subsequent life. I felt there existed no place for me that I had to
drive myself in.

Presently, down the hill, the servants appeared, straggling by twos and
threes, first some of the garden people and the butler's wife with them,
then the two laundry maids, odd inseparable old creatures, then the
first footman talking to the butler's little girl, and at last, walking
grave and breathless beside old Ann and Miss Fison, the black figure of
my mother.

My boyish mind suggested the adoption of a playful form of appearance.
"Coo-ee, mother" said I, coming out against the sky, "Coo-ee!"

My mother looked up, went very white, and put her hand to her bosom.

I suppose there was a fearful fuss about me. And of course I was quite
unable to explain my reappearance. But I held out stoutly, "I won't
go back to Chatham; I'll drown myself first." The next day my mother
carried me off to Wimblehurst, took me fiercely and aggressively to an
uncle I had never heard of before, near though the place was to us. She
gave me no word as to what was to happen, and I was too subdued by
her manifest wrath and humiliation at my last misdemeanour to demand
information. I don't for one moment think Lady Drew was "nice" about me.
The finality of my banishment was endorsed and underlined and stamped
home. I wished very much now that I had run away to sea, in spite of the
coal dust and squalour Rochester had revealed to me. Perhaps over seas
one came to different lands.


IV