'Certainly, mother.' He had been sitting close beside her. He now took a chair at a little distance and took up a book.
Mrs. Gregory watched him with a wistful pain at her heart. She was conscious to the finger-tips of his disappointment, and she hated herself for inflicting it; but there was nothing to be done. She could not speak. She would not if she could. Yet the distance he was putting between them wounded her intolerably. After she had borne it as long as she could she called him. He was at her side at once. 'I am afraid I have disappointed you, dear,' she said. 'Sit down near me again, and we will talk.'
He obeyed silently. He thought he would give her the initiative this time, determining, whatever she might say, not to show his feelings again. By that delicate perception, which was one of heaven's best gifts to him, he had long since learned to understand and shield his mother's sensitiveness.
She, poor woman, scarcely knowing what she said, drifted into mysterious warnings and entreaties. He must be wise; he must do nothing rashly; he must be guided by Mr. Cherry, who was a good man and a Christian. Tom gave her the assurances she asked; but they did not satisfy her; and, I think, it was a relief to them both when, on the stroke of ten, the little maid of the establishment came in with her Bible to take part in the pathetic ceremony with which their day always closed.
When his mother left him Tom sat down and looked round for a few moments, blankly. He was tired; but he could not rest until he had thought out this strange thing that had come to him, and here it was impossible to think. The atmosphere of the room oppressed him. He had a curious, irritating impression that, though his mother's bodily presence had gone, her spirit was haunting the place, preventing him from thinking freely. At last he opened the French window softly, let himself out into the garden, and, allowing his feet to carry him along mechanically, found himself presently on the lower lawn, close by the boat-house and willows. There he stopped and let his eyes wander at their will. Ah! what a world it was—this soft, mysterious midnight world of June! Think! How could he think? But, happily, there was no need yet. The hours of the sweet summer night were before him. With a deep inspiration, in which he seemed to be throwing off a heavy burden, he flung himself down on the grass, his face towards the sky, his feet towards the river, while he gave himself up to the rapturous sense-impressions of the moment. He saw the upper sky, veiled here and there with thin, vaporous cloud-wreaths; and it was so near it seemed to be stooping to embrace him. There was a streak of silver between the cloud-wreaths. It shone out, disappeared, shone out again, and the fleece about it was tinged with pale gold. It was a horn of the young moon—the moon on which Endymion's heavenly love descended, when on that starry night long ago she kissed his eyes open to behold her. Through 'the solemn midnight's tingling silentness' he could hear the swish of the water as it swept over the long grasses and reeds at his feet. Lovely water! and the fish that swam in it, were they awake too? Did they go on swimming all the night through? Lovely water! And lovely, lovely little earth! Ah! how sweet it was to live—only to live and breathe in her arms on such a night as this!
It might have been a moment, it might have been an hour, that the boy lay upon the river bank. He could never tell. Of the prick—the tiny throb of self-consciousness, that called him out suddenly from his Eden he would often speak later with a smile. He sat up, frowned, drew his relaxed muscles together. This was not what he had meant when he came out into the solitude, he said to himself severely. He was a man, not a thing; it was a weakness, a folly, to allow himself to drift into mere sensuousness.
Ha! what was that? He turned round suddenly. It was a sound like a silver bell ringing close beside him. If he had been a child he might have thought that a fairy in a lily cup was laughing at him; the sound was so definite, so curiously round and clear.
Giving no attention to it he set himself sternly to his task, and two or three ideas about the relative values of riches and poverty—ideas far too fine and exalted to be put down here—followed one another through his mind. It was a young mind, as we know. Young minds are superior. If we have ever tried to walk on a tightrope, get up early in the morning, or take a precipitous hillside at a rush, and succeeded, we shall know how they feel. It is their newness which we experienced people should not grudge them. In a little time—we know how very little—they will find out that there is nothing new under the sun.
Now the young heir, who was exceedingly new, felt a certain throb of exultation in the circumstance that he was able to feel as a serious man should when a great change comes into his life. The train of thought being pleasant he followed it out. I believe he made one or two correct resolutions. He would not be led away into foolish and selfish extravagance; he would avoid flatterers; he would do as much good as he could with his money. Not original. Oh dear no! commonplace, I am afraid. But goodness is just the one thing that does not require genius to conceive it. I wonder if that is the reason why it is so often thought dull? The kind of thinking on which Tom was engaged tends to restlessness, and hence the downfall which I am about to record.
He got up from the grass, and walking on aimlessly left his mother's garden, and went on for a few paces down the road. Presently he pulled up with a smile and a start. He was at the side gate of the Eltons' garden. An irresistible desire seized him to go in. Trying the latch, and finding the gate unlocked, he stole in noiselessly. He was in a narrow path that led through a thick shrubbery. In its midst he paused. All his wise thoughts, all his correct resolutions, had flown, and his heart was beating fast and furiously. What was this—what was this—which was rushing through him, tingling in his veins like wine of Paradise? 'And a spirit in my feet'—he murmured the words half aloud—