terested, and forgot all about chisels and bottled
beer; while with very little encouragement Arthur launched into his
home history, and the prayer-bell put them both out sadly when it rang
to call them to the hall.

From this time Arthur constantly spoke of his home, and, above all, of
his father, who had been dead about a year, and whose memory Tom soon
got to love and reverence almost as much as his own son did.

Arthur's father had been the clergyman of a parish in the Midland
Counties,[6] which had risen into a large town during the war,[7] and
upon which the hard years which followed had fallen with fearful
weight. The trade had been half ruined; and then came the old sad
story of masters reducing their establishments, men turned off, and
wandering about, hungry and wan in body, and fierce in soul, from the
thought of wives and children starving at home, and the last sticks of
furniture going to the pawnshop: children taken from school, and
lounging about the dirty streets and courts,[8] too listless almost to
play, and squalid in rags and misery. And then the fearful struggle
between the employers and men; lowerings of wages, strikes, and the
long course of oft-repeated crime, ending every now and then with a
riot, a fire, and the county yeomanry.[9] There is no need here to
dwell upon such tales; the Englishman into whose soul they have not
sunk deep is not worthy the name; you English boys for whom this book
is meant (God bless your bright faces and kind hearts!) will learn it
all soon enough.

[6] #Midland Counties#: the central counties.

[7] #The war#: probably the war against Napoleon.

[8] #Courts#: places; short streets closed at one end.

[9] #County yeomanry#: that is, with the calling out of the
militia of the county to quell the riots.

Into such a parish and state of society Arthur's father had been
thrown at the age of twenty-five, a young married parson, full of
faith, hope and love. He had battled with it like a man, and had
lots of fine Utopian[10] ideas about the perfectibility of mankind,
glorious humanity and such-like knocked out of his head: and a real
wholesome Christian love for the poor, struggling, sinning men, of
whom he felt himself one, and with and for whom he spent fortune, and
strength and life, driven into his heart. He had battled like a man,
and gotten a man's reward. No silver teapots or salvers,[11] with
flowery inscriptions, setting forth his virtu