MUCH: Oh, my poor father. Now there's a sad thing. So ashamed of his descendants. Why for some nine years he shut his eyes whenever he looked at me. I saw him on the village green pretend to a stranger, once, who badgered him with curious questions, that I was the son of poor old Gaffer Bramble, the lame sexton. That self-same afternoon, up comes old Bramble, white hair ablaze and big red waggling nose all shaking with palsy, bangs our door clean off its hinges with his crab-tree crutch, and stands there, framed against the sunset sky! He stretches out one quivering forefinger at father, like the great Destroying Angel in the stained window: straight, the milk boiled over, the cat ran, baby squalled, and mother screeched. Old Bramble asks my father--what--what--what--he meant--he meant--he meant! You should have seen my father's hopeless face! Lord, how he blushed, red as a beet-root! Lord ... 'tis a hard business when a parent looks askance upon his offspring.