A Knight of the Nineteenth Century

The next day circumstances prevented Mrs. Arnot from visiting the prison, and Haldane employed part of the time in writing to his mother a letter of mingled reproaches and apologies, interspersed with vague hopes and promises of future amendment, ending, however, with the positive assurance that he would not leave Hillaton unless compelled to do so by hunger.

To Mrs. Haldane this letter was only an aggravation of former misconduct, and a proof of the unnatural and impracticable character of her son. The fact that it was written from a prison was hideous, to begin with. That, after all the pains at which she had been to teach him what was right, he could suggest that she was in part to blame for his course seemed such black ingratitude that his apologies and acknowledgments of wrong went for nothing. She quite overlooked the hope, expressed here and there, that he might lead a very different life in the future. His large and self-confident assurances made before had come to naught, and she had not the tact to see that he would make this attempt in a different spirit.

It was not by any means a knightly or even a manly letter that he wrote to his mother; it was as confused as his own chaotic moral nature; but if Mrs. Haldane had had a little more of Mrs. Arnot's intuition, and less of prejudice, she might have seen scattered through it very hopeful indications. But even were such indications much more plain, her anger, caused by his refusal to leave Hillaton, and the belief that he would continue to disgrace himself and her, would have blinded her to them. Under the influence of this anger she sat down and wrote at once: Since you cast off your mother for strangers--since you attempt again what you have proved yourself incapable of accomplishing--since you prefer to go out of jail to be a vagrant and a criminal in the streets, instead of accepting my offer to live a respectable and secluded life where your shame is unknown, I wash my hands of you, and shall take pains to let it be understood that I am no longer responsible for you or your actions. You must look to strangers solely until you can conform your course to the will of the one you have so greatly wronged.

Haldane received this letter on the morning of the day which would again give him freedom. Mrs. Arnot had visited him from time to time, and had been pleased to find him, as a general thing, in a better and more promising mood. He had been eager to listen to all that she had to say, and he seemed honestly bent on reform. And yet, while hopeful, she was not at all sanguine as to his future. He occasionally gave way to fits of deep despondency, and again was over-confident, while the causes of these changes were not very apparent, and seemingly resulted more from temperament than anything else. She feared that the bad habits of long standing, combining with his capricious and impulsive nature, would speedily betray him into his old ways. She was sure this would be the case unless the strong and steady hand of God sustained him, and she had tried to make him realize the same truth. This he did in a measure, and was exceedingly distrustful; and yet he had not been able to do much more than hope God would help him--for to anything like trustful confidence he was still a stranger.