Those framed letters became melancholy objects for contemplation, when Jonathan thought that no posterity of his would point them out gloryingly in emulation.  Man’s aim is to culminate; but it is the saddest thing in the world to feel that we have accomplished it.  Mr. Eccles shrugged with all the philosophy he could summon, and transferred his private disappointment to his country, whose agricultural day was, he said, doomed.  “We shall be beaten by those Yankees.”  He gave Old England twenty years of continued pre-eminence (due to the impetus of the present generation of Englishmen), and then, said he, the Yankees will flood the market.  No more green pastures in Great Britain; no pretty clean-footed animals; no yellow harvests; but huge chimney pots everywhere; black earth under black vapour, and smoke-begrimed faces.  In twenty years’ time, sooty England was to be a gigantic manufactory, until the Yankees beat us out of that field as well; beyond which Jonathan Eccles did not care to spread any distinct border of prophecy; merely thanking the Lord that he should then be under grass.  The decay of our glory was to be edged with blood; Jonathan admitted that there would be stuff in the fallen race to deliver a sturdy fight before they went to their doom.

For this prodigious curse, England had to thank young Robert, the erratic son of Jonathan.

It was now two years since Robert had inherited a small legacy of money from an aunt, and spent it in waste, as the farmer bitterly supposed.  He was looking at some immense seed-melons in his garden, lying about in morning sunshine—­a new feed for sheep, of his own invention,—­when the call of the wanderer saluted his ears, and he beheld his son Robert at the gate.

“Here I am, sir,” Robert sang out from the exterior.

“Stay there, then,” was his welcome.

They were alike in their build and in their manner of speech.  The accost and the reply sounded like reports from the same pistol.  The old man was tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular—­a grey edition of the son, upon whose disorderly attire he cast a glance, while speaking, with settled disgust.  Robert’s necktie streamed loose; his hair was uncombed; a handkerchief dangled from his pocket.  He had the look of the prodigal, returned with impudence for his portion instead of repentance.

“I can’t see how you are, sir, from this distance,” said Robert, boldly assuming his privilege to enter.

“Are you drunk?” Jonathan asked, as Robert marched up to him.

“Give me your hand, sir.”

“Give me an answer first.  Are you drunk?”

Robert tried to force the complacent aspect of a mind unabashed, but felt that he made a stupid show before that clear-headed, virtuously-living old, man of iron nerves.  The alternative to flying into a passion, was the looking like a fool.

“Come, father,” he said, with a miserable snigger, like a yokel’s smile; “here I am at last.  I don’t say, kill the fatted calf, and take a lesson from Scripture, but give me your hand.  I’ve done no man harm but myself--damned if I’ve done a mean thing anywhere! and there’s no shame to you in shaking your son’s hand after a long absence.”