Produced by Charles Franks, Robert Prince THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD AUTHOR OF 'ROBERT ELSMERE,' ETC. TO THE DEAR MEMORY OF MY MOTHER CONTENTS BOOK I CHILDHOOD BOOK II YOUTH BOOK III STORM AND STRESS BOOK IV MATURITY BOOK I CHILDHOOD CHAPTER I 'Tak your hat, Louie! Yo're allus leavin summat behind yer.' 'David, yo go for 't,' said the child addressed to a boy by her side, nodding her head insolently towards the speaker, a tall and bony woman, who stood on the steps the children had just descended, holding out a battered hat. 'Yo're a careless thing, Louie,' said the boy, but he went back and took the hat. 'Mak her tie it,' said the woman, showing an antiquated pair of strings. 'If she loses it she needna coom cryin for anudder. She'd lose her yead if it wor loose.' Then she turned and went back into the house. It was a smallish house of grey stone, three windows above, two and a door below. Dashes of white on the stone gave, as it were, eyebrows to the windows, and over the door there was a meagre trellised porch, up which grew some now leafless roses and honeysuckles. To the left of the door a scanty bit of garden was squeezed in between the hill, against which the house was set edgeways, and the rest of the flat space, occupied by the uneven farmyard, the cart-shed and stable, the cow-houses and duck-pond. This garden contained two shabby apple trees, as yet hardly touched by the spring; some currant and gooseberry bushes, already fairly green; and a clump or two of scattered daffodils and wallflowers. The hedge round it was broken through in various places, and it had a casual neglected air.