Debt, Imprisonment for -- Fiction; London (England) -- History -- 18th century -- Fiction
"Truly," said the Doctor, "a youth of great beauty. Another David. He
is more handsome than his father, even in those young days when he
caressed me to my ruin, and led me on with promises to my undoing.
Yet he hath the trick of the Chudleigh lip, and he hath his father's
nose. Would that his father were alive, and that it was he and not
his son lying here at my mercy! The son is something; out of regard
to his father's memory, he shall not get off scot-free. But what is
to be done? There is nothing, I think, that I would not do"--his red
face grew purple as he thought of his wrongs--"were his father living,
and could I make him feel through his son. Nothing, I believe. As I
am a Christian man, if my lord were alive this day, I think I could
tie a stone round the boy's neck and chuck him into the Fleet Ditch
at Holborn Bridge. And yet, what a poor and miserable thing to do! A
moment of brutal satisfaction in thinking of the father's agony--an
eternity of remorse. But his father is dead; he cannot feel at all any
more, whatever I do. If I could"--his face grew dark again, and he
ground his teeth--"I believe I could drag the boy downwards, little by
little, and destroy his very soul, to make his father suffer the more."
He gasped and caught his breath.
"Why," he murmured, "what is this? It is well for men that they are
not led into temptation. This young lord hath fallen into my hands.
Good. What shall I do with him? He knows nothing. Yet he must suffer
something. It is the law. We are all under the law. For the third and
fourth generation--and he is only the first generation. His children
and his grandchildren will have to suffer after him. It is not my
fault. I am clearly carrying out the law. He is providentially led
here, not that I may take revenge upon the son of my enemy for his
father's wrong, but that he might receive chastisement at my hands,
being those of the fittest person, even as Solomon was chosen to slay
both Joab and Shimei. What then shall I do? The Reverend Gregory
Shovel cannot murder the boy; that would be the common, vulgar thought
of a Fleet Market butcher or a hodman. Murder? A nauseous thought."
He took up the candle and stole noiselessly down the stairs, as if the
thought had driven him from the place.
When he was back in his own room he began to walk up and down, thinking.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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