“Major Pentland be damned!” said Gant. “If you’d depended on him for anything you’d have gone hungry.”
Certainly, thought Eugene, you’d have gone thirsty.
“Forget it!” said Helen. “It’s Christmas. Let’s try to have a little peace and quiet once a year.”
When they had left him, the boy tried to picture them lulled in the dulcet tranquillity they so often invoked. Its effects, he thought, would be more disastrous than any amount of warfare.
In the darkness, everything around and within him swam hideously. But presently he slid down into a pit of distressed sleep.
Every one had agreed on a studious forgiveness. They stepped with obtrusive care around his fault, filled pleasantly with Christmas and mercy. Ben scowled at him quite naturally, Helen grinned and prodded him, Eliza and Luke surrendered themselves to sweetness, sorrow, and silence. Their forgiveness made a loud noise in his ears.
During the morning his father asked him to come for a walk. Gant was embarrassed and hang-dog; a duty of gentle admonishment devolved upon him—he had been counselled to it by Helen and Eliza. Now, no man in his time could carry on in the big, Bow-wow style better than Gant, but none was less fitted to scatter the blossoms of sweetness and light. His wrath was sudden, his invective sprang from the moment, but he had for this occasion no thunder-bolts in his quiver, and no relish for the business before him. He had a feeling of personal guilt; he felt like a magistrate fining for intoxication a culprit with whom he has been on a spree the night before. Besides—what if the Bacchic strain in him had been passed on to his son?
They walked on in silence across the Square, by the rimmed fountain. Gant cleared his throat nervously several times.
“Son,” said he presently, “I hope you’ll take last night as a warning. It would be a terrible thing if you let whiskey get the best of you. I’m not going to speak harshly to you about it: I hope you’ll learn a lesson by it. You had better be dead than become a drunkard.”
There! He was glad it was over.
