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She paused a little as was her habit between observations. "He took on so that I said he might come to tea on Sunday." It was an occasion that thoroughly appealed to Athelny. He rehearsed all the afternoon how he should play the heavy father for the young man's edification till he reduced his children to helpless giggling.
Sally listened to all this with a slight, slow smile, not much embarrassed, for she was accustomed to her father's outbursts, but with an easy modesty which was very attractive. "Don't let your dinner get cold, father," she said, drawing herself away from his arm. "You'll call when you're ready for your pudding, won't you?" They were left alone, and Athelny lifted the pewter tankard to his lips.
He took his whole family to a hop-field in Kent, not far from Mrs. Athelny's home, and they spent three weeks hopping. It kept them in the open air, earned them money, much to Mrs. Athelny's satisfaction, and renewed their contact with mother earth. It was upon this that Athelny laid stress.
With large gestures and in the emphatic tone which made what he said so striking, Athelny described to Philip the Spanish cathedrals with their vast dark spaces, the massive gold of the altar-pieces, and the sumptuous iron-work, gilt and faded, the air laden with incense, the silence: Philip almost saw the Canons in their short surplices of lawn, the acolytes in red, passing from the sacristy to the choir; he almost heard the monotonous chanting of vespers.
You don't suppose your food's going to make any difference to us." Philip was afraid to speak, and Athelny, going to the door, called his wife. "Betty," he said, when she came in, "Mr. Carey's coming to live with us." "Oh, that is nice," she said. "I'll go and get the bed ready." She spoke in such a hearty, friendly tone, taking everything for granted, that Philip was deeply touched.
Athelny spoke of the mystical writers of Spain, of Teresa de Avila, San Juan de la Cruz, Fray Luis de Leon; in all of them was that passion for the unseen which Philip felt in the pictures of El Greco: they seemed to have the power to touch the incorporeal and see the invisible.
My motto is, leave me alone; I don't want anyone interfering with me; I'll make the best of a bad job, and the devil take the hindmost." "D'you call life a bad job?" said Athelny. "Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my children."
No one can make it like my wife. That's the advantage of not marrying a lady. You noticed she wasn't a lady, didn't you?" It was an awkward question, and Philip did not know how to answer it. "I never thought about it," he said lamely. Athelny laughed. He had a peculiarly joyous laugh. "No, she's not a lady, nor anything like it.
Athelny was describing eagerly, with vivid phrases, but Philip only heard vaguely what he said. He was puzzled. He was curiously moved. These pictures seemed to offer some meaning to him, but he did not know what the meaning was.
Athelny was very proud of the county family to which he belonged; he showed Philip photographs of an Elizabethan mansion, and told him: "The Athelnys have lived there for seven centuries, my boy. Ah, if you saw the chimney-pieces and the ceilings!" There was a cupboard in the wainscoting and from this he took a family tree. He showed it to Philip with child-like satisfaction.
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