Part 34 (2/2)

So they came up out of the south through s.h.i.+pston-on-Stour, in the main-traveled way, and with every mile Nick felt home growing nearer.

Streams sprang up in the meadow-lands, with sedgy islands, and lines of silvery willows bordering their banks. Flocks and herds cropped beneath tofts of ash and elm and beech. Snug homes peeped out of hazel copses by the road. The pa.s.sing carts had a familiar look, and at Alderminster Nick saw a man he thought he recognized.

Before he knew that he was there they topped Edge Hill.

There lay Stratford! as he had left it lying; not one stick or stack or stone but he could put his finger on and say, ”This place I know!” Green pastures, gra.s.sy levels, streams, groves, mills, the old grange and the manor-house, the road that forked in three, and the hills of Arden beyond it all. There was the tower of the guildhall chapel above the cl.u.s.tering, dun-thatched roofs among the green and blossom-white; to left the spire of Holy Trinity sprang up beside the s.h.i.+ning Avon. Bull Lane he made out dimly, and a red-tiled roof among the trees. ”There, Cicely,” he said, ”_there--there!_” and laughed a queer little shaky laugh next door to crying for joy.

Wat Raven was sweeping old Clopton bridge. ”Hullo, there, Wat! I be come home again!” Nick cried. Wat stared at him, but knew him not at all.

Around the corner, and down High street. Fynes Morrison burst in at the guildschool door. ”Nick Attwood's home!” he shouted; and his eyes were like two plates.

Then the last lane--and the smoke from his father's house!

The garden gate stood open, and there was some one working in the yard.

”It is my father, Cicely,” he laughed. ”Father!” he cried, and hurried in the lane.

Simon Attwood straightened up and looked across the fence. His arms were held a little out, and his hands hung down with bits of moist earth clinging to them. His brows were darker than a year before, and his hair was grown more gray; his back, too, stooped. ”Art thou a-calling me?”

he asked.

Nick laughed. ”Why, father, do ye na know me?” he cried out. ”'Tis I--'tis Nick--come home!”

Two steps the stern old tanner took--two steps to the latchet-gate. Not one word did he speak; but he set his hand to the latchet-gate and closed it in Nick's face.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

TURNED ADRIFT

Down the path and under the gate the rains had washed a shallow rut in the earth. Two pebbles, loosened by the closing of the gate, rolled down the rut and out upon the little spreading fan of sand that whitened in the gra.s.s.

There was the house with the black beams checkering its yellow walls.

There was the old bench by the door, and the lettuce in the garden-bed.

There were the beehives, and the bees humming among the orchard boughs.

”Why, father, what!” cried Nick, ”dost na know me yet? See, 'tis I, Nick, thy son.”

A strange look came into the tanner's face. ”I do na know thee, boy,” he answered heavily; ”thou canst na enter here.”

”But, father, indeed 'tis I!”

Simon Attwood looked across the town; yet he did not see the town: across the town into the sky, yet he did not see the sky, nor the drifting banks of cloud, nor the sunlight s.h.i.+ning on the clouds. ”I say I do na know thee,” he replied; ”be off to the place whence ye ha' come.”

Nick's hand was almost on the latch. He stopped. He looked up into his father's face. ”Why, father, I've come home!” he gasped.

The gate shook in the tanner's grip. ”Have I na telled thee twice I do na know thee, boy? No house o' mine shall e'er be home for thee. Thou hast no part nor parcel here. Get thee out o' my sight.”

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