think it so very bad to have gone out on a lark just now! Oh, I wish I hadn’t done it.”
“So do I, indeed, Harry! but I am sure, even it he should be angry at first, he will be pleased with your confessing.”
Harry looked very reluctant and disconsolate, and his sister did not wonder for Dr. May’s way of hearing of a fault was never to be calculated on. “Come, Harry,” said she, “if he is ever so angry, though I don’t think he will be, do you think that will be half as bad as this load at your heart? Besides, if you are not bold enough to speak to him, do you think you can ever be brave enough for a sailor?”
“I will,” said Harry, and the words were hardly spoken, before his father’s hand was on the door. He was taken by surprise at the moment of trial coming so speedily, and had half a mind to retreat by the other door; he was stayed by the reflection that Margaret would think him a coward, unfit for a sailor, and he made up his mind to endure whatever might betide.
“Harry here? This is company I did not expect.”
“Harry has something to say to you, papa.”
“Eh! my boy, what is it?” said he kindly.
“Papa, I have killed a partridge. Two fellows got me to hire a gun, and go out shooting with them last Saturday,” said Harry, speaking firmly and boldly now he had once begun. “We meant only to go after pee-wits, but a partridge got up, and I killed it.”
Then came a pause. Harry stopped, and Dr. May waited, half expecting to hear that the boy was only brought to confession by finding himself in a scrape. Margaret spoke. “And he could not be happy till he had told you.”
“Is it so? Is that the whole?” said the doctor, looking at his son with a keen glance, between affection and inquiry, as if only waiting to be sure the confession was free, before he gave his free forgiveness.
“Yes, papa,” said Harry, his voice and lip losing their firmness, as the sweetness of expression gained the day on his father’s face. “Only that I know—’twas very wrong—especially now—and I am very sorry—and I beg your pardon.”
The latter words came between sighs, fast becoming sobs, in spite of Harry’s attempts to control them, as his father held out his arm, and drew him close to him.
“That’s mamma’s own brave boy,” he said in his ear—in a voice which strong feeling had reduced to such a whisper, that even Margaret could not hear—she only saw how Harry, sobbing aloud, clung tighter and tighter to him, till he said “Take care of my arm!” and Harry sprang back at least a yard, with such a look of dismay, that the doctor laughed. “No harm done!” said he. “I was only a little in dread of such a young lion! Comeback, Harry,” and he took his hand. “It was a bad piece of work, and it will never do for you to let yourself be drawn into every bit of mischief that is on foot; I believe I ought to give you a good lecture on it, but I can’t do it, after such a straightforward confession. You must have gone through enough in the last week, not to be likely to do it again.”
“Yes, papa—thank you.”
“I suppose I must not ask you any questions about it, for fear of betraying the fellows,” said Dr. May, half smiling.
“Thank you, papa,” said Harry, infinitely relieved and grateful, and quite content for some space to lean in silence against the chair, with that encircling arm round him, while some talk passed between his father and Margaret.
What a world of thought passed through the boy’s young soul in that space! First, there was a thrill of intense, burning love to his father, scarcely less fondness to his sweet motherly sister; a clinging feeling to every chair and table of that room, which seemed still full of his mother’s presence; a numbering over of all the others with ardent attachment, and a flinging from him with horror the notion of asking to be far away from that dearest father, that loving home, that arm that was round him. Anything rather than be without them in the dreary world! But then came the remembrance of cherished visions, the shame of relinquishing a settled purpose, the thought of weary morrows, with the tempters among his playmates, and his home blank and melancholy; and the roaming spirit of enterprise stirred again, and reproached him with being a baby, for fancying he could stay at home for ever. He would come back again with such honours as Alan Ernescliffe had brought, and oh! if his father so prized them in a stranger, what would it be in his own son? Come home to such a greeting as would make up for the parting! Harry’s heart throbbed again for the boundless sea, the tall ship, and the wondrous foreign climes, where he had so often lived in fancy. Should he, could he speak: was this the moment? and he stood gazing at the fire, oppressed with the weighty reality of deciding his destiny. At last Dr. May looked in his face, “Well, what now, boy? You have your head full of something—what’s coming next?”
Out it came, “Papa will you let me be a sailor?”
“Oh!” said Dr. May, “that is come on again, is it? I thought that you had forgotten all that.”
“No, papa,” said Harry, with the manly coolness that the sense of his determination gave him—“it was not a mere fancy, and I have never had it out of my head. I mean it quite in earnest—I had rather be a sailor. I don’t wish to get away from Latin and Greek, I don’t mind them; but I think I could be a better sailor than anything. I know it is not all play, but I am willing to rough it; and I am getting so old, it is time to see about it, so will you consent to it, papa?”
“Well! there’s some sense in your way of putting it,” said Dr. May. “You have it strong in your head then, and you know ’tis not all fair-weather work!”
“That I do; Alan told me histories, and I’ve read all about it; but one must rough it anywhere, and if I am ever so far away, I’ll try not to forget what’s right. I’ll do my duty, and not care for danger.”
“Well said, my man; but remember ’tis easier talking by one’s own fireside than doing when the trial comes.”
“And will you let me, papa?”
“I’ll think about it. I can’t make up my mind as ‘quick as directly,’ you know, Harry,” said his father, smiling kindly, “but I won’t treat it as a boy’s fancy, for you’ve spoken in a manly way, and deserve to be attended to. Now run down, and tell the girls to put away their work, for I shall come down in a minute to read prayers.”
Harry went, and his father sighed and mused! “That’s a fine fellow! So this is what comes of bringing sick sailors home—one’s own boys must be catching the infection. Little monkey, he talks as wisely as if he were forty! He is really set on it, do you think, Margaret? I’m afraid so!”
“I think so,” said Margaret; “I don’t think he ever has it out of his mind!”
“And when the roving spirit once lays hold of a lad, he must have his way—he is good for nothing else,” said Dr. May.
“I suppose a man may keep from evil in that profession as well as in any other,” said Margaret.
“Aha! you are bit too, are you?” said the doctor; “ ’tis the husbandman and viper, is it?” Then his smile turned into a heavy sigh, as he saw he had brought colour to Margaret’s pale cheek, but she answered calmly, “Dear mamma did not think it would be a bad thing for him.”
“I know,” said the doctor, pausing; “but it never came to this with her.”
