When the boys returned to the shop, they were both set busily to work, and had no time for further conversation. But next day David found opportunity to say, "Sam is my cousin, and father says he hopes you will come and see him some day; he would like to hear about Westbrook."
Owen was getting rapidly initiated into business habits, and being a quick, intelligent boy, did not often want telling twice how to do a thing, so that his uncle regarded him with favour, and at times allowed him to help Clarice in the counting-house when she was extra busy. The boy missed the country life, the long walks, the skating, the thousand pleasures of unfettered rural life, and he sometimes wished he could have a holiday, though he never said so to his uncle, but stuck manfully to his work till late every night, and then threw himself on his bed, and went sound asleep.
Mr. Hadleigh seldom went to church; indeed, the whole family were generally too tired on a Sunday, after a week of incessant labour, to do anything but rest. In fine weather Clarice generally went for a walk in the afternoon, and her father sometimes accompanied her. But on winter evenings they sat round the fire, yawning and tired, wishing the hours would pass rapidly by, so that the shop could be opened again. Mr. Hadleigh really cared for nothing but business.
The first Sunday or two Owen was very miserable. Sundays had been such bright days in his old home. He had always gone to church with his father in the morning, and to a class he held for elder boys in the afternoon; and though he had not always taken heed to the lessons as he ought, he had at any rate enjoyed the time. And he looked back to the Westbrook Sundays as days of peaceful rest. The first Sunday after he had found out that David was a cousin of his old friend Sam, he ventured to ask his uncle if he might go and spend the afternoon with the Netherclifts. His uncle gave him leave, not caring what he did on Sundays, so long as he attended well to his work during the week.
Owen started off eagerly, and just round the corner saw David, who had come to meet him by agreement. They walked some little distance, till they reached a narrower street, with smaller houses—a dingy street Owen thought it. But David stopped at a house which looked brighter than the rest, having clean blinds and curtains to the windows, and a very white stone step at the door. Owen noticed this as he followed David in.
"This is Owen Hadleigh, father," he said, bringing him into the little sitting-room.
"I am very glad to see you," said Mr. Netherclift; "but I cannot rise to greet you. I am a constant prisoner with rheumatism."
And then Owen noticed that the man's hands, too, were twisted and swollen with the same painful disease. He hardly knew what to say. But Mr. Netherclift was anxious to set him at his ease, and bid David bring a chair forward, as he remarked—
"You have come from Westbrook, David tells me. I used to go there often, many years ago."
"Did you really?" asked Owen, eagerly, ready for a talk with one who knew his old home. "Did you know my father, too?"