Whether Reuben would have succeeded or not is uncertain, for he was never put to the proof. The next day Albert was feverish and delirious, and the doctor had to be sent for. He cheerfully gave the eldest Backfield three months to live—his lungs were in a dreadful state, one completely gone, the other partly so. He[Pg 364] had caught a chill, too, walking in the dark and cold. There could be no thought of moving him.

So Albert stayed in Pete\'s room, almost entirely ignored by his father. After some consideration, Reuben had come to the conclusion that this was the most dignified attitude to adopt. Now and then, when he was better, he sent him up some accounts to do, as it hurt him to think of his son lying idle week after week; but he never went near him, and Albert would never have willingly crossed his path. Those were not the days of open windows and fresh-air cures, so there was no especial reason why he should ever leave the low-raftered stuffy room, where he would lie by the hour in a frowsty dream of sickness, broken only by fits of coughing and h?morrhage.

His return had created a mild stir in the neighbourhood, and in Reuben\'s breast, despite circumstances and appearances, many thrills of gratification. Albert\'s penniless and broken condition was but another instance of the folly of those who deserted Odiam. None of the renegades, Reuben told himself, had prospered. Here was Albert come home to die; Robert, after a prelude in gaol, had exiled himself to Australia, where the droughts lasted twenty years; Richard, in spite of studyings and strivings and spendings, had only an occasional brief, and was unable to support himself at thirty-five; Tilly was living on a second-rate farm instead of a first-rate one; Caro was living in sin; Benjamin was probably not living at all. There was no denying it—they had all done badly away from Odiam.

However, he refused all temptations to discuss this latest prodigal. If anyone asked him how his son was doing, he would answer, "I dunno; ask Pete—he\'s the nurse."

Pete\'s attitude was Reuben\'s chief perplexity. It is true that in early years Albert seemed to have exercised a kind of fascination over his younger brothers and[Pg 365] sisters; still that was long ago, and Pete did not appear to have given him a thought in the interval. But now he suddenly developed an almost maternal devotion for the sick and broken Albert. He would sit up whole nights with him in spite of the toils of the day, he trod lumberingly about on tiptoe in his presence, he read to him by the sweat of his brow. Something in his brother\'s weakness and misery seemed to have appealed to his clumsy strength. The root of sentimentality which is always more or less encouraged by a brutal career was quickened in his heart, and sprouted to an extent that would have mystified the many he had bashed. It perplexed and irritated his father. To see Pete hulking about on tiptoe, carrying jugs of wat............