The Caxtons — Volume 09 eBook

I took a chair between the two, and looked first at one, then at the other.  Heaven forgive me!—­I felt a rebellious, ungrateful spite against both.  The bitterness of my soul must have been deep indeed to have overflowed in that direction, but it did.  The grief of youth is an abominable egotist, and that is the truth.  I got up from my chair and walked towards the window; it was open, and outside the window was Mrs. Primmins’s canary, in its cage.  London air had agreed with it, and it was singing lustily.  Now, when the canary saw me standing opposite to its cage, and regarding it seriously, and, I have no doubt, with a very sombre aspect, the creature stopped short, and hung its head on one side, looking at me obliquely and suspiciously.  Finding that I did it no harm, it began to hazard a few broken notes, timidly and interrogatively, as it were, pausing between each; and at length, as I made no reply, it evidently thought it had solved the doubt, and ascertained that I was more to be pitied than feared,—­for it stole gradually into so soft and silvery a strain that, I verily believe, it did it on purpose to comfort me!—­me, its old friend, whom it had unjustly suspected.  Never did any music touch me so home as did that long, plaintive cadence.  And when the bird ceased, it perched itself close to the bars of the cage, and looked at me steadily with its bright, intelligent eyes.  I felt mine water, and I turned back and stood in the centre of the room, irresolute what to do, where to go.  My father had done with the proof, and was deep in his folios.  Roland had clasped his red account-book, restored it to his pocket, wiped his pen carefully, and now watched me from under his great beetle-brows.  Suddenly he rose, and stamping on the hearth with his cork leg, exclaimed, “Look up from those cursed books, brother Austin!  What is there in your son’s face?  Construe that, if you can!”

CHAPTER II.

And my father pushed aside his books and rose hastily.  He took off his spectacles and rubbed them mechanically, but he said nothing, and my uncle, staring at him for a moment, in surprise at his silence, burst out,—­

“Oh!  I see; he has been getting into some scrape, and you are angry.  Fie! young blood will have its way, Austin, it will.  I don’t blame that; it is only when—­Come here, Sisty.  Zounds! man, come here.”

My father gently brushed off the Captain’s hand, and advancing towards me, opened his arms.  The next moment I was sobbing on his breast.

“But what is the matter?” cried Captain Roland.  “Will nobody say what is the matter?  Money, I suppose, money, you confounded extravagant young dog.  Luckily you have got an uncle who has more than he knows what to do with.  How much?  Fifty?—­a hundred?—­two hundred?  How can I write the check if you’ll not speak?”

“Hush, brother! it is no money you can give that will set this right.  My poor boy!  Have I guessed truly?  Did I guess truly the other evening when—­”