<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<h1>TO LONDON TOWN</h1>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center">ARTHUR MORRISON,<br/>
</p>
<h2><SPAN name="page9"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>TO LONDON TOWN.<br/> I.</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">The</span> afternoon had slumbered in the
sun, but now the August air freshened with an awakening breath,
and Epping Thicks stirred and whispered through a myriad
leaves. Far away beyond the heaving greenwoods distant
clouds floated flat on the upper air, and a richer gold grew over
the hills as the day went westward. This way and that,
between and about trees and undergrowth, an indistinct path went
straggling by easy grades to the lower ground by Wormleyton Pits;
an errant path whose every bend gave choice of green passes
toward banks of heather and bracken. It was by this way
that an old man and a crippled child had reached the Pits.
He was a small old man, white-haired, and a trifle bent; but he
went his way with a sturdy tread, satchel at side and
butterfly-net in hand. As for the child, she too went
sturdily enough, but she hung from a crutch by the right
shoulder, and she moved with a <SPAN name="page10"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>jog and a swing. The hand that
gripped the crutch gripped also a little bunch of meadowsweet,
and the other clasped tight against her pinafore a tattered old
book that would else have fallen to pieces.</p>
<p>Once on the heathery slade, the old man lifted the strap over
his head and put the satchel down by a tree clump at the
wood’s edge.</p>
<p>“’Nother rest for you, Bess,” he said, as he
knelt to open his bag. “I’m goin’ over
the pits pretty close to-day.” He packed his pockets
with pill-boxes, a poison bottle, and a battered, flat tin case;
while the child, with a quick rejection of the crutch, sat and
watched.</p>
<p>The old man stood, slapped one pocket after another, and then,
with a playful sweep of the net-gauze across the child’s
face, tramped off among the heather. “Good luck,
gran’dad!” she cried after him, and settled on her
elbow to read.</p>
<p>The book needed a careful separation, being open at back as at
front; likewise great heed lest the leaves fell into confusion:
for, since they were worn into a shape more oval than
rectangular, the page numbers had gone, and in places corners of
text had gone too. But the main body of the matter, thumbed
and rubbed, stood good for many a score more readings; and the
story was <i>The Sicilian Romance</i>.</p>
<p>Round about the pits and across the farther ground <SPAN name="page11"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>of Genesis
Slade the old man pushed his chase. Now letting himself
cautiously down the side of a pit; now stealing softly among
bracken, with outstretched net; and again running his best
through the wiry heather. Always working toward sun and
wind, and often standing watchfully still, his eye alert for a
fluttering spot amid the flood of colour about him.</p>
<p>Meantime the little cripple conned again the familiar periods
of the old romance. Few, indeed, of its ragged leaves but
might have been replaced, if lost, from pure memory; few, indeed,
for that matter, of <i>The Pilgrim’s Progress</i> or of
<i>Susan Hopley</i>, or of <i>The Scottish Chiefs</i>: worn
volumes all, in her grandfather’s little shelf of a dozen
or fifteen books. So that now, because of old acquaintance,
the tale was best enjoyed with many pauses; pauses filled with
the smell of the meadowsweet, and with the fantasy that abode in
the woods. For the jangle of a herd-bell was the clank of a
knight’s armour, the distant boom of a great gun at Waltham
Abbey told of the downfall of enchanted castles, and in the
sudden plaint of an errant cow she heard the growling of an ogre
in the forest.</p>
<p>The western hillsides grew more glorious, and the sunlight,
peeping under heavy boughs, flung along the sward, gilt the
tree-boles whose shadows veined it, and lit nooks under bushes
where the wake-robin raised its scarlet mace of berries.
The old man had dropped his <SPAN name="page12"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>net, and for awhile had been
searching the herbage. It was late in the day for
butterflies, but fox-moth caterpillars were plenty among the
heather; as well as others. Thus Bessy read and dreamed,
and her grandfather rummaged the bushes till the sunlight was
gathered up from the turf under the trees, and lifted from the
tallest spire among the agrimony, as the sun went beyond the
hill-tops. Then at last the old man returned to his
satchel.</p>
<p>“The flies ain’t much,” he observed, as
Bessy looked up, “but for trade it’s best not to miss
anything: it’s always what you’re shortest of as
sells; and the blues was out late to-day. But I’ve
got luck with caterpillars. If they go all right I ought to
have a box-full o’ Rosy Marbled out o’
these!”</p>
<p>“Rosy Marbled! It’s a late brood then.
And so long since you had any!”</p>
<p>“Two year; and this is the only place for
’em.” The old man packed his bag and slung it
across his back. “We’ll see about tea
now,” he added, as the child rose on her crutch; “but
we’ll keep open eyes as we go.”</p>
<p>Over the slade they took their way, where the purple carpet
was patterned with round hollows, black with heather-ash and
green with star-moss; by the edges of the old gravel-pits,
overhung with bramble and bush; and so into more woods.</p>
<p>A jay flew up before them, scolding angrily. Now <SPAN name="page13"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>and again a
gap among the trees let through red light from beyond
Woodredon. Again and again the old man checked his walk,
sometimes but to drop once more into his even tramp, sometimes to
stop, and sometimes to beat the undergrowth and to shake
branches. To any who saw there was always a vaguely
familiar quality in old May’s walk; ever a patient plod,
and, burdened or not, ever an odd suggestion of something carried
over shoulder; matters made plain when it was learned that the
old man had been forty years a postman.</p>
<p>Presently as they walked they heard shrieks, guffaws, and a
discordant singing that half-smothered the whine of a
concertina. The noise was the louder as they went, and when
they came where the white of a dusty road backed the tree-stems,
they heard it at its fullest. Across the way was an inn,
and by its side a space of open ground whereon some threescore
beanfeasters sported at large. Many were busy at
kiss-in-the-ring, some waved branches torn from trees, others
stood up empty bottles and flung more bottles at them; they
stood, sat, ran, lay, and rolled, but each made noise of some
sort, and most drank. Plainly donkey-riding had palled, for
a man and a boy had gathered their half-dozen donkeys together,
and were driving them off.</p>
<p>The people were Londoners, as Bessy knew, for she had often
seen others. She had forgotten London herself—all of
it but a large drab room with a row of little <SPAN name="page14"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>beds like her
own, each bed with a board on it, for toys; and this, too, she
would have forgotten (for she was very little indeed then) but
that a large and terrible gentleman had come every day and hurt
her bad leg. It was the Shadwell Hospital. But these
were Londoners, and Bessy was a little afraid of them, and
conceived London to be a very merry and noisy place, very badly
broken, everywhere, by reason of the Londoners. Other
people, also, came in waggonettes, and were a little quieter, and
less gloriously bedecked. She had seen such a party earlier
in the day. Probably they were not real Londoners, but folk
from parts adjoining. But these—these were Londoners
proper, wearing each other’s hats, with paper wreaths on
them.</p>
<p>“Wayo, old ’un!” bawled one, as the old man,
net in hand, crossed toward the wood opposite; “bin
ketchin’ tiddlers?” And he turned to his
companions with a burst of laughter and a jerk of the
thumb. “D’year, Bill! ’Ere’s
yer ole gran’father ketchin’ tiddlers! Why
doncher keep ’im out o’ mischief?” And
every flushed face, doubly reddened by the setting sun, turned
and opened its mouth in a guffaw. “You’ll cop
it for gittin’ yer trouseys wet!” screamed a
woman. And somebody flung a lump of crust.</p>
<p>Bessy jogged the faster into the wood, and in its shadow her
grandfather, smiling doubtfully, said, “They <SPAN name="page15"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>like their
joke, some of ’em, don’t they? But it’s
always ’tiddlers’!”</p>
<p>It grew dusk under the trees, and the sky was pale
above. They came to where the ground fell away in a glen
that was almost a trench, and a brook ran in the ultimate
furrow. On the opposing hill a broad green ride stood like
a wall before them, a deep moss of trees clinging at each
side. Here they turned, and, where the glen widened, a
cottage was to be seen on sloping ground, with a narrow roadway a
little beyond it. A whitewashed cottage, so small that
there seemed scarce a score of tiles on its roof; one of the few
scattered habitations holding its place in the forest by right of
ancient settlement. A little tumult of garden tumbled about
the cottage—a jostle of cabbages, lavender, onions,
wallflowers and hollyhock, confined, as with difficulty, by a
precarious fence, patched with wood in every form of manufacture
and in every stage of decay.</p>
<p>“I expect mother and Johnny finished tea long
ago,” Bessy remarked, her eyes fixed on the cottage.
“Why there’s a light!”</p>
<p>The path they went by grew barer of grass as it neared the
cottage, and as they trod it, men’s voices could be heard
from within, and a woman’s laughter.</p>
<p>“Sounds like visitors!” the old man
exclaimed. “That’s odd. I wonder who . .
. ”</p>
<p>“There you are then, father!” came a female voice
<SPAN name="page16"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>from the
door. “Here’s Uncle Isaac an’ a gentleman
come to see us.” It was Bessy’s mother who
spoke—a pleasant, fresh, active woman in a print dress, who
stood in the doorway as the old man set back the gate.</p>
<p>The door opened into the living-room, where sat two men, while
a boy of fourteen squeezed, abashed and a trifle sulky, in a
corner. There was a smell of bad cigar, which had almost,
but not quite, banished the wonted smell of the room; a smell in
some degree due to camphor, though, perhaps, more to caterpillar;
for the walls were hidden behind boxes and drawers of divers
shapes and sizes, and before the window and in unexpected places
on the floor stood other boxes, covered with muslin, nurseries
for larvæ, pupæ, and doomed butterflies. And so
many were these things that the room, itself a mere box, gave
scant space to the three people and the little round table that
were in it; wherefore Bessy’s mother remained in the
doorway, and Uncle Isaac, when he rose, took a very tall hat from
the floor and clapped it on his head for lack of other safe
place; for the little table sustained a load of cups and
saucers. Uncle Isaac was a small man, though with a large
face; a face fringed about with grey wisps of whisker, and
characterised by wide and glassy eyes and a great tract of shaven
upper lip.</p>
<p>“Good evenin’, Mr. May, good evenin’!”
said Uncle Isaac, shaking hands with the air of a man faithful to
a <SPAN name="page17"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>friend
in defiance of the world. “This is my friend Mr.
Butson.”</p>
<p>Mr. Butson was a tall, rather handsome man of forty or
thereabout, with curly hair and whiskers, and he greeted the old
man with grum condescension.</p>
<p>“Mr. Butson,” Uncle Isaac continued, with a wave
of the hand, “is a gentleman at present in connection with
the steamboat profession, though above it by fam’ly and
inclination. Mr. Butson an’ me ’as bin
takin’ a day’s ’olludy with a seleck party by
name of beanfeast, in brakes.”</p>
<p>“O yes,” responded old May, divesting himself of
his bag; “we passed some of ’em by the Dun Cow,
an’ very merry they was, too, with concertinas, an’
kiss-in-the-ring, an’ what not—very gay.”</p>
<p>“O damn, no,” growled the distinguished
Butson. “Not that low lot. He means that coster
crowd in vans,” he added, for Uncle Isaac’s
enlightenment. “I ain’t fell as low as
that. Lor, no.” He sucked savagely at the butt
of his cigar, found it extinct, looked vainly for somewhere to
fling it, and at last dropped it into a teacup.</p>
<p>“No, Mr. May, no; not them lot,” Uncle Isaac said,
with a touch of grave reproof. “As a man of some
little property meself, an’ in company of Mr. Butson, by
nature genteel-disposed, I should be far from mixin’ with
such. We come down with the shipwrights an’ engineers
<SPAN name="page18"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>from
Lawsonses. That was prob’ly Mr. May’s little
joke, Mr. Butson. Mr. May is a man of property hisself,
besides a man of science, as I think I told you. This
’ere land an’ residence bein’ in pint. If
any man was to come an’ say to Mr. May, ‘Git out
o’ that property, Mr. May,’ what would the lawr say
to that man? Nullavoid. That’s what the lawr
’ud say. It ’ud say, ‘Git out yerself,
your claim’s nullavoid.’” Uncle Isaac,
checking a solemn thump at the table just in time to save the
tea-cups, took his hat off instead, and put it on again.</p>
<p>Mr. Butson grunted “Ah!” and Mrs. May, taking the
net, squeezed in, with Bessy behind her. “I’ll
put a few o’ these boxes on the stairs, an’ make more
room,” she said. “The kettle’s still
boiling in the backhouse, an’ I’ll make some more
tea.”</p>
<p>Bessy had a habit of shyness in presence of strangers, and
Uncle Isaac ranked as one, for it was two years at least since he
had been there before. Indeed, what she remembered of him
then made her the shyer. For he had harangued her very
loudly on the gratitude she owed her grandfather, calling her a
cripple very often in course of his argument, and sometimes a
burden. She knew that she was a cripple and a burden, but
to be held tightly by the arm and told so, by a gentleman with
such a loud voice and such large eyes as Uncle Isaac, somehow
inclined her to cry. So now, as soon as might be, she
joined her brother, and the two <SPAN name="page19"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>retreated into the shadowy corner
between the stairfoot and the backhouse door.</p>
<p>The old butterfly-hunter, too, was shy in his more elderly
way. Beyond his widowed daughter-in-law and her two
children he had scarce an acquaintance, or at least none more
familiar than the naturalists in London to whom he sold his
specimens. So that now, in presence of this very genteel
Mr. Butson, who, he feared, was already disgusted at the humble
character of the establishment, he made but a hollow meal.
A half-forgotten notion afflicted him, that it was proper to
drink tea in only one of two possible ways; but whether from the
cup or from the saucer he could not resolve himself. Mr.
Butson had finished his tea, so that his example was lacking:
though indeed the lees in his saucer seemed to offer a
hint—a hint soon triumphantly confirmed by Uncle Isaac, who
was nothing averse from a supplementary cup, and who emptied it
straightway into his saucer and gulped ardently, glaring
fearfully over the edge. Whereat his host drank from the
saucer also, and took heed to remember for the future.
Still he was uncomfortable, and a little later he almost blushed
at detecting himself inhospitably grateful for signs that Mr.
Butson began to tire of the visit. Meanwhile he modestly
contributed little to the conversation.</p>
<p>“No,” said Mr. Butson gloomily after a long pause,
and in reply to nothing in particular, “<i>I</i>
ain’t a man of <SPAN name="page20"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>property. I wish I was.
If people got what they was brought up to—but
there!” He stuck his hands lower in his pockets and
savagely regarded vacancy.</p>
<p>“Mr. Butson’s uncle,” said Uncle Isaac,
“is a mayor. A mayor. An’ ’is other
relations is of almost equal aristocracy. But ’e
won’t ’ave nothin’ to say to ’em, not a
word. It’s jist blood—pride o’
breedin’. But what I say is, it may be proper
self-respeck, but it ain’t proper self-justice. It
ain’t self-justice, in my way o’ puttin’
it. Why ’e won’t even name ’em!
Won’t name ’em, Mr. May!”</p>
<p>“Won’t he?” the old man answered, rather
tamely, “dear, dear!” Mr. Butson laid his head
back, jerked his chin, and snorted scorn at the ceiling.</p>
<p>“No—won’t as much as name ’em, such is
’is lawfty contemp’. Otherwise, what ’ud
be my path of dooty? My path of dooty on behalf of
self-justice to Mr. Butson would be to see ’em an’
put a pint o’ argument. ’Ere, I puts it, is
’im, an’ ’ere is me. ’Ere is Mr.
’Enery Butson, your very dootiful relation of
fash’nable instinks, an’ a engineer than which none
better though much above it, an’ unsuitably enchained by
worldly circumstances in the engine-room of a penny
steamer.” (Here Mr. Butson snorted again.)
“Likewise ’ere is me, a elderly man of some small
property, an’ a shipwright of practical experience.
Them circumstances bein’ the case, cons’kently, what
more nachral an’ proper than a <SPAN name="page21"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>partnership—<i>with</i>
capital. That’s ’ow I’d put the pint; a
partnership <i>with</i> capital.”</p>
<p>“Jus’ so,” said old May. And seeing
that the other still paused, he added “Of
course.”</p>
<p>“But ’e’s proud—proud!” said
Uncle Isaac, shaking his head plaintively.</p>
<p>“P’raps I am proud,” Mr. Butson admitted
candidly, “I s’pose I got my faults. But I
wouldn’t take a penny from ’em—not if they was
to beg me on their knees. Why I’d sooner be
be’olding to strangers!”</p>
<p>“Ah, that ’e would,” sighed Uncle
Isaac. “But it ain’t self-justice. No, it
ain’t self-justice!”</p>
<p>“It’s self-respect, any’ow,” said Mr.
Butson sullenly. “If they like to treat me unnatural,
let ’em.”</p>
<p>“Ah,” observed Uncle Isaac, “some
fam’lies is unnachral an’ some is nachral, an’
there’s a deal o’ difference between ’em.
Look at Mr. May now. ’E ain’t altogether in my
family, though my niece’s father-in-law by marriage.
But what nachralness! His son was a engineer in yer own
trade, Mr. Butson,—fitter at Maidment’s.
’E left my niece a widder, cons’kence of a coat-tail
in a cog wheel. What does Mr. May do? Why ’e
shows ’is nachralness. ’E brings ’er
an’ ’er children down ’ere on ’is own
free’old residence, an’
cons’kently—’ere they are. Look at
that!”</p>
<p>It was a principle with Uncle Isaac to neglect no opportunity
of reciting at large the excellences of any <SPAN name="page22"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>person of the
smallest importance with whom he might be acquainted; or the
excellences which that person might be supposed to desire credit
for: if in his actual presence, so much the better. Nothing
could be cheaper, and on the whole it paid very well. At
worst, it advertised an amiable character; and there remained
off-chances of personal benefit. Moreover the practice
solidified Uncle Isaac’s reputation among his
acquaintances. For here, quoth each in his turn, was
plainly a man of sagacious discernment. The old postman,
however, was merely uneasy. To his mind it was nothing but
a matter of course that when his son died, the widow and children
should come under his own roof, and it was as a matter of course
that he had brought them there. But Bessy’s mother
said simply:—“Yes, gran’dad’s been a good
one to us, always.” She, as well as the children,
called him “gran’dad.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” proceeded Uncle Isaac, “an’
’im with as much to think about as a man of edication
too—wonderful. Why there’s nothink as ’e
don’t know in astronomy
an’—an’—an’ insectonomy.
Nothink!”</p>
<p>“No, not astronomy,” interjected old May, a little
startled by both counts of the imputation. “Not
astronomy, Mr. Mundy.”</p>
<p>“I say yes,” answered Uncle Isaac, with an
emphatic slap on the knee. “Modesty under a
bushel’s all very well, Mr. May, all very well, but I
know—I know! <SPAN name="page23"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>Astronomy, an’ medicamedica
an’ all the other classics. I know! Ah,
I’d give best part o’ my small property, sich as it
is, for ’alf your edication, Mr. May!”</p>
<p>It was generally agreed in the family that Uncle Isaac was
very “close” as to this small property of his.
Nothing could induce him to speak of it with any particularity of
detail, and opinions varied as to its character. Still,
whatever it was, it sufficed to gain Uncle Isaac much deference
and consideration—the more, probably, because of its
mysterious character; a deference and a consideration which Uncle
Isaac could stimulate from time to time by cloudy allusions to
altering his will.</p>
<p>“Well,” observed Mr. Butson rising from his chair,
“education never done me much good.”</p>
<p>“No, unforchnately!” commented Uncle Isaac.</p>
<p>“An’ I’d prefer property
meself.” Mr. Butson made toward the door, and Uncle
Isaac prepared to follow. At this moment a harsh female
voice suddenly screamed from the darkness without.
“Lor’! I almost fell over a blessed
’ouse!” it said, and there was a shrill laugh.
“We’ll ask ’em the way back.”</p>
<p>Old May stepped over the threshold at the sound; but the
magnificence was stricken from the face of Mr. Butson. His
cheeks paled, his mouth and eyes opened together, and he shrank
back, even toward the stairfoot. Nobody marked him,
however, but the children, for attention was directed
without.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page24"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
24</span>“Djear! which way to the Dun Cow?”</p>
<p>“See the lane?” answered the old postman.
“Follow that to the right an’ you’ll come to
it. It’s a bit farther than through the wood, but ye
can’t go wrong.”</p>
<p>“Right!” There were two women and a
man. The screaming woman said something to the others in a
quieter tone, in which, however, the word “tiddlers”
was plain to hear, and there was a laugh.
“Good-night, ole chap,” she bawled back.
“Put ’em in a jam-pot with a bit o’
water-creese!”</p>
<p>“Full o’ their games!” remarked the old man
with a tolerant smile, as he turned toward the door.
“That was the person as said I’d catch it for
gettin’ my clothes wet, as we came past the Dun
Cow.”</p>
<p>The voices of the beanfeasters abated and ceased, and now Mr.
Butson left no doubt of his readiness to depart.
“Come,” he said, with chap-fallen briskness,
“we’ll ’ave to git back to the others;
they’ll be goin’.” He took leave with so
much less dignity and so much more haste than accorded with his
earlier manner that Mr. May was a trifle puzzled, though he soon
forgot it.</p>
<p>“Good-night, Mr. May, I wish you good-night,” said
Uncle Isaac, shaking hands impressively. “I’ve
greatly enjoyed your flow of conversation, Mr. May.”
He made after the impatient Butson, stopped half-way to the gate
and called gently:—“Nan!”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page25"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
25</span>“Yes, uncle,” Mrs. May replied, stepping out
to him. “What is it?”</p>
<p>Uncle Isaac whispered gravely in her ear, and she returned and
whispered to the old man. “Of
course—certainly,” he said, looking mightily
concerned, as he re-entered the cottage.</p>
<p>Mrs. May reached a cracked cup from a shelf, and, turning over
a few coppers, elicited a half-crown. With this she
returned to Uncle Isaac.</p>
<p>“I’ll make a note of it,” said Uncle Isaac
as he pocketed the money, “and send a
postal-order.”</p>
<p>“O, don’t trouble about that, Uncle
Isaac!” For Uncle Isaac, with the small property,
must not be offended in a matter of a half-crown.</p>
<p>“What? Trouble?” he ejaculated, deeply
pained. “To pay my—”</p>
<p>“’Ere—come on!” growled Mr. Butson
savagely from the outer gloom. “Come on!”
And they went together, taking the lane in the direction opposite
to that lately used by the noisy woman.</p>
<p>“Well,” old May observed, “we don’t
often have visitors, an’ I was glad to see your Uncle
Isaac, Nan. An’ Mr. Butson, too,” he added
impartially.</p>
<p>“Yes,” returned Bessy’s mother
innocently. “Such a gentleman, isn’t
he?”</p>
<p>“There’s one thing I forgot,” the old man
said <SPAN name="page26"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
26</span>suddenly. “I might ha’ asked ’em
to take a drop o’ beer ’fore they went.”</p>
<p>“They had some while they was waitin’ for
tea. An’—an’ I don’t think
there’s much left.” She dragged a large tapped
jar from under the breeding-box at the window, and it was
empty.</p>
<p>“Ah!” was all the old man’s comment, as he
surveyed the jar thoughtfully.</p>
<p>Presently he turned into the back-house and emerged with a tin
pot and a brush. “I’m a goin’
treaclin’ a bit,” he said. “Come,
Johnny?”</p>
<p>The boy pulled his cap from his pocket, fetched a lantern, and
was straightway ready, while Bessy sat to her belated tea.</p>
<p>The last pale light lay in the west, and the evening offered
up an oblation of sweet smells. All things that feed by
night were out, and nests were silent save for once and again a
sleepy twitter. Every moment another star peeped, and then
one more. The boy and the old man walked up the slope among
the trees, pausing now at one, now at another, to daub the bark
with the mixture of rum and treacle that was in the pot.</p>
<p>“It’s always best to be careful where you treacle
when there’s holiday folk about,” said Johnny’s
grandfather. “They don’t understand it.
Often I’ve treacled a log or a stump and found a couple
sittin’ on it when <SPAN name="page27"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>I came back—with new dresses,
and sich. It’s no good explainin’—they
think it’s all done for practical jokin’.
It’s best to go on an’ take no notice.
I’ve heard ’em say:—’Don’t the
country smell lovely?’—meanin’ the smell
o’ the rum an’ treacle they was a-sittin’
on. But when they find it—lor, the language I
<i>have</i> heard! Awful! . . . ”</p>
<p>The boy was quiet almost all the round. Presently he
said, “Gran’dad, do you <i>really</i> like that
likeness I made of mother?”</p>
<p>“Like it, my boy? Why o’ course.
It’s a nobby picture!”</p>
<p>“Uncle Isaac said it was bad.”</p>
<p>“O!” There was a thoughtful pause while they
tramped toward the next tree. “That’s only
Uncle Isaac’s little game, Johnny. You mustn’t
mind that. It’s a nobby picture.”</p>
<p>“I don’t believe Uncle Isaac knows anything about
it,” said the boy vehemently. “I think
he’s ignorant.”</p>
<p>“Here, Johnny, Johnny!” cried his
grandfather. “That won’t do, you know.
Not at all. You mustn’t say things like
that.”</p>
<p>“Well, that’s what I <i>think</i>,
gran’dad. An’ I know he says things
wrong. When he came before he said that ship I drew was
bad—an’ I—I very near cried.” (He
did cry, but that was in secret, and not to be confessed.)
“But now,” Johnny went on, “I’m fourteen,
an’ <SPAN name="page28"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
28</span>I know better. I don’t believe Uncle Isaac
knows a bit about things.”</p>
<p>They had come again to the tree first treacled, and, leaving
the pot and brush at its foot, the old man, by help of the
lantern, took certain of the moths that had been attracted.
From this he carried the lantern to the next tree in the round
and then to the next, filling the intervals between his
moth-captures with successive chapters of a mild and rather vague
lecture on respect for elders.</p>
<p>It was dark night now, and the sky all a-dust with
stars. The old man and the boy took their way more by use
than by sight amid the spectral presences of the trees, whose
infinite whispering filled the sharpening air. They emerged
on high ground, whence could be seen, here the lights of Loughton
and there the lights of Woodford, and others more distant in the
flatter country. Here the night wind swept up lustily from
all Essex, and away from far on the Robin Hood Road came a rumble
and a murmur, and presently the glare of hand-lights red and
green, the sign and token of homing beanfeasters.</p>
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