"Why do I call you son, indeed?
Ah!" he added in a different voice, a sorrowful voice, "why do I when I have no right?
Listen, my boy, we are in sore trouble, I and your mother, or if she is not your mother at least she loves you as much as though she were, and I love you too, and you know it; so why do you seek to make a fool of me by asking me riddles ?" Now, Ralph was about to answer, but Suzanne held up her hand, and he was quiet.
"My son," went on Jan with a kind of sob, "they are coming to take you away from us." "They! Who ?" asked Ralph.
"Who?
The English, damn them! Yes, I say, damn the English and the English Government." "Peace, Jan," I broke in, "this is not a political meeting, where such talk is right and proper." "The English Government is coming to take me away!" exclaimed Ralph bewildered.

"What has the Government to do with me ?" "No," said Jan, "not the English Government, but two Scotchmen, which is much the same thing.

I tell you that they are travelling to this place to take you away." Now, Ralph leaned back in his chair and stared at him, for he saw that it was little use to ask him questions, and that he must leave him to tell the tale in his own fashion.

At last it came out.
"Ralph," said my husband, "you know that you are not of our blood; we found you cast up on the beach like a storm-fish and took you in, and you grew dear to us; yes, although you are English or Scotch, which is worse, for if the English bully us the Scotch bully us and cheat us into the bargain.

Well, your parents were drowned, and have been in Heaven for a long time, but I am sorry to say that all your relations were not drowned with them.