THOMAS ROBINSON rose from his sleepless bed an altered man; altered above all in this that his self-confidence was clean gone. “How little I knew myself,” said he, “and how well his reverence knew me! I am the weakest fool on earth—he saw that and told me what to do. He provided help for me—and I, like an ungrateful idiot, never once thought of obeying him; but from this hour I see myself as I am and as he used to call me—a clever fool. I can't walk straight without some honest man to hold by. Well, I'll have one, though I give up everything else in the world for it.”
Then he went to his little box and took out the letter to George Fielding. He looked at it and reproached himself for forgetting it so long. “A letter from the poor fellow's sweetheart, too. I ought to have sent it by the post if I did not take it. But I will take it. I'll ask Mr. Miles's leave the moment he comes home, and start that very day.” Then he sat down and read the tract again, and as he read it was filled with shame and contrition.
By one of those freaks of mind which it is so hard to account for, every good feeling rushed upon him with far greater power than when he was in —— Prison, and, strange to say, he now loved his reverence more and took his words deeper to heart than he had done when they were together. His flesh crept with horror at the thought that he had been a criminal again, at least in intention, and that but for Heaven's mercy he would have been taken and punished with frightful severity, and above all would have wounded his reverence to the heart in return for more than mortal kindness, goodness and love. And, to do Robinson justice, this last thought made his heart sicken and his flesh creep more than all the rest. He was like a man who had fallen asleep on the brink of an unseen precipice—awoke—and looked down.
The penitent man said his prayers this morning and vowed on his knees humility and a new life. Henceforth he would know himself; he would not attempt to guide himself; he would just obey his reverence. And to begin, whenever a temptation came in sight he would pray against it then and there and fly from it, and the moment his master returned he would leave the town and get away to honest George Fielding with his passport—Susan's letter.
With these prayers and these resolutions a calm complacency stole over him; he put his reverence's tract and George's letter in his bosom and came down into the kitchen.
The first person he met was the housemaid, Jenny.
“Oh, here is my lord!” cried she. “Where were you last night?”
Robinson stammered out, “Nowhere in particular. Why?”
“Oh, because the master was asking for you, and you weren't to be found high or low.”
“What, is he come home?”