THE DRAWN BLIND.




Silver trumpets sounded a flourish, and the javelin-men came pacing
down Tregarrick Fore Street, with the sheriff's coach swinging behind
them, its panels splendid with fresh blue paint and florid blazonry.
Its wheels were picked out with yellow, and this scheme of colour
extended to the coachman and the two lackeys, who held on at the back
by leathern straps. Each wore a coat and breeches of electric
blue, with a canary waistcoat, and was toned off with powder and
flesh-coloured stockings at the extremities. Within the coach, and
facing the horses, sat the two judges of the Crown Court and _Nisi
Prius_, both in scarlet, with full wigs and little round patches of
black plaister, like ventilators, on top; facing their lordships sat
Sir Felix Felix-Williams, the sheriff, in a tightish uniform of the
yeomanry with a great shako nodding on his knees, and a chaplain bolt
upright by his side. Behind trooped a rabble of loafers and small
boys, who shouted, "Who bleeds bran?" till the lackeys' calves itched
with indignation.

I was standing in the archway of the Packhorse Inn, among the maids
and stable-boys gathered to see the pageant pass on its way to hear
the Assize sermon. And standing there, I was witness of a little
incident that seemed to escape the rest.

At the moment when the trumpets rang out, a very old woman, in a blue
camlet cloak, came hobbling out of a grocer's shop some twenty yards
up the pavement, and tottered down ahead of the procession as fast as
her decrepit legs would move. There was no occasion for hurrying to
avoid the crowd; for the javelin-men had barely rounded the corner
of the long street, and were taking the goosestep very seriously
and deliberately. But she went by the Packhorse doorway as if swift
horsemen were after her, clutching the camlet cloak across her bosom,
glancing over her shoulder, and working her lips inaudibly. I could
not help remarking the position of her right arm. She held it bent
exactly as though she held an infant to her old breast, and shielded
it while she ran.

A few paces beyond the inn-door she halted on the edge of the kerb,
flung another look up the street, and darted across the roadway. There
stood a little shop--a watchmaker's--just opposite, and next to the
shop a small ope with one dingy window over it. She vanished up the
passage, at the entrance of which I was still staring idly, when, half
a minute later, a skinny trembling hand appeared at the window and
drew down the blind.

I looked round at the men and maids; but their eyes were all for the
pageant, now not a stone's-throw away.

"Who is that old woman?" I asked, touching Caleb, the head ostler, on
the shoulder.

Caleb--a small bandy-legged man, with a chin full of furrows, and the
furrows full of grey stubble--withdrew his gaze grudgingly from the
sheriff's coach.

"What woman?"

"She that went by a moment since."

"She in the blue cloak, d'ee mean?--an old, ancient, wisht-lookin'
body?"

"Yes."

"A timmersome woman, like?"

"That's it."

"Well, her name's Cordely Pinsent."

The procession reclaimed his attention. He received a passing wink
from the charioteer, caught it on the volley and returned it with a
solemn face; or rather, the wink seemed to rebound as from a blank
wall. As the crowd closed in upon the circumstance of Justice, he
turned to me again, spat, and went on--

"--Cordely Pinsent, widow of old Key Pinsent, that was tailor to
all the grandees in the county so far back as I can mind. She's
eighty-odd; eighty-five if a day. I can just mind Key Pinsent--a
great, red, rory-cumtory chap, with a high stock and a wig like King
George--'my royal patron' he called 'en, havin' by some means got
leave to hoist the king's arms over his door. Such mighty portly
manners, too--Oh, very spacious, I assure 'ee! Simme I can see the old
Trojan now, with his white weskit bulgin' out across his doorway like
a shop-front hung wi' jewels. Gout killed 'en. I went to his buryin';
such a stretch of experience does a young man get by time he reaches
my age. God bless your heart alive, _I_ can mind when they were hung
for forgery!"

"Who were hung?"

"People," he answered vaguely; "and young Willie Pinsent."

"This woman's son?"

"Ay, her son--her ewe-lamb of a child. 'Tis very seldom brought up
agen her now, poor soul! She's so very old that folks forgits about
it. Do 'ee see her window yonder, over the ope?"

He was pointing across to the soiled white blind that still looked
blankly over the street, its lower edge caught up at one corner by a
dusty geranium.

"I saw her pull it down."

"Ah, you would if you was lookin' that way. I've a-seed her do 't a
score o' times. Well, when the gout reached Key Pinsent's stomach and
he went off like the snuff of a candle at the age of forty-two, she
was left unprovided, with a son of thirteen to maintain or go 'pon the
parish. She was a Menhennick, tho', from t'other side o' the Duchy--a
very proud family--and didn't mean to dip the knee to nobody, and all
the less because she'd demeaned hersel', to start with, by wedding a
tailor. But Key Pinsent by all allowance was handsome as blazes, and
well-informed up to a point that he read Shakespeare for the mere
pleasure o't.

"Well, she sold up the stock-in-trade an' hired a couple o' rooms--the
self-same rooms you see: and then she ate less 'n a mouse an' took in
needle-work, plain an' fancy: for a lot o' the gentry's wives round
the neighbourhood befriended her--though they had to be sly an' hide
that they meant it for a favour, or she'd ha' snapped their heads off.
An' all the while, she was teachin' her boy and tellin' 'en, whatever
happened, to remember he was a gentleman, an' lovin' 'en with all the
strength of a desolate woman.

"This Willie Pinsent was a comely boy, too: handsome as old Key, an'
quick at his books. He'd a bold masterful way, bein' proud as ever his
mother was, an' well knowin' there wasn' his match in Tregarrick for
head-work. Such a beautiful hand he wrote! When he was barely turned
sixteen they gave 'en a place in Gregory's Bank--Wilkins an' Gregory
it was in those aged times. He still lived home wi' his mother,
rentin' a room extra out of his earnin's, and turnin' one of the
bedrooms into a parlour. That's the very room you're lookin' at. And
when any father in Tregarrick had a bone to pick with his sons, he'd
advise 'em to take example by young Pinsent--'so clever and good, too,
there was no tellin' what he mightn't come to in time.'

"Well-a-well, to cut it short, the lad was too clever. It came out,
after, that he'd took to bettin' his employers' money agen the rich
men up at the Royal Exchange. An' the upshot was that one evenin',
while he was drinkin' tea with his mother in his lovin' light-hearted
way, in walks a brace o' constables, an' says, 'William Pinsent,
young chap, I arrest thee upon a charge o' counterfeitin' old
Gregory's handwritin', which is a hangin' matter!'

"An' now, sir, comes the cur'ous part o' the tale; for, if you'll
believe me, this poor woman wouldn' listen to it--wouldn' hear a word
o't. 'What! my son Willie,' she flames, hot as Lucifer--'my son Willie
a forger! My boy, that I've missed, an' reared up, an' studied,
markin' all his pretty takin' ways since he learn'd to crawl!
Gentlemen,' she says, standin' up an' facin' 'em down, 'what mother
knows her son, if not I? I give you my word it's all a mistake.'

"Ay, an' she would have it no other. While her son was waitin' his
trial in jail, she walked the streets with her head high, scornin' the
folk as she passed. Not a soul dared to speak pity; an' one afternoon,
when old Gregory hissel' met her and began to mumble that 'he
trusted,' an' 'he had little doubt,' an' 'nobody would be gladder than
he if it proved to be a mistake,' she held her skirt aside an' went by
with a look that turned 'en to dirt, as he said. 'Gad!' said he, 'she
couldn' ha' looked at me worse if I'd been a tab!' meanin' to say
'instead o' the richest man in Tregarrick.'

"But her greatest freak was seen when th' Assizes came. Sir, she
wouldn' even go to the trial. She disdained it. An' when, that
mornin', the judges had driven by her window, same as they drove
to-day, what d'ee think she did?

"She began to lay the cloth up in the parlour yonder, an' there set
out the rarest meal, ready for her boy. There was meats, roasted
chickens, an' a tongue, an' a great ham. There was cheese-cakes that
she made after a little secret of her own; an' a bowl of junket,
an inch deep in cream, that bein' his pet dish; an' all kind o'
knick-knacks, wi' grapes an' peaches, an' apricots, an' decanters o'
wine, white an' red. Ay, sir, there was even crackers for mother an'
son to pull together, with scraps o' poetry inside. An' flowers--the
table was bloomin' with flowers. For weeks she'd been plannin' it: an'
all the forenoon she moved about an' around that table, givin' it
a touch here an' a touch there, an' takin' a step back to see how
beautiful it looked. An' then, as the day wore on, she pulled a chair
over by the window, an' sat down, an' waited.

"In those days a capital trial was kept up till late into the night,
if need were. By-an'-by she called up her little servin' gal that was
then (she's a gran'mother now), an' sends her down to the court-house
to learn how far the trial had got, an' run back with the news.

"Down runs Selina Mary, an' back with word--

"'They're a-summin'-up,' says she.

"Then Mrs. Pinsent went an' lit eight candles. Four she set 'pon the
table, an' four 'pon the mantel-shelf. You could see the blaze out
in the street, an' the room lit up, wi' the flowers, an' fruit, an'
shinin' glasses--red and yellow dahlias the flowers were, that bein'
the time o' year. An' over each candle she put a little red silk
shade. You never saw a place look cosier. Then she went back an'
waited: but in half-an-hour calls to Selina Mary agen:

"'Selina Mary, run you back to the courthouse, an' bring word how far
they've got.'

"So the little slip of a maid ran back, and this time 'twas--

"'Missis, the judge has done; an' now they're considerin' about Master
Willie.'

"So the poor woman sat a while longer, an' then she calls:

"'Selina Mary, run down agen, an' as he comes out, tell 'en to hurry.
They must be finished by now.'

"The maid was gone twenty minutes this time. The evenin' was hot an'
the window open; an' now all the town that wasn' listenin' to the
trial was gathered in front, gazin' cur'ously at the woman inside. She
was tittivatin' the table for the fiftieth time, an' touchin' up the
flowers that had drooped a bit i' the bowls.

"But after twenty minutes Selina Mary came runnin' up the street, an'
fetched her breath at the front door, and went upstairs slowly and
'pon tip-toe. Her face at the parlour door was white as paper; an'
while she stood there the voices o' the crowd outside began to take
all one tone, and beat into the room like the sound o' waves 'pon a
beach.

"'Oh, missis--' she begins.

"'Have they finished?'

"The poor cheald was only able to nod.

"'Then, where's Willie? Why isn't he here?'

"'Oh, missis, they're goin' to hang 'en!'

"Mrs. Pinsent moved across the room, took her by the arm, led her
downstairs, an' gave her a little push out into the street. Not a word
did she say, but shut the door 'pon her, very gentle-like. Then she
went back an' pulled the blind down slowly. The crowd outside watched
her do it. Her manner was quite ord'nary. They stood there for a
minute or so, an' behind the blind the eight candles went out, one by
one. By the time the judges passed homeward 'twas all dark, only the
blind showin' white by the street lamp opposite. From that year to
this she has pulled it down whenever a judge drives by."




A GOLDEN WEDDING.


On the very spot which the railway station has usurped, with its long
slate roof, wooden signal-box, and advertisements in blue and white
enamel, I can recall a still pool shining between beds of the
flowering rush; and to this day, as I wait for the train, the whir of
a vanished water-wheel comes up the valley. Sometimes I have caught
myself gazing along the curve of the narrow-gauge in full expectation
to see a sagged and lichen-covered roof at the end of it. And
sometimes, of late, it has occurred to me that there never was such a
mill as I used to know down yonder; and that the miller, whose coat
was always powdered so fragrantly, was but a white ghost, after all.
The station-master and porters remember no such person.

But he was no ghost; for I have met him again this week, and upon the
station platform. I had started at daybreak to fish up the stream
that runs down the valley in curves roughly parallel to the railway
embankment; and coming within sight of the station, a little before
noon, I put up my tackle and strolled towards the booking-office. The
water was much too fine for sport, and it seemed worth while to break
off for a pipe and a look at the 12.26 train. Such are the simple
pleasures of a country life.

I leant my rod against the wall, and was setting down my creel, when,
glancing down the platform, I saw an old man seated on the furthest
bench. Everybody knows how a passing event, or impression, sometimes
appears but a vain echo of previous experience. Something in the lines
of this old man's figure, as he leaned forward with both hands clasped
upon his staff, gave me the sensation. "All this has happened before,"
I told myself. "He and I are playing over again some small and futile
scene in our past lives. I wonder who he is, and what is the use of
it?"

But there was something wanting in the picture to complete its
resemblance to the scene for which I searched my memory.

The man had bent further forward, and was resting his chin on his
hands and staring apathetically across the rails. Suddenly it dawned
on me that there ought to be another figure on the bench--the figure
of an old woman; and my memory ran back to the day after this railway
was opened, when this man and his wife had sat together on the
platform waiting to see the train come in--that fascinating monster
whose advent had blotted out the very foundations of the old mill and
driven its tenants to a strange home.

The mill had disappeared many months before that, but the white dust
still hung in the creases of the miller's clothes. He wore his Sunday
hat and the Sunday polish on his shoes; and his wife was arrayed in
her best Paisley shawl. She carried also a bunch of cottage flowers,
withering in her large hot hand. It was clear they had never seen a
locomotive before, and wished to show it all respect. They had taken
a smaller house in the next valley, where they attempted to live on
their savings; and had been trying vainly and pitifully to struggle
with all the little habits that had been their life for thirty-five
years, and to adapt them to new quarters. Their faces were weary,
but flushed with expectation. The man kept looking up the line, and
declaring that he heard the rumble of the engine in the distance; and
whenever he said this, his wife pulled the shawl more primly about her
shoulders, straightened her back, and nervously re-arranged her posy.

When at length the whistle screamed out, at the head of the vale, I
thought they were going to tumble off the bench. The woman went white
to the lips, and stole her disengaged hand into her husband's.

"Startlin' at first, hey?" he said, bravely winning back his
composure: "but 'tis wunnerful what control the driver has, they tell
me. They only employ the cleverest men--"

A rattle and roar drowned the rest of his words, and he blinked and
leant back, holding the woman's hand and tapping it softly as the
engine rushed down with a blast of white vapour hissing under its fore
wheels, and the carriages clanked upon each other, and the whole train
came to a standstill before us.

The station-master and porter walked down the line of carriages,
bawling out the name of the station. The driver leaned out over his
rail, and the guard, standing by the door of his van, with a green
flag under his arm, looked enquiringly at me and at the old couple on
the bench. But I had only strolled up to have a look at the new train,
and meant to resume my fishing as soon as it had passed. And the
miller sat still, holding his wife's hand.

They were staring with all their eyes--not resentfully, though face to
face with the enemy that had laid waste their habitation and swept all
comfort out of their lives; but with a simple awe. Manifestly, too,
they expected something more to happen. I saw the old woman searching
the incurious features of the few passengers, and I thought her own
features expressed some disappointment.

"This," observed the guard scornfully, pulling out his watch as he
spoke, "is what you call traffic in these parts."

The station-master was abashed, and forced a deprecatory laugh. The
guard--who was an up-country man--treated this laugh with contempt,
and blew his whistle sharply. The driver answered, and the train moved
on.

I was gazing after it when a woeful exclamation drew my attention back
to the bench.

"Why, 'tis gone!"

"Gone?" echoed the miller's wife. "Of course 'tis gone; and of all the
dilly-dallyin' men, I must say, John, you'm the dilly-dalliest. Why
didn' you say we wanted to ride?"

"I thought, maybe, they'd have axed us. 'Twouldn' ha' been polite to
thrust oursel's forrard if they didn' want our company. Besides, I
thought they'd be here for a brave while--"

"You was always a man of excuses. You knew I'd set my heart 'pon this
feat."

I had left them to patch up their little quarrel. But the scene stuck
in my memory, and now, as I walked down the platform towards the
single figure on the bench, I wondered, amusedly, if the woman had at
length taken the ride alone, and if the procrastinating husband sat
here to welcome her back.

As I drew near, I took note of his clothes for the first time.
There was no white dust in the creases to-day. In fact, he wore the
workhouse suit.

I sat down beside him, and asked if he remembered a certain small boy
who had used to draw dace out of his mill-pond. With some difficulty
he recalled my features, and by decrees let out the story of his life
during the last ten years.

He and his wife had fought along in their new house, hiding their
discomfort from each other, and abiding the slow degrees by which
their dwelling should change into a home. But before that change was
worked, the woman fell under a paralytic stroke, and their savings, on
which they had just contrived to live, threatened to be swallowed up
by the doctor's bill. After considering long, the miller wrote off to
his only son, a mechanic in the Plymouth Dockyard, and explained the
case. This son was a man of forty or thereabouts, was married, and had
a long family. He could not afford to take the invalid into his house
for nothing; but his daughters would look after their grandmother and
she should have good medical care as well, if she came on a small
allowance.

"So the only thing to be done, sir, was for my old woman to go."

"And you--?"

"Oh, I went into the 'House.' You see, there wasn' enough for both,
livin' apart."

I stared down the line to the spot where the mill-wheel had hummed
so pleasantly, and the compassionate sentence I was about to utter
withered up and died on my lips.

"But to-day--Oh, to-day, sir--"

"What's happening to-day?"

"She's comin' down to see me for an hour or two; an' I've got a
holiday to meet her. 'Tis our Golden Weddin', sir."

"But why are you meeting her at this station instead of Tregarrick?
She can't walk, and you have no horse and trap; whereas there's always
a 'bus at Tregarrick."

"Well, you see, sir, there's a very tidy little cottage below where
they sell ginger-beer, an' I've got a whack o' vittles in the basket
here, besides what William is bringin'--William an' his wife are
comin' down with her. They'll take her back by the last train up; an'
I thought, as 'twas so little a while, an' the benches here are so
comfortable, we'd pass our day 'pon the platform here. 'Tis within
sight o' the old home, too, or ruther o' the spot where the old home
used to be: an' though 'tis little notice she seems to take o' things,
one never can tell if poor creatures in that state _hain't_ pleased
behind all their dazed looks. What do you think, sir?"

The whistle sounded up the valley, and mercifully prevented my answer.
I saw the woman for an instant as she was brought out of the train and
carried to the bench. She did not recognise the man she had married
fifty years before: but as we moved out of the station, he was sitting
beside her, his face transfigured with a solemn joy.




SCHOOL FRIENDS.


"What ho, there!"

At this feudal summons I turned, and spied the Bashaw elbowing his way
towards me through the Fleet Street crowd, his hat and tie askew and
his big face a red beacon of goodwill. He fell on my neck, and we
embraced.

"Is me recreant child returned? Is he tired at last av annihilatin'
all that's made to a green thought in a green shade? An' did he
homesickun by the Cornish Coast for the Street that Niver Sleeps,
an' the whirroo an' stink av her, an' the _foomum et opase
strepitumké_--to drink delight av battle with his peers, an' see the
great Achilles whom he knew--meanin' meself?" The Bashaw's style in
conversation, as in print, bristles with allusion.

I shook my head.

"I go back to-morrow, I hope. Business brought me up, and as soon as
it's settled I pack."

"Too quick despairer--but I take it ye'll be bound just now for the
Cheese. Right y'are; and I'll do meself the honour to lunch wid ye, at
your expense."

Everyone knows and loves the Bashaw, _alias_ the O'Driscoll, that
genial failure. Generations of Fleet Street youths have taken advice
and help from him: have prospered, grown reputable, rich, and even
famous: and have left him where he stood. Nobody can remember the time
when O'Driscoll was not; though, to judge from his appearance, he must
have stepped upon the town from between the covers of an illustrated
keepsake, such as our grandmothers loved--so closely he resembles the
Corsair of that period, with his ripe cheeks, melting eyes, and black
curls that twist like the young tendrils of a vine. The curls are
dyed now-a-days, and his waist is not what it used to be in the
picture-books; but time has worn nothing off his temper. He is
perennially enthusiastic, and can still beat any journalist in London
in describing a Lord Mayor's Show.

"You behould in me," he went on, with a large hand on my shoulder,
"the victum av a recent eviction--a penniless outcast. 'Tis no
beggar's petition that I'll be profferin', however, but a bargun. Give
me a salad, a pint av hock, an' fill me pipe wid the Only Mixture,
an' I'll repay ye across the board wid a narrative--the sort av
God-forsaken, ord'nary thrifle that you youngsters turn into copy--may
ye find forgiveness! 'Tis no use to me whatever. Ted O'Driscoll's
instrument was iver the big drum, and he knows his limuts."

"Yes, me boy," he resumed, five minutes later, as he sat in the
Cheshire Cheese, beneath Dr. Johnson's portrait, balancing a
black-handled knife between his first and second fingers, and nodding
good-fellowship to every journalist in the room, "the apartment in
Bloomsbury is desolut; the furnichur'--what was lift av ut--disparsed;
the leopard an' the lizard keep the courts where O'Driscoll gloried
an' drank deep; an' the wild ass--meanin' by that the midical student
on the fourth floor--stamps overhead, but cannot break his sleep. I've
been evicted: that's the long and short av ut. Lord help me!--I'd have
fared no worse in the ould country--here's to her! Think what immortal
copy I'd have made out av the regrettable incident over there!" His
voice broke, but not for self-pity. It always broke when he mentioned
Ireland.

"Is it comfort ye'd be speakin'?" he began again, filling his glass.
"Me dear fellow, divvle a doubt I'll fetch round tight an' safe. Ould
Mick Sullivan--he that built the _Wild Girl_, the fastest vessel that
iver put out av Limerick--ould Mick Sullivan used to swear he'd make
any ship seaworthy that didn' leak worse than a five-barred gate. An'
that's me, more or less. I'm an ould campaigner. But listen to this.
Me feelin's have been wrung this day, and that sorely. I promised ye
the story, an' I must out wid ut, whether or no."

It was the hour when the benches of the Cheese begin to empty. My work
was over for the day, and I disposed myself to listen.

"The first half I spent at the acadimy where they flagellated the
rudiments av polite learnin' into me small carcuss, I made a friend.
He was the first I iver made, though not the last, glory be to God!
But first friendship is like first love for the sweet taste it puts in
the mouth. Niver but once in his life will a man's heart dance to that
chune. 'Twas a small slip of a Saxon lad that it danced for then: a
son av a cursed agint, that I should say it. But sorra a thought had I
for the small boccawn's nationality nor for his own father's trade.
I only knew the friendship in his pretty eyes an' the sweetness that
knit our two sowls togither, like David's an' Jonathan's. Pretty it
was to walk togither, an' discourse, an' get the strap togither for
heaven knows what mischief, an' consowl each other for our broken
skins. He'd a wonderful gift at his books, for which I reverenced um,
and at the single-stick, for which I loved um. Niver to this day did
I call up the ould play-ground widout behowldin' that one boy, though
all the rest av the faces (the master's included) were vague as
wather--wather in which that one pair av eyes was reflected.

"The school was a great four-square stone buildin' beside a windy
road, and niver a tree in sight; but pastures where the grass would
cut your boot, an' stone walls, an' brown hills around, like the rim
av a saucer. All belonged to the estate that Jemmy Nichol's father
managed--a bankrupt property, or next door to that. It's done better
since he gave up the place; but when I've taken a glance at the
landscape since (as I have, once or twice) I see no difference. To me
'tis the naked land I looked upon the last day av the summer half,
when I said good-bye to Jemmy; for he was lavin' the school that same
afternoon for Dublin, to cross over to England wid his father.

"Sick at heart was I, an' filled already wid the heavy sense of
solitariness, as we stood by the great iron gate wishin' one another
fare-ye-well.

"'Jemmy avick,' says I, 'dull, dull will it be widout ye here. And,
Jemmy--send some av my heart back to me when ye write, as ye promise
to do.'

"'Wheniver I lay me down, Ned,' he answered me (though by nature a
close-hearted English boy), 'I'll think o' ye; an' wheniver I rise up
I'll think o' ye. May the Lord do so to me, an' more also, if I cease
from lovin' ye till my life's end.'

"So we kissed like a pair av girls, and off he was driven, leavin' a
great hollow inside the rim av the hills. An' I ran up to the windy
dormitory, stumblin' at ivery third step for the blindin' tears, and
watched um from the window there growin' small along the road. 'Ye
Mountains av Gilboa,' said I, shakin' my fist at the hills, 'let there
be no dew, neither let there be rain upon ye;' for I hated the place
now that Jemmy was gone.

"Well, 'twas the ould story--letters at first in plenty, then fewer,
then none at all. Long before I came over to try my luck I'd lost all
news of Jem: didn't know his address, even. Nor till to-day have I set
eyes on um. He's bald-headed, me boy, and crooked-faytured, to-day;
but I knew him for Jemmy in the first kick av surprise.

"I was evicted this mornin', as I've towld ye. Six years I've hung me
hat up in those same apartments in Bloomsbury; and, till last year,
aisy enough I found me landlord over a quarter's rent or two overjue.
But last midsummer year the house changed hands; and bedad it began to
be 'pay or quit.' This day it was 'quit.' The new landlord came up the
stairs at the head av the ejectin' army: I got up from breakfast to
open the door to um. I'd never set eyes on um since I'd been his
tenant. Bedad, it was Jemmy!"

O'Driscoll paused, and poured himself another glass of hock.

"So I suppose," I said, "you ran into each other's arms, and kissed
again with tears?"

"Then you suppose wrong," said he, and sat for a moment or two silent,
fingering the stem of his glass. Then he added, more gently--

"I looked in the face av um, and said to meself, 'Jemmy doesn't
remember me. If I introduce meself, I wonder what'll he do? Will he
love me still, or will he turn me out?' An' by the Lord I didn't care
to risk ut! I couldn't dare to lose that last illusion; an' so I put
on me hat an' walked out, tellin' him nothing at all."




PARENTS AND CHILDREN.


I.--THE FAMILY BIBLE

There lived a young man at Tregarrick called Robert Haydon. His father
was not a native of the town, but had settled there early in life and
became the leading solicitor of the place. At the age of thirty-seven
he married the daughter of a county magistrate, and by this step
bettered his position considerably. By the time that Robert was born
his parents' standing was very satisfactory. They were living well
inside an income of £1,200 a year, had about £8,000 (consisting
of Mrs. Haydon's dowry and Mr. Haydon's bachelor savings) safely
invested, and were on visiting terms with several of the lesser county
families.

In other respects they were just as fortunate. They had a sincere
affection for each other, and coincident opinions on the proper
conduct of life. They were people into whose heads a misgiving seldom
or never penetrated. Their religious beliefs and the path of social
duty stood as plain before them as their front gate and as narrow as
the bridge which Mohammedans construct over hell. They loved Bob--who
of four children was their only son--and firmly intended to do their
best for him; and as they knew what was best for him, it followed
that Bob must conform. He was a light-coloured, docile boy, with a
pleasantly ingenuous face and an affectionate disposition; and he
loved his parents, and learned to lean on them.

They sent him in time to Marlborough, where he wrote Latin verses of
slightly unusual merit, and bowled with a break from the off which
meant that there lay a thin vein of genius somewhere inside of him.
When once collared, his bowling became futile; success made it deadly,
and on one occasion in a school match against the M.C.C. he did things
at Lord's which caused a thin gathering of spectators--the elderly
men who never miss a match--to stare at him very attentively as he
returned to the pavilion. They thought it worth while to ask, "Which
'Varsity was he bound for?"

Bob was bound for neither. He had to inherit, and consented to
inherit, his father's practice without question. His consuming desire
to go up to Oxford he hinted at once, and once only, in a conversation
with his father; but Mr. Haydon "did not care to expose his son to the
temptations which beset young men at the Universities"--this was
the very text--and preferred to keep him under his own eye in the
seclusion of Tregarrick.

To a young man who is being shielded from temptation in a small
provincial town there usually happens one of two things. Either he
takes to drink or to discreditable essays in love-making. It is to
Bob's credit that he did neither; a certain delicate sanity in the
fellow kept him from these methods of killing time. Instead, he spent
his evenings at home; listened to his parents' talk; accepted their
opinions on human conduct and affairs; and tumbled honourably into
love with his sisters' governess.

Ethel Ormiston, the governess, was about a year older than Bob, good
to look at, and the only being who understood what ailed Bob's soul
during this time. She was in prison herself, poor woman. Mrs. Haydon
asserted afterwards that Miss Ormiston had "deliberately set herself
to inveigle" the boy; but herein Mrs. Haydon was mistaken. As a matter
of fact Bob, having discovered someone obliging and intelligent enough
to listen, dinned the story of his aspirations into the girl's ear
with the persistent egoism of a hobbedehoy. It must be allowed,
however, that the counsel she gave him would have annoyed his parents
excessively.

"But I do sympathise with you," she said after listening to an
immoderately long and peevish harangue; "and I should advise you to
go to your father, as a first step, and ask to be paid a very small
salary for the work you do--enough to set up in lodgings alone. At
present you are pauperising yourself."

Bob did not quite understand--so she explained:

"You are twenty-one, and still receiving food and lodging from your
parents as a dole. At your age, if a man receives anything at all from
father or mother, he should be earning it as a right."

She spoke impatiently, and longed to add that he was also
impoverishing his intellect. She felt a touch of contempt for him; but