CHAPTER III

A SUPERFLUOUS FAMILY

Kirkwood’s face, as he turned to greet the new-comer, changed suddenly to an expression of surprise.

‘Why, what have you been doing to your hair?’ he asked abruptly.

A stranger would have seen nothing remarkable in John Hewett’s hair, unless he had reflected that, being so sparse, it had preserved its dark hue and its gloss somewhat unusually.  The short beard and whiskers were also of richer colour than comported with the rest of the man’s appearance.  Judging from his features alone, one would have taken John for sixty at least; his years were in truth not quite two-and-fifty.  He had the look of one worn out with anxiety and hardship; the lines engraven upon his face were of extraordinary depth and frequency; there seemed to be little flesh between the dry skin and the bones which sharply outlined his visage.  The lips were, like those of his son, prominent and nervous, but none of Bob’s shrewdness was here discoverable; feeling rather than intellect appeared to be the father’s characteristic.  His eyes expressed self-will, perhaps obstinacy, and he had a peculiarly dogged manner of holding his head.  At the present moment he was suffering from extreme fatigue; he let himself sink upon a chair, threw his hat on to the floor, and rested a hand on each knee.  His boots were thickly covered with mud; his corduroy trousers were splashed with the same.  Rain had drenched him; it trickled to the floor from all his garments.

For answer to Sidney’s question, he nodded towards his wife, and said in a thick voice, ‘Ask her.’

‘He’s dyed it,’ Mrs. Hewett explained, with no smile.  ’He thought one of the reasons why he couldn’t get work was his lookin’ too old.’

‘An’ so it was,’ exclaimed Hewett, with an angry vehemence which at once declared his position and revealed much of his history.  ’So it was My hair was a bit turned, an’ nowadays there’s no chance for old men.  Ask any one you like.  Why, there’s Sam Lang couldn’t even get a job at gardenin’ ’cause his hair was a bit turned.  It was him as told me what to do.  “Dye your hair, Jack,” he says; “it’s what I’ve had to myself,” he says.  “They won’t have old men nowadays, at no price.”  Why, there’s Jarvey the painter; you know him, Sidney.  His guvnor sent him on a job to Jones’s place, an’ they sent him back.  “Why, he’s an old man,” they says.  “What good’s a man of that age for liftin’ ladders about?” An’ Jarvey’s no older than me.’

Sidney knitted his brows.  He had heard the complaint from too many men to be able to dispute its justice.

‘When there’s twice too many of us for the work that’s to be done,’ pursued John, ’what else can you expect?  The old uns have to give way, of course.  Let ’em beg; let ’em starve!  What use are they?’

Mrs. Hewett had put a kettle on the fire, and began to arrange the table for a meal.