But a human instinct intervenes to save him:—
'Apparently this most frank statement excited no very definite idea in Jonson's mind; at least he stood motionless on hearing it, his eyes fixed and tearless, his teeth clenched, his nostrils dilated, all his frame displaying symptoms of some inward agony by which his little mind was torn, but indicating no settled purpose of acting either this way or that. Most persons would have pitied him; but Mr. Scroggs was free from that infirmity: he had felt no pity during many years for any but himself. Cruthers was younger and more generous: touched to the quick at his adversary's forlorn situation, he stepped forward, and bravely signified that himself was equally to blame, promising, moreover, that if the past could be forgiven, he would so live with Jonson as to give no cause for censure in the future. "Let us both stay," he said, "and we will never quarrel more." Tears burst from Jonson's eyes at this unexpected proposal. The Dominie himself, surprised and pleased, inquired if he was willing to stand by it; for answer he stretched out his hand and grasped that of Cruthers in silence.'
The humorous, the pathetic, the dramatic tonch of the future master—each surely is traceable here.
H. D. TRAILL.
