Jack's Two Sovereigns

by A. S. Fenn

“Father, it was my fault. I am so sorry I—I—”

He could not get out another word, but turned away his head with a sob. His father signed to Bob, who was the only other occupant of the room, to leave them, which he at once did.

“Now, Jack,” said he quietly, “I don’t quite understand.”

“It was that miserable two pounds,” the boy began, and then he could keep back the tears and sobs no longer, and had a hearty cry. Mr. Kayll laid his hand on his son’s shoulder, and waited till he was calmer.

“Poor old Jack!” he said then, half smiling, not so much from amusement, as because he was touched. He had never imagined his mischievous, laughing, careless Jack, who never seemed to have a softer side, taking this to heart as his own fault.

“You’re not angry?” the boy whispered, still with his hands over his face.

Mr. Kayll did not reply, but stooped and kissed him on the forehead. Jack looked up in astonishment; he had never received such a caress since he was old enough to wear trousers—then he flung his arm round his father’s neck, kissed him back again, and dashed out of the room and out of the house, knowing there would be no solitude for him upstairs.

Some time after, having walked off all traces of his weakness, he came back in the best of spirits, and feeling an intense desire to put a hair-brush in Jem’s bed, or some cobbler’s wax in one of his boots. But he restrained himself, for he had vowed inwardly never to play another practical joke, however harmless it might seem, and on the whole he kept to his resolution thenceforth.

Not that Jem ever again gave him so much provocation to tease him as he used a short time ago. The younger boy was quite altered, though no one knew what a shock he had received, for neither then nor later did he allude to what he had felt when he found himself alone in the flooded house. Yet it was plain that he was changed, and for the better. He said less and worked more in the future, and proved so steady and industrious in his new place, that his employer raised his wages again and again.

“The darkest hour comes just before the dawn,” Mrs. Kayll used often to say afterwards, when she looked back upon that week of troubles; for, though they all had to work hard, to economize, and to deny themselves many little pleasures for a long time, they were able to keep out of debt, and by slow degrees to furnish once more a home of their own.