The Prodigal Son

by Sir Hall Caine

At that Thora fell to kissing the keyhole, and Magnus had stopped his sobbing to listen, when he heard another voice--Anna's voice--outside the door, and then the child was taken away.

As soon as the birthday party was over and the girls were gone, Oscar began to ask for Magnus, but the Governor patted his curly head and said Magnus had been naughty, and must sleep alone that night. Half an hour later Anna found him crying with his head under the bedclothes, and she said, "Hide nothing from your father, my child."

The Governor was sitting alone in his bureau when a little figure in a dressing gown came in, with swimming eyes and trembling lips, saying, "It wasn't Magnus, papa. It was----" and then a wild outburst of weeping.

The Governor was more touched by Oscar's confession than by Magnus's silence. He patted Oscar's head again and said, "That was very, very wrong of you, curly pate; but go and beg your brother's pardon and take him off to bed."

When Anna went upstairs again she found two heads on the pillow side by side--the dark as well as the fair one--and Magnus was listening and Oscar was talking, and both were laughing merrily.

As soon as the youngest of the children was fourteen winters old they were confirmed together. There was only one other candidate, little Neils, the Sheriff's son, whose mother was dead. In the preliminary examination it was expected that Oscar would come first, Helga second, Neils and Thora next, and Magnus last. The Rector examined them, and when the moment came to declare the order of the candidates he looked serious and even severe.

Oscar, with a sparkle in his eyes, was carrying himself gaily, and Helga was at her ease, while Thora and Neils were trembling with anxiety, and Magnus was nibbling his thumb nail, for he was in dread of not being accepted at all, and in that case, as his new black suit had been bought, he would be afraid to go home. But when the Rector had cleared his throat, and called for silence, he announced a great surprise.

"Magnus is first," he said, "Thora second, Neils third, Helga fourth, and Oscar--Oscar is last."

Then he turned to Oscar and said, "You are rightly served, my son, for you might have done better, and you took no trouble. Take an old man's word for it, Oscar--in the race of life it isn't always the rider who comes in first that was the last to put on his spurs!"

Oscar was crushed with shame, but he recovered himself in a moment, and while the others looked at him to see what he would do--Helga, with her mouth awry, and Thora, with eyes that could not see distinctly, and a throat that could not swallow--he swung about to where Magnus was standing with head down, blushing like a baby, and gripped and shook his hand.