“Now I will go through with it”—Bull Garnet was recovering—”my own child; go and fetch your brother, if it will not be too much for you. If you think it will, only send him.”
“Father, I will fetch him. I may be able to help you both. And now I am so much better.”
Presently she returned with Bob, who looked rather plagued and uncomfortable, with a great slice of cork in one hand and a bottle of gum in the other, and a regular housewife of needles in the lappet of his coat. He was going to mount a specimen of a variety of “devilʼs coach–horse,” which he had never seen before, and whose tail was forked like a trident.
“Never can let me alone,” said Bob; “just ready to begin I was; and I am sure to spoil his thorax. He is getting stiff every moment.”
Bull Garnet looked at him brightly and gladly, even at such a time. Little as he knew or cared about the things that crawl and hop—as he ignorantly put it—skilled no more in natural history than our early painters were, yet from his own strong sense he perceived that his son had a special gift; and a special gift is genius, and may (with good luck) climb eminence. Then he thought of what he had to tell him, and the power of his heart was gone.
It was the terror of this moment which had dwelt with him night and day, more than the fear of public shame, of the gallows, or of hell. To be loathed and scorned by his only son! Oh that Pearl had not been so true; oh that Bob suspected something, or had even found it out for himself! Then the father felt that now came part of his expiation.
Bob looked at him quite innocently with wonder and some fear. To him “the governor” long had been the strangest of all puzzles, sometimes so soft and loving, sometimes so hard and terrible. Perhaps poor Bob would catch it now for his doings with Eoa.
“Sit down there, my son. Not there, but further from me. Donʼt be at all afraid, my boy. I have no fault to find with you. I am far luckier in my son, than you are in your father. You must try to bear terrible news, Bob. Your sister long has borne it.”
Pearl, who was ghastly pale and trembling, stole a glance at each of them from the dark end of the room, then came up bravely into the lamplight, took Bobʼs hand and kissed him, and sat close by to comfort him.