You will never hear of me again.
I did not mean any harm by anything, so I hope you will try
and forgive me. I wish you would say good-bye to Alexander
and Maria, but not if you don't want to. I could not wait to
see you, really. Please try to forgive me. Your
affectionate son,
JOHN NICHOLSON.'
The coins abstracted and the missive written, he could not be
gone too soon from the scene of these transgressions; and
remembering how his father had once returned from church, on
some slight illness, in the middle of the second psalm, he
durst not even make a packet of a change of clothes. Attired
as he was, he slipped from the paternal doors, and found
himself in the cool spring air, the thin spring sunshine, and
the great Sabbath quiet of the city, which was now only
pointed by the cawing of the rooks. There was not a soul in
Randolph Crescent, nor a soul in Queensferry Street; in this
outdoor privacy and the sense of escape, John took heart
again; and with a pathetic sense of leave-taking, he even
ventured up the lane and stood awhile, a strange peri at the
gates of a quaint paradise, by the west end of St. George's
Church. They were singing within; and by a strange chance,
the tune was 'St. George's, Edinburgh,' which bears the name,
and was first sung in the choir of that church. 'Who is this
King of Glory?' went the voices from within; and, to John,
this was like the end of all Christian observances, for he
was now to be a wild man like Ishmael, and his life was to be
cast in homeless places and with godless people.
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