I neither read nor wrote that evening. I forgot to go out for a walk at sunset. I sat and pondered until it was time for bed, and then I pondered myself to sleep. No vision came to me, and I had no relevant dreams.
The next morning at seven o’clock I saw Mrs. Stott come over the Common to fetch her milk from the farm. I waited until her business was done, and then I went out and walked back with her.
“I want to understand about your son,” I said by way of making an opening.
She looked at me quickly. “You know, ’e ’ardly ever speaks to me, sir,” she said.
I was staggered for a moment. “But you understand him?” I said.
“In some ways, sir,” was her answer.
I recognised the direction of the limitation. “Ah! we none of us understand him in all ways,” I said, with a touch of patronage.
“No, sir,” replied Ellen Mary. She evidently agreed to that statement without qualification.
“But what is he going to do?” I asked. “When he grows up, I mean?”
“I can’t say, sir. We must leave that to ’im.”