father had done with him, Dan went softly up the dark staircase
of old ship timber, and entering his own little room, struck a light.
He saw that his bed was turned down for him, by the loving hand of his
mother, and that his favourite brother Solomon, the youngest of the
Tugwell race, was sleeping sweetly in the opposite cot. Then he caught a
side view of his own poor back in the little black-framed looking-glass,
and was quite amazed; for he had not felt much pain, neither flinched,
nor winced, nor spoken. In a moment self-pity did more than pain,
indignation, outrage, or shame could do; it brought large tears into his
softened eyes, and a long sob into his swelling throat.

He had borne himself like a man when flogged; but now he behaved in
the manner of a boy. "He shall never hear the last of this job," he
muttered, "as long as mother has a tongue in her head." To this end he
filled a wet sponge with the red proofs of his scourging, laid it where
it must be seen, and beside it a leaf torn from his wage-book, on which
he had written with a trembling hand: "He says that I am no son of his,
and this looks like it. Signed, Daniel Tugwell, or whatever my name
ought to be."

Then he washed and dressed with neat's-foot oil all of his wounds that
he could reach, and tied a band of linen over them, and, in spite of
increasing smarts and pangs, dressed himself carefully in his Sunday
clothes. From time to time he listened for his father's step, inasmuch
as there was no bolt to his door, and to burn a light so late was
against all law. But nobody came to disturb him; his mother at the end
of the passage slept heavily, and his two child-sisters in the room
close by, Tabby and Debby, were in the land of dreams, as far gone
as little Solly was. Having turned out his tools from their flat flag
basket, or at least all but three or four favourites, he filled it with
other clothes likely to be needed, and buckled it over his hatchet-head.
Then the beating of his heart was like a flail inside a barn, as he
stole along silently for one terrible good-bye.

This was to his darling pet of all pets, Debby, who worshipped this
brother a great deal more than she worshipped her heavenly Father;
because, as she said to her mother, when rebuked--"I can see Dan,
mother, but I can't see Him. Can I sit in His lap, mother, and look
into His face, and be told pretty stories, and eat apples all the time?"
Tabby was of different grain, and her deity