isposal of capital bringing in
five hundred a year.

Montague's eldest son, Harold, was, at once, the pride and grief of the
Devitts, although custom had familiarised them with the calamity
attaching to his life.

He had been a comely, athletic lad, with a nature far removed from that
of the other Devitts; he had seemed to be in the nature of a reversion
to the type of gentleman, who, it was said, had imprudently married an
ancestress of Montague's first wife. Whether or not this were so, in
manner, mind, and appearance Harold was generations removed from his
parents and brother. He had been the delight of his father's eye, until
an accident had put an end to the high hopes which his father had
formed of his future. A canal ran through Melkbridge; some way from the
town this narrowed its course to run beneath a footbridge, locally
known as the "Gallows" bridge.

It was an achievement to jump this stretch of water; Harold Devitt was
renowned amongst the youth of the neighbourhood for the performance of
this feat. He constantly repeated the effort, but did it once too
often. One July morning, he miscalculated the distance and fell, to be
picked up some while after, insensible. He had injured his spine. After
many weeks of suspense suffered by his parents, these learned that
their dearly loved boy would live, although he would be a cripple for
life. Little by little, Harold recovered strength, till he was able to
get about Melkbridge on a self-propelled tricycle; any day since the
year of the accident his kindly, distinguished face might be seen in
the streets of the town, or the lanes of the adjacent country, where he
would pull up to chat with his many friends.

His affliction had been a terrible blow to Harold; when he had first
realised the permanent nature of his injuries, he had cursed his fate;
his impotent rage had been pitiful to behold. This travail occurred in
the first year of his affliction; later, he discovered, as so many
others have done in a like extremity, that time accustoms the mind to
anything: he was now resigned to his misfortune. His sufferings had
endowed him with a great tolerance and a vast instinct of sympathy for
all living things, qualities which are nearly always lacking in young
men of his present age, which was twenty-nine. The rest of the family
stood in some awe of Harold; realising his superiority of mind, they
feared to be judged at the bar of his opinion; also, he had some
hundred