Tales and Fantasies | Page 9

I rose this morning what the world calls a happy man -
happy, at least, in a son of whom I thought I could be reasonably proud
- '
But it was beyond human nature to endure this longer, and John
interrupted almost with a scream. 'Oh, wheest!' he cried, 'that's not all,

that's not the worst of it - it's nothing! How could I tell you were proud
of me? Oh! I wish, I wish that I had known; but you always said I was
such a disgrace! And the dreadful thing is this: we were all taken up
last night, and we have to pay Colette's fine among the six, or we'll be
had up for evidence - shebeening it is. They made me swear to tell you;
but for my part,' he cried, bursting into tears, 'I just wish that I was
dead!' And he fell on his knees before a chair and hid his face.
Whether his father spoke, or whether he remained long in the room or
at once departed, are points lost to history. A horrid turmoil of mind
and body; bursting sobs; broken, vanishing thoughts, now of
indignation, now of remorse; broken elementary whiffs of
consciousness, of the smell of the horse-hair on the chair bottom, of the
jangling of church bells that now began to make day horrible
throughout the confines of the city, of the hard floor that bruised his
knees, of the taste of tears that found their way into his mouth: for a
period of time, the duration of which I cannot guess, while I refuse to
dwell longer on its agony, these were the whole of God's world for
John Nicholson.
When at last, as by the touching of a spring, he returned again to
clearness of consciousness and even a measure of composure, the bells
had but just done ringing, and the Sabbath silence was still marred by
the patter of belated feet. By the clock above the fire, as well as by
these more speaking signs, the service had not long begun; and the
unhappy sinner, if his father had really gone to church, might count on
near two hours of only comparative unhappiness. With his father, the
superlative degree returned infallibly. He knew it by every shrinking
fibre in his body, he knew it by the sudden dizzy whirling of his brain,
at the mere thought of that calamity. An hour and a half, perhaps an
hour and three-quarters, if the doctor was long-winded, and then would
begin again that active agony from which, even in the dull ache of the
present, he shrunk as from the bite of fire. He saw, in a vision, the
family pew, the somnolent cushions, the Bibles, the psalm-books,
Maria with her smelling-salts, his father sitting spectacled and critical;
and at once he was struck with indignation, not unjustly. It was
inhuman to go off to church, and leave a sinner in suspense,
unpunished, unforgiven. And at the very touch of criticism, the paternal
sanctity was lessened; yet the paternal terror only grew; and the two

strands of feeling pushed him in the same direction.
And suddenly there came upon him a mad fear lest his father should
have locked him in. The notion had no ground in sense; it was probably
no more than a reminiscence of similar calamities in childhood, for his
father's room had always been the chamber of inquisition and the scene
of punishment; but it stuck so rigorously in his mind that he must
instantly approach the door and prove its untruth. As he went, he struck
upon a drawer left open in the business table. It was the money-drawer,
a measure of his father's disarray: the money-drawer - perhaps a
pointing providence! Who is to decide, when even divines differ
between a providence and a temptation? or who, sitting calmly under
his own vine, is to pass a judgment on the doings of a poor, hunted dog,
slavishly afraid, slavishly rebellious, like John Nicholson on that
particular Sunday? His hand was in the drawer, almost before his mind
had conceived the hope; and rising to his new situation, he wrote,
sitting in his father's chair and using his father's blotting-pad, his pitiful
apology and farewell:-
'MY DEAR FATHER, - I have taken the money, but I will pay it back
as soon as I am able. You will never hear of me again. I did not mean
any harm by anything, so I hope you will try and forgive me. I wish
you would say good-bye to Alexander and Maria, but not if you don't
want to. I could not wait to see you, really. Please try to forgive me.
Your affectionate son,
JOHN NICHOLSON.'
The coins abstracted and the missive written, he could not