Chapter I

“_A certain man had two sons_”—so begins the best and most famous
story in the world’s literature. Use of the absolute superlative
is always dangerous, but none will gainsay that statement, I am
sure. This story, which follows that familiar tale afar off,
indeed, begins in the same way. And the parallelism between the
two is exact up to a certain point. What difference a little
point doth make; like the little fire, behold, how great a matter
it kindleth! Indeed, lacking that one detail the older story
would have had no value; it would not have been told; without its
addition this would have been a repetition of the other.

When the modern young prodigal came to himself, when he found
himself no longer able to endure the husks of the swine like his
ancient exemplar, when he rose and returned to his father because
of that distaste, he found no father watching and waiting for him
at the end of the road! Upon that change the action of this story
hangs. It was a pity, too, because the elder brother was there
and in a mood not unlike that of his famous prototype.

Indeed, there was added to that elder brother’s natural
resentment at the younger’s course the blinding power of a great
sorrow, for the father of the two sons was dead. He had died of a
broken heart. Possessed of no omniscience of mind or vision, he
had been unable to foresee the long delayed turning point in the
career of his younger son and death came too swiftly to enable
them to meet again. So long as he had strength, that father had
stood, as it were, at the top of the hill looking down the road
watching and hoping.

And but the day before the tardy prodigal’s return he had been
laid away with his own fathers in the God’s acre around the
village church in the Pennsylvania hills. Therefore there was no
fatted calf ready for the disillusioned youth whose waywardness
had killed his father. It will be remembered that the original
elder brother objected seriously to fatted calves on such
occasions. Indeed, the funeral baked meats would coldly furnish
forth a welcoming meal if any such were called for.

For all his waywardness, for all his self-will, the younger son
had loved his father well, and it was a terrible shock to him
(having come to his senses) to find that he had returned too
late. And for all his hardness and narrowness the eldest son also
had loved his father well—strong tribute to the quality of the
dead parent—and when he found himself bereft he naturally visited
wrath upon the head of him who he believed rightly was the cause
of the untimely death of the old man.

As he sat in the study, if such it might be called, of the
departed, before the old-fashioned desk with its household and
farm and business accounts, which in their order and method and
long use were eloquent of his provident and farseeing father, his
heart was hot within his breast. Grief and resentment alike
gnawed at his vitals. They had received vivid reports, even in
the little town in which they dwelt, of the wild doings of the
wanderer, but they had enjoyed no direct communication with him.
After a while even rumour ceased to busy itself with the doings
of the youth. He had dropped out of their lives utterly after he
passed over the hills and far away.

The father had failed slowly for a time, only to break suddenly
and swiftly in the end. And the hurried frantic search for the
missing had brought no results. Ironically the god of chance had
led the young man’s repentant footsteps to the door too late.

“Where’s father?” cried John Carstairs to the startled woman who
stared at him as if she had seen a ghost as, at his knock, she
opened the door which he had found locked, not against him, but
the hour was late and it was the usual nightly precaution:

“Your brother is in your father’s study, sir,” faltered the
servant at last.

“Umph! Will,” said the man, his face changing. “I’d rather see
father first.”

“I think you had better see Mr. William, sir.”

“What’s the matter, Janet?” asked young Carstairs anxiously. “Is
father ill?”

“Yes, sir! indeed I think you had bettor see Mr. William at once,
Mr. John.”

Strangely moved by the obvious agitation of the ancient servitor
of the house who had known him from childhood, John Carstairs
hurried down the long hall to the door of his father’s study.
Always a scapegrace, generally in difficulties, full of mischief,
he had approached that door many times in fear of well merited
punishment which was sure to be meted out to him. And he came to
it with the old familiar apprehension that night, if from a
different cause. He never dreamed that his father was anything
but ill. He must see his brother. He stood in no little awe of
that brother, who was his exact antithesis in almost everything.
They had not got along particularly well. If his father had been
inside the door he would have hesitated with his hand on the
knob. If his father had not been ill he would not have attempted
to face his brother. But his anxiety, which was increased by a
sudden foreboding, for Janet, the maid, had looked at him so
strangely, moved him to quick action. He threw the door open
instantly. What he saw did not reassure him. William was clad in
funeral black. He wore a long frock coat instead of the usual
knockabout suit he affected on the farm. His face was white and
haggard. There was an instant interchange of names.

“John!”

“William!”

And then—

“Is father ill?” burst out the younger.

“Janet said—”

“Dead!” interposed William harshly, all his indignation flaming
into speech and action as he confronted the cause of the
disaster.

“Dead! Good God!”

“God had nothing to do with it.”

“You mean?”

“You did it.”

“I?”

“Yes. Your drunken revelry, your reckless extravagance, your
dissipation with women, your unfeeling silence, your—”

“Stop!” cried the younger. “I have come to my senses, I can’t
bear it.”

“I’ll say it if it kills you. You did it, I repeat. He longed and
prayed and waited and you didn’t come. You didn’t write. We could
hear nothing. The best father on earth.”

The younger man sank down in a chair and covered his face with
his hands.

“When?” he gasped out finally.

“Three days ago.”

“And have you—”

“He is buried beside mother in the churchyard yonder. Now that
you are here I thank God that he didn’t live to see what you have
become.”

The respectable elder brother’s glance took in the disreputable
younger, his once handsome face marred—one doesn’t foregather
with swine in the sty without acquiring marks of the
association—his clothing in rags. Thus errant youth, that was
youth no longer, came back from that far country. Under such
circumstances one generally has to walk most of the way. He had
often heard the chimes at midnight, sleeping coldly in the straw
stack of the fields, and the dust of the road clung to his
person. Through his broken shoes his bare feet showed, and he
trembled visibly as the other confronted him, partly from hunger
and weakness and shattered nerves, and partly from shame and
horror and for what reason God only knew.

The tall, handsome man in the long black coat, who towered over
him so grimly stern, was two years older than he, yet to the
casual observer the balance of time was against the prodigal by
at least a dozen years. However, he was but faintly conscious of
his older brother. One word and one sentence rang in his ear.
Indeed, they beat upon his consciousness until he blanched and
quivered beneath their onslaught.

“Dead—you did it!”

Yes, it was just. No mercy seasoned that justice in the heart of
either man. The weaker, self-accusing, sat silent with bowed
head, his conscience seconding the words of the stronger. The
voice of the elder ran on with growing, terrifying intensity.

“Please stop,” interposed the younger. He rose to his feet. “You
are right, Will. You were always right and I was always wrong. I
did kill him. But you need not have told me with such bitterness.
I realized it the minute you said he was dead. It’s true. And yet
I was honestly sorry. I came back to tell him so, to ask his
forgiveness.”

“When your money was gone.”

“You can say that, too,” answered the other, wincing under the
savage thrust. “It’s as true as the rest probably, but sometimes
a man has to get down very low before he looks up. It was that
way with me. Well, I’ve had my share and I’ve had my fling. I’ve
no business here. Good-bye.” He turned abruptly away.

“Don’t add more folly to what you have already done,” returned
William Carstairs, and with the beginnings of a belated pity, he
added, “stay here with me, there will be enough for us both and—”

“I can’t.”

“Well, then,” he drew out of his pocket a roll of bills, “take
these and when you want more—”

“Damn your money,” burst out John Carstairs, passionately. He
struck the other’s outstretched hand, and in his surprise,
William Carstairs let the bills scatter upon the floor. “I don’t
want it—blood money. Father is dead. I’ve had mine. I’ll trouble
you no more.”

He turned and staggered out of the room. Now William Carstairs
was a proud man and John Carstairs had offended him deeply. He
believed all that he had said to his brother, yet there had been
developing a feeling of pity for him in his heart, and in his
cold way he had sought to express it. His magnanimity had been
rejected with scorn. He looked down at the scattered bills on the
floor. Characteristically—for he inherited his father’s business
ability without his heart—he stooped over and picked them slowly
up, thinking hard the while. He finally decided that he would
give his brother yet another chance for his father’s sake. After
all, they were brethren. But the decision came too late. John
Carstairs had stood not on the order of his going, but had gone
at once, none staying him.

William Carstairs stood in the outer door, the light from the
hall behind him streaming out into the night. He could see
nothing. He called aloud, but there was no answer. He had no idea
where his younger brother had gone. If he had been a man of finer
feeling or quicker perception, perhaps if the positions of the
two had been reversed and he had been his younger brother, he
might have guessed that John might have been found beside the
newest mound in the churchyard, had one sought him there. But
that idea did not come to William, and after staring into the
blackness for a long time, he reluctantly closed the door.
Perhaps the vagrant could be found in the morning.

No, there had been no father waiting for the prodigal at the end
of the road, and what a difference it had made to that wanderer
and vagabond!