But the thanks were not so warm as Jack expected, and he could not understand what made Bryda seem so different from the eager, restless girl of the previous day, whose whole heart seemed then set on going to Bristol.

The supper was silent, and old Mr Palmer could not be persuaded to taste the little meat pie made expressly for him. He pushed the plate away, saying,--

'What business have I to be eating dainties like that, when I may not have a crust to gnaw before the year's out. Take it away, take it away--I don't want it.'

Jack took leave as soon as supper was over, and made his way with a heavy heart to his own home.

Then he found his mother in a very captious mood, upbraiding him for his long absence, and asking what he had been about all day.

'That's my concern, I suppose, in my holidays,' he replied.

'I shall be glad when your holidays are over, vastly glad. Your brother Jim is worth six of you after all. You don't know how to take advantage of the place in uncle's shop, which many would give their ears for.'

'Let Jim go to be a silversmith,' Jack said, 'and I'll come on the farm.'

'No. I know what's what, and the eldest shall have the first chance. For the sake of your widowed mother and six innocent little sisters you ought to be willing to do anything to raise you in the world.'

'Raise me! Pshaw! it's the other way,' Jack said. 'It's fine "raising,"

indeed, to be cooped up in a little workshop, peering into the works of old watches, with a glass in my eye and my back ready to break. However, I'm off again on Monday,' he said, altering his tone, for he remembered that if Bryda was in Dowry Square, within reach, even the little workshop and the pain in his back would be tolerable.

Mrs Henderson was seated by the wide lattice window, with her feet on a stool, dressed much more smartly than the farmers' wives in the neighbourhood. She was sprigging fine muslin for a cap, and she wore large rings on the finger of her left hand, as well as her wedding ring on the other.

The rings were of doubtful quality, like Falstaff's of old, but they were family heirlooms, and had been worn by her mother before her.

Mrs Henderson prided herself on her ancestry, her mother being the daughter of a draper and haberdasher in Bath. She was generally supposed to be a cut above her neighbours, and she left the farm to the serving-man she dignified with the name of bailiff, and her six little girls to tumble up as best they could. It was thought by Dorothy Burrow and others, ridiculous to try to make Jack into a Bristol tradesman and Jim the farmer. But Jim was no favourite with his mother. She set great store on appearances, and Jim had a squint and a wide mouth, a freckled face, with carroty hair, while Jack was in his mother's eyes, and in the eyes of other people also, a fine handsome fellow, with eyes of a deep blue, and chestnut hair curling lightly on his shapely head.

Mrs Henderson trusted to Jack to set the family up by becoming a partner at last in Mr Henderson's business, he being a bachelor, and with no son to succeed him.

'There's a great talk about these poor Palmers, Jack,' his mother said, dropping her work as the light failed. 'The old man is ruined. Money he borrowed of old Squire Bayfield has to be paid back. And it all came from that worthless son of his years agone having to leave the country to escape the gallows. Farmer Short was here to-day and was telling me all about it. A nice come down for these two girls, especially the eldest, who thinks herself a wit and a beauty. She'll have to go to service, if anybody will take such a useless piece of goods!'

'Good-night, mother,' was Jack's only reply. 'I'm tired, and off to roost--good-night.'

CHAPTER VI

THE SYMPATHY OF POVERTY.

It was one evening early in June, when the days were almost at their longest, that Mrs Chatterton sprang to the door of her modest little dwelling in Redcliffe Street to greet her son.

'Welcome, my dear boy, welcome!' And the embrace between mother and son was as fervent as if they had been parted for a month instead of only four days. 'Where was you the last evening, Tom?' his mother asked.

'I was walking to and fro in the streets,' was the reply, 'too restless to come hither to trouble you and sister. By-the-bye, where is Sis?'

'Gone to take a bit of supper with Mrs Edkins, sure, but she will be returning ere long. You will bear me company till she returns. Have you had a letter from the grand gentleman in London, Tom?' his mother asked.

Instantly the sunshine on Chatterton's face, which the loving greeting of his mother had kindled there, was gone; his whole bearing changed.

His eyes flashed, and he exclaimed,--

'Don't weary me with questions, mother. When the great or little man deigns to reply to me I'll tell you.' Then muttered imprecations followed, and the boy paced the little room, with his hands at his back, his head bent, not uttering another word for ten minutes. Presently he shook off his ill mood, and laughing, said, 'There has been an arrival at the mansion in Dowry Square. I came to tell you of it, only you put it out of my head.'

'An arrival? A new serving-maid?'

'Yes; but that word does not suit her. I am taking her out on Sunday, and I shall bring her here, poor soul! I pity her as I pity anyone who has to deal with the family of Lambert. You know that big fellow Henderson--I brought him here once.'

'Yes, sure, I remember him, and his pleasant face.'

'His stupid face, rather. Well, to proceed--a cart lumbered up to Lambert's house Monday at noon, and with a mighty thump the said Henderson descended. Then he put a bundle on the pavement, next a box, next a big bunch of gillyflowers and roses, and next he helped out a young woman. What do I say?--a young lady, beautiful as an angel--just such an one as I have seen in dreams.'

'Like Miss Rumsey, Tom.'

'Pshaw! Miss Rumsey is of the earth earthy, but this one is of another race. In she came just as I was returning from a message sent by Mr Lambert, and I stood aside to let her pass. She smiled, and yet there were tears in her eyes as she turned to Henderson, and says she, "Good-bye, Jack. Come and see me soon, and--" Then came a voice from the parlour, "Sam, take the young woman's box to her chamber, and walk in here, Miss Palmer." Then the vision passed, and I was in the street bidding Jack Henderson good day as he clambered up to his seat to drive round to Corn Street and put up the horse for the night at the White Hart. I'll bring her here on Sunday, and you'll judge for yourself and sister also. She will admire her as much as I do, if she don't look at her through the green eyes of jealousy.'

'Whatever has brought her to Mr Lambert's?'

'She is a cousin of the old lady's, in poor plight from some loss of money. Poor! How pretty that word sounds from Madam Lambert's lips.

Well, the poverty will make a bond between this young lady and me; and when I asked her if she would like to see my mother she said she would fain see anyone who would be kind to her, so expect us on Sunday.'

'In the forenoon, Tom?'

'I think not. She will have her slaving to get through first.'

Then Chatterton went to a door leading up a flight of narrow stairs to the upper storey of his mother's house.

'You are not going up there for long, Tom?' his mother asked, with a sigh.

But there was no reply as Chatterton's light steps were heard ascending to the garret where he kept all his old parchments, his charcoal, his books, and various possessions, all as necessary to him, or indeed more necessary than his daily bread.

It was in this year of 1769 that Chatterton's hopes had risen on rainbow coloured wings, when his 'The Ryse of Peyncteyne in England, written by T. Rowlie, in 1469, for Master Canynge,' had been favourably received by no less a personage than Horace Walpole. The spring of that year had been the springtime of Chatterton's fairest hopes. In April a letter from Mr Walpole fired the boy with the desire to do more than ever with his strange conceits and imitations of old documents.

If Mr Walpole could be deceived, who might not follow his example?

But that courteous, nay deferential, letter on the receipt of 'The Ryse of Peyncteyne' was the first of its kind and the last. For now June had come, and other specimens of Rowley's extraordinary gifts were not even acknowledged, nor could his repeated requests for the return of the manuscripts avail, and his heart was full of bitterness and indignation against everyone.

It is hard to realise that the author of 'aella' and all the other fictions was scarcely more than a child; that the boy of one of our public schools, in the sixth form, is the age of this poor lawyer's apprentice, whose short life was filled with the dreams and aspirations of a man while as yet he had scarcely emerged from childhood, and was but a boy in years.

Bryda Palmer's arrival at Mrs Lambert's house in Dowry Square was exactly as Chatterton had described it to his mother.

A great wave of desolation had swept over her as she heard the cart rumble off, and took up her posy of gillyflowers and her small basket as she obeyed Mrs Lambert's summons to the parlour.

Mrs Lambert looked her down from head to foot, and was apparently satisfied.

'Take care not to drop the flowers about, if you please,' she said. 'You can put them in a pot by the grate, but I like no litters made by flowers or anything else. You may sit down while I talk to you,' Mrs Lambert added. 'You look very delicate; I hope you are not in a decline.'

'I am very well, madam. It is only that I have felt the pain of leaving home a little. I shall soon get used to it; and I am much obliged to you for taking me in, I will try to please you.'