Part 59 (2/2)
Now this encounter with his own son,--the only one who could set all right,--and who yet did not know of the happenings which so imperatively required his presence in the court room, set Larry Kildene's thoughts stammering and tripping over each other in such a confusion of haste, and with it all the shyness before the great fact of his unconfessed fatherhood, so overwhelmed him, that for once his facile Irish nature did not help him. He was at a loss for words, strangely abashed before this gentle-voiced, frank-faced, altogether likable son of his. So he temporized and beat about the bush, and did not touch first on that which was nearest his heart.
”Yes, yes. I've a thing to tell you. You came here to be at a--a--trial--did you say, or intimate it might be? If--if--you'll tell me a bit more, I maybe can help you--for I've seen a good bit of the world. It's a strange trial going on here now--I've come to hear.”
”Tell me something about it,” said Richard, humoring the older man's deliberation in arriving at his point.
”It's little I know yet. I've come to learn, for I'm interested in the young man they're trying to convict. He's a sort of a relative of mine. I wish to see fair play. Why are you here? Have you done anything--what have you done?”
The young man moved restlessly. He was confused by the suddenness of the question, which Larry's manner deprived of any suggestion of rudeness.
”Did I intimate I had done anything?” He laughed. ”I'm come to make a statement to the proper ones--when I find them. I'll go over now and hear a bit of this trial, since you mention it.”
He spoke sadly and wearily, but he felt no resentment at the older man's inquisitiveness. Larry's face expressed too much kindliness to make resentment possible, but Richard was ill at ease to be talking thus intimately with a stranger who had but just chanced upon him. He rose to leave.
”Don't go. Don't go yet. Wait a bit--G.o.d, man! Wait! I've a thing to tell you.” Larry leaned forward, and his face worked and tears glistened in his eyes as he looked keenly up into his son's face.
”You're a beautiful lad--a man--I'm--You're strong and fine--I'm ashamed to tell it you--ashamed I've never looked on you since then--until now. I should have given all up and found you. Forgive me.
Boy!--I'm your father--your father!” He rose and stood looking levelly in his son's eyes, holding out both shaking hands. Richard took them in his and held them--but could not speak.
The constraint of witnesses was not upon them, for they were quite alone on the piazza, but the emotion of each of them was beyond words.
Richard swallowed, and waited, and then with no word they both sat down and drew their chairs closer together. The simple act helped them.
”I've been nigh on to a lifetime longing for you, lad.”
”And I for you, father.”
”That's the name I've been hungering to hear--”
”And I to speak--” Still they looked in each other's eyes. ”And we have a great deal to tell each other! I'm almost sorry--that--that--that I've found you at last--for to do my duty will be harder now. I had no one to care--particularly before--unless--”
”Unless a la.s.s, maybe?”
”One I've been loving and true to--but long ago given up--we won't speak of her. We'll have to talk a great deal, and there's so little time! I must--must give myself up, father, to the law.”
”Couldn't you put it off a bit, lad?”
Larry could not have told why he kept silent so long in regard to the truth of the trial. It might have been a vague liking to watch the workings of his son's real self and a desire to test him to the full.
From a hint dropped in Betty's letter he guessed shrewdly at the truth of the situation. He knew now that Richard and his young friend of the mountain top were actuated by the same motives, and he understood at last why Harry King would never accept his offer of help, nor would ever call him father. Because he could not take the place of the son, of whom, as he thought, he had robbed the man who so freely offered him friends.h.i.+p--and more than friends.h.i.+p. At last Larry understood why Peter Junior had never yielded to his advances. It was honor, and the test had been severe.
”Put it off a little? I might--I'm tempted--just to get acquainted with my father--but I might be arrested, and I would prefer not to be.
I know I've been wanted for three years and over--it has taken me that long to learn that only the truth can make a man free,--and now I would rather give myself up, than to be taken--”
”I'm knowing maybe more of the matter than you think--so we'll drop it. We must have a long talk later--but tell me now in a few words what you can.”
Then, drawn by the older man's gentle, magnetic sympathy, Richard unlocked his heart and told all of his life that could be crowded in those few short minutes,--of his boyhood's longings for a father of his own--of his young manhood's love, of his flight, and a little of his later life. ”We'd be great chums, now, father,--if--if it weren't for this--that hangs over me.”
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