s showing the grim skeleton of
the shaft-work overhead in the night, and where men moved about below
in the indeterminate dark like dismal gnomes. There was a woman whose
cry, when Welsby died, was like a challenge.

Next morning, in Great Barr, some blinds were down, the street was
empty. Children, who could see no reason about them why their fathers
should not return as usual, were playing foot-ball by the tiny church.
A group of women were still gazing at the grotesque ribs and legs of
the pit-head staging as though it were a monster without ruth.

_November 1907._

VII. Initiation

As to what the Boy will become, that is still with his stars; and
though once we thought he was much impressed by the dignity of the man
controlling a road roller, for it seemed it would be well to be that
slow herald in front with a little red flag, he has shown but the
faintest regard for the offices of policeman, engine-driver, and
soldier. It is clear there is but one good thing left for his choice,
and so the house is littered with drawings of ships. There has been
some advance from that early affair of black angles which, without
explanation, might have stood for anything, but was meant for a cutter.
Now, in a manner which a careless visitor could think was the hauteur
of an artist who is too sure of himself to care what you think of his
work, but is really acute shyness, he will present you at short notice
with a sketch in colours of a topsail schooner beating off a lee shore,
if your variety of beard does not rouse his suspicion. As art, such
paintings have their faults; but as delineations of that sort of ship
they have technical exactitude not common even in the studios.

In fact, he has found an old manual of seamanship, and the
illustrations get more attention than some people give to Biblical
subjects. During vacant afternoons there is an uncanny calm in the
house, a silence which makes people think they have forgotten something
important; but it is only that the Boy is absent with the argonauts. He
is in tow of Argo, as it were, one of its heroes, surging astern in a
large easy-chair, viewing golden landfalls that are still under their
early spell in seas that ships have never sailed. There are no such
voyages in later life, none with quite that glamour, for we have tried
and know. Lucky Boy, sailing the greatest voyage of his life!
Occasionally, when a real ship is home again, and some one calls to see
if we s