of the night vanished, the houses over the way glared out white
and blinding for a quivering instant, then the solid darkness shut
down again and a splitting peal of thunder followed, which seemed
to rend everything in the neighborhood to shreds and splinters.
I sat up in bed quaking and shuddering, waiting for the destruction
of the world, and expecting it. To me there was nothing strange
or incongruous in heaven’s making such an uproar about Lem Hackett.
Apparently it was the right and proper thing to do.
Not a doubt entered my mind that all the angels were grouped together,
discussing this boy’s case and observing the awful bombardment
of our beggarly little village with satisfaction and approval.
There was one thing which disturbed me in the most serious way;
that was the thought that this centering of the celestial interest
on our village could not fail to attract the attention of the observers
to people among us who might otherwise have escaped notice for years.
I felt that I was not only one of those people, but the very one most
likely to be discovered. That discovery could have but one result:
I should be in the fire with Lem before the chill of the river
had been fairly warmed out of him. I knew that this would be
only just and fair. I was increasing the chances against myself
all the time, by feeling a secret bitterness against Lem for having
attracted this fatal attention to me, but I could not help it–
this sinful thought persisted in infesting my breast in spite of me.
Every time the lightning glared I caught my breath, and judged I was gone.
In my terror and misery, I meanly began to suggest other boys,
and mention acts of theirs which were wickeder than mine, and peculiarly
needed punishment–and I tried to pretend to myself that I was simply
doing this in a casual way, and without intent to divert the heavenly
attention to them for the purpose of getting rid of it myself.
With deep sagacity I put these mentions into the form of sorrowing
recollections and left-handed sham-supplications that the sins of those
boys might be allowed to pass unnoticed–‘Possibly they may repent.’
‘It is true that Jim Smith broke a window and lied about it–
but maybe he did not mean any harm. And although Tom Holmes
says more bad words than any other boy in the village,
he probably intends to repent–though he has never said he would.
And whilst it is a fact that John Jones did fish a little
on Sunday, once, he didn’t really catch anything but only just one
small useless mud-cat; and maybe that wouldn’t have been so awful
if he had thrown it back–as he says he did, but he didn’t. Pity
but they would repent of these dreadful things–and maybe they will
yet.’
But while I was shamefully trying to draw attention to these poor chaps–
who were doubtless directing the celestial attention to me at the same moment,
though I never once suspected that–I had heedlessly left my candle burning.
It was not a time to neglect even trifling precautions. There was no occasion
to add anything to the facilities for attracting notice to me–so I put
the light out.
It was a long night to me, and perhaps the most distressful one I ever spent.
I endured agonies of remorse for sins which I knew I had committed,
and for others which I was not certain about, yet was sure that they had
been set down against me in a book by an angel who was wiser than I and did
not trust such important matters to memory. It struck me, by and by,
that I had been making a most foolish and calamitous mistake, in one respect:
doubtless I had not only made my own destruction sure by directing attention
to those other boys, but had already accomplished theirs!–Doubtless the
lightning had stretched them all dead in their beds by this time!
The anguish and the fright which this thought gave me made my previous
sufferings seem trifling by comparison.
Things had become truly serious. I resolved to turn over