It was a double house, with long, narrow,
heavily-framed windows. Many years ago, it had had it in its mind to
slide down sideways; it had been propped up, however, and was leaning on
some half-dozen gigantic crutches: which gymnasium for the neighbouring
cats, weather-stained, smoke-blackened, and overgrown with weeds,
appeared in these latter days to be no very sure reliance.
'Nothing changed,' said the traveller, stopping to look round. 'Dark and
miserable as ever. A light in my mother's window, which seems never to
have been extinguished since I came home twice a year from school, and
dragged my box over this pavement. Well, well, well!'
He went up to the door, which had a projecting canopy in carved work
of festooned jack-towels and children's heads with water on the brain,
designed after a once-popular monumental pattern, and knocked. A
shuffling step was soon heard on the stone floor of the hall, and the
door was opened by an old man, bent and dried, but with keen eyes.
He had a candle in his hand, and he held it up for a moment to assist
his keen eyes. 'Ah, Mr Arthur?' he said, without any emotion, 'you are
come at last? Step in.' Mr Arthur stepped in and shut the door.
'Your figure is filled out, and set,' said the old man, turning to look
at him with the light raised again, and shaking his head; 'but you don't
come up to your father in my opinion. Nor yet your mother.'
'How is my mother?' 'She is as she always is now. Keeps her room when not actually
bedridden, and hasn't been out of it fifteen times in as many years,
Arthur.' They had walked into a spare, meagre dining-room. The old man
had put the candlestick upon the table, and, supporting his right elbow
with his left hand, was smoothing his leathern jaws while he looked at
the visitor. The visitor offered his hand. The old man took it coldly
enough, and seemed to prefer his jaws, to which he returned as soon as
he could. 'I doubt if your mother will approve of your coming home on the Sabbath,
Arthur,' he said, shaking his head warily.
'You wouldn't have me go away again?'
'Oh! I? I? I am not the master. It's not what I would have. I have
stood between your father and mother for a number of years. I don't
pretend to stand between your mother and you.'
'Will you tell her that I have come home?'
'Yes, Arthur, yes. Oh, to be sure! I'll tell her that you have come
home. Please to wait here. You won't find the room changed.'