n, and as the smaller boys
showed no hurry he bawled out to them across the intervening
cinder-waste: "Run!" They ran. They were his younger brothers, Johnnie
and Jimmie. "Take this and hook it!" he commanded, passing the strap of
his satchel over his head as they came up. In fatalistic silence they
obeyed the smiling tyrant.

"What are you going to do?" Edwin asked.

"I'm coming down your way a bit."

"But I thought you said you were peckish."

"I shall eat three slices of beef instead of my usual brace," said the
Sunday carelessly.

Edwin was touched. And the Sunday was touched, because he knew he had
touched Edwin. After all, this was a solemn occasion. But neither
would overtly admit that its solemnity had affected him. Hence, first
one and then the other began to skim stones with vicious force over the
surface of the largest of the three ponds that gave interest to the
Manor Farm. When they had thus proved to themselves that the day
differed in no manner from any other breaking-up day, they went forward.

On their left were two pitheads whose double wheels revolved rapidly in
smooth silence, and the puffing engine-house and all the trucks and gear
of a large ironstone mine. On their right was the astonishing farm,
with barns and ricks and cornfields complete, seemingly quite unaware of
its forlorn oddness in that foul arena of manufacture. In front, on a
little hill in the vast valley, was spread out the Indian-red
architecture of Bursley--tall chimneys and rounded ovens, schools, the
new scarlet market, the grey tower of the old church, the high spire of
the evangelical church, the low spire of the church of genuflexions, and
the crimson chapels, and rows of little red houses with amber
chimney-pots, and the gold angel of the blackened Town Hall topping the
whole. The sedate reddish browns and reds of the composition, all
netted in flowing scarves of smoke, harmonised exquisitely with the
chill blues of the chequered sky. Beauty was achieved, and none saw it.

The boys descended without a word through the brick-strewn pastures,
where a horse or two cropped the short grass. At the railway bridge,
which carried a branch mineral line over the path, they exchanged a
brief volley of words with the working-lads who always played
pitch-and-toss there in the dinner-hour; and the Sunday added to the
collection of shawds and stones lodged on the under ledges of the low
iron girders. A strange boy, he