THE PRODIGAL SON.
BY DUTTON COOK, AUTHOR OF “PAUL FOSTER’S DAUGHTER,” &c.
“A lytel misgoyng in the gynning causeth mykel errour in the end.”—Chaucer’s “Testament of Love.”
CHAPTER III. THE PRODIGAL SON.
The old man shook very much, yet it seemed that he did so almost as much from anger as from age or illness. Indeed he appeared to have acquired a sudden accession of force to enable him to play the part he had probably proposed to himself in the interview with his son. The paroxysms of temper in which, as Mr. Fuller had hinted, the invalid occasionally permitted himself to indulge during his illness, might be taken as so many evidences of strength—purchased, however, at the cost of much subsequent prostration and exhaustion. But he had now nerved himself for an encounter which he had looked forward to as likely to be one of violence and passion; he was prepared to meet a son who had treated him with, as he conceived, the most rebellious defiance, and he appeared determined to re-assert his authority, and punish a grievous and shameful offence with all the severity that was possible, without regard to the sufferings his exertions might subsequently entail upon himself.
“Don’t come whining to me like a dog that’s been kicked,” he said, in a hard, jeering voice.
Wilford drew himself up, with a pained look in his face and his lips quivering; he lowered his eyes, and drew back a step or two. While evidently hurt and surprised at his father’s manner, he seemed anxious, as far as possible, to give no further cause of offence.
“Why have you come?” Mr. Hadfield asked, sternly, bringing his clenched hand down with a thump upon the book Stephen had left upon the bed.
“Did you not send for me?”
“I bade them tell you that I was very ill, and