MR. WILLINGS. 'A good son, Mrs. Dowey, to have written to you so often.'

Our old criminal quakes, but she grips the letters more tightly. Private
Dowey descends.

'Dowey, my friend, there she is, waiting for you, with your letters in
her hand.'

DOWEY, grimly, 'That's great.'

Mr. Willings ascends the stair without one backward glance, like the
good gentleman he is; and the Doweys are left together, with nearly the
whole room between them. He is a great rough chunk of Scotland, howked
out of her not so much neatly as liberally; and in his Black Watch
uniform, all caked with mud, his kit and nearly all his worldly
possessions on his back, he is an apparition scarcely less fearsome (but
so much less ragged) than those ancestors of his who trotted with Prince
Charlie to Derby. He stands silent, scowling at the old lady, daring her
to raise her head; and she would like very much to do it, for she longs
to have a first glimpse of her son. When he does speak, it is to jeer at
her.

'Do you recognise your loving son, missis?' ('Oh, the fine Scotch tang
of him,' she thinks.) 'I'm pleased I wrote so often.' ('Oh, but he's
_raized_,' she thinks.) He strides towards her, and seizes the
letters roughly, 'Let's see them.'

There is a string round the package, and he unties it, and examines the
letters at his leisure with much curiosity. The envelopes are in order,