"Only John Halifax was saying—"
"John Halifax had better hold his tongue."
I held mine.
My father puffed away in silence till I came to bid him good-night. I think the sound of my crutches on the floor stirred him out of a long meditation, in which his ill-humour had ebbed away.
"Where didst thee go out to-day, Phineas?—thee and the lad I sent."
"To the Mythe:" and I told him the incident that had happened there. He listened without reply.
"Wasn't it a brave thing to do, father?"
"Um!"—and a few meditative puffs. "Phineas, the lad thee hast such a hankering after is a good lad—a very decent lad—if thee doesn't make too much of him. Remember; he is but my servant; thee'rt my son—my only son."
Alas! my poor father, it was hard enough for him to have such an "only son" as I.
In the middle of the night—or else to me, lying awake, it seemed so—there was a knocking at our hall door. I slept on the ground flat, in a little room opposite the parlour. Ere I could well collect my thoughts, I saw my father pass, fully dressed, with a light in his hand. And, man of peace though he was, I was very sure I saw in the other—something which always lay near his strong box, at his bed's head at night. Because ten years ago a large sum had been stolen from him, and the burglar had gone free of punishment. The law refused to receive Abel Fletcher's testimony—he was "only a Quaker."