286 MASTER SKYLARK

collar was a drabbled shame; but there was a singular
untroubled smile upon his plain old face.

Simon Attwood stayed to lock the door, fumbling his
keys as if his sight had failed; but when the heavy bolt
was shut, he turned and called after John Combe, so that
the old man stopped in the way and dripped a puddle until
the tanner came up to where he stood. And as he came
up Attwood asked, in such a tone as none had ever heard
from his mouth before, “Combe, John Combe, what ’s
done ’s done,—and oh, John, the pity of it,—yet will ye
still shake hands wi’ me, John, afore ye go?”

John Combe took Simon Attwood’s bony hand and
wrung it hard in his stout old grip, and looked the tanner
squarely in the eyes; then, still smiling serenely to him-
self, and setting his cane down stoutly as he walked,
dripped home, and got himself into dry clothes without a
word.

But Simon Attwood went down to the river, and sat
upon a fiat stone under some pollard willows, and looked
into the water.

What his thoughts were no one knew, nor ever shall
know; but he was fighting with himself, and more than
once groaned bitterly. At first he only shut his teeth and
held his temples in his hands; but after a while he began
to ery to himself, over and over again, “O Absalom, my
son, my son! O my son Absalom!” and then only “My
son, my son!” And when the day began to wane above
the woods of Arden, he arose, and came up from the river,
walking swiftly; and, looking neither to the right nor to