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Kellson’s Nemesis
by
“My poor woman,” said Kellson, his heart pierced by Rachel’s agony, “what can I do? I have no power to alter the sentence. He had been convicted so often before that I felt bound to punish him severely.”
“I know. I know he deserves it, but for the love of God, take off the lashes. Oh, Sir, you cannot flog him. Bad as he is, I love him best of all my children, and all the others are good.”
“What can I do?” said Kellson, deeply distressed. “The sentence is passed. I have no power to change it.”
“Oh, Sir, do you not understand–must I tell you? I thought you would have known.”
“What do you mean?”
Rachel again burst into violent weeping, and swayed to and fro in her chair. For some time she could not speak, Kellson sat and looked at her, a vague feeling of uneasiness stirring in him. At length she became calmer, and sat still–her hands pressed to her face. She stood up, looked fixedly at Kellson for a moment, and then fell un her knees before him.
“Save him, save him from the flogging,” she said hoarsely, “he is your son.”
Kellson sprang to his feet and looked down at the kneeling woman; his eyes stony with horror, and his face white and rigid. He knew in a flash that what she said was true. The face that the prisoner’s reminded him of, and that he could not localise, was his own. Several peculiarities in the prisoner’s appearance now struck him. It was quite clear–as sure as death and as obvious as his sin. He had sentenced his own son.
For a. while there was no change in the position of either the man or the woman. Then the woman swayed forward, and laid her face on the man’s feet.
“Save him, save him,” she gasped.
Kellson stooped, lifted her from the ground, and placed her in the chair. He was struck by her extreme lightness.
“Rachel,” he said, “I never knew of this. What can I say to you now but, ‘God help us both–or all three of us.’ I can give you no hope, but come and see me to-morrow morning at the Office.”
This seemed to comfort her. She stood up, faltered a “Good night,” and went out of the house with feeble steps.
Kellson sat down in his chair and thought. His brain was quite calm, and his mind was clear, He heard the rumble of the waggon, and the voice of the boy shouting to the bullocks as he drove the team. He stood up, and mechanically seized his hat and stick. He wondered where the keys of the Office were kept. He would go down to the Office, find the record, and strike the lashes out of the sentence. No–the sentence must stand. The one stainless record which his conscience held up to him, was that of his public life. He had never yet done a deed in his official capacity of which he was ashamed. He must not, at the close of his career, be guilty of a dishonourable action. The prisoner richly deserved his sentence. Let him undergo it.
“At the close of his career.” Yes, for Kellson felt that he could no longer live. His limit of endurance had been reached. Life had for some years past been a sore burthen, and now he could carry it no longer. Had he not longed for a child–for a son? Did he not know that such would have made his wife a happy woman and him a contented man? To live, to know of that degraded thing, for whose existence he was responsible, being there at the convict station amongst the other human animals, and becoming lower and more degraded every day. To look forward through two long years of misery and apprehension to the return of–his son. His son–a strange yearning towards the vicious creature he had carelessly glanced at that morning, took possession of him. He started up again, and seized his hat. He would go down, even though it were nearly midnight, and get the gaoler to admit him to the prisoner’s cell. He made a few steps towards the door, and then stopped. No, better not. Reality would blast the delicate glamour-bloom with which his imagination had clothed for the moment that sordid form. It was the beauty of the eyes that haunted him. He knew that these imaginings were false. In another moment they were gone. What–after two years to meet that horrible cringing creature with the angel’s eyes, in the street, and know him as his son–his son that he had asked God for in the days when he used to pray. Better a hundred deaths.