made it longer,
for he was insatiable of details; and it had struck midnight on the old
eight-day clock in the corner before I had made an end.

"And now," said he, "turn about: I must tell you my side, much as I hate
it. Mine is a beastly story. You'll wonder how I can sleep. I've told it
once before, Mr. Dodd."

"To Lady Ann?" I asked.

"As you suppose," he answered; "and, to say the truth, I had sworn never
to tell it again. Only, you seem somehow entitled to the thing; you have
paid dear enough, God knows; and God knows I hope you may like it, now
you've got it!"

With that he began his yarn. A new day had dawned, the cocks crew in the
village and the early woodmen were afoot, when he concluded.

CHAPTER XXII

THE REMITTANCE MAN

Singleton Carthew, the father of Norris, was heavily built and feebly
vitalised, sensitive as a musician, dull as a sheep, and conscientious
as a dog. He took his position with seriousness, even with pomp; the
long rooms, the silent servants, seemed in his eyes like the observances
of some religion of which he was the mortal god. He had the stupid man's
intolerance of stupidity in others; the vain man's exquisite alarm lest
it should be detected in himself. And on both sides Norris irritated and
offended him. He thought his son a fool, and he suspected that his son
returned the compliment with interest. The history of their relation was
simple; they met seldom, they quarrelled often. To his mother, a fiery,
pungent, practical woman, already disappointed in her husband and her
elder son, Norris was only a fresh disappointment.

Yet the lad's faults were no great matter; he was diffident, placable,
passive, unambitious, unenterprising; life did not much attract him; he
watched it like a curious and dull exhibition, not much amused, and not
tempted in the least to take a part. He beheld his father ponderously
grinding sand, his mother fierily breaking butterflies, his brother
labouring at the pleasures of the Hawbuck with the ardour of a soldier
in a doubtful battle; and the vital sceptic looked on wondering. They
were careful and troubled about many things; for him there seemed not
even one thing needful. He was born disenchanted, the world's promises
awoke no echo in his bosom, the world's activities and the world's
distinctions seemed to him equally without a base in fact. He liked the
open air; he liked comradeship, it mattered not with whom, his comrades
were only a rem