THE LUCEYS I. Young Charlie Lucey came down the Main Street, dragging the ould pup behind him on a length of clothes line. The pup had some notion that he was well acquainted with the whole town, man and dog, and skated along at the end of the rope with his paws splayed out at either side while he tried to dig himself in. Even when Charlie picked him up and gave him a few wallops, he still scrambled up his shoulder, yelping defiance on every side. Outside his cousin Peter’s house Charlie remembered it was a half day and his Uncle Tom was sure to be at home. He put down the pup and whistled. The hall door opened and Peter’s mother came out. She was a tall, scraggy woman with thin hair plastered down at each side of her face, red-rimmed eyes and a queer pegged-up smile as if she was crying with her mouth and laughing with her cheek-bones. “Peter’ll be ready in a minute,” she said. “Come in and wait for him.” “Christ!” muttered Charlie to himself as he gathered up the pup and sat on a chair inside the hall door. There was a hall-stand as well, pictures and a carpet and a big red curtain at the foot of the stairs. “Wisha, isn’t that a queer old place you sit?” wailed his aunt with her God-help-us smile. “Can’t you go in and talk to your uncle?” Though that was the last thing in the world Charlie wanted to do, he gathered up the old pup again and tiptoed to the parlour door. Then he remembered his Uncle Tom’s notions about caps and overcoats, and not knowing but a pup might be regarded in the same light, he tied him to the leg of the hall-stand. He tiptoed in, so excited that he forgot to knock. His uncle was sitting under the window, reading. He was a small frail man, dressed in clerical black, with a long, pinched, yellow little face, tight lips, a narrow skull going bald up the brow, a little beard and a pair of tin specs. The front room was like the hall with a thick coloured carpet, a gilt mirror with cupids, an ornamental clock and a mahogany sideboard. A glass-fronted mahogany bookcase ran the full length of one wall with all sorts of books in sets: the History of Ireland, the History of the Popes, the Roman Empire, the Life of Johnson and the Cabinet of Literature. Charlie had time to study it all because his uncle didn’t notice him, or at least didn’t pretend to. “Hallo,” said Charlie at last. “Ah, how are you, Charliss?” his uncle exclaimed benevolently in his dry, crackling little voice as he closed the book and rose with outstretched hand. “All right,” said Charlie guardedly. “Take a seat, Charliss,” said his uncle, pointing to a big armchair. “Peter will be down in a minute.” “I won't,” said Charlie. “I'd be afraid of the ould pup.” “That expression, Charliss,” said his uncle, “sounds to me like a contradiction in terms, but, not being familiar with dogs, I presume it’s all right.” As he put back his book, Peter came in. He was a plump, red-faced lad with a shock of brown hair and an easy confident manner. “Where did you get the old beagle, Cha?” he asked in his deep voice. “I bought him,” said Charlie, scenting criticism. “For how much?” asked Peter. “How much do you think?” asked Charlie. “He’s not worth much anyway,” said Peter with a glance back at the pup. “He’s not what?” said Charlie indignantly. “That’s a damn fine pup, man. His mother was a setter.” “And how’s your father, Charliss?” asked Uncle Tom, holding the door open for them. “His ould belly is bad again,” said Charlie. “He'd be all right only the belly plays hell with him.” | “I’m sorry to hear it, Charliss,” said his uncle gravely. “And tell me,” he asked with his little head on one side, “what’s he saying about me now?” That was another dirty trick of his uncle’s, assuming that Charlie’s father was saying things about him, which, to give him his due, he generally was. But Charlie’s father was admitted to be the cleverest man in town, while everyone agreed his uncle was queer. “He’s saying if you’re not careful you'll end up in the poorhouse,” replied Charlie, who had some notion that if only his uncle knew what people thought of him he might reform. ‘ “Your father is right as usual, Charliss,” said Uncle Tom with his legs spread out and his hands behind his back. “There are two classes of people, Charliss—those who gravitate towards the poorhouse and those who gravitate towards the gaol. Do you know what ‘gravitate’ means?” “I do not,” said Charlie. “‘Gravitate,’ Charliss, means ‘tend’ or ‘incline.’ Do ou know what this is?” he asked, holding up a coin. “I do, of course,” said Charlie; “a tanner.” “I am not familiar with that expression, Charliss,” said his uncle tartly. “We'll call it a sixpence. Your eyes, I notice, gravitate towards the sixpence, and in the same way people gravitate either towards the gaol or the poorhouse. Only a small number of either party reach their destination, though—which is just as well for your father,” he added in a low impressive voice, swaying his whole body forwards and closing his lips tightly together. “Do you understand a word I’m saying, Charliss?” he asked with a smile tipping either side of his hard little mouth. “I do not,” said Charlie. “Good man,” said his uncle approvingly. “I like an honest manly spirit in anybody. Don’t forget your sixpence, Charliss.” They got out at last, but Charlie’s troubles weren’t over yet. On certain days it was next to impossible for his father to get back to the office. Half a dozen times at least he came to the hall door and stood leaning against the jamb with his hands in his pocket and his two legs crossed, looking up and down the street for someone to talk to or drink with. He was the County Council accountant and the most popular man in town. He knew everyone, saluted everyone and went to everyone’s funeral. He was there now, a stocky, powerfully-built man in an old grey tweed suit and brown cardigan with a tweed cap over his eyes. He had a plump, dark hairy face; long, dark quizzical eyes that tended to close up in slits; hair in his nose and in his ears, and high hairy cheek-bones like cabbage patches. “Hallo,” he drawled, looking them up and down while his cheek-bones crawled up his cheeks before his eyes and it was for all the world as though the cheek bones were looking at them under the cap. “Where are ye off to?” “Looking for rabbits,” said Charlie. “Rabbits?” echoed his father in surprise. “But isn’t that a queer way to bring the ferret?” “Jasus, that’s not the ferret,” shouted Charlie indignantly. “That’s the dog.” “The what?” his father said incredulously. “You don’t mean he’s a dog?” “He is,” Charlie said stoutly, “and a bloody good dog too.” “And who, ah, who trusted you with such a valuable animal?” his father asked severely. “He belongs to Peter,” said Charlie. “Is that so?” said his father. “’Pon my soul, Peter, I’m surprised at your father. I always thought he was a man of great taste. That’s not what you'd call a classical dog, is it?” “His mother was a setter,” said Charlie, on the verge of tears. “Ah, it must have been a made match,” said his father. “Well, Peter,” he went on jocosely, jingling the money and keys in his pockets, “the studies are going on well, I hear? Carrying all before you, as usual? I suppose you were at the plays in the Town Hall?” “I was,” Peter replied solemnly, feeling that some reflection on his father was implied. “My father likes me to see a lot of the drama.” “He does, to be sure,” said his uncle. “He was always a bit of an actor himself. Well, boys,” he went on briskly with a wave of his hairy paw, “men must work and women must weep. Bring us home a few rabbits for dinner. And be sure and look after the half-setter. A remarkable-looking dog!” 2. Charlie was going up the Courthouse steps when he saw Mackesy the detective pushing his bike round the corner. He stopped and hailed him. Charlie was like his father in that; he couldn’t bear to let a man go by without a greeting. “Hallo, Matt,” he said. “Is it myself or my father you’re coming for?” “I’ll let ye off today, Cha,” said Mackesy, making a sort of garden chair of the cross-bar of his bicycle “Though I wouldn’t mind having a few words with a certain namesake of yours.” “A what, Matt?” said Charlie, coming down the steps again on the scent of news. He was like his father in that too. He had a square, solemn, dark-skinned face with jet-black curly hair and a thick, red lower lip. He was a great man with greyhounds and girls and about as dependable with one as the other. “You don’t mean any of the Luceys is after forgetting himself?” “Didn’t you hear?” asked Mackesy suspiciously. “Not a word, Matt,” said Charlie earnestly. “About Peter?” added Mackesy, feeling for the pedal with his foot. “What about Peter ?” “Oh, he hopped it.” “You're joking, Matt?” said Charlie incredulously. “There’s a lot of his clients would be glad if I was, Cha,” said Mackesy. “I thought you’d be the first to know, seeing ye were such pals.” “We are, man, we are,” cried Charlie. “Sure, wasn’t I at the dogs with him——when was it? Last Thursday.” “And he didn’t say anything to you?” “No, he didn’t,” Charlie said thoughtfully, rubbing the handle-bar of the detective’s bicycle. “Though, now you mention it, he was lashing pound notes on that Cloonbullogue dog. I told him the Dalys could never train a dog.” “Begor, he must have been desperate,” said Mackesy. “Listen, Matt,” Charlie said briskly. “Give me twenty-four hours before you tell anyone else. I might be able to do something.” Charlie tore through the Cashier’s Office, as one of the clerks said, “like a unicorn.” His father was sitting at his desk with a pipe in his mouth and the cap over his eyes, signing paying orders. “You didn’t hear anything about Peter?” Charlie asked. “No,” his father said, putting down the fountain-pen. “What is it?” “Embezzlement,” said Charlie. “I’m just going up to the uncle’s to see what does he know.” His uncle had a drapery shop in the square, near the ’98 monument. It was an old-fashioned popular shop where a lot of country people still went though the prices were high, and Tom in his irascible, opinionated way would never bate them. He said haggling was degrading! There were three or four people there; Con the assistant was attending them, and Charlie, after a hasty glance at him, went on through the shop to a little dark fitting-room looking out on a backyard. His uncle was leaning on the window-sill with his head in his hands, but when he saw Charlie he straightened himself up with fictitious jauntiness. With his old black coat and wrinkled yellow face he had begun to look rather like an old rabbi. “Bad news travels fast, Charlie,” he said in his dry little voice, closing his lips so tightly that the wrinkles ran up his cheeks from the corners of his mouth. “It hasn’t travelled far beyond the barrack yet,” said Charlie shortly. “What the devil came over Peter, Uncle Tom?” “Charliss,” his uncle said solemnly, laying a long skinny hand lightly on Charlie’s sleeve and inclining his head to one side, “you know more about it now than I do.” “You don’t know how much it is?” Charlie asked keenly. “I do not, Charliss,” said his uncle bitterly. “I need hardly say Peter did not take me into his confidence.” “And what are you going to do?” “What can I do, Charliss?” asked his uncle, the lines of pain on his withered-up face belying the harsh little staccato voice that broke up every sentence into disjointed phrases as if it were an oration. “You saw yourself the way I reared that boy. You saw the education I gave him. I gave him the thing I was denied myself, Charliss. I gave him a decent profession. And now, after all my years, for the first time in my life I am ashamed to show my face in my own shop.” “Now, now, now, Uncle Tom,” Charlie said with his two hands in the air, “there’s no use talking like that. The harm is done. The question is, What can we do about it?” “Is it true, Charliss,” his uncle asked oratorically, clutching the lapels of his coat and sinking his head in his chest, “is it true that Peter took money that was entrusted to him?” “Well, if it comes to that, Uncle Tom,” said Charlie, “I do it every month. But I put it back.” “And is it true,” asked his uncle, paying no attention to him, “that he ran away from his punishment instead of standing his ground like a man?” “And what good would that do him?” asked Charlie reasonably. “I dare say you'll think I’m old-fashioned, Charliss,” his uncle said firmly, “but that wasn’t how I was reared, nor how my son was reared.” “And that’s where I think you were wrong, Uncle Tom,” said Charlie earnestly. “He made some little mistake, like we all make, but instead of coming to somebody to help him out, he started gambling. Where is he?” “I want to know nothing further about him, Charliss,” said Tom. “I believe he’s in the Air Force,” he added, as if the words were dragged out of him. “Under an assumed name. That’s what my son has fallen to, Charliss.” “Good, good, good,” said Charlie cheerfully. “Now, I think the best thing we can do is to go into Asragh and see Toolan of the Guards. Maybe if the two of us got at the books together, we might make some fist of them.” “Charliss,” his uncle said solemnly, pointing with his right arm at the door, “will you believe me when I tell you that if Peter came in that door at this very minute and begged me on his knees to assist him; I’d send for the police.” “And the police would send for me and have you locked up,” growled Charlie. “I’ll go down and talk to my old fellow. Anyway, he has a head on his shoulders.” When he went back to the office, his father was sitting at the desk with his hands joined and his pipe in his mouth, looking at the door. “Well?” he asked nervously. “Come on and we'll get out the old bus and run into Asragh,” said Charlie. “We’ll have a look at the books ourselves.” “And what the hell do you come to me for?” his father asked irritably, rising and kicking back his chair. “What business is it of mine? Can’t his own father do it?” “The man is out of his senses,” said Charlie flatly. “He’s waltzing around the shop, singing solos about his wasted life.” “Well,” his father said shortly, “he was always fond of the drama. Now he has plenty of it.” “He hasn’t a stim of sense,” said Charlie. “He has conceit enough,” said his father, striding up and down the office with his hands in his pockets. “He was always good at criticising other people. Even when you got in here he was talking about influence. Of course, he wouldn’t do a thing like that! His son had to be a lawyer or a solicitor. Now look at the result.” “We know all that,” said Charlie, “but this isn’t a time for raking up old scores.” “Who’s raking up old scores?” his father asked, turning on him angrily. “I’m only saying now what I always said. The boy was ruined.” “He'll be ruined with a vengeance now unless we do something,” said Charlie. “Are you coming to Asragh?” “I am not,” snapped his father. “Why not?” asked Charlie. “You know there isn’t much I can do unless one of ye gives me a hand.” “I don’t see why you should do anything at all,” shouted his father, glaring at him. “That’s right,” said Charlie. “They’ll hear you all over the bloody office.” “Nobody will hear me at all,” his father said reasonably. “I’m only speaking for your good. I’m at this business longer than you. A man that’s done out of his money is a mad dog. You try and settle up another man’s affairs, and you'll be the one to come in for the blame, not Peter at all.” “I know that,” Charlie said, seeing the force of his father’s argument; “but still and all we should do something for Peter.” “Well, his father is the proper person to do that.” “But his father won’t do it.” “In that case, there’s no call for you to meddle with it at all.” A couple of days later Ben Lucey was going to his dinner. As bad as it was to get him back, it was harder still to get him away. First, he had to light a fresh pipe, and while he did that he leaned against the window, recollecting all the things he should have done during the morning. “You were always a great man for telling other people what to do,” said Charlie as he pushed him out of the office. He hadn’t been gone for five minutes before Charlie heard him coming back. He looked up in astonishment. “What the blazes ails you?” he asked with no great warmth. His father closed the door of the office carefully behind him and spread his two hands on the desk, leaning across it. “Your uncle passed me just now in the Main Street,” he said in a low voice. “That so?” Charlie asked in surprise. “What did you do to him?” “I thought you might know that?” his father said, looking at him from under the peak of the cap with a troubled air. “Unless ’twas something you said about Peter,” said Charlie. “It might, it might,” his father said doubtfully. “You didn’t, ah, repeat anything I said to you?” “I’m not such a bloody fool,” said Charlie indignantly. “And indeed, I thought you had more sense. What did you say?” “Oh, nothing but what I said to you,” said his father, and he went to the window, leaned his elbows on the sill and tapped nervously on the frame. “I shouldn’t have said anything at all, of course, but I didn’t think ’twould go back.” “I’m surprised at old Tom,” said Charlie. “Usually, he cares little enough what anyone thinks of him.” But even Charlie, who had moments when he almost understood his uncle, had no notion of the hopes he had raised and which his more calculating father had dashed. It was a year later when Charlie went up to the shop again on another message, a harder one this time. The news was around the town already, for two men stopped him to enquire. When he went in the shop was empty; his uncle was standing with his back to the counter, looking up at the shelves with his spectacles down his nose. “Good morning, Charliss,” he said over his shoulder in his dry, cheerful voice. “And what’s the best news?” “Bad news, I’m afraid, Uncle Tom,” said Charlie, leaning across the counter towards him. “Is it something about Peter, Charliss?” his uncle asked in a low voice, with the deep wrinkles showing up his cheeks from the primmed-up corners of his mouth. “It is,” said Charlie, nodding dolefully. “Dead, I suppose?” his uncle asked in a businesslike tone. “I’m afraid so,” said Charlie. “May the Almighty God have mercy on his soul,” his uncle said in a clear firm voice, and paused for a moment before he went to the back of the shop to change his working coat. “You'd better close up the shop, Con,” he said from inside. “You'll find the crepe on the top shelf and the mourning cards in my desk.” Then he came out with his umbrella hanging over his arm, and Charlie and himself went off down the street. Charlie left him outside the door. He was going with his uncle to see about bringing home the body, so he had no chance of averting the scene that took place in the house. His father had arrived just after him and found Min in a state of collapse. He was the last man in the world to look after a woman, but he managed to get her a pillow, put her legs on a chair and covered her with a rug. She smelt of brandy. Then he strode up and down the darkened room with his cap over his eyes and his hands in his pockets. When his brother came in he started, took a step or two towards him and then paused uncertainly. “That’s terrible news, Tom,” he said with a baffled air. “Oh, God help us,” said Min with her hand to her forehead. “They said he disgraced us, but he didn’t disgrace us long.” “Wisht, woman, wisht,” said Ben in a shocked voice. He went up to his brother and raised his cap. “I’d sooner ’twas one of my own, Tom,” hé said excitedly. “As the Almighty God is listening to me this minute, I’d sooner it was. I’d still have a couple left, but he was all ye had. Aren’t you going to shake hands with me?” Tom looked at the hand and then at him and put his hands deliberately behind his back. “No, Ben,” he said waspishly, “I am not.” For a moment Ben gaped at him, not knowing what to say. He was a hot-tempered man. “I see,” he said bitterly, “I see.” “Oh, Tom,” cried Min with her crucified smile, “over your son’s dead body!” “That wasn’t the spirit I came in, Tom,” Ben said with an offended air. “Ben,” said his brother, taking a step towards him and squaring his frail little shoulders inside the black coat, “you disrespected my son while he was alive. Now that he’s dead I’d thank you to leave him alone.” “But, man alive,” said Ben in exasperation, “don’t we all say things we're sorry for? I admit I said things I shouldn’t have said. I was upset. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You were upset yourself and I dare say you said things you're sorry for.” “’Tis hardly alike, Ben,” said Tom in a rasping, opinionated tone. “I said them because I loved the boy. You said them because you hated him.” “I hated him?” Ben cried indignantly. “I did nothing of the kind.” “You said he changed his name because it wasn’t grand enough for him,” said Tom, clutching the lapels of his coat and stepping from one foot to the other. “Why did you say such a mean, cowardly thing about a boy in trouble?” “But, my goodness,” cried Ben, “what was it only a joke?” “You said you wouldn’t cross the road to help him,” said Tom. “And why, Ben?” Again he primmed up the corners of his mouth and sank his head in his chest. “I’ll tell you why. Because you were jealous of him.” “I was jealous of him?” Ben repeated incredulously. “You were jealous of him, Ben,” said Tom. “You were jealous because he had the upbringing and the education your own sons lacked. And I’m not saying that to disparage your sons. Far from it. But you begrudged my son his advantages.” “Never,” shouted Ben in a rage. “And I was harsh with him,” Tom said, taking another step forward while his waspish little voice grew harder. “I was harsh with him, and you were jealous of him, and he went to his grave without a hand to assist him. And now, Ben,” he said, “the least you can do is to spare us your commiserations.” “Oh, I'll spare them to you,” said Beni angrily. “I had no notion I'd get this reception or I wouldn’t have bothered.” “Oh, wisha, Ben, don’t mind him,” said Min. “Sure, you never begrudged my poor child anything. He’s not in his right mind.” “I hope not, Min,” said Ben, trying to keep down the temper that was rising in him. “I know he’s upset. Only for that he’d never say what he did say—or believe it.” “You can tell me that the day I take your hand again, Ben,” said Tom mockingly. “Oh, it’s nothing to me,” said Ben with a toss of his head. “Do as you like, Tom.” And he went out with his quick, hasty step and banged the door behind him. 4. He was the world’s worst patient. He was dying and didn’t know it, and wouldn’t go to hospital and broke his daughter’s heart. He was awake at six, knocking for his cup of tea; then he waited for the post, then for the paper. After that the day was a blank until nightfall when one or two old cronies dropped in to keep him company. There was nothing in the long low room, plastered with blue and green flowered wallpaper but a bedside table, a press, and three or four holy pictures, but Ben’s mind was on the world outside; on the newspaper and the office and the town. He couldn’t believe he was so bad; sometimes it was the doctor he blamed and sometimes the chemist didn’t give him the same bottle as before. He lay in bed with pencil and paper doing involved calculations about the amount of a pension that everyone except himself knew he wouldn’t live to draw. One night Charlie and his wife came to see him. Charlie was married by this time and had a family of his own. He sat on the side of the bed trying to make conversation, but he could see that something else was on his father’s mind. “You weren’t in at your uncle’s?” he asked at last. “I was,” said Charlie in surprise. “We just dropped in on the way up. Why?” “He wasn’t asking about me?” his father asked, looking at him out of the corner of his eye. “Oh, he was,” Charlie said with a shocked air. “Give him his due, he always does that.” “He didn’t say anything about coming to see me?” asked Ben. “No,” Charlie replied hesitatingly, “I can’t say he did.” “There’s blackness for you now,” his father said bitterly. It came as a surprise to Charlie. His father knew well that he still visited his uncle, but pride had always kept him from asking questions. “The rest of the town will come to see me and my own brother won’t come to see me.” “He’s a queer man,” Charlie admitted. “Tell me, Charlie, wouldn’t you have a word with him? He’s very attached to you.” “To tell you the God’s truth,” said Charlie, “I'd just as soon not.” “Yes,” said his father with disappointment, “I see that. I see it mightn’t do for you.” Charlie knew his father thought he was thinking about what his uncle would leave to him. He wasn’t, but he preferred his father to go on thinking it. “I’ll tell Paddy go down tonight,” he said. “Do,” said his father with renewed hopefulness, raising himself on his elbow in the bed. “And you might call Julie up to me as well,” he added. “Is it anything you want?” asked Charlie. “A drop of whiskey and a couple of glasses,” said his father with a wink. “I’d like to have something here when he comes. You'll have a sup yourself?” he added. “I won't,” said Charlie. “You will, you will,” said his father with a toss of his head. “Julie will bring it up.” When Charlie called in on his way home from dinner the next afternoon his two sisters were waiting for him in the hall, hysterical with excitement. His father was lying on his side with his back to the window. On the table were the bottle and glasses. His father turned his head slowly and saw who it was. “You're not feeling too good?” said Charlie, throwing himself over the end of the bed. “I’m not,” his father said, lifting the sheet off his face. “Paddy didn’t bring a reply to that message?” he asked. “Didn’t he?” said Charlie in a shocked tone. “Paddy was always a bad man to send on a message,” his father said despondently, turning himself painfully in the bed. “Tell me, Charlie,” he asked, “weren’t you there when I was talking about Peter?” “About Peter?” exclaimed Charlie. “You were, you were,” his father insisted. “’Twas you told me. You said you were going to Asragh to look at the books and I just told you that if anything went wrong you’d come in for the blame. Isn’t that all I said?” “Oh, I know what you mean now,” said Charlie. “You're right, of course.” “I might have passed some joke about it, but sure, I was always making jokes about Tom, and Tom was always making jokes about me. What harm was there in that?” “No harm in the world,” said Charlie. “Now, the way I look at that,” said his father, “somebody went making mischief between us. That’s what happened, but if you went to him and told him the truth, he’d believe you.” “I will, I will,” said Charlie. “I'll go down now.” Min opened the door to him, her red-rimmed eyes dirty with tears and a smell of brandy from her breath. “What way is he, Charlie?” she wailed as she let him in. “Bad enough, Aunt Min,” he said, wiping his boots on the mat and striding in the hall. “He won’t last the night, I’m afraid.” “I’m sorry to hear it, Charliss,” said his uncle, drawing him into the sitting-room by the hand. “I know that well, Uncle Tom,” said Charlie, resting the other hand on the old man’s shoulder. “You know what brought me?” he added in a whisper. “I do, Charliss,” said Tom, drawing himself up. They were neither of them men to beat about the bush. “You'll come and see the last of him?” Charlie said, looking at his uncle as if he was trying to hypnotise him. “Charliss,” Tom said with that queer tightening of the corners of his mouth, “I was never a man to hedge or procrastinate. I will not come.” “Talk to him, Charlie, do,’ cried Min, “because I’m sick of talking to him. We'll never be able to show our faces in the town again.” “I need hardly say, Charliss,” his uncle said tartly, “that my reasons have nothing to do with what the town may think.” “I know that,” said Charlie earnestly, still keeping his eyes fixed on the withered old face with the narrow-winged, almost transparent nose. “But I never interfered between ye. Whatever disagreements ye had, I never took my father’s part against you.” “I’m not forgetting that, Charliss,” his uncle said equably. “And you know,” said Charlie, laying his other hand on the old man’s shoulders, “you did this once before and regretted it. Are you going to make the same mistake with your brother that you made with your son?” “I’m not forgetting that either, Charliss,” Tom said harshly. “It isn’t today nor yesterday I thought of it, but many years ago.” “Your own brother,” said Charlie incredulously. “He’s lying there now, waiting for you. He waited for you all last night and you never came. He has the bottle of whiskey and the two glasses beside his bed. All he wants is for you to come and say you forgive him.” “I forgive him, Charliss,” his uncle said in a cold, excited voice, throwing off his nephew’s hands and stepping backwards from him towards the hearth. “I forgive him. I forgave him long ago for what he said about one that was very dear to me. But I swore that day, Charliss, that never, the longest day I lived would I take your father’s hand in friendship. And if God was to strike me down at this moment for my presumption, I’d say the same. You know me, Charliss,” he added, gripping the lapels of his coat. “I never broke my word yet, to God or man. I won’t do it now. ... Do you understand me, Charliss?” he asked. “I think I do, Uncle Tom,” Charlie said slowly. “Oh, how can you say that?” cried Min. “Even the wild beasts have more nature for their own.” “Some other time,” said Tom, ignoring her, “I'll ask you to forgive me.” “I know, Uncle Tom, I know,” said Charlie with a heart-broken look. But even then, he said after, he could bear no grudge against the old man. At the door he stopped. A queer feeling came over him. He remembered the day he had called with the pup, and he felt almost as though if he were to turn round he would see Peter standing behind him. But he was never much given to the supernatural. The real world was trouble enough for him, so he closed the door with a quick glance up and down the street and went home, praying that he might find the blinds drawn before him when he came.