CHAPTER LII. – A RELIC FROM THE BURIAL-GROUND
When Hamish Channing joined the breakfast-table at home that morning at nine o’clock, he mentioned his adventure at the station with Lady Augusta Yorke. It was the first intimation they had received of Roland’s departure; indeed, the first that some of them had heard of his intention to depart.
Arthur laid down his knife and fork. To him alone could the full consequences of the step present themselves, as regarded Mr. Galloway.
“Hamish! he cannot actually have gone?”
“That he is actually off by the train to London, I can certify,” was the reply of Hamish. “Whether he will be off to Port Natal, is another thing. He desired me to tell you, Arthur, that he should write his adieu to you from town.”
“He might have come to see me,” observed Arthur, a shade of resentment in his tone. “I never thought he would really go.”
“I did,” said Hamish, “funds permitting him. If Lord Carrick will supply those, he’ll be off by the first comfortable ship that sails. His mind was so completely bent upon it.”
“What can he think of doing at Port Natal?” inquired Constance, wonderingly.
“Making his fortune.” But Hamish laughed as he said it. “Wherever I may have met him latterly, his whole talk has been of Port Natal. Lady Augusta says he is going to take out frying-pans to begin with.”
“Hamish!”
“She said so, Constance. I have no doubt Roland said so to her. I should like to see the sort of cargo he will lay in for the start.”
“What does Mr. Galloway say to it, I wonder?” exclaimed Arthur, that gentleman’s perplexities presenting themselves to his mind above everything else. “I cannot think what he will do.”
“I have an idea that Mr. Galloway is as yet unaware of it,” said Hamish. “Roland assured me that no person whatever knew of his departure, except Jenkins. He called upon him on his way to the station.”
“Unaware of it!” Arthur fell into consternation great as Mr. Galloway’s, as he repeated the words. Was it possible that Roland had stolen a march on Mr. Galloway? He relapsed into silence and thought.
“What makes you so sad?” Constance asked of Arthur later, when they were dispersing to their several occupations.
“I am not sad, Constance; only thoughtful. I have been carrying on an inward battle,” he added, half laughingly.
“With your conscience?”
“With my spirit. It is a proud one yet, in spite of all I have had to tame it; a great deal more rebellious than I like it to be.”
“Why, what is the matter, Arthur?”
“Constance, I think I ought to come forward and help Mr. Galloway out of this strait. I think my duty lies in doing it.”
“To return to his office, you mean?”
“Yes; until he can see his way out of the wood. But it goes against the grain.”
“Arthur dear, I know you will do it,” she gently said. “Were our duty always pleasant to us, where would be the merit in fulfilling it?”
“I shall do it,” he answered. “To that I have made up my mind. The difficulty is, Constance, to do it with a good grace.”
She looked at him with a loving smile. “Only try. A firm will, Arthur, will conquer even a rebellious spirit.”
Arthur knew it. He knew how to set about it. And a little later, he was on his way to Close Street, with the best grace in the world. Not only in appearance, mind you, but inwardly. It is a GREAT thing, reader, to conquer the risings of a proud spirit! To bring it from its haughty, rebellious pedestal, down to cordiality and love. Have you learnt the way?
Some parchments under his arm, for he had stayed to collect them together, Arthur bounded in to Mr. Galloway’s. The first object his eyes fell on was that shadowy form, coughing and panting. “Oh, Jenkins!” he involuntarily uttered, “what do you do out of your house?”
“Anxiety for me has brought him out,” said Mr. Galloway. “How can I scold him?”
“I could not rest, sir, knowing my master was alone in his need,” cried Jenkins to Arthur. “What is to become of the office, sir, with no one in it?”
“But he is not alone,” said Arthur; and, if he had wanted a reward for coming forward, that moment would have supplied it, in satisfying poor Jenkins. “If you will allow me, sir,” Arthur added, turning frankly to Mr. Galloway, “I will take my place here, until you shall be suited.”
“Thank you,” emphatically replied Mr. Galloway. “It will relieve me from a serious embarrassment.”
Arthur went to his old desk, and sat down on his old stool, and began settling the papers and other things on it, just as though he had not been absent an hour. “I must still attend the cathedral as usual, sir,” he observed to Mr. Galloway; “but I can give you the whole of my remaining time. I shall be better for you than no one.”
“I would rather have you here than any one else, Channing; he”—laying his hand on Jenkins’s shoulder—“excepted. I offered that you should return before.”
“I know you did, sir,” replied Arthur, in a brief tone—one that seemed to intimate he would prefer not to pursue the subject.
“And now are you satisfied?” struck in Mrs. Jenkins to her husband.
“I am more than satisfied,” answered Jenkins, clasping his hands. “With Mr. Arthur in the office, I shall have no fear of its missing me, and I can go home in peace, to die.”
“Please just to hold your tongue about dying,” reprimanded Mrs. Jenkins. “Your business is to get well, if you can. And now I am going to see after a fly. A pretty dance I should have had here, if he had persisted in stopping, bringing him messes and cordials every half-hour! Which would have worn out first, I wonder—the pavement or my shoes?”
“Channing,” said Mr. Galloway, “let us understand each other. Have you come here to do anything there may be to do—out of doors as well as in? In short, to be my clerk as heretofore?”
“Of course I have, sir; until”—Arthur spoke very distinctly—“you shall be able to suit yourself; not longer.”
“Then take this paper round to Deering’s office, and get it signed. You will have time to do it before college.”
Arthur’s answer was to put on his hat, and vault away with the paper. Jenkins turned to Mr. Galloway as soon as they were alone. “Oh, sir, keep him in your office!” he earnestly said. “He will soon be of more value to you than I have ever been!”
“That he will not, Jenkins. Nor any one else.”
“Yes, he will, sir! He will be able to replace you in the chapter house upon any emergency, and I never could do that, you know, sir, not being a gentleman. When you have him to yourself alone, sir, you will see his value; and I shall not be missed. He is steady and thoughtful beyond his years, sir, and every day will make him older.”
“You forget the charge against him, Jenkins. Until he shall be cleared of that—if he can be cleared of it—he will not be of great value to any one; certainly not to me.”
“Sir,” said Jenkins, raising his wan face, its hectic deepening, find his eye lighting, while his voice sunk to a whisper, so deep as to savour of solemnity, “that time will come! He never did it, and he will as surely be cleared, as that I am now saying it! Sir, I have thought much about this accusation; it has troubled me in sleep; but I know that God will bring the right to light for those who trust in Him. If any one ever trusted in God, it is Mr. Arthur Channing. I lie and think of all this, sir. I seem to be so near God, now,” Jenkins went on dreamily, “that I know the right must come to light; that it will come in God’s own good time. And I believe I shall live to see it!”
“You have certainly firm faith in his innocence, Jenkins. How then do you account for his very suspicious manner?”
“It does not weigh with me, sir. I could as soon believe a good wholesome apple-tree would bring forth poison, as that Mr. Arthur would be guilty of a deliberately bad action. Sometimes I have thought, sir, when puzzling over it, that he may be screening another. There’s no telling how it was. I hear, sir, that the money has been returned to you.”
“Yes. Was it he who told you?”
“It was Mr. Roland Yorke who told me, sir. Mr. Roland is another, sir, who has had firm faith in his innocence from the first.”
“Much his faith goes for!” ejaculated Mr. Galloway, as he came back from his private room with a letter, which he handed to Jenkins, who was skilled in caligraphy. “What do you make of it?” he asked. “It is the letter which came with the returned money.”
“It is a disguised hand, sir—there’s no doubt of that,” replied Jenkins, when he had surveyed it critically. “I do not remember to have seen any person write like it.”
Mr. Galloway took it back to his room, and presently a fly drove up with Mrs. Jenkins inside it. Jenkins stood at the office door, hat in hand, his face turned upon the room. Mrs. Jenkins came up and seized his arm, to marshal him to the fly.
“I was but taking a farewell of things, sir,” he observed to Mr. Galloway. “I shall never see the old spot again.”
Arthur arrived just as Jenkins was safely in. He put his hand over the door. “Make yourself easy, Jenkins; it will all go on smoothly here. Good-bye, old fellow! I’ll come and see you very soon.”
“How he breaks, does he not, sir?” exclaimed Arthur to Mr. Galloway.
“Ay! he’s not long for this world!”
The fly proceeded on its way; Mrs. Jenkins, with her snappish manner, though really not unkind heart, lecturing Jenkins on his various shortcomings until it drew up at their own door. As Jenkins was being helped down from it, one of the college boys passed at a great speed; a railroad was nothing to it. It was Stephen Bywater. Something, legitimate or illegitimate, had detained him, and now the college bell was going.
He caught sight of Jenkins, and, hurried as he was, much of punishment as he was bargaining for, it had such an effect upon him, that he pulled up short. Was it Jenkins, or his ghost? Bywater had never been so struck with any sight before.
The most appropriate way in which it occurred to him to give vent to his surprise, was to prop his back against the shop door, and indulge in a soft, prolonged whistle. He could not take his eyes from Jenkins’s face. “Is it you, or your shadow, Jenkins?” he asked, making room for the invalid to pass.
“It’s myself, sir, thank you. I hope you are well, sir.”
“Oh, I’m always jolly,” replied Bywater, and then he began to whistle again.
He followed Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins into the shop with his eyes; that is, they followed Jenkins. Bywater had heard, as a matter of necessity, of Jenkins’s illness, and had given as much thought to it as he would have done if told Jenkins had a headache; but to fancy him like
this
had never occurred to Bywater.
Now somewhere beneath Bywater’s waistcoat, there really was a little bit of heart; and, as he thus looked, a great fear began to thump against it. He followed Jenkins into the parlour. Mrs. Jenkins, after divesting Jenkins of his coat, and her boa, planted him right before the fire in his easy-chair, with a pillow at his back, and was now whisking down into the kitchen, regardless of certain customers waiting in the shop to be served.
Bywater, unasked, sat himself in a chair near to poor Jenkins and his panting breath, and indulged in another long stare. “I say, Jenkins,” said he, “what’s the matter with you?”
Jenkins took the question literally. “I believe it may be called a sort of decline, sir. I don’t know any other name for it.”
“Shan’t you get well?”
“Oh no, sir! I don’t look for that, now.”
The fear thumped at Bywater’s heart worse than before. A past vision of locking up old Ketch in the cloisters, through which pastime Jenkins had come to a certain fall, was uncomfortably present to Bywater just then. He had been the ringleader.
“What brought it on?” asked he.
“Well, sir, I suppose it was to come,” meekly replied Jenkins. “I have had a bad cough, spring and autumn, for a long while now, Master Bywater. My brother went off just the same, sir, and so did my mother.”
Bywater pushed his honest, red face, forward; but it did not look quite so impudent as usual. “Jenkins,” said he, plunging headlong into the fear, “DID—THAT—FALL—DO—IT?”
“Fall, sir! What fall?”
“That fall down from the organ loft. Because that was my fault. I had the most to do with locking up the cloisters, that night.”
“Oh, bless you, sir, no! Never think that. Master Bywater”—lowering his voice till it was as grave as Bywater’s—“that fall did me good—good, sir, instead of harm.”
“How do you make out that?” asked Bywater, drawing his breath a little easier.
“Because, sir, in the few days’ quiet that I had in bed, my thoughts seemed in an unaccountable manner to be drawn to thinking of heaven. I can’t rightly describe, sir, how or why it could have been. I remember his lordship, the bishop, talked to me a little bit in his pleasant, affable way, about the necessity of always, being prepared; and my wife’s Bible lay on the drawers by my bed’s head, and I used to pick up that. But I don’t think it was either of those causes much; I believe, sir, that it was God Himself working in my heart. I believe He sent the fall in His mercy. After I got up, I seemed to know that I should soon go to Him; and—I hope it is not wrong to say it—I seemed to wish to go.”
Bywater felt somewhat puzzled. “I am not speaking about your heart and religion, and all that, Jenkins. I want to know if the fall helped to bring on this illness?”
“No, sir; it had nothing to do with it. The fall hurt my head a little—nothing more; and I got well from it directly. This illness, which has been taking me off, must have been born with me.”
“Hoo—” Bywater’s shout, as he tossed up his trencher, was broken in upon by Mrs. Jenkins. She had been beating up an egg with sugar and wine, and now brought it in in a tumbler.
“My dear,” said Jenkins, “I don’t feel to want it.”
“Not want it!” said Mrs. Jenkins resolutely. And in two seconds she had taken hold of him, and it was down his throat. “I can’t stop parleying here all day, with my shop full of customers.” Bywater laughed, and she retreated.
“If I could eat gold, sir, she’d get it for me,” said Jenkins; “but my appetite fails. She’s a good wife, Master Bywater.”
“Stunning,” acquiesced Bywater. “I wouldn’t mind a wife myself, if she’d feed me up with eggs and wine.”
“But for her care, sir, I should not have lasted so long. She has had great experience with the sick.”
Bywater did not answer. Rising to go, his eyes had fixed themselves upon some object on the mantelpiece as pertinaciously as they had previously been fixed upon Jenkins’s face. “I say, Jenkins, where did you get this?” he exclaimed.
“That, sir? Oh, I remember. My old father brought it in yesterday. He had cut his hand with it. Where now did he say he found it? In the college burial-ground, I think, Master Bywater.”
It was part of a small broken phial, of a peculiar shape, which had once apparently contained ink; an elegant shape, it may be said, not unlike a vase. Bywater began turning it about in his fingers; he was literally feasting his eyes upon it.
“Do you want to keep it, Jenkins?”
“Not at all, sir. I wonder my wife did not throw it away before this.”
“I’ll take it, then,” said Bywater, slipping it into his pocket. “And now I’m off. Hope you’ll get better, Jenkins.”
“Thank you, sir. Let me put the broken bottle in paper, Master Bywater. You will cut your fingers if you carry it loose in your pocket.”
“Oh, that be bothered!” answered Bywater. “Who cares for cut fingers?”
He pushed himself through Mrs. Jenkins’s customers, with as little ceremony as Roland Yorke might have used, and went flying towards the cathedral. The bell ceased as he entered. The organ pealed forth; and the dean and chapter, preceded by some of the bedesmen, were entering from the opposite door. Bywater ensconced himself behind a pillar, until they should have traversed the body, crossed the nave, and were safe in the choir. Then he came out, and made his way to old Jenkins the bedesman.
The old man, in his black gown, stood near the bell ropes, for he had been one of the ringers that day. Bywater noticed that his left hand was partially tied up in a handkerchief.
“Holloa, old Jenkins,” said he,
sotte voce
, “what have you done with your hand?”
“I gave it a nasty cut yesterday, sir, just in the ball of the thumb. I wrapped my handkerchief round it just now, for fear of opening it again, while I was ringing the bell. See,” said he, taking off the handkerchief and showing the cut to Bywater.
“What an old muff you must be, to cut yourself like that!”
“But I didn’t do it on purpose,” returned the old man. “We was ordered into the burial-ground to put it a bit to rights, and I fell down with my hand on a broken phial. I ain’t as active as I was. I say, though, sir, do you know that service has begun?”
“Let it begin,” returned careless Bywater. “This was the bottle you fell over, was it not? I found it on Joe’s mantelpiece, just now.”
“Ay, that was it. It must have laid there some time. A good three months, I know.”
Bywater nodded his head. He returned the bottle to his pocket, and went to the vestry for his surplice. Then he slid into college under the severe eyes of the Reverend Mr. Pye, which were bent upon him from the chanting-desk, and ascended, his stall just in time to take his part in the
Venite, exultemus Domino
.
CHAPTER LIII. – THE RETURN HOME
It almost seemed, to Mr. Channing’s grateful heart, as if the weather had prolonged its genial warmth on purpose for him. A more charming autumn had never been known at Borcette, and up to the very hour of Mr. Channing’s departure, there were no signs of winter. Taking it as a whole, it had been the same at Helstonleigh. Two or three occasional wet days, two or three cold and windy ones; but they soon passed over and people remarked to each other how this fine weather would shorten the winter.
Never did November turn out a more lovely day than the one that was to witness Mr. Channing’s return. The sun shone brightly; the blue sky was without a cloud. All Nature seemed to have put on a smiling face to give him welcome. And yet—to what was he returning?
For once in his life, Hamish Channing shrank from meeting his father and mother. How should he break the news to them? They were arriving full of joy, of thankfulness at the restoration to health of Mr. Channing: how could Hamish mar it with the news regarding Charles? Told it must be; and he must be the one to do it. In good truth, Hamish was staggered at the task. His own hopeful belief that Charley would some day “turn up,” was beginning to die out; for every hour that dragged by, without bringing him, certainly gave less and less chance of it. And even if Hamish had retained hope himself, it was not likely he could impart it to Mr. or Mrs. Channing.
“I shall get leave from school this afternoon,” Tom suddenly exclaimed that morning at breakfast.
“For what purpose?” inquired Hamish.
“To go up to the station and meet them.”
“No, Tom. You must not go to the station.”
“Who says so?” sharply cried Tom.
“I do,” replied Hamish.
“I dare say! that’s good!” returned Tom, speaking in his hasty spirit. “You know you are going yourself, Hamish, and yet you would like to deprive me of the same pleasure. Why, I wouldn’t miss being there for anything! Don’t say, Hamish, that you are never selfish.”
Hamish turned upon him with a smile, but his tone changed to sadness. “I wish with all my heart, Tom, that you or some one else, could go and meet them, instead of myself, and undertake what I shall have to do. I can tell you I never had a task imposed upon me that I found so uncongenial as the one I must go through this day.”
Tom’s voice dropped a little of its fierce shade. “But, Hamish, there’s no reason why I should not meet them at the station. That will not make it the better or the worse for you.”
“I will tell you why I think you should not,” replied Hamish; “why it will be better that you should not. It is most desirable that they should be home, here, in this house, before the tidings are broken to them. I should not like them to hear of it in the streets, or at the station; especially my mother.”
“Of course not,” assented Tom.
“And, were you at the station,” quietly went on Hamish to him, “the first question would be, ‘Where’s Charley?’ If Tom Channing can get leave of absence from school, Charley can.”
“I could say—”
“Well?” said Hamish, for Tom had stopped.
“I don’t know what I could say,” acknowledged Tom.
“Nor I. My boy, I have thought it over, and the conclusion I come to, if you appear at the station, is this: either that the tidings must be told to them, then and there, or else an evasion, bordering upon an untruth. If they do not see you there, they will not inquire particularly after Charles; they will suppose you are both in school.”
“I declare I never set my mind upon a thing but something starts in to frustrate it!” cried Tom, in vexation. But he relinquished his intention from that moment.
Chattering Annabel threw up her head. “As soon as papa and mamma come home, we shall put on mourning, shall we not? Constance was talking about it with Lady Augusta.”
“Do not talk of mourning, child,” returned Hamish. “
I
can’t give him up, if you do.”
Afternoon came, and Hamish proceeded alone to the station. Tom, listening to the inward voice of reason, was in school, and Arthur was occupied in the cathedral; the expected hour of their arrival was towards the close of afternoon service. Hamish had boasted that he should
walk
his father through Helstonleigh for the benefit of beholders, if happily he came home capable of walking; but, like poor Tom and
his
plan, that had to be relinquished. In the first half-dozen paces they would meet half a dozen gossipers, and the first remark from each, after congratulations, would be, “What a sad thing this is about your little Charles!” Hamish lived in doubt whether it might not, by some untoward luck, come out at the station, in spite of his precaution in keeping away Tom.
But, so far, all went well. The train came in to its time, and Hamish, his face lighted with excitement, saw his father once more in possession of his strength, descending without assistance from the carriage, walking alone on the platform. Not in the full strength and power of old; that might never be again. He stooped slightly, and moved slowly, as if his limbs were yet stiff, limping a little. But that he was now in a sound state of health was evident; his face betrayed it. Hamish did not know whose hands to clasp first; his, or his mother’s.
“Can you believe that it is myself, Hamish?” asked Mr. Channing, when the first few words of thankful greeting had passed.
“I should hide my head for ever as a false prophet if it could be any one else,” was the reply of Hamish. “You know I always said you would so return. I am only in doubt whether it is my mother.”
“What is the matter with me, Hamish?” asked Mrs. Channing. “Because you would make about two of the thin, pale, careworn Mrs. Channing who went away,” cried he, turning his mother round to look at her, deep love shining out from his gay blue eyes. “I hope you have not taken to rouge your cheeks, ma’am, but I am bound to confess they look uncommonly like it.”
Mrs. Channing laughed merrily. “It has done me untold good, Hamish, as well as papa; it seems to have set me up for years to come. Seeing him grow better day by day would have effected it, without any other change.”
Mr. Channing had actually gone himself to see after the luggage. How strange it seemed! Hamish caught him up. “If you can give yourself trouble now, sir, there’s no reason that you should do so, while you have your great lazy son at your elbow.”
“Hamish, boy, I am proud of doing it.”
It was soon collected. Hamish hastily, if not carelessly, told a porter to look to it, took Mr. Channing’s arm, and marched him to the fly, which Mrs. Channing had already found. Hamish was in lively dread of some officious friend or other coming up, who might drop a hint of the state of affairs.
“Shall I help you in, father!”
“I can help myself now, Hamish. I remember you promised me I should have no fly on my return. You have thought better of it.”
“Yes, sir, wishing to get you home before bed-time, which might not be the case if you were to show yourself in the town, and stop at all the interruptions.”
Mr. Channing stepped into the fly. Hamish followed, first giving the driver a nod. “The luggage! The luggage!” exclaimed Mrs. Channing, as they moved off.
“The porter will bring it, mother. He would have been a month putting it on to the fly.”
How could they suppose anything was the matter? Not a suspicion of it ever crossed them. Never had Hamish appeared more light-hearted. In fact, in his self-consciousness, Hamish a little overdid it. Let him get them home before the worst came!
“We find you all well, I conclude!” said Mrs. Channing. “None of them came up with you! Arthur is in college, I suppose, and Tom and Charles are in school.”
“It was Arthur’s hour for college,” remarked Hamish, ignoring the rest of the sentence. “But he ought to be out now. Arthur is at Galloway’s again,” he added. “He did not write you word, I believe, as you were so shortly expected home.”
Mr. Channing turned a glance on his son, quick as lightning. “Cleared, Hamish?”
“In my opinion, yes. In the opinion of others, I fear not much more than he was before.”
“And himself?” asked Mr. Channing. “What does he say now?”
“He does not speak of it to me.”
Hamish put his head out at the window, nodding to some one who was passing. A question of Mr. Channing’s called it in again.
“Why has he gone back to Galloway’s?”
Hamish laughed. “Roland Yorke took an impromptu departure one fine morning, for Port Natal, leaving the office and Mr. Galloway to do the best they could with each other. Arthur buried his grievances and offered himself to Mr. Galloway in the emergency. I am not quite sure that I should have been so forgiving.”
“Hamish! He has nothing to forgive Mr. Galloway. It is on the other side.”
“I am uncharitable, I suppose,” remarked Hamish. “I cannot like Mr. Galloway’s treatment of Arthur.”
“But what is it you say about Roland Yorke and Port Natal?” interposed Mrs. Channing. “I do not understand.”
“Roland is really gone, mother. He has been in London these ten days, and it is expected that every post will bring news that he has sailed. Roland has picked up a notion somewhere that Port Natal is an enchanted land, converting poor men into rich ones; and he is going to try what it will do for him, Lord Carrick fitting him out. Poor Jenkins is sinking fast.”
“Changes! changes!” remarked Mr. Channing. “Go away only for two or three months, and you must find them on return. Some gone; some dying; some—”
“Some restored, who were looked upon as incurable,” interrupted Hamish. “My dear father, I will not have you dwell on dark things the very moment of your arrival; the time for that will come soon enough.”
Judy nearly betrayed all; and Constance’s aspect might have betrayed it, had the travellers been suspicious. She, Constance, came forward in the hall, white and trembling. When Mrs. Channing shook hands with Judy, she put an unfortunate question—“Have you taken good care of your boy?” Judy knew it could only allude to Charles, and for answer there went up a sound, between a cry and a sob, that might have been heard in the far-off college schoolroom. Hamish took Judy by the shoulders, bidding her go out and see whether any rattletraps were left in the fly, and so turned it off.
They were all together in the sitting-room—Mr. and Mrs. Channing, Hamish, Constance, Arthur, and Annabel; united, happy, as friends are and must be when meeting after a separation; talking of this and of that, giving notes of what had occurred on either side. Hamish showed himself as busy as the rest; but Hamish felt all the while upon a bed of thorns, for the hands of the timepiece were veering on for five, and he must get the communication over before Tom came in. At length Mrs. Channing went up to her room, accompanied by Constance; Annabel followed. And now came Hamish’s opportunity. Arthur had gone back to Mr. Galloway’s, and he was alone with his father. He plunged into it at once; indeed, there was no time for delay.
“Father!” he exclaimed, with deep feeling, his careless manner changing as by magic: “I have very grievous news to impart to you. I would not enter upon it before my mother: though she must be told of it also, and at once.”
Mr. Channing was surprised; more surprised than alarmed. He never remembered to have seen Hamish betray so much emotion. A thought crossed his mind that Arthur’s guilt might have been brought clearly to light.
“Not that,” said Hamish. “It concerns—Father, I do not like to enter upon it! I shrink from my task. It is very bad news indeed.”
“You, my children, are all well,” cried Mr. Channing, hastily speaking the words as a fact, not as a question. “What other ‘very bad’ news can be in store for me?”
“You have not seen us all,” was Hamish’s answer. And Mr. Channing, alarmed, now looked inquiringly at him. “It concerns Charles. An—an accident has happened to him.”
Mr. Channing sat down and shaded his eyes. He was a moment or two before he spoke. “One word, Hamish; is he dead?”
Hamish stood before his father and laid his hand affectionately upon his shoulder. “Father, I
wish
I could have prepared you better for it!” he exclaimed, with emotion. “We do not know whether he is dead or alive.”
Then he explained—explained more in summary than in detail—touching lightly upon the worst features of the case, enlarging upon his own hopeful view of it. Bad enough it was, at the best, and Mr. Channing found it so.
He
could feel no hope. In the revulsion of grief, he turned almost with resentment upon Hamish.
“My son, I did not expect this treatment from you.”
“I have taken enough blame to myself; I know he was left in my charge,” sadly replied Hamish; “but, indeed, I do not see how I could have helped it. Although I was in the room when he ran out of it, I was buried in my own thoughts, and never observed his going. I had no suspi