"It was Harry's trick," said Flora indignantly, as she flew for the scent-bottle, while her father bent over Margaret. "Harry dressed himself up, and she was frightened."
"Oh, no--no--he did not mean it," gasped Margaret; "don't."
"Harry, I did not think you could be so cowardly and unfeeling!" and Dr. May's look was even more reproachful than his words.
Harry was dismayed at his sister's condition, but the injustice of the wholesale reproach chased away contrition. "I did nothing to frighten any one," he said moodily.
"Now, Harry, you know how you kept on," said Flora, "and when you saw she was frightened--"
"I can have no more of this," said Dr. May, seeing that the discussion was injuring Margaret more and more. "Go away to my study, sir, and wait till I come to you. All of you out of the room. Flora, fetch the sal volatile."
"Let me tell you," whispered Margaret. "Don't be angry with Harry. It was--"
"Not now, not now, my dear. Lie quite still." She obeyed, took the sal volatile, and shut her eyes, while he sat leaning anxiously over, watching her. Presently she opened them, and, looking up, said rather faintly, and trying to smile, "I don't think I can be better till you have heard the rights of it. He did not mean it."
"Boys never do mean it," was the doctor's answer. "I hoped better things of Harry."
"He had no intention--" began Margaret, but she still was unfit to talk, and her father silenced her, by promising to go and hear the boy's own account.
In the hall, he was instantly beset by Ethel and Mary, the former exclaiming, "Papa, you are quite mistaken! It was very foolish of Margaret to be so frightened. He did nothing at all to frighten any one."
Ethel's mode of pleading was unfortunate; the "very foolish of Margaret" were the very words to displease.
"Do not interfere!" said her father sternly. "You only encourage him in his wanton mischief, and no one takes any heed how he torments my poor Margaret."
"Papa," cried Harry, passionately bursting open the study door, "tormenting Margaret was the last thing I would do!"
"That is not the way to speak, Harry. What have you been doing?"
With rapid agitated utterance, Harry made his confession. At another time the doctor would have treated the matter as a joke carried too far, but which, while it called for censure, was very amusing; but now the explanation that the disguise had been assumed to impose on the Andersons, only added to his displeasure.
"You seem to think you have a licence to play off any impertinent freaks you please, without consideration for any one," he said; "but I tell you it is not so. As long as you are under my roof, you shall feel my authority, and you shall spend the rest of the day in your room. I hope quietness there will bring you to a better mind, but I am disappointed in you. A boy who can choose such a time, and such subjects, for insolent, unfeeling, practical jokes, cannot be in a fit state for Confirmation."
"Oh, papa! papa!" cried the two girls, in tones of entreaty--while Harry, with a burning face and hasty step, dashed upstairs without a word.
"You have been as bad!" said Dr. May. "I say nothing to you, Mary, you knew no better; but, to see you, Ethel, first encouraging him in his impertinence, and terrifying Margaret so, that I dare say she may be a week getting over it, and now defending him, and calling her silly, is unbearable. I cannot trust one of you!"
"Only listen, papa!"
"I will have no altercation; I must go back to Margaret, since no one else has the slightest consideration for her."
An hour had passed away, when Richard knocked at Ethel's door to tell her that tea was ready.
"I have a great mind not to go down," said Ethel, as he looked in, and saw her seated with a book.
"What do you mean?"
"I cannot bear to go down while poor Harry is so unjustly used."
"Hush, Ethel!"
"I cannot hush. Just because Margaret fancies robbers and murderers, and all sorts of nonsense, as she always did, is poor Harry to be accused of wantonly terrifying her, and shut up, and cut off from Confirmation? and just when he is going away, too! It is unkind, and unjust, and--"
"Ethel, you will be sorry--"
"Papa will be sorry," continued Ethel, disregarding the caution. "It is very unfair, that I will say so. It was all nonsense of Margaret's, but he will always make everything give way to her. And poor Harry just going to sea! No, Ritchie, I cannot come down; I cannot behave as usual."
"You will grieve Margaret much more," said Richard.
"I can't help that--she should not have made such a fuss."
Richard was somewhat in difficulties how to answer, but at that moment Harry's door, which was next, was slightly opened, and his voice said, "Go down, Ethel. The captain may punish any one he pleases, and it is mutiny in the rest of the crew to take his part."
"Harry is in the right," said Richard. "It is our duty not to question our father's judgments. It would be wrong of you to stay up."
"Wrong?" said Ethel.
"Of course. It would be against the articles of war," said Harry, opening his door another inch. "But, Ritchie, I say, do tell me whether it has hurt Margaret."
"She is better now," said Richard, "but she has a headache, chiefly, I believe, from distress at having brought this on you. She is very sorry for her fright."
"I had not the least intention of frightening the most fearsome little tender mouse on earth," said Harry.
"No, indeed!" said Ethel.
"And at another time it would not have signified," said Richard; "but, you know, Margaret always was timid, and now, the not being able to move, and the being out of health, has made her nerves weak, so that she cannot help it."
"The fault was in our never heeding her when we were so eager to hear Harry's story," said Ethel. "That was what made the palpitation so bad. But, now papa knows all, does he not understand about Harry?"
"He was obliged to go out as soon as Margaret was better," said Richard, "and was scarcely come in when I came up."
"Go down, Ethel," repeated Harry. "Never mind me. Norman told me that sort of joke never answered, and I might have minded him."
The voice was very much troubled, and it brought back that burning sensation of indignant tears to Ethel's eyes.
"Oh, Harry! you did not deserve to be so punished for it."
"That is what you are not to say," returned Harry. "I ought not to have played the trick, and--and just now too--but I always forget things--"
The door shut, and they fancied they heard sobs. Ethel groaned, but made no opposition to following her brother down to tea. Margaret lay, wan and exhausted, on the sofa--the doctor looked very melancholy and rather stern, and the others were silent. Ethel had begun to hope for the warm reaction she had so often known after a hasty fit, but it did not readily come; Harry was boy instead of girl--the fault and its consequence had been more serious--and the anxiety for the future was greater. Besides, he had not fully heard the story; Harry, in his incoherent narration, had not excused himself, and Margaret's panic had appeared more as if inspired by him, than, as it was, in fact, the work of her fancy.
Thus the evening passed gloomily away, and it was not till the others had said good-night that Dr. May began to talk over the affair with his eldest son, who then was able to lay before him the facts of the case, as gathered from his sisters. He listened with a manner as though it were a reproof, and then said sadly, "I am afraid I was in a passion."
"It was very wrong in Harry," said Richard, "and particularly unlucky it should happen with the Andersons."
"Very thoughtless," said the doctor, "no more, even as regarded Margaret; but thoughtlessness should not have been treated as a crime."
"I wish we could see him otherwise," said Richard.
"He wants--" and there Dr. May stopped short, and, taking up his candle, slowly mounted the stairs, and looked into Harry's room. The boy was in bed, but started up on hearing his father's step, and exclaimed, "Papa, I am very sorry! Is Margaret bette
r?"
"Yes, she is; and I understand now, Harry, that her alarm was an accident. I beg your pardon for thinking for a moment that it was otherwise--"
"No," interrupted Harry, "of course I could never mean to frighten her; but I did not leave off the moment I saw she was afraid, because it was so very ridiculous, and I did not guess it would hurt her."
"I see, my honest boy. I do not blame you, for you did not know how much harm a little terror does to a person in her helpless state. But, indeed, Harry, though you did not deserve such anger as mine was, it is a serious thing that you should be so much set on fun and frolic as to forget all considerations, especially at such a time as this. It takes away from much of my comfort in sending you into the world; and for higher things--how can I believe you really impressed and reverent, if the next minute--"
"I'm not fit! I'm not fit!" sobbed Harry, hiding his face.
"Indeed, I hardly know whether it is not so," said the doctor. "You are under the usual age, and, though I know you wish to be a good boy, yet I don't feel sure that these wild spirits do not carry away everything serious, and whether it is right to bring one so thoughtless to--"
"No, no," and Harry cried bitterly, and his father was deeply grieved; but no more could then be said, and they parted for the night--Dr. May saying, as he went away, "You understand, that it is not as punishment for your trick, if I do not take you to Mr. Ramsden for a ticket, but that I cannot be certain whether it is right to bring you to such solemn privileges while you do not seem to me to retain steadily any grave or deep feelings. Perhaps your mother would have better helped you."
And Dr. May went away to mourn over what he viewed as far greater sins than those of his son.
Anger had, indeed, given place to sorrow, and all were grave the next morning, as if each had something to be forgiven.
Margaret, especially, felt guilty of the fears which, perhaps, had not been sufficiently combated in her days of health, and now were beyond control, and had occasioned so much pain. Ethel grieved over the words she had yesterday spoken in haste of her father and sister; Mary knew herself to have been an accomplice in the joke; and Norman blamed himself for not having taken the trouble to perceive that Harry had not been talking rhodomontade, when he had communicated "his capital scheme" the previous morning.
The decision as to the Confirmation was a great grief to all. Flora consoled herself by observing that, as he was so young, no one need know it, nor miss him; and Ethel, with a trembling, almost sobbing voice, enumerated all Harry's excellences, his perfect truth, his kindness, his generosity, his flashes of intense feeling--declared that nobody might be confirmed if he were not, and begged and entreated that Mr. Wilmot might be written to, and consulted. She would almost have done so herself, if Richard had not shown her it would be undutiful.
Harry himself was really subdued. He made no question as to the propriety of the decision, but rather felt his own unworthiness, and was completely humbled and downcast. When a note came from Mrs. Anderson, saying that she was convinced that it could not have been Dr. May's wish that she should be exposed to the indignity of a practical joke, and that a young lady of the highest family should have been insulted, no one had spirits to laugh at the terms; and when Dr. May said, "What is to be done?" Harry turned crimson, and was evidently trying to utter something.
"I see nothing for it but for him to ask their pardon," said Dr. May; and a sound was heard, not very articulate, but expressing full assent.
"That is right," said the doctor. "I'll come with you."
"Oh, thank you!" cried Harry, looking up.
They set off at once. Mrs. Anderson was neither an unpleasing nor unkind person--her chief defect being a blind admiration of her sons and daughters, which gave her, in speaking of them, a tone of pretension that she would never have shown on her own account.
Her displeasure was pacified in a moment by the sight of the confused contrition of the culprit, coupled with his father's frank and kindly tone of avowal, that it had been a foolish improper frolic, and that he had been much displeased with him for it.
"Say no more--pray, say no more, Dr. May. We all know how to overlook a sailor's frolic, and, I am sure, Master Harry's present behaviour; but you'll take a bit of luncheon," and, as something was said of going home to the early dinner, "I am sure you will wait one minute. Master Harry must have a piece of my cake, and allow me to drink to his success."
Poor Mr. May! to be called Master Harry, and treated to sweet cake! But he saw his father thought he ought to endure, and he even said, "Thank you."
The cake stuck in his throat, however, when Mrs. Anderson and her daughters opened their full course of praise on their dear Harvey and dearest Edward, telling all the flattering things Dr. Hoxton had said of the order into which Harvey had brought the school, and insisting on Dr. May's reading the copy of the testimonial that he had carried to Oxford. "I knew you would be kind enough to rejoice," said Mrs. Anderson, "and that you would have no--no feeling about Mr. Norman; for, of course, at his age, a little matter is nothing, and it must be better for the dear boy himself to be a little while under a friend like Harvey, than to have authority while so young."
"I believe it has done him no harm," was all that the doctor could bring himself to say; and thinking that he and his son had endured quite enough, he took his leave as soon as Harry had convulsively bolted the last mouthful.
Not a word was spoken all the way home. Harry's own trouble had overpowered even this subject of resentment. On Sunday, the notice of the Confirmation was read. It was to take place on the following Thursday, and all those who had already given in their names were to come to Mr. Ramsden to apply for their tickets. While this was read, large tear-drops were silently falling on poor Harry's book.
Ethel and Norman walked together in the twilight, in deep lamentation over their brother's deprivation, which seemed especially to humble them; "for," said Norman, "I am sure no one can be more resolved on doing right than July, and he has got through school better than I did."
"Yes," said Ethel; "if we don't get into his sort of scrape, it is only that we are older, not better. I am sure mine are worse, my letting Aubrey be nearly burned--my neglects."
"Papa must be doing right," said Norman, "but for July to be turned back when we are taken, makes me think of man judging only by outward appearance."
"A few outrageous-looking acts of giddiness that are so much grieved over, may not be half so bad as the hundreds of wandering thoughts that one forgets, because no one else can see them!" said Ethel.
Meanwhile, Harry and Mary were sitting twisted together into a sort of bundle, on the same footstool, by Margaret's sofa. Harry had begged of her to hear him say the Catechism once more, and Mary had joined with him in the repetition. There was to be only one more Sunday at home. "And that!" he said, and sighed.
Margaret knew what he meant, for the Feast was to be spread for those newly admitted to share it. She only said a caressing word of affection.
"I wonder when I shall have another chance," said Harry. "If we should get to Australia, or New Zealand--but then, perhaps, there would be no Confirmation going on, and I might be worse by that time."
"Oh, you must not let that be!"
"Why, you see, if I can't be good here, with all this going on, what shall I do among those fellows, away from all?"
"You will have one friend!"
"Mr. Ernescliffe! You are always thinking of him, Margaret; but perhaps he may not go, and if he should, a lieutenant cannot do much for a midshipman. No, I thought, when I was reading with my father, that somehow it might help me to do what it called putting away childish things--don't you know? I might be able to be stronger and steadier, somehow. And then, if--if--you know, if I did tumble overboard, or anything of that sort, there is that about the--what they will go to next Sunday, being necessary to salvation."
Harry laid down his head and cried; Margaret could not speak for tears; and Mary was incoherently protest
ing against any notion of his falling overboard.
"It is generally necessary, Harry," Margaret said at last--"not in impossible cases."
"Yes if it had been impossible, but it was not; if I had not been a mad goose all this time, but when a bit of fun gets hold of me, I can't think. And if I am too bad for that, I am too bad for--for-- and I shall never see mamma again! Margaret, it almost makes me af-- afraid to sail."
"Harry, don't, don't talk so!" sobbed Mary. "Oh, do come to papa, and let us beg and pray. Take hold of my hand, and Margaret will beg too, and when he sees how sorry you are, I am sure he will forgive, and let you be confirmed." She would have dragged him after her.
"No, Mary," said Harry, resisting her. "It is not that he does not forgive. You don't understand. It is what is right. And he cannot help it, or make it right for me, if I am such a horrid wretch that I can't keep grave thoughts in my head. I might do it again after that, just the same."
"You have been grave enough of late," said Mary.
"This was enough to make me so," said Harry; "but even at church, since I came home, I have behaved ill! I kicked Tom, to make him look at old Levitt asleep, and then I went on, because he did not like it. I know I am too idle."
On the Tuesday, Dr. May had said he would take Norman and Etheldred to Mr. Ramsden. Ethel was gravely putting on her walking dress, when she heard her father's voice calling Harry, and she started with a joyful hope.
There, indeed, when she came downstairs, stood Harry, his cap in his hand, and his face serious, but with a look on it that had as much subdued joy as awe.
"Dear, dear Harry! you are going with us then?"
"Yes, papa wrote to ask what Mr. Wilmot thought, and he said--"
Harry broke off as his father advanced, and gave her the letter itself to read. Mr. Wilmot answered that he certainly should not refuse such a boy as Harry, on the proof of such entire penitence and deep feeling. Whether to bring him to the further privilege might be another question; but, as far as the Confirmation was concerned, the opinion was decided.
The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations Page 36