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Tales and Fantasies-Part5_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON(1850-1894)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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respected my pin!' he thought, and he was moved as by a



slight, and began at once to recollect that he was here an

interloper, in a strange house, which he had entered almost



by a burglary, and where at any moment he might be

scandalously challenged.



He moved at once, his hat still in his hand, to the door of

his father's room, opened it, and entered. Mr. Nicholson sat



in the same place and posture as on that last Sunday morning;

only he was older, and greyer, and sterner; and as he now



glanced up and caught the eye of his son, a strange commotion

and a dark flush sprung into his face.



'Father,' said John, steadily, and even cheerfully, for this

was a moment against which he was long ago prepared, 'father,



here I am, and here is the money that I took from you. I

have come back to ask your forgiveness, and to stay Christmas



with you and the children.'

'Keep your money,' said the father, 'and go!'



'Father!' cried John; 'for God's sake don't receive me this

way. I've come for - '



'Understand me,' interrupted Mr. Nicholson; 'you are no son

of mine; and in the sight of God, I wash my hands of you.



One last thing I will tell you; one warning I will give you;

all is discovered, and you are being hunted for your crimes;



if you are still at large it is thanks to me; but I have done

all that I mean to do; and from this time forth I would not



raise one finger - not one finger - to save you from the

gallows! And now,' with a low voice of absolute authority,



and a single weighty gesture of the finger, 'and now - go!'

CHAPTER VI - THE HOUSE AT MURRAYFIELD



How John passed the evening, in what windy confusion of mind,

in what squalls of anger and lulls of sick collapse, in what



pacing of streets and plunging into public-houses, it would

profit little to relate. His misery, if it were not



progressive, yet tended in no way to diminish; for in

proportion as grief and indignation abated, fear began to



take their place. At first, his father's menacing words lay

by in some safe drawer of memory, biding their hour. At



first, John was all thwarted affection and blighted hope;

next bludgeoned vanity raised its head again, with twenty



mortal gashes: and the father was disowned even as he had

disowned the son. What was this regular course of life, that



John should have admired it? what were these clock-work

virtues, from which love was absent? Kindness was the test,



kindness the aim and soul; and judged by such a standard, the

discarded prodigal - now rapidly drowning his sorrows and his



reason in successive drams - was a creature of a lovelier

morality than his self-righteous father. Yes, he was the



better man; he felt it, glowed with the consciousness, and

entering a public-house at the corner of Howard Place



(whither he had somehow wandered) he pledged his own virtues

in a glass - perhaps the fourth since his dismissal. Of that



he knew nothing, keeping no account of what he did or where

he went; and in the general crashing hurry of his nerves,



unconscious of the approach of intoxication. Indeed, it is a

question whether he were really growing intoxicated, or



whether at first the spirits did not even sober him. For it

was even as he drained this last glass that his father's



ambiguous and menacing words - popping from their hiding-

place in memory - startled him like a hand laid upon his



shoulder. 'Crimes, hunted, the gallows.' They were ugly

words; in the ears of an innocent man, perhaps all the



uglier; for if some judicial error were in act against him,

who should set a limit to its grossness or to how far it



might be pushed? Not John, indeed; he was no believer in the

powers of innocence, his cursed experience pointing in quite



other ways; and his fears, once wakened, grew with every hour

and hunted him about the city streets.



It was, perhaps, nearly nine at night; he had eaten nothing

since lunch, he had drunk a good deal, and he was exhausted



by emotion, when the thought of Houston came into his head.

He turned, not merely to the man as a friend, but to his



house as a place of refuge. The danger that threatened him

was still so vague that he knew neither what to fear nor






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