in
the grass.

There was the house with the black beams checkering its yellow walls.
There was the old bench by the door, and the lettuce in the garden-bed.
There were the beehives, and the bees humming among the orchard boughs.

"Why, father, what!" cried Nick, "dost na know me yet? See, 'tis I,
Nick, thy son."

A strange look came into the tanner's face. "I do na know thee, boy," he
answered heavily; "thou canst na enter here."

"But, father, indeed 'tis I!"

Simon Attwood looked across the town; yet he did not see the town:
across the town into the sky, yet he did not see the sky, nor the
drifting banks of cloud, nor the sunlight shining on the clouds. "I say
I do na know thee," he replied; "be off to the place whence ye
ha' come."

Nick's hand was almost on the latch. He stopped. He looked up into his
father's face. "Why, father, I've come home!" he gasped.

The gate shook in the tanner's grip. "Have I na telled thee twice I do
na know thee, boy? No house o' mine shall e'er be home for thee. Thou
hast no part nor parcel here. Get thee out o' my sight."

"Oh, father, father, what do ye mean?" cried Nick, his lips scarcely
able to shape the words.

"Do na ye 'father' me no more," said Simon Attwood, bitterly; "I be na
father to stage-playing, vagabond rogues. And be gone, I say. Dost hear?
Must I e'en thrust thee forth?" He raised his hand as if to strike.

Nick fell away from the latchet-gate, dumb-stricken with amazement,
shame, and grief.

"Oh, Nick," cried Cicely, "come away--the wicked, wicked man!"

"It is my father, Cicely."

She stared at him. "And thou dost hate _my_ father so? Oh, Nick! oh,
Nick!"

"Will ye be gone?" called Simon Attwood, half-way opening the gate;
"must I set constables on thee?"

Nick did not move. A numbness had crept over him like palsy. Cicely
caught him by the hand. "Come, let us go back to my father," she said.
"He will not turn us out."

Scarcely knowing what he did, he followed her, stumbling in the level
path as though he were half blind or had been beaten upon the head. He
did not cry. This was past all crying. He let himself be led along--it
made no matter where.

In Chapel lane there was a crowd along the Great House wall; and on the
wall Ned Cooke and Martin Addenbroke were sitting. There were heads of
people moving on the porch and in the court, and the yard was all
a-bustle and to-do. But there was nobody in the street, and no one
looked at Nick and C