stile, how he should
introduce himself at Strides Cottage. There might be men there. Then, of
a sudden, he had seen that the old woman who had disturbed his
cogitations, must be his mother! How could there be another old woman so
like her, so close at hand?

Her placid, resolute, convincing denial checkmated his powers of
thought. As is often the case, details achieved what mere bald
asseveration of fact would have failed in. The circumstantial statement
that her son lay buried beside his father in Chorlton Churchyard
corroborated the denial past reasonable dispute. But nothing could
convince his eyesight, while his reason stood aghast at the way it was
deceiving him.

"Give me hold of your fin, missus," he said. "I won't call you 'mother.'
Left-hand.... No--I'm not going for to hurt you. Don't you be
frightened!" He took the hand that, not without renewed trepidation and
misgiving, was stretched out to him, and did _not_ do with it what its
owner expected. For her mind, following his action, was assigning it to
some craze of Cheiromancy--what she would have called Fortune-telling.
It was no such thing.

He did not take his eyes from her face, but holding her hand in his,
without roughness, felt over the fingers one by one, resting chiefly on
the middle finger. He took his time, saying nothing. At last he
relinquished the hand abruptly, and spoke. "No--missus--you're about
right. You're _not_ my mother." Then he said:--"You'll excuse me--half a
minute more! Same hand, please!" Then went again through the same
operation of feeling, and dropped it. He seemed bewildered, and saner in
bewilderment than in assurance.

Old Phoebe was greatly relieved at his recognition of his mistake. "Was
it something in the hand ye knew by, master?" she said timidly. For she
did not feel quite safe yet. She began walking on, tentatively.

He followed, but a pace behind--not close at her side. "Something in the
hand," said he. "That was it. Belike you may have seen, one time or
other, a finger cut through to the bone?"

"Yes, indeed," said she, "and the more's the pity for it! My young
grandson shut his finger into his new knife. But he's in the Crimea
now."

"Did the finger heal up linable, or a crotch in it?"

"It's a bit crooked still. Only they say it won't last on to old age,
being so young a boy at the time."

"Ah!--that's where it was. My mother was well on to fifty when I gave
her that chop, and _she_ got her hooky finger