After Mrs M’Swat it was a rest, a relief, a treat, to hear my mother’s cultivated voice, and observe her lady-like and refined figure as she moved about; and, what a palace the place seemed in comparison to Barney’s Gap! simply because it was clean, orderly, and bore traces of refinement; for the stamp of indigent circumstances was legibly imprinted upon it, and many things which had been considered “done for” when thirteen months before I had left home, were still in use.

I carefully studied my brothers and sisters.  They had grown during my absence, and were all big for their age, and though some of them not exactly handsome, yet all pleasant to look upon—­I was the only wanting in physical charms—­also they were often discontented, and wished, as children will, for things they could not have; but they were natural, understandable children, not like myself, cursed with a fevered ambition for the utterly unattainable.

Oh, were I seated high as my ambition,
I’d place this loot on naked necks of monarchs!

At the time of my departure for Caddagat my father had been negotiating with beer regarding the sale of his manhood; on returning I found that he had completed the bargain, and held a stamped receipt in his miserable appearance and demeanour.  In the broken-down man, regardless of manners, one would have failed to recognize Dick Melvyn, “Smart Dick Melvyn”, “Jolly-good-fellow Melvyn” “Thorough Gentleman” and “Manly Melvyn” of the handsome face and ingratiating manners, onetime holder of Bruggabrong, Bin Bin East, and Bin Bin West.  He never corrected his family nowadays, and his example was most deleterious to them.

Mother gave me a list of her worries in private after tea that night.  She wished she had never married:  not only was her husband a failure, but to all appearances her children would be the same.  I wasn’t worth my salt or I would have remained at Barney’s Gap; and there was Horace—­heaven only knew where he would end.  God would surely punish him for his disrespect to his father.  It was impossible to keep things together much longer, etc., etc.

When we went to bed that night Gertie poured all her troubles into my ear in a jumbled string.  It was terrible to have such a father.  She was ashamed of him.  He was always going into town, and stayed there till mother had to go after him, or some of the neighbours were so good as to bring him home.  It took all the money to pay the publican’s bills, and Gertie was ashamed to be seen abroad in the nice clothes which grannie sent, as the neighbours said the Melvyns ought to pay up the old man’s bills instead of dressing like swells; and she couldn’t help it, and she was sick and tired of trying to keep up respectability in the teeth of such odds.

I comforted her with the assurance that the only thing was to feel right within ourselves, and let people say whatsoever entertained their poor little minds.  And I fell asleep thinking that parents have a duty to children greater than children to parents, and they who do not fulfil their responsibility in this respect are as bad in their morals as a debauchee, corrupt the community as much as a thief, and are among the ablest underminers of their nation.