em, clutching remorsefully at his curls.
"I've been a regular fool! Jack! whatever you do--never tick. It's the
very mischief. You never know what you owe, and so you feel vague and
order more. And you never know what you don't owe, which is worse, for
sometimes you're in such despair, it would be quite a relief to catch
some complaint and die. It's like going about with a stone round your
neck, and nobody kind enough to drown you. I can't stand any more of it.
I shall make a clean breast to Father, and if he can't set me straight,
I won't go back; I'll work on the farm sooner, and let him pay my bills
instead of my schooling--and serve old Pompous right."

Poor Jem! long after he had cheered up and gone to bed, I sat up and
thought. When my premium was paid where was the money for Jem's debts to
come from? And would my father be in the humour to pay them? If he did
not, Jem would not go back to school. Of that I was quite certain. Jem
had thought over his affairs, which was an effort for him, but he always
thought in one direction. His thoughts never went backwards and forwards
as mine did. If he had made up his mind, there was no more prospect of
his changing it than if he had been my father. And if the happy terms
between them were broken, and Jem's career checked when he was doing so
well!--the scales that weighed my own future were becoming very uneven
now.

I clasped my hands and thought. If I ran away, the money would be there
for Jem's debts, and his errors would look pale in the light of my
audacity, and he would be dearer than ever at home, whilst for me were
freedom, independence (for I had not a doubt of earning
bread-and-cheese, if only as a working man): perhaps a better
understanding with my father when I had been able to prove my courage
and industry, or even when he got the temperate and dutiful letter I
meant to post to him when I was fairly off; and beyond all, the desire
of my eyes, the sight of the world.

Should I stay now? And for what? To see old Jem at logger-heads with my
father, and perhaps demoralized by an inferior school? To turn my own
back and shut my eyes for ever on all that the wide seas embrace; my
highest goal to be to grow as rich as Uncle Henry or richer, and perhaps
as mean or meaner? Should I choose for life a life I hated, and set
seals to my choice by drinking silver-top with the Jew-clerk?--No,
Moses, no!

* * * * *

I got up soon after daw