Archie found himself alone.The last of the faithful - or was it only the boldest of the curious? - had fled.He watched the black huddle of his fellow-students draw off down and up the street, in whispering or boisterous gangs.And the isolation of the moment weighed upon him like an omen and an emblem of his destiny in life.Bred up in unbroken fear himself, among trembling servants, and in a house which (at the least ruffle in the master's voice) shuddered into silence, he saw himself on the brink of the red valley of war, and measured the danger and length of it with awe.He made a detour in the glimmer and shadow of the streets, came into the back stable lane, and watched for a long while the light burn steady in the Judge's room.The longer he gazed upon that illuminated window-blind, the more blank became the picture of the man who sat behind it, endlessly turning over sheets of process, pausing to sip a glass of port, or rising and passing heavily about his book-lined walls to verify some reference.He could not combine the brutal judge and the industrious, dispassionate student; the connecting link escaped him; from such a dual nature, it was impossible he should predict behaviour; and he asked himself if he had done well to plunge into a business of which the end could not be foreseen? and presently after, with a sickening decline of confidence, if he had done loyally to strike his father? For he had struck him - defied him twice over and before a cloud of witnesses - struck him a public buffet before crowds.
Who had called him to judge his father in these precarious and high questions? The office was usurped.It might have become a stranger; in a son - there was no blinking it - in a son, it was disloyal.And now, between these two natures so antipathetic, so hateful to each other, there was depending an unpardonable affront: and the providence of God alone might foresee the manner in which it would be resented by Lord Hermiston.
These misgivings tortured him all night and arose with him in the winter's morning; they followed him from class to class, they made him shrinkingly sensitive to every shade of manner in his companions, they sounded in his ears through the current voice of the professor; and he brought them home with him at night unabated and indeed increased.The cause of this increase lay in a chance encounter with the celebrated Dr.
Gregory.Archie stood looking vaguely in the lighted window of a book shop, trying to nerve himself for the approaching ordeal.My lord and he had met and parted in the morning as they had now done for long, with scarcely the ordinary civilities of life; and it was plain to the son that nothing had yet reached the father's ears.Indeed, when he recalled the awful countenance of my lord, a timid hope sprang up in him that perhaps there would be found no one bold enough to carry tales.If this were so, he asked himself, would he begin again? and he found no answer.It was at this moment that a hand was laid upon his arm, and a voice said in his ear, "My dear Mr.Archie, you had better come and see me."He started, turned round, and found himself face to face with Dr.
Gregory."And why should I come to see you?" he asked, with the defiance of the miserable.
"Because you are looking exceedingly ill," said the doctor, "and you very evidently want looking after, my young friend.Good folk are scarce, you know; and it is not every one that would be quite so much missed as yourself.It is not every one that Hermiston would miss."And with a nod and a smile, the doctor passed on.
A moment after, Archie was in pursuit, and had in turn, but more roughly, seized him by the arm.
"What do you mean? what did you mean by saying that? What makes you think that Hermis - my father would have missed me?"The doctor turned about and looked him all over with a clinical eye.Afar more stupid man than Dr.Gregory might have guessed the truth; but ninety-nine out of a hundred, even if they had been equally inclined to kindness, would have blundered by some touch of charitable exaggeration.
The doctor was better inspired.He knew the father well; in that white face of intelligence and suffering, he divined something of the son; and he told, without apology or adornment, the plain truth.
"When you had the measles, Mr.Archibald, you had them gey and ill; and I thought you were going to slip between my fingers," he said."Well, your father was anxious.How did I know it? says you.Simply because Iam a trained observer.The sign that I saw him make, ten thousand would have missed; and perhaps - PERHAPS, I say, because he's a hard man to judge of - but perhaps he never made another.A strange thing to consider! It was this.One day I came to him: `Hermiston,' said I, `there's a change.' He never said a word, just glowered at me (if ye'll pardon the phrase) like a wild beast.`A change for the better,' said I.And I distinctly heard him take his breath."The doctor left no opportunity for anti-climax; nodding his cocked hat (a piece of antiquity to which he clung) and repeating "Distinctly" with raised eye-brows, he took his departure, and left Archie speechless in the street.
The anecdote might be called infinitely little, and yet its meaning for Archie was immense."I did not know the old man had so much blood in him." He had never dreamed this sire of his, this aboriginal antique, this adamantine Adam, had even so much of a heart as to be moved in the least degree for another - and that other himself, who had insulted him!
With the generosity of youth, Archie was instantly under arms upon the other side: had instantly created a new image of Lord Hermiston, that of a man who was all iron without and all sensibility within.The mind of the vile jester, the tongue that had pursued Duncan Jopp with unmanly insults, the unbeloved countenance that he had known and feared for so long, were all forgotten; and he hastened home, impatient to confess his misdeeds, impatient to throw himself on the mercy of this imaginary character.