"Had you children?"
"One daughter—Ada's mother. You may depend upon it we sent her to school! And she learnt quickly—far too quickly for me. I had cherished a hope that my child and I might commence our education together. But how could the muscle-bound intellect of an illiterate of thirty keep pace with the nimble wits of a sharp little girl?"
The nimble wits of a sharp little girl! Somehow I seemed to recognize that portrait.
"My daughter had passed the goal almost before her father had started. Once more, discouraged and baffled, I relinquished my ambitions: I was a foolish fellow to have entertained them at all. But my child was good to me—very good. Although she possessed neither the art nor the patience to teach me my letters, she discovered in me my one talent—quite a phenomenal aptitude for memorization. Compensation, probably. If I heard an ordinary newspaper article read over once or twice, I could repeat it word for word without prompting. And so to satisfy my hungry soul I would beg my little daughter to read aloud to me her school tasks, or her evening lessons—elementary history, geography, and the like. I never forgot them: they were the first real learning I ever possessed. I can repeat them still—and I think they kept me sane.
"My daughter grew up; married; had a daughter of her own; died; and I was alone again. Suddenly I perceived that I had passed middle age. I was no longer able-bodied; and I began to realize that when the body begins to fail, it is the brain that must carry on. And I had no brain—nothing but a few instincts and rules of life. They were wholesome instincts and healthy rules of life; but as a means of livelihood they were valueless. I began to slip down. I supported myself by odd and menial tasks: I cleaned knives and boots: I sold newspapers which I could not read: I spent long hours as a night watchman, occupying my mind by repeating to myself passages from my little girl's schoolbooks.
"Then came a hard winter: work was scarce enough for skilled labourers, let alone unskilled. As for the illiterate, there was no market for them at all. I tramped from London to try my fortune elsewhere; and came to Broxborough. I was destitute: I sang in the streets for bread—songs I had learnt by listening in public houses or at popular entertainments in my younger days. And there the late Archdeacon found me. I was a stranger, and he took me in." He was silent again.
"He was very good to you?" I said presently.
"He was an angel from Heaven, sir!"
"But didn't he teach you to read?"
The old man looked up at me piteously.