Beyond the City | Page 8

old married couple,
who were still almost strangers to one another, had come together in
Norwood, where, if their short day had been chequered and broken, the
evening at least promised to be sweet and mellow. In person Mrs. Hay
Denver was tall and stout, with a bright, round, ruddy-cheeked face still
pretty, with a gracious, matronly comeliness. Her whole life was a
round of devotion and of love, which was divided between her husband
and her only son, Harold.
This son it was who kept them in the neighborhood of London, for the
Admiral was as fond of ships and of salt water as ever, and was as
happy in the sheets of a two-ton yacht as on the bridge of his
sixteen-knot monitor. Had he been untied, the Devonshire or
Hampshire coast would certainly have been his choice. There was
Harold, however, and Harold's interests were their chief care. Harold
was four-and-twenty now. Three years before he had been taken in
hand by an acquaintance of his father's, the head of a considerable firm
of stock-brokers, and fairly launched upon 'Change. His three hundred
guinea entrance fee paid, his three sureties of five hundred pounds each
found, his name approved by the Committee, and all other formalities
complied with, he found himself whirling round, an insignificant unit,
in the vortex of the money market of the world. There, under the
guidance of his father's friend, he was instructed in the mysteries of
bulling and of bearing, in the strange usages of 'Change in the

intricacies of carrying over and of transferring. He learned to know
where to place his clients' money, which of the jobbers would make a
price in New Zealands, and which would touch nothing but American
rails, which might be trusted and which shunned. All this, and much
more, he mastered, and to such purpose that he soon began to prosper,
to retain the clients who had been recommened to him, and to attract
fresh ones. But the work was never congenial. He had inherited from
his father his love of the air of heaven, his affection for a manly and
natural existence. To act as middleman between the pursuer of wealth,
and the wealth which he pursued, or to stand as a human barometer,
registering the rise and fall of the great mammon pressure in the
markets, was not the work for which Providence had placed those
broad shoulders and strong limbs upon his well knit frame. His dark
open face, too, with his straight Grecian nose, well opened brown eyes,
and round black-curled head, were all those of a man who was
fashioned for active physical work. Meanwhile he was popular with his
fellow brokers, respected by his clients, and beloved at home, but his
spirit was restless within him and his mind chafed unceasingly against
his surroundings.
"Do you know, Willy," said Mrs. Hay Denver one evening as she stood
behind her husband's chair, with her hand upon his shoulder, "I think
sometimes that Harold is not quite happy."
"He looks happy, the young rascal," answered the Admiral, pointing
with his cigar. It was after dinner, and through the open French window
of the dining-room a clear view was to be had of the tennis court and
the players. A set had just been finished, and young Charles
Westmacott was hitting up the balls as high as he could send them in
the middle of the ground. Doctor Walker and Mrs. Westmacott were
pacing up and down the lawn, the lady waving her racket as she
emphasized her remarks, and the Doctor listening with slanting head
and little nods of agreement. Against the rails at the near end Harold
was leaning in his flannels talking to the two sisters, who stood
listening to him with their long dark shadows streaming down the lawn
behind them. The girls were dressed alike in dark skirts, with light pink
tennis blouses and pink bands on their straw hats, so that as they stood

with the soft red of the setting sun tinging their faces, Clara, demure
and quiet, Ida, mischievous and daring, it was a group which might
have pleased the eye of a more exacting critic than the old sailor.
"Yes, he looks happy, mother," he repeated, with a chuckle. "It is not so
long ago since it was you and I who were standing like that, and I don't
remember that we were very unhappy either. It was croquet in our time,
and the ladies had not reefed in their skirts quite so taut. What year
would it be? Just before the commission of the Penelope."
Mrs. Hay Denver ran her fingers through his grizzled hair. "It was
when you came back in the Antelope, just before you got your step."
"Ah, the old Antelope!