The Lake | Page 6

and rushes; 'an alder-bush,' he said. 'His
mate is sitting on her eggs, and there are some wood-gatherers about;
that's what's worrying the little fellow.' The bird continued to utter its
troubled bleat, and the priest walked on, thinking how different was its
evensong. He meditated an excursion to hear it, and then, without his
being aware of any transition, his thoughts returned to his sister Mary,
and to the time when he had once indulged in hopes that the mills along
the river-side might be rebuilt and Tinnick restored to its former
commercial prosperity. He was not certain if he had ever really
believed that he might set these mills going, or if he had, he encouraged
an illusion, knowing it to be one. He was only certain of this, that when
he was a boy and saw no life ahead of him except that of a Tinnick
shopman, he used to feel that if he remained at home he must have the
excitement of adventure. The beautiful river, with its lime-trees,
appealed to his imagination; the rebuilding of the mills and the
reorganization of trade, if he succeeded in reorganizing trade, would
mean spending his mornings on the wharves by the river-side, and in
those days his one desire was to escape from the shop. He looked upon
the shop as a prison. In those days he liked dreaming, and it was
pleasant to dream of giving back to Tinnick its trade of former days;
but when his mother asked him what steps he intended to take to get the

necessary capital, he lost his temper with her. He must have known that
he could never make enough money in the shop to set the mills
working! He must have known that he would never take his father's
place at the desk by the dusty window! But if he shrank from an avowal
it was because he had no other proposal to make. His mother
understood him, though the others didn't, and seeing his inability to say
what kind of work he would put his hand to, she had spoken of Annie
McGrath. She didn't say he should marry Annie--she was a clever
woman in her way--she merely said that Annie's relations in America
could afford to supply sufficient capital to start one of the mills. But he
never wanted to marry Annie, and couldn't do else but snap when the
subject was mentioned, and many's the time he told his mother that if
the mills were to pay it would be necessary to start business on a large
scale. He was an impracticable lad and even now he couldn't help
smiling when he thought of the abruptness with which he would go
down to the river-side to seek a new argument wherewith to confute his
mother, to return happy when he had found one, and sit watching for an
opportunity to raise the question again.
No, it wasn't because Annie's relations weren't rich enough that he
hadn't wanted to marry her. And to account for his prejudice against
marriage, he must suppose that some notion of the priesthood was
stirring in him at the time, for one day, as he sat looking at Annie
across the tea-table, he couldn't help thinking that it would be hard to
live alongside of her year in and year out. Although a good and a
pleasant girl, Annie was a bit tiresome to listen to, and she wasn't one
of those who improve with age. As he sat looking at her, he seemed to
understand, as he had never understood before, that if he married her all
that had happened in the years back would happen again--more
children scrambling about the counter, with a shopman (himself) by the
dusty window putting his pen behind his ear, just as his father did when
he came forward to serve some country woman with half a pound of tea
or a hank of onions.
And as these thoughts were passing through his mind, he remembered
hearing his mother say that Annie's sister was thinking of starting
dressmaking in the High Street. 'It would be nice if Eliza were to join

her,' his mother added casually. Eliza laid aside the skirt she was
turning, raised her eyes and stared at mother, as if she were surprised
mother could say anything so stupid. 'I'm going to be a nun,' she said,
and, just as if she didn't wish to answer any questions, went on sewing.
Well might they be surprised, for not one of them suspected Eliza of
religious inclinations. She wasn't more pious than another, and when
they asked her if she were joking, she looked at them as if she thought
the question very stupid, and they didn't ask her any more.
She wasn't more than