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or the assertion of others that he
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a lady of whom he had never seen so much as a photograph. The lad's singularity was much more likely due to this curious and close intimacy with a gentleman: and I hope that those who read this history will not close the book without a sigh of remonstrance against all those who insist on giving the lower classes thoughts above their station. John Gaffekin lived with his widowed mother in the Elizabethan Blaindon Hall, a typical old country house standing just outside the village on a plot of park. The old lady was infirm, and in order that he might attend to his mother, and also avoid drawing on a by no means unlimited income, John had never gone to school. He had taken some lessons from the Vicar, who had been
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and as he naturally loved books and was of a quiet disposition he became so proficient that the Reverend George Apple warmly urged him to try for a scholarship at Oxford. For a long time he had refused even to attempt this feat. He declared that he could not leave his mother. He feared he could not win the scholarship. But the old lady joined her importunities to those of the Vicar.
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They had not enough money to go on for ever, she maintained,
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I can easily get some one to look after me, said the old lady,
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I wish Norman could come with me to Oxford, said John.
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It's wrong of me to leave him.
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My dear son, I can't have you consorting with that sort of person all your life.
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I do hate that subject,
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My dear boy, you'll find the wisdom of my words when you've seen a little more of the world,
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Besides, interposed the Vicar, tactfully,
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College terms only account for half the year. We shall see plenty of you down here.
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There are so many more to read, he used to say. No one could be less of a scholar, and the fine points of characterization, the delicate shades of metre and language, lay beyond his sphere. But he loved all the books that are not generally read; he could feel that such books were peculiarly his own property or his own discovery, and a habit of always reading books that no one else has read is not a bad guide to literature. All the works that glow with dark frenzy, or with diabolical Rembrandt fires, whose authors died nameless deaths or were burnt for magic, all the fantastic tales about new countries on the other side of mountains, or happy islands in limitless seas, all stories of the moon or stars were his especial delight and continual joy. For he loved the _Monk_ of Monk Lewis, and this is a rare book to find, and _Vathek_, and _William Jordan, Junior,_ greatest of unread modern books; and he sang to himself the _Gods of Pegana_ and dreamed over its ethereal pictures, and he loved the new Irish tales. And he adored that mysterious wonder-story of the _Golden Ass_, and its glittering precious style; and he read Richepin's tales of the Roman decadence. And he never wearied of James Thompson (not of the
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Seasons