When the last train arrived at Halesby, the town would be in darkness, for, in the black country in those days the only places of amusement were the public houses and these had been shut for an hour or more. Only from the upper windows of innumerable mean dwellings lights would be seen, and sometimes the voice of a drunken husband heard grumbling. But the path beside the fish-ponds was beautiful, even on a winter night, and Edwin would feel glad as he plodded along it that he didn’t live in North Bromwich, where the night noises of the country were never heard. So he would pass quietly up the empty lane, his footsteps echoing on the hard pavement, and come at last to the little house set in the midst of shrubberies that smelt of winter. Very humble and quiet, and even pitiable it seemed after the glaring streets of the city that he had left behind.
It was an understood thing that on Saturdays, when he had been playing football, Edwin should return by the last train; and so his father did not sit up for him on these occasions. The matter had been settled at the cost of some awkwardness. On the first two or three Saturdays of the football season Edwin had come home late, to find Mr. Ingleby growing cold over the embers of a fire in the dining-room, sleepy but intensely serious, and his tired eyes had examined Edwin so closely that he felt embarrassed, being certain that his face must bear signs of a number of enormities that he had never dreamed of committing. It was the same, unreasonable feeling of guilt that he had experienced at St. Luke’s in the middle of Mr. Leeming’s pitched battle for purity, and the sensation was so strong that he felt it useless to try and hide it.
“Why do you look at me like that, father?” he said. The quietude and humility of the little room seem to him as full of accusation as his father’s face.
“What do you mean, boy?”
“I think you know what I mean. . . . There’s really no need for you to wait up for me like this.”
“I like to lock the house up,” his father replied, with a quietness that made Edwin’s voice sound rowdy and violent. “I have always done so. After all, it’s usual.”
“You are anxious about me. Why should you be more anxious about me when I come in at twelve than when I come in at six?”
“I know you’re passing a critical period, Eddie. . . I’m not unsympathetic. I’ve been through it myself. And naturally I’m anxious for you. I know that a town is full of temptations for a boy of your age. I don’t know what your friends are like. I don’t know what sort of influences you’re coming in contact with—”
“But I don’t see why that should make you want to sit up for me. Really, I don’t. What good does it do?”
“I like to see you when you come in.” Edwin was uncomfortably aware of this.