CHAPTER III
IN WHICH JOHN ENJOYS THE HARVEST HOME
Shortly after breakfast, at which he assisted with a highly tragicalcountenance, John sought his father where he used to sit, presumably inreligious meditation, on the Sabbath mornings. The old gentleman lookedup with that sour inquisitive expression that came so near to smilingand was so different in effect.
"This is a time when I do not like to be disturbed," he said.
"I know that," returned John; "but I have--I want--I've made a dreadfulmess of it," he broke out, and turned to the window.
Mr. Nicholson sat silent for an appreciable time while his unhappy sonsurveyed the poles in the back green, and a certain yellow cat that wasperched upon the wall. Despair sat upon John as he gazed: and he ragedto think of the dreadful series of his misdeeds, and the essentialinnocence that lay behind them.
"Well," said the father, with an obvious effort, but in very quiettones, "what is it?"
"Maclean gave me four hundred pounds to put in the bank, sir," beganJohn; "and I'm sorry to say that I've been robbed of it!"
"Robbed of it?" cried Mr. Nicholson, with a strong rising inflection."Robbed? Be careful what you say, John!"
"I can't say anything else, sir; I was just robbed of it," said John, indesperation, sullenly.
"And where and when did this extraordinary event take place?" inquiredthe father.
"On the Calton Hill about twelve last night."
"The Calton Hill?" repeated Mr. Nicholson. "And what were you doingthere at such a time of the night?"
"Nothing, sir," says John.
Mr. Nicholson drew in his breath.
"And how came the money in your hands at twelve last night?" he askedsharply.
"I neglected that piece of business," said John, anticipating comment;and then in his own dialect: "I clean forgot all about it."
"Well," said his father, "it's a most extraordinary story. Have youcommunicated with the police?"
"I have," answered poor John, the blood leaping to his face. "They thinkthey know the men that did it. I daresay the money will be recovered, ifthat was all," said he, with a desperate indifference, which his fatherset down to levity; but which sprang from the consciousness of worsebehind.
"Your mother's watch, too?" asked Mr. Nicholson.
"O, the watch is all right!" cried John. "At least, I mean I was comingto the watch--the fact is, I am ashamed to say, I--I had pawned thewatch before. Here is the ticket; they didn't find that; the watch canbe redeemed; they don't sell pledges." The lad panted out these phrases,one after another, like minute-guns; but at the last word, which rang inthat stately chamber like an oath, his heart failed him utterly; and thedreaded silence settled on father and son.
It was broken by Mr. Nicholson picking up the pawn-ticket: "John Froggs,85 Pleasance," he read; and then turning upon John, with a brief flashof passion and disgust, "Who is John Froggs?" he cried.
"Nobody," said John. "It was just a name."
"An _alias_," his father commented.
"O! I think scarcely quite that," said the culprit; "it's a form, theyall do it, the man seemed to understand; we had a great deal of fun overthe name----"
He paused at that, for he saw his father wince at the picture like aman physically struck; and again there was silence.
"I do not think," said Mr. Nicholson at last, "that I am an ungenerousfather. I have never grudged you money within reason, for any avowablepurpose; you had just to come to me and speak. And now I find that youhave forgotten all decency and all natural feeling, and actuallypawned--pawned--your mother's watch. You must have had some temptation;I will do you justice to suppose it was a strong one. What did you wantwith this money?"
"I would rather not tell you, sir," said John. "It will only make youangry."
"I will not be fenced with," cried his father. "There must be an end ofdisingenuous answers. What did you want with this money?"
"To lend it to Houston, sir," says John.
"I thought I had forbidden you to speak to that young man?" asked thefather.
"Yes, sir," said John; "but I only met him."
"Where?" came the deadly question.
And "In a billiard-room" was the damning answer. Thus had John's singledeparture from the truth brought instant punishment. For no otherpurpose but to see Alan would he have entered a billiard-room; but hehad desired to palliate the fact of his disobedience, and now itappeared that he frequented these disreputable haunts upon his ownaccount.
Once more Mr. Nicholson digested the vile tidings in silence; and whenJohn stole a glance at his father's countenance, he was abashed to seethe marks of suffering.
"Well," said the old gentleman at last, "I cannot pretend not to besimply bowed down. I rose this morning what the world calls a happyman--happy, at least, in a son of whom I thought I could be reasonablyproud----"
But it was beyond human nature to endure this longer, and Johninterrupted almost with a scream. "O, wheest!" he cried, "that's notall, that's not the worst of it--it's nothing! How could I tell youwere proud of me? O! I wish, I wish that I had known; but you alwayssaid I was such a disgrace! And the dreadful thing is this: we were alltaken up last night, and we have to pay Collette's fine among the six,or we'll be had up for evidence--shebeening it is. They made me swear totell you; but for my part," he cried, bursting into tears, "I just wishthat I was dead!" And he fell on his knees before a chair and hid hisface.
Whether his father spoke, and whether he remained long in the room or atonce departed, are points lost to history. A horrid turmoil of mind andbody; bursting sobs; broken, vanishing thoughts, now of indignation, nowof remorse; broken elementary whiffs of consciousness, of the smell ofthe horse-hair on the chair-bottom, of the jangling of church bells thatnow began to make day horrible throughout the confines of the city, ofthe hard floor that bruised his knees, of the taste of tears that foundtheir way into his mouth: for a period of time, the duration of which Icannot guess, while I refuse to dwell longer on its agony, these werethe whole of God's world for John Nicholson.
When at last, as by the touching of a spring, he returned again toclearness of consciousness and even a measure of composure, the bellshad but just done ringing, and the Sabbath silence was still marred bythe patter of belated feet. By the clock above the fire, as well as bythese more speaking signs, the service had not long begun; and theunhappy sinner, if his father had really gone to church, might count onnear two hours of only comparative unhappiness. With his father, thesuperlative degree returned infallibly. He knew it by every shrinkingfibre 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 anhour and three-quarters, if the Doctor was long-winded, and then wouldbegin again that active agony from which, even in the dull ache of thepresent, he shrank as from the bite of fire. He saw, in a vision, thefamily pew, the somnolent cushions, the Bibles, the Psalm-books, Mariawith her smelling-salts, his father sitting spectacled and critical;and at once he was struck with indignation, not unjustly. It was inhumanto go off to church and leave a sinner in suspense, unpunished,unforgiven. And at the very touch of criticism, the paternal sanctitywas lessened; yet the paternal terror only grew; and the two strands offeeling drew him in the same direction.
And suddenly there came upon him a mad fear lest his father should havelocked him in. The notion had no ground in sense; it was probably nomore than a reminiscence of similar calamities in childhood, for hisfather's room had always been the chamber of inquisition and the sceneof punishment; but it stuck so rigorously in his mind that he mustinstantly approach the door and prove its untruth. As he went, he struckupon 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 pointingprovidence! Who is to decide, when even divines differ, between aprovidence and a temptation? or who, sitting calmly under his own vine,is to pass a judgment on the doings of a poor, hunted dog, slavishlyafraid, slavishly rebellio
us, like John Nicholson on that particularSunday? His hand was in the drawer almost before his mind had conceivedthe hope; and rising to his new situation, he wrote, sitting in hisfather's chair and using his father's blotting-pad, his pitiful apologyand 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 for me 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 be gone toosoon from the scene of these transgressions; and remembering how hisfather had once returned from church, on some slight illness, in themiddle of the second psalm, he durst not even make a packet of a changeof clothes. Attired as he was, he slipped from the paternal doors, andfound himself in the cool spring air, the thin spring sunshine, and thegreat Sabbath quiet of the city, which was now only pointed by thecawing of the rooks. There was not a soul in Randolph Crescent, nor asoul in Queensferry Street; in this outdoor privacy and the sense ofescape, John took heart again; and with a pathetic sense ofleave-taking, he even ventured up the lane and stood a while, a strangeperi at the gates of a quaint paradise, by the west end of St. George'sChurch. They were singing within; and by a strange chance the tune was"St. George's, Edinburgh," which bears the name, and was first sung inthe choir, of that church. "Who is this King of Glory?" went the voicesfrom within; and to John this was like the end of all Christianobservances, for he was now to be a wild man like Ishmael, and his lifewas to be cast in homeless places and with godless people.
It was thus, with no rising sense of the adventurous, but in meredesolation and despair, that he turned his back on his native city, andset out on foot for California--with a more immediate eye to Glasgow.