"Thank God!" murmured John, as he set me down at the foot of the steps. "You are safe at home."
"And you. You will come in—you would not leave me now?"
He thought a moment—then said, "No!"
We looked up doubtfully at the house; there were no watchers there. All the windows were closed, as if the whole peaceful establishment were taking its sleep, prior to the early stirring of Norton Bury households. Even John's loud knocking was some time before it was answered.
I was too exhausted to feel much; but I know those five awful minutes seemed interminable. I could not have borne them, save for John's voice in my ear.
"Courage! I'll bear all the blame. We have committed no absolute sin, and have paid dearly for any folly. Courage!"
At the five minutes' end my father opened the door. He was dressed as usual, looked as usual. Whether he had sat up watching, or had suffered any anxiety, I never found out.
He said nothing; merely opened the door, admitted us, and closed it behind us. But we were certain, from his face, that he knew all. It was so; some neighbour driving home from Coltham had taken pains to tell Abel Fletcher where he had seen his son—at the very last place a Friend's son ought to be seen—the play-house. We knew that it was by no means to learn the truth, but to confront us with it, that my father—reaching the parlour, and opening the shutters that the hard daylight should shame us more and more—asked the stern question—
"Phineas, where hast thee been?"
John answered for me. "At the theatre at Coltham. It was my fault. He went because I wished to go."
"And wherefore didst thee wish to go?"
"Wherefore?" the answer seemed hard to find. "Oh! Mr. Fletcher, were you never young like me?"
My father made no reply; John gathered courage.
"It was, as I say, all my fault. It might have been wrong—I think now that it was—but the temptation was hard. My life here is dull; I long sometimes for a little amusement—a little change."
"Thee shall have it."
That voice, slow and quiet as it was, struck us both dumb.
"And how long hast thee planned this, John Halifax?"
"Not a day—not an hour! it was a sudden freak of mine." (My father shook his head with contemptuous incredulity.) "Sir!—Abel Fletcher—did I ever tell you a lie? If you will not believe me, believe your own son. Ask Phineas—No, no, ask him nothing!" And he came in great distress to the sofa where I had fallen. "Oh, Phineas! how cruel I have been to you!"
I tried to smile at him, being past speaking—but my father put John aside.
"Young man, I can take care of my son. Thee shalt not lead him into harm's way any more. Go—I have been mistaken in thee!"
If my father had gone into a passion, had accused us, reproached us, and stormed at us with all the ill-language that men of the world use! but that quiet, cold, irrevocable, "I have been mistaken in thee!" was ten times worse.
John lifted to him a mute look, from which all pride had ebbed away.
"I repeat, I have been mistaken in thee! Thee seemed a lad to my mind; I trusted thee. This day, by my son's wish, I meant to have bound thee 'prentice to me, and in good time to have taken thee into the business. Now—"
There was silence. At last John muttered, in a low broken-hearted voice, "I deserve it all. I can go away. I might perhaps earn my living elsewhere; shall I?"
Abel Fletcher hesitated, looked at the poor lad before him (oh, David! how unlike to thee), then said, "No—I do not wish that. At least, not at present."
I cried out in the joy and relief of my heart. John came over to me, and we clasped hands.
"John, you will not go?"
"No, I will stay to redeem my character with your father. Be content, Phineas—I won't part with you."
"Young man, thou must," said my father, turning round.
"But—"
"I have said it, Phineas. I accuse him of no dishonesty, no crime, but of weakly yielding, and selfishly causing another to yield, to the temptation of the world. Therefore, as my clerk I retain him; as my son's companion—never!"
We felt that "never" was irrevocable.
Yet I tried, blindly and despairingly, to wrestle with it; I might as well have flung myself against a stone wall.
John stood perfectly silent.
"Don't, Phineas," he whispered at last; "never mind me. Your father is right—at least so far as he sees. Let me go—perhaps I may come back to you some time. If not—"
I moaned out bitter words—I hardly knew what I was saying. My father took no notice of them, only went to the door and called Jael.
Then, before the woman came, I had strength enough to bid John go.
"Good-bye—don't forget me, don't!"
"I will not," he said; "and if I live we shall be friends again. Good-bye, Phineas." He was gone.
After that day, though he kept his word, and remained in the tan-yard, and though from time to time I heard of him—always accidentally—after that day for two long years I never once saw the face of John Halifax.
CHAPTER VII
It was the year 1800, long known in English households as "the dear year." The present generation can have no conception of what a terrible time that was—War, Famine, and Tumult stalking hand-in-hand, and no one to stay them. For between the upper and lower classes there was a great gulf fixed; the rich ground the faces of the poor, the poor hated, yet meanly succumbed to, the rich. Neither had Christianity enough boldly to cross the line of demarcation, and prove, the humbler, that they were men—the higher and wiser, that they were gentlemen.
These troubles, which were everywhere abroad, reached us even in our quiet town of Norton Bury. For myself, personally, they touched me not, or, at least, only kept fluttering like evil birds outside the dear home-tabernacle, where I and Patience sat, keeping our solemn counsel together—for these two years had with me been very hard.
Though I had to bear so much bodily suffering that I was seldom told of any worldly cares, still I often fancied things were going ill both within and without our doors. Jael complained in an under-key of stinted housekeeping, or boasted aloud of her own ingenuity in making ends meet: and my father's brow grew continually heavier, graver, sterner; sometimes so stern that I dared not wage, what was, openly or secretly, the quiet but incessant crusade of my existence—the bringing back of John Halifax.
He still remained my father's
