and dirt. Was John Halifax
living there too?

My father's tan-yard was in an alley a little further on. Already I
perceived the familiar odour; sometimes a not unpleasant barky smell;
at other times borne in horrible wafts, as if from a lately forsaken
battle-field. I wondered how anybody could endure it--yet some did;
and among the workmen, as we entered, I looked round for the lad I knew.

He was sitting in a corner in one of the sheds, helping two or three
women to split bark, very busy at work; yet he found time to stop now
and then, and administered a wisp of sweet hay to the old blind mare,
as she went slowly round and round, turning the bark mill. Nobody
seemed to notice him, and he did not speak to anybody.

As we passed John did not even see us. I asked my father, in a
whisper, how he liked the boy.

"What boy?--eh, him?--Oh, well enough--there's no harm in him that I
know of. Dost thee want him to wheel thee about the yard? Here, I
say, lad--bless me! I've forgot thy name."

John Halifax started up at the sharp tone of command; but when he saw
me he smiled. My father walked on to some pits where he told me he was
trying an important experiment, how a hide might be tanned completely
in five months instead of eight. I stayed behind.

"John, I want you."

John shook himself free of the bark-heap, and came rather hesitatingly
at first.

"Anything I can do for you, sir?"

"Don't call me 'sir'; if I say 'John,' why don't you say 'Phineas'?"

And I held out my hand--his was all grimed with bark-dust.

"Are you not ashamed to shake hands with me?"

"Nonsense, John."

So we settled that point entirely. And though he never failed to
maintain externally a certain gentle respectfulness of demeanour
towards me, yet it was more the natural deference of the younger to the
elder, of the strong to the weak, than the duty paid by a serving-lad
to his master's son. And this was how I best liked it to be.

He guided me carefully among the tan-pits--those deep fosses of
abomination, with a slender network of pathways thrown between--until
we reached the lower end of the yard. It was bounded by the Avon only,
and by a great heap of refuse bark.

"This is not a bad place to rest in; if you liked to get out of the
carriage I'd make you comfortable here in no time."

I was quite willing; so he ran off and fetched an old horserug, which
he laid upon the soft, dry mass. Then he helped me thither, and