The Judge did not find out. He never entered the kitchen, and the young pigeon grew and thrived, but not behind the stove on the plate-warmer, for Titus, finding that her little body was almost like a furnace itself, appropriated a corner of one of the big kitchen tables for her basket.
Young Titus and old Higby fed her several times a day. One had to hold her, while the other pushed the food down her throat, and cross enough the old servant man was when Titus would call out, “T-t-the goose hangs high.”
Titus did not dare to say, “It is feeding time for the pigeon, Higby,” for the Judge might have heard, and Titus feared that he would be exceedingly annoyed if he found out that a bird was being kept in his house.
It was really curious that such a dislike for the lower creation should have been imputed to a really benevolent and kind-hearted man like Judge Sancroft. True, he did not care particularly for animals. He had been brought up in a city, and he had never had any animals about him but horses and cows. He was not actively fond of them, but he always saw that they were well cared for. None of his children had been fond of animals. Certainly he was not the kind of man to have said, “No,” if any of his young sons or daughters had come to him years ago and said, “Father, I want a dog or a cat.”
However, his own children were all dead, and the opinion had strengthened with years that the Judge did not care for dumb creatures. Titus did not know that his grandfather would have listened with dismay to anyone who said to him, “Sir, you have a young grandson under your roof who is pining for pets such as other boys have, and he is afraid to ask you for them.”
The Judge was unmistakably a very good man. His white head, large, handsome face, and portly frame bore the marks of good temper, sound judgment, and eminent respectability. It was rather a wonder that he had not made himself known as a philanthropist. However, he had in early life been devoted to his profession, then he had had much trouble and bereavement, and had traveled extensively, and then his health had partly broken down, and he had resigned his judgeship, given up most of the active duties of life, and settled down to a sedentary old age.
But old age did not come. Renewed health did come, and at the time when our story opens the somewhat bewildered Judge found himself in the position of a man who sees the map of his life turned upside down in his hands.
He really had not enough to do. He had made enough money to live on, really more than enough, but he began to think seriously of opening that long-closed law office. He was only restrained by a question of dignity. He had been so long on the bench that he would hate to come down to office work again—and yet he could not rust out. He sighed sometimes as he thought of his future—sighed, not knowing what responsibilities Providence was preparing for him. Probably if he could have foreseen he would have sighed more heavily. However, the responsibilities brought also their alleviations with them.
Young Titus was not at all like his grandfather in appearance. The Judge was a large, rotund, handsome man, always carefully, even exquisitely, dressed. Titus was slim and dark, loose-jointed and always awry. His collar was shady, his clothes tumbled. He was not in one single outward respect like the dignified white-haired man who sat opposite him at the table. But there was the mysterious tie of blood between them. Apparently the elderly man and the boy were not at all alike, but there were points of resemblance. They both felt them, and in their way were devoted to each other.
The Judge was a much-afflicted man. Wife, sons, daughters, all were gone, but this one lad, and he often looked at him wistfully. If anything should happen to this sole grandchild the good old name of Sancroft would die out.