For his own part, he was a good deal
from home, coming and going as it suited him; a very small income
from capital, and occasional earnings by contribution to scientific
journalism, left slender resources to Mrs. Hannaford and her
daughter after the husband's needs were supplied. Thus it came about
that they gladly ceded a spare room to Piers Otway, who, having
boarded with them during his student time at Geneva, had at long
intervals kept up a correspondence with Mrs. Hannaford, a lady he
admired.
The rooms were indifferently furnished; in part, owing to poverty,
and partly because neither of the ladies cared much for things
domestic. Mr. Hannaford's sanctum alone had character; it was hung
about with lethal weapons of many kinds and many epochs, including a
memento of every important war waged in Europe since the date of
Waterloo. A smoke-grimed rifle from some battlefield was in
Hannaford's view a thing greatly precious; still more, a bayonet
with stain of blood; these relics appealed to his emotions. Under
glass were ranged minutiae such as bullets, fragments of shells, bits
of gore-drenched cloth or linen, a splinter of human bone--all
ticketed with neat inscription. A bookcase contained volumes of
military history, works on firearms, treatises on (chiefly
explosive) chemistry; several great portfolios were packed with maps
and diagrams of warfare. Upstairs, a long garret served as
laboratory, and here were ranged less valuable possessions; weapons
to which some doubt attached, unbloody scraps of accoutrements, also
a few models of cannon and the like.
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