Born in Exile Read Online Free PDF

salary
of thirty-five shillings a week, by a medical man with a large
practice. His income, therefore, fell considerably within the
hundred pound limit; and, all things considered, it was not
unreasonable that he should be allowed to expend the whole of this
sum on domestic necessities. But it came to pass that Nicholas, in
his greed of wealth, obtained supplementary employment, which
benefited him to the extent of a yearly ten pounds. Called upon to
render his statement to the surveyor of income-tax, he declared
himself in possession of a hundred and one pounds per annum;
consequently, he stood indebted to the Exchequer in the sum of four
pounds, sixteen shillings, and ninepence. His countenance darkened,
as also did that of Mrs. Peak.
    'This is wrong and cruel—dreadfully cruel!' cried the latter,
with tears in her eyes.
    'It is; but that's no new thing,' was the bitter reply.
    'I think it's wrong of you , Nicholas. What need is there
to say anything about that ten pounds? It's taking the food out of
our mouths.'
    Knowing only the letter of the law, Mr. Peak answered
sternly:
    'My income is a hundred and one pounds. I can't sign my name to
a lie.'
    Picture the man. Tall, gaunt, with sharp intellectual features,
and eyes of singular beauty, the face of an enthusiast—under given
circumstances, of a hero. Poorly clad, of course, but with rigorous
self-respect; his boots polished, propria manu , to the point
of perfection; his linen washed and ironed by the indefatigable
wife. Of simplest tastes, of most frugal habits, a few books the
only luxury which he deemed indispensable; yet a most difficult man
to live with, for to him applied precisely the description which
Robert Burns gave of his own father; he was 'of stubborn, ungainly
integrity and headlong irascibility'.
    Ungainly, for his strong impulses towards culture were powerless
to obliterate the traces of his rude origin. Born in a London
alley, the son of a labourer burdened with a large family, he had
made his way by sheer force of character to a position which would
have seemed proud success but for the difficulty with which he kept
himself alive. His parents were dead. Of his brothers, two had
disappeared in the abyss, and one, Andrew, earned a hard livelihood
as a journeyman baker; the elder of his sisters had married poorly,
and the younger was his blind pensioner. Nicholas had found a wife
of better birth than his own, a young woman with country kindred in
decent circumstances, though she herself served as nursemaid in the
house of the medical man who employed her future husband. He had
taught himself the English language, so far as grammar went, but
could not cast off the London accent; Mrs. Peak was fortunate
enough to speak with nothing worse than the note of the
Midlands.
    His bent led him to the study of history, politics, economics,
and in that time of military outbreak he was frenzied by the
conflict of his ideals with the state of things about him. A book
frequently in his hands was Godwin's Political Justice , and
when a son had been born to him he decided to name the child after
that favourite author. In this way, at all events, he could find
some expression for his hot defiance of iniquity.
    He paid his income-tax, and felt a savage joy in the privation
thus imposed upon his family. Mrs. Peak could not forgive her
husband, and in this case, though she had but dim appreciation of
the point of honour involved, her censures doubtless fell on
Nicholas's vulnerable spot; it was the perversity of arrogance, at
least as much as honesty, that impelled him to incur taxation. His
wife's perseverance in complaint drove him to stern impatience, and
for a long time the peace of the household suffered.
    When the boy Godwin was five years old, the death of his blind
aunt came as a relief to means which were in every sense overtaxed.
Twelve months later, a piece of unprecedented good fortune seemed
to place the Peaks beyond fear of want, and at the same time to
supply