Robert Hardy's Seven Days Part 11

"Doctor, tell me the truth about my girl. What is her condition?"

"It is serious; but more than that I cannot say. There is a possibility that by means of a slight operation the disastrous consequences of the shock to her eyes may be averted; and it is possible that the other results of which I hinted may not be realised.

It is not in medical power to decide with certainty."

So Mr. Hardy went out into the night with a glimmer of hope in his breast. It was snowing again, and a strong wind was blowing, so he b.u.t.toned his big coat close up, drew his hat down over his brows, and leaning forward, walked as rapidly as he could against the wind in the direction of the doctor's house. The streets were almost deserted.

The lights at the corners flickered and showed pale through the lamps.

As he turned down a narrow street, intending to make a short cut across a park that lay near the doctor's, he was suddenly seized by three or four young men, and one of them said in a tone betraying a drunken debauch:

"Hold up your hands and deliver! You've got plenty of c.h.i.n.k and we haven't! So no squalling, or we'll shoot you for it."

Mr. Hardy was taken completely by surprise. But he was a vigorous, athletic man, and his first impulse was to shake himself loose, to knock down two of his a.s.sailants next to him and make a run for it.

His next glance, however, showed him the nature of the group of young men. They were not professional robbers, but young men about town who had been drinking late and were evidently out on a lark, and were holding him up just for fun. Mr. Hardy guessed exactly right. What could he do? Two of the young men were known to him, the sons of the Bramleys, who were well-to-do people in Barton. Mr. Hardy's next impulse was to discover himself to them and beg them to quit such dangerous fooling and go home. The three other young men were in shadow, and he could not recognise them. All this pa.s.sed through his thought with a flash. But before he had time to do anything, a police officer sprang out of a doorway near by, and the group of young men, dropping their hold of Mr. Hardy, fled in different directions. The officer made pursuit, and after a short run captured one of the young men, whom, after vigorous resistance, he dragged back to where Mr.

Hardy stood, exclaiming:

"Here's one of the rascals, sir! I heard 'em when they held you up.

We've been looking for this gang some time now. Just identify this one, if he is the one that just now grabbed ye, sir."

Under the light of the lamp the policeman dragged the form of his victim, and roughly struck up his hat. At that instant Mr. Hardy looked into his face and cried out:

"George! Is it you?"

And the son replied as he started back: "Father!"

The two looked at each other in silence, while the snow fell in whirling flakes about them.

And this was the end of Robert Hardy's third day.

THURSDAY--THE FOURTH DAY.

Mr. Hardy looked at his son sternly, standing at the little distance to which he had recoiled after his first recognition of the boy. It would be difficult to describe his emotions. He had never been an affectionate father to his boys. He had generally given them money when they asked for it, but had not questioned them about its use. He was not familiar with his older son's habits, and only within the last few days had he known that he was what the age popularly designates as "fast." He had never made a companion of his son; he had not grown up with him; so that now as he faced him under the strange circ.u.mstances that had brought them together he was actually at a loss to know what to do or say. The thought that his son was guilty of a crime which might put him behind prison bars did not yet occur to his mind. He was only conscious of a great longing to get back home and have a thorough talk with his boy, in the hope of winning him to better things. But he must say something to George.

The police officer stared in wonder after the first startled cry of "Father!" on the part of the young man, but he did not loosen his hold on him. He took an extra twist in the coat collar of his captive, and looked sharply at Mr. Hardy, as much as to say: "He may be your son, but he's my victim, and I mean to keep a good clutch on him."

George was the first to speak: "Father, you know I wouldn't do such a thing, really. We were only out for a little fun. We didn't know you, of course. We didn't mean any real harm; we were only fooling."

"It was dangerous fooling," replied his father. He still stood apart from the boy, and spoke quietly, but his face was pale, and his heart was wrung with torture for his firstborn. Ah, how careless of him he had been! How little companionship the two had had! How very little help the boy had received from the man! Now, believing that only four more days lay before him to use to the glory of G.o.d, Robert Hardy felt the sting of that bitterest, of all bitter feelings, useless regret--the regret that does not carry with it any hope of redeeming a selfish past.

After his father had spoken, George sullenly remained silent. Mr.

Hardy bowed his head and seemed thinking. The officer, who had been waiting for another move on the part of the older man, said:

"Well, we must be moving on. It's warmer in the lockup than out here; so come along, young fellow, and do your talking to-morrow morning with the rest of the drunks and disorderlies."

"Stop!" cried Robert Hardy. "This is my son! Do you understand? What are you going to do?"

"Well, governor, that's a pretty question at this time o' day. Do!

I'm going to jug him for a.s.sault with intent to commit highway robbery.

It's an affair for the 'pen,' I can tell you."

"But you heard him say it was all a joke."

"A pretty joke to try to hold a man up on the highway and demand his money! Oh, no! That's carrying a joke too far. I'm bound to obey orders. We've been after this gang of young chaps for a month now."

"But, officer, you don't understand; this is my son!"

"Well, what of that? Don't we jug sons every day for some deviltry or other? Do you suppose you are the only father whose son is going to the devil?"

"O G.o.d, no!" cried Mr. Hardy with sudden pa.s.sion. "But this is my older boy. It would kill his mother to have him arrested and put in jail for trying to rob his own father. Yet he was once innocent-- What am I saying? He might be now if I had done my duty."

Mr. Hardy confronted the officer with a certain sorrowful dignity which even that hardened defender of the law understood.

"Officer, let the boy go. I will answer for it if any blame falls on you. He was not at fault in this matter. He was not the one who a.s.saulted me. He did not touch me. You could not get a particle of testimony against him. And besides that, it is necessary that he return with me. This is a case for the law of G.o.d; it belongs to a higher than human court."

The officer hesitated; Mr. Hardy stepped nearer his son.

"George," he said, as if forgetting for a moment that the officer was present, "did you know that Clara and Bess and Will were in the accident last night?"

George turned pale, and tremblingly replied, "No, father. Were they hurt? Was Bess--" The boy seemed moved as his father had not yet seen him.

"No; they were not; that is, Bess was not hurt at all. But Will was severely bruised, and Clara still lies in a state of stupor or unconsciousness, and we do not know what the end will be. I was on my way just now to get some needed articles from the doctor's house. You must come back with me; the law has no hold on you."

"Maybe, the law hasn't any hold on him, but Michael Finnerty has. I don't just like the idea, mister, of letting the boy go," replied the stubborn and unusually dutiful officer.

Mr. Hardy began to appeal to the man's love of his own children. It did not seem to move him in the least, until he mentioned the fact that it was cruelty to keep the suffering girl at home waiting for her father's return.

Mr. Finnerty finally loosened his hold on George and said slowly and painfully, "An' if I lose me job I'll be knowin' who was to blame for it. I always told Michael Finnerty that he was too soft-hearted to go on the force!"

"You won't suffer, officer. Many thanks! Come, George."

Father and son moved off together, while the defender of the law stood irresolute, watching them disappear through the storm, and muttering to himself, "I'm a soft-hearted fool. I ought to 'a' been born a female hospital nurse, I had."

During that walk home, after Mr. Hardy had gone around by the doctor's with George, not a word was exchanged. The storm was increasing. The two walked along in silence; but when George walked into the hall at home he turned and saw a look on his father's face that smote him to the heart, for he was not yet a hardened soul. Mr. Hardy had lived years in that experience. No one could tell how he had been tortured by what he had endured that night; but the mark of it was stamped indelibly on his face, and he knew that he would bear it to his grave.

Mrs. Hardy came running downstairs as the two came in. When George turned and faced her she held out her arms crying, "My boy! my boy! We have been so anxious about you!"

What! not one word of reproach, of rebuke, of question as to what he had been doing all this time that the family had been suffering! No; not one word. Ah, mother love! It is the most wonderful thing on earth, next to the love of G.o.d for the sinner. It is even that, for it is the love of G.o.d expressing itself through the mother, who is the temple of the loving G.o.d.

George dashed away a tear; then going up to his mother he laid his cheek against hers, while she folded her arms about him and cried a little and asked no questions. After a moment's silence he stammered out a few words of sorrow at having caused her pain. She joyfully accepted his broken explanation of how he had not known of the accident to Clara and the others. It was true that he had gone out the evening before, fully intending to go down to the scene of the accident; but coming across some of his old companions he had gone off with them, and spent the night in a disgraceful carouse. Throughout the day he had been more or less under the influence of liquor, dimly conscious that a great disaster had happened, but not sober enough to realise its details or its possible connection with those of his own home.

The sudden meeting with his father had startled him out of the drowsy intoxication he had fallen into as the day progressed. Now, as he felt his mother's arms around him, and realised a little what the family had been enduring, he felt the disgrace of his own conduct.

Mr. Hardy went upstairs and consulted with the doctor, who wondered at his protracted absence. There was no change in Clara yet. She lay in a condition which could not be called a trance or a sleep. She did not seem to be in any great pain; but she was unconscious of all outside conditions.

After a little talk with his mother, George came up and inquired after Bess and Will. They were both sleeping, and after the doctor had gone out the father and mother and son sat down together in the room where Clara lay.

Mr. Hardy did not say a word to George about the incident of the evening. The shame of it was too great yet. When men of Mr. Hardy's self-contained, repressed, proud nature are pained, it is with an intense, inward fire of pa.s.sion that cannot hear to break out into words.