Around the corner, and down High street.  Fynes Morrison burst in at the guildschool door.  “Nick Attwood’s home!” he shouted; and his eyes were like two plates.

Then the last lane—­and the smoke from his father’s house!

The garden gate stood open, and there was some one working in the yard.  “It is my father, Cicely,” he laughed.  “Father!” he cried, and hurried in the lane.

Simon Attwood straightened up and looked across the fence.  His arms were held a little out, and his hands hung down with bits of moist earth clinging to them.  His brows were darker than a year before, and his hair was grown more gray; his back, too, stooped.  “Art thou a-calling me?” he asked.

Nick laughed.  “Why, father, do ye na know me?” he cried out. “’Tis I—­’tis Nick—­come home!”

Two steps the stern old tanner took—­two steps to the latchet-gate.  Not one word did he speak; but he set his hand to the latchet-gate and closed it in Nick’s face.

CHAPTER XXXVII

TURNED ADRIFT

Down the path and under the gate the rains had washed a shallow rut in the earth.  Two pebbles, loosened by the closing of the gate, rolled down the rut and out upon the little spreading fan of sand that whitened in the grass.

There was the house with the black beams checkering its yellow walls.  There was the old bench by the door, and the lettuce in the garden-bed.  There were the beehives, and the bees humming among the orchard boughs.

“Why, father, what!” cried Nick, “dost na know me yet?  See, ’tis I, Nick, thy son.”

A strange look came into the tanner’s face.  “I do na know thee, boy,” he answered heavily; “thou canst na enter here.”

“But, father, indeed ’tis I!”

Simon Attwood looked across the town; yet he did not see the town:  across the town into the sky, yet he did not see the sky, nor the drifting banks of cloud, nor the sunlight shining on the clouds.  “I say I do na know thee,” he replied; “be off to the place whence ye ha’ come.”

Nick’s hand was almost on the latch.  He stopped.  He looked up into his father’s face.  “Why, father, I’ve come home!” he gasped.

The gate shook in the tanner’s grip.  “Have I na telled thee twice I do na know thee, boy?  No house o’ mine shall e’er be home for thee.  Thou hast no part nor parcel here.  Get thee out o’ my sight.”

“Oh, father, father, what do ye mean?” cried Nick, his lips scarcely able to shape the words.

“Do na ye ‘father’ me no more,” said Simon Attwood, bitterly; “I be na father to stage-playing, vagabond rogues.  And be gone, I say.  Dost hear?  Must I e’en thrust thee forth?” He raised his hand as if to strike.

Nick fell away from the latchet-gate, dumb-stricken with amazement, shame, and grief.

“Oh, Nick,” cried Cicely, “come away—­the wicked, wicked man!”