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of three-and-twenty, found himself thrust out again from the grey
simplicity of toil and discipline, that had become his life, into a
dazzling freedom. They had put unaccustomed clothes upon him; his hair
had been growing for some weeks, and he had parted it now for some days,
and there he stood, in a sort of shabby and clumsy newness of body and
mind, blinking with his eyes and blinking indeed with his soul,
outside again, trying to realise one incredible thing, that after all
he was again for a little while in the world of life, and for all other
incredible things, totally unprepared. He was so fortunate as to have a
brother who cared enough for their distant common memories to come and
meet him and clasp his hand--a brother he had left a little lad, and who
was now a bearded prosperous man--whose very eyes were unfamiliar. And
together he and this stranger from his kindred came down into the town
of Dover, saying little to one another and feeling many things.
They sat for a space in a public-house, the one answering the questions
of the other about this person and that, reviving queer old points of
view, brushing aside endless new aspects and new perspectives, and then
it was time to go to the station and take the London train. Their names
and the personal things they had to talk of do not matter to our story,
but only the changes and all the strangeness that this poor returning
soul found in the once familiar world.
In Dover itself he remarked little except the goodness of beer from
pewter--never before had there been such a draught of beer, and it
brought tears of gratitude to his eyes. "Beer's as good as ever," said
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