His mother tells him to be careful and to not fall in with a bad group of soldiers. Then she says: "I don't know what else to tell yeh, Henry, excepting that yeh must never do no shirking, child, on my account. If so be a time comes when yeh have to be kilt or do a mean thing, why, Henry, don't think of anything cept what's right." You get an explicit feeling that this is the first time Henry is leaving home.