The Way of All Flesh

When Ernest got home and sneaked in through the back door, he heard his father’s voice in its angriest tones, inquiring whether Master Ernest had already returned.  He felt as Jack must have felt in the story of Jack and the Bean Stalk, when from the oven in which he was hidden he heard the ogre ask his wife what young children she had got for his supper.  With much courage, and, as the event proved, with not less courage than discretion, he took the bull by the horns, and announced himself at once as having just come in after having met with a terrible misfortune.  Little by little he told his story, and though Theobald stormed somewhat at his “incredible folly and carelessness,” he got off better than he expected.  Theobald and Christina had indeed at first been inclined to connect his absence from dinner with Ellen’s dismissal, but on finding it clear, as Theobald said—­everything was always clear with Theobald—­that Ernest had not been in the house all the morning, and could therefore have known nothing of what had happened, he was acquitted on this account for once in a way, without a stain upon his character.  Perhaps Theobald was in a good temper; he may have seen from the paper that morning that his stocks had been rising; it may have been this or twenty other things, but whatever it was, he did not scold so much as Ernest had expected, and, seeing the boy look exhausted and believing him to be much grieved at the loss of his watch, Theobald actually prescribed a glass of wine after his dinner, which, strange to say, did not choke him, but made him see things more cheerfully than was usual with him.

That night when he said his prayers, he inserted a few paragraphs to the effect that he might not be discovered, and that things might go well with Ellen, but he was anxious and ill at ease.  His guilty conscience pointed out to him a score of weak places in his story, through any one of which detection might even yet easily enter.  Next day and for many days afterwards he fled when no man was pursuing, and trembled each time he heard his father’s voice calling for him.  He had already so many causes of anxiety that he could stand little more, and in spite of all his endeavours to look cheerful, even his mother could see that something was preying upon his mind.  Then the idea returned to her that, after all, her son might not be innocent in the Ellen matter—­and this was so interesting that she felt bound to get as near the truth as she could.

“Come here, my poor, pale-faced, heavy-eyed boy,” she said to him one day in her kindest manner; “come and sit down by me, and we will have a little quiet confidential talk together, will we not?”

The boy went mechanically to the sofa.  Whenever his mother wanted what she called a confidential talk with him she always selected the sofa as the most suitable ground on which to open her campaign.  All mothers do this; the sofa is to them what the dining-room is to fathers.  In the present case the sofa was particularly well adapted for a strategic purpose, being an old-fashioned one with a high back, mattress, bolsters and cushions.  Once safely penned into one of its deep corners, it was like a dentist’s chair, not too easy to get out of again.  Here she could get at him better to pull him about, if this should seem desirable, or if she thought fit to cry she could bury her head in the sofa cushion and abandon herself to an agony of grief which seldom failed of its effect.  None of her favourite manoeuvres were so easily adopted in her usual seat, the arm-chair on the right hand side of the fireplace, and so well did her son know from his mother’s tone that this was going to be a sofa conversation that he took his place like a lamb as soon as she began to speak and before she could reach the sofa herself.

“My dearest boy,” began his mother, taking hold of his hand and placing it within her own, “promise me never to be afraid either of your dear papa or of me; promise me this, my dear, as you love me, promise it to me,” and she kissed him again and again and stroked his hair.  But with her other hand she still kept hold of his; she had got him and she meant to keep him.

The lad hung down his head and promised.  What else could he do?

“You know there is no one, dear, dear Ernest, who loves you so much as your papa and I do; no one who watches so carefully over your interests or who is so anxious to enter into all your little joys and troubles as we are; but my dearest boy, it grieves me to think sometimes that you have not that perfect love for and confidence in us which you ought to have.  You know, my darling, that it would be as much our pleasure as our duty to watch over the development of your moral and spiritual nature, but alas! you will not let us see your moral and spiritual nature.  At times we are almost inclined to doubt whether you have a moral and spiritual nature at all.  Of your inner life, my dear, we know nothing beyond such scraps as we can glean in spite of you, from little things which escape you almost before you know that you have said them.”

The boy winced at this.  It made him feel hot and uncomfortable all over.  He knew well how careful he ought to be, and yet, do what he could, from time to time his forgetfulness of the part betrayed him into unreserve.  His mother saw that he winced, and enjoyed the scratch she had given him.  Had she felt less confident of victory she had better have foregone the pleasure of touching as it were the eyes at the end of the snail’s horns in order to enjoy seeing the snail draw them in again—­but she knew that when she had got him well down into the sofa, and held his hand, she had the enemy almost absolutely at her mercy, and could do pretty much what she liked.

“Papa does not feel,” she continued, “that you love him with that fulness and unreserve which would prompt you to have no concealment from him, and to tell him everything freely and fearlessly as your most loving earthly friend next only to your Heavenly Father.  Perfect love, as we know, casteth out fear:  your father loves you perfectly, my darling, but he does not feel as though you loved him perfectly in return.  If you fear him it is because you do not love him as he deserves, and I know it sometimes cuts him to the very heart to think that he has earned from you a deeper and more willing sympathy than you display towards him.  Oh, Ernest, Ernest, do not grieve one who is so good and noble-hearted by conduct which I can call by no other name than ingratitude.”

Ernest could never stand being spoken to in this way by his mother:  for he still believed that she loved him, and that he was fond of her and had a friend in her—­up to a certain point.  But his mother was beginning to come to the end of her tether; she had played the domestic confidence trick upon him times without number already.  Over and over again had she wheedled from him all she wanted to know, and afterwards got him into the most horrible scrape by telling the whole to Theobald.  Ernest had remonstrated more than once upon these occasions, and had pointed out to his mother how disastrous to him his confidences had been, but Christina had always joined issue with him and showed him in the clearest possible manner that in each case she had been right, and that he could not reasonably complain.  Generally it was her conscience that forbade her to be silent, and against this there was no appeal, for we are all bound to follow the dictates of our conscience.  Ernest used to have to recite a hymn about conscience.  It was to the effect that if you did not pay attention to its voice it would soon leave off speaking.  “My mamma’s conscience has not left off speaking,” said Ernest to one of his chums at Roughborough; “it’s always jabbering.”

When a boy has once spoken so disrespectfully as this about his mother’s conscience it is practically all over between him and her.  Ernest through sheer force of habit, of the sofa, and of the return of the associated ideas, was still so moved by the siren’s voice as to yearn to sail towards her, and fling himself into her arms, but it would not do; there were other associated ideas that returned also, and the mangled bones of too many murdered confessions were lying whitening round the skirts of his mother’s dress, to allow him by any possibility to trust her further.  So he hung his head and looked sheepish, but kept his own counsel.

“I see, my dearest,” continued his mother, “either that I am mistaken, and that there is nothing on your mind, or that you will not unburden yourself to me:  but oh, Ernest, tell me at least this much; is there nothing that you repent of, nothing which makes you unhappy in connection with that miserable girl Ellen?”

Ernest’s heart failed him.  “I am a dead boy now,” he said to himself.  He had not the faintest conception what his mother was driving at, and thought she suspected about the watch; but he held his ground.

I do not believe he was much more of a coward than his neighbours, only he did not know that all sensible people are cowards when they are off their beat, or when they think they are going to be roughly handled.  I believe, that if the truth were known, it would be found that even the valiant St Michael himself tried hard to shirk his famous combat with the dragon; he pretended not to see all sorts of misconduct on the dragon’s part; shut his eyes to the eating up of I do not know how many hundreds of men, women and children whom he had promised to protect; allowed himself to be publicly insulted a dozen times over without resenting it; and in the end when even an angel could stand it no longer he shilly-shallied and temporised an unconscionable time before he would fix the day and hour for the encounter.  As for the actual combat it was much such another wurra-wurra as Mrs Allaby had had with the young man who had in the end married her eldest daughter, till after a time behold, there was the dragon lying dead, while he was himself alive and not very seriously hurt after all.

“I do not know what you mean, mamma,” exclaimed Ernest anxiously and more or less hurriedly.  His mother construed his manner into indignation at being suspected, and being rather frightened herself she turned tail and scuttled off as fast as her tongue could carry her.

“Oh!” she said, “I see by your tone that you are innocent!  Oh! oh! how I thank my heavenly Father for this; may He for His dear Son’s sake keep you always pure.  Your father, my dear”—­(here she spoke hurriedly but gave him a searching look) “was as pure as a spotless angel when he came to me.  Like him, always be self-denying, truly truthful both in word and deed, never forgetful whose son and grandson you are, nor of the name we gave you, of the sacred stream in whose waters your sins were washed out of you through the blood and blessing of Christ,” etc.

But Ernest cut this—­I will not say short—­but a great deal shorter than it would have been if Christina had had her say out, by extricating himself from his mamma’s embrace and showing a clean pair of heels.  As he got near the purlieus of the kitchen (where he was more at ease) he heard his father calling for his mother, and again his guilty conscience rose against him.  “He has found all out now,” it cried, “and he is going to tell mamma—­this time I am done for.”  But there was nothing in it; his father only wanted the key of the cellaret.  Then Ernest slunk off into a coppice or spinney behind the Rectory paddock, and consoled himself with a pipe of tobacco.  Here in the wood with the summer sun streaming through the trees and a book and his pipe the boy forgot his cares and had an interval of that rest without which I verily believe his life would have been insupportable.

Of course, Ernest was made to look for his lost property, and a reward was offered for it, but it seemed he had wandered a good deal off the path, thinking to find a lark’s nest, more than once, and looking for a watch and purse on Battersby piewipes was very like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay:  besides it might have been found and taken by some tramp, or by a magpie of which there were many in the neighbourhood, so that after a week or ten days the search was discontinued, and the unpleasant fact had to be faced that Ernest must have another watch, another knife, and a small sum of pocket money.

It was only right, however, that Ernest should pay half the cost of the watch; this should be made easy for him, for it should be deducted from his pocket money in half-yearly instalments extending over two, or even it might be three years.  In Ernest’s own interests, then, as well as those of his father and mother, it would be well that the watch should cost as little as possible, so it was resolved to buy a second-hand one.  Nothing was to be said to Ernest, but it was to be bought, and laid upon his plate as a surprise just before the holidays were over.  Theobald would have to go to the county town in a few days, and could then find some second-hand watch which would answer sufficiently well.  In the course of time, therefore, Theobald went, furnished with a long list of household commissions, among which was the purchase of a watch for Ernest.

Those, as I have said, were always happy times, when Theobald was away for a whole day certain; the boy was beginning to feel easy in his mind as though God had heard his prayers, and he was not going to be found out.  Altogether the day had proved an unusually tranquil one, but, alas! it was not to close as it had begun; the fickle atmosphere in which he lived was never more likely to breed a storm than after such an interval of brilliant calm, and when Theobald returned Ernest had only to look in his face to see that a hurricane was approaching.

Christina saw that something had gone very wrong, and was quite frightened lest Theobald should have heard of some serious money loss; he did not, however, at once unbosom himself, but rang the bell and said to the servant, “Tell Master Ernest I wish to speak to him in the dining-room.”