Christopher was his refuge, his secret inspiration. Sorrell was off duty from eight till nine, and he had the half of each alternate Sunday. Kit would come along the road to meet his father, and as the evenings lengthened they would wander a short way into the fields, or climb the Castle Hill and sit and talk for twenty minutes. Christopher was rather silent about the school, and when his father's voice grew intimate the boy would leap two or three years and carry their gossip into the future.
"I think I'd like to be an engineer, pater."
"What sort of engineer?"
"Oh,—design things. I went over the electric light works the other day. Bert Lumley took me. His father runs the dynamos."
"Wonderful thing—electricity."
"It seems alive. It's there—and yet you can't see it. Like the blood going round in your body, pater."
"You'd like to work on live things?"
"Yes,—I think so."
But one evening Christopher did not appear upon the road, and when Sorrell arrived at the cottage in Vine Court he came upon a little scene that shocked him. Kit and Mrs. Garland were in the scullery, and Kit's head was over the sink, and there was a redness, and Mrs. Garland was using a sponge.
"Hallo! What's happened?"
Kit gurgled something, but it was Mrs. Garland who explained the affair. She was angry.
"That young beast of a Blycroft. Always tormenting something. He'd got hold of a cat, and of course our Kit. Well,—young Blycroft's two years older, and a strong young savage."
"I got one in," said Kit, eluding the sponge for a moment.
And then he burst into tears. He did not explain his tears, but Sorrell understood them, and his angry heart yearned over the boy. It was the shame of being licked by a boy whom he despised, sensitiveness writhing under the bulk of the savage. Did he not understand it? Had he not had to bear it? For he knew that had their quarrel come
