The scene of our story is the little town of Sixoaks, in Kent, (and the period at which we begin is the year I8—, before the telegraph was invented, and when the railway had scarcely begun to exist.
Lawrence Clough lives in Sixoaks. He is a Kentish squireen, about five and thirty years of age. His house fronts to the market-square, and is a picturesque old place of the half-timbered kind that is common in southern counties. At another angle of the square there is an old inn with a suspended sign, and a little beyond it stands the ancient church, green with ivy to the top of its tower.
Clough's father, who is dead, had been the saint and philanthropist of the county, and a monument to his memory stands in the middle of the market-place. It is a statue representing the venerable figure of an old man, in the long coat and knee-breeches of the time.
But Lawrence Clough himself, commonly called Larry, has gone to the bad. He is one of those genial souls whom all the world conspires to ruin. Fond of good liquor, good sport, and a good story, he has given up to company what was due to work, and reaped, of course, the usual reward.
Larry is to be sold up. Even the house he lives in is to go in the general sweep. That is the more pitiable because it had belonged to his wife, and was the place she had been born in.
The poor girl has stuck to him in spite of his failings, having married him in the face of the opposition of her people, and notwithstanding more reputable suitors. She has one child, a girl six years of age, of the same name as herself—Lucy.
It is the day of the public auction, a bright day in summer. The cryer is going through the town crying the sale of the "last remaining lots of the stock and estate of Lawrence Clough, Esquire." In the afternoon the auctioneer, old John Cuthbert, landlord of the Red Lion, in the market-place, mounts the market cross, under the monument, and reads out the conditions of sale. Among those who are standing about him is a man dressed as a sailor of the superior class. This is an old resident of the district, who has been ten years abroad and is newly returned home. His name is Crowe. He has been away at the whale fishing on the Greenland seas, and is understood to have brought back a fortune. He may be 35 to 40 years of age. His bronzed face is hard-featured and forbidding.
While the preliminaries of the auction are being gone through, an upper window in Larry's house opens, and a young woman looks out. She is pale and careworn. It is Larry's wife, Lucy. Larry himself is nowhere to be seen.
The auction begins, According to custom, every lot is sold on the spot, and the auctioneer and his company leave the market place. They are to return to it for the last lot, and the final squaring up. The last lot is to be the house.
When they are gone and the market-place is empty, a child's voice is heard approaching, mingled with the laughter of a man, and the face at the window shows signs of recognition. At the next moment a man comes up holding a child by the hand. It is Larry. He has a game bag across his back and a gun over his shoulder, and is dressed in the long coat, knee-breeches, flowered waistcoat, and broad-brimmed hat of the period.
Larry is merry, but by no means intoxicated. He takes the birds out of the bag, gives them to the child to carry home, then flings himself on a seat outside the inn and shouts to the potboy for something to drink.
As the potboy appears with a pewter Lucy comes out of the house opposite. At the sight of his wife Larry looks ashamed. Their home and all that belongs to them is under the hammer, yet here he is drinking and idling. The serious thoughts only last a moment and he is laughing again.
"You promised to be back by 12," says Lucy.
"Ah! so I did, my dear; but I'm like the man with the reliable clock," said he.
"When it strikes 10 it points to 12, and then I know it's half-past 1. … But never mind, Lucy, I'm back in time for the last lot any way, and that's all I care about. We are not stone broke yet, dear. There's that thousand-pound legacy my mother left in trust, you know. It'll buy in the house at all events. Old John promises me to knock it down to me quick, and they say nobody will bid against us, so we'll not be houseless anyhow. Good health, my dear! Another pot, my boy! By the way, Lucy, who do you think I met coming this way when I was going into the fields this morning? Harry Crow, of all men. They call him Captain Crow now, and he has come back from the whaling a rich man, I hear. Well, riches have wings—prodigious ones seemingly. He has a bright little boy they tell me, about the age of our Lucy, but his wife is dead, and his wealth is no good to him. Well, I forgive him, poor devil. I am happier than he is, in spite of my duns and debts. But what a funny world it is though!"
Larry laughs and calls for more drink. At that moment an old man carrying a lantern, a spade, and a pick crosses the market-place. It is the sexton. Larry hails him and laughs. Is he a Diogenes that he needs a lantern in the sunlight? The old man answers that he has a job of work to do, and must work late that night, as he did on the night when Larry's father died.
At the mention of his father Larry's laughter suddenly stops. The sexton goes into the churchyard, and the potboy in his sleeved waistcoat returns with a glass. Larry is about to pick it up when Lucy takes hold of it.
"Give it up," she says, "for your father's sake, Larry."
Larry is sobered. For a moment he feels the reproach of his father's well-spent life contrasted with his own ill-spent existence.