Innocent Birds Read Online Free Page A

them for shading him. He took the lane that led to the meadow gate where, later on in the day, there would generally be standing two or three of the gentlemen whose names cut in the wood of the gate showed that they belonged there.
    On his way Mr. Solly passed a new villa, a partly built one, that stood near to the Madder brook that was crossed by stepping-stones.
    This house was named ‘Boston Villa‚’ because the son of the late owner, Mr. Mellor, lived in Boston city, and Mr. Mellor, a retired grocer, could think of no better name for the new house than the city’s name that his son John had gone to.
    He had the name written above the door in large letters before the windows were put in. But the excitement of seeing it—for he loved his son—or else the weight of his seventy years, was too much for his heart, and Mr. Mellor fell down in a fit before Mr. Potten, the builder, could catch him,and died of his injuries. The building of ‘Boston Villa’ stopped when Mr. Mellor fell, but the house gave that spot a name, and also a shelter for any young people who wanted to be alone together, and out of the rain.
    After looking at ‘Boston Villa ’ a little sadly, for he didn’t like to think that poor Mr. Mellor should have died so suddenly, Mr. Solly continued his walk, and was surprised to find that the meadow gate, to which he meant to go, was inhabited. Two men leaned against the gate, looking as if they had come there for some very important reason, but had, as soon as they reached it, entirely forgotten what the reason was. These men were John Pim and George Chick. They were dressed in black. Mr. Chick had a sallow countenance, with large cheek bones, but sunken cheeks. He was wont to regard the ground near to his feet with a sad interest, as though it wasn’t a kind act of his to walk upon it. Mr. Chick was a humble gentleman, with one want and one fear, who always looked at Job Wimple, the Madder sexton, when he met him, as if he felt that Job would make him one day do what he did not want to. Chick was afraid of a new dug grave, and if Job were ever employed about one, Mr. Chick would avoid the sight, if possible, by giving the churchyard a wide berth when on his way to work. He was, that afternoon however, destined to go there in the garments of a mourner, though a fearing one.
    Even though Mr. Chick was so humble, he hoped one day to be an honoured man. He had unluckily missed being regarded by all Madder as an important one, as he had certainly hoped to be when one day he was tossed by Farmer Barfoot’s bull; but as he lit upon some soft dung, and was not hurt, no distinction, save a contemptuous sniff from his little daughter Maud, came of it. Mr. Chick clung in friendship to Mr. Pim, rather than to Job Wimple, whom he regarded with awe and trembling; and Chick hoped, by the aid of a mysterious quality called intuition, that it would be through John Pim that one day he would get what he wanted.
    Chick and Pim now waited, as if their Sunday clothes rather than themselves had come to the gate, and only to rub against it.
    â€˜Sunshine do burn hot‚’ said Chick, who appeared to discover then for the first time in his life that the sun could give warmth sometimes.
    Pim shook his head. He was wondering at that moment whether a natural act that must have been done by some one could really have been done by him. He looked casually and disinterestedly towards the road that led down into Madder by way of the hills, as if it were just possible that a stray cow might be wandering there; while the truth was, that the expected really happened to be his wife. Mrs. Pim in her coffin, and her infant son who lived, and whowas to return to Madder in the care of Mrs. Chick, Annie Pim’s sister. Standing beside the gate, Mr. Solly watched the churchyard. He expected to see the Rev. Thomas Tucker, who should have been by then in readiness to meet the funeral, and perhaps