"Papa!" called Isabel.
I heard a movement in the summer-house, and her father appeared in the doorway. He was old, but held himself so erect that his head almost touched the lintel of the summer-house door, the posts of which he gripped and so stood framed—a giant of close upon six and a half feet in stature. He wore a brown holland suit, with grey stockings and square-toed shoes; and at first I mistook him for a Quaker. His snow-white hair was gathered back from his temples, giving salience to a face of ineffable simplicity and goodness—the face of a man at peace with God and all the world, yet touched with the scars of bygone passions.
"Papa, this is Harry Revel."
He bowed with ceremony, a little wide of me. I saw then that his eyes were sightless.
"I am happy to make your acquaintance, young sir. My daughter informs me that you are in trouble."
"He has promised to tell me all about it," Isabel put in. "We need not bother him with questions just now."
"Assuredly not," he agreed. "Well, if you will, my lad, tell it to Isabel. What is your age? Barely fourteen? Troubles at that age are not often incurable. Only whatever you do—and you will pardon an old man for suggesting it—tell the whole truth. When a man, though he be much older than you and his case more serious than yours can possibly be—when a man once brings himself to make a clean breast of it, the odds are on his salvation. Take my word for that, and a wiser man's—By the way, do you understand Latin?"
"No, sir."
"I am sorry to hear it. But perhaps you play the drum?"
"I—I have never tried, sir."