He did not
await the future with the shaking candle of the suddenly awakened coward,
but rather with the planted feet and the bared teeth of the bull-dog....
He watched the faces of his father, his aunt and Mrs. Trussit. He observed
the frightened dreams of his grandfather, the way that old Curtis the
gardener would suddenly cease his fugitive digging and glance with furtive
eyes at the windows of the house; about them were the dark shadows of the
long passages, the sharp note of some banging door in a distant room, the
wail of that endless wind beyond the walls. He felt too that Mrs. Trussit
and his aunt were furtively watching him. He never caught them in anything
tangible but he knew that, when his back was turned, their eyes followed
him--questioning, wondering.
Something must be done or he could not answer for his control. If he were
not to return to Dawson's, what then?
It was his seventeenth birthday one hot day towards the end of August, and
at breakfast his father, without looking up from his paper, said:
"I have made arrangements for you with Mr. Aitchinson to enter his office
next week. You'll have to work--you've been idling long enough."
The windows were wide open, the lawn was burning in the sun, bees carried
the scent of the flowers with them into the air that hung like shining
metal about the earth, a cart rattled as though it were a giant clattering
his pleasure at the day down the road.
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