and thought
A comfortable instinct let him know
How they had waited for him, to complete
And give a meaning to their lives; and still
At home, but with a sense of newness there,
And frank and fresh as in the school-boy days,
He oft—­invading of his father’s haunts,
The study where he passed the silent morn—­
Would sit, devouring with a greedy joy
The piled-up books, uncut as yet; or wake
To guide with him by night the tube, and search,
Ay, think to find new stars; then risen betimes,
Would ride about the farm, and list the talk
Of his hale grandsire. 
                          But a day came round,
When, after peering in his mother’s room,
Shaded and shuttered from the light, he oped
A door, and found the rosy grandmother
Ensconced and happy in her special pride,
Her storeroom.  She was corking syrups rare,
And fruits all sparkling in a crystal coat. 
Here after choice of certain cates well known,
He, sitting on her bacon-chest at ease,
Sang as he watched her, till right suddenly,
As if a new thought came, “Goody,” quoth he,
“What, think you, do they want to do with me? 
What have they planned for me that I should do?”

“Do, laddie!” quoth she faltering, half in tears;
“Are you not happy with us, not content? 
Why would ye go away?  There is no need
That ye should DO at all.  O, bide at home. 
Have we not plenty?”
                     “Even so,” he said;
“I did not wish to go.” 
                        “Nay, then,” quoth she,
“Be idle; let me see your blessed face. 
What, is the horse your father chose for you
Not to your mind?  He is?  Well, well, remain;
Do as you will, so you but do it here. 
You shall not want for money.” 
                               But, his arms
Folding, he sat and twisted up his mouth
With comical discomfiture. 
                           “What, then,”
She sighed, “what is it, child, that you would like?”
“Why,” said he, “farming.” 
                           And she looked at him,
Fond, foolish woman that she was, to find
Some fitness in the worker for the work,
And she found none.  A certain grace there was
Of movement, and a beauty in the face,
Sun-browned and healthful beauty that had come
From his grave father; and she thought, “Good lack,
A farmer! he is fitter for a duke. 
He walks; why, how he walks! if I should meet
One like him, whom I knew not, I should ask,
‘And who may that be?’” So the foolish thought
Found words.  Quoth she, half laughing, half ashamed,
“We planned to make of you—­a gentleman.” 
And with engaging sweet audacity
She thought it nothing less,—­he, looking up,
With a smile in his blue eyes, replied to her,
“And hav’n’t you done it?” Quoth she, lovingly,
“I think we have, laddie; I think we have.”