i alone was listening to the swan story, but it would have been more in accordance with the custom of the house if it had been told in a large company out in the yard—in one of the bedrooms—in the library itself—or in the dining-room (where there was a vast sideboard bearing a joint, cheese, bread, fruit, cakes, and bottles of ale, to which the boys or the visitors resorted, for meals without a name, at all hours of the day). most often the yard and the steps leading down to it were the meeting-place. the pigeons, the conservatory, with its bicycles, a lathe and all sorts of beginnings and remains, the dogs, above all the sun and the view of the wilderness, attracted everyone to the yard as a common centre for the morgans and those who gathered round one or other of them. thus, for example, the pigeons did not belong to the morgans at all, but to one higgs, who was unable to keep them at[39] his home. he was always in and out of the yard, frequently bringing friends who might or might not become friends of the family. everyone was free to look at the pigeons, note which had laid and which had hatched, to use the lathe, to take the dogs out if they were willing, to go upstairs and see the wonders—the eggs of kites, ravens, buzzards, curlews, for example, taken by jack and roland near abercorran—and to have a meal at the sideboard or a cup of tea from one of ann’s brews in the kitchen. jack and roland in themselves attracted a large and mixed company. jack, the eldest, was a huge, brown-haired, good-natured fellow, with his father’s eyes, or rather eyelids. he was very strong, and knew all about dogs and horses. he was a good deal away from the house, we did not know where, except that it was not at an office or other place where they work. roland was tall, black-haired, dark-eyed like his mother, and as strong as jack. he was handsome and proud-looking, but though quick-tempered was not proud in speech with us lesser ones. his learning was equal to jack’s, and it comprised also the theatre; he was dressed as carefully as jack was carelessly, but like jack would allow the pigeons to perch any[40]where upon him. both wore knickerbockers and looked like country gentlemen in exile. jack smoked a clay pipe, roland cigarettes. they were very good friends. though they did no work, one or other of them was often at the lathe. they boxed together while we stood round, admiring jack because he could never be beaten, and roland because no one but his brother could have resisted him. they were sometimes to be seen looking extremely serious over a sporting paper. lewis and harry were a similar pair many years younger, lewis, the elder, broader, shorter, and fairer of the two, both of them stiff and straight like their elders. they also had begun to acquire trains of adherents from the various schools which they had irregularly and with long intervals attended. they treated the streets like woods, and never complained of the substitute. once or twice a year they went to a barber to have their black and brown manes transformed into a uniform stubble of less than half an inch. midway between these two pairs came philip, and a little after him jessie.

these six attracted every energetic or discontented boy in the neighbourhood. abercorran house was as good as a mountain or a sea-shore[41] for them, and was accessible at any hour of the day or night, “except at breakfast time,” said mr stodham—for there was no breakfast-time. mr stodham was a middle-aged refugee at abercorran house, one for whom breakfast had become the most austere meal of the day, to be taken with a perfectly adjusted system of times and ceremonies, in silence, far from children and from all innovation, irregularity, and disorder. therefore the house of the morgans was for him the house that had no breakfast-time, and unconsciously he was seeking salvation in the anarchy which at home would have been unendurable. mr stodham was not the only client who was no longer a boy, but he and the few others were all late converts; for, as i have mentioned, boys forsook abercorran house as they grew up. parents, too, looked foul-favouredly on the house. the family was irregular, not respectable, mysterious, in short unprofitable. it may have got about that when mr morgan once received a fountain-pen as a gift, he said he did not want any of “your damned time-saving appliances.” of course, said he, some people could not help saving time and money—let them—they were never clever enough to know what to do with them, supposing that[42] their savings were not hidden out of their reach like their childhood—but it had not occurred to him to do either, so he gave the pen to the little milk-boy, advising him to give it away before it got a hold on him. this child had delighted mr morgan by coming up the street every day, singing a filthy song. it was a test of innocence, whether the words of it did or did not make the hearer wish that either he or the singer might sink instantaneously into the earth. mr morgan did not like the song at all. the words were in no way better than those of a bad hymn, nor was the tune. but he liked what he called the boy’s innocence. ophelia only sang “by gis and by saint charity” under cover of madness. at the worst this boy made no pretence. mr morgan argued, probably, that one who had such thoughts would not have the impudence to sing so except to a select audience; he had no doubt of this when the boy sang it once on being asked to in the library. i do not know what happened, beyond this, that mr morgan looked as if he had been crying, and the boy never sang it again. if this got about, few could think any better of the morgans at abercorran house. moreover, the window frames and doors were never painted, and the front gate[43] remained upright only because it was never closed; and on any sunny day a man passing down the lane was sure of hearing men and boys laughing, or jessie singing, and dogs barking or yawning, pigeons courting, over the fence.