Sobs and moans were all we heard now. Peter had taken fright at last, and was busy undoing the rope. Suddenly he flung the door wide and fled, leaving me exposed to the full gaze of the girl. To my horror it was Elsie Duff! She was just approaching the door, her eyes streaming with tears, and her sweet face white with agony. I stood unable to move or speak. She turned away without a word, and began again to busy herself with the old woman, who lay on the ground not two yards from the door. I heard a heavy step approaching. Guilt awoke fear and restored my powers of motion. I fled at full speed, not to find Mason, but to leave everything behind me.
When I reached the manse, it stood alone in the starry blue night. Somehow I could not help thinking of the time when I came home after waking up in the barn. That, too, was a time of misery, but, oh! how different from this! Then I had only been cruelly treated myself; now I had actually committed cruelty. Then I sought my father’s bosom as the one refuge; now I dreaded the very sight of my father, for I could not look him in the face. He was my father, but I was not his son. A hurried glance at my late life revealed that I had been behaving very badly, growing worse and worse. I became more and more miserable as I stood, but what to do I could not tell. The cold at length drove me into the house. I generally sat with my father in his study of a winter night now, but I dared not go near it. I crept to the nursery, where I found a bright fire burning, and Allister reading by the blaze, while Davie lay in bed at the other side of the room. I sat down and warmed myself, but the warmth could not reach the lump of ice at my heart. I sat and stared at the fire. Allister was too much occupied with his book to take any heed of me. All at once I felt a pair of little arms about my neck, and Davie was trying to climb upon my knees. Instead of being comforted, however, I spoke very crossly, and sent him back to his bed whimpering. You see I was only miserable; I was not repentant. I was eating the husks with the swine, and did not relish them; but I had not said, “I will arise and go to my father”.
How I got through the rest of that evening I hardly know. I tried to read, but could not. I was rather fond of arithmetic; so I got my slate and tried to work a sum; but in a few moments I was sick of it. At family prayers I never lifted my head to look at my father, and when they were over, and I had said good night to him, I felt that I was sneaking out of the room. But I had some small sense of protection and safety when once in bed beside little Davie, who was sound asleep, and looked as innocent as little Samuel when the voice of God was going to call him. I put my arm round him, hugged him close to me, and began to cry, and the crying brought me sleep.
It was a very long time now since I had dreamt my old childish dream; but this night it returned. The old sunny-faced sun looked down upon me very solemnly. There was no smile on his big mouth, no twinkle about the corners of his little eyes. He looked at Mrs. Moon as much as to say, “What is to be done? The boy has been going the wrong way: must we disown him?” The moon neither shook her head nor moved her lips, but turned as on a pivot, and stood with her back to her husband, looking very miserable. Not one of the star-children moved from its place. They shone sickly and small. In a little while they faded out; then the moon paled and paled until she too vanished without ever turning her face to her husband; and last the sun himself began to change, only instead of paling he drew in all his beams, and shrunk smaller and smaller, until no bigger than a candle-flame. Then I found that I was staring at a candle on the table; and that Tom was kneeling by the side of the other bed, saying his prayers.
CHAPTER XVII
The Trouble Grows
When I woke in the morning, I tried to persuade myself that I had made a great deal too much of the whole business; that if not a dignified thing to do, it was at worst but a boy’s trick; only I would have no more to say to Peter Mason, who had betrayed me at the last moment without even the temptation of any benefit to himself. I went to school as usual. It was the day for the Shorter Catechism. None failed but Peter and me; and we two were kept in alone, and left in the schoolroom together. I seated myself as far from him as I could. In half an hour he had learned his task, while I had not mastered the half of mine. Thereupon he proceeded, regardless of my entreaties, to prevent me learning it. I begged, and prayed, and appealed to his pity, but he would pull the book away from me, gabble bits of ballads in my ear as I was struggling with Effectual Calling, tip up the form on which I was seated, and, in short, annoy me in twenty different ways. At last I began to cry, for Mason was a bigger and stronger boy than I, and I could not help myself against him. Lifting my head after the first vexation was over, I thought I saw a shadow pass from the window. Although I could not positively say I saw it, I had a conviction it was Turkey, and my heart began to turn again towards him. Emboldened by the fancied proximity, I attempted my lesson once more, but that moment Peter was down upon me like a spider. At last, however, growing suddenly weary of the sport, he desisted, and said:
“Ran, you can stay if you like. I’ve learned my catechism, and I don’t see why I should wait his time.”
As he spoke he drew a picklock from his pocket—his father was an ironmonger—deliberately opened the schoolroom door, slipped out, and locked it behind him. Then he came to one of the windows, and began making faces at me. But vengeance was nigher than he knew. A deeper shadow darkened my page, and when I looked up, there was Turkey towering over Mason, with his hand on his collar, and his whip lifted. The whip did not look formidable. Mason received the threat as a joke, and laughed in Turkey’s face. Perceiving, however, that Turkey looked dangerous, with a sudden wriggle, at which he was an adept, he broke free, and, trusting to his tried speed of foot, turned his head and made a grimace as he took to his heels. Before, however, he could widen the space between them sufficiently, Turkey’s whip came down upon him. With a howl of pain Peter doubled himself up, and Turkey fell upon him, and, heedless of his yells and cries, pommelled him severely. Although they were now at some distance, too great for the distinguishing of words, I could hear that Turkey mingled admonition with punishment. A little longer, and Peter crept past the window, a miserable mass of collapsed and unstrung impudence, his face bleared with crying, and his knuckles dug into his eyes. And this was the boy I had chosen for my leader! He had been false to me, I said to myself; and the noble Turkey, seeing his behaviour through the window, had watched to give him his deserts. My heart was full of gratitude.