The tumult of these thoughts overwhelmed the poor young fellow. They carried him away as the river carries everything away when it is in flood, and turned him over and over and dashed him against stones and muddy projections, and poured waves of bitterness over his head. He sat and bit his nails, and gnawed his under lip, and thought and thought, if there was any way to get out of it, if he could say anything, make any protest to his father, declare his own readiness to go anywhere, do anything, rather than suffer this sacrifice. He might go to Australia--in Australia people make fortunes quickly. He might soon be able to make money, to send home something for the children; or to India, or to the gold fields somewhere where nuggets were still to be had. These thoughts can scarcely be called disinterested, for it was how to save what was more to him than nuggets or fortune that Walter was thinking of; but at all events it was not for himself in the first place that he meant to labor. It was for an ambition altogether visionary after all--for Penton, which meant to him the something better, the something loftier, the ideal of life. As he sat musing, the clouds cleared away a little; there began to be a clear place in the sky; it grew lighter, but he did not remark it--until all at once, without a word of warning, the moon suddenly struck out, and made an outburst of radiant reflection upon the river at his feet which called his attention in spite of himself. He looked up instinctively, by the instinct of long habit, and lo! everything was clear over Penton; the moon shining full, the clouds all floating away in masses of fleecy whiteness, and a weather-cock somewhere blazing out, as if it were made of gold and silver, to the right.
This sudden revelation was too much for the boy. He gave a cry of insupportable indignation, a loud protest and utterance of despair, and then hid his face, as if the white light had blinded him, in his hands.
“Stay, Martha, look! there’s some one on the bank. If it’s one of the family what shall I do? or if it’s a tramp? Look! either he’s gone to sleep and he’ll catch his death of cold, or else he’s blinded with the moonlight, as people say.”