Norston's Rest. Ann S. Stephens

Table of Contents

      THE SON'S RETURN.

      WHEN Richard Storms entered his father's house that night it was with the air of a man who had some just cause of offence against the old people who had been so long waiting for him. His sharp and rather handsome features were clouded with temper as he pushed open the kitchen door and held it while two ugly dogs crowded in, and his first words were insolently aggressive.

      "What! up yet, sulking over the fire and waiting for a row, are you? Well, have it out; one of the men told me that brute of a horse had got home with his leg twisted. I wish it had been his neck. Now, what have you got to say about it?"

      The elder Storms started up angrily, but his wife laid a hand on his shoulder and besought silence with her beseeching eyes. Then she was about to approach the young man, but one of the dogs snapped fiercely at her, and when the son kicked him, retreated, grinding a piece of her dress in his teeth.

      "You had better take care, mother! The landlord of the 'Two Ravens' has had him in training. He's been in a grand fight over yonder, and killed more rats than you'd want to count. That makes him savage, you know."

      Mrs. Storms shrunk away from the danger, and in great terror crouched down by the oaken chair from which her husband had risen. The old man started forward, but before he could shake off the hold of his wife, who seized his garments in a spasm of distress, Richard had kicked both dogs through the door.

      "Take that for your impudence," he said, fiercely. "To the kennel with you! it's the only place for such curs. Mother, mother, I say, get up; the whelps are gone. I didn't expect to find you out of bed, or they shouldn't have come in."

      Mrs. Storms stood up, still shaking with fear, while Richard dropped into his father's chair and stretched his limbs out upon the hearth. The old man took another seat, frowning darkly.

      "We have been talking about you—father and I," said the old woman, with a quiver of the passing fright in her voice.

      "No good, I'll be sworn, if the old man had a hand in it," answered the son.

      "You are wrong," said the mother, pressing her hand on the young man's shoulder. "No father ever thought more of a son, if you would only do something to please him now and then. He was speaking just now of letting you have more charge of the place."

      "Well, that will come when I am my own master."

      "That is, when I am dead!" broke in the old man, with bitter emphasis. "I almost wish for death now. What your mother and I have to live for, God only knows."

      "Hush, John, hush! Don't talk so. Richard will forget his idle ways, and be a blessing to us yet. Remember how we have spoiled him."

      "There, there, mother, let him have it out. There's no use reasoning with him when his back is up," said the young man, stretching himself more comfortably and turning a belligerent look on the father.

      Mrs. Storms bent over her son, greatly troubled.

      "Don't anger your father, Dick. He was planning kindly for you."

      "Planning what?—to keep me tied down here all my life?"

      "If I have tried to do that," said the old man, "it came from more love than I felt like talking about. Your mother and I haven't many pleasures now, and when you are away so much we feel lonesome."

      Dick turned in his chair and looked keenly at the old man, amazed by his unusual gentleness. The lines that seemed hard as steel in his young face relaxed a little.

      "Why couldn't you have talked like that oftener, and made it a little more pleasant at home? One must have something of life. You know that as well as I do, father."

      "Yes; your mother and I have been making allowances for that. Maybe things might have been managed for the better all along; but we must make the best of it now. As your mother says, a well-to-do man's only son should make something better of himself than a farm drudge; so we won't quarrel about it. Only be careful that the lass your mother and I have set our hearts on gets no evil news of you, or we shall have trouble there."

      Richard laughed at this and answered with an air of bravado, "No fear, no fear. The girl is too fond of me."

      "But her father is a skittish man to deal with, once his back is up, and you will find it hard managing the lass: let him see you with them terriers at your heels, and he'll soon be off the bargain."

      "If you are troubled about that, kick the dogs into the street and sell the game-chickens, if they crowd mother's bantams out. How can a dutiful son do more than that?"

      "Ah, now you talk like a sensible lad! Make good time, and when you bring the lass home, mother and I will have a bit of a cottage on the land, and mayhap you will be master here."

      "Is he in earnest, mother?"

      "I think he is."

      "And you, father?"

      "For once I mean that your mother shall take her own way: mine has led to this."

      The old man looked at the clock, and then on the wet marks of the dogs' feet on the kitchen floor, with grave significance.

      Young Storms laughed a low, unpleasant laugh, which had nothing of genuine hilarity in it.

      "You are right, father. We should only have gone from bad to worse. I don't take to hard work, but the other thing suits me exactly. You'll see that I shall come up to time in that."

      Just then the old clock struck one with a hoarse, angry clang, as if wrathful that the morning should be encroached upon in that house.

      Mrs. Storms took up one of the candles and gave it to her son.

      "Good-night, my son," she said, looking from the clock to her husband with pathetic tenderness in her voice. "Dick, you can kiss me good-night as you used to when I went to tuck up your bed in the winter. It'll seem like old times, won't it, husband? Shake hands with your father, too. It isn't many men as would give up as he has."

      The young man kissed his mother, with some show of feeling, and shook hands with his father in a hesitating way; but altogether his manner was so conciliatory that it touched those honest hearts with unusual tenderness.

      "You see what kindness can do with him," said Mrs. Storms, as she stood on the hearth with the other candlestick in her hand, while her husband raked up the fire. "He has gone up to bed with a smile on his face."

      "People are apt to smile when they get their own way," muttered the old man, who was half ashamed of his concession. "But I have no idea of taking anything back. You needn't be afraid of that. The young man shall have his chance."

      A sob was the only answer he got. Looking over his shoulder, as he put the shovel in its corner, he saw that tears were streaming down the old woman's face.

      "Why, what are you crying about, mother?"

      "I am so thankful."

      The good woman might have intended to say more, but she broke off suddenly, and the words died on her lips. The candle she held was darkened, and she saw that the wick was broadening at the top like a tiny mushroom, forming that weird thing called a "corpse-light" in the midst of the blaze.

      "What is the matter? What are you afraid of?" said the farmer, wondering at the paleness in his wife's face.

      "Look," she said, pointing to the heavy wick. "It seems to have come all of a sudden."

      "Only that?" said the old man, scornfully, snuffing out the corpse-light with his thumb and finger.

      A shudder passed over the woman as those horny fingers closed on the corpse-light and flung it smoking into the ashes.

      The old man had no sympathy with superstitions, and spoke to his wife more sharply than was kind, after the double fright that had shaken her nerves. Perhaps