Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ confess to you—but I have asked you to hear my history—and you shall hear the truth in the teeth of shame—that all my sympathy was, from this hour, towards my father, and against my mother. It may be wrong—wicked—but I could not control the strong feeling within me. His words had left a powerful impression upon my mind. His tone, his tears—his man's tears—stamped those words with truth, and I believed him wronged. In what way I knew not—nor did I care. It was sufficient for me to hear it, as I did, from his lips, and to be told that it was not possible to reveal more. Besides, sir, I have already intimated to you that there was little tenderness in my mother's heart for me. She was cold, indifferent, and had never had part in all my little joys and griefs. My father, even with his heavy fault—a fault almost pardoned, as I believed; by the provocation—watched my boyish steps, and rejoiced with me in my well-doing. Nothing had interest for me which was not important to him. He encouraged me in learning. He grudged no money that could be spent in my improvement—he had no joy so great as that which waited on my desire for knowledge. He had been to me a playmate, counsellor, friend, whenever his slender opportunities permitted him to escape to me; and evidences of the most devoted affection had disturbed my youthful heart with an emotion too deep for utterance in the silence and solitude of my schoolboy hours. Yes—right or wrong—by necessity—my sympathy was all for him. And to convince you, sir, that my feelings were enlisted in his cause, irrespectively of self, without the most distant view to my own interest, I have but to refer to the life which I passed under his roof, until I left it, to return, for a second time, to the enjoyments and consolations—as they were always—of my school. Although his affection for me was unbounded, it was not long before I perceived, with bitterness and trouble, that it was impossible for him to save me from the fury of a temper which he had no longer power to govern. I could read, or I believed I could, his inmost soul, and I could see the hourly struggle for forbearance and self-control. It was in vain. If his passion obtained the rein for an instant—it was wild—away—beyond his reach—and he thought not, in the paroxysm, of the sufferer, whose smile he would not have ruffled in the season of sobriety and quiet. I did not fail again and again to remonstrate on behalf of my mother—for the scene which I have described to you became an endless one; but perceiving at length that representation added only fuel to the fire, I desisted. My lively habits soon appeared to be unsuited to the new order of things. My father would once have smiled with enjoyment at some piece of boyish mischief which now roused him to anger, and before excuse could be offered, or pardon asked—the severest chastisement—I cannot tell how severe, was inflicted on my flesh."

      "Madman!" I exclaimed involuntarily, interrupting Warton in his narrative.

      "Madman do you say, sir?" he answered quickly. "Yes, I have often thought so—and to an extent, I grant you—if it be madness to have the reason prostrate before passion. But it is profitless to define the malady. I would have you dwell, sir, on the cause—her fatal apathy—her indifference—I know not what besides—which made him what he was. You may imagine, sir, that my blood has boiled beneath the punishment—that I have burned with indignation beneath the weight of it, undeserved and cruel as it was. Oh, sir! God has visited me these many years with sore affliction. I am a forlorn, disabled, cast-off creature—nothing lives viler than the thing I have become; and yet in this dark hour I thank my Maker with an overflowing grateful heart that He tied down my hands when they have tingled in my agony to return the father's blow. I never did—I never did."

      The speaker grew more and more excited, and his voice at last failed him. I rose, and retired to the window, but he proceeded whilst my face was turned away. I know not why—but my own eyes smarted.

      "Yes, sir, time after time the horrible desire to be avenged, and to give back blow for blow, has possessed me; and, as if eternal torture were to be the immediate penalty of the unnatural act, I have thrown my arms behind me, clasped hand in hand, and held them tiger-like together, until the fit was passed away. And then who could be more penitent, more sorrowful, than he! Within an hour of perpetrating this barbarity, he has met me with a look pleading for forgiveness, which I would have given him had he offended me, oh much—much more. What could he say to his child? What could his child allow him to utter? Nothing. I have kissed him; he has taken me by the hand, we have walked abroad together; and he has loaded me with gifts for the joy of our reconciliation."

      Curious as I was to hear more, I deemed it expedient, for the present, to close the history. The man seemed carried away by the subject, and his cheeks were scorched with this burning flush which the unusual exertion of mind and body had summoned up. He spoke vehemently—hurriedly—at the top of his voice, and I knew not how far his agitation might carry him. I again proposed to him to abstain from fatigue, and to leave his history unfinished for the present. He paused for a few minutes, wiped the heavy perspiration from his brow, and answered me in a calm and steady voice—

      "I will transgress no more, sir. I have never spoken of these things yet—and they come before my mind too vividly—they inflame and mislead me. I ask your pardon. But let me finish now—the tale is soon told—I cannot for a second time revert to it."

      "Go on," I answered, yielding once more to his wish, and in the same composed and quiet voice he began again.

      "The first watch which I called my own, was given to me on one of these occasions. My father had requested me to execute some small commission. I forgot to do it. In his eyes the fault for a moment assumed the form of wilful disobedience. That moment was enough—he was roused—the paroxysm prevailed—and I was beaten like a dog. An hour afterwards he was persuaded that his child was not undutiful. His reason had returned to him, and, with it a load of miserable remorse. He offered me, with a tremulous hand, the bauble, which I accepted; and, as I took it, I saw a weight of sorrow tumble from his unhappy breast. This was my father, sir. A man who would have been the best of fathers—had he been permitted, as his heart directed him, to be the tenderest of husbands. I could see in my boyhood that blame attached to my mother—to what extent I did not know. I lived in the hope of hearing at some future time. That time never came. I remained at home two months, and then went back to school. I received a letter from one of my father's clerks, who was an especial favourite of mine. It must have been about a week after my departure. It told me that my father had drooped since I quitted him. On the morning that I came away, he left his business and locked himself in my bedroom. He was shut up at least two hours there. Fifty different matters required his presence in the counting-house, and at length my friend, the clerk, disturbed him. When the door was opened he found his master, his eyes streaming with tears, intent upon a little book in which he had seen me reading many days before. Oh, it was like him, sir! Within a few days I received another letter from the same hand. My father was dangerously ill, and I was summoned home. I flew, and arrived to find him delirious. He had been seized with inflammation the day before. The fire blazed in a system that was ripe for it. The doctors were baffled. Mortification had already begun. He did not recognize me, but he spoke of me in his delirium in terms of endearment, whilst curses against my mother rolled from his unconscious lips. Three hours after my arrival he was a corpse. And such a corpse! They told me it was my father, and I believed them.

      "Are you, sir, fatherless?" asked Warton suddenly.

      I told him, and he continued. "You have felt then the lightning shock that has altered the very face of nature. Earth, before and after that event, is not the same. It never was to human being yet. It cannot be. What a secret is learnt upon that day! How tottering and insecure have become the things of life that seemed so firm and fixed! The penalty is heavy which we pay for the privilege to be our own master. Oh, the desolation of a fatherless home! My father died, having made no will. So it was said at first—but in a few days there was another version. My mother's brother—the uncle that I spoke of—then appeared upon the stage, and was most active for his sister's interests. He had never been a friend of my father's. They had not spoken for years. I did not know why. I had never enquired—for the man was a stranger to me, and since my birth he had not crossed our threshold. My father believed that his relative had wronged him—of this I was sure—and I hated СКАЧАТЬ