第10章

It was a terrible moment for me.For my affections were still quiveringly alive in those days,and I loved her.I had for an instant an instinctive impulse to tell her the whole story,--South Sea Islands and all!And I could have done it had I not beheld looming behind her another figure which represented a stern and unsympathetic Authority,and somehow made her,suddenly,of small account.Not that she would have understood the romance,but she would have comprehended me.I knew that she was powerless to save me from the wrath to come.I wept.It was because I hated to lie to her,--yet I did so.Fear gripped me,and--like some respectable criminals I have since known--I understood that any confession I made would inexorably be used against me....I wonder whether she knew I was lying?At any rate,the case appeared to be a grave one,and I was presently remanded to my room to be held over for trial....

Vividly,as I write,I recall the misery of the hours I have spent,while awaiting sentence,in the little chamber with the honeysuckle wall-paper and steel engravings of happy but dumpy children romping in the fields and groves.On this particular March afternoon the weather had become morne,as the French say;and I looked down sadly into the grey back yard which the wind of the morning had strewn with chips from the Petrel.At last,when shadows were gathering in the corners of the room,I heard footsteps.Ella appeared,prim and virtuous,yet a little commiserating.

My father wished to see me,downstairs.It was not the first time she had brought that summons,and always her manner was the same!

The scene of my trials was always the sitting room,lined with grim books in their walnut cases.And my father sat,like a judge,behind the big desk where he did his work when at home.Oh,the distance between us at such an hour!I entered as delicately as Agag,and the expression in his eye seemed to convict me before I could open my mouth.

"Hugh,"he said,"your mother tells me that you have confessed to going,without permission,to Logan's Pond,where you embarked on a raft and fell into the water."The slight emphasis he contrived to put on the word raft sent a colder shiver down my spine than the iced water had done.What did he know?or was this mere suspicion?Too late,now,at any rate,to plead guilty.

"It was a sort of a raft,sir,"I stammered.

"A sort of a raft,"repeated my father."Where,may I ask,did you find it?""I--I didn't exactly find it,sir.""Ah!"said my father.(It was the moment to glance meaningly at the jury.)The prisoner gulped."You didn't exactly find it,then.Will you kindly explain how you came by it?""Well,sir,we--I--put it together.""Have you any objection to stating,Hugh,in plain English,that you made it?""No,sir,I suppose you might say that I made it.""Or that it was intended for a row-boat?"Here was the time to appeal,to force a decision as to what constituted a row-boat.

"Perhaps it might be called a row-boat,sir,"I said abjectly.

"Or that,in direct opposition to my wishes and commands in forbidding you to have a boat,to spend your money foolishly and wickedly on a whim,you constructed one secretly in the woodshed,took out a part of the back partition,thus destroying property that did,not belong to you,and had the boat carted this morning to Logan's Pond?"I was silent,utterly undone.Evidently he had specific information....

There are certain expressions that are,at times,more than mere figures of speech,and now my father's wrath seemed literally towering.It added visibly to his stature.

"Hugh,"he said,in a voice that penetrated to the very corners of my soul,"I utterly fail to understand you.I cannot imagine how a son of mine,a son of your mother who is the very soul of truthfulness and honour--can be a liar."(Oh,the terrible emphasis he put on that word!)"Nor is it as if this were a new tendency--I have punished you for it before.Your mother and I have tried to do our duty by you,to instil into you Christian teaching.But it seems wholly useless.I confess that I am at a less how to proceed.You seem to have no conscience whatever,no conception of what you owe to your parents and your God.

You not only persistently disregard my wishes and commands,but you have,for many months,been leading a double life,facing me every day,while you were secretly and continually disobeying me.I shudder to think where this determination of yours to have what you desire at any price will lead you in the future.It is just such a desire that distinguishes wicked men from good."I will not linger upon a scene the very remembrance of which is painful to this day....I went from my father's presence in disgrace,in an agony of spirit that was overwhelming,to lock the door of my room and drop face downward on the bed,to sob until my muscles twitched.For he had,indeed,put into me an awful fear.The greatest horror of my boyish imagination was a wicked man.Was I,as he had declared,utterly depraved and doomed in spite of myself to be one?

There came a knock at my door--Ella with my supper.I refused to open,and sent her away,to fall on my knees in the darkness and pray wildly to a God whose attributes and character were sufficiently confused in my mind.On the one hand was the stern,despotic Monarch of the Westminster Catechism,whom I addressed out of habit,the Father who condemned a portion of his children from the cradle.Was I one of those who he had decreed before I was born must suffer the tortures of the flames of hell?