While the worst passions of the worst men were thus working in thedark, and the mantle of religion, assumed to cover the ugliestdeformities, threatened to become the shroud of all that was goodand peaceful in society, a circumstance occurred which once morealtered the position of two persons from whom this history has longbeen separated, and to whom it must now return.
In a small English country town, the inhabitants of which supportedthemselves by the labour of their hands in plaiting and preparingstraw for those who made bonnets and other articles of dress andornament from that material,--concealed under an assumed name, andliving in a quiet poverty which knew no change, no pleasures, andfew cares but that of struggling on from day to day in one greattoil for bread,--dwelt Barnaby and his mother. Their poor cottagehad known no stranger"s foot since they sought the shelter of itsroof five years before; nor had they in all that time held anycommerce or communication with the old world from which they hadfled. To labour in peace, and devote her labour and her life toher poor son, was all the widow sought. If happiness can be saidat any time to be the lot of one on whom a secret sorrow preys, shewas happy now. Tranquillity, resignation, and her strong love ofhim who needed it so much, formed the small circle of her quiet joys; and while that remained unbroken, she was contented.
For Barnaby himself, the time which had flown by, had passed himlike the wind. The daily suns of years had shed no brighter gleamof reason on his mind; no dawn had broken on his long, dark night.
He would sit sometimes--often for days together on a low seat bythe fire or by the cottage door, busy at work (for he had learntthe art his mother plied), and listening, God help him, to thetales she would repeat, as a lure to keep him in her sight. He hadno recollection of these little narratives; the tale of yesterdaywas new to him upon the morrow; but he liked them at the moment;and when the humour held him, would remain patiently within doors,hearing her stories like a little child, and working cheerfullyfrom sunrise until it was too dark to see.
At other times,--and then their scanty earnings were barelysufficient to furnish them with food, though of the coarsest sort,-hewould wander abroad from dawn of day until the twilightdeepened into night. Few in that place, even of the children,could be idle, and he had no companions of his own kind. Indeedthere were not many who could have kept up with him in his rambles,had there been a legion. But there were a score of vagabond dogsbelonging to the neighbours, who served his purpose quite as well.
With two or three of these, or sometimes with a full half-dozenbarking at his heels, he would sally forth on some long expeditionthat consumed the day; and though, on their return at nightfall,the dogs would come home limping and sore-footed, and almost spentwith their fatigue, Barnaby was up and off again at sunrise withsome new attendants of the same class, with whom he would return inlike manner. On all these travels, Grip, in his little basket athis master"s back, was a constant member of the party, and whenthey set off in fine weather and in high spirits, no dog barkedlouder than the raven.
Their pleasures on these excursions were ****** enough. A crust ofbread and scrap of meat, with water from the brook or spring,sufficed for their repast. Barnaby"s enjoyments were, to walk, andrun, and leap, till he was tired; then to lie down in the longgrass, or by the growing corn, or in the shade of some tall tree,looking upward at the light clouds as they floated over the bluesurface of the sky, and listening to the lark as she poured out herbrilliant song. There were wild-flowers to pluck--the bright redpoppy, the gentle harebell, the cowslip, and the rose. There werebirds to watch; fish; ants; worms; hares or rabbits, as they dartedacross the distant pathway in the wood and so were gone: millionsof living things to have an interest in, and lie in wait for, and clap hands and shout in memory of, when they had disappeared. Indefault of these, or when they wearied, there was the merrysunlight to hunt out, as it crept in aslant through leaves andboughs of trees, and hid far down--deep, deep, in hollow places-likea silver pool, where nodding branches seemed to bathe andsport; sweet scents of summer air breathing over fields of beans orclover; the perfume of wet leaves or moss; the life of wavingtrees, and shadows always changing. When these or any of themtired, or in excess of pleasing tempted him to shut his eyes, therewas slumber in the midst of all these soft delights, with thegentle wind murmuring like music in his ears, and everything aroundmelting into one delicious dream.
Their hut--for it was little more--stood on the outskirts of thetown, at a short distance from the high road, but in a secludedplace, where few chance passengers strayed at any season of theyear. It had a plot of garden-ground attached, which Barnaby, infits and starts of working, trimmed, and kept in order. Withindoors and without, his mother laboured for their common good; andhail, rain, snow, or sunshine, found no difference in her.
Though so far removed from the scenes of her past life, and with solittle thought or hope of ever visiting them again, she seemed to have a strange desire to know what happened in the busy world. Anyold newspaper, or scrap of intelligence from London, she caught atwith avidity. The excitement it produced was not of a pleasurablekind, for her manner at such times expressed the keenest anxietyand dread; but it never faded in the least degree. Then, and instormy winter nights, when the wind blew loud and strong, the oldexpression came into her face, and she would be seized with a fitof trembling, like one who had an ague. But Barnaby noted littleof this; and putting a great constraint upon herself, she usuallyrecovered her accustomed manner before the change had caught hisobservation.
