But now
he was fairly interested, and forgot all about chisels and bottled
beer; while with very little encouragement Arthur launched into his home
history, and the prayer-bell put them both out sadly when it rang to
call them to the hall.
From this time Arthur constantly spoke of his home, and above all, of
his father, who had been dead about a year, and whose memory Tom soon
got to love and reverence almost as much as his own son did.
Arthur's father had been the clergyman of a parish in the Midland
counties, which had risen into a large town during the war, and upon
which the hard years which followed had fallen with fearful weight. The
trade had been half ruined; and then came the old, sad story, of masters
reducing their establishments, men turned off and wandering about,
hungry and wan in body, and fierce in soul, from the thought of wives
and children starving at home, and the last sticks of furniture going to
the pawnshop; children taken from school, and lounging about the dirty
streets and courts, too listless almost to play, and squalid in rags
and misery; and then the fearful struggle between the employers and
men--lowerings of wages, strikes, and the long course of oft-repeated
crime, ending every now and then with a riot, a fire, and the county
yeomanry. There is no need here to dwell upon such tales: the Englishman
into whose soul they have not sunk deep is not worthy the name.
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