THE SON OF HIS FATHER.
VOL. II.

THE SON OF HIS FATHER

BY
MRS. OLIPHANT
AUTHOR OF
“IT WAS A LOVER AND HIS LASS,” “AGNES,”
“THE LAIRD OF NORLAW,”
ETC., ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED,
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1887.
All rights reserved.

CONTENTS
OF
THE SECOND VOLUME.

THE SON OF HIS FATHER.

CHAPTER I.
OUT IN THE WORLD.

Out in the world.

It was not so long a journey as that he had taken to Liverpool with the curate, but how different it was! Then he had his home to return to; he had set forth curious indeed and interested, with a hope of discovering something about himself, but always with the idea of going back to the quiet of his own life and working it out. He had his natural anchorage, his harbour to sail back to, and no need to think of facing by himself the storms of life. He had not been happy then; but even his sadness, his trouble, even the mystery thrown into his life, his disquietude, all these were so different. That was only a sort of amateur trouble, a playing at distress. Now it enveloped him on every side. He sat down opposite to his mother in the railway carriage, and saw everything that he had known gliding away from him, disappearing into the distance. He did not know where he was going, or to what. She said nothing to him, not a word of his home, or of his new life; and his old had come to an end, as if he had died.

As if he had died! In some ways it would have been more satisfactory to have died. Then his name and memory, the name which he knew best, without any mystery attached to it, would always have remained in the same place, and the whole village would have been sorry, and talked of him with bated breath, shaking their heads in sympathy. Poor boy, to have died so young! and Elly and the boys would have looked after his grave. Elly at least would have done it. She would never have forgotten. Tears came into John’s eyes when he thought of Elly going with her flowers to his grave, crying a little, never forgetting him. He made a little picture to himself, in which he saw her leaning over the turf, arranging her posy to his memory: and his eyes moistened with sadness which had in it an exquisite sort of melancholy pleasure. For after all it is not so dreadful for the very young to contemplate dying: the violets on their grave breathe to them a great consolation and the thought of the universal sympathy; they have not got so engrafted into life, so determined in all its habits as their elders. But when John turned to the other side, and found himself facing that blank world of the unknown—not knowing what he was to do, having, so to speak, no say in it, depending entirely upon what She should decide—there was no consolation at all in it, nothing that corresponded to the violets on the grave.

He did not know how his life was to be shaped, where he was to go, what he was to do. She had brought away a few things with her, but very few—grandmamma’s work-basket, in which she had kept her knitting, and in which, had John had his will, the last unfinished piece of that knitting should have been kept for ever—a selection of the books which she had made carefully, rejecting so many that grandfather had been proud of, and which she had said were of no use: but they would have been of use to John: an old picture or two from the walls, portraits with which John had been acquainted all his life, and one little old-fashioned bureau of carved wood, which had always stood in a corner, which he had never seen opened, and to which she seemed to attach great importance. These, with some of the old lady’s boxes, were all she brought away. And John had to come out of the house, leaving it as if the old people might come in from their walk at any moment. Had it been pulled to pieces first he thought it would have been less dreadful: but probably had that been done, and all the old furniture scattered, he would have thought it worse still. Everything had the aspect of being the worst that could happen in his present state of mind. Mr. Cattley came to the station to say good-bye. He was very civil to Mrs. Sandford, but he grasped John’s hand without a word.

‘You’ll write,’ he said, just as the train glided away. And the porters touched their hats and said ‘Good-bye, Mr. John,’ with a kind recollection of sixpences past. And so the boy disappeared from Edgeley, and his early life ended as if he had died, only that the severance was still more complete.

There was very little said until they drew near the great smoke which was London, and which roused a little excitement in John’s fatigued bosom, as it began to stain the sky so long before they arrived. It was almost night when they reached the great bustling crowded station—dusk at least, the lamps beginning to twinkle, the air growing cold which had been almost warm in spring brightness in the earlier part of the day. Mrs. Sandford had all her packages collected and placed on a cab, with little assistance from John, who was bewildered and confused by all the commotion and tumult, people running against him on all sides, and shrieking at each other. She was perfectly collected, business-like, and calm, understanding exactly what to do, and evidently accustomed to manage everything for herself; and the officials about seemed to recognise her, and were particularly ready and assiduous in her service. She made John get into the cab before her, like a child, and told the cabman where to drive; and it was only when they began this last brief part of their journey that she gave him any information as to where he was going.

‘It is time I should tell you,’ she said, ‘that I cannot have you to live with me, John. I should perhaps have said this before. I don’t know whether you are aware what my occupation is, though of course you have always addressed your letters to me at the hospital.’

John looked with quickened interest at the close black bonnet and cloak, perceiving their difference from other people’s bonnets and cloaks as if for the first time. It was not for the first time. He had remarked it at once and always, feeling the difference. But then, in her, everything was different.

‘I know,’ he said, ‘the letters were always addressed to the hospital.’

‘That is my profession,’ she said; ‘I am the matron. I had to take to that when I was left alone. I had two children to provide for, and myself worse than penniless. I don’t say this to claim your pity. I have always been quite able for my work, and it suited me. An idle woman I never could have been——’

There was nothing left for him to say. He might, perhaps, have shown a little feeling—for he had never heard anything about working women, and recognised it as the natural state of affairs that they should stay at home; but she quenched any sentimentality of that sort at once.

‘And then my father and mother took you off my hands,’ she said, with the same composure, ‘so that I was perfectly free. For, of course, Susie could go with me anywhere. I have been in the hospital for nine years. My rooms are very comfortable—for Susie and me: but I could not take you there. I have got lodgings for you close by.’

‘Oh,’ said John. He thought it was a relief to hear this, but then fell back upon himself bitterly, feeling that it was a new wrong and misery. No home, not even the semblance of a shelter, no place that belonged to him. It struck him with a sense of misery and shame.

‘It is too late to take you with me, even for tea—the hours and rules are naturally very strict; but I have ordered everything for you. You will find it quite comfortable. You will have enough to do unpacking and settling yourself to-night, and to-morrow at ten you may come to the hospital. If Susie had been able, she would have come to assist us, but this is one of the busy days. She must have had a great deal to do.’

‘Is Susan—working in the hospital, too?’

‘She helps me. She is very good, very serviceable—being a girl, she fits into everything, and spares me a great deal of trouble.’

‘And I suppose I fit into nothing,’ said John.

‘It is a pity you should take it up in that way; but it is true enough. A woman and her daughter can go anywhere. They are sure to be able to help each other. But a boy is quite different, as you say.’

Nothing further was said for a time, and John swallowed as best he could the bitterness that filled his mind. It was like a flood which rose and drowned every other sensation. Was he then of no use, a mere encumbrance, he whom everybody had looked upon as a boy who was going to do great things? The contrast of all that had been, with all that now was, became more and more bitter. He broke silence again after two or three clearings of his throat.

‘I hope, though I am so useless to you, and only a burden, that I may get something to do at least. I—must do something. I cannot be unpacking and settling myself all my life.’

‘Don’t be afraid,’ said his mother. ‘I encourage idleness in no one. Here we are at your lodgings. You had better get down your boxes yourself, with the aid of the cabman. There is only a maid-of-all-work in the house.’

John stumbled out of the carriage in haste and bitterness of soul. The cab had stopped at the door of an old-fashioned red brick house, looking small but pleasant enough, with a very white doorstep, and a woman standing in the doorway who smiled and nodded her much-adorned cap at him by way of welcome. He snatched his boxes from the cabman’s hands and carried them in himself almost with violence, which was a little safety-valve to him, and worked off the passionate perturbation of his spirit. Mrs. Sandford got out too, and walked into the little front parlour, which opened on one side of the door. On the opposite side of the street there was a great sombre building, with rows of lighted windows rising high over the level of this little row of houses, and the only prospect visible from them. Mrs. Sandford cast the quick look of a person in authority round the room.

‘You had better take down those curtains,’ she said. ‘He will be better without them; they are mere traps for dust, and keep out the fresh air. I hope you have arranged everything else as I told you.’

‘I’ve made everything as nice as I could,’ said the smiling woman; ‘and I hope as the young gentleman will be ’appy with me.’

‘I hope I may have reason to be satisfied with your treatment of him. You know, Mrs. Williams, I have something in my power.’

‘Oh, la, yes, mum! I knows that,’ said the woman, in a tone of alarm; and then she made John a curtsey, picking up her smile again with an air of having put it into a corner for a moment, which would have amused him had he been able to be touched by such light thoughts. He had in the meantime thrust the boxes which contained his own property into the little bed-room beyond, which opened with folding doors from the parlour, and it was the glimpse this afforded which had prompted the remark about the curtains, grim articles of hard red woollen stuff, which half covered the windows of the inner room.

Mrs. Sandford gave another glance around her. The table in the centre of the room was partially covered with a cloth, and laid apparently for that meal which is called a heavy tea. There was a plate of ham, a quantity of watercress, a pat of butter, and a little loaf, and by the side of all this a battered old tea-tray with the japanning half worn off, on which were the tea things, the big cup and saucer and jug of blue milk, familiar to the dwellers in London lodgings. Mrs. Sandford cast a glance at all this with apparent satisfaction.

‘It is not what you have been used to,’ she said; ‘but it is not bad for the kind of thing. I hope you will be able to make yourself comfortable here. Susie will come and see you if she can to-night, and to-morrow at ten I shall expect you at the hospital. I must go now. Good-night.’

She paused a moment, turned back, laid her hand on his shoulder, and kissed him lightly on the forehead. It was the first time she had done so, and John had a feeling that it was because of the presence of the spectator, who might have made remarks upon the cold parting of the mother and son—this thought gave him a feeling of horror and repulsion not to be described. He grew red, as with a sense of insult. She had come to the place where she was known, and kissed him to keep up appearances. The youth could have struck her as he drew his cheek away.

Perhaps she too felt that what she had done was not natural. She withdrew too with something like an angry colour rising over her features. Motives are so mixed, and human sentiments so complex. Perhaps it was because of the presence of that spectator that she had kissed her son; and yet there were many other feelings in her mind; quiverings of long-suppressed emotion, and an impulse in which there were many tender elements. But she saw what he thought, and there was enough truth in it to make it a new sting to her that he should have thought so. She went away back to her cab without another word, and he stood and watched while it crossed the street and drew up at a door a short distance off, a side door in the great building with its many lights. There he stood gazing while the cabman delivered his load of packages. He ought to have helped, perhaps; to have gone with her and seen her safely landed. But he stood instead at a distance, looking on with unfriendly eyes, with his mother’s kiss still burning and stinging. How strange that it should be so! He stayed there till she had disappeared with all her goods, and the cab had driven away; then returned to the little parlour of his lodgings alone.

It was a great wonder to him to find himself there, and to think that he was in London, in the heart of the great place to which every man’s eyes are turned, where everything is to be done, where all that is pleasant and gay, and all that is noisy and terrible, are going on. He had perhaps thought, even in his subdued state, even under the chilling shadow of his mother’s wing, something of this kind. However subdued one may be, however little desire one may have for amusement or commotion, yet in London it is inevitable that one should be amused and excited. It comes, in spite of one’s self, in the mere clamour of so much life, in the bustle of the streets, in the noise and riot. So he had thought, as so many think every day. But what had really happened to John in London was that he had fallen into the completest stillness, a quiet more than the quiet of the village, a loneliness such as he had never known before. His landlady had lighted two candles on the table. She had drawn down the blind, shutting out a bit of daffodil sky, the last lingering of day in the midst of the coming night. All was shut up, above, without—and John was alone.

What a form for novelty to take, for the first night of London, for the excitement of a new life! He sank down upon the hard horse-hair sofa, and looked round with speechless dismay. Here he was shut up as in a box, closed in, as if he were in a prison. In a prison it would almost be more cheerful; you would be aware, at least, of a host of other minds, of other hearts beating. Here there was nothing. A little parlour, with a little bed-room behind; a landlady, with nodding ribbons in her cap; a door which shuts out the world. It was like waking up after a night of fiery dreams, and finding yourself shut in a closet, separated from everything—the blind drawn, the door closed, the room shut up, and the young victim all alone.

CHAPTER II.
LONDON.

He had eaten, for he was hungry, and ham and bread and butter are not to be despised when nothing better is to be had. Even, which was curious to his state of mind, he had eaten largely, putting up before him the railway book which he had not read on his journey, and going on unconsciously with his vigorous, youthful appetite. This, the first act of his solitude, was by no means so disagreeable as he had feared. It increased his personal comfort, for he had eaten scarcely anything all day, and the increase of personal comfort ameliorates everything. When he had finished, he carried one of his candles to a small table near the window, and sat down there and read on, finishing his book, which had interested him. When he had closed it, and laid it on the table, the realisation of all the circumstances, which returned to his mind, was not so heavy as the first time. His heart began to spring up again, after being crushed under the foot of fate. It began to throb and tingle with the thought that he was in London, on the border of everything that was most living and desirable. The little fumes of interest of his story increased the effect by soothing away his personal misery. And now, as he sat in the small, silent room, something came to him which he had been conscious of all along, without knowing what it was, a sound continuous, like the far-off sound of the sea or of the wind, but subdued, as though the storm was far off, a sound which, now that he was free from those claims made by his lowered bodily condition upon his mind, became more and more apparent, filling the air with an uninterrupted murmur. What was it?

He sat up and listened, and then, with an excitement which made his heart jump, he recognised what it was. It was London! Had he not read in many a book of that great, low volume of sound, which some people described as the sound of many waters, and some as the distant roar of a tempest. It was soft here in his little hermitage, amid the strange solitude and silence, but rolled and murmured continuous, never ending. He perceived now that he had noticed it from the first moment, that all along he had wondered when it would stop, vaguely disquieted by it without knowing what it was; and now he knew that it would never stop, that it was the breath of the great multitude, the hum of their endless going on and on. John sat and listened to it till it went to his head, exciting him like wine. He could not rest. The contrast of this little prison-chamber in which he sat, and all that was implied in that low, continuous roar and hum of men, stirred his imagination more and more. He got up and opened the window, and looked out. Opposite to him was the great mass of building dark against the sky, which seemed to oppress and stifle the neighbourhood, taking away the air; but outside of that, away across the river where the world was, the hum, the roar, the continuous roll of sound came stronger and stronger. It called upon the young soul which stood and throbbed and listened. He had the habits of his youth and innocence strong upon him—a sort of unspoken sense of duty that restrained him and kept him from following his own impulses. It was not till some time had elapsed that he began to think it possible to obey that call—to go out and see what it was which gave forth that mighty voice. When the thought entered his mind it filled all his veins with excitement. Should he go? Why should he not go? No word had been said to him to bind him to remain where he was. It was not to waste day and night shut up in a dreary little room that he had come to London. He looked round upon the blank, grey walls, and found their bondage intolerable. It was like a box in which he was shut up. His brain and his veins seemed to be swelling, bursting with life that must have an outlet somehow. No, certainly, he could not stay there. He must have air and room to breathe; he must see for himself what was meant by London. But John, even in his excitement, was prudent. He put away his watch—which was not the one Mrs. Egerton had given him, but the old, dear silver one, the one that had no value at all and yet so great a value. He was aware that in London the natural thing was to rob a countryman, to take his watch from him. He would not expose his treasure to such a risk; but when he had laid that away he felt, with confidence, that there was nothing else to lose. They might hustle or knock him down, if they could, but there was nothing else they could do to him. Nevertheless, it was with something of that warlike exhilaration, with which a struggle is foreseen at his age, that John buttoned his coat and took his hat. He felt that ‘they’ (though he had not the least notion who they might be) would not have an easy bargain of him.

He went out without even being remarked. No ‘Where are you going?’ ‘When will you come back?’ to impede his liberty. That fact also went to his heart a little. He had felt his loneliness very forlorn—now he felt it exciting, exhilarating. He set his hat firmly on his head, and drew a long breath when he felt the fresh air of the night, so different from that of any parlour, encircle him with its coolness and vastness. That, too, has an intoxication in it which everything that is young acknowledges. The air may be sober in the morning—it is like wine at night. The darkness has a mystery, a magic in it—the lights twinkling through it—the world made into something ideal, in which miracles are. John stood still for a moment at the door, realising that he was there, that he was unshackled—his own master—and then, drawn by the great voice that called and called him, he turned his face towards the distant blazing of the lights, and set out—to discover that new world.

To discover London! how many do it every day, with hearts beating high, with hopes immeasurable, which so often collapse and come to nothing; but this is not the time for moralising. John set out. His way began in the darkness of this little street, with its little houses, faced by the great sombre shadow of the hospital, which shut out the air from it and the sky. He plunged into the darkness at first, making his way between rows of insignificant buildings, with a feeble shop here and there flashing its faint illumination, and then, with a great sweep of fresh air seizing him, came out upon the bridge. The sky was full of the clearness of spring, though there was no moon. The river flowed dark and silent below, faintly visible further up the stream in pale streaks of reflection, across which would rise a dark and ghostly shadow of something floating, a barge, a heavy blackness in the middle of the faint light; but lamps blazing overhead, the glare of gas, and here and there the chill contradictory artificial moon of the electric light ‘swearing’ horribly, as the French say, with all the yellow lamps around. The murmur of sound grew and grew as the boy went on; it was a rhythmic roar as of waves beating against a shore, or the rush of a prodigious waterfall, a great moral Niagara, bigger than any physical falls, however gigantic. It was made up of the sounds of carriages of every description, of voices, the hum of the crowd constantly broken by some shrill interruption of a cry or shout, which gave emphasis to the general continual, unfailing current of sound. He hurried along, quickening his pace, led by it as if it had been a syren’s song.

On the other side of the river a noble mass of walls and towers rose against the night. He guessed what it was, and his heart beat high. Then suddenly he was over the bridge, he was in it, in the very crowd itself, among the thunder of the carriages, the perpetual movement of the passengers, the very heart of London—he thought even, in awe, holding his breath—of the world. Was that Parliament? He got as near as he could and watched the carriages, the heads appearing at the windows, men in whose hands was the fate of the world. John felt as if he had some hand in it all as he watched them dashing up to the doorway, sometimes cheered, with a running fire of remark volleying about from the voices of the crowd. It was all so unusual, that he could scarcely make out at first what the people about him said; and, when he understood the words, he did not understand the allusions, not knowing who the members were or anything but that they were members, and therefore surrounded with a halo of wonder and interest. Presently one of the men standing near began to perceive his ignorance and curiosity, and to offer explanations. But John was not so simple as that, he said to himself. He knew that the danger of London was to listen to people who expressed themselves benevolently towards you, and wanted to give you information. He withdrew accordingly from that spot, and by-and-by, feeling that there were still other worlds beyond, left this scene of overwhelming interest altogether, promising himself that he would look up all the prints in the shop windows, and so learn to identify the members of parliament himself.

The dark shadow to his right hand was that of the Abbey. He held his breath with awe, but he was in no mood for the silence and darkness. He followed the roar and crush of the crowd through a dark, broad, vacant street or two until he emerged into another kind of blaze and din, into the tumult and bustle and noise and commotion of the Strand. Here the shops, the lights, the wild confusion of traffic, the hoarse cries, the flare and glare and riot, the wild medley of life, the wretched figures in squalid groups, the gentlemen passing with evening dress under their overcoats, the ragged and shouting vendors of the newspapers, the crowds rushing to the theatres, the other crowds that hung upon their steps and importuned them with unnecessary services, ended in turning altogether John’s young and unaccustomed brain. He was hustled by the ceaseless stream of people rushing past him in both ways, coming and going, and after a while felt himself like a straw upon a river, carried along without knowing where he was going, tossed into a corner, seized again by the stream, swept away breathless, with a strange pleasure and wonder and disgust and incomprehension. He was doing nothing but gazing, looking on wondering where they were all going, what they all meant, what need there was to hurry so, to shout so; and yet he felt as if he too were living, as he never before had lived all his life.

Strange illusion; an older man perhaps would have concluded that here was no real life at all, but only a fantastic, half-conscious dream. Half the people streaming along were doing it by no will of their own, but only because of the treadmill action of habit, which made them fancy this way of spending the evening the natural thing to do—and that to go somewhere, to do something, as they said—that is to frequent noisy places in which the depth of dulness was touched, yet where rampant folly extracted a strained laugh—or to bustle out and in of swinging doors, and exchange jests at bars, and rub shoulders with crowds, coming and going—was life. It was life indeed for the poor hangers-on greedy for pence or sixpences, to the poor hawkers of miserable merchandises, to the servants of the crowd. To them it was fatigue, cold, disappointment, weary waiting, miserable snatches at recompense, eager greed, and accumulation and gain; bread, perhaps to poor little children in squalid rooms somewhere about, or whisky at the street corners—at all events, a real yet possible existence, the only one of which they were conscious or capable. The more wretched in such scenes have the advantage of the less. The newspaper boy, the girl with her poor basket of faded flowers, the hundred other vassals of the crowd are real in their poor work and competition. It is their masters, the lords of unrule, who are the ghosts.

John, driven hither and thither by the currents of passengers, happily was as unaware as a woman of the darker and more horrible dangers of the streets. No squalid siren smiled for him; he did not understand these profounder depths. But the confusion and the noise, and the strange contrast of pleasure and wretchedness, the carriages passing, with pretty glimpses of white figures bound for the theatres, the groups of the ragged and miserable on the pavement, the whole resounding, conflicting, moving world gave him a sort of intoxication, so that he scarcely knew what he was about, or where he was.

He had got in front of one of the theatres in the midst of a crowd more noisy than usual, the pavement encumbered with poor and squalid spectators, with men shrieking their wares to sell, and pushing books of words into the carriage windows, the confusion of cabs and carriages greater than ever, when John was suddenly roused out of all this phantasmagoria to something real. As he stood gazing, his eyes suddenly fell upon a group at the entrance of the theatre, a man with a tall, shiny hat, and coat buttoned up to his throat, with a woman somewhat fantastically but poorly dressed, on his arm. They were standing to see the people get out of their carriages, with looks somewhat wistful, as if envious of the pleasure the others were about to enjoy. The man, who was tall, inspected the ladies with a smile half patronising, half satirical. But the wife looked pathetically, wistfully, with an envy which was not bitter, nor bore any trace of unkindness. They were standing close together, rapt in that sight. At the woman’s feet was a child, holding fast by her skirts. While the parents gazed, something caught the eye of the little girl, a flower which somebody had dropped out of the window of a carriage. The little thing made one spring, while the absorbed attention of her parents was fixed upon the play-goers, and secured the prize out of the mud of the street, but not before the prancing horse of a hansom, drawn back suddenly upon its haunches, was dashing its hoofs into the air over her head. There was a universal shriek and commotion, in the midst of which the mother put down her hand instinctively but tranquilly to grasp the child. Then, finding it absent, she gave a wild cry, and turned round with arms wildly waving, facing the crowd. John took no time to think. He was the nearest, or thought himself so, and he was pushed forward by the shrieking crowd. He flung himself on the child, caught it, tossed it back to some one, he could not tell whom—but fell forward with the impetus. He felt a sharp touch on his head like a knife, and then no more—till he came to himself with the sensation of a crowd round him, and of cool applications applied to his head, which seemed to burn under the hands of some one who was leaning over him.

‘It will be nothing, it will be nothing,’ he heard some one say; and then, ‘A wonderful escape,’ ‘It might have killed him,’ in different tones. It seemed to John at first to be but another scene in that bewildering phantasmagoria through which he had been walking. When he opened his eyes he found that he was in an apothecary’s shop, which was crowded with people, faces everywhere filling up the window outside, piled one upon another. Close to him stood the man in the tall and very shiny hat. John caught in it the reflection of the great blue and red bottles in the window, and burst into a feeble laugh.

‘Gently, gently, you’re all right: but there’s nothing to laugh about,’ some one said.

‘Where am I?’ said John, still fascinated by the reflection.

‘Me dear young gentleman, ye have done a heroic action. Ye’ve behaved like a hero. Ye’ve saved me child,’ said the man in the hat.

‘Now stand back. Let him have plenty of air. Try if you can stand,’ said another voice.

John stood up, but felt faint and giddy. It seemed ridiculous in a few minutes to change from the robust village youth who feared nothing to a creature whose head seemed to swim independent of him, and who could not steady himself. He caught at the arm of the tall man to support himself.

‘That’s right, that’s right, me noble boy. I’ll take him home with me. The child is unhurt, me young hero. She’s waiting out o’ doors with her mother, who’s longing to embrace ye and bless ye. Come, it’s but a step to me humble door.’

John was not quite clear about this address, but he was glad of the tall man’s arm, on which he could lean, and allowed himself to be led away in a dazed condition through the crowd, followed by the woman and the child, who was still crying with fright and excitement. The mother, happily, neither embraced nor blessed him, but he was so dazed that he scarcely knew what happened, except that she looked at him anxiously, with troubled eyes. He was glad of the support of the man, who guided him very kindly for a little way through the crowded street, then suddenly turned down a quiet one. Here the waft of a purer, colder air upon John’s face brought him to himself, and he would have drawn his arm from that of his guide.

‘I can go now,’ he said, ‘thank you. I’m myself, now——’

‘What, let you go like this—the saviour of me child’s life—when we’re close to our humble door? Never!’ said his new friend. ‘Maria, go first and light a candle—you’ve got the key——’

And presently John found himself, after stumbling up several flights of stairs, in a room high up, very shabbily and sparely furnished, where there was a glimmer of fire, and where he was not unwilling to sit down and rest, though his senses had come back to him, and he began to recover from the shock. While he sat looking round him, vaguely wondering with his still slightly clouded faculties where he was, and if, perhaps, he might have fallen into some of the traps he had read of, the couple talked a little in whispers behind him. Was it of him they were talking? Were they consulting together what to do with him? He smiled to himself even while he half entertained this thought. Then one innocent word came to his ears which made him laugh to himself. It was ‘sausages.’ John, in his most suspicious mood, in the deepest alarms of the country lad, could not suppose that they meant to make sausages of him. The sound of his laugh startled both himself and the little group behind him. The woman hurried away, and the man came forward with the grand air which sat so strangely on his evident poverty.

‘Ye laugh, me young friend,’ he said. ‘Perhaps ye overheard our consultations how to receive ye, our young benefactor. It is not much at present that is in Montressor’s power, but what we have is at your service to the last sou. I am not an ungrateful, though ye see in me a fallen man. Did ye see the crowds at that theatre door? Young sir, a few years ago it was to see Montressor those crowds—and there were more, more! than are ever drawn now—that those crowds flowed in to boxes, pit, and gallery, and not a scrap of paper, but all solid money throughout the house.’

John but dimly understood, but yet had a glimmering of what was meant.

‘Are you Montressor?’ he said.

Montressor lifted his hands, in one of which was still the shiny hat, to heaven—or rather to the low, smoke-darkened ceiling which was its substitute.

‘Me downfall is indeed proved,’ he said, ‘me young friend, when ye have to ask that question. Me portrait was once in all the shop windows: but now——’ The arms were raised again, and then Montressor put down his hat and drew a chair towards the waning fire, which he poked gently and with precaution. ‘If she’s to cook ’em when she comes in, we must mind the fire,’ he said, falling into a more familiar tone, and raking together the embers with a careful and experienced hand. ‘Ye find me, young gentleman, in a small apartment that is kitchen and chamber and hall, as the song says. What does it matter to a lofty mind, s’longs ye find honour and a warm heart of gratitude there?’

‘But, indeed, I think I must go,’ said John, with the timidity of his age. ‘I feel all right now. It was only just for a moment. I feel quite steady, and I think I must go.’

‘Not before ye have tasted such hospitality as I have to give ye, me heroic boy. The saviour of me child must not go from me doors without a sign of me appreciation—without a bit of supper, at least. Maria! are ye come at last? And here is our honoured guest that says he must go. Come, child, and bid ye’r deliverer stay.’

‘Wait and take some supper,’ said the woman, with her pathetic look; ‘it will be a pleasure to us both. It’s not late, and you needn’t fear; you’ll get no harm.’

‘Harm!’ said her husband, ‘from you, me love, or from Montressor? No, he will get no harm, whatever a brutal manager or designing critics may say. Thank God, Maria, corrupting the young was never laid to your husband’s charge, me dear. He shall see that conscious virtue is not ashamed of humble offices. I will prepare the table while she makes ready our food. There is nothing derogatory in that, me young friend. Look at Mrs. Montreseor if you would see one that is superior to every fortune. She has had her cooks, her housemaids, her grooms; she has driven in her own carriages, and worn silks and satins. And now ye see her preparing to fry the sausages. And which is the finest office?—the last, sir!—for she’s always a lady—a perfect lady—whatever her occupation may be.’

John did not feel called upon to make any answer to this. He sat in a half dream of wonderment, while all these domestic arrangements went on in this strange little interior, where all was so new and extraordinary to him. How had he got there? What sort of place was it? What kind of people were these? The curious serio-comic character of the episode did not strike him so much as it might have done an older spectator; but the hissing of the sausages on the fire, before which this unknown woman stood, her wistful eyes fixed upon the frying-pan, while her husband, with his fine language and fine sentiments, laid the cloth upon the table behind, were too strange, too peculiar, too ridiculous, even—for he was hungry again, and there was a sort of warm friendliness in the air that comforted his young, childish soul—too comfortable, not to affect the boy. He felt a sort of pleasurable disquietude and alarm and embarrassment. He ought to go, he felt, but he was shy and they were kind, and he did not know how to get himself away. Presently the child who was the occasion of it all, and who had clung to her mother’s skirts all the time, pulled a stool towards John’s feet, and sitting down by him began to pat his leg with soft little touches.

‘Did it hurt much,’ she said, ‘that big horse’s foot? I called mamma and it was you. What made you get hurt for a poor little girl like me?’

‘What made him? It was God, Edie, to save you to mother: and God bless him for it,’ said the woman, turning round.

‘It was a heroic action,’ said Montressor, ‘it was the act of a hero, me chyild. Your saviour will always be to us a noble youth. Me young benefactor, as yet we do not know your honoured name.’

John paused for a moment. He never could tell what curious impulse possessed him. Perhaps it was because he was in a new world of his own discovery, with which no one else had anything to do. He said, with the blood rushing to his face,

‘My name is John May.’

When he heard his own voice, his heart gave a great leap and throb; but whether it was the feeling of one who takes a false name, or of one who for the first time claims a true one, he could not tell. The act, which was almost involuntary, filled him with an excitement which he could not explain.

‘May!’ cried Montressor—‘Maria! what did I say? that there was something in the countenance of this noble youth not unfamiliar. I knew a May once—I have not forgotten him. Me young friend, ye are like that companion of me youth—yes, ye are like him. I felt it from the first. He was the kindest, the dearest—but misfortune fell upon him. Ah! may it be that the blood of our friend runs in your veins.’

‘Montressor,’ said his wife, hurriedly, ‘this young gentleman can have nothing to do with the May you once knew. It is not a thing to be talked about, that connection. You know what I mean. There is not the slightest likeness, nor the least possibility: for goodness sake keep your ideas to yourself, and think how impossible—The supper is ready,’ she added, in a lighter tone. ‘Come, Mr. May, a little food will do you good, though it is neither rich nor rare.’

CHAPTER III.
SUSIE.

John did not leave his new friends till late, and when he did so he felt quite well, nay, more than well, in a state of elation and satisfaction with himself and all the world. The pain from his wound was quite gone. It had not been bad at any time. The shock only was what had affected him. Now he remembered it no more, except that his hat, when he put it on, pressed a little upon the place, which was only half hidden by his hair. Mrs. Montressor had assured him that it would not show, but John did not care whether it showed or not: he was, indeed, rather proud of it, very willing to tell how it came about, and the whole story of his adventure. He had supped with pleasure upon the sausages, and he had shared with Montressor a steaming drink, hot and strong and sweet, which had made him cough, but which gradually had brought a glow of comfort over him. He had been a little afraid of it at first, and had not taken much, but he was quite unaccustomed to anything of the kind, and it mounted to his head at once, filling him with causeless elation, satisfaction, exhilaration.

He felt pleased with himself and everybody round him. Montressor he thought a capital fellow, and listened to him with admiration, and Mrs. Montressor was awfully kind, and the little girl (whose life he had saved—at first he had not allowed them to say this—but now he acknowledged the fact with pleasure) was a dear little girl. He had never enjoyed himself more. He was delighted with the adventure, and felt that this was indeed life. He might have spent a whole century in Edgeley without meeting anything of the kind. He got away at last with difficulty, promising to come back. That is, Montressor endeavoured to keep him longer, and John, to tell the truth, had been not at all indisposed to stay. It was the woman who had urged his departure. She had given a great many hints, she had, indeed, given John a warning look when her husband got up to fetch the kettle to make more of that steaming, odoriferous drink. She had even whispered in his ear to go, saying that it was time for him to go to bed; and half offended, yet half approving, John had obeyed. None the less he thought her awfully kind, and Montressor a capital fellow.

He could not leave them his address, for the good reason that he did not know it, though he felt sure that he could find his way back; but he promised, with enthusiasm, to return, to keep up a friendship so auspiciously begun, to hear more of those wonderful stories about the theatre with which his new friend had delighted him. With what smiles and shaking of hands, and promises to come back he got himself away! stumbling a little in the darkness, as he came downstairs, getting out into the night with that sensation of lightness and swimming in his head, with that elation in his mind which was indescribable, which had come he could not tell how. The air from the river blew in his face again as he came out, and he paused a little to consider, to retrace his steps in his own mind, and think out the best route. His conclusion was that he must get back to the Strand, and follow the road which had brought him here as well as he could, hoping to recognise the different places he had passed, and the bridge by which he had crossed the river. The Strand was as tumultuous as ever, but he paid much less attention to it. He had passed that first and ordinary stage. The streets! He felt that he knew now a little more about London life than was contained in the streets. He no longer allowed himself to be pushed hither and thither by the throng, but elbowed his way in the boldest manner, like a person, he hoped, to the manner born, with that delightful sensation of manhood and experience and satisfaction with himself. It was as if he had wings to his head, like a classical personage. It seemed to soar, and float, and carry him along. He could not help feeling that he had made a fine début in life, and jumped over a great many preliminaries. He was already ‘in the swing,’ he felt. To be sure, his new friends were poor: but that was a mere chance, and they might be rich again to-morrow. Montressor was not only a capital fellow, he was, by his own showing, a man of genius; and what a thing to leap in a moment, on his first step in London, into the intimacy of such a man! Of course he was a Bohemian, but everybody knew that Bohemians were the most amusing class; that all artists belonged more or less to it; that it was sausages and porter one night with them, and the next truffles and champagne.

Notwithstanding the pleasurable sensations with which John set out on his walk, it was no small business to get home. Nothing could be more confusing than the streets, the corners which he seemed to recognise, and then felt that he had mistaken, the curious windings of the way, the impossibility of distinguishing one from another. He seemed to himself to have been walking for hours, much hustled and knocked about, but serenely indifferent in his happy state of mind, when he became aware of the great mass of the Houses of Parliament rising against the sky of night, which now was full of stars and soft clearness; and the bridge leading away from all the noise and crowding into darkness and quiet. He scarcely paused this time to look at the carriages coming and going, but passed by with a pleasant consciousness that there were other centres of existence almost as important as that of Parliament. He knew nothing really about Parliament, beyond what everybody knew, beyond what was in the papers every morning: but his head was buzzing with anecdotes of the great people of the drama, the ‘stars’ whom Montressor knew, and among whom he had figured, and hoped to figure again. The names of these distinguished persons rustled confusedly through the boy’s brain. He almost felt that he had been supping with them, hearing all their wit. What a fine thing to have come so near that brilliant sphere on his very first night in town! And Montressor had promised him tickets for the first night on which he should himself assume the leading place to which he had been accustomed.

‘A box, me dear young gentleman, to which you can take the ladies of your family,’ that, high-minded individual had said; ‘for ye will never see the name of Montressor in any play-bill where the performance is not fit for a refined female’s eyes.’

John found this phrase delicious as it came back to his mind—‘a refined female.’ It was like ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ he said to himself. But at that moment he came in sight of the great hospital looming up against the sky, and its shadow came upon him like—like what?—like the shadow of death, he would have said in a graver mood, like a wet blanket, he said in his levity. But even the levity sank when he perceived that the lights were very faint in the great building, and that along the row of little houses opposite, so far as he could see, there was but one point of light, and that a very feeble one. Then, for the first time, John began to think that this new and delightful experience of his might have a very different aspect from another point of view. All was very still in the little street. If he had to knock to rouse the landlady, the echo would carry, he thought, ever so far, would penetrate the big walls opposite and wake the sick people, and disturb one stern sleeper. How should he explain himself? The first night! that which made the experience so delightful, made it also rather dreadful from the other side: for how could he make it clear to her that it was the first time he had ever essayed the adventures of the streets? His heart failed him as he drew near the house, and indeed he was not quite clear about the house, among so many others exactly the same.

His steps as he came along made a noise upon the pavement which frightened him. He thought confusedly of the steps stumbling along the street in the village when the public-house closed, and how the old people, if by chance they were up so late, would shake their heads. He seemed to hear the stumble, the little interval of dulled sound when those late passengers took the softer path along the garden wall; then the sudden access of noise, when they arrived, with a swerve and lurch, upon the bit of pavement. Good heavens! Might people inside these houses hear his steps and think the same? for it seemed to him that he, too, stumbled and swerved and scraped along the pavement. This, however, was but a momentary chill; he said to himself what did it matter? he was all right; there was nothing to be said against him; and, with an attempt to call up the elation of mind which had nearly worn out, and a step which was jaunty in attempted carelessness, he went on. The jauntiness, however, was a little marred by the necessity of examining the houses to see which was his own. They were so horribly like each other! John did not know how to make sure which was the right one in the imperfect shining of the few lamps, and under the shadow of the hospital. He went past the lighted window, and then returned again. Some one, he thought, was looking out at the edge of the blind; but then no one could be looking out for him.

A door opened softly while he was trying to find something by which he could recognise the house, and then a voice, more soft still, whispered,

‘John—John Sandford? Is it John?’

He turned back with a thrill of mingled alarm and relief, and at the same time a quick start of contradiction.

‘I’m John—John May,’ he replied, with a sudden confused impulse. ‘Is this the house?’

‘Oh, come in. Oh, come in! You don’t know me? I’m Susie. Oh, John, John, where have you been? I have been waiting for you for hours. Oh, John!’ She had pulled him into the little parlour where one candle was burning, and looked at him strangely, with a look of terror and distress. She threw her arms round his neck, then drew back without kissing him, and cried again, in a tone of reproach, ‘Oh, John, John!’

‘What is it!’ he said. ‘Are you Susie? What is it? I went out for a walk. I did not know anyone was coming to-night.’

She stood looking at him fixedly. He had taken off his hat, and the plastered cut, which Mrs. Montressor said would not show, showed, alas! painfully upon his forehead, though half covered by the ruffled hair, which by half concealing made it appear greater than it was. He caught sight of himself at the same time in the little glass over the mantelpiece. He was very pale, his hair very much ruffled by the wind, his shirt a little disordered in the dressing of his wound, his coat imperfectly brushed by the Montressors, showing still some signs of a fall—and in his eyes a sort of wildness which he himself saw, but did not understand.

‘What is the matter with you, Susie—if it is Susie. Why do you look at me so? What have I done? I lost my way, and I am dreadfully tired,’ he added, sitting down, suddenly falling into despondency as great and causeless as his elation had been before.

‘Where have you been? You have been in a—row, or something. Oh, John, John! I came rushing, so glad, so glad to see my brother. Oh, I’ve looked for you so long! and to find you like this, like this, at last!’ and she covered her eyes with her hands.

‘Like what?’ he said, feeling his lips stammer in spite of himself, his voice thick. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

She uncovered her eyes and gave him a look—such a look—of love and pity, and horror and dismay.

‘Oh, John,’ she said, ‘oh, John!’ as if all reproach and all tenderness, and everything that the heart could say of blame and forgiveness and heavenly pity, were in that utterance of his name.

He knew nothing of that which put meaning and misery into her cry. No one had ever warned him, no one had enlightened him, the facts were all unknown, yet something of the feeling in her suddenly stricken and aching consciousness came into his.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said again. ‘You think I’ve been doing something wrong. It isn’t true. It’s very, very strange, to have to defend myself the first time I see you—the very first night——’

‘Yes,’ she said, with an echo in her voice, which made the words seem like the very climax of despair, ‘the first night!’

‘She has put you against me,’ said John.

‘She!—you mean—— Oh,’ cried Susie, turning upon him in sudden indignation, ‘you may think you are taking his part, calling yourself by that name, putting yourself against us; but he never, never did that. He knew all along, and always acknowledged—always acknowledged——’

It was John’s turn now to question. He asked:

‘Who do you mean by he?’ in a hurried, choked voice.

Then Susie came suddenly to herself.

‘We have enough to think of without going back to old, unhappy things,’ she said. ‘Oh! John, I’ve had such hopes of you. I’ve thought you were to make up for everything. We’ve never gone near you to disturb you in your life. Mother said it was better so—to leave you with the old people, where all was so good and quiet, and harm was not known—that was what she said. Oh, how often we’ve talked of you, John; and when she told me you would not have her for your mother, she said there was nothing else to be expected, and that it did not matter so long as you escaped the curse, so long as you were kept good—so long—— And now!’

‘The curse?’ said John, awed, confused, overcome. Things began to come to his mind dimly, vaguely, turning to perhaps another point of view.

‘And now I suppose this is the very first time you have ever been free,’ said Susie, in a tone of despair, wringing her hands. ‘The first night in London—where you came with your heart full of grief, and no evil thoughts— Oh, none! mother said so. But the very first time you go out, the first time you have the chance, the first night—oh, it is cruel, cruel! the first night—— Oh, John, John, John!’

‘What have I done?’

There was no elation about him now. His serenity of soul was gone, and all the floating visions of pleasure, and assurance that this was life. He half understood what she must mean, because he felt what a difference had taken place in him, and how ridiculous his thoughts of half-an-hour ago began to appear.

‘You come in late,’ she said, ‘very late. You have a cut in your forehead; you have mud on your coat and your knees. You’ve fallen somewhere, and been hurt. You come in quite jaunty and gay, and then, before I have said anything almost, you sink down and don’t know what to say.’

‘Almost!’ he said, with a scornful intonation—almost nothing meant everything that could be said or hinted, it seemed to John. He had never known before what domestic altercation or fault-finding was. It was the strangest novelty in his life. The old people, perhaps, would have been anxious too. They would have asked him all about it—they would not have liked him being so late. But how different their indulgent waiting for his explanation, from this sudden indictment, so full of implications which he did not understand. The Houses of Parliament, and the bustle of the Strand, and Montressor with his stories, might be new, but this was newer, still more strange to him. And yet she was so unhappy that John could not resent it. He had gradually come back to himself, to the boy who had never been misjudged, of whom nobody had ever suggested harm. His good sense returned with his recollection. After all, he had done nothing to be ashamed of. He thought of the steaming hot drink which had made him wince and cough, and then had made him feel so much at his ease, so full of self-appreciation. If that was wrong, then it was all that was wrong.

He collected his faculties while he sat thus silent, looking at his sister, the sister of whom he had always thought so tenderly, but to whom now it seemed he had brought such cruel disappointment. How was it? The accusation seemed to him so false and unreasonable that he could not understand how it could be maintained. And he was not angry; this gave him an immense advantage, he thought—not angry, but only astonished more than words could say.

And then he told her the whole story from the beginning to the end, with a tone of apology which surprised himself, but which did not convince her, he saw. And yet there was nothing to apologise for. It was a good thing, not a bad, he had done. He had saved the child: if perhaps Montressor had made too much of it, still it was not a bad action to throw one’s self into the middle of the street to pick out a little unknown child from under the horses’ hoofs. He had no reason to be ashamed of it. He felt his breast swell a little with involuntary self-approval as he went on. No, there was nothing to be ashamed of. The cut on his forehead began to hurt him a little as he talked of it. He had not taken time to think of it before. But now, when he did think of it, it hurt, and he felt a little pride in the consciousness. And then there were the Montressors. Well, he did not know anything about them, to be sure, but they had been very grateful to him, and he had felt shaken, not very able to walk, confused in his head.

‘You should have taken a hansom and come home,’ said Susie. ‘You might have known we should be anxious. If you had done that, all would have been well.’

And she shook her head at the story of the Montressors, listening in silence to all he said. John heard his voice grow more and more apologetic, though he did not mean it. They were kind people, they had been very good to him; why should he apologise for them? But yet his voice took this tone. When he had done, there was a silence, a silence which was full of disapproval. Susie sat with her head on her hand. She said nothing, she did not even look at him. The pain of his first alarm was over, but her mind was not satisfied. After a while she rose, and, going up to him, put an arm round him.

‘Promise me,’ she said, ‘dear John! Oh, Johnnie, Johnnie, my little brother that I have always longed for! Promise me it shall not happen again.’

‘What shall not happen again?’ He shook himself free of her, with an irritation which was as new to him as all the rest. ‘What do you mean? Promise never to pick up a child under the horses’ feet; never to make acquaintance with anyone that is kind; never to—— What do you mean?’

‘Oh, dear, dear boy, what shall I say? Don’t you know what I mean? John, it’s that we’re frightened for, mother and I; it brings everything that’s bad with it. It is destruction. Oh, it is nothing to-night, I know; it may be quite innocent to-night: but it’s never innocent, for it’s the bringing of all harm. John, it was that which brought all our trouble upon us: and you should be more careful than anyone, for you’ve got it in your veins.’

‘What?’ he cried, almost with violence, in the exasperation of his soul.

But she made no reply. She gave him a look that was full of meaning, if he could have read it, and, stooping over him, kissed him on the forehead. Then, with a sigh, left that painful subject, whatever it might be, and proceeded to occupy herself with the little details of his rooms and his comfort.

‘You have never unpacked your things,’ she said. ‘Give me your keys, and I will do what I can, though it is too late to do much to-night. If you had stayed in, and unpacked your things, then we should have had such a pleasant evening together. I came over as soon as I could get away, and, oh! how disappointed I was to find you gone. But never mind. You did not think of that—how should you? Perhaps you had forgotten Susie altogether, you were so little when you went away.’

‘Why was I sent away? It would have been better, far better never to have parted,’ said John; and then he added, ‘I never forgot you, Susie. I think you haven’t changed much. I remember you all this time. You stood at the door and cried when I went away.’

‘And many, many a time after,’ she said, looking up, with tears in her eyes. ‘Oh, many a time; I missed you so. Oh, Johnnie, perhaps you are right. We should have known all the things to guard against, while grandfather and grandmother——’

‘No,’ said John. ‘I am wrong; it would not have been better. They were happier to have me. I am glad they had a child till their death to love them, not one like Emily, but me——’

He stood up, looking not like the boy she thought him, but like a young, indignant angel, with his head raised and his nostrils quivering. Susan took the woman’s part. She began to wonder at and admire him, and to feel herself in the wrong, as indeed she was.

CHAPTER IV.
ON HIS TRIAL.

‘You were late last night, Susie.’

‘Yes, mother, very late. I was with John.’

‘I know you were with John. And I have no doubt you had a great deal to say to him. So far as I know him, he would not have much to say to you.’

‘Indeed, it was the other way,’ said Susie. ‘It was he who talked. He said he remembered me perfectly well, and that I was not at all changed.’

Mrs. Sandford raised her eyes to her daughter, interrupting her work for a moment. She had a great deal of work. To be matron of a great hospital is no easy thing, and there were arrears besides to make up. She had been at work half the night, and had not heard at what hour Susie had stolen in. Now she looked up with an expression which made her stern face for a moment gentle.

‘It is true,’ she said; ‘you have not changed. I think better of him for perceiving that.’

‘You must think well of him, mother. He is a good, kind boy. He had an accident last night saving a child. It was nearly killed under a carriage, and he rushed in and saved it. But he did not escape scot-free. He has got a cut on his head, but it is not much. I looked at it: you need not be anxious.’

This Susie repeated very quickly, like a lesson, hurrying the sentences upon each other, lest her mother should interrupt her before all was said.

‘An accident—a cut on the face—but not anything much. Susie, what are you telling me—already? He went out, then, last night?’

‘Yes, he went out. Why shouldn’t he? He’s so young, and his first night in London. It isn’t at all exciting to us; but think what it would be to a boy who had never been here before.’

‘You are accusing him before I attack him, Susie. The first night! I didn’t even think of warning him not to go out. I thought him all safe the first night. Oh me, oh me, has it begun already?—what I’ve trembled for all his life!’

‘No, no,’ cried Susie with her anxious voice. ‘I’m sure it’s not that. He went out, to be sure. Fancy, at his age, to be in London, and without anyone to talk to, and not to go out. The parents of the child were very good to him, and had his head plastered up. It was very well done too,’ said Susie, with professional approbation. ‘For my part, I was quite happy to hear that he had saved the child.’

Mrs. Sandford shook her head. She turned back to her books again; then pushed them aside, and put up her hands to her head.

‘Oh! Susie,’ she cried, ‘I knew how it would be. He is your father all over. All his ways are his ways. I thought he was safe down in the quiet country with the old people. If they had lived, I should never have wished him to know anything of you or me. What can we do for him? We can’t even have him in the house with us. Oh, how foolish I was to bring him to London! I might have paid some one down there to take care of him—to keep him out of evil.’

‘Mother, you know that could not be. Don’t you remember how many talks we used to have about it? You can’t keep a boy of his age so. He is almost a man; and, mother, he looks like a man sometimes: when he rose up in indignation against me, because I—because I——’

‘You thought so too? Don’t conceal it from me, Susie. You saw him come in—with all this story about an accident—the very first night. I knew it was in him, his father’s son: and my poor father and mother with all their innocent tales about him; how good he was; never a suspicion, not a weakness of any kind. Oh, why did they die? Why did I bring him away from the country? And why, why is it permitted that this poison should come into a young boy’s veins, from a father he scarcely knew!’

‘Oh, mother, wait till you see; don’t condemn him unheard.’

‘Condemn him! Would I condemn him? My heart bleeds for him, Susie; but I see all the tortures that are in store for us: and for him it would have been better if he never had been born. For what can we do for him, you and I?’

‘Oh, mother, it is not so bad as that; it may never be so bad!’ Susie said, with tears.

Mrs. Sandford shook her head. She drew to her the books with which she had been busy, and resumed her work. After all, whatever happened, that had to be done. There was nothing in the world except work, in which there was any satisfaction. This was the conclusion she had come to long ago. It was morning, a little before the time when John was to have his audience, and this was how it was prepared. The table was covered with books, reports, accounts, all the records of her occupation, which had fallen into arrears during that forced leave she had been obliged to apply for, to bury her father. The room was very lofty for its size, somewhat barely furnished, with enormous windows and the fullest blaze of daylight, not a line or a corner of shadow anywhere. It was fitted with great cupboards full of stores—and constant use, constant business, was visible in every arrangement. There was nothing for grace or ornament, and not much for comfort—a place not so much to live in as to work in; but this was suitable to a life which was all work. When she resumed her examination of the books, Susie withdrew to a corner, where there was a little table and needlework, her own little place in this chamber and temple of labour. It was not pretty work with which she was occupied. She was making flannel bandages or belts, hemming down the rough edges, rolling them neatly up, ready for use. Susie had grown up in this atmosphere, and knew no other. She had gone through all a nurse’s training, though she had not taken up that profession. When a more tender hand than ordinary was wanted where all were tender, she was called to help. She was always at hand when the strength of the nursing sister was overtaxed. But still she had her own little separate place as the matron’s daughter, a sort of lay element where all were professional. She wore a sort of modified version of their severe black and white dress. Susie’s dress was black too, with white collar and cuffs, but these had sometimes a line of ornament, and she wore a ribbon at her throat, a locket, a bracelet, a few slight marks that she was not under the rule. She was twenty-two, very modest and quiet, sometimes looking older than her age, yet sometimes also looking infantine in the fulness of a life that knew no distractions, nothing but the hospital, the service of others. She was not strictly pretty. Her hair was brown, her eyes brown like most people’s, her complexion generally pale, with a little colour coming and going, nothing in her to be remarked at the first glance, no beauty—but to those who knew her a certain charm, tranquil and pure, the beauty of a spirit absolutely free from any pre-occupations of its own. There are very few people in the world of whom so much can be said, and perhaps their perfection in this moral way means a deficiency in some others, a want of imagination, even a defective vitality: but the human race is not likely to err so, and the occasional examples to be met with in the world are always wonderful, to those who can believe in them. Susie, as was natural, was very imperfectly known by those about her. She was, everybody allowed, very good, but how far her goodness went beyond the surface, or whether it was not partially seeming, or if there might not be a certain sense of self-interest in being so good (for to be sure, in the atmosphere in which she had been brought up, goodness is the best policy), was a point sometimes discussed in the hospital, where, as in other places, it was a little difficult to realise that heavenly form of character. People thought, even when they had no doubt of her, that so much goodness was uninteresting, and that they would have liked her better with a few more faults, which probably was quite true.

But Susie’s tranquil spirit was in much commotion this morning. She had slept little all night, and thought much. Susie was well aware of the tragedy of the family life. There were no secrets in it from her. And she had been brought up in the belief that the cloud of hereditary evil was so strong upon her brother, that to keep him in ignorance—to keep him if possible at a distance, where he could never know anything of the antecedents of his family—was the best thing for him. It did not occur to her that she herself was her father’s daughter, as much as John was his son, and that, if the hereditary principle was true, she ought to have shared her brother’s danger. This view of the subject was dismissed by the fact that she was a girl, and therefore her mother’s child, an opinion very fallacious, and not to be maintained for a moment, either by logic, reason, or experience. But, in spite of all these qualifying things, a foregone conclusion will always hold its place. She, it was felt, was in no danger, though she knew everything; but John, the boy! For him it was expedient that all precautions should be taken, with him there was a kind of miserable certainty that safeguards would fail.

This was the persuasion in which she had been brought up. And it is impossible to tell what horror and misery the girl had gone through, waiting for her young brother’s return on his first night in London. She had been waiting a long time, and she had gone over in her own mind all the dismal expectations which an anxious woman, bitterly acquainted with one form of dissipation, can turn over in the dreadful suspense of a long evening spent in watching for the return of one who comes not, and whose absence can be accounted for only by some catastrophe. A world of old recollections had come rolling up before her distracted eyes. She had seen him reeling along the street, stumbling in, with wild eyes and a stammering voice, with all the miserable signs upon him of that vice which, in its beginnings at least, is no sin, means no harm, and yet is the most degrading and destructive of all vices. No words can tell the tortures which a woman goes through, to whom such vigils are habitual. They were perhaps even more terrible now by being purely imaginary. For fact, however frightful, brings into action all the subtle forces of mercy, the attempts to account for and excuse, the natural yearnings of the heart over the sinner: whereas in imagination there is no alleviation, and the first fall carries with it a tragic prophecy of utter destruction. When John had appeared, with his paleness, with the lingering traces of that exhilaration which Montressor’s drink had left still in his eyes, and with the cut showing under his disordered hair, Susie had felt for a moment as if all were over, and the tragic conclusion, so long foreseen, coming to pass before her eyes.

But, presently, that subduing presence of reality began to tell upon her, and though it was hard to shake off the sway of the anticipated, and hard to realise that the story of the supposed sinner was not a gloss of excuse, yet by-and-by her mind had changed. She had not been quite convinced up to the moment of quitting him; for Montressor’s drink had left a fatal odour, and there was a certain excitement in the boy’s manner and address: but as she lay on her bed, in the dark, and went over and over everything that had passed, Susie’s attitude changed. I will not assert that the foreseen and expected were so far vanquished in her, that she had a calm and steady belief in her brother. Not that; but a passionate partisanship sprang up in her mind. Another conclusion rose up and did battle with the first. It had seemed miserably certain that he would err before. It seemed impossible but that he must overcome now. She went over every fact of the previous night, and explained it away to herself as she lay gazing at the dawning light. She made up by degrees a picture in every way favourable—an ideal figure, an image full of generosity, tenderness, and help. She seemed to see him flinging himself, a heroic young deliverer, among the crowding carriages; probably they had poured a little brandy down his throat to bring him to himself (for Susie had not advanced far enough in the new way to understand how in all innocence, though quite voluntarily and cheerfully, John might have swallowed Montressor’s potion), and then what so natural as that, a stranger, he had lost his way? He did not know that she or anyone was waiting for him, or that he should find a friendly voice, anyone with whom he could exchange a word when he got back. Why should he have hastened back? There was no reason for it. And to think that on his first evening in London he had saved a life! If the excitement of it brought a little tremor upon him, who could wonder? Had she seen it only, what with alarm and pride, and happiness and delight, Susie felt that she would have trembled for hours. He would not have been human if he had not felt it. And the brandy must have been given to bring him to himself. He was not aware, how should he be, of the degrading suspicions in her mind, and so did not explain that. But no doubt that was how it was. She rose up in the morning, having slept very little, still thrilling with the anxiety, the relief, and the pain— John’s partisan and advocate. She would have been so more or less, in any circumstances. She was so with her whole heart now.

John came in shortly after, a little later than the appointed hour. He came with a sense that he was on his defence, or at least was on the defensive, an almost more oppressive sensation: for except that he was distrusted, and all his doings regarded with an unfavourable eye, he did not know any more, neither what form the doubts and suspicions took, nor what reason there was in them. He came reluctantly, with nothing of the feeling with which a youth of his age, conscious of no wrong, should go to his mother; no trust in her kindness, no confidence that she would see anything which concerned him in a good light. And the very place, the great institution, which chilled and disheartened him with its atmosphere of professional business, added to this intuitive reluctance. It was the home of Christian charity and kindness; it was the place in which devoted men and women gave up their lives to the solace of the suffering, to save lives and alleviate pain. Many a poor creature had found ease and succour and the tenderest help in it. But yet to John it was cold, sending a chill to his very heart; the great space, the stony stairs and passages, the universal pre-occupation were all so destructive to the idea of anything that could be called a home. People might live there no doubt, did live there when they were compelled by illness, or by duty for the help of those who were ill, but to dwell under that vast roof which covered so much suffering, how was that possible? And She had no other home, and this was the only place in the world to which he had any natural right to come.

Home in a hospital! to him who had known what a natural home was, a place you live in with your own, possessing it to yourself, a secure shelter and refuge, what a chilly public place it was! He followed the porter of the hospital, who guided him up the bare stairs and pointed out the way to the matron’s rooms at the end of the long, lofty bare corridor, with a heart full of reluctance and disagreeable anticipations. He felt sure of being disapproved of, though he did not know what he had done that was wrong, and great discouragement and despondency, and a sense of injustice and an impulse of resistance filled his mind. It was not like a son going to his mother’s room, or a youth without a home to the centre of domestic warmth and protection, but like a clerk, or official messenger on business, that he knocked at the door pointed out to him. He was told to ‘Come in’ just as the messenger on business might have been told, and went in, and lingered for a moment by the door, struck by the strange impressiveness of the place; the great stream of unshadowed daylight, the height of the walls, too high for decoration, the furniture no more than necessity required, the large writing-table in the middle of the room, laden with books and papers. Mrs. Sandford, after her conversation with Susie, which had agitated her in spite of herself, had returned again to her work with more than ordinary absorption in it, and put up her hand to warn the new-comer against interrupting her in the midst of a calculation. John’s heart burned within him at this strange welcome. He stood for a moment undecided. It occurred to him, with a flash of resolution, that he would turn and go, cutting this bond, which was one of mere conventional connection, and, rushing forth, make his way as he could alone in the world.

He was stopped in this sudden gleam of half-formed intention by a soft touch upon his arm, and a still softer touch on his cheek, and found Susie standing by him, whom he had not seen on coming in, looking at him with a tender interest and pride.

‘I did not see you right, last night,’ she said, ‘Johnnie dear. There was no light. Let me look at you now.’

‘There is not very much to see, Susie.’

‘Oh, there is a great deal to see: my little brother that I have never stopped thinking of all my life—and just like what I thought; but you are not my little brother now. Mother, here is John.’

Mrs. Sandford laid down her pen and held out her hand.

‘If I had lost the thread of that account, I should never have found it again,’ she said. ‘My work is in such arrear. How are you this morning, John? Let us see this place on your forehead.’

‘It is nothing,’ he said, with a flush of colour.

‘I must see that for myself,’ she said, rising up, and taking his head in her hands. Other feelings came into John’s heart as he felt those hands, with their skilful touch, putting aside his hair, examining his wound. She let him go in a few moments, with a slight pat which was almost a caress. It was what she would have done to any young patient, but this he did not know. ‘It is, as Susie said, nothing to be uneasy about. If it does not heal in a day or two, we must get Mr. Denton or Mr. Colville to look at it. But I think it will heal of itself. It would have been more prudent, John, to remain at home instead of seeking adventures in the streets the first night.’

‘It didn’t look much like home,’ he said.

‘No; but it would, if you had waited for Susie. She is very like home even here. We cannot make a home for you, unhappily. The only thing for it, failing that, is to find you something to do.’

‘That is what I desire most,’ he said. She had seated herself again, returning to her books, and was looking at him with the air of one who has but a short time to spare for any other interest. Her eyes glanced from him to the long lines of figures she had before her. ‘Couldn’t I do some of that for you?’ said John, with a sudden impulse.

Mrs. Sandford started, and looked at him with astonished eyes.

‘My work?’ she said, ‘do you think you could do my work?’

‘If it is only adding up figures, surely,’ said John.

This time she let her eyes dwell on him a little longer, with a momentary smile, but more of wonder at his audacity than pleasure.

‘That was well meant,’ she said; ‘it was well meant. Susie, I think you can be spared to-day. You might go out with him, and show him something. It is natural that he should want to see something: and I shall have more time this evening to tell him what I have settled. I have heard of an engineer’s in which you can begin work. But you must take a holiday to-day. Susie will get her hat, and be ready at once. You will like that I suppose?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

Susie withdrew quickly, her face brightening, and John stood, watching his mother, who let her eye wander over her figures, then recovered herself with a glance towards him, in which he could read impatience restrained, and a desire that he should be gone. It was this, perhaps, that inspired him with the question, which a moment before he had never dreamed of putting to her.

‘Will you tell me,’ he said, ‘whether there was ever a Mr. Montressor who was a friend of my father’s?’ He asked this without knowing why.

She started, and the pen fell out of her hand. If it were possible to change from her natural paleness, he would have said she grew more pale. Against the merciless shining of the great window he could see her tremble, or at least so he thought. She did not say anything for a moment, and when she spoke her voice was somehow different.

‘I did not,’ she said, ‘know all your father’s friends; but it is a long time since all ended in that way. What do you know of any such friends?’

‘It is an uncommon name,’ said John.

‘Yes, it is an uncommon name. It is the sort of name that actors assume, and people of that kind. Ah, here is Susie, ready. Take your brother wherever you think he will like best to go. Don’t hurry. I shall not be anxious, as long as you are here in time for tea.’ She had risen with a sort of uneasy smile, and went with them to the door, touching Susie’s dress with her hand, smoothing down the little jacket she wore. When Susie had preceded her brother out of the room, Mrs. Sandford transferred her touch, nervously, quickly, to John’s arm. ‘Such people are no friends for you,’ she said, hastily. ‘Avoid them wherever you meet them. Avoid them! they are not friends for you.’

She had made no acknowledgment, and yet she had made more than an acknowledgment. The self-betrayal was instantaneous, but it was complete. Then it was his father of whom Montressor would not speak. Poor May! What had happened that he should be called Poor May!

CHAPTER V.
BROTHER AND SISTER.

Susie knew her way about, and where to go and what to see. She was not disturbed by the noise and clangour of what she called ‘The Underground,’ a mode of conveyance which at first bewildered the country boy, to whom the clash of train after train, the noise, the complication, the crowds pouring this way and that took away all understanding, and who felt himself a child in the hands of his sister, who knew exactly when the right train which she wanted was coming, and all about it, and steered him in her deft London way through the tumult.

‘How can you tell which is which?’ John cried, feeling the dust in his throat, the din in his ears, and his eyes growing red and hot with the flutter of the crowd, and of all the sights that flashed past him, and the smoke and suffocating atmosphere.

“Oh, I can’t tell. I only know,” said Susie.

She was at her ease in the midst of the commotion, looking as calm and as modest and composed as if she were walking in country lanes, not afraid of the thronged stations of the Metropolitan, the dingy platforms, the confusion of porters shouting, and doors clanging. John had meant to take care of his sister, but it was he who clung to her in the midst of the bewilderment and the noise. She knew which train to take, she knew when to change into another, where to stop; though to him they bore no distinction, neither the stations, the names of which he could never discover, nor the directions—for as yet, John was not even aware which was north or south, east or west.

Under Susie’s guidance, however, he saw and learnt a great deal in that first wonderful day. She took him from the Tower, to St. Paul’s, and then to the Abbey, to the Houses of Parliament—to the parks—as she was used to do with strangers, with convalescent patients sometimes, but that more gently—and with their relations and friends who would come up from the country to see somebody in the hospital, and then contemplate longingly the unknown world around them, till Susie, always kind, took pity on their ignorance. By this means she had been trained in the duties of cicerone, and was extremely efficient, knowing just enough and not too much: which is best—for a guide too erudite is a confusion to the simple mind.

She took her brother, in the middle of the day, to a modest place on the outskirts of the city, which she knew by this kind of excursion, to give him something to eat, and there pointed out to him what he found as interesting as anything—the young men and middle-aged men of all classes in pursuit of luncheon, crowding every kind of hotel and eating-house. It gave John altogether a new view of that busy life, where there is no time to go home for meals, but where everyone has comfortable means of being fed with no makeshifts or picnic arrangements, but a whole population toiling to supply the brief necessary repast. This, with all its immense supply and demand, and the sight of the men about the streets, plunging into, and being swallowed up in the high buildings which have replaced, in so many cases magnificently, the old shabby offices and chambers in which London laboured and grew rich, was as exciting to John, or perhaps more so, if the truth must be told, than the historical places to which Susie guided him. He was overawed by St. Paul’s, where he stood under the great dome, and heard the waves, so to speak, of the great sea of London dashing outside with a rhythmic force: and the venerable Abbey with all its records went to his heart. But for a youth of his day, standing eagerly upon the verge of life and longing to take part himself in all that was going on, the flood and pressure of men steadily pushing their way along the streets, all with some object or pursuit, pressing in crowds to snatch their hasty meal, pouring back again into every kind of office, in every possible capacity, that was to him the most interesting of all. Should he himself be like that in a day or two? Full of business, full of work, his mind all engaged with something outside of himself, no time to inquire into his own history, or discuss his relationships, or make himself wretched, perhaps, about things that might turn out of so little importance. This was the thought that took entire possession of his mind, as he went on.

‘Do you think you’ll like it, John?’

‘I don’t know if I’ll like it. That’s not what one wants to know—one wants to know how one is to get on.’

‘I should think,’ said Susie, hesitating a little, ‘I should think—that you are sure to get on, if you try.’

‘It shan’t be for the want of trying,’ said John.

‘Oh,’ cried Susie, ‘that is the thing we’ll think of most—that you should try, John. If you try your very best, and don’t succeed, it’s not your fault. That is what mother will think of, and I, too.’

‘But I mean to succeed,’ said John. Many have said it before him, and yet failed miserably. Yet each new aspirant means to win, and is as certain of his power to do so as those that went before. John’s purpose shone in his eyes, and his certainty communicated itself to his sister. She put her hand through his arm, giving him an affectionate pressure.

‘And oh, how I wish and pray you may! and believe it, too. Oh, John, with all my heart! That will do more for mother to heal her wounds than anything else in the world.’

Do more for mother! That was not what he was thinking of. He drew his arm away, perhaps somewhat coldly. The mother, who was Emily, had but few claims upon him. If Susie had said it for herself, if Elly had said it, that would have been a motive. He did not feel inspired by the one presented to him now. And there was a pause between them, and Susie saw that she had made a mistake, and that this was not the spell. They went on for some time after very soberly, without any question on John’s part or offer of information on the part of Susie, in a sort of heavy, dispirited way. At last she pressed his arm again, and said,

‘Oh, John, I wish you would have more feeling about mother. If you only knew what a life she has had, what a hard life! I can’t do much, one way or another. I can only stand by her, and do what I can to please her; but you, you are different. You can do so much. Oh, John!’

‘It is of no use. She does not believe that I will ever be good for anything; sometimes I think she—dislikes me, Susie.’

‘Oh, John, how can you say so, her own son, her only son! She has always thought of you, always; that I know.’

‘How has she thought of me? That I am sure to go wrong? I know,’ said John, with a sudden inspiration, ‘that is what she expects, that I must go wrong. She is always waiting to see me do it. I don’t know why, but I am sure it has always been in her mind.’

‘She didn’t know you, John,’ said Susie, eagerly, not seeing that she assented to his suggestion, ‘how could she know you? We had never seen you since you were a child; and if she thought——’

‘Why has she never seen me since I was a child?’ the boy asked, sternly. ‘Why is it I didn’t know you, Susie, my only sister, till now?’

‘Oh, as for that,’ said she, pressing his arm, ‘that didn’t matter, did it? You and I would always understand each other. It is only to say that you are John and I am Susie. We didn’t want any more.’

‘If sister and brother do that, shouldn’t mother and son do it?’ said John; ‘and we don’t, you see. She expects everything that is bad of me, and I think everything that is——’

‘No,’ she cried, ‘don’t say that; oh, John, don’t say that. It is all that you don’t know her. Wait a little, only wait a little. She has had a great deal to bear. She has had to put on what is almost a mask, to hide her heart which has been so wounded; oh, so wounded! John, you don’t know!’

‘Not by me,’ he said. ‘I have never done anything to her. But she has made up her mind that I shall turn out badly. Don’t contradict me, Susie, for I know.’

Susie made no attempt to contradict him. She patted his arm softly, and said, ‘Poor mother, poor mother,’ under her breath. John was not ill-pleased that she should take his mother’s part—it seemed suitable that she should do so, the thing that was becoming and natural. He did not want her to come over to his side. And then the mother was so wrong—so ridiculously, fantastically wrong, that some one to support and stand up for her was doubly necessary. Poor mother! who would not even have it in her power to be glad, as the commonest mother would be, when her son turned out the reverse of all she had feared.

‘If you would only forget,’ said Susie, ‘this notion you have taken into your mind, and go on (as I know you will go on) well, and make your way, mother will be beside herself with joy. Oh, it will make up for everything that is past, all she has had to bear; and there is nobody can do that but you.’

This appeal left John cold. He was thoroughly determined to go on well—by nature in the first place, for he felt no inclination for anything else. And if Susie had implored him for her own sake, or for Elly’s sake, he would have responded magnanimously, and promised everything she pleased—but for his mother, for the woman whose real name (if she only knew it) was Emily, how could that affect him? He made no reply, and presently their attention was diverted by some new thing which was strange to the country lad, and they discoursed on this subject no more. They had reached the Strand, the scene of John’s adventure of the previous night, when Susie suddenly dropped his arm very hastily, and with scarcely a word of explanation, bidding him wait for her, took refuge suddenly in a shop. He had not recovered from his surprise, when he was accosted by some one who came up with great cordiality, holding out his hand, and in whom John, with no small surprise, recognised his acquaintance, the father of the child he had rescued, the man who had been so grateful and enthusiastic in his thanks, Montressor, who hailed him with a heartiness that was almost noisy, shaking hands violently and protesting his delight.

‘Is it really you in the flesh, me dear young friend? And I’ve found ye, then, in daylight, and quite natural. You’re not the good fairy in the pantomime, nor yet the Red Cross Knight as me Nelly says ye are. And none the worse? I’m proud to see ye, young Mr. May.’

‘Oh,’ said John, ‘it’s nothing; indeed it’s nothing. I hope she is all right, and that she has taken no harm.’

‘She’s taken no harum, sir; but she’s a young creature of a highly nervous organisation, and her mother and me, we are always anxious. You’ll come in and see me chyld, Mr. May, and let her mother thank her deliverer. We talk of nothing else, if ye’ll believe me. Ye are a sort of a little god, me young hero, to the little one, and her grateful parents, and ye’ll not pass me humble door.’

‘I can’t come in to-day,’ said John, blushing a little, yet not without a sense that all this applause was pleasant, ‘for I’m waiting for my sister who has gone into one of these shops. I am glad I did not go after her, or I should not have seen you; but I will come another time to see you and the little girl.’

‘Do,’ said Montressor. He was a person who could not be called unobtrusive: his hat had a cock upon his head, and his elbow against his side, which called the attention of the passersby. His shaven face with its deep lines, and mobile features, and even his way of standing about, occupying much more than his proper share of the pavement, aroused the attention. John felt unpleasantly that the people who passed stared, and that one or two lingered a little, contemplating the old actor, with that frank curiosity which the British public permits itself to display. John, being young and shy, did not like these demonstrations; but they pleased the object of them, who stood aside a little, and said to his young companion, ‘They remember Montressor. Though the managers consider me passé, sir, me old admirers, those that have once flocked to see me in my favourite parts, have not forgotten me. The public makes up for the injustice of the officials; me kind friends—me good friends! This would be sweet to the heart of me faithful partner, Mr. May.’

‘Yes, perhaps she would like it,’ said John, hesitating. But for himself, he could not disguise that he shrank from the appreciation of the passengers in the Strand. Montressor was too much occupied by the pleasure it gave himself, however, to observe this.

‘The public, Mr. May,’ he said, ‘is the best of masters to the artist. As soon as ye can get face to face with it, sir, the battle’s done. It’s the officials, the managers, the middle-men, those that live upon the artist’s blood:—but a generous public never forgets an old servant.’ He looked round upon the people who stared and lingered, as if with the intention of addressing his thanks to them, while poor John shrank into himself.

‘I think I must bid you good-bye, sir,’ said the boy. ‘My sister is waiting for me. I’ll come and see you soon, and ask for—for the little girl.’

‘Must ye go?—then I’ll not detain ye. You’re right not to keep a lady waiting. Yes, come, me young hero—with us you’ll ever find a grateful welcome. And I’ll tell Nelly ye have promised. Good-bye, and a father’s blessing, Mr. May.’

To John’s surprise Susie came out to him from the shop, whence she had seen everything and heard something, looking very agitated and pale.

‘You don’t mean to say, John,’ she said, suddenly carrying him away in the opposite direction, ‘that that man knows you by the name of May?’

‘I never said anything about it,’ said John, in his surprise, ‘but it is true, whoever told you. That is the name he knows me by—and why not, since it is my name.’

‘Oh, John!’ cried Susie, with tears in her eyes; ‘when I told you it was for family reasons, for property and that sort of thing! Why will you be so perverse? Do you think it is a nice thing, do you think it looks honest and true, to have two names?’

‘Perhaps not,’ said the lad, ‘but then, let me have my own that was mine when I was a little child. Your family reasons, Susie, they were never told to me.’

‘Then for mere pride you will make an end of all mother has done and tried to do all her life, because she couldn’t explain to you, a little boy that couldn’t understand; you’ll expose her to all sorts of trouble, and yourself—yourself to——’

The tears were in Susie’s eyes. Her countenance, so gentle and mild, was suffused with angry colour, with indignation and impatience.

‘Even that man,’ she said, ‘even that man, a stranger, could—— Oh, John, will you go against grandfather as well as the rest of us? He left you the most of what he had, and his own good name, John Sandford, because he had no son. Will you go against grandfather and grandmother too?’

‘No,’ said John, after a pause, ‘I never did, and I never will. I suppose they wished it, though they never said anything. But, Susie, I’m no longer a child. All those circumstances you speak of, that you have known for years and years, surely may be told to me too?’

She shuddered a little and turned her face away.

‘I’ll speak to mother,’ she said, in a subdued voice. Then, more boldly, ‘But if you’re to be John Sandford, as grandfather said, you can’t be—the other. Is it right to have two names? It is just the one thing that cannot be done. It looks as if one were dishonest, untrue, to hide one’s name——’

‘I have no reason to do that,’ said John. ‘If you are sure grandfather intended it to be so? He never said anything to me. I always took it for granted without inquiring. I had forgotten the other. As for Mr. Montressor,’ said John, ‘I did it without thought. I had been thinking over it a great deal on the way to London, and when I saw him it was the first thing that came into my head.’

‘And how do you know Montressor?’ Susie asked.

‘Why, Susie, that is the man of last night!’

‘The man of last night! the man whose child—— And you gave him that other name? Oh!’ She gave a little fluttering cry, then paused, with a look of consternation growing upon her face. She stopped short for a moment in the streets in the extremity of her perplexed and troubled sensations. Then she caught John’s arm again with a close pressure. ‘Don’t see that man any more. Oh, promise me not to see that man any more.’

‘Why?’ said John. ‘He is not perhaps so well-known as he thinks, but he is a good fellow enough, and knows a lot. He is very kind. You should see him with his little girl; and then he was so kind to me.’

‘Oh, John, oh, John!’ Susie cried. It had all been so pleasant when they had set out, when nothing but the ordinary incidents of living had to be taken into account. But now they had struck upon more difficult ground.

CHAPTER VI.
BEGINNING LIFE.

That day John’s future career was determined summarily, without any further consultation of his wishes.

It was the career he had himself chosen, the very same career about which there had been so many consultations at home in the old times. This was how he described to himself a period so very little withdrawn from the present moment. At home—he had no home now, nor even a shadow of one. It was the profession he had chosen; Elly’s trade; the one they had fixed upon in their youthful fervour as the best for the advantage of the race, as well as for the worthy work and fit advancement of the young workman, who, in his way, was still to be a Christian knight. To make lighthouses and harbours for the safety of travellers at sea, and roads and bridges for the advantage of those at home—that was how the boy and girl had regarded it, or rather the girl and boy; for John had taken the matter from the beginning more soberly than Elly, taking satisfaction in the idea of learning surveying and all the other necessary preliminaries, even mathematics, at which he had always been so much the best. But when he was called to another interview in his mother’s room at the hospital, and with her pen in her hand, suspended in the midst of the reports she was writing, or the accounts she was making up, Mrs. Sandford had given him the letter which he was to take to a certain address, and so begin work at once, John’s heart rose within him in resistance and indignation.

‘I have settled everything,’ his mother said. ‘You will have nothing to do but to send up your name and this note. Well, it is what I understood you had set your heart upon; isn’t it so? You want to be an engineer. So my father said.’

‘Yes, I want to be an engineer,’ John replied.

‘And they were sending you to a foundry in Liverpool—which is quite a different thing—when I interfered. You were not grateful to me, though your grandmother also, I believe, had been very, very much against it. You wanted to go there because I did not want you to go. Wasn’t that the reason? You must put away those childish ideas, John. Understand, once for all, that it is your real good I am seeking, and that it can be of no advantage in any way to retain this position of antagonism to me.’

‘I wish no antagonism,’ said the boy. ‘I think everything is settled very quickly, very—summarily. I think I might know a little. I am nearly eighteen. I might be allowed something to say.’

‘Be silent, Susie,’ said Mrs. Sandford, ‘there is no reason why you should interfere. You have been allowed a great deal to say. I have followed your own lead altogether. I might have put you into a merchant’s office, which would have been more in my way—but I have adopted yours without a word. You could scarcely point out to me the right people to apply to, I suppose? It is only so far as this goes that I have acted for myself. But I don’t see that this conversation can do us any good, John. Mr. Barrett is a great supporter of the hospital, he is a very good man, and he is one of the first in his profession. He will take you, rather for my sake, it is true, than your own, but that can’t be helped at your age; and, as he takes you without any premium, that is so much to your advantage. He will settle how you are to begin and all about it when you go to him, which I hope will be at once—to-day.’

John went away with his letter without saying any more, and he carried out his mother’s orders, but without any pleasure in the beginning, though as a matter of fact it was his own choice. That she meant his good, that she was doing the best she could for him, he believed, though grudgingly; but why should she do it so hardly, without grace or kindness, without anything that could make it pleasant? How often may such a question be asked; how impossible to answer it. To mean everything that is best in the world, to take trouble to do it, to heap solid benefits on the head of a dependant, a child, or retainer; and yet to do it all so as to make the kindness an offence, almost an insult. What a curious perversion is this of everything that is best and tenderest! John’s mother was substantially right as well as substantially kind. She had chosen the best guidance for her son. She had in no way thwarted his inclinations. She had indeed followed their natural bent, taken trouble to find the means of satisfying them; and yet! John went away without a word. He obeyed her and his fate. But he thus attained his own wish as if it had been a hardship, and submitted as to a fiat pronounced in entire indifference to his wishes. What he would have liked to do as he crossed the bridge, and felt the playful gust of the April wind in his face, would have been to drop the letter into the river, and go away in one of those outward-bound ships, on one of those clanging railways which made a black network all about, to the end of the world. That would have pleased him indeed! To throw the letter into the dark, quick-flowing tide, to disappear and be no more heard of: and finally, years after, to re-appear prosperous and great, John May, and bring wealth and reputation with him. His mind dallied with this dream as he went along, and especially as he crossed the bridge, which suggested freedom and movement. There is no thought that is so apt to come to a very young mind. To go away mysteriously, suddenly, leaving no trace, and in the future—that future which is scarcely further off to seventeen than to-morrow to a child—to come back triumphant to the confusion of all prophets of evil. Sometimes the young dreamer will carry out his vision, bringing misery and self-reproach to those he leaves behind, but coming back in most cases far from triumphant, forced by destitution or misery, perhaps, or at best disenchanted and dreary, dazzling no one with the success which has ceased to be sweet. Perhaps John, who had a great deal of sense, divined this—at all events, he was held by those bonds of duty which had lain on him lightly in the past, yet had created a tradition and necessity of obedience, which nothing he had yet encountered was strong enough to abrogate. He felt the temptation, but it never occurred to him as one to which he could yield—and though his heart was in revolt and his pride all in arms, yet he trudged along soberly across the river to Great George Street, where he was bound, without any active resistance, feeling himself under the guidance and control of an unkindly fate.

He was received not unkindly, however, though with great gravity, by Mr. Barrett, the gentleman to whom his mother’s letter was addressed, and who questioned him as to his studies, how far he had gone in his mathematics, and whether he had made any acquaintance with the special work of the profession he desired to take up. Mr. Barrett was a very serious person, indeed, in a dress that was almost clerical, and with manners more solemn than ever clergyman had, which is a curious effect not unusual among lay persons who assume the attitude of advice and exhortation, which is supposed to be the special privilege of the clergy. Mr. Barrett’s necktie was not white, but the grey and black with which it was striped were faint, producing a sort of illusion in point of colour; and his manners were more distinctive even than his tie.

‘I know your mother,’ he said, ‘she is an excellent woman, a most worthy person. Her son ought to be satisfactory, and I hope you will prove so; but she has had many trials, much more than fall to the ordinary lot.’

John did not make any reply; at all events nothing was audible of what he said, though in reality he kept up a fierce fire of response. ‘If she has had many trials she ought to have kept them from strangers,’ was what he said hotly within himself.

‘I trust you begin work with the hope and intention of making up to her a little for all she has had to bear,’ Mr. Barrett resumed. ‘She has been for many years under my personal observation, and anyone more devoted to duty I never saw.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said John to himself, ‘that is like Emily! not because she likes to do it, but because it’s duty,’ which was at once a hostile and foolish remark.

‘But you must remember,’ said his adviser, ‘that London is a place full of temptation and danger. Everywhere it is easy to go wrong; so much easier unfortunately than to do right; but in London the devil is roaring at every street corner, seeking whom he may devour. You must make up your mind to struggle stoutly against his wiles. I can’t even shut out of my office, though I try to be as careful as possible, those who prefer the broad path to the narrow; but I hope you will not let yourself be led away.’

‘I hope I shall do my duty, sir,’ said John, this time audibly enough, in a not very sweet or genial voice.

‘I hope you will—that is the right way to look at it: especially to a young man in your position, a great deal of care is necessary. Among my other pupils you will find some who have less occasion, as people say, to work. I don’t myself allow that. I think every man ought to work, and work with all his strength, if not for necessity, yet for—duty, as you say. But the sons of parents, who are well-off in this world’s goods, often take a great deal of licence, which you, Sandford, in your position, must not take as an example. You must keep your nose at the grindstone. It is doubly important for you in your circumstances.’

It was all that John could do not to demand audibly, as he did in his own consciousness: ‘What are my circumstances, then, what is my special position?’ His position had been a very good one all his life till now, the best in the village, after the rector’s family, their comrade and associate. He never had any occasion to think of himself as received on sufferance, as inferior to anyone. It wounded his pride bitterly to be compelled to look upon himself in this way.

‘Your advancement will depend upon yourself,’ Mr. Barrett continued. ‘It is for you to prove what you can do. After you have gone through your course of instruction, if you show yourself diligent, careful, and, above all, trustworthy, you will receive our best recommendation. But all this must depend entirely upon yourself. We can’t, of course, take you upon our shoulders and guarantee your future. This I hope your mother fully understands. I am willing to stretch a point for a woman who has acquitted herself so well under trying circumstances. But she must understand, and you must understand, that we don’t make ourselves responsible for you; you must in the end stand or fall on your own merits. The firm cannot carry you on their shoulders about the world—— ’

‘I hope no one expected anything of the kind,’ cried John, aching and throbbing with wounded pride.

‘No, no, I hope not. I think it is always better to make these things quite plain at first. The premium I remit with pleasure to such a worthy woman as Mrs. Sandford, to show my sense of her admirable conduct under very trying——’

‘I beg your pardon,’ cried John. ‘I don’t wish, for my part, to come in on better terms than the others. I don’t want any charity. I have not my own money at this moment, but I shall have it when I come of age, and I assure you there will be no difficulty about paying the premium then.’

Mr. Barrett looked at him with astonished eyes. To have charity cast back in his teeth is agreeable to no man. He stammered as he replied, with mingled indignation and astonishment,

‘I—I don’t understand you. What—what do you mean? Are you coming to me to propose an arrangement on your own account? or to complete one made by your mother?’ He regained his composure as he went on. ‘If this is temper, my young friend, we had better break off at once. I don’t want any touchy people taking offence about my place.’

His tone had changed. He had given up exhortation and good advice, and spoke sharply, with a ring of reality in his voice which brought John to himself.

‘I beg your pardon, sir. I am, perhaps, wrong. I don’t think I am ill-tempered or touchy. I do want to do my duty, and learn my work, and make my way. It was only the idea of charity: and I had never been used to it!’ John said.

‘I am afraid you’ll have a great deal to struggle with in your disposition, if that’s how you take things,’ said Mr. Barrett, shaking his head. He added, quickly, ‘I don’t know that I’ve time to go into the question of your feelings. The manager will tell you about hours and all arrangements. I hope he will have a good account to give of your work and progress. Good-day.’

This was all he made by his outburst of impatience and indignation. He left a disagreeable impression on the mind of his new employer, and went out himself sore, humiliated, and injured, feeling himself in the wrong. It was not his fault, he said to himself. It was the different position in which he found himself, so different from the past. That he should be of no account, received, if not out of charity, at least out of a humiliating kindness, because of his mother’s admirable conduct in her trying circumstances—in what trying circumstances? John could not believe that his father’s death had been so tremendous a grief as all these sayings seemed to imply. And then to be no longer consulted, no longer even told what was going to happen to him, sent off with a note like an errand-boy getting a place!

The pride or the humiliation of the boy who has always felt himself to be somebody, and suddenly discovers himself to be nobody, is not of much consequence to the world. It is not of much importance even to himself. In most cases it does him a great deal of good, and he lives to feel this, and smile at the keen pangs of his boyhood. And yet there are few pangs more keen. They cut like knives through the sensitive fibres of poor John’s heart, and the only refuge which his pride could take was in imagining circumstances in which he should vindicate himself—tremendous accidents, in which his courage and presence of mind should avert catastrophe, misfortunes in which he should be the deliverer—the most common of imaginations, the most usual of all the dreams of self-compensation. It was with his head full of all these new complications that he returned—not home, which was the word that came to his lips in spite of himself. Not home, he had now no home. Nobody could call Mrs. Sandford’s rooms at the hospital, home, not even Susie.

John’s heart swelled as he caught himself on the eve of using that antiquated word, that word which had no significance any more: and then he thought of Elly under the old pear-tree with her algebra, thinking of him. She had told him to think of her so. A little picture rose before him quite suddenly. Elly under the pear-tree with her algebra! A smile flickered to his lips at the thought. She would be sure to think of him, for she was not very fond of algebra, and, to escape a little from those mystic signs and symbols, Elly would be glad to take refuge in recollections of her friend who was almost like a brother. He thought he could see her under the old pear-tree, with the wind in her hair, lifting the long, heavy, beautiful locks. The pear-blossoms would not be over yet, the sun would make it shine like an old castle with turrets of white. Mr. Cattley would still look over Elly’s algebra and shake his head. Oh, yes, he would shake his head more than ever; for John would not be there to suggest a way out of those thorny paths, and Elly would not make much of them without that help. It gave him a sensation of pleasure, as if he had escaped for a moment from all the gravities of fate, into that cheerful garden, and found a glimpse of something like home in Elly’s bright face.

‘You must find fresh lodgings, nearer to your work,’ said Mrs. Sandford, when she received his report, which was given, it is unnecessary to say, with considerable reticence, and disclosed nothing about the little encounter with Mr. Barrett on the subject of the premium, any more than it did of that imaginary glimpse of Elly in the rectory garden. ‘I am very glad it is all settled so comfortably; but you must find lodgings nearer your work.’

‘I shall not mind the walk. After the day’s work I should like it.’

‘No. I should not like it for you. I don’t want you to get the habit of roaming about London. It is not good either for soul or body. A lodging near the office is best.’

‘You surely don’t mean to shut me up in the evenings,’ said the boy. ‘You don’t mean me to stay indoors all the night?’

‘It would be much better for you if you did—for yourself. You could find plenty to occupy you. You might carry on your studies, or, if you wanted amusement, you might read. Twenty years hence you will be pleased to think that was how you spent your nights.’

‘I can see no reason,’ he said, ‘why I could not do all that, and yet live where I am.’

‘That is because you love the streets,’ said his mother. ‘I know: oh, I did not require that you should tell me. You like the movement and the noise and the amusement.’

‘It is quite true,’ said John, ‘and is there any harm?’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘did not I tell you, Susie—he is his father’s son.’

CHAPTER VII.
A MAN GROWN.

After this there ensues a gap in John’s life:—no real gap, indeed, but a steady, quiet continuance of work and training of which the record might be interesting enough to those who are pursuing the same path, but not perhaps to anyone else. He was transferred to lodgings nearer his work, almost without any will of his own, his mother acting for him with a steady authority against which he chafed, but which it was impossible to resist. The lodgings might have been the same as those from which he was transferred, a little parlour, a little bed-room, a red and blue cover on the table, a horse-hair sofa, the same features were in both. And here John settled down. He knew nobody to lead him into the ordinary haunts of young men in London; and perhaps the fixed prepossession against him that he was sure to like what was wrong, had as strong an influence as the fixed certainty that nothing but right and honest things could come from him, which does so much for some favourites of nature. Human nature is very contradictory, and no two specimens can be guided in the same way. His mother’s stern observation of every possible indication of weakness, and Susie’s wistful watch, enlisted perhaps the evil as well as the good of John’s nature in the cause of virtue. His temper, and that perversity which is more or less in every natural character, rose in arms against the imputation that was upon him. He said to himself that, whatever happened, their prognostics should not be permitted to be right: and thus aided, so to speak, by his demons as well as by his angels, with his head held high against all the solicitations of the lower nature which would have proved that injurious foregone conclusion to be a just one, he made his way through the loneliness of those early years—going back evening after evening to spend the dull hours in his little sitting-room, with a determination which virtue alone might not have been equal to, without the aid of those forces of pride, and opposition, and resistance to injustice.

This austere self-restraint told upon his work, as it always does. Temperance and purity give wings to the mind, as they give force to the body. He read in self-defence, to quench all youthful longings after gaiety and brightness, and when he had exhausted poetry and fiction, which naturally he felt to be the best indemnifications and solaces for his loneliness, he began to read for work and for ambition, and soon found in those books that dealt either directly or indirectly with his profession, an interest more ardent, more exciting, than even that of story. From seventeen to twenty-one, a youth, with this inclination for work and few distractions, can get through an enormous amount of reading: and John’s mind gradually filled with stores such as no student need have been ashamed of. They were not perhaps so classical as they might have been had he gone to the University, but, in all probability, even in that respect they were fully as extensive as they would have been had John without the stimulus of his resolution and his solitude ‘gone up’ with Dick and Percy Spencer into the midst of the noisy young life of their college. He would not have resisted these cheerful influences; he would have done what the others did, and read as little as was necessary. But in the unlovely quiet of his little parlour in a little London street, with pride and angry self-defence keeping his door, along with more celestial guardians, he read with enthusiasm, with passion: and as his books, after the first juvenile frenzy for the lovelier and lighter portions of literature, were practical and serious, engaged with the present rather than the past, he became by degrees a mine of information, thoroughly equipped for all the chances of his work, and every region that these might lead him to. He read travels and books upon new and little known countries with devotion. He studied every scheme for the new development of the untrodden portions of the earth. He had the stories of all great industrial undertakings at his fingers’ end. In short, John got to know so very much more than the narrator of his story, that I give up the attempt to follow him, simply adding that though it had been done rather with the intention of making that austere life possible, than from any other reason, it had the most admirable effects both on his mind and his work. Such stores are like the miraculous gifts of the Gospel, they cannot be hid. It soon became apparent, both to those who were over him and to his fellow-pupils, that for the settling of a disputed question, or for the geography of any new piece of work undertaken by the firm, or for those most essential questions about native workmen and local government which tell so much on enterprises like theirs, there was no such referee as John. He was sent for before Messrs. Barrett would settle about that railway in Hungary. He was consulted as to the South American business, which eventually, young Sandford’s knowledge having been overborne by the apparent advantage of the undertaking, was a source of so much trouble to the firm. And, by the time he was twenty-one, John was recognised by everybody as the most valuable of all the young men trained in the office. He had already been sent ‘abroad,’ a word which means anything from Calais to Africa, several times. He had been in America. He was altogether an accomplished and fully-trained engineer, capable to tackle even the lighthouses of Elly’s fancy, but perhaps not so earnest about lighthouses as, under Elly’s inspiration, he had been in his seventeenth year.

All this time his correspondence with Elly had never dropped: but it had become intermittent. They had not met during these years which tell for so much in a young man’s life, and probably even tell for more in the experience of a girl. How she had grown up, or whether she had grown up at all, was a question which John did not discuss with himself. He was very fond of Elly, no one had ever taken her place in his mind. He still thought of her under the pear-tree with her algebra, as if during all this time there had been no further development either of herself or her studies. Elly probably formed a clearer apprehension of the changes that had occurred in him: but to John she was still in short frocks, with all that beautiful hair about her shoulders. He thought sometimes of the serious kiss which had passed between them in token of everlasting friendship, of brotherhood and sisterhood, a seal of youthful affection untinged by any of the agitations or uneasy appropriations of love. It had brought a little colour to Elly’s cheek, but none to that of John, who had asked for it so seriously. The thought brought a little stir now, a little pleasurable movement of his blood. A sister, but not like Susie; a friend, but holding a place apart which no other friend could come near. And, to tell the truth, John had not very many friends; his early life had been against it, and those guardian demons of whom we have spoken—demons without discrimination, who kept out good as well as evil. He was friendly with most of the people about him, but he had not many intimates. The place in which Elly lived supreme, and that in which even Dick and Percy were still recognised as ‘the other boys,’ was kept sacred to that early circle which had been the closest and the warmest John had ever known—all the more so from its contrast with what followed, from the severe mother amid all the cares and business of the hospital, and Susie with her wistful, watchful eyes.

He had not paid very much attention to the fact that his birthday was his twenty-first, and that he was attaining his majority, though that is so important a point in the career of many young men. It was not particularly important to John. He had no joyful tenantry to celebrate it; no happy father and mother to wish him joy. He was already in some things much older than his age, experienced by long encounter with the practical, and by the habits of self-dependence which the nature of his occupations had forced upon him. He was rather, if anything, disposed to smile at the importance of twenty-one, not seeing what difference it could make. His little property he had long ceased to think of. At seventeen it had seemed important; at twenty, nothing. What could it matter? It was better, even more just, he thought, that his mother should have it, who was after all the natural heir of her parents: and if it could purchase a little ease, a little relaxation for her, John was not only generously willing, but had a less amiable, half scornful feeling, that to throw it back at her feet was the only thing that he could desire to do. He was astonished accordingly when he went by her invitation on the evening of his birthday to visit his mother, to find her table covered with papers and she herself awaiting his arrival with a number of accounts and note-books.

‘I have to render an account of my stewardship,’ she said, with her usual gravity. He did not always recognise the change in her manner of speaking to him and regarding him, but nevertheless there was a great change.

‘What stewardship?’ he said.

‘I cease to-day to be your guardian, John, and your trustee and manager and everything. My father thought it unnecessary to burden you with any of those things. He had perhaps an excessive confidence in me. I have now to give up my accounts——’

‘I want no accounts,’ he said: ‘I want to hear nothing about it. If I am to be acknowledged a man, that’s enough. I’ve been to my own consciousness a man—and older than most people—long enough.’

‘Yes,’ she said, with a little sigh, ‘you are a man; you have proved yourself one. The softest of mothers (and I know I have never been soft) could not acknowledge that with more gratitude and satisfaction than I.’

‘But a little grudge,’ he said, with a laugh. He was able to laugh now, though never to forget altogether the bitterness of being misjudged. He no longer talked to her with constraint, feeling himself like a child in her presence—but even yet he was never really at his ease with her. ‘With a grudge,’ he said. ‘You would almost rather I had confirmed your bad opinion, and justified you in what you expected.’

‘I can’t hope that you will understand me—in that respect,’ she said, with a little wave of her hand dismissing the subject. If she did not repent of her evil expectations, she was at least a little ashamed of them, and desired no recurrence to the subject. ‘Look here,’ she said, ‘this is an account of all my incomings and outgoings for the last four years.’

‘I don’t want to see them,’ said John. ‘I am sure you have always done what was best for me.’

‘And, for the future, here is the statement of what you have at your disposal. Surely, at least, you will look at that.’

‘Mother,’ said John, ‘if it is anything worth counting, couldn’t you take it, and get a little rest? All this upon your shoulders from year to year, never any ease or repose, must wear you out. Why don’t you give up, and take Susie to see a little of the world—of course I don’t know if there’s enough for that,’ he added, hastily, with momentary confusion.

‘Mother, didn’t I tell you!’ said Susie, a flush of pleasure rising over her face.

‘It was not necessary for anyone to tell me. There never was any want of generosity,’ said Mrs. Sandford, in a sort of aside. And then she added, ‘Thank you, John. It is very good of you to make the offer: but I’m used to the hospital, and I’m not used to rest. I don’t think I should like it. And my father and mother would like you to have the full enjoyment of your own. There is not very much, but it will always be a comfortable addition to what you can make. There is about two hundred a year, everything put together. And I have as much—that is to say, Susie will have as much as soon as she makes up her mind to do anything independent—in the way of marriage or—any other way.’

At this, Susie turned away with another flush of agitation and embarrassment. Susie was now twenty-six, a mature young woman. And perhaps by times there had come across her mind desires such as maturity brings, to adopt some independent career for herself. It was apparent even to John’s eyes, which were not by any means acute in respect to the doings of others, that there had been moments recently in which the idea of marriage had been in consideration between the mother and daughter, but he had never been told anything about it, nor who the suitor was. And there had also been floating ideas in Susie’s head of joining a sisterhood, and thus consecrating herself to the service of the sick, to whom she was now a volunteer and unofficial ministrant. But nothing had come of that any more than the other. She was in a state of mental commotion, awaiting that development which nature craves, and uneasy, feeling herself no longer a girl to be swayed by the natural law of obedience and submission, but old enough to decide and act for herself: save only that she could not decide how to act. Her mother’s words seemed to her a reproach. She turned away; then, coming back again with an effort, laid one hand upon John’s arm and one upon Mrs. Sandford.

‘Mother,’ she said. ‘We’re both honest, both John and me. He can do for himself, and I, so far as I can see, will never be able to make up my mind to do anything for myself. Why won’t you take us at our word, and take grandfather’s money, and, for the first time in your life, rest?’

The three were all very different. John, perhaps, in his confidence of young manhood, and that consciousness of being entirely a satisfactory person, which cannot fail to have a certain influence on a young man’s way of looking both at himself and others, was now the one most like his mother—and yet he was not like her. While Susie, with her soft eyes, her soft manner, her little flutter of indecision, was as unlike as possible in sentiment, though her features were almost identical with those of the self-controlled and serious woman, with so many responsibilities on her head, and so distinct a grasp of them all, whom she was imploring to take up that softer task, to retire, and accept the generosity of her children and repose from her labours. Mrs. Sandford looked the tallest of the three, not indeed in fact, though she was taller for a woman than John was for a man—but certainly in nature, in sentiment, in the impression which her still graceful, slight figure, her head carried high, her general air of authority, gave. She looked from one to another with a smile, in which there was (to Susie) indulgent toleration of miscomprehension, to John, a little indifference to what he might think at all.

‘Circumstances alter everything,’ she said; ‘if I were really an old woman wanting rest I might take it from you. But I am not. I am as able for my work as either of you. I like it, and if you gave me your money you might have to wait a long time before it came back to you. All these things are against Susie’s proposal. And as for John——’

He looked at her with the opposition in his eyes which had never been quenched since the moment they had met at the little station at Edgeley, on the day his grandmother died.

‘What of John?’ he said.

‘Only that nobody at your age can say what chances a few days may bring forth; what occasion there may be for the support of the little fortune he has a right to, however little it may be. Let us leave this subject for something that will interest you more. John, your grandfather’s house has not been sold, though I had thought it better to do so, had the opportunity occurred. But, as it happens, the opportunity has never occurred. It is yours, now, to do what you like with it, and the tenant who has been in it is going away. I have thought that perhaps you would like to go—and see for yourself what is best to be done. You have still friends there: and you have had few holidays—few amusements.’

There was a certain compunction in her voice—but John could not observe what there was in her voice, for the sudden haze of recollection, and all the old images and thoughts that came back and enveloped him in an atmosphere so different from this. The old house so little and peaceful, the old couple by the fire, the garden full of sunshine with the old gardener pottering about, and the old lady with her tender smile, gathering the flowers. It was not that he remembered all these long past and half-forgotten things. They returned to him as if the sphere of living had rolled round, and he had come to the former times once more. How strange out of the matron’s room in this huge London hospital, out of the engineer’s busy surroundings, the office, the plans, the succession of big undertakings and journeys all over the world, to return back in a moment to that tranquil living once again! He was roused from this momentary realisation of the past, by Susie’s soft voice saying, with a wistful tone in it, ‘I should like to go with you, John.’

CHAPTER VIII.
A NIGHT ADVENTURE.