anish:

'Holy Mother! grant that it be not he.'

My father also looked frightened, and questioned the squire closely as
to the man's appearance, but without learning anything more. Then he
bade him adieu with little ceremony, and taking horse rode away for
Yarmouth.

That night my mother never slept, but sat all through it in her nursing
chair, brooding over I know not what. As I left her when I went to my
bed, so I found her when I came from it at dawn. I can remember well
pushing the door ajar to see her face glimmering white in the twilight
of the May morning, as she sat, her large eyes fixed upon the lattice.

'You have risen early, mother,' I said.

'I have never lain down, Thomas,' she answered.

'Why not? What do you fear?'

'I fear the past and the future, my son. Would that your father were
back.'

About ten o'clock of that morning, as I was making ready to walk into
Bungay to the house of that physician under whom I was learning the
art of healing, my father rode up. My mother, who was watching at the
lattice, ran out to meet him.

Springing from his horse he embraced her, saying, 'Be of good cheer,
sweet, it cannot be he. This man has another name.'

'But did you see him?' she asked.

'No, he was out at his ship for the night, and I hurried home to tell
you, knowing your fears.'

'It were surer if you had seen him, husband. He may well have taken
another name.'

'I never thought of that, sweet,' my father answered; 'but have no
fear. Should it be he, and should he dare to set foot in the parish of
Ditchingham, there are those who will know how to deal with him. But I
am sure that it is not he.'

'Thanks be to Jesu then!' she said, and they began talking in a low
voice.

Now, seeing that I was not wanted, I took my cudgel and started down
the bridle-path towards the common footbridge, when suddenly my mother
called me back.

'Kiss me before you go, Thomas,' she said. 'You must wonder what all
this may mean. One day your father will tell you. It has to do with a
shadow which has hung over my life for many years, but that is, I trust,
gone for ever.'

'If it be a man who flings it, he had best keep out of reach of this,' I
said, laughing, and shaking my thick stick.

'It is a man,' she answered, 'but one to be dealt with otherwise than by
blows, Thomas, should you ever chance to meet him.'

'May be, mother, but might is the best argument at the last, for the
most cunning have a life to