The only alleviation to the bareness of the walls was several photographic groups of football-players, over which velvet caps decorated with tassels were suspended.
“See that group in the middle?” said Northcote. “Look at it well. That is the finest pack that ever turned out for England. We walloped Wales twenty-nine points to three. Pushed ’em all over the shop. Notice that little chap sitting between my legs. He was a half if you like. Cunning as a trout and quicker than a hare.”
“I think, my dear boy, this is perfectly uninteresting,” said his mother, fixing her spectacles and examining the photograph sternly. “This is a stupid pursuit, not only a waste of time, but also a waste of money. It has been the ruin of many young men. One of these days it might even prove to be the ruin of England.”
“All work and no play, my dear,” said her son, “makes Jack a dull boy, you know. Personally I would suggest that a game like football is a rare training for the character.”
“I think football is a fine and manly game, Henry,” said the girl, with a little air of defiance. “I shall never forget seeing you come home with your twisted knee.”
“The doctor’s bill was thirty pounds,” said Mrs. Northcote simply.
These words, spoken in a manner that was almost childlike, came upon Northcote with the force of a blow. He was perfectly accustomed to his mother’s voice and manner, that voice and manner which were so direct and so unqualified. But for the first time they had driven a deep flush of shame to his cheek. This dauntless unimaginative creature, who measured spoonfuls of tea, who counted pennies, whose staff of life was hard facts, what had she not performed at the call of her religion? What lions had she not removed from the path of this one ewe lamb of hers, in order that one day he should win his way to the kingdom she had designed for him? Night and day, year after year, had she labored with this object in view. He was her only son, and material greatness was to be his destiny. He recalled the unflinching figure of this woman tramping over the moors in the depth of winter, through rain and wind, through frost and snow, to earn a pittance by her tutelage; he recalled the resolution with which she performed the meanest household duties in order that money might be saved; he recalled her sitting beneath the insufficient light of a lamp through the midnight hours, transcribing, for the sake of a few miserable sovereigns, foreign masterpieces out of their native French, German, and Italian into trite, colorless, and rather wearisome English prose. All in an instant Northcote seemed to be fascinated, overcome, by the sudden revelation of the pathetic beauty of the commonplace.
“I won’t have you think I have become idle and extravagant,” he said, rising from the table and placing both his hands on her shoulders. “You see I have had to fight my battle, and a long, a stern, a lonely one it has been. What was I in the midst of six millions of fighters, most of them as sturdy, as fierce, and, in many cases, far better equipped than I was myself? But I must tell you, my dear, I believe I have conquered at last. I think I have got the turn of the tide. If health and strength remain to me, and never in my life have I been physically more robust than I am at present, I am about to make an income at the bar which, to frugal people like you and me, mammy, will seem fabulous wealth. For I ought to tell you I won my first big case the day before yesterday, and I think I am entitled to say I made an impression.”
“I know that you saved that poor woman, my dearest boy,” said his mother, with a tenderness that was almost grim.
“Tell me, by what means did you learn that?”