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It was on these lines, and on the record above them of the death of Joshua Grice the elder, that the eyes of the lonely reader rested longest; his lips murmuring several times, as he looked down on the letters: "He lived to be an old man he lived to be an old man after all!"
It was Grice Elshioner, watchman of the town of Lanark, evidencing to the magistrates and lieges thereof that he was earning his three shillings in the week a handsome wage in these hard times, and one well able to provide belly-timber for himself and also for the wife and weans who, dwelling in a close off the High-street, were called by his name. Sholto thundered again upon the rugged portal.
But the roar of the Gardner and the typewriter-like clicking of the hopper burst in at the tail of the words. Captain Foley heard them, and Subalterns Grice and Murphy heard them; but there are times when a deaf ear is a gift from the gods. "Steady, Mallows!" cried the captain, in a pause of the grunting machine-gun. "We have the honour of Ireland to guard this day."
Poverty is a comparative thing, and each degree of it is mocked by its "neighbour grice." Its poor rents and comings-in are soon summed up and told. Its pretences to property are almost ludicrous. Its pitiful attempts to save excite a smile. Every scornful companion can weigh his trifle-bigger purse against it.
As a matter of fact, the expected storm never burst. The first thing the doctor did on receiving Mr. Grice's complaint was to compare that gentleman's watch with his own. "Hum'" he said shortly, "I suppose you're aware that you are ten minutes fast?" A few moments later Mr. Grice withdrew, looking rather crestfallen.
Why, it had come to THAT that there was no such thing as getting a fair day's work out of a labouring man with their temperance, and their lectures, and their schools, and their county councils and what not!" Really I had read of such people, but I hardly believed they still existed. 'Grice is very old, and the regular old sort of farmer, said Bessie.
They would not suffer him to remain in the boarding house, but turned him out, there and then, with all his trunks and boxes. Mrs. Grice, his sister, sued him in my name for my liberty, but he gained the cause.
Lamb wrote of him to Coleridge in 1796, after the tragedy at his home, at a time when friends were badly needed, "Sam Le Grice who was then in town was with me the first 3 or 4 days, and was as a brother to me, gave up every hour of his time to the very hurting of his health and spirits, in constant attendance and humouring my poor father."
"They were in before half-past, sir; your watch must be wrong." "Don't keep contradicting me, sir," said the master. "We are supposed to work by the school clock, sir," interposed the captain. "I'm not aware that I addressed any remark to you, Allingford," retorted Mr. Grice, rapidly losing all control of his temper.
His mind was running now on one of the answers that he had wrested from Joanna Grice, at Dibbledean the answer which had informed him that Mary's child had been born alive! "Wake up, Mat! You shall have your fair chance with the lady, along with the rest of us; and I'll undertake to qualify you on the spot for civilized courtship," continued Zack, pitilessly carrying on his joke.
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