“Mother,” said the young man, presently, “your friend the _locum tenens_ is off to-morrow.”
“Why are you so hard on him? He talked intelligently when here, I thought,” answered her son.
“I do not like his theology,” she replied, “nor his way of running about and flirting with this body and that body, nor his way of chattering while he buttons and unbuttons his gloves.”
“You forget he is a man of the great world, and has about him a manner that must seem strange to us.”
“Oh, he might do very well,” she answered, “for one of those Carton girls at the rectory.”
“That eldest girl is a good girl,” replied her son.
“She looks down on us all, and thinks herself intellectual,” she went on. “I remember when girls were content with their Catechism and their Bibles and a little practice at the piano, maybe, for an accomplishment. What does any one want more? It is all pride.”
“You used to like her as a child,” said the young man.
Sherman having finished his breakfast, took a book of travels in one hand and a trowel in the other and went out into the garden. Having looked under the parlour window for the first tulip shoots, he went down to the further end and began covering some sea-kale for forcing. He had not been long at work when the servant brought him a letter. There was a stone roller at one side of the grass plot. He sat down upon it, and taking the letter between his finger and thumb began looking at it with an air that said: “Well! I know what you mean.” He remained long thus without opening it, the book lying beside him on the roller.
The garden—the letter—the book! You have there the three symbols of his life. Every morning he worked in that garden among the sights and sounds of nature. Month by month he planted and hoed and dug there. In the middle he had set a hedge that divided the garden in two. Above the hedge were flowers; below it, vegetables. At the furthest end from the house, lapping broken masonry full of wallflowers, the river said, month after month to all upon its banks, “Hush!” He dined at two with perfect regularity, and in the afternoon went out to shoot or walk. At twilight he set night-lines. Later on he read. He had not many books—a Shakespeare, Mungo Park’s travels, a few two-shilling novels, “Percy’s Reliques,” and a volume on etiquette. He seldom varied his occupations. He had no profession. The town talked of it. They said: “He lives upon his mother,” and were very angry. They never let him see this, however, for it was generally understood he would be a dangerous fellow to rouse; but there was an uncle from whom Sherman had expectations who sometimes wrote remonstrating. Mrs. Sherman resented these letters, for she was afraid of her son going away to seek his fortune—perhaps even in America. Now this matter preyed somewhat on Sherman. For three years or so he had been trying to make his mind up and come to some decision. Sometimes when reading he would start and press his lips together and knit his brows for a moment.