watching till the tall figure passed
out of sight, then limped slowly down the path and entered his
son's cottage. Tom Gaunt, not long in from work, was sitting in his
shirtsleeves, reading the paper--a short, thick-set man with small eyes,
round, ruddy cheeks, and humorous lips indifferently concealed by a
ragged moustache. Even in repose there was about him something talkative
and disputatious. He was clearly the kind of man whose eyes and wit
would sparkle above a pewter pot. A good workman, he averaged out an
income of perhaps eighteen shillings a week, counting the two shillings'
worth of vegetables that he grew. His erring daughter washed for two old
ladies in a bungalow, so that with old Gaunt's five shillings from the
parish, the total resources of this family of five, including two small
boys at school, was seven and twenty shillings a week. Quite a sum! His
comparative wealth no doubt contributed to the reputation of Tom Gaunt,
well known as local wag and disturber of political meetings. His method
with these gatherings, whether Liberal or Tory, had a certain masterly
simplicity. By interjecting questions that could not be understood, and
commenting on the answers received, he insured perpetual laughter, with
the most salutary effects on the over-consideration of any political
question, together with a tendency to make his neighbors say: "Ah! Tom
Gaunt, he's a proper caution, he is!" An encomium dear to his ears. What
he seriously thought about anything in this world, no one knew; but some
suspected him of voting Liberal, because he disturbed their meetings
most. His loyalty to his daughter was not credited to affection. It was
like Tom Gaunt to stick his toes in and kick--the Quality, for choice.
To look at him and old Gaunt, one would not have thought they could be
son and father, a relationship indeed ever dubious. As for his wife,
she had been dead twelve years. Some said he had joked her out of life,
others that she had gone into consumption. He was a reader--perhaps the
only one in all the village, and could whistle like a blackbird. To
work hard, but without too great method, to drink hard, but with perfect
method, and to talk nineteen to the dozen anywhere except at home--was
his mode of life. In a word, he was a 'character.'

Old Gaunt sat down in a wooden rocking-chair, and spoke.

"Sir Gerald 'e've a-just passed."

"Sir Gerald 'e can goo to hell. They'll know un there, by 'is little
ears."

"'E