Page:Records of the Life of the Rev. John Murray.djvu/41

pense, until Friday evening; nothing could I hear of, or from her, I was afraid to go to Mr. Little's, I feared every thing, but the thing I had most reason to fear—the contempt and indignation of my own father. It never once entered my thoughts, that she would communicate my letter to any one, and least of all, that she would expose me to my father; but instead of writing me an answer, such an answer as my fond, foolish heart, sometimes ventured to expect, she inclosed my very first love-letter to the very last person in the world to whom I should have chosen to confide it! I was at this time debilitated by the want of rest and food, which, for the preceding fortnight, I had rarely taken, and upon this Friday evening, as I entered the presence of my father, an unusual dread pervaded my spirits. It is too true, I never appeared before him, without apprehension; but, upon this occasion, I was unusually agitated: but how were my terrors augmented, when my father, with a countenance of the most solemn indignation, ordered me to approach. The season of castigation had gone by, indeed my father was too feeble to administer corporeal chastisement, but, like the Prince of Denmark, although he did not use daggers, he could speak them—he could look them. I cannot now remember who, or rather how many, were present; my mother, and my brothers and sisters of course. My poor mother, I am confident, felt keenly for me, although she dared not interfere. "Come hither, sir," said my father; "approach, I say." I drew near, with fear, and trembling, but yet I knew not why: When, fixing his piercing, penetrating eyes upon me, with a look of such sovereign contempt, as almost struck me blind, he began very deliberately to search his pockets; after a pause, which seemed interminable, out came a letter. I was instantaneously covered with a most profuse perspiration; I trembled and became so faint, that I was obliged to catch at a chair for support. But my father continued slowly opening the killing letter, and looking alternately at it, and its author, and curling his nose, as if his olfactory nerve had been annoyed by something extremely offensive, he again fixed his eyes upon me, and tauntingly said: "So, you poor, foolish child, you write love-letters, do you! you want a wife, do you?" and, feigning an attempt to read it, but pretending inability, he extended it to me, saying: "Take it, thou love-sick swain, and let us hear how thou addressest thy Dulcinea." I burst into tears, but I confess they were tears of wrathful indignation, and at that moment I detested the lady, my father, and myself. "Go," continued my father, "Go, thou idle boy, depart instantly out of my