“Not another minute to lose, and the sale again deferred! All the lots marked, and the handbills out, and the particulars and conditions ready; and then some paltry pettifogging, and another fortnight will be required to do ‘justice to my interests.’ Justice to my interests! How they do love round–mouthed rubbish! The only justice to me is, from a legal point of view, to string me up, and then quick–lime me; and the only justice to my interests is to rob my children, because I have robbed them already. Robbed them of their birth and name, their power to look men in the face, their chance of being allowed to do what God seems chiefly to want us for—to marry and have children, who may be worse than we are; though, thank Him, mine are not. Robbed them even of their chance to be met as Christians (though I have increased their right to it), in this wretched, money–seeking, servile, and contemptuous age. But who am I to find fault with any, after all my wasted life? A life which might, in its little way, have told upon the people round me, and moved, if not improved them. Which might, at least, have set them thinking, doubting, and believing. Oh the loss of energy, the loss of self–reliance, and the awful load of fear and anguish—I who might have been so different! Pearl is at the window there. I know quite well who loves her—an honest, upright, hearty man, with a true respect for women. But will he look at her when he knows——Oh God, my God, forsake me, but not my children!—Bob, what are you at with those cabbages?” “Why, they are clubbed, donʼt you see, father, beautifully clubbed already, and the leaves flag directly the sun shines. And I want to know whether it is the larva of a _curculio_, or _anthomyia brassicæ_; and I canʼt tell without pulling the plants up, and they canʼt come to any good, you know, with all this ambury in them.” “I know nothing of the sort, Bob. I know nothing at all about it. Go into the house to your sister. I canʼt bear the sight of you now.” Bob, without a single word, did as he was told. He knew that his father loved him, though he could not guess the depth of that love, being himself so different. And so he never took offence at his fatherʼs odd ways to him, but thought, “Better luck next time; the governor has got red spider this morning, and he wonʼt be right till dinner–time.” Bull Garnet smiled at his sonʼs obedience, with a mighty fount of pride in him; and then he sighed, because Bob was gone—and he never could have enough of him, for the little time remaining. He loved his son with a love surpassing that of woman, or that of man for woman. Men would call him a fool for it. But God knows how He has made us.