MOTHER AND SON.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 14, 2 April 1892, Page 317

MOTHER AND SON.

A little, old woman appeared at the police court to testify against her son. Her face was pale, and the soft gray hair was combed beneath a shabby little crape bonnet, from which hung a long and more shabby crape veil. The wrinkles in her face were many, but they were soft lines, and her mouth was sensitive and switched nervously at the corners.

The defendant was a large man, of forty-five or thereabouts. He was hard-looking and showed’ effects of long years of dissipatioh. Whisky had fashioned the curves of his mouth until it betrayed the refinement of cruelty. The judge asked the plaintiff what she had to say. She was unprepared, and her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. She could have recited countless times of when the man of forty-five had come home to her intoxicated ; of when he had pursued her with a razor and threatened her life. The cause of his being that morning in court had been that she had sought refuge in the arms of a policeman because the inhuman brnte was brandishing a revolver about her head. The policeman had then arrested him, and the neighbours had sought her to appear against him. She could have shown the court bruises on her head and upon her body the result of his cruelty. But she thought uf none of these as she stood before the judicial bench. She thought of the little golden-haired child that had lisped his baby words at her knee, and of the wayward boy who needed a mother s protection and influence and love.

She had come to testify and she must say something. She never once looked toward the sodden face of the man in the prisoner’s stall. Her face grew ashy pale and the little bent shoulders seemed to grow even smaller and more stooped. The woollen shawl hung straight down in front of her and the hands in the shabby black kid gloves clutched each other.

The Judge was waiting. He looked sorry. She met the kindly, encouraging glance, and her chin quivered. She made a superhuman effort to overcome the lump in her throat, and the words came in low tones, but the Court heard.

‘ He is my only son—and he—swears—at me.’ The prisoner never raised his eyes to meet the sentence. _ The Court spoke : ‘ Young man, your face convicts you Ninety days.’

The plaintiff shrank back and pulled the long, flimsy crape veil over her face. Then she shivered nervously, and, drawing the woollen shawl more closely about her bent shoulders, as if to warm her chilled and aching heart, she passed out.