The respected rector of that large parish was in very uncertain health,
and had gone abroad with his family for three months, leaving all the
parochial duties in the hands of his two curates. They were heavy enough
for three clergymen, but Mr Jones and Rowland found them almost too
weighty for them, unassisted by their chief; however, they fought
manfully through them, Sundays and week days.
Rowland refused Mr and Mrs Jones' invitation to dinner, and, crossing
the square, entered his solitary lodging in one of the opposite houses,
and began to write to his brother Owen. He told him all that he knew of
Howel and Netta, and begged him to break it to their parents as best he
might.
When he had finished his letter he prepared to go out again. His
landlady brought him some luncheon, but he could not touch it. He went
first to his ragged school, and there the sight of those children of
crime and infamy recalled his little niece to his mind, and made his
heart sink still lower with the fear of what she might become. Never had
he spoken with such feeling to the motley throng that stood about him as
he did that day. Then he had to thread some of the haunts whence those
children came to seek out the miserable parents to whom they had been a
sort of introduction, and never before had he experienced so forcibly
that he was their brother, even theirs, as now that he knew that his
sister's husband was 'a thief and a forger;' he could almost fancy that
they already pointed to him as belonging, at least, to one as degraded
as themselves.
Pages:
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544