of papper, lying on the table. I opened it, and
there were a five-shilling piece and a bit of his hair, and he'd writ on
the papper, `From Sammul, for dear mother.' Oh, what _must_ I do--what
_must_ I do? I shall ne'er see our Sammul any more," and the poor woman
sobbed as if her heart would break.

Before Jim had time to answer, a coarse-looking man of middle height,
his hands thrust deep into his pockets, a pipe in his mouth, and his
whole appearance bespeaking one who, in his best moments, was never
thoroughly sober, strode up to the unhappy mother, and shouted out,--

"What's up now? what's all this about?"

"Your Sammul's run away--that's what it's about," said Jim.

"Run away!" cried the other; "I'll teach him to run away--I'll break
every bone in his body when I get him home again."

"Ay, but you must catch him _first_," said Jim, drily.

"Alice, what's all this?" said Johnson, for that was the father's name,
turning fiercely on his wife.

She repeated her story. Johnson was staggered. Samuel was a quiet lad
of fourteen, who had borne with moderate patience many a hard word and
harder blow from both parents. He had worked steadily for them, even
beyond his strength, and had seen the wages which ought to have found
him sufficiency of food and clothing squandered in drink by both father
and mother. Johnson was staggered, because he knew that Samuel _could_
have a will of his own; he had felt a force in his son's character which
he could not thoroughly understand; he had seen at times a decision
which showed that, boy as he was, he could break sooner than bend.
Samuel, moreover, was an only son, and his father loved him as dearly as
a drunkard's selfishness would let him love anything. His very