As he spoke the boy touched his pony; the plucky little animal sprang forward, John sprang backward, and with a joyous laugh Austin was off down the road at full gallop.
Jim tramped steadily through Woodend village, noting his whereabouts only when his heedless progression brought him to a stop in the deep snow gathered at the sides of the pathways, or sent him floundering against wall or fence half-hidden in the heavy shadows. His thoughts kept him company, and shut out intrusive sensations concerning the white world around him. The lights blinked through the trees from the houses standing back among their gardens, and the sounds of mirthful family meetings strayed sometimes to the lad’s ears. It was Christmas-day—the day on which, so old Bill East had said, folks’ hearts beat tenderly for all their kin. Lower down the valley cottage-homes stood humbly in their tiny plots; and the windows, often uncurtained, revealed the rough comfort within. Homes of another sort—as those of Lumber’s Yard—lay back from view: among them Dr. Brenton and Max were paying a round of Christmas calls before settling down for the evening they never cared to spend apart.
Jim tramped on. He had reached the entry to Lumber’s Yard, where a knot of the male residents had gathered for a sociable chat until it should be time to repair to the parlour of the “Jolly Dog”. One of the men called out to Jim, whose face was just then visible in the light from an open cottage-door. The lad heard the gruff greeting,—it came from Harry the Giant,—and the well-meant invitation which followed it.
“Why, Jim East, you’re looking rarely glum and peckish! Cheer up, lad. Come wi’ me, and ’ave summat hot to hearten ye. We’re all agoing into the “Dog” this minnit. Come along wi’ us.”
Jim paused irresolutely. Before his mental vision loomed the smithy, infinitely dreary; no welcome awaiting him save from four-footed friends. The old woman who kept the place clean and cooked meals for the Easts had begged a holiday, which had been granted cheerfully. Jim shivered as he thought of the lonely rooms.
It was a searching moment for the poor lad. The cruel rebuffs of his kindred had cut him to the heart; more than that, they had threatened the ruin of his moral sense. If he were a creature so repellent in the eyes of those to whom his inner self had turned with instinctive yearning, surely he must have been mistaken in supposing that his nature could have qualities in common with theirs. Beauty of form, colour, or sound had always roused in him a glow of happiness, in which, during the last fortnight, he had tried—with a kind of grateful wonder—to recognize some latent refinement such as he supposed to be the inalienable possession of the gently born and bred.
He was the son of one whom even his grandfather had admitted to be a gallant and honourable gentleman. He was the brother of Frances, with her gracious manner and gentle speech, and of Austin, whose gay courtesy towards his girl-playmates had secured Jim’s respectful admiration. But since Frances and Austin would have none of him, whither should he turn? Could he carry into his lonely, loveless life that higher purpose which would teach him, without help or sympathy, to shun the base and impure, and to cling to the thing which is right? Or must he sink, sink at once and for ever, to the level of such as these?... Jim dragged his thoughts from the memory of the beautiful home from which he had just been banished, and forced his eyes to rest intelligently on the slouching figures blocking the entry to Lumber’s Yard.
“Thank you, Harry;”—the lad’s voice had an unusual firmness—“you are kind, but I must be getting home.”
“There’s none to greet ye now,” persisted the giant good-naturedly. “Change your mind, and come wi’ us.”