Then, along the lane, he suddenly descried a group of children, whom he knew at once for his youngest sister’s. Impatient of this reminder of a new day and a new generation, he drew aside till they should have passed, for he was passionately desirous that, for to-day at least, everything should seem as it had been. The children charged past, laughing and calling, fair heads and dark, apple cheeks and clear eyes, as if there were no stranger within miles of them. And their heedless youth and vivid life made him all at once an alien and unreal creature.
Thrusting aside this unwelcome impression, Christopher pressed on to the house. A little old man with a black cutty between his lips was taking the sun in the garden, his narrow shoulders humped under a shiny coat. Christopher cast a careless glance at him; _his_ father, though not tall, was a personable man, a man of thews and solidity. This old one would be some charity guest of his mother’s.—“Ye’ll have us eaten out of house and home with your beggars,” his father used to protest. “Every tramp between here and Gingleticooch has you covered with blessings. I wonder we don’t be rolling in gold, the good wishes we do be enj’ying.”
At the gate, Christopher caught the scent of wild hedge-roses, of sweet-briar and hawthorn, spilling a fragrance as of honeysuckle. At once the years rolled back, the old boyish yearnings kindled. His mother!—her arms would be open to him still, despite all delays and neglect. She was never the one to “fault” him, whatever the blame. As he neared the low doorway, he glimpsed the blue ware on the dark oak dresser, the black, shining kettle on the hob, the long table spread with homespun white linen. On the trimly swept hearth, turf glowed, and beside it, his mother sat in her high-backed chair, bending over her heavy prayer-book.
Through all the years he had thought of her as a tall woman still in the prime of her days, though he knew well she was long past seventy, and though she had reported herself in laborious letters as “growing down like a cow’s tail.” All images of her had flaunted a blue and yellow print, French calico, which had delighted his childhood; blue as cornflowers and hung with golden chains. To her years he had conceded grey hair, softly waving under a lacy cap above a face still fresh and pink.