He covered his eyes for a minute or two, then rose up pale, but quite himself again.
"Now let us go and fetch your father home."
We found him on John's bed, still asleep. But as we entered he woke. The daylight shone on his face—it looked ten years older since yesterday—he stared, bewildered and angry, at John Halifax.
"Eh, young man—oh! I remember. Where is my son—where's my Phineas?"
I fell on his neck as if I had been a child. And almost as if it had been a child's feeble head, mechanically he smoothed and patted mine.
"Thee art not hurt? Nor any one?"
"No," John answered; "nor is either the house or the tan-yard injured."
He looked amazed. "How has that been?"
"Phineas will tell you. Or, stay—better wait till you are at home."
But my father insisted on hearing. I told the whole, without any comments on John's behaviour; he would not have liked it; and, besides, the facts spoke for themselves. I told the simple, plain story—nothing more.