With rapid agitated utterance, Harry made his confession. At another time the doctor would have treated the matter as a joke carried too far, but which, while it called for censure, was very amusing; but now the explanation that the disguise had been assumed to impose on the Andersons, only added to his displeasure.
"You seem to think you have a licence to play off any impertinent freaks you please, without consideration for any one," he said; "but I tell you it is not so. As long as you are under my roof, you shall feel my authority, and you shall spend the rest of the day in your room. I hope quietness there will bring you to a better mind, but I am disappointed in you. A boy who can choose such a time, and such subjects, for insolent, unfeeling, practical jokes, cannot be in a fit state for Confirmation."
"Oh, papa! papa!" cried the two girls, in tones of entreaty--while Harry, with a burning face and hasty step, dashed upstairs without a word.
"You have been as bad!" said Dr. May. "I say nothing to you, Mary, you knew no better; but, to see you, Ethel, first encouraging him in his impertinence, and terrifying Margaret so, that I dare say she may be a week getting over it, and now defending him, and calling her silly, is unbearable. I cannot trust one of you!"
"Only listen, papa!"
"I will have no altercation; I must go back to Margaret, since no one else has the slightest consideration for her."
An hour had passed away, when Richard knocked at Ethel's door to tell her that tea was ready.
"I have a great mind not to go down," said Ethel, as he looked in, and saw her seated with a book.
"What do you mean?"
"I cannot bear to go down while poor Harry is so unjustly used."
"Hush, Ethel!"
"I cannot hush. Just because Margaret fancies robbers and murderers, and all sorts of nonsense, as she always did, is poor Harry to be accused of wantonly terrifying her, and shut up, and cut off from Confirmation? and just when he is going away, too! It is unkind, and unjust, and--"
"Ethel, you will be sorry--"
"Papa will be sorry," continued Ethel, disregarding the caution. "It is very unfair, that I will say so. It was all nonsense of Margaret's, but he will always make everything give way to her. And poor Harry just going to sea! No, Ritchie, I cannot come down; I cannot behave as usual."
"You will grieve Margaret much more," said Richard.
"I can't help that--she should not have made such a fuss."
Richard was somewhat in difficulties how to answer, but at that moment Harry's door, which was next, was slightly opened, and his voice said, "Go down, Ethel. The captain may punish any one he pleases, and it is mutiny in the rest of the crew to take his part."
"Harry is in the right," said Richard. "It is our duty not to question our father's judgments. It would be wrong of you to stay up."
"Wrong?" said Ethel.
"Of course. It would be against the articles of war," said Harry, opening his door another inch. "But, Ritchie, I say, do tell me whether it has hurt Margaret."
"She is better now," said Richard, "but she has a headache, chiefly, I believe, from distress at having brought this on you. She is very sorry for her fright."
"I had not the least intention of frightening the most fearsome little tender mouse on earth," said Harry.
"No, indeed!" said Ethel.
"And at another time it would not have signified," said Richard; "but, you know, Margaret always was timid, and now, the not being able to move, and the being out of health, has made her nerves weak, so that she cannot help it."
"The fault was in our never heeding her when we were so eager to hear Harry's story," said Ethel. "That was what made the palpitation so bad. But, now papa knows all, does he not understand about Harry?"
"He was obliged to go out as soon as Margaret was better," said Richard, "and was scarcely come in when I came up."
"Go down, Ethel," repeated Harry. "Never mind me. Norman told me that sort of joke never answered, and I might have minded him."
The voice was very much troubled, and it brought back that burning sensation of indignant tears to Ethel's eyes.
"Oh, Harry! you did not deserve to be so punished for it."
"That is what you are not to say," returned Harry. "I ought not to have played the trick, and--and just now too--but I always forget things--"
The door shut, and they fancied they heard sobs. Ethel groaned, but made no opposition to following her brother down to tea. Margaret lay, wan and exhausted, on the sofa--the doctor looked very melancholy and rather stern, and the others were silent. Ethel had begun to hope for the warm reaction she had so often known after a hasty fit, but it did not readily come; Harry was boy instead of girl--the fault and its consequence had been more serious--and the anxiety for the future was greater. Besides, he had not fully heard the story; Harry, in his incoherent narration, had not excused himself, and Margaret's panic had appeared more as if inspired by him, than, as it was, in fact, the work of her fancy.
Thus the evening passed gloomily away, and it was not till the others had said good-night that Dr. May began to talk over the affair with his eldest son, who then was able to lay before him the facts of the case, as gathered from his sisters. He listened with a manner as though it were a reproof, and then said sadly, "I am afraid I was in a passion."
"It was very wrong in Harry," said Richard, "and particularly unlucky it should happen with the Andersons."
"Very thoughtless," said the doctor, "no more, even as regarded Margaret; but thoughtlessness should not have been treated as a crime."
"I wish we could see him otherwise," said Richard.
"He wants--" and there Dr. May stopped short, and, taking up his candle, slowly mounted the stairs, and looked into Harry's room. The boy was in bed, but started up on hearing his father's step, and exclaimed, "Papa, I am very sorry! Is Margaret better?"
"Yes, she is; and I understand now, Harry, that her alarm was an accident. I beg your pardon for thinking for a moment that it was otherwise--"
"No," interrupted Harry, "of course I could never mean to frighten her; but I did not leave off the moment I saw she was afraid, because it was so very ridiculous, and I did not guess it would hurt her."
"I see, my honest boy. I do not blame you, for you did not know how much harm a little terror does to a person in her helpless state. But, indeed, Harry, though you did not deserve such anger as mine was, it is a serious thing that you should be so much set on fun and frolic as to forget all considerations, especially at such a time as this. It takes away from much of my comfort in sending you into the world; and for higher things--how can I believe you really impressed and reverent, if the next minute--"
"I'm not fit! I'm not fit!" sobbed Harry, hiding his face.
"Indeed, I hardly know whether it is not so," said the doctor. "You are under the usual age, and, though I know you wish to be a good boy, yet I don't feel sure that these wild spirits do not carry away everything serious, and whether it is right to bring one so thoughtless to--"
"No, no," and Harry cried bitterly, and his father was deeply grieved; but no more could then be said, and they parted for the night--Dr. May saying, as he went away, "You understand, that it is not as punishment for your trick, if I do not take you to Mr. Ramsden for a ticket, but that I cannot be certain whether it is right to bring you to such solemn privileges while you do not seem to me to retain steadily any grave or deep feelings. Perhaps your mother would have better helped you."
And Dr. May went away to mourn over what he viewed as far greater sins than those of his son.
Anger had, indeed, given place to sorrow, and all were grave the next morning, as if each had something to be forgiven.
Margaret, especially, felt guilty of the fears which, perhaps, had not been sufficiently combated in her days of health, and now were beyond control, and had occasioned so much pain. Ethel grieved over the words she had yesterday spoken in haste of her father and sister; Mary knew herself to have been an accomplice in the joke; and Norman blamed himself for not having taken the trouble to perceive that Harry had not been talking rhodomontade, when he had communicated "his capital scheme" the previous morning.