"I said, did you remember the currants?"
"A bar of soap, a packet of candles, three pounds of rice, and currants if they have them. No, dear, I forgot, but I shall do so shortly." He finds his seat again, wearily. "I was at the most important place in the chapter. Now I must find the threads again."
Silence falls. "I think from the look of the sky there's going to be another hot day to-morrow, dear."
"I have done so, I am doing so, and I am about to do so again," murmurs Mr. Smith, putting out a hand for Mathew on "Eaglehawk and Crow."
Farther yet along the road there stands a house of hessian roof and walls—of a moulting appearance, and yet faintly genteel as houses are considered out this way. It stands a little apart and a little up the hill as though it has not grown used to the vulgar neighbours of the hollow. Within are two rooms with floors of earth beaten flat; but the path, beginning at the doorway, is paved with red stones. There is a pen built of wooden palings at the back, where a goat despairs out loud all night, and near it the clothes-line sags from tree to tree waiting for the throat of the foolish. They hang the washing at the back of this house, lest Philistine eyes spy upon it.
Morning by morning, about nine o'clock, Mr. Horrington, general agent of Surprise, may be found on the red stone path in his shirt sleeves, blinking eyes in the sunlight. It would seem he finds the new day less depressing thus begun. An ungracious liver, a treacherous purse, an invalid wife and Surprise to look on through the year—these things are not pleasant to reflect on when a man has left fifty behind some years ago.
Every morning Mr. Horrington stands here blinking in the sunlight while the weakly tread of Mrs. Horrington in the kitchen jars unkindly on reflection. Every evening he stands here while the sun goes down, a little melancholy, it may be also a little muddled in thought. To hear once more the shuffling of Mrs. Horrington must surely not sooth a spirit on edge. If women can spin out work through a whole day, is it good taste insisting a man should know it?
He stands on the red steps when Mr. Neville and Mr. King go by at nine o'clock of the morning, blinking, very drooped at the moustache, hunting up a full pipe of tobacco from the corners of a pouch.
"Hey, Horrington, no business this morning?" and Mr. Horrington, waking, finds his hat and stick and joins the walkers at the road.
"You are along early to-day, Mr. Neville, and you too, Mr. King. I discover I have run a bit short of tobacco until I can find the time to get down to the store. How about a pipeful? Thanks, Mr. King. It is a pleasure to taste again the stuff you smoke. What they sell here comes hard on a trained palate."