Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843. Various
and yet in this dark hour I thank my Maker with an overflowing grateful heart that He tied down my hands when they have tingled in my agony to return the father's blow. I never did—I never did."
The speaker grew more and more excited, and his voice at last failed him. I rose, and retired to the window, but he proceeded whilst my face was turned away. I know not why—but my own eyes smarted.
"Yes, sir, time after time the horrible desire to be avenged, and to give back blow for blow, has possessed me; and, as if eternal torture were to be the immediate penalty of the unnatural act, I have thrown my arms behind me, clasped hand in hand, and held them tiger-like together, until the fit was passed away. And then who could be more penitent, more sorrowful, than he! Within an hour of perpetrating this barbarity, he has met me with a look pleading for forgiveness, which I would have given him had he offended me, oh much—much more. What could he say to his child? What could his child allow him to utter? Nothing. I have kissed him; he has taken me by the hand, we have walked abroad together; and he has loaded me with gifts for the joy of our reconciliation."
Curious as I was to hear more, I deemed it expedient, for the present, to close the history. The man seemed carried away by the subject, and his cheeks were scorched with this burning flush which the unusual exertion of mind and body had summoned up. He spoke vehemently—hurriedly—at the top of his voice, and I knew not how far his agitation might carry him. I again proposed to him to abstain from fatigue, and to leave his history unfinished for the present. He paused for a few minutes, wiped the heavy perspiration from his brow, and answered me in a calm and steady voice—
"I will transgress no more, sir. I have never spoken of these things yet—and they come before my mind too vividly—they inflame and mislead me. I ask your pardon. But let me finish now—the tale is soon told—I cannot for a second time revert to it."
"Go on," I answered, yielding once more to his wish, and in the same composed and quiet voice he began again.
"The first watch which I called my own, was given to me on one of these occasions. My father had requested me to execute some small commission. I forgot to do it. In his eyes the fault for a moment assumed the form of wilful disobedience. That moment was enough—he was roused—the paroxysm prevailed—and I was beaten like a dog. An hour afterwards he was persuaded that his child was not undutiful. His reason had returned to him, and, with it a load of miserable remorse. He offered me, with a tremulous hand, the bauble, which I accepted; and, as I took it, I saw a weight of sorrow tumble from his unhappy breast. This was my father, sir. A man who would have been the best of fathers—had he been permitted, as his heart directed him, to be the tenderest of husbands. I could see in my boyhood that blame attached to my mother—to what extent I did not know. I lived in the hope of hearing at some future time. That time never came. I remained at home two months, and then went back to school. I received a letter from one of my father's clerks, who was an especial favourite of mine. It must have been about a week after my departure. It told me that my father had drooped since I quitted him. On the morning that I came away, he left his business and locked himself in my bedroom. He was shut up at least two hours there. Fifty different matters required his presence in the counting-house, and at length my friend, the clerk, disturbed him. When the door was opened he found his master, his eyes streaming with tears, intent upon a little book in which he had seen me reading many days before. Oh, it was like him, sir! Within a few days I received another letter from the same hand. My father was dangerously ill, and I was summoned home. I flew, and arrived to find him delirious. He had been seized with inflammation the day before. The fire blazed in a system that was ripe for it. The doctors were baffled. Mortification had already begun. He did not recognize me, but he spoke of me in his delirium in terms of endearment, whilst curses against my mother rolled from his unconscious lips. Three hours after my arrival he was a corpse. And such a corpse! They told me it was my father, and I believed them.
"Are you, sir, fatherless?" asked Warton suddenly.
I told him, and he continued. "You have felt then the lightning shock that has altered the very face of nature. Earth, before and after that event, is not the same. It never was to human being yet. It cannot be. What a secret is learnt upon that day! How tottering and insecure have become the things of life that seemed so firm and fixed! The penalty is heavy which we pay for the privilege to be our own master. Oh, the desolation of a fatherless home! My father died, having made no will. So it was said at first—but in a few days there was another version. My mother's brother—the uncle that I spoke of—then appeared upon the stage, and was most active for his sister's interests. He had never been a friend of my father's. They had not spoken for years. I did not know why. I had never enquired—for the man was a stranger to me, and since my birth he had not crossed our threshold. My father believed that his relative had wronged him—of this I was sure—and I hated him therefore when he appeared. When my father was buried, this man produced a will. I was present when it was read—bodily present; but my heart and soul were away with him in the grave—and with him, sir, in heaven, beyond it. They told me at the conclusion of the ceremony, that my father had died worth fifty thousand pounds—that he had left my mother the bulk of his property—to my sister a fortune of ten thousand pounds, and to me the sum of a hundred and fifty pounds per annum. But they might have talked to stone. What cared my young and inexperienced, and still bleeding heart, for particulars and sums? A crust without him was more than enough. It was more than I could swallow now—and what was wealth to me? My uncle, I heard afterwards, watched me as the different items were read over, and seemed pleased to observe upon my face no sign of disappointment. That he was pleased, I am certain, for he spoke kindly to me when all was over, and said that I was a good boy, and should be taken care of. "-Taken care of-!"—and so I was—and so I am—for look about you, sir, and observe the evidences of my uncle's love. The clerk, to whom I have alluded, took an early opportunity to remind me of the nature of my father's will—and to hint to me suspicions of foul play. I readily believed him. It was not that I cared for the money. At that age I was ignorant of its value, and my little portion seemed a mine of wealth. But I wished to dislike my uncle, because he had given pain to my dear father. I avoided his presence as much as I could, and I made him feel that my aversion was hearty. We never became friends. We seldom spoke—and never but when obliged. He was a coarse man then—I have not seen him for many years—ungentlemanly and unfeeling in his deportment. It would have been as easy for him to alter the framework of his body as to have shown regard for the sensibilities of other men. He lived to amass. He counts his tens of thousands now—they may have been scraped together amidst the groans and shrieks of the distressed, but there they are—he has them, and he is happy. I asked, and obtained from my mother, permission to return to school. I remained there without visiting my home again for three years. My mother did not once write to me, or come to see me. I did not write to her. My expenses were paid from my income. My father's business was still conducted by my mother with her assistants, and she resided in the old house. Did I tell you that my uncle was the appointed executor of my father's will, and my guardian? He managed my affairs, and for the present I suffered him to do as he thought proper. In the meanwhile my happiness at school was unbounded. My existence there was sweet and tranquil, like the flow of a small secluded stream. I loved my master. Ill-taught and self-neglected nearly till the time that I came under his instruction, I believed that I owed all my education to him; and whilst I thirsted for knowledge as the means of raising myself and my own mind, he supplied me with the healthful sustenance, and helped me forward with his precepts. I had neither taste nor application for the severer studies. Science was too hard and real for the warm imagination with which Providence had liberally endowed me. It was a scarecrow in the garden of knowledge, and I looked at it with fear from the sunny heights of poesy on which I basked and dreamed. History—fiction—the strains of Fletcher, Shakspeare—the lore of former worlds—these had unspeakable charms for me; and such information as they yielded, I imbibed greedily. Admiration of the beautiful creations of mind leads rapidly in ardent spirits to an emulative longing; and the desire to achieve—to a firm belief of capability. The grateful glow of love within is mistaken for the gift divine. I burned to follow in the steps of the immortal, and already believed myself inspired. Hours and days I passed in compositions, which have since helped to warm our poverty-stricken room; for they had all one destination—the fire. I shall, however,