to the father at last but to send him with many oaths to the grammar
school at Whinborough. From the moment the boy got a footing in
the school he hardly cost his father another penny. He got a local
bursary which paid his school expenses, he never missed a remove
or failed to gain a prize, and finally won a close scholarship which
carried him triumphantly to Queen's College.

His family watched his progress with a gaping, half-contemptuous
amazement, till he announced himself as safely installed at Oxford,
having borrowed from a Whinborough patron the modest sum necessary
to pay his college valuation--a sum which wild horses could not
have dragged out of his father, now sunk over head and ears in debt
and drink.

From that moment they practically lost sight of him. He sent the
class list which contained his name among the Firsts to his father;
in the same way he communicated the news of his Fellowship at
Queen's, his ordination and his appointment to the headmastership
of a south-country grammar school. None of his communications were
ever answered till, in the very last year of his father's life, the
eldest son, who had a shrewder eye all round to the main chance
than the rest applied to 'Dick' for cash wherewith to meet some of
the family necessities. The money was promptly sent, together with
photographs of Dick's wife and children. These last were not taken
much notice of. These Leyburns were a hard, limited, incurious
set, and they no longer regarded Dick as one of themselves.

'Then came the old man's death,' said Mr. Thornburgh. 'It happened
the year after I took the living. Richard Leyburn was sent for and
came. I never saw such a scene in my life as the funeral supper.