Giles gazed at the speaker frowningly; he did not seem to like the idea, but if he meditated a retort he was prevented from uttering it by the advent of a messenger from the matron, which was the signal for his own departure.  He stood up, and went shuffling from one to the other of his former cronies, shaking hands with them all, but without speaking.  He gripped Jim’s hand the hardest, and pumped it up and down for so long a time that the messenger grew impatient; and then he went stumbling along the passage, and down the stone stairs to the door, where the master and matron both stood awaiting him.  He received the money which had been placed in the master’s hands for his actual needs, and scraped his rickety old foot, and pulled his forelock, after a forgotten fashion, as he listened to their kindly words.  Then they, too, shook hands with him, and accompanied him to the gate, looking after the feeble old figure until it disappeared.

“I do hope Mrs. Tapper will look after him,” said the matron.  “He’s no more fit to take care of himself than a baby.”

Giles tottered on down the hill, his eyes roaming vaguely over the landscape, which was looking its fairest on this mellow June afternoon.  Yonder rolled the downs, all golden green in the light of the sinking sun, nearer at hand lay the meadows, very sheets of buttercup gold; every leaf and twig of the hedgerow was a-glitter, too—­all Nature, it seemed, had arrayed itself in splendour to correspond with the old pauper’s sudden access of wealth.  Not that any such fancy crossed his dazed mind.  As he shuffled along he thought of how he had walked this way last year, with Jim at his side, on one of their rare outings.  They had, in fact, been on their way to the parsonage, and Jim, who had been a farm labourer in a previous state of existence, had called his attention to the “for’ardness” of the potatoes which were growing where the hay grew now.

Giles paused mechanically, and gazed at the billowing grass; and then he went on a little, and stopped again at the next gap in the hedge, where Jim had pointed out the splendid view of Branston.

“I could wish,” he muttered, as he turned away, “we was goin’ to tea at the rectory now.”

Farther down the road was a bench where it was the old paupers’ custom to sit awhile on their return journey, before beginning the steep ascent of the hill; Giles sat stiffly down now, and once more stared about him.  By-and-by the town clock struck seven and he instinctively rose to his feet, and began hurriedly to retrace his steps, but pulled himself up of a sudden.

“Seven o’clock!  It ‘ud seem more nat’ral to be goin’ up-along.  I was nigh forgettin’ I be comed away!  Mrs. Tapper ’ull think I bain’t a-comin’ if I don’t hurry up.”

This time he made up his mind to continue his journey without further interruptions, and very soon arrived at the end of the lane, and even at the third house on the right, where he was duly received by Mrs. Tapper.  She was most civil, not to say respectful; called him “Sir” and “Mr. Maine,” hustled her children out of his way, installed him in the elbow-chair in the corner, and waited upon him at tea-time as though he had been a gentleman born.