: The Son of His Father; vol. 2/3 by Oliphant Mrs Margaret - Fathers and sons Fiction

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THE SECOND VOLUME.

THE SON OF HIS FATHER.

OUT IN THE WORLD.

Out in the world.

It was not so long a journey as that he had taken to Liverpool with the curate, but how different it was! Then he had his home to return to; he had set forth curious indeed and interested, with a hope of discovering something about himself, but always with the idea of going back to the quiet of his own life and working it out. He had his natural anchorage, his harbour to sail back to, and no need to think of facing by himself the storms of life. He had not been happy then; but even his sadness, his trouble, even the mystery thrown into his life, his disquietude, all these were so different. That was only a sort of amateur trouble, a playing at distress. Now it enveloped him on every side. He sat down opposite to his mother in the railway carriage, and saw everything that he had known gliding away from him, disappearing into the distance. He did not know where he was going, or to what. She said nothing to him, not a word of his home, or of his new life; and his old had come to an end, as if he had died.

As if he had died! In some ways it would have been more satisfactory to have died. Then his name and memory, the name which he knew best, without any mystery attached to it, would always have remained in the same place, and the whole village would have been sorry, and talked of him with bated breath, shaking their heads in sympathy. Poor boy, to have died so young! and Elly and the boys would have looked after his grave. Elly at least would have done it. She would never have forgotten. Tears came into John's eyes when he thought of Elly going with her flowers to his grave, crying a little, never forgetting him. He made a little picture to himself, in which he saw her leaning over the turf, arranging her posy to his memory: and his eyes moistened with sadness which had in it an exquisite sort of melancholy pleasure. For after all it is not so dreadful for the very young to contemplate dying: the violets on their grave breathe to them a great consolation and the thought of the universal sympathy; they have not got so engrafted into life, so determined in all its habits as their elders. But when John turned to the other side, and found himself facing that blank world of the unknown--not knowing what he was to do, having, so to speak, no say in it, depending entirely upon what She should decide--there was no consolation at all in it, nothing that corresponded to the violets on the grave.

He did not know how his life was to be shaped, where he was to go, what he was to do. She had brought away a few things with her, but very few--grandmamma's work-basket, in which she had kept her knitting, and in which, had John had his will, the last unfinished piece of that knitting should have been kept for ever--a selection of the books which she had made carefully, rejecting so many that grandfather had been proud of, and which she had said were of no use: but they would have been of use to John: an old picture or two from the walls, portraits with which John had been acquainted all his life, and one little old-fashioned bureau of carved wood, which had always stood in a corner, which he had never seen opened, and to which she seemed to attach great importance. These, with some of the old lady's boxes, were all she brought away. And John had to come out of the house, leaving it as if the old people might come in from their walk at any moment. Had it been pulled to pieces first he thought it would have been less dreadful: but probably had that been done, and all the old furniture scattered, he would have thought it worse still. Everything had the aspect of being the worst that could happen in his present state of mind. Mr. Cattley came to the station to say good-bye. He was very civil to Mrs. Sandford, but he grasped John's hand without a word.

'You'll write,' he said, just as the train glided away. And the porters touched their hats and said 'Good-bye, Mr. John,' with a kind recollection of sixpences past. And so the boy disappeared from Edgeley, and his early life ended as if he had died, only that the severance was still more complete.

There was very little said until they drew near the great smoke which was London, and which roused a little excitement in John's fatigued bosom, as it began to stain the sky so long before they arrived. It was almost night when they reached the great bustling crowded station--dusk at least, the lamps beginning to twinkle, the air growing cold which had been almost warm in spring brightness in the earlier part of the day. Mrs. Sandford had all her packages collected and placed on a cab, with little assistance from John, who was bewildered and confused by all the commotion and tumult, people running against him on all sides, and shrieking at each other. She was perfectly collected, business-like, and calm, understanding exactly what to do, and evidently accustomed to manage everything for herself; and the officials about seemed to recognise her, and were particularly ready and assiduous in her service. She made John get into the cab before her, like a child, and told the cabman where to drive; and it was only when they began this last brief part of their journey that she gave him any information as to where he was going.

'It is time I should tell you,' she said, 'that I cannot have you to live with me, John. I should perhaps have said this before. I don't know whether you are aware what my occupation is, though of course you have always addressed your letters to me at the hospital.'

John looked with quickened interest at the close black bonnet and cloak, perceiving their difference from other people's bonnets and cloaks as if for the first time. It was not for the first time. He had remarked it at once and always, feeling the difference. But then, in her, everything was different.

'I know,' he said, 'the letters were always addressed to the hospital.'

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