CHAPTER XXXVII
TURNED ADRIFT

OWN the path and under the gate the rains had

washed a shallow rut in the earth. Two pebbles,
loosened by the closing of the gate, rolled down the rut
and out upon the little spreading fan of sand that whitened
in the grass.

There was the house with the black beams checkering
its yellow walls. There was the old bench by the door,
and the lettuce in the garden-bed. There were the bee-
hives, and the bees humming among the orchard boughs.

“Why, father, what!” cried Nick, “dost na know me
yet? See, ’t is I, Nick, thy son.”

A strange look came into the tanner’s face. “I do na
know thee, boy,” he answered heavily; “thou canst na
enter here.”

“But, father, indeed ’t is I!”

Simon Attwood looked across the town; yet he did not
see the town: across the town into the sky; yet he did
not see the sky, nor the drifting banks of cloud, nor the

sunlight shining on the clouds. “I say I do na know
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