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His father's worthlessness and the growing realisation of the hardship of his mother's position had given life a bitter taste in his mouth, and Telfer sweetened it. He entered with zeal into Sam's thoughts and dreams, and tried valiantly to arouse in the quiet, industrious, money-making boy some of his own love of life and beauty.
Now the Society of Antiquaries of Oldcastle, of which he was a member, were making a pilgrimage along the Wall on the next day, and he had offered to provide tea for their refreshment at the conclusion of their excursion. Thus his 'find' was twice fortunate. He would now be enabled to confound Telfer, one of the most learned of the Society's members, by the evidence of his spade work.
Sam picked it up and read it, glad of something to distract his attention from the voice of the minister, and the faces of the weeping women, none of whom had before been in the house and all of whom he thought strikingly lacking in a sense of the sacredness of privacy. The note was from John Telfer. "I will not come to your mother's funeral," he wrote.
We see them as the folk from Flodden saw them, as Leyden knew them, as they looked to William of Deloraine, as they showed in the eyes of Wat of Harden and of Jamie Telfer of the Fair Dodhead. They have always girdled a land of warriors and of people fond of song, from the oldest ballad-maker to that Scotch Probationer who wrote,
Captain Briggs, Telfer, and Young, together with a large number of other ranks, were taken prisoners; Briggs and Telfer were also wounded. West was badly wounded. Captain Andrews, Captain Mordecai and Donald Allen were all wounded quite early in the day. Out of nineteen combatant officers eighteen were casualties. The non-combatants, Padre Newman and Dr.
Hewitt, most fervently," Telfer answered; and his looks confirmed his words. We walked in silence through the corridor, down the stairs, and out by the gates into the street. Then Plummer turned on his heel and faced Hewitt. "That man's a wrong 'un," he said, abruptly, jerking his thumb in the direction of the office we had just left. "I'll tell you about it in the cab."
Robert Telfer's room was at the side of a long and gloomy corridor on the upper floor, and the door was distinguished merely by a number and the word "Private" painted thereon. We found Mr. Telfer sitting alone, and plainly in a state of great nervous tension. He was a man of forty or thereabout, thin, alert, and using a single eye-glass.
He was wishing that Telfer, Freedom Smith, and Valmore, instead of moving on to their nightly nest at the back of Wildman's grocery, would come into his place for the evening. He thought he would like to have the three of them there night after night discussing the doings of the world. Quiet once more settled down upon the sleepy street.
Day after day he went on drinking more and more heavily, playing for bigger and bigger stakes, allowing himself less and less thought of himself. One day he received a long letter from John Telfer telling of the sudden death of Mary Underwood and berating him for his neglect of her. "She was ill for a year and without an income," wrote Telfer. Sam noticed that the man's hand had begun to tremble.
His mind is filled with vague, delicious thoughts that come out of the very air; before he realises what he has done he has spent his years in vain pursuit and turning finds himself old and undone." Telfer began jabbing at the ground with his stick. "I had my chance. In New York I had money to live on and time to have made an artist of myself. I won prize after prize.
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