"Lad," suddenly turning round on John Halifax, "thee told me thee saw the river rising by the light of the moon. What wast THEE doing then, out o' thy honest bed and thy quiet sleep, at eleven o'clock at night?"
John coloured violently; the quick young blood was always ready enough to rise in his face. It spoke ill for him with my father.
"Answer. I will not be hard upon thee—to-night, at least."
"As you like, Abel Fletcher," answered the boy, sturdily. "I was doing no harm. I was in the tan-yard."
"Thy business there?"
"None at all. I was with the men—they were watching, and had a candle; and I wanted to sit up, and had no light."
"What didst thee want to sit up for?" pursued my father, keen and sharp as a ferret at a field-rat's hole, or a barrister hunting a witness in those courts of law that were never used by, though often used against, us Quakers.
John hesitated, and again his painful, falsely-accusing blushes tried him sore. "Sir, I'll tell you; it's no disgrace. Though I'm such a big fellow I can't write; and your son was good enough to try and teach me. I was afraid of forgetting the letters; so I tried to make them all over again, with a bit of chalk, on the bark-shed wall. It did nobody any harm that I know of."
The boy's tone, even though it was rather quick and angry, won no reproof. At last my father said gently enough—
"Is that all, lad?"