He put on his hat, bowed again, and went on his way.
He passed slowly along in the spring sunshine, his feet crunching upon the gravel, his straight shadow falling upon the white level between coarse fringes of wire-grass. Far up the town, at the street's sudden end, where it was lost in diverging roads, there was visible, as through a film of bluish smoke, the verdigris-green foliage of King's College. Nearer at hand the solemn cruciform of the old church was steeped in shade, the high bell-tower dropping a veil of English ivy as it rose against the sky. Through the rusty iron gate of the graveyard the marble slabs glimmered beneath submerging grasses, long, pale, tremulous like reeds.
The grass-grown walk beside the low brick wall of the churchyard led on to the judge's own garden, a square enclosure, laid out in straight vegetable rows, marked off by variegated borders of flowering plants—heartsease, foxglove, and the red-lidded eyes of scarlet poppies. Beyond the feathery green of the asparagus bed there was a bush of flowering syringa, another at the beginning of the grass-trimmed walk, and yet another brushing the large white pillars of the square front porch—their slender sprays blown from sun to shade like fluttering streamers of cream-coloured ribbons. On the other side there were lilacs, stately and leafy and bare of bloom, save for a few ashen-hued bunches lingering late amid the heavy foliage. At the foot of the garden the wall was hidden in raspberry vines, weighty with ripening fruit.
The judge closed the gate after him and ascended the steps. It was not until he had crossed the wide hall and opened the door of his study that he heard the patter of bare feet, and turned to find that the boy had followed him.
For an instant he regarded the child blankly; then his hospitality asserted itself, and he waved him courteously into the room.
"Walk in, walk in, and take a seat. I am at your service."
He crossed to one of the tall windows, unfastening the heavy inside shutters, from which the white paint was fast peeling away. As they fell back a breeze filled the room, and the ivory faces of microphylla roses stared across the deep window-seat. The place was airy as a summer-house and odorous with the essence of roses distilled in the sunshine beyond. On the high plastered walls, above the book-shelves, rows of bygone Bassetts looked down on their departed possessions—stately and severe in the artificial severity of periwigs and starched ruffles. They looked down with immobile eyes and the placid monotony of past fashions, smiling always the same smile, staring always at the same spot of floor or furniture.
Below them the room was still hallowed by their touch. They asserted themselves in the quaint curves of the rosewood chairs, in the blue patterns upon the willow bowls, and in the choice lavender of the old Wedgwood. Their handiwork was visible in the laborious embroideries of the fire-screen near the empty grate, and the spinet in one unlighted corner still guarded their gay and amiable airs.
"Sit down," said the judge. "I am at your service."
He seated himself before his desk of hand-carved mahogany, pushing aside the papers that littered its baize-covered lid. In the half-gloom of the high-ceiled room his face assumed the look of a portrait in oils, and he seemed to have descended from his allotted square upon the plastered wall, to be but a boldly limned composite likeness of his race, awaiting the last touches and the gilded frame.
"What can I do for you?" he asked again, his tone preserving its unfailing courtesy. He had not made an uncivil remark since the close of the war—a line of conduct resulting less from what he felt to be due to others than from what he believed to be becoming in himself.
The boy shifted on his bare feet. In the old-timed setting of the furniture he was an alien—an anachronism—the intrusion of the hopelessly modern into the helplessly past. His hair made a rich spot in the colourless atmosphere, and it seemed to focus the incoming light from the unshuttered window, leaving the background in denser shadow.
The animation of his features jarred the serenity of the room. His profile showed gnome-like against the nodding heads of the microphylla roses.
"There ain't nothin' in peanut-raisin'," he said suddenly; "I—I'd ruther be a judge."
"My dear boy!" exclaimed the judge, and finished helplessly, "my dear boy—I—well—I—"
They were both silent. The regular droning of the old clock sounded distinctly in the stillness. The perfume of roses, mingling with the musty scent from the furniture, borrowed the quality of musk.
The child was breathing heavily. Suddenly he dug the dirty knuckles of one fist into his eyes.
"Don't cry," began the judge. "Please don't. Perhaps you would like to run out and play with my boy Tom?"
"I warn't cryin'," said the child. "It war a gnat."
His hand left his eyes and returned to his hat—a wide-brimmed harvest hat, with a shoestring tied tightly round the crown.
When the judge spoke again it was with seriousness.
"Nicholas—your name is Nicholas, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir."
"How old are you?"
"Twelve, sir."
"Can you read?"
"Yes, sir."
"Write?"
"Y-e-s, sir."
"Spell?"
The child hesitated. "I—I can spell—some."
"Don't you know it is a serious thing to be a judge?"
"Yes, sir."
"You must be a lawyer first."
"Yes, sir."
"It is hard work."
"Yes, sir."
"And sometimes it's no better than farming for crows."
The boy shook his head. "It's cleaner work, sir."
The judge laughed.
"I'm afraid you are obstinate, Nicholas," he said, and added: "Now, what do you want me to do for you? I can't make you a judge. It took me fifty years to make myself one—a third-rate one at that—"
"I—I'd l-i-k-e to take a bo-b-o-o-k," stammered the boy.
"Dear me!" said the judge irritably, "dear me!"
He frowned, his gaze skimming his well-filled shelves. He regretted suddenly that he had spoken to the child at the court-house. He would never be guilty of such an indiscretion again. Of what could he have been thinking? A book! Why didn't he ask for food—money—his best piece of fluted Royal Worcester?
Then a loud, boyish laugh rang in from the garden, and his face softened suddenly. In the sun-scorched, honest-eyed little figure before him he saw his own boy—the single child of his young wife, who was lying beneath a marble slab in the churchyard. Her face, mild and Madonna-like, glimmered against the pallid rose leaves in the deep window-seat.
He turned hastily away.
"Yes, yes," he answered, "I will lend you one. Read the titles carefully. Don't let the books fall. Never lay them face downwards—and don't turn down the leaves!"
The boy advanced timidly to the shelves between the southern windows. He ran his hands slowly along the lettered backs, his lips moving as he spelled out the names.
"The F-e-d-e-r-a-l-i-s-t," "B-l-a-c-k-s-t-o-n-e-'s C-o-m-m-e-n-t-a-r-i-e-s," "R-e-v-i-s-e-d Sta-tu-tes of the U-ni-ted Sta-tes."
The judge drew up to his desk and looked over his letters. Then he took up his pen and wrote several replies in his fine, flowing handwriting. He had forgotten the boy, when he felt a touch upon his arm.
"What