The two glasses stood there--his
own not quite empty--and the jug between them. His father's chair was
drawn to the table, as if he were still sitting in it; his own was flung
back as he had pushed it from him in his passion. There was an old print
over the stove at which he looked presently--it had been his mother's,
and he remembered it as long as his life had been--it was of Christ
carrying His cross.
His shame began to increase on him. How wickedly he had answered, with
every word a wound! He knew that the most poisonous of them all were
false; he had known it even while he spoke them; it was not to curry
favour with her Grace that his father had lapsed; it was that his temper
was tried beyond bearing by those continual fines and rebuffs; the old
man's patience was gone--that was all. And he, his son, had not said one
word of comfort or strength; he had thought of himself and his own
wrongs, and being reviled he had reviled again....
There stood against the wall between the windows a table and an oaken
desk that held the estate-bills and books; and beside the desk were laid
clean sheets of paper, an ink-pot, a pounce-box, and three or four
feather pens. It was here that he wrote, being newly from school, at his
father's dictation, or his father sometimes wrote himself, with pain and
labour, the few notices or letters that were necessary. So he went to
this and sat down at it; he pondered a little; then he wrote a single
line of abject regret.
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