His grandmother had no stories, but when he was a little older she told him about his ancestors, who had done a good deal of fighting at one time or another throughout the centuries, which gave him plenty of material. He knew that she got her information from books in the library, and he was encouraged to persevere with his letters so that he would be able to read those books for himself. He gained from her the impression that his family was above other families, and that in some way which he didn’t quite understand, seeing that he was subject to her, and to his mother, and even to Eliza, its superiority was also his in a special measure. He must never do anything that would lessen it. He must not be too familiar with servants, and especially with grooms in the stable. He would hang his head at this, for it was the weak point in his behaviour. He was apt to be beguiled by the society of grooms in the stable, to the extent even of using expressions unallowable in the society of his equals. But though he was to bear himself high, he was to deal kindly with those at the same time beneath him and around him; and he was to look upon Royd all his life as the place to which he belonged. He would go away from it sometimes when he was older, but he must never be away for long, and never get to like being away. This was what young men did sometimes, and it was not good for them. It was not right. Such exordiums as these, varied in manner but never in principle, continued throughout his childhood, and had a strong effect upon him. A child has a natural preoccupation with the question of right and wrong and it fitted in with all that Harry had learnt for himself that it was right for him to be at Royd and would be wrong for him to be away. He could not imagine any other place that would suit him better, or indeed nearly so well. His mother would sometimes talk to him, when he grew older, of the lights and the movement and the heartening crowds of London. She would do it half furtively, and he understood, without being told, that he must keep the fact of her doing so at all from his grandmother. But he had no wish to talk about it. The picture did not please him. He gained the impression of London as a dirty noisy place, and Royd shone all the more brightly in comparison with it. His mother never mentioned the theatre.