"Mr. Hurdlestone," said Anthony respectfully, "I am your son."
The old man sat down in the chair. A dark cloud came over his brow, as if he already suspected the nature of his son's mission, and he knitted his straight bushy eyebrows so closely together that his small fiery dark eyes gleamed like sparks from beneath the gloomy shade.
"My son; yes, yes. I've heard say that 'tis a wise son that knows his own father. It must be a very wise father who could instinctively know his own son. Certainly, I should never have recognised mine in the gay magpie before me. But sit down, young sir, and tell me what brought you here. Money, I suppose; money, the everlasting want that the extravagant sons of pleasure strive to extort from the provident, who lay up during the harvest of life a provision for the winter of age. If such be your errand, young man, your time is wasted here. Anthony Hurdlestone, I have nothing to give."
"Not even affection it would appear, to an only son."
"I owe you none."
"In what manner have I forfeited my natural claim upon your heart?"
"By transferring the duty and affection which you owed to me to another. Go to him who has pampered your appetites, clothed you with soft raiment, and brought you up daintily to lead the idle life of a gentleman. I disown all relationship with a useless butterfly."
Anthony's cheek reddened with indignation. "It was not upon my own account I sought you, sir. From my infancy I have been a neglected and forsaken child, for whom you never showed the least parental regard. Hard blows and harder words were the only marks of fatherly regard that Anthony Hurdlestone ever received at your hands. To hear you curse me, when, starving with cold and hunger, I have asked you for a morsel of bread—to hear you wish me dead, and to see you watch me with hungry eager eyes, as if in my wasted meagre countenance you wished to find a prophetic answer—were sights and sounds of every-day occurrence. Could such conduct as this beget love in your wretched child? Yet, God knows!" exclaimed the young man, clasping his hands forcibly together, while tears started to his eyes—"God knows how earnestly I have prayed to love you, to forget and forgive these unnatural injuries, which have cast the shadow of care over the bright morning of youth, and made the world and all that it contains a wilderness of woe to my blighted heart."
The old man regarded him with a sullen scowl; but whatever were his feelings (and that he did feel the whole truth of the young man's passionate appeal, the restless motion of his foot and hand sufficiently indicated) he returned no answer; and Anthony emboldened by despair, and finding a relief in giving utterance to the long pent-up feelings which for years had corroded his breast, continued,
"I rightly concluded that I should be considered by you, Mr. Hurdlestone, an unwelcome visitor. Hateful to the sight of the injurer is the person of the injured, and I stand before you a living reproach, an awful witness both here and hereafter at the throne of God of what you ought to have been, and what you have neglected to be—a father to your motherless child. But let that pass. I am in the hands of One who is the protector of the innocent, and in His righteous hands I leave my cause. Your brother, sir, who has been a father to me, is in prison. His heart, sorely pressed by his painful situation, droops to the grave. I came to see if you, out of your abundance, are willing to save him, Father, let your old grudge be forgotten. Let the child of your poor lost Elinor be the means of reconciling you to each other. Cease to remember him as a rival: behold him only in the light of a brother—of that twin brother who shared your cradle—of a friend whom you have deeply injured—a generous fellow-creature fallen, whom you have the power to raise up and restore. Let not the kind protector of your son end his days in a jail, when a small sum, which never could be missed from your immense wealth, would enable him to end his days in peace."