A man wilt thou give me,
A son for a son,
For the light of my eyes, the desire of my life, the desirable one.
Algernon C. Swinburne.
Erle had followed him into the room, but Mr. Huntingdon took no notice of him. If he could, he would have spoken to him and implored him to leave him, but his tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth. He wished to be alone with his grandson, to hide from every one, if he could, that he was stricken down at last.
He had loved him, but not as he had loved Erle—the Benjamin of his old age; his son of consolation. He had been stern with him, and had never sought to win his confidence; and now the blood of the unhappy boy seemed crying to him from the ground. And it was for this that he had taken him from his mother, that he should lie there in the prime of his youth with all the measure of his sins filled to the brim. How had he died—but he dared not ask, and no one told him. Erle had indeed said something about a child; but he had not understood any more than he understood that they had sent to tell the mother. Erle’s voice, broken with emotion, had certainly vibrated in his ears, but no sense of the words had reached him. If he had known that that mother was already on her way to claim the dead body of her son, he would have hidden himself and his gray hairs.
What a beautiful face it was, he thought; all that had marred it in life was softened now; the sneers, the hard bitter lines, were smoothed away, and something like a smile rested on the young lips. Ah, surely he was at rest now! Some stray hairs clung damply to his temples, and Mr. Huntingdon stooped over him and put them aside with almost a woman’s tenderness, and then he sat down on the chair beside him and bowed his gray head in his hands.
He was struck down at last! If his idolized Erle had lain there in Percy’s place he could have borne it better. But Nea’s boy! What if she should come and require him at his hands! “Come home with your own Nea, father”—had he ever ceased to hear those words?
Had he ever forgotten her standing there in the snow with her baby hidden under her shawl, and her sweet thin face raised to his? Had he ever ceased to love her and yearn for her when his anger was most bitter against her? Surely the demons must have leagued together to keep possession of his soul, or he would never have so hardened himself against her! He had taken her boy from her; he had tempted his youthful weakness with the sight of his wealth, and then he had left him to his own devices. He had not taught him to “wash his hands in innocency, or to take heed to the things that were right.” Day and night that boy’s dead face, with its likeness to his mother would haunt his memory. Oh, Heaven! that he were indeed childless, that none of these things might have come upon him.
“Uncle Rolf, will you not come away with me?” implored Erle; “the house is quite quiet now, and all the people have gone;” but Mr. Huntingdon only shook his head—he had no strength to rise from his chair, and he could not tell Erle this. The poor boy was terribly alarmed at his uncle’s looks; he did not seem to understand anything he said; and what if Mrs. Trafford should take it in her head to come—if only he could get his uncle away.