know him, and would smile and crow when he cracked his fingers over
its cot.

Then the landlady thought of the dark days that followed, when bread was
scarce and the gossips would say:

"Serve you right. What for do you have an extra mouth to feed?--take the
brat to the foundling."

But her husband, God bless him, had always said:

"What's bite and sup for a child? Keep him, Martha; he'll be a comfort
to ye yet, old woman."

Mrs. Drayton wiped her eyes as she drove in the dark.

Then the bad times changed, and they left the town and took the inn at
Hendon, and then the worst times of all came on them, for as soon as
they were snug and comfortable the good man himself died. He lay dying a
week, and when the end came he cried for the child.

"Give me the boy," he said, and she lifted the child into his arms in
bed. Then he raised his thin white hand to stroke the wavy hair, but the
poor hand fell into the little one's face.

Mrs. Drayton shifted in her seat, and tried to drive away the memories
that trod on the heels of these recollections; but the roads were still
dark, and nothing but an empty sky was to be seen, and the memories
would not be driven away. She recalled the days when young Paul grew to
be a lusty lad--daring, reckless, the first in mischief, the deepest in
trouble. And there was no man's hand to check him, and people shook
their heads and whispered, "He'll come to a bad end; he has the
wickedness in his blood." Poor lad, it was not his fault if he had
turned out a little wild and wayward and rough, and cruel to his own
mother, as you might say, jostling her when he had a drop to drink, and
maybe striking her when he didn't know what he was doing, and never
turning his hand to honest work, but always dreaming of fortunes coming
some day, and betting and racing, and going here and there, and never
resting happy and content at home. It was not his fault: he had been led
astray by bad companions. And then she didn't mind a blow--not she.
Every woman had to bear the like of that. You want a world of patience
if you have men creatures about you--that's all.

Thinking of bad companions suggested to the landlady's mind, by some
strange twist of which she was never fully conscious, the idea of Hugh
Ritson. The gentleman who had come so strangely among them appeared to
have a curious influence over Paul. He seemed to know something of
Paul's mother. Paul himself rummaged matters up long ago, and found tha