"They have bad memories," he said to one of his managers. "My father gave his life working among these people; for his sake they might have met me fairly."
The other man shrugged his shoulders.
"You have done too much, sir," he said. "These sort of folk want the whip, not benevolence."
And Haverford said no more.
To speak further of his great hopes now lost, his numerous schemes, his almost passionate intentions for helping the people among whom he had worked and lived so long was to touch on a dead and sacred subject.
Yet he lingered in the north. He wanted to satisfy himself that he had made a mistake. He wanted to grow accustomed to his disappointment, to the humiliation of feeling that these people made a mockery of him and his generous intentions. Once he had grasped this in its fulness, and the matter would be closed. Henceforward they should have from him duty, nothing more.
He knew perfectly well that the men who served him and who held posts of importance had long since regarded him as a crank. Well, there should be no more quixotic weakness, no more sentiment. He had bared his heart to these people, stretched out his hand and called them his brethren, and his reward had been a stone at his heart and an evil word, coupled with a curse.
He did not go south till the lads who had been instrumental in trying to burn down his property had been caught and taken before the magistrate.
"If I am wanted, send for me," he said to his head-manager the day he left, "and report as usual."
He had telegraphed for his motor. He felt in need of a little spell of relief, of fresh influences, of something to divert his thoughts.