John Halifax [36]
the joy and relief of my heart. John came over to me, and we clasped hands.
"John, you will not go?"
"No, I will stay to redeem my character with your father. Be content, Phineas--I won't part with you."
"Young man, thou must," said my father, turning round.
"But--"
"I have said it, Phineas. I accuse him of no dishonesty, no crime, but of weakly yielding, and selfishly causing another to yield, to the temptation of the world. Therefore, as my clerk I retain him; as my son's companion--never!"
We felt that "never" was irrevocable.
Yet I tried, blindly and despairingly, to wrestle with it; I might as well have flung myself against a stone wall.
John stood perfectly silent.
"Don't, Phineas," he whispered at last; "never mind me. Your father is right--at least so far as he sees. Let me go--perhaps I may come back to you some time. If not--"
I moaned out bitter words--I hardly knew what I was saying. My father took no notice of them, only went to the door and called Jael.
Then, before the woman came, I had strength enough to bid John go.
"Good-bye--don't forget me, don't!"
"I will not," he said; "and if I live we shall be friends again. Good-bye, Phineas." He was gone.
After that day, though he kept his word, and remained in the tan-yard, and though from time to time I heard of him--always accidentally,--after that day for two long years I never once saw the face of John Halifax.
CHAPTER VII
It was the year 1800, long known in English households as "the dear year." The present generation can have no conception of what a terrible time that was--War, Famine, and Tumult stalking hand-in-hand, and no one to stay them. For between the upper and lower classes there was a great gulf fixed; the rich ground the faces of the poor, the poor hated, yet meanly succumbed to, the rich. Neither had Christianity enough boldly to cross the line of demarcation, and prove, the humbler, that they were men,--the higher and wiser, that they were gentlemen.
These troubles, which were everywhere abroad, reached us even in our quiet town of Norton Bury. For myself, personally, they touched me not, or, at least, only kept fluttering like evil birds outside the dear home-tabernacle, where I and Patience sat, keeping our solemn counsel together--for these two years had with me been very hard.
Though I had to bear so much bodily suffering that I was seldom told of any worldly cares, still I often fancied things were going ill both within and without our doors. Jael complained in an under-key of stinted housekeeping, or boasted aloud of her own ingenuity in making ends meet: and my father's brow grew continually heavier, graver, sterner; sometimes so stern that I dared not wage, what was, openly or secretly, the quiet but incessant crusade of my existence-- the bringing back of John Halifax.
He still remained my father's clerk--nay, I sometimes thought he was even advancing in duties and trusts, for I heard of his being sent long journeys up and down England to buy grain--Abel Fletcher having added to his tanning business the flour-mill hard by, whose lazy whirr was so familiar to John and me in our boyhood. But of these journeys my father never spoke; indeed, he rarely mentioned John at all. However he might employ and even trust him in business relations, I knew that in every other way he was inexorable.
And John Halifax was as inexorable as he. No under-hand or clandestine friendship would he admit--no, not even for my sake. I knew quite well, that until he could walk in openly, honourably, proudly, he never would re-enter my father's doors. Twice only he had written to me--on my two birthdays--my father himself giving me in silence the unsealed letters. They told me what I already was sure of--that I held, and always should hold, my steadfast place in his friendship. Nothing more.
One other fact I noticed: that a little lad, afterward discovered to be Jem Watkins, to whom had fallen the hard-working lot of the lost Bill, had somehow crept into our household as errand-boy,
"John, you will not go?"
"No, I will stay to redeem my character with your father. Be content, Phineas--I won't part with you."
"Young man, thou must," said my father, turning round.
"But--"
"I have said it, Phineas. I accuse him of no dishonesty, no crime, but of weakly yielding, and selfishly causing another to yield, to the temptation of the world. Therefore, as my clerk I retain him; as my son's companion--never!"
We felt that "never" was irrevocable.
Yet I tried, blindly and despairingly, to wrestle with it; I might as well have flung myself against a stone wall.
John stood perfectly silent.
"Don't, Phineas," he whispered at last; "never mind me. Your father is right--at least so far as he sees. Let me go--perhaps I may come back to you some time. If not--"
I moaned out bitter words--I hardly knew what I was saying. My father took no notice of them, only went to the door and called Jael.
Then, before the woman came, I had strength enough to bid John go.
"Good-bye--don't forget me, don't!"
"I will not," he said; "and if I live we shall be friends again. Good-bye, Phineas." He was gone.
After that day, though he kept his word, and remained in the tan-yard, and though from time to time I heard of him--always accidentally,--after that day for two long years I never once saw the face of John Halifax.
CHAPTER VII
It was the year 1800, long known in English households as "the dear year." The present generation can have no conception of what a terrible time that was--War, Famine, and Tumult stalking hand-in-hand, and no one to stay them. For between the upper and lower classes there was a great gulf fixed; the rich ground the faces of the poor, the poor hated, yet meanly succumbed to, the rich. Neither had Christianity enough boldly to cross the line of demarcation, and prove, the humbler, that they were men,--the higher and wiser, that they were gentlemen.
These troubles, which were everywhere abroad, reached us even in our quiet town of Norton Bury. For myself, personally, they touched me not, or, at least, only kept fluttering like evil birds outside the dear home-tabernacle, where I and Patience sat, keeping our solemn counsel together--for these two years had with me been very hard.
Though I had to bear so much bodily suffering that I was seldom told of any worldly cares, still I often fancied things were going ill both within and without our doors. Jael complained in an under-key of stinted housekeeping, or boasted aloud of her own ingenuity in making ends meet: and my father's brow grew continually heavier, graver, sterner; sometimes so stern that I dared not wage, what was, openly or secretly, the quiet but incessant crusade of my existence-- the bringing back of John Halifax.
He still remained my father's clerk--nay, I sometimes thought he was even advancing in duties and trusts, for I heard of his being sent long journeys up and down England to buy grain--Abel Fletcher having added to his tanning business the flour-mill hard by, whose lazy whirr was so familiar to John and me in our boyhood. But of these journeys my father never spoke; indeed, he rarely mentioned John at all. However he might employ and even trust him in business relations, I knew that in every other way he was inexorable.
And John Halifax was as inexorable as he. No under-hand or clandestine friendship would he admit--no, not even for my sake. I knew quite well, that until he could walk in openly, honourably, proudly, he never would re-enter my father's doors. Twice only he had written to me--on my two birthdays--my father himself giving me in silence the unsealed letters. They told me what I already was sure of--that I held, and always should hold, my steadfast place in his friendship. Nothing more.
One other fact I noticed: that a little lad, afterward discovered to be Jem Watkins, to whom had fallen the hard-working lot of the lost Bill, had somehow crept into our household as errand-boy,