that no sooner
had she, Mrs. Holman, taken her eyes off him than he might be anywhere,
either at the saucepans and pots, or in the water-bucket, or else at the
plummets on the bell. And he upset things, and got himself in a mess,
wherever he went; yesterday the cat's food lay all over the floor! So
now she had hung the birch-rod low down on the wall, so that it might be
before his eyes; for it was necessary to frighten him, and vigilance and
punishment must positively be used. And Barbara must know herself, that
it wasn't so easy to manage other people's children, and especially such
a stray creature, come into the world in such a manner!

It was all just, as Barbara was obliged to acknowledge to herself, from
beginning to end, however much it might sting her, and therefore she was
always in a hurry to get away again.

It cannot be denied that she learnt something from it too, namely, what
she, on her side, might have reason and right to say to Mrs. Veyergang
about all the toil she had had with her two, if they ever had a
difference.

But the same spirit of disobedience remained in the boy as he grew
older. It was impossible to cure him of it, for all that Mrs. Holman
could do, and Holman had to help too sometimes. This did not happen,
however, until his wife had duly impressed on him the moral necessity of
taking upon himself his share of the duties of the house.

Holman was a silent man with a pair of quiet, shining eyes. He went and
came, morning and evening, rubbed and dried his shoes, and stood
hesitating at the door with some tool or other, or the tail of a block
in his hand, before he went in. What he might think of his married life
there was little opportunity of seeing in his face. One thing was
certain--a wife like Mrs. Holman was a treasure, which could not be
sufficiently prized; and if there was not quite so much left of Holman,
if, in fact, he had become--with all reverence be it said--something of
a fool, yet every one was sensible that in that union it must be so, if
the balance was to be kept. Any one who had only seen or spoken to Mrs.
Holman once, understood it immediately, but what was not so easy to
understand was that, after all, it was Holman who made the blocks down
in the workshop, by which the household lived.

It was still more remarkable that he had sometimes been met in the
gateway in an irresponsible condition, such as no one would have
expected in a man so happily married as he was.