George Gissing

Born in Exile



Part I



CHAPTER I


The summer day in 1874 which closed the annual session of Whitelaw
College was marked by a special ceremony, preceding the wonted
distribution of academic rewards. At eleven in the morning (just as
a heavy shower fell from the smoke-canopy above the roaring streets)
the municipal authorities, educational dignitaries, and prominent
burgesses of Kingsmill assembled on an open space before the College
to unveil a statue of Sir Job Whitelaw. The honoured baronet had
been six months dead. Living, he opposed the desire of his
fellow-citizens to exhibit even on canvas his gnarled features and
bald crown; but when his modesty ceased to have a voice in the
matter, no time was lost in raising a memorial of the great
manufacturer, the self-made millionaire, the borough member in three
Parliaments, the enlightened and benevolent founder of an institute
which had conferred humane distinction on the money-making Midland
town. Beneath such a sky, orations were necessarily curtailed; but
Sir Job had always been impatient of much talk. An interval of two
or three hours dispersed the rain-clouds and bestowed such grace of