The perusal of this letter reminded Zack of certain recent aspirations in the direction of the fine arts, which had escaped his slippery memory altogether, while he was thinking of his future prospects. “I’ll stick to my first idea,” he thought, “and be an artist, if Blyth will let me, after what’s happened. If he won’t, I’ve got Mat to fall back upon; and I’ll run as wild in America as ever he did.”
Reflecting thus, Zack descended cautiously to the back parlor, which was called a “library.” The open door showed him that no one was in the room. He went in, and in great haste scrawled the following answer to Mr. Blyth’s letter:--
“MY DEAR BLYTH--Thank you for the tickets. I have got into a dreadful scrape, having been found out coming home tipsy at four in the morning, which I did by stealing the family door-key. My prospects after this are so extremely unpleasant that I am going to make a bolt of it. I write these lines in a tearing hurry, for fear my father should come home before I have done--he having gone to Yollop’s to set the parson at me again worse than ever.
“I can’t come to you to-night, because your house would be the first place they would send to after me. But I mean to be an artist, if you won’t desert me. Don’t, my dear fellow! I know I’m a scamp; but I’ll try and be a reformed character, if you will only stick by me. When you take your walk tomorrow, I shall be at the turnpike in the Laburnum Road, waiting for you, at three o’clock. If you won’t come there, or won’t speak to me when you do come, I shall leave England and take to something desperate.
“I have got a new friend--the best and most interesting fellow in the world. He has been half his life in the wilds of America; so, if you don’t give me the go-by, I shall bring him to see your picture of Columbus.
“I feel so miserable, and have got such a headache, that I can’t write any more. Ever yours,
After directing this letter, and placing it in his pocket to be put into the post by his own hand, Zack looked towards the door and hesitated--advanced a step or two to go out--and ended by returning to the writing-table, and taking a fresh sheet of paper out of the portfolio before him.
“I can’t leave the old lady (though she won’t forgive me) without writing a line to keep up her spirits and say goodbye,” he thought, as he dipped the pen in the ink, and began in his usual dashing, scrawling way. But he could not get beyond “My dear Mother.” The writing of those three words seemed to have suddenly paralyzed him. The strong hand that had struck out so sturdily all through the fight, trembled now at merely touching a sheet of paper. Still, he tried desperately to write something, even if it were only the one word, “Goodbye.”--tried till the tears came into his eyes, and made all further effort hopeless.