Somethin's wrong. But I think
yoh're a just man," looking keenly in Holmes's face.
"A hard one, people say," said Holmes, after a pause, as they walked on.
He had spoken half to himself, and received no answer. Some blacker
shadow troubled him than old Yare's fate.
"My mother was a hard woman,--you knew her?" he said, abruptly.
"She was just, like yoh. She was one o' th' elect, she said. Mercy's fur
them,--an' outside, justice. It's a narrer showin', I'm thinkin'."
"My father was outside," said Holmes, some old bitterness rising up in
his tone, his gray eye lighting with some unrevenged wrong.
Polston did not speak for a moment.
"Dunnot bear malice agin her. They're dead, now. It wasn't left fur her
to judge him out yonder. Yoh've yer father's eyes, Stephen, 'times.
Hungry, pitiful, like women's. His got desper't' 't th' last. Drunk
hard,--died of't, yoh know. But _she_ killed him,--th' sin was writ down
fur her. Never was a boy I loved like him, when we was boys."
There was a short silence.
"Yoh're like yer mother," said Polston, striving for a lighter tone.
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