On returning home about eleven o'clock, he found his father sitting up for him.

To the stern interrogation as to where he had been so late, he replied with equivocation, and finally with direct falsehood.
"Andrew," said Mr.Howland, at length, speaking with unusual severity of tone, and with a deliberation and emphasis that indicated a higher degree of earnestness than usual, "if you are out again until after ten o'clock, you remain out all night.

To this my mind is fully made up.

So act your own good pleasure." The father and son then separated.
Ten o'clock came on the next night, and Andrew had not returned.

For the half hour preceding the stroke of the clock, Mr.Howland had walked the floor uneasily, with his ear harkening anxiously for the sound of the bell that marked his son's return; and, as the time drew nearer and nearer, he half repented the utterance of a law, that, if broken, could not, he feared, but result in injury to the disobedient boy.