Round the Corner

d the open air, But toiling desp

VI, Pa

e blissfully happy: the county welcomed them, they had a charming house and garden, a carriage, money in plenty, children, and when they were bored with the country they could escape to the gaiety of Plymouth. After they had been married for five y

lived to be three years old, but the eighth, ninth,

ed stationary. It was at that moment that for the first time they began to think of what they had done and counted up the number of their offspr

yats: Serge, Gertrude, Frederic, Mary

g

r and was only saved from court-martial by being bought out of the service, to which end the farm on Dartmoor and a house in Potsham were sold. He was not allowed to come ho

, and the question of his career

marriage. An occasional Folyat was sent to the Vicarage to be coached for some examination, but they eithe

county did not call, and when the carriage was disposed of and replaced by a little wicker donkey-cart they did not conceal their rejoicing, and their tattle did not fail to reach Mrs. Folyat's ears. She was confirmed in her conviction of the vulgarity of trade, and she brooded over the situati

squashed that and, all unconsciously, reproduced his mother's arguments. [Pg 21]Frederic was a Folyat and weak. Regimental life would be too dangerous for him. The Church? Frederic, who was not a little Frenchified and rather dreadfully freeminded, scornfully r

. Francis felt that the problem was insoluble, gave it up for the time being, and consoled himself with buying a parrot from a drunken sailor and a dog in

rced upon his attention that Frederic also had a mind, and that it worked in a way entirely different from his own. This was distressing, because for many years Francis had done all the thinking necessary for his family, and that no great amount. He had an intolerable sense o

oached his wife with the suggestion tha

is knew that she was thinking of the

scend from the higher to the lower branch of the legal profession-no wig, no gown, no access to the Bench, no prospective knighthood. It was a pill and they swallowed it, putting as brave a face on it as

ho knows? Even the Royal Family had legal business, and there was a great case coming on to decide the succession of the collateral Folyats, somewhat complicated by a bigamous old clergyman who

lack of character, decided for Plymouth, as being more accessible in case of disaster. (He was surprised to find himself

d received his premium, went into the affairs of the family, and presented the horrible truth that such

he made light of it and said nothing to his wife. He supposed his dif

, and then, as she seemed to make no progress, Mary considered herself free to lose her heart. To their amazement and dismay, Willie sought an interview with their father and proposed for the hand of the chit, Minna, not yet out of short frocks. He was besottedly in l

mbay. Then by every mail he addressed the most excellently turned love-letters to Minna, who skimmed through them-being already engaged upon another conquest-and handed them over t

rbert Fry. On their entreaty he was invited to stay for a holiday. He came and saw and was conquered-by Minna. He was caught kissing her in the shrubbery, his stay came to an end, and the name given him by the nurse-"a reg'lar Apollyon, my dear"-was found to be appropriate. Minna was furious, and in a gust of spite wrote a most offensive [Pg 24]letter to Willie Folyat in Bombay. She told her mother what she had done and robbed her of her most cherished dream. She was found to be conducting a clandestine correspondence with "Apollyon," and Martha let loose the thought

rently desirous of marrying them; and beyond them the long tail of his family, all of whom might grow up and develop minds which thought along lines different from his own. He was not in the least resentful about it, that was not in his nature; but he hated his own helplessness, the impossibility of doing anything to relieve the growing strain. He loathed quarrelling, and his daughters were always quarrelling with each other and their mother, and that, in a house which should have been a model to the country-side, made him profoundly ashamed. He had begun once more to think in an extra-professional way, to see things in a humorous light which by all tradition were sacred. A curious desire

rgyman desirous of a country life. His only stipulation was that the new parish should be among the poor, and this, unhappily, broke in upon Martha's dreams of a brilliant social life among rich and mor

Frank!"

ork," sai

ear Frank,

nter the Kingdom of Heaven than f

talking ab

to the poor," said Francis,

nk of th

among the poor. It will do them good. It will keep

you be so

to [Pg 26]herself. About five o'clock she woke him up and told him that she had been dreaming of water, which she thought meant riches, and also in her dream

"that in her heart of hearts M

, "she is much too young to

ong the poor. On that point he was immovable, and Martha's light skirmishing was fruitless. Fra

is living for the two in distant Cornwall. This was the rector of St. Paul's Church, Bide Street, in t

t of ideas associated with the name of Richard Cobden, a Liberal of whom no Churchman could entirely approve. There was a bishop in our town, and he was a person of some celebrity. Also

e wanted. There was a fried-fish shop directly opposite [Pg 27]the church, a dirty greengrocer's shop next to that, and next again three public-houses. Another row of little shops followed on the other side of a bye-street, and for the rest, there were nothing but squat terraces of blackened red-brick cottages, two stories high, with b

s. They asked after his family and how many children he had, and one of them whistled when he said he had eight. Francis wanted to like them, but he felt a stranger amongst them a

t drawl of his Cornish peasants, and it was this tha

curate, the exchange would be equal, and no doubt his daughters would soon marry, and his sons would quickly earn their living in this money-making town. He was told that there were excellent schools for "them as could afford 'em," and that settled the m

s a blade [Pg 28]of grass growing in it), and when Martha asked him about the town he concentrat

and the valuable china inherited at intervals by Mrs. Folyat as her few aged relations one by one departed this life, having gone before, the Folyats set o