Lifes Little Ironies | Page 8

abandoned under his
repugnance; again attempted; and thus the gentle creature reasoned and
pleaded till four or five long years had passed. Then the faithful Sam
revived his suit with some peremptoriness. Sophy's son, now an
undergraduate, was down from Oxford one Easter, when she again
opened the subject. As soon as he was ordained, she argued, he would
have a home of his own, wherein she, with her bad grammar and her
ignorance, would be an encumbrance to him. Better obliterate her as
much as possible.
He showed a more manly anger now, but would not agree. She on her
side was more persistent, and he had doubts whether she could be
trusted in his absence. But by indignation and contempt for her taste he
completely maintained his ascendency; and finally taking her before a
little cross and altar that he had erected in his bedroom for his private
devotions, there bade her kneel, and swear that she would not wed
Samuel Hobson without his consent. 'I owe this to my father!' he said.

The poor woman swore, thinking he would soften as soon as he was
ordained and in full swing of clerical work. But he did not. His
education had by this time sufficiently ousted his humanity to keep him
quite firm; though his mother might have led an idyllic life with her
faithful fruiterer and greengrocer, and nobody have been anything the
worse in the world.
Her lameness became more confirmed as time went on, and she seldom
or never left the house in the long southern thoroughfare, where she
seemed to be pining her heart away. 'Why mayn't I say to Sam that I'll
marry him? Why mayn't I?' she would murmur plaintively to herself
when nobody was near.
Some four years after this date a middle-aged man was standing at the
door of the largest fruiterer's shop in Aldbrickham. He was the
proprietor, but to-day, instead of his usual business attire, he wore a
neat suit of black; and his window was partly shuttered. From the
railway-station a funeral procession was seen approaching: it passed his
door and went out of the town towards the village of Gaymead. The
man, whose eyes were wet, held his hat in his hand as the vehicles
moved by; while from the mourning coach a young smooth-shaven
priest in a high waistcoat looked black as a cloud at the shop keeper
standing there.
December 1891.

FOR CONSCIENCE' SAKE
CHAPTER I
Whether the utilitarian or the intuitive theory of the moral sense be
upheld, it is beyond question that there are a few subtle-souled persons
with whom the absolute gratuitousness of an act of reparation is an
inducement to perform it; while exhortation as to its necessity would
breed excuses for leaving it undone. The case of Mr. Millborne and
Mrs. Frankland particularly illustrated this, and perhaps something

more.
There were few figures better known to the local crossing-sweeper than
Mr. Millborne's, in his daily comings and goings along a familiar and
quiet London street, where he lived inside the door marked eleven,
though not as householder. In age he was fifty at least, and his habits
were as regular as those of a person can be who has no occupation but
the study of how to keep himself employed. He turned almost always to
the right on getting to the end of his street, then he went onward down
Bond Street to his club, whence he returned by precisely the same
course about six o'clock, on foot; or, if he went to dine, later on in a cab.
He was known to be a man of some means, though apparently not
wealthy. Being a bachelor he seemed to prefer his present mode of
living as a lodger in Mrs. Towney's best rooms, with the use of
furniture which he had bought ten times over in rent during his tenancy,
to having a house of his own.
None among his acquaintance tried to know him well, for his manner
and moods did not excite curiosity or deep friendship. He was not a
man who seemed to have anything on his mind, anything to conceal,
anything to impart. From his casual remarks it was generally
understood that he was country-born, a native of some place in Wessex;
that he had come to London as a young man in a banking-house, and
had risen to a post of responsibility; when, by the death of his father,
who had been fortunate in his investments, the son succeeded to an
income which led him to retire from a business life somewhat early.
One evening, when he had been unwell for several days, Doctor Bindon
came in, after dinner, from the adjoining medical quarter, and smoked
with him over the fire. The patient's ailment was