David's Little Lad

by L. T. Meade

“Not a soul.”

“Then I will come to the fire for a moment. I am bitterly cold; and could you get me something to eat?”

He crossed the threshold, entered the dining-room—shading his eyes from the light—and threw himself, with the air of one utterly spent, into the arm-chair. So worn and miserable was he, physically, that my first thought—my first thought before I could ask him a single question—was to see to his bodily comforts. I got him food and wine, then going on my knees, I unlaced and removed, as well as I could, his wet and mud-covered boots, went softly upstairs for clean, dry socks, and his favourite slippers. He did not oppose me by a single remark, he submitted to my attentions, ate eagerly and hungrily of the food I gave him. When I had done all I could, I sat down on the floor by his side, and took his hand. I must now begin to question him, for the silence between us, with my ignorance of what he did or did not know, was becoming unbearable.

“Where have you been? Owen. We have wanted you here so dreadfully.”

“Have you? I should have been no use to you. For the last two days I have been mad—that was all.” He looked like it now. His eyes bloodshot, his face deadly pale.

“But, brother,” I said, impelled to say the words, “our David has quite forgiven you.”

“Good God! Gwladys,” starting upright, “do you want to put me on the rack? How dare you mention his name. His name, and the name of his murdered child! Oh! my God! how that little face haunts me!”

He began to pace up and down the room. I feared he would wake mother; but in his passion and agony I could do nothing to restrain him. After a time, however, he sat down more quietly.

“Yes; I have been mad, or perhaps, I am sane now, and was mad all the rest of my life. In my sanity, or madness—call it what you will—I at last see myself. How dared you and mother pamper and spoil me when I was a boy! How dared you foster my be setting sin, my weak ambition, my overweening vanity. I never loved you for that—never. I cared most for David. How could I help it—righteous, humble, noble; judging calmly and correctly; telling me my faults. But, there! how I must blame others, and lay the sin on others. I did love you, my dear,”—laying his hand for an instant on my head—“I used to dream of you when, like the prodigal, I lived in the far country; but, as I say again, what of that! I went to Oxford—oh! it is a long story, a story of sin upon sin. My vanity, fed by petty adulation. I spent money. I got into debt, frightfully—frightfully. I did worse. I got amongst a fast set, and became the fastest of them all. At last came the crisis. I won’t tell you of it. Why should you know? But for David, I should have been publicly disgraced—think of that! Your ‘hero’ brother—you used to say that of me—the conceited lad who thought the world hardly vast enough or grand enough to hold him. David, as I say, saved me. He paid all my debts—he set me free. My debts were enormous; to pay them the estate was seriously crippled. I went abroad. I thought myself humbled then. I did not care what I put my hand to. I had one dream, to fulfil that I lived. I meant to pay back to David the money he had spent on me. I knew of this mine on his property. I knew it was badly worked; that the profits, which might be enormous, were very small. I thought this mine might prove my El Dorado; might give to me the golden treasure I needed. I always meant to be a civil engineer; to this purpose I had turned my attention during my short periods of real work at Christ Church. Now I determined to take up engineering with a will. I did this because I knew that it would qualify me to have the direction of David’s mine—to get out of David’s mine the gold I needed. For four years I worked for this. I gained practical knowledge; then I came here—you know that part of the story. I told David of my hopes; they excited no pleasure in him. He begged of me to make the mine safe; to use my skill in saving life. I promised him. I meant to perform my word. I did not think I should fail bitterly and utterly a second time. I did not suppose, when long ago I dreamed dreams, and saw visions, that I should rob David, first of his gold, and then of his child; and this last is murder.”

Owen paused here, and wiped some great drops from his brow. “Gwladys,” he continued, “I see myself now. I am sane, not mad. I see myself at last. I am the greatest sinner in the world.”