Chapter IX: The Prodigal's Return

That third evening, at an early hour, Uncle Thatcher said that he felt worn out and believed he would go home to bed, as the little sleep he had caught the night before had not done him any good. Thereupon Mr. Ketchum said that he, too, felt tired, and would go back to the village at once. Yet two hours afterward Mary Wallace saw, near her uncle's house, a man who, from his description, seemed to be Silas's Boston friend. Uncle Thatcher became very uneasy. A feeling like a presentiment of some impending calamity oppressed him and kept him awake.

While he lay thus, silent and watchful, by the side of his snoring spouse, he heard a slight rasping noise, as of a window being cautiously raised, in an adjoining room at the back of the house. Rising noiselessly, and passing to the apartment whence the sound proceeded, he reached it just in time to encounter a man who had that moment entered by the window and, clutching the intruder, was about to deal him a blow, when his hand was stayed by the man saying in a hoarsely suppressed, yet familiar voice:

"Look out, dad, it's me!"

Silas had come home. The unhappy father sank down upon a chair and was silent for a few moments, mastering his agitation before he could control his voice to demand:

"Why do you come in this way, like a thief in the night?"

"I didn't want to wake the family up," answered Silas, in a sulky tone.

"Where do you come from?"

"Boston."

"Why did you leave there?"

"I heard of a chance for a better job in New York, and am going down there."

"Have you been working steadily in Boston, and behaving yourself as you promised me you would?"

"Of course."

There was a ring of insincerity in the young man's voice that did not escape his father's notice.

"Did you expect to meet a friend here?"

"Why of course, dad; I always expect to meet you as a friend."

"I mean a friend of yours from Boston."

"From Boston? No. Why?"

"There is a man here looking for you; has been here two days; says he is a friend of yours."

Silas dropped into a chair and in a low voice muttered an oath.

"Sit still there until I get a light. I want to have a look at you," said Uncle Thatcher, rising.

"No, no, dad. Don't get a light, or--wait a bit. I'll fix it."

Silas quickly stripped of its blankets a spare bed that stood in the room and carefully hung them up over the window upon the shade-roller, so as to prevent any ray of light straggling through to the outside. His father waited patiently until this preparation was complete and then went to the kitchen, whence he returned in a few moments with a lighted candle.

"Silas, you've been lying to me," was his first exclamation at sight of his son.

"Well, what do you want to ask a feller so many questions for?" was the scapegrace's dogged reply.

"You have, you young scoundrel. Your face isn't that of an honest working-man, and your hands--let me see them! Yes, as I expected. Honest toil makes hands hard, and rough, and big, as mine are. Yours are not so. Now tell me the truth about what you've been doing, and what you are up to now--if you can tell the truth--or I'll break your back, you scamp."

"Well. There's no use a-makin' a fuss about it. I was at work. Not at ship-carpentering, but at tending bar. I couldn't get anything else to do. And I got into a little bit of trouble. That's all."

"'That's all,' eh? What sort of trouble?"

Silas hesitated; the old man, as he well knew by experience, was almost certain to look through his most adroitly constructed lies, and he did not dare to tell the truth.

"I didn't do nothin'," said he at length, sullenly. "It was some of the rest of the boys, and I was mixed up with them, as they were friends of mine--and--I was afraid of being arrested--by mistake. That's all."

"Ah! And 'that's all,' eh? And what did your friends, 'the boys,' do?"

"I dunno."

Uncle Thatcher gripped his son by the shoulder and stood silently regarding him for a few moments, as if debating with himself whether to carry out his threat or not. Then his hand dropped, and he said:

"Something tells me not to ask you. You'll either lie to me, or you'll tell me some truth that, coming from your lips, would sicken my heart with shame that you are my son."

"I didn't do nothin', I tell you."

"No more uncalled-for falsehoods, Silas. You have come here for money, haven't you?"

"If you have a few dollars to spare, I'd like to have some. I'm broke."

"I don't know why I should waste any more money on you."

"I've always acted like a friend to you, dad. I could have made a good stake turnin' up your smugglin' business here, but I never did," replied Silas in a suggestive tone.

His father looked at him with a countenance full of disgust, and answered grimly: "Oh, it's hush-money you're after, is it?"

"Well, no; I didn't exactly mean that, dad. But I want to borrow a few dollars."

"And when you get them, you'll leave?"

"Yes."

Uncle Thatcher left the room. As soon as he was alone Silas proceeded to make a strange toilette. Drawing a bottle of some fluid from his pocket, he poured its contents sparingly upon a comb that he found on the bureau and vigorously combed his hair with it. From sandy brown his head quickly became an intense black. Then hunting up his father's razor, which he knew was kept in that room, he speedily removed his red moustache and goatee. While doing this before the mirror, he noticed his eyebrows and carefully blackened them. Last of all, he put a false black beard, which he drew from one of his pockets, upon his chin.

His father, returning with a roll of bank-notes in his hand, started with surprise at sight of Silas's transformation, and the look of disgust deepened on his face; but he made no remark upon it and Silas wasted no time in offering any explanation. Greedily the young man clutched the pile of money that was silently extended to him, saying as he did so:

"If that friend of mine from Boston turns up again, try to keep him hanging around here for a few days, if you can, and don't tell anybody that I've been here. And now I'll be off."

"Do you wish to see your mother?"

"No. It's no use. She needn't know I've been here. She'd be sure to chatter about it. Women are never to be trusted."

"How are you going?"

"The way I came."

"Through the window?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Well, it's the most direct road to the boat I've left lying in the cove, and I don't care about going out at the front door, which my dear friend from Boston, if he's the man I think he is, will probably be watching at this moment."

He made a movement towards the candle to extinguish it.

"Stop!" said the old man. "Before you go I have a few words to say to you. This may be the last time I shall ever see you. I am almost tempted to say that I hope it may be, for fear I may next have to see you in a felon's cell, or perhaps on the gallows, as I can only expect a dark and terrible fate for you. I have done all that lay in my power to make a decent man of you, and what are you? A hunted fugitive, disguised to evade an officer who seeks to arrest you for some crime, for such I understand now to be the mission of the man who has been here inquiring for you. Now, I never want you to come back here, or remind me of your existence until you can do so in open day, with a clear conscience and without fear of any man. I have given you there two hundred dollars, and it's all you'll ever get from me, alive or dead, if your life does not entirely change. Nor will you ever be able to squeeze any hush-money from me again. I smuggled, because I was eager to amass money to leave to my son. I will never do so any more. That source of income gone will still leave me enough for my lifetime, which will be sufficient, since I have no hope of you; but I will have none to waste on a criminal profligate--not another dollar. I'm not a poor man, it is true, but neither am I rich one, with thousands that I don't know what to do with, like the Van Deusts. All I have--"

"Like the Van Deusts?" interrupted Silas. "Have they got so much money?"

"All I have," continued the old man without noticing the interruption, "has been gained by hard work and risk, and you have squandered viciously enough of my earnings."

"Where did the Van Deusts get their money?"

"A distant relative left them a fortune of I don't know how many thousands. But that is nothing to you. Pay attention to what I am telling you. Hereafter you will have to provide for yourself. Choose your own way to do it, but I warn you that you will find an honest way the best. I did hope to see you marry Mary Wallace. She has a little money coming to her, that I managed to get saved for her out of the wreck of her father's estate, of which she knows nothing. I thought it might as well be kept in the family. But she is a good girl and I can never again have the face to urge her to take the hand of my son until he proves to me that he is worthy of a decent man's, or woman's regard. And now, there's your way. Take it, and go."

"No hard feelin's I hope, dad," growled the young man sullenly, offering his hand.

"'Hard feelings,' no. Grief and shame, yes. Go! And the best blessing I can give you is, may God save you from the gallows."

Silas shuddered, dropped the extended hand which his father had not taken, turned to the light and blew it out. Then he took down the blankets from the window, carefully and noiselessly raised the sash, jumped out into the darkness and disappeared.

Uncle Thatcher stood for a long time at the window listening, waiting, fearing; but no unusual sound reached his ears.

The next morning he found Silas's friend from Boston already at the trying-out shed when he arrived there, although it was yet only dawn; and leading him a little to one side, put to him the direct question:

"What did you wish to arrest my son for?"

Mr. Ketchum started slightly, looked sharply at his questioner, and then as if comprehending that, however the old man's knowledge of his errand was obtained, further attempts at concealment would be useless, replied: "Burglary."