d
not know; and a little bored by these memories, he suddenly became
absorbed in the little bleat of a blackcap perched on a bush, the only
one amid a bed of flags and rushes; 'an alder-bush,' he said. 'His mate
is sitting on her eggs, and there are some wood-gatherers about; that's
what's worrying the little fellow.' The bird continued to utter its
troubled bleat, and the priest walked on, thinking how different was its
evensong. He meditated an excursion to hear it, and then, without his
being aware of any transition, his thoughts returned to his sister Mary,
and to the time when he had once indulged in hopes that the mills along
the river-side might be rebuilt and Tinnick restored to its former
commercial prosperity. He was not certain if he had ever really believed
that he might set these mills going, or if he had, he encouraged an
illusion, knowing it to be one. He was only certain of this, that when
he was a boy and saw no life ahead of him except that of a Tinnick
shopman, he used to feel that if he remained at home he must have the
excitement of adventure. The beautiful river, with its lime-trees,
appealed to his imagination; the rebuilding of the mills and the
reorganization of trade, if he succeeded in reorganizing trade, would
mean spending his mornings on the wharves by the river-side, and in
those days his one desire was to escape from the shop. He looked upon
the shop as a prison. In those days he liked dreaming, and it was
pleasant to dream of giving back to Tinnick its trade of former days;
but when his mother asked him what steps he intended to take to get the
necessary capital, he lost his temper with her. He must have known that
he could never make enough money in the shop to set the mills working!
He must have known that he would never take his father's place at the
desk by the dusty window! But if he shrank from an avowal it was because
he had no other proposal to make. His mother understood him, though the
others didn't, and seeing his inability to say what kind of work he
would put his hand to, she had spoken of Annie McGrath. She didn't say
he should marry Annie--she was a clever woman in her way--she merely
said that Annie's relations in America could afford to supply sufficient
capital to start one of the mills. But he never wanted to marry Annie,
and couldn't do else but snap when the subject was mentioned, and many's
the time he told his mother that if the mills were to pay it would be
necessa