The Son of His Father
(Vol. 1-3)

Table of Contents

CHAPTER III.

HOW HE WAS TO BEGIN LIFE.

They were all seated one evening in the parlour round the fire. The house of the Sandfords was like many other old-fashioned middle-class houses. The dining-room was the principal room in it. They would have thought it very pretentious and as if they were setting up for a gentility to which they laid no claim had they called their other sitting-room a drawing-room. The rector might do so who belonged distinctly to the county; but the Sandfords called their sitting-room the parlour, without even knowing what a pretty old-fashioned word that is, and how it is coming into fashion again. Old Mr. Sandford’s armchair stood on one side of the fire, and his wife’s on the other. He had a stand for the candle near him, and she had a little table. Otherwise the room was furnished according to its epoch, with a round table in the centre, and chairs set round the walls. On grandmamma’s little table was her knitting, a basket with some needle-work, and a book. She read all through a book in a conscientious yet leisurely way, doing a bit of needle-work, when the light was good, and knitting when her eyes were tired. In this way she was always occupied and yet never fatigued by being busy too long at one thing. The knitting was done with large pins and thick wool. It was easy work. It resulted in comforters, mufflers, and other little things that were useful at Christmas, and made the school-children and the old people in the village happy—or as nearly happy as anyone is ever made by presents of warm woollen things to keep out the cold.

John sat at the table between the old people. He had the advantage of the lamp and warmest place. They liked to have him there, and he had learned to do all his work in that warm family centre, with their silent society, surrounded by their love. The old people did not talk very much at any time, and, when they thought it was for the advantage of John and his work, were capable of sitting all the evening in a silent blessedness making little signs to each other across him, but never speaking lest they should disturb him. They said at other times, with secret delight, that their John never wanted to retire into any study, but did his work, bless him, in the parlour, and never found them in his way.

On this particular evening it could scarcely be said that he was at work; his lessons were all prepared, and ready for next day: and John was reading for his own pleasure in that delightful calm of feeling which results from the sense of duty performed. It is not always in later life that one is privileged to enjoy this conscious virtue even when one’s work is fully accomplished, but at fifteen the case is different—and, as it happened, among the books on the table, the boy had brought down inadvertently the old copy of Robinson Crusoe which had been so dear to him in his childhood, and which was associated with so many of the confused reminiscences of that long departed past. He had taken it, and was looking at it, before the old people opened the conversation which for the whole evening had been in their thoughts. John scarcely felt it was necessary to open that book. He knew not only what was in it, but a great many things that were not in it, things which it suggested before it was opened, the strange visions of the time through which papa’s image flitted, dim now but still well remembered. He was thinking of all this with a vagueness in which there was no pain. There never indeed had been any pain, only a confused sense of so many things which he could not understand. He might have heard, if he had taken any notice, that the old people were simultaneously clearing their throats, with little coughs and hems—partly of preparation, partly to have him see that they were about to speak, and call his attention. But John did not take any notice, being fully absorbed with his own recollections and interests. Anyone who could have seen them would have been amused to remark how the grandfather and grandmother looked at each other, and made little signs egging each other up to begin, across the unconscious boy who took no notice at all.

It was Mrs. Sandford who spoke the first after all this pantomime. She gave her husband an upbraiding look as much as to say that he always pushed her to the front when anything disagreeable had to be done. Not that it was in reality anything disagreeable, but only exciting and full of new possibilities. She laid down her large pins with the knitting upon her lap, and cleared her throat finally, and said, ‘John.’

It had to be repeated a second time in a slightly raised voice, and with a touch of her hand upon his arm before he paid any attention. Then the boy roused up suddenly, gave himself a little shake, pushed his ‘Robinson Crusoe’ away from him on the table, and turning round, said, briskly, ‘Yes, grandmamma,’ coming back in a moment out of his dreams.

‘We want to speak to you, my dear,’ the old lady said. She put her hand on his arm again, and patted it softly. He sat, as a matter of fact, on his grandmother’s side, not exactly in the middle; nearer to her than to the old gentleman, who had long observed the circumstance not without a little kind of jealousy, but had never taken any notice.

Mrs. Sandford was conscious of it, and secretly proud; but you may be sure she took no notice, and would no doubt have shown a little surprise had it been remarked.

‘We want to speak to you,’ she said. ‘John, you are growing a great boy.’

‘Seventeen last birthday,’ said the grandfather. ‘I had been working for myself a couple of years when I was his age.’

‘Well, my dear, but it is not John’s fault. You have always said you regretted having so little schooling.’

‘The question is,’ said old Mr. Sandford, striking his hand against the arm of his chair, ‘whether the education he has been getting counts like schooling. For, you see, he has never been at school. I had my doubts on that subject all along.’

‘Oh, yes, oh, yes, my dear,’ said the old lady. ‘To be taught by a good man that knows a great deal, like our curate, that is better, surely, than being exposed to meet with bad boys and bad influences in a strange place.’

John listened to this conversation, turning his face from one to the other. He was quite used to be discussed so, and thought it the natural course of affairs—but here it seemed to him that he might intervene in his own person.

‘Grandpapa,’ he said, ‘Mr. Cattley says Elly and I construe much better than Dick and Percy, though they have been so many years at school.’

‘Does he really, John!’ said Mrs. Sandford, and her old eyes got wet directly with pleasure; but grandpapa still shook his head.

‘I don’t know much about construing,’ he said; ‘I never had time to study any outlandish tongues, but you and Dick, as you call him, and Percy are very different; one’s going to the army and one to Oxford, as I hear; but as for you, my Johnny-boy——’ Here Mr. Sandford winked his eyes, too; for, though he had begun with the intention of taking his John down a little, and showing him that he was far from being so fine a gentleman as he thought—when it came to the point, the old grandfather did not himself like the idea, and felt that his John was much more of a gentleman than any other boy he knew.

‘Yes, grandfather,’ said John, tranquilly. ‘I know I’m not like the others. I’ve got to make my own way.’

‘Yes; and you’ve got to make it without a family behind you, and friends to push you on as those young Spencers have—though you’ve more in you than both of them put together,’ cried grandpapa, with a little outburst of feeling which John did not at all understand.

John smiled. He was used to hearing that he was a fine fellow, and better than the others, and he took it as a peculiarity of the doting affection these old people had for him, and excused it good-naturedly on that ground: but he knew very well it was not true.

‘The only thing that is wanting to Percy and Dick is that they’re not your boys, grandfather,’ said John—‘yours and grandmamma’s—you would know then that they are quite as good as me—or better, perhaps,’ he added, candidly, feeling that so far as this went there might be reason for a doubt.

‘You will never make us see that,’ said Mrs. Sandford; ‘but I love the boys, bless them, for they’ve always been like brothers to you. And it is saying a deal for the rector and all of them that, though we are not just in their position, they have never hindered it nor made any difference, which they might have done; dear me, oh! yes, they might have done it, and nobody blamed them——’

‘My dear,’ said the old man, in a tone of warning.

‘Oh! yes, yes,’ cried grandmamma. ‘I know; I know——’ And she cried a little, and gave a stolen look at John such as he had caught many a day without ever understanding the meaning of it—a look in which there was something like pity, compassion, and indignation as well as love, as if somebody had wronged him deeply, though he did not know it, and she felt that nothing could ever be too good for him, too tender to make up for it—and yet that nothing ever would wipe out that wrong. All this in one glance is, perhaps, too much to believe in; but John saw it all confusedly, wondering, and not knowing what it could mean.

Mr. Sandford cleared his throat again, and then it was he who began.

‘John,’ he said, ‘we think, and so does your mother think, that it is time to speak to you about what you are going to do——’

‘Yes, grandfather,’ said John. He looked up with a little eagerness, as if he were quite ready and prepared, which, while it made matters much easier, gave the old people a little chill at the same time, as if the boy had been wanting to get away.

‘There is no hurry about it,’ the old gentleman said, closing up a little and drawing back into his seat.

‘But, grandfather,’ said John, ‘I’ve been thinking of it myself. Percy is going to the University after he’s finished at Marlborough: but I can’t do that. I can’t wait till I’m a man before getting to work. I know I’m not like them. Mr. Cattley has taken us—oh, I don’t mean us: me—as far as I have any need to go.’

‘Why shouldn’t you say “us,” John?’

‘Because Elly is a girl. She is more different still. She says her aunt will never let her go on when she comes back. And, it is thought, Mr. Cattley will get a living: so that’s just how it is, grandfather. I’ve been thinking the very same. As I’ve got to make my own way, it’s far better that I should begin.’

‘Especially as the poor lad has no one behind him,’ said his grandmother, shaking her head.

‘I have you behind me,’ said John; ‘I’d like to know how a fellow could have anything better. And I’ve all the village behind me that know you and know me, though I’m not so much. What could I have more? I’ve only got to say I’m Mr. Sandford’s grandson, and, all this side of the county, everybody knows me. The Spencers have got greater relations, perhaps, but what could be better than that?’

He looked round upon them, first to one side, then to the other, with a glow of brightness and happy feeling in his cheerful young face. He was a good-looking boy, perhaps not strictly handsome, with mobile irregular features, honest well-opened eyes, with a laugh always in them, and brown hair that curled a little. He was not particularly tall for his age, neither was he short, but strong and well-knit. And he had the complexion of a girl, white and red, a little more brown perhaps than would have been becoming to a girl. But to John the brown was very becoming. He looked like a boy who was afraid of nothing, neither work, nor fatigue, nor poverty, nor even trouble, if that should have to be borne—but who was entirely confident that he never need be ashamed to look the world in the face, and that everything known of him, either of himself or those who had gone before him, was of a kind to conciliate friendship and spread goodwill all round.

The two old people looked at him, and then at each other. The grandfather gave his ‘tchick, tchick’ under his breath, as it were, the grandmother under her soft white knitting wrung her old hands. But an awe was upon them of his youth, of his confidence, of his happiness. They withdrew their eyes from him and from each other with a suddenness of alarm, as if they might betray themselves—and for a moment there was silence. They dared not venture to say anything, and he had said what he had to say. After a moment, however, he resumed. He noticed no hesitation, no tragic consultation of looks; for him everything was so simple, so plain.

‘Don’t you agree with me?’ he said.

‘Agree with him! Listen to the young ’un,’ said the old man at last, with a quaver in his voice. ‘But I’m glad you take it like this, my boy. We’re old folks, and we’re growing older every day. We’d like to live just to see you settled for yourself in the world. You’ve advantages, as you say, in the village maybe, and just a little way about, where our name is known, though we have not spent all our lives in this little place. But look you here, John. You mustn’t expect to be able to make your way in the village, nor perhaps near it. You mustn’t expect the old folks will last for ever. When you go out into the world, you’ll find there are very few that ever heard tell of your grandmother and me. You will have to be your own grandfather, so to speak,’ grandpapa said, with an unsteady little laugh.

It was just at this moment that John, looking down on the table with his smiling eyes, with an undimmed boyish satisfaction in grandfather’s little jokes, contented he could scarcely call how, saw the old ‘Robinson Crusoe’ which lay there. It lay among half-a-dozen books, in no way distinguished from the others, but to John it was not like any of the others. It brought a sudden check, like the rolling up of a cloud over his mind. The light paled somehow on his face, as the sky pales when the cloud rolls up. It was not that he was afraid, or that any shadow of a coming trouble fell upon him. No, not that. He was only recalled to the far back childish life, like a faint vision which lay in the distance, like an island on the other side of the sea, half touching the line of the ocean, half drawn up into the skies. He paused for a moment in the shock of this idea, and said, half to himself,

‘By-the-by: I talk as if I were only your grandson, grandfather: but there’s something that comes between—there’s papa.’

There was a slight faint stir in the room. He did not look up to see what it was, being fully engaged following out the thread of his own thoughts.

‘I remember him quite well,’ he said; ‘sometimes I don’t think of him for ages together, and then in a moment it will all come back. I’ve been away from them a long time, haven’t I, to be the only son? and though you sometimes speak of—mother’—he had nearly said Emily, and reddened a little, half with horror, half with amazement, to think of the slip he had almost made—‘you never say a word about papa.’

John could not employ any other than the childish name to denote his absent father. He could not think of him but as papa. He was silent for a little, following out his own thoughts, and it was not till a minute or two had elapsed that it occurred to him how strange it was that they should be quite silent too, making no response. He looked up hastily, and caught sight of one of those signs which the old people would make to each other across him, he paying no attention. But somehow this time he did pay attention. Mrs. Sandford was bending forward towards the old man. Her hands were clasped as if in entreaty. She was giving him an anxious, almost agonized look, imploring him to do something, to refrain from doing something—which was it?—while the grandfather, drawn back into his chair, seemed to resist, seemed to be making up his mind. They both assumed an air of indifference, of forced ease precipitately, when they saw that John was observing them, and then the old gentleman spoke.

‘I’m—glad you’ve asked, John. It’s been on my mind for a long time to tell you. We ought to have done it years ago: but somehow you were always such a happy lad, and it seemed a pity, it seemed a pity to—disturb your mind——’

‘Oh, John Sandford!’ the old lady said. It was not to the boy she was speaking, but to her husband, once more wringing her hands.

Grandfather gave her a look which was almost fierce, a look of angry severity, imposing silence; and then he resumed—

‘Your mother left it to us, to do what we thought best; and we had that anxiety for you to keep you happy that I said unless you asked—and strange it is you never asked before, though it’s not far off ten years you have been with us. You can’t remember much about him, John.’

‘I do, though—I remember him quite well. How he would come and take me out of bed and carry me downstairs, and how jolly he was. I don’t perhaps think of him much, but when I do, I remember him perfectly. He was ruddy and big, and had bright merry eyes—I can see him now——’

The old lady gave a little whimpering cry.

‘Poor Robert! poor Robert! You may say what you like, but the boy is like him, not like any of us,’ she said.

‘Hold your tongue!’ said her husband, peremptorily. ‘Merry, yes, he was merry enough in his time; but it doesn’t make other folks merry that kind——’

And there was again a little pause. John’s curiosity was aroused, and his interest: but yet he was not greatly moved—for anything connected with his father was so vague for him and far away.

‘Well, grandfather? he said at last.

‘Well,’ said the old man, slowly, ‘there is not very much to say; the short and the long of it is that—hush, woman, I tell you! he is just—dead. That is all there is to say.’

‘Dead!’ John was startled. He repeated the word in an awestruck and troubled tone. He did not know what he had expected. And yet the moment he thought of it—and thought goes so quick!—he had gone through the whole in a moment like a flash of light, realising the long separation, the utter silence, through which there never came any news. Of course, that was the only thing that was possible. He said, after a time,

‘I ought to have known. It must have been that. Never to hear of him for so many years—’

‘Yes, to be sure,’ grandfather said. ‘He didn’t do well in his business, and he went abroad, and then he died——’

‘I ought to have known—it must have been that,’ said John.

CHAPTER VI.

GRANDMAMMA.

Mrs. Sandford got up very early next morning, some time before it was daylight. She had scarcely slept all night. As quiet as a little ghost, not to wake her husband, she had stolen upstairs after dismissing John to bed: and she stole out of her room as softly in the morning, her heart rent with trouble and fear. It was her habit to go out early in the summer mornings to look after the garden, to collect the eggs from the poultry-yard, to gather her posies with the dew upon them, which was an old-fashioned way she had. But in winter the old lady was not so brave, and feared the cold as the least courageous will do. Notwithstanding, it was still dark when she stole out, unseen as she fondly hoped, by Sarah in the kitchen. The darkness of the night was just beginning to yield to the grey unwilling daylight. The milkman was going his rounds. Some late people, not the labourers, who were off to their work long ago in the darkness, were coming out very cold to their occupations: the shop had still a smoky paraffin-lamp lighted, and there was one of the same description shining through the open door of the ‘Green Man.’ Except for these points of light, all was grim and grey in the village. The sky widened and cleared minute by minute. It did not grow bright, but slowly cleared. Mrs. Sandford had a thick veil over her face, but everybody knew her. To attempt to hide herself was vain. She had taken a basket in her hand to give herself a countenance. It was a basket which was well known. It carried many a little comfort to sick people and those who were very poor. The sight of the little slim old lady with her fair, fresh face and white hair, her trim black-silk gown, and warm wadded cloak, and the basket in her hand, was very familiar to the people in Edgeley. But she was seldom out so early, and her steps were a little uncertain, not quick and light as usual. You could generally see, to look at her, that she was very sure where she was going and knew every step of the way. This morning she went up past the ‘Green Man,’ so that the milkman, who was a great gossip, said to himself,

‘I know! She’s going to that tramp as was took bad last night in Feather Lane.’

But when he had gone on his round a little further and saw her coming back again, his confidence was shaken.

‘It must be old Molly Pidgeon she’s looking for—and most like don’t know as she’s moved.’

But, when Mrs. Sandford crossed the street, this observer was altogether at fault.

‘There’s nobody as is ill that a-way,’ he said to the customer whom he was serving. ‘Whatever is Mrs. Sandford doing out with her basket at this time in the morning, and no sickness to speak of about?’

The woman standing at her door with the jug in her hand for the milk leaned out too, and stared.

‘There’s a deal of children with colds, and old folks,’ she said.

And they both stopped to look at the uncertain movements of the little figure. Even curiosity in the country is slow in its operations. They stood half turned away from the milk-pails, which were their real point of meeting, and stared slowly, while the unwonted passenger in still more unwonted uncertainty flickered along. In the meantime there had been a little commotion at the ‘Green Man,’ such as was very unusual too: for in the morning all was decorous and quiet there, if not always so at night. There was a loud sound of voices, which, though beyond the range of the milkman and his customer, attracted the attention of other people who were about their morning’s business. The postman paused while feeling for his letters, and turned his head that way, and the people in the shop came running out to the door.

‘It’ll be him as made the row last night,’ they said, in fond expectation of a second chapter. Their hopes were so far realized that at this moment the folding swinging-doors flew open, and a man burst out more quickly than is the usual custom of retiring guests. And he stopped to shake his fist at the door, where Johnson appeared after him watching his departure.

‘I promise you I’ll keep an eye on you,’ Johnson cried after him, and the stranger sent back a volley of curses fortunately too hoarse to be very articulate.

Mrs. Sandford crossed the road again just at that moment, and she heard better than the observers far off. A look of horror came over her face.

‘Oh! my good man,’ she cried, lifting up her hand, ‘I am sure you don’t wish all those horrible things. What good can it do you to swear!’

The man looked at her for a moment. Her little dainty figure, her careful dress, her spotless looks made such a contrast to this big ruffian, all disordered, squalid, and foul, with every appearance of having lain among the straw all night, and the traces of last night’s debauch still hanging about him, as no words could express. He stood a moment taken aback by her address; probably he would have shrunk even from appealing to the charity of a being so entirely different and out of his sphere; but to have her stop there and speak to him took away his breath. His hand stole up to his cap involuntarily.

‘It do a man a deal of good, lady,’ he said; ‘it relieves your mind; but I didn’t ought to,’ he added, beginning to calculate, ‘I know.’

‘You should not, indeed,’ she said; and then added, ‘You seem a stranger. Are you looking for work? or have you any friends about here?’

The postman, the woman at the shop, and everybody within sight admired and wondered to see Mrs. Sandford talking to ‘the man.’ This was the name he had already acquired in Edgeley. They wondered if she could know that he was a man out of prison. But she was known to be very kind.

‘I shouldn’t wonder if that was just why she’s doing of it, because nobody else would touch him with a pair of tongs,’ an acute person said.

He seemed, it must be added, much surprised himself; but he was a man who had been used to prison chaplains and other charitable persons, and he thought he knew how to get over every authority of the kind.

‘Lady,’ he said, ‘that’s just what I want. It’s work, to earn an honest living; but, ’cause I’m a poor fellow as has been in trouble, nobody won’t have me or hear speak of me; but to have been in trouble oncet, that’s not to say ye don’t want to do no better. It’s only when ye gets there as ye know how bad it is.’

‘That may be very true,’ said Mrs. Sandford; ‘but a little village like this is not the place to get work, I’m afraid; for there is nothing to do here.’

‘No, lady,’ said the man; ‘and it wasn’t so much work I was looking for this morning, as to do a good turn to a mate o’ mine, as was with me, I needn’t say where. Maybe ye may know, lady, as it can be seen you’re a charitable lady. Maybe you can tell where I’ll find a Missis May——’

Mrs. Sandford’s little outline quivered for a moment, but her face did not change. She shook her head.

‘There is nobody,’ she said, ‘of that name in this village. I know all the people, as you say. I think there was a woman called May about here a number of years ago, but she has removed, and where she has gone I can’t say.’

‘Ah, that’s like enough,’ said the man; ‘it’s a long time, and maybe she might not want the folks belonging to her to know.’

‘Was it news you were bringing her?’ Mrs. Sandford said. ‘That was very kind of you—but perhaps she would rather you didn’t tell her affairs to everybody, and that her husband was——’

‘I didn’t say nothing about her ’usband,’ said the man, quickly.

‘Oh! was it her son then, poor creature? for that is still worse,’ the old lady said.

He looked at her keenly with the instinct of one who, deceiving himself, has a constant fear of being deceived; but to see the little Lady Bountiful of the village standing there with her basket, her fresh face as fresh as a child’s, her limpid eyes looking at him with an air of pity yet disapproval, and to imagine that she was taking him in was impossible even to a soul accustomed to consider falsehood the common-place of existence.

‘It was her ’usband,’ he said, sullenly, ‘and I don’t care much if she liked it or not. She oughter like it if she didn’t, for it was news of him I was bringing, and I could tell her all about him—being mates for a matter of seven years, him and me.’

‘Poor woman!’ Mrs. Sandford said. ‘But I can’t tell you where she has gone, only that she’s not here.’

‘You wouldn’t deceive a poor fellow, lady? I’ve ’ad a long tramp, and that beggar there, though it’s nothing but a public he keeps—— him——’

‘Oh,’ said Mrs. Sandford, ‘don’t swear! What good can that do you? Indeed, I am not deceiving you. I’m very sorry for you. I will give you something to pay your fare to the town. You will be better off there than here.’

‘It’s not much of a town as far as I’ve heard,’ he said, ‘and I ain’t ’ad no breakfast. And my ’eart’s set on doing my duty by my mate. I’ll go from door to door but I’ll find that woman, blast her. She’s a proud ’un, I know, and thinks herself a lady. I’ll have it out with her, I will, afore I go.’

‘In that case,’ said Mrs. Sandford, ‘I can’t give you the money which I offered you: and I meant to give you something for your breakfast too—and I must speak to the constable, for we cannot have you about the village, Mr.——I don’t know what your name is. To have you here frightening all the poor people would never do.’

She gave him a lofty nod of her little head, and turned away: but the man, after all, was not willing to relinquish present advantage for problematical good. He made a stride after her, which frightened her very much, and took away all her pretty colour, but not the courage in her heart.

‘Lady,’ he said, ‘if you tell me on your honour that woman ain’t here—them folks all said so, but I didn’t believe ’em: and if you’ll give me—say ten shillin’—over and above the fare, as you promised—— ’

A gleam of eagerness came into Mrs. Sandford’s eyes; but she controlled herself.

‘I can assure you,’ she said, ‘the woman is not here.’

She had grown quite pale, and, though she smiled still, her countenance was drawn with terror, perhaps, or some other feeling.

‘You’re frightened of me, lady,’ the man said, ‘but you hain’t got no cause. I’m rough enough, but a lady as speaks kind and don’t try to bully a poor fellow—or go talking about the police—and besides I couldn’t do nothin’ to you. The men would be on me afore we could say Jack—— And I’m pretty sure as it’s the truth, and May’s wife ain’t here. She’s a proud one, she is. She’s maybe gone out of the country, or changed her name, or summat. Gi’ me ten shillin’ and I’ll go away.’

‘You had better go to the clergyman,’ said Mrs. Sandford.

‘Gi’ me ten shillin’,’ said the man.

‘Oh, perhaps I am doing what is wrong; perhaps I ought to speak to the constable. I’m not a person with any authority, and why should I interfere?’

‘Gi’ me ten shillin’,’ he repeated, coming close to her, holding out his hand.

‘Will you go away if I do? Perhaps you had better see the clergyman. I’ve no right to interpose to send you away. Will you go if I do?’

He nodded, watching her trembling hands as she took out her purse and felt in it, pressing very close to her, rubbing against her silk gown with his rough dress; and, as it happened by ill-luck, Mrs. Sandford had but a sovereign in her purse. When he saw it he put his hand upon hers suddenly, and crushed the little fingers together which held the golden coin.

‘Gi’ me that,’ he said, with his hot breath in her face, ‘gi’ me that, or afore any o’ them can get to ye I’ll knock you down; and they can’t do anything as bad to me.’

The little old lady stood enveloped in his big shadow, with his hairy, villainous face close by hers. She did not shrink, nor scream, nor faint, but stood up, deadly pale, with her limpid eyes fixed upon him.

‘I am not afraid of you,’ she said, with a little gasp. ‘Will you keep your word and go away?’

Some sentiment, unknown and inexplainable, came into the ruffian’s heart. He loosed his grip of the delicate little hand that felt like nothing in his grasp, which he could have crushed to a jelly: and indeed he had nearly done so. He said, ‘I will; I’ll keep my word,’ in a deep growling bass voice.

It was all that Mrs. Sandford could do to unclasp the fingers he had gripped, and to keep from crying with the pain. She dropped the sovereign into his hand.

‘Now go,’ she said.

‘You are game,’ he cried, with a sort of admiration, looking at her rather than the sovereign, though his hand closed upon that with the eagerness of a famished beast upon a bone. ‘I never saw one as was more game.’

She made a gesture of dismissal with her cramped fingers.

‘Oh, go, go—and God forgive you. And oh! try to get honest work, and live decent—and not fall into trouble again.’

‘Good-bye, lady,’ he said; then coming back a step—‘I’m sorry I hurt you.’

She waved to him to go away. The man still lingered a moment, putting up his hand to his cap, then turned, and, slouching, with his shoulders up to his ears, took the way across the corner of the moor to the railway-station, which was a mile off or more.

Mrs. Sandford turned to go back to her house. She was so pale that when she came near the door of the shop Mrs. Box came running out to her in alarm.

‘Oh, Mrs. Sandford, come in, ma’am; come in and rest a bit. You’ve not a bit of colour on your cheeks—you that have such a fine complexion. You’re just dead with fright, and I don’t wonder at it. How did he dare to speak to you, the villain? and shook your nerves, poor dear, so that I see you can’t speak.’

‘Oh! yes, I can speak,’ said the old lady. Her knees were knocking under her, her whole little person in a tremble. ‘I was glad to speak to him, poor creature. He wanted some one that used to live here by. Perhaps a person like that, who does really wicked things, may not be worse, in the sight of God, than many a man who makes a fair show to the world.’

She said this with many a catch of her breath and pause between the words. She was very much overdone, as anyone could see, but she would not sit down.

‘If you’ll give me a little milk, or some water, to revive me, I’ll be quite right in a minute,’ she said.

‘That may be true,’ said Mrs. Box, ‘for goodness knows the best of folks you can’t see into their heart; but a man as has been in prison ain’t like any other man. They learn such a deal of harm, even if it’s not in them to begin with. I’ve just made the tea for breakfast, and here’s a nice cup—that’ll do you more good than anything else—and sit down a moment and get your breath. I said to William, “There’s Mrs. Sandford a-talking to that brute; you go and see that she’s all right.” But William, he said to me, “If anyone can bring him to his senses it’s just Mrs. Sandford will do it.” So we stood and we watched. And what did he say to you, ma’am?—and dear, dear, how it’s taken all the nice colour out of your cheeks.’

‘Thank you for the tea. It has done me a great deal of good,’ said the old lady; ‘and now I must go home, for Mr. Sandford will be wondering what has become of me. Poor man, he was very amenable, after all, when one comes to think of it. I told him Edgeley was no place for the like of him, and that perhaps he might get work in the town: and you see he has gone away. Oh, poor soul! He was some poor woman’s boy once, that perhaps has broken her heart for him, Mrs. Box, and never thought to see him come to that, any more than you or me.’

‘Well, that’s true, ma’am,’ said Mrs. Box. ‘We don’t know what they’ll come to, as we’re so proud of when they’re children. Hold up your head, Willie, do! and ask Mrs. Sandford to let you carry her basket, as is always heavy with things for the poor.’

‘Not this morning, Mrs. Box. I had but an egg or two in it,’ said Mrs. Sandford, opening the lid to show that it was empty. There was a certain suspicion, she thought, in this speech. ‘There is no need for troubling Willie; but he is a fine, good-natured boy, and always willing to carry a parcel or run an errand. Good-morning to you all; you are kind folks.’

She thought the tea had saved her as she set out again down the village street. But her limbs still tottered, and she walked slowly, thinking the way twice as long as usual. They all called out how pale she was when she got in.

‘It is going out,’ she said, ‘without a cup of tea or anything, which was all my own fault.’

‘And why did you go out so early, without saying a word,’ said her husband. ‘Charity, my dear, is a fine thing; but you should not carry it too far. Neither that nor anything else is good when it’s carried too far.’

Mrs. Sandford only smiled and said it would be difficult to go too far when there were so many poor people, and pretended to make a very good breakfast behind the tea-urn. After breakfast she lay down a little on the sofa, saying that it was the most ridiculous thing in the world to be so tired for nothing, and that she must have taken something that disagreed with her, for the stomach was at the bottom of everything when one grew old. It was still holiday time with John, and he insisted upon staying with her when grandfather went out for that daily walk which nothing short of death in the house would have made him leave off. John was unusually grave. He came and sat beside the sofa with a very perplexed countenance.

‘Grandmamma,’ he said, ‘I feel all mixed. I am so puzzled with remembering something. Remembering and forgetting. Wasn’t I somehow mixed up when I was a little chap with the name of May?’

CHAPTER X.

THE REPLY.

When John heard his grandfather breathe that sigh of helplessness which resolved itself into a desire for Emily—if the purposeless exclamation ‘if Emily were here!’ could be construed into a wish—he considered it best to tell him what he had done. He had felt it so strange never to see her, to know nothing of her, that he had written to beg his mother to come. For the first instant the old gentleman had shown displeasure and something like alarm.

‘Who gave you authority to invite her here? What is she going to do here? Don’t you know, sir, don’t you know, sir, that I—that she—that she—that everything depends—’ Mr. Sandford stammered forth in wrath. And then he stopped himself in considerable agitation, and walked about the parlour a little, to calm himself down. ‘To be sure she’s the boy’s mother, after all,’ he said to himself, in a sort of whisper. ‘And then her mother’s bad—my poor old dear—she’s very bad.’ There seemed a process of reasoning going on in his mind of which those murmurs marked the stages. Finally he put his hand on John’s shoulder not untenderly. ‘You’ve done it,’ he said, ‘out of your own head. I would not have let you do it had I known. But now that it’s done it’s done, and it may turn out for the best.’

‘Do you think she will come, grandfather?’ John asked, eagerly.

‘God knows. She would, like a shot, if it was anyone but Emily. But how can I tell what she will do? She was always too many for me.’

And with a sigh the old man hurried upstairs again ‘to see how She was going on.’ His old wife had done everything for him all the long lifetime they had spent together. But his alarm and awkward anxiety were touching. He would fain have done everything for her with his clumsy, old, trembling hands and slow comprehension of invalid needs. How should an old man who had been used to have everything done for him learn in a moment the arts of a sick-room—the recollection of everything, the softened touch, the subdued sounds? Love itself is not enough to teach all these. And old Mr. Sandford had been less used to help himself than any duke. To have your wife there to do everything for you, as is the habit of the class to which he belonged, involves a far closer service than any valet would give. The poor old gentleman, with the best will in the world, was quite incapable. He required her to tell him what to do. ‘My dear!’ the appeal of fifty years, which had always been met on her part by the instant response of a service which was far more than duty, came to his lips every moment almost with at touch of indignation: for if she would not tell him how could he be expected to know? But he could not keep away from her. He wanted to see with his own eyes every moment that she was getting a little better. She had never been ill, and he did not believe in her being ill; but still if she should be ill what would become of him and everything? His very heart seemed to stop beating at the thought.

These two had come to that point of age and long continuance when it is scarcely possible to believe in an end at all. Everything went on with such a steady, gentle routine, one day following another, each the same as the other, a steady succession of hours and habits, and invariable ways. They were so accustomed to it all: they were past the age of change: they were so easily satisfied, wanting nothing more than the warmth of the fireside, and their mutual talks, and their sober, moderate meals, and to see John growing up such a fine fellow! That was the one quicker, keener throb of happiness in the midst of their well-being. That he should go away would indeed be a wrench. But then there was no reason to suppose that his going away would be for anything but his good, and it was inevitable, a thing they had always known. And then they would have his letters, and his visits now and then, and always themselves to fall back upon, the inseparable pair, the two who were one. It is true that everybody knows that everybody else must die, but there seemed no reason in the world why this life should not go on for ever, so peaceful, so uneventful, doing no harm to anybody, doing good, demanding so little, and in itself so contented, without further desire or expectation. Mr. Sandford had long got over that other human sentiment which fears its own well-being, and feels that, the more comfortable you are, the more likely it is that fate will come down and crush you. Fate had nothing to do with this old pair: they were good, religious people, who had suffered much in this life, but to whom God had given a peace which was very sweet. And why should it be broken by any startling change? Why should it be disturbed? It was not an idea to be entertained for a moment. Did not all experience prove that that which hath been is the thing which shall be? He went upstairs, trying to make no noise with his heavy tread, to convince himself that every moment she was getting a little better, and that no change was possible, except for good.

The answer to John’s letter could not come till the second day; as a matter of fact, it did not come till the fourth. All these three mornings he came down early, and was at the door to meet the postman as he went his rounds, which did not mean that John doubted his mother’s coming, but only that he was very anxious, and eager to know what she would say. Not only her answer, but what she would say. Was it possible that her reply would be in the old, formal tone, as to a little boy who knew no better? or would she now perceive that he was at least an independent human creature, capable of feeling, capable of knowing, and address him as such? John was almost more anxious to resolve this question than to know whether she was coming. Of course she must be coming. Who could resist the appeal, that was at once from her mother and from her son? He had forgotten by this time how very little had been her mother’s part in it, and believed sincerely that he had said everything that had been suggested to him. In the first pang of astonished disappointment with which he found that there was no letter the first day, all his calculations were confounded, for he had never for a moment supposed that she would not answer, and answer at once. But then his hopes sprang up, and he said to himself that she must be thinking it over, and arranging how to come, and that she did not wish to write till she could tell him exactly the hour she would arrive. On the third day, grandmamma was downstairs again, looking paler, but still smiling. She took his face between her two thin hands (how thin they had grown, and all the veins showing), and whispered in his ear, as he stooped over her:

‘What does Emily say?’

Always Emily. He could not get rid of Emily.

‘There is no letter yet, grandmamma.’

‘Ah! she will be waiting till she can settle exactly which train she is to come by,’ said the old lady, and gave him a kiss, and lay smiling, thinking, no doubt, of her daughter, who was coming. She could not talk much, for she was still very weak.

On the fourth morning the letter arrived.

‘It is for you, Mr. John,’ said the postman.

‘Yes, yes,’ cried the boy; ‘I know it is for me.’

He hurried in, and shut the parlour-door, that no one might disturb him in reading it. At all events, it was a letter, he could see in a moment, and not the usual little formal note about his health and her health, which had been enough for him when he was a child. John’s heart beat very high as he began to read, but gradually calmed down, and became quite still, scarcely moving at all in his breast. For his mother’s letter was not the kind of letter to encourage the beatings of any heart.

John had been palpitating with expectation and hope when he opened this letter. He came gradually down, down, as he read it. All through, he felt that it was Emily who was writing to him, a woman whom he knew a great deal about (and yet nothing), and whom he did not like very much—not his mother.

It seemed likely that he had no mother. The loss of all that he had been expecting and looking forward to, and the strangest sense of whirling down, down, as if everything was giving way under him, made him sick and cold. When he had read it to the last word, he folded it up carefully, with a very grave face, and put it into his pocket. He was far too serious for the angry impulse of throwing it into the fire. He was not angry so much as crushed and overawed. He felt himself altogether put down from the position which he had taken. She had acknowledged that he was no longer a child, and yet she treated him as if he knew nothing, understood nothing. The injury to his pride, to his heart, to all that was individual in him, was more than words could say.