I had journeyed down as far as Norwich in company with my cousin Rupert, who was on his way to Lynn, and with my faithful friend, old Muzzy, who had sworn never to leave me, and whom I was not less loth to part with. And finding myself, as I came back into that country where I was born, utterly1 overmastered by a strong passion of home-sickness, I had no sooner procured2 comfortable lodgings3 for my companions in the Maid’s Head Inn, of Norwich, than I got upon horseback and rode over by myself to look upon my father and mother again.
But as I came towards the house, the greater my longing5 was to enter it again, so much the more was I daunted6 by a fearful apprehension7 of the reception [Pg 313]I should meet with, as well as of the changes which might have been wrought8 during my absence. So that at the last I dared not ride up boldly to the door, but came along softly, and dismounted and tied my horse to the outer gate. After which I slipped inside quietly, and round the side of the house to the window of the great parlour, through which I could see the warm glow of a fire illuminate9 the wintry mist without.
When I had come to the window I raised myself up till my head was on a level with the bottom panes11, and looked within.
The room held four persons. On one side of the fire sat my father, seeming to be much older than I remembered him, in his great arm-chair, with pillows at the back. Standing12 up on the opposite side of the hearth13 was a figure which I quickly recognised for Mr. Peter Walpole, though his back was towards me. It was Saturday night, and he had plainly arrived a short time before me, from Norwich. Between the two was my mother, sitting placidly15 as of old, and unchanged except for a wistful sadness in her eyes, which it smote16 me to the heart to notice, and beside her a young woman, scarce more than a girl, with a singular sweet expression on her face, who was at first strange to me.
Mr. Walpole was speaking when I first looked in upon them.
“We are like to have more news from the East Indies. The Norwich Journal announces that a [Pg 314]Company’s ship has entered the Thames, bringing news of a great victory over the Moors17 of Bengal.”
My mother looked round sharply, and cried out—
“Tell me at once, Mr. Walpole, if you have heard anything of our boy?”
The good old man shook his head.
“No, no, ma’am, there is no news of that sort. I fear it will be long before we hear of him. Indeed, it is but a chance that he is out in the East Indies at all. We did but hear a rumour18 that he had been seen in Calcutta.”
My mother let her head droop19 upon her breast. The girl bent20 over to her and laid her hand upon my mother’s shoulder.
“Don’t let yourself think that Athelstane has come to harm,” she said in a sweet, clear voice. (And if I had not recognised the face I recognised the voice. It was my little playmate, Patience Thurstan.) “I have a faith which makes me sure that he is still alive, and will some day come back to us again.”
“No!” It was my father’s voice I heard, coming sternly from where he sat upright in his chair. “He will not come back here. He left this house of his own free will, left it in treachery and deceit. He has cast its dust from off his feet, and this is his home no more.”
My heart sank within me at these bitter words. But Patience pleaded for me still.
“Ah, but he will return, I know he will, and if he does you will forgive him, won’t you, Mr. Ford21? [Pg 315]After all he was but a boy when he ran away, too young to know what he was doing. How can we tell what suffering he has gone through since, how often he has repented22 of what he did, and longed to come back and be forgiven.”
Mr. Peter Walpole gave a groan23.
“It is I was to blame, as much as the boy, come, brother Ford. Remember how I held out for that premium24 with him. Not but what the sum I named was just, mind you; but I loved the lad and would have taken him without a premium at all, rather than he should have gone wandering about the world, to be murdered by heathen men and cannibals.”
I cannot express how surprised and touched I was to hear Mr. Walpole speak thus of me. For I had ever regarded him as a cold, hard man, with no affections beyond money and religion. I looked anxiously for my father’s reply.
“Nay, you were in no wise to blame, if you considered that what you asked was your right, though to my mind it savoured of extortion. It is my unhappy son whom I cannot excuse. Had he but come to me, and told me what was in his heart, it would have gone hard but I would have provided for him in some honest career. But to let himself be enticed25 away by pirates, as there is little doubt they were, and to dissemble his flight with falsehood, that was unworthy of a son of mine, and cannot be atoned26 for.”
[Pg 316]
He gave a glance, half angry, half questioning, at my mother, as he concluded. I did the same, but was surprised to observe that her face was returned to its former placid14 composure, and she seemed not to heed27 my father’s stern expressions.
Poor little Patience took them more to heart, and the tears shone in her eyes.
“Don’t say you won’t forgive him!” she implored28. “Think, for aught we know he may now be pining in a Moorish29 dungeon30, or lying wounded on the battle-field. Oh, Mr. Ford, he was your only son, and you loved him—you must love him still!”
“Silence, girl!” cried my father, very fierce. “How dare you tell me I love a rebellious31 child! I should wrong my conscience, and be false to my profession as a Christian32 man, if I were weak enough to do what you say.”
Patience turned and appealed to my mother.
“Won’t you speak to him, mother? Why do you sit there so quietly? You love Athelstane as much as—as much as any one.”
My mother cast a tender glance at my father.
“Hush, child! There is no need to speak. Athelstane’s father forgave him long ago.”
I saw my father start and tremble.
“Woman! What is it you say? What do you know?” he exclaimed. “You saw me cross his name out of the Bible with my own hand!”
“Yes, dear,” my mother answered very softly, [Pg 317]“but you wrote it in again that very night, when you thought I was asleep.”
And rising out of her chair she crossed over and took down the book from where it had lain those three years and more, and opened the page where, as I have often seen it since, my name was written in again in large letters, and underneath33 in a shaken hand, the words, “Oh, Athelstane, my son, my son!”
Then, whether because of the flickering34 of the firelight, or the steam of my breath upon the pane10, I ceased to see very distinctly, and came away from the window, and went round to the door, where I gave a loud knock.
The door was opened by Patience, and seeing before her, as she thought, a stranger in a uniform coat, she uttered a cry of surprise.
“Who are you, sir?”
“I am an ensign in the East India Company’s service, as you see,” I answered, jesting to conceal35 the fullness of my heart.
But I suppose there was that within her which told her more quickly than her eyes who it was, for before I had spoken two words the little silly thing fell a-sobbing and crying, and I had to take her in my arms, without more ado, and bring her in with me.
My mother has always affirmed that she knew I was to return that night, even when I was outside by the window, and that the first step I made across [Pg 318]the threshold told her all. But instead of running out to meet me, in her beautiful wisdom she went over to where my father sat still, and leant against his chair and put her arm round his neck.
So I found them when I came in alone, leaving Patience in the hall, and walked straight over, and would have knelt down before my father. But he prevented me, and rose out of his chair with a great cry, and drew me to him, and so stood holding me in silence, while my mother wept; and presently I saw his lips moving, and found that he was whispering to himself, “This my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.”
Afterwards we all knelt down together, while Mr. Walpole offered up a prayer; and then I sat in the midst and told them the whole story of my wanderings and perils36 as I have written it here. And later on, noting that Patience was dressed in black, I inquired, and found that she had lost her father nearly a year before, and was become my father’s ward4 till she should attain37 the age of twenty-one, or marry with his consent.
It was not for a long time after that I surprised her little secret, and discovered that depth of true affection which had been waiting for me all those years beside my own hearth, while I was pursuing phantoms38 far away. But being alone with her one day, and our talk turning on the riches I had brought back with me, and how I was to bestow39 them, I said to her—
[Pg 319]
“For one thing, I must buy you a fairing, Patience, like I used to do when we were children together. Have you forgotten, I wonder, the guinea which I gave you to spend, on the last day I ever spent at home?”
“No, indeed, I have not. I remember it very well,” she answered, blushing.
“Why, is that so? And pray what did you buy with it?” I asked smiling.
“Nothing at all,” said Patience shortly.
“Nothing! What then——”
“I have it by me, somewhere.” She pretended to speak carelessly, but my suspicions were aroused.
“I insist on knowing where, Patience,” I said in a tone of command, such as I have never known her to resist.
“You must find out for yourself, then,” says she, trying to defy me. (For the first and last time, God bless her!)
I took her by the arms and held her firmly.
“Now, Patience, tell me what you have done with my guinea,” I demanded, quite stern.
“I kept it—for a keepsake. Oh, Athelstane, don’t laugh at me, I have it on the ribbon round my neck!”
I didn’t laugh at her. But I kissed her, and—well, well!—she kissed me back. And I was surprised to find how little anybody else was surprised when they heard of it, and how they all seemed to take it as a matter of course, and my father told me quite [Pg 320]coolly that he intended me to marry as soon as Patience should be eighteen, and to live on Abner Thurstan’s farm, which she had inherited by his will.
Of Rupert, as well as of old Muzzy, I must briefly40 speak. I conducted my cousin to his father, as I had promised, and sought to reconcile them. But I found my uncle to be harsher than I had expected. He had, besides, married again, and his wife looked sourly on the blind man she was asked to entertain in her house. The upshot of it was that I told her if she would take care of Rupert till I was married I would then have him to live with me. And in our house he still abides41, a much altered man, given to the hearing of sermons, and never so happy as when Patience sits down to read him a piece from the Bible or the Norwich Journal; though sometimes a flash of his old spirit returns when I sit beside him after supper and talk over our old adventures in the East.
I found it more difficult at first to befriend old Muzzy. For though the old man professed42 to be, and I am sure really was, anxious to reform and lead a better life, he made but a poor business of it, and his constant profane43 oaths and habits of rum-drinking proved a severe trial to my mother and Patience. I had told them of his many services to me, including his having saved my life, and therefore they made it a duty to show kindness to the old [Pg 321]man, and endeavour to bear with his ways. But I think they would have failed, and I should have been obliged to find a home for him elsewhere, but for his having accidentally told them of the affair outside Calcutta. No sooner did these tender-hearted women learn that I had saved old Muzzy’s life (as they chose to consider it) than they instantly conceived a strong affection for the old man, and instead of finding him a burden nothing pleased them better than to sit in his company while the boatswain related the story of my prowess, interrupting it at every minute to excuse himself for some dreadful expression which had brought the tears into their eyes. The tale lost nothing in the telling, and I am ashamed to say that he so improved upon it in course of time as to make it appear that I had marched single-handed through the Nabob’s entire army, severely44 wounded the Nabob himself, and slain45 many of his principal generals, and finally emerged, carrying old Muzzy himself across my shoulders like a suckling lamb.
Peace to old Muzzy! His heart was as innocent as his life and conversation were depraved. I believe my mother used to buy tobacco for him; and I am certain I once detected my wife secretly giving him rum.
In this peaceful manner my adventures ended, and I found myself, far beyond my deserts, settled at last in the land where I was born, among those who loved me and whom I loved.
And we are so made, and this life of ours is so strange a thing, that sometimes, when I walk abroad in the evening, as I was wont46 to do in my boyhood, and stand beside the lonely, rippling47 water of the broad, and watch the reflection of the sunset upon the distant walls of Yarmouth town; sometimes, I say, I ask myself whether all this has really been as I have thus written it, or whether all these events from my first running away from my father’s roof; and those nights and days in the streets of yonder town and beneath the roof of the old “Three-decker”; and the woman I loved and fought for; and my cousin Rupert’s enmity; and the voyage which I took to the East Indies, and the battles and perils which I passed through; and last of all that white tomb in the seraglio garden in far-off Moorshedabad; whether they are not dreams and visions which have come to me while I have slept.
UNWIN BROTHERS, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON.
The End
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1
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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2
procured
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的过去式和过去分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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3
lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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4
ward
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| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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daunted
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| 使（某人）气馁，威吓( daunt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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8
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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illuminate
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| vt.照亮，照明；用灯光装饰；说明，阐释 | |
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10
pane
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| n.窗格玻璃，长方块 | |
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panes
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| 窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
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12
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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14
placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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16
smote
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| v.猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去式 ) | |
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moors
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| v.停泊，系泊（船只）( moor的第三人称单数 ) | |
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18
rumour
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| n.谣言，谣传，传闻 | |
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19
droop
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| v.低垂，下垂；凋萎，萎靡 | |
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20
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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repented
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| 对（自己的所为）感到懊悔或忏悔( repent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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24
premium
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| n.加付款；赠品；adj.高级的；售价高的 | |
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enticed
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| 诱惑，怂恿( entice的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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atoned
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| v.补偿，赎（罪）( atone的过去式和过去分词 )；补偿，弥补，赎回 | |
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27
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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28
implored
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| 恳求或乞求（某人）( implore的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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29
moorish
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| adj.沼地的，荒野的，生[住]在沼地的 | |
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dungeon
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| n.地牢，土牢 | |
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rebellious
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| adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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33
underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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perils
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| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
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attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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phantoms
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| n.鬼怪，幽灵( phantom的名词复数 ) | |
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39
bestow
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| v.把…赠与，把…授予；花费 | |
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40
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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41
abides
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| 容忍( abide的第三人称单数 )； 等候； 逗留； 停留 | |
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42
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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43
profane
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| adj.亵神的，亵渎的；vt.亵渎，玷污 | |
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44
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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45
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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46
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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47
rippling
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| 起涟漪的，潺潺流水般声音的 | |
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