Harry had rushed out into the garden; of that, Sir Thomas felt certain.
He followed him hastily, and saw him by the seat under the lime-trees in
the far corner; he had something heavy in his right hand. Sir Thomas
came closer and saw to his alarm and horror that it was indeed the small
revolver from the old pistol-stand on the wall of the vestibule.
Even as the poor old soldier gazed, half petrified, the lad pushed a
cartridge home feverishly into one of the chambers, and raised the
weapon, with a stern resolution, up to his temple. Sir Thomas recognized
in that very moment of awe and terror that it was the exact attitude and
action of Harry's dead father. The entire character and tragedy seemed
to have handed itself down directly from father to son without a single
change of detail or circumstance.
The old man darted forward with surprising haste, and caught Harry's
hand just as the finger rested upon the trigger.
"My boy! my boy!" he cried, wrenching the revolver easily from his
trembling grasp, and flinging it, with a great curve, to the other end
of the garden. "Not that way! Not that way! I haven't reproached you
with one word, Harry; but this is a bad return, indeed, for a life
devoted to you. Oh, Harry! Harry! not by shuffling off your
responsibilities and running away from them like a coward, not by that
can you ever mend matters in the state you have got them into, but by
living on, and fighting against your evil impulses and conquering them
like a man--that's the way, the right way, to get the better of them.
Promise me, Harry, promise me, my boy, that whatever comes you won't
make away with yourself, as your father did; for my sake, live on and do
better. I'm an old man, an old man, Harry, and I have but you in the
world to care for or think about. Don't let me be shamed in my old age
by seeing the boy I have brought up and loved as a son dying in
disgrace, a poltroon and a coward. Stand by your guns, my boy; stand by
your guns, and fight it out to the last minute."
Harry's arm fell powerless to his side, and he broke down utterly, in
his shame and self-abasement flinging himself wildly upon the seat
beneath the lime-trees and covering his face with his hands to hide the
hot tears that were bursting forth in a feverish torrent.
"I will go," he said at last, in a choking voice, "I will go, uncle, and
talk to Milly."
"Do," the Colonel said, soothing his arm tenderly. "Do, my boy. She's a
good girl, and she'll advise you rightly. Go and speak to her; but
before you go, promise me, promise me."
Harry rose, and tried to shake off Sir Thomas's heavy hand, laid with a
fatherly pressure upon his struggling shoulder. But he couldn't; the old
soldier was still too strong for him. "Promise me," he said once more
caressingly, "promise me; promise me!"
Harry hesitated for a second, in his troubled mind; then, with an
effort, he answered slowly, "I promise, uncle."
Sir Thomas released him, and he rushed wildly away. "Remember," the
Colonel cried aloud, as he went in at the open folding windows,
"remember, Harry, you are on your honour. If you break parole I shall
think very badly, very badly indeed, of you."
But as the old man turned back sadly into his lonely library, he thought
to himself, "I wonder whether I oughtn't to have dealt more harshly with
him! I wonder whether I was right in letting him off so easily for two
such extremely--such extremely grave breaches of military discipline!"