"I have no fault to find with my friends," said Tom quickly.
"No, my son, I fear not. But we have much to complain of."
"I don't see what!" cried young Tom rather hotly.
"That is the worst of it. Did you see greater harm, our anxieties would be less. But what are we to think of these cruel sports in which you indulge, these scenes of vice and drunkenness where you are constantly found? Even the Sabbath is not sacred to you. What is this story we hear of you--that no girl may even go to church without paying 'Tom Tufton's toll' at the lych gate?"
Tom broke into a sudden laugh.
"They like that toll well enough, father, I can tell you; else they could go round the other way. Why, you yourself salute the farmers' little wenches on the cheek sometimes--I have seen you do it; and why not I the older ones?"
The Squire looked at his son with mournful intensity of gaze.
"Tom, Tom, I think sometimes that thou dost err more from thoughtlessness than from wickedness; but, my son, thoughtlessness, if carried to excess, may become wickedness, and may breed vice. I verily believe that in half thy pranks thou dost mean no great harm; but thou art growing to man's estate, Tom. It is time that thou didst put away childish things. What is pardoned to youth, may not so easily be pardoned to manhood. Have a care, Tom, have a care! Oh, my son, remember that the day will come when thou too must lie face to face with death, even as I do tonight. Let not the record upon which thou wilt then look be one of vice and profligacy. It needs must be that in such a moment our lives seem deeply stained by sin; but strive so to live that thou mayest at least be able to say, 'I have striven to do my duty--the Lord pardon all my imperfections!' For, Tom, if thou dost persevere in careless and evil courses, it may be that the power to ask the Lord's forgiveness may pass from thee; and if it comes to such a pass, may the Lord have mercy upon thy wretched soul!"
The dying man stopped short, a spasm of suffering passing over his face. The thought had been a terrible one to him. Yet he had been bred up in the somewhat stern Puritan tenets, and it was not in his creed to speak so much of the everlasting mercy as the everlasting judgment.
Tom put the cup of cordial to his father's lips, himself somewhat sobered by the words heard and the visions called up. He was neither callous nor hard-hearted; and his father was dying. In that moment he really longed to turn over a new leaf, and cut adrift from former temptations.