Edwin was thankful that the excitements of motor traction had diverted her from the uncomfortable subject of his cousin’s profession. . . . if that were the right word to apply to the calling of a shoeing-smith; but the matter still troubled and bewildered him when they went upstairs to bed. It was one that would not wait for explanation, and so he tackled his father as soon as they were alone. “Father, what was that woman talking about? What did she mean when she said that Uncle Will was a gardener?” “What did she mean?” Mr. Ingleby laughed. “Why she meant what she said. He _is_ a gardener. He’s never been anything else.” “But, father . . . it’s impossible.” “It isn’t impossible, boy. It’s the truth. Didn’t you know? Didn’t mother ever tell you?” “No. . . . I don’t think she ever spoke of him. I . . . I can’t understand it.” “You sound as if it had come as a shock to you, Eddie.” “No . . . yes . . . I suppose it did.” “You didn’t imagine that you’d find your ancestry in Debrett, Eddie?” “No . . . but that’s different. It’s . . . it’s sort of bowled me over.” Mr. Ingleby laughed. It seemed that he was really amused at Edwin’s consternation. “I suppose it’s natural for a schoolboy to be a bit snobbish,” he said. “No . . . it isn’t that. Honestly it isn’t, father. Only I’d kind of taken us for granted. I wish you’d tell me all about it. You see, I know absolutely nothing.” “It’s a long story, Eddie. But of course I’ll tell you. Then you won’t have any more of these distressing surprises. Suppose you get into bed first.” It was a strange sight to Edwin to see his father kneel down in his Jaeger nightgown and pray. The boy had never done that since his second term at St. Luke’s. II Lying in bed with his father’s arm about him, Edwin listened to a long and strange narration that overwhelmed him with alternations of humiliation that made him ashamed, and of romance that thrilled him. Mr. Ingleby began at the beginning. Their family had lived, it appeared, for years without number, in the village of Highberrow on Mendip in a combe beneath the great camp of Silbury, and the calling of all these Inglebys had been that of the other inhabitants of Highberrow: they were miners, working for lead in the seams that the Romans, and perhaps the Phoenicians before them, had discovered in the mountain limestone. Even so early as in the youth of Edwin’s father the industry had been decaying, for the traditional methods of the Mendip miner were unscientific: he had been content to dig for himself a shallow working from which he collected enough of the mineral that is called calamine to keep him in pocket and in drink.