It was a chilly night, and the fire in the widow's parlour had
burnt low. Her strange companion placed her in a chair, and stooping down before
the half-extinguished ashes, raked them together and fanned them with his hat.
From time to time he glanced at her over his shoulder, as though to assure
himself of her remaining quiet and making no effort to depart; and that done,
busied himself about the fire again.
It was not without reason that he took these pains, for his dress was dank
and drenched with wet, his jaws rattled with cold, and he shivered from head to
foot. It had rained hard during the previous night and for some hours in the
morning, but since noon it had been fine. Wheresoever he had passed the hours of
darkness, his condition sufficiently betokened that many of them had been spent
beneath the open sky. Besmeared with mire; his saturated clothes clinging with a
damp embrace about his limbs; his beard unshaven, his face unwashed, his meagre
cheeks worn into deep hollows,--a more miserable wretch could hardly be, than
this man who now cowered down upon the widow's hearth, and watched the
struggling flame with bloodshot eyes.
She had covered her face with her hands, fearing, as it seemed, to look
towards him. So they remained for some short time in silence. Glancing round
again, he asked at length:
'Is this your house?'
'It is. Why, in the name of Heaven, do you darken it?'
'Give me meat and drink,' he answered sullenly, 'or I dare do more than that.
The very marrow in my bones is cold, with wet and hunger. I must have warmth and
food, and I will have them here.'
'You were the robber on the Chigwell road.'
'I was.'
'And nearly a murderer then.'
'The will was not wanting. There was one came upon me and raised the
hue-and-cry', that it would have gone hard with, but for his nimbleness. I made
a thrust at him.'
'You thrust your sword at HIM!' cried the widow, looking upwards. 'You hear
this man! you hear and saw!'
He looked at her, as, with her head thrown back, and her hands tight clenched
together, she uttered these words in an agony of appeal. Then, starting to his
feet as she had done, he advanced towards her.
'Beware!' she cried in a suppressed voice, whose firmness stopped him midway.
'Do not so much as touch me with a finger, or you are lost; body and soul, you
are lost.'
'Hear me,' he replied, menacing her with his hand. 'I, that in the form of a
man live the life of a hunted beast; that in the body am a spirit, a ghost upon
the earth, a thing from which all creatures shrink, save those curst beings of
another world, who will not leave me;--I am, in my desperation of this night,
past all fear but that of the hell in which I exist from day to day. Give the
alarm, cry out, refuse to shelter me. I will not hurt you. But I will not be
taken alive; and so surely as you threaten me above your breath, I fall a dead
man on this floor. The blood with which I sprinkle it, be on you and yours, in
the name of the Evil Spirit that tempts men to their ruin!'
As he spoke, he took a pistol from his breast, and firmly clutched it in his
hand.
'Remove this man from me, good Heaven!' cried the widow. 'In thy grace and
mercy, give him one minute's penitence, and strike him dead!'
'It has no such purpose,' he said, confronting her. 'It is deaf. Give me to
eat and drink, lest I do that it cannot help my doing, and will not do for you.'
'Will you leave me, if I do thus much? Will you leave me and return no more?'
'I will promise nothing,' he rejoined, seating himself at the table, 'nothing
but this--I will execute my threat if you betray me.'
She rose at length, and going to a closet or pantry in the room, brought out
some fragments of cold meat and bread and put them on the table. He asked for
brandy, and for water. These she produced
likewise; and he ate and drank with the voracity of a famished hound. All the
time he was so engaged she kept at the uttermost distance of the chamber, and
sat there shuddering, but with her face towards him. She never turned her back
upon him once; and although when she passed him (as she was obliged to do in
going to and from the cupboard) she gathered the skirts of her garment about
her, as if even its touching his by chance were horrible to think of, still, in
the midst of all this dread and terror, she kept her face towards his own, and
watched his every movement.
His repast ended--if that can be called one, which was a mere ravenous
satisfying of the calls of hunger--he moved his chair towards the fire again,
and warming himself before the blaze which had now sprung brightly up, accosted
her once more.
'I am an outcast, to whom a roof above his head is often an uncommon luxury,
and the food a beggar would reject is delicate fare. You live here at your ease.
Do you live alone?'
'I do not,' she made answer with an effort.
'Who dwells here besides?'
'One--it is no matter who. You had best begone, or he may find you here. Why
do you linger?'
'For warmth,' he replied, spreading out his hands before the fire. 'For
warmth. You are rich, perhaps?'
'Very,' she said faintly. 'Very rich. No doubt I am very rich.'
'At least you are not penniless. You have some money. You were making
purchases to-night.'
'I have a little left. It is but a few shillings.'
'Give me your purse. You had it in your hand at the door. Give it to me.'
She stepped to the table and laid it down. He reached across, took it up, and
told the contents into his hand. As he was counting them, she listened for a
moment, and sprung towards him.
'Take what there is, take all, take more if more were there, but go before it
is too late. I have heard a wayward step without, I know full well. It will
return directly. Begone.'
'What do you mean?'
'Do not stop to ask. I will not answer. Much as I dread to touch you, I would
drag you to the door if I possessed the strength, rather than you should lose an
instant. Miserable wretch! fly from this place.'
'If there are spies without, I am safer here,' replied the man, standing
aghast. 'I will remain here, and will not fly till the danger is past.'
'It is too late!' cried the widow, who had listened for the step, and not to
him. 'Hark to that foot upon the ground. Do you tremble to hear it! It is my
son, my idiot son!'
As she said this wildly, there came a heavy knocking at the door. He looked
at her, and she at him.
'Let him come in,' said the man, hoarsely. 'I fear him less than the dark,
houseless night. He knocks again. Let him come in!'
'The dread of this hour,' returned the widow, 'has been upon me all my life,
and I will not. Evil will fall upon him, if you stand eye to eye. My blighted
boy! Oh! all good angels who know the truth-- hear a poor mother's prayer, and
spare my boy from knowledge of this man!'
'He rattles at the shutters!' cried the man. 'He calls you. That voice and
cry! It was he who grappled with me in the road. Was it he?'
She had sunk upon her knees, and so knelt down, moving her lips, but uttering
no sound. As he gazed upon her, uncertain what to do or where to turn, the
shutters flew open. He had barely time to catch a knife from the table, sheathe
it in the loose sleeve of his coat, hide in the closet, and do all with the
lightning's speed, when Barnaby tapped at the bare glass, and raised the sash
exultingly.
'Why, who can keep out Grip and me!' he cried, thrusting in his head, and
staring round the room. 'Are you there, mother? How long you keep us from the
fire and light.'
She stammered some excuse and tendered him her hand. But Barnaby sprung
lightly in without assistance, and putting his arms about her neck, kissed her a
hundred times.
'We have been afield, mother--leaping ditches, scrambling through hedges,
running down steep banks, up and away, and hurrying on. The wind has been
blowing, and the rushes and young plants bowing and bending to it, lest it
should do them harm, the cowards--and Grip--ha ha ha!--brave Grip, who cares for
nothing, and when the wind rolls him over in the dust, turns manfully to bite
it--Grip, bold Grip, has quarrelled with every little bowing twig--thinking, he
told me, that it mocked him--and has worried it like a bulldog. Ha ha ha!'
The raven, in his little basket at his master's back, hearing this frequent
mention of his name in a tone of exultation, expressed his sympathy by crowing
like a cock, and afterwards running over his various phrases of speech with such
rapidity, and in so many varieties of hoarseness, that they sounded like the
murmurs of a crowd of people.
'He takes such care of me besides!' said Barnaby. 'Such care, mother! He
watches all the time I sleep, and when I shut my eyes and make-believe to
slumber, he practises new learning softly; but he keeps his eye on me the while,
and if he sees me laugh, though never so little, stops directly. He won't
surprise me till he's perfect.'
The raven crowed again in a rapturous manner which plainly said, 'Those are
certainly some of my characteristics, and I glory in them.' In the meantime,
Barnaby closed the window and secured it, and coming to the fireplace, prepared
to sit down with his face to the closet. But his mother prevented this, by
hastily taking that side herself, and motioning him towards the other.
'How pale you are to-night!' said Barnaby, leaning on his stick. 'We have
been cruel, Grip, and made her anxious!'
Anxious in good truth, and sick at heart! The listener held the door of his
hiding-place open with his hand, and closely watched her son. Grip--alive to
everything his master was unconscious of-- had his head out of the basket, and
in return was watching him intently with his glistening eye.
'He flaps his wings,' said Barnaby, turning almost quickly enough to catch
the retreating form and closing door, 'as if there were strangers here, but Grip
is wiser than to fancy that. Jump then!'
Accepting this invitation with a dignity peculiar to himself, the bird hopped
up on his master's shoulder, from that to his extended hand, and so to the
ground. Barnaby unstrapping the basket and putting it down in a corner with the
lid open, Grip's first care was to shut it down with all possible despatch, and
then to stand upon it. Believing, no doubt, that he had now rendered it utterly
impossible, and beyond the power of mortal man, to shut him up in it any more,
he drew a great many corks in triumph, and uttered a corresponding number of
hurrahs.
'Mother!' said Barnaby, laying aside his hat and stick, and returning to the
chair from which he had risen, 'I'll tell you where we have been to-day, and
what we have been doing,--shall I?'
She took his hand in hers, and holding it, nodded the word she could not
speak.
'You mustn't tell,' said Barnaby, holding up his finger, 'for it's a secret,
mind, and only known to me, and Grip, and Hugh. We had the dog with us, but he's
not like Grip, clever as he is, and doesn't guess it yet, I'll wager.--Why do
you look behind me so?'
'Did I?' she answered faintly. 'I didn't know I did. Come nearer me.'
'You are frightened!' said Barnaby, changing colour. 'Mother--you don't
see'--
'See what?'
'There's--there's none of this about, is there?' he answered in a whisper,
drawing closer to her and clasping the mark upon his wrist. 'I am afraid there
is, somewhere. You make my hair stand on end, and my flesh creep. Why do you
look like that? Is it in the room as I have seen it in my dreams, dashing the
ceiling and the walls with red? Tell me. Is it?'
He fell into a shivering fit as he put the question, and shutting out the
light with his hands, sat shaking in every limb until it had passed away. After
a time, he raised his head and looked about him.
'Is it gone?'
'There has been nothing here,' rejoined his mother, soothing him. 'Nothing
indeed, dear Barnaby. Look! You see there are but you and me.'
He gazed at her vacantly, and, becoming reassured by degrees, burst into a
wild laugh.
'But let us see,' he said, thoughtfully. 'Were we talking? Was it you and me?
Where have we been?'
'Nowhere but here.'
'Aye, but Hugh, and I,' said Barnaby,--'that's it. Maypole Hugh, and I, you
know, and Grip--we have been lying in the forest, and among the trees by the
road side, with a dark lantern after night came on, and the dog in a noose ready
to slip him when the man came by.'
'What man?'
'The robber; him that the stars winked at. We have waited for him after dark
these many nights, and we shall have him. I'd know him in a thousand. Mother,
see here! This is the man. Look!'
He twisted his handkerchief round his head, pulled his hat upon his brow,
wrapped his coat about him, and stood up before her: so like the original he
counterfeited, that the dark figure peering out behind him might have passed for
his own shadow.
'Ha ha ha! We shall have him,' he cried, ridding himself of the semblance as
hastily as he had assumed it. 'You shall see him, mother, bound hand and foot,
and brought to London at a saddle- girth; and you shall hear of him at Tyburn
Tree if we have luck. So Hugh says. You're pale again, and trembling. And why DO
you look behind me so?'
'It is nothing,' she answered. 'I am not quite well. Go you to bed, dear, and
leave me here.'
'To bed!' he answered. 'I don't like bed. I like to lie before the fire,
watching the prospects in the burning coals--the rivers, hills, and dells, in
the deep, red sunset, and the wild faces. I am hungry too, and Grip has eaten
nothing since broad noon. Let us to supper. Grip! To supper, lad!'
The raven flapped his wings, and, croaking his satisfaction, hopped to the
feet of his master, and there held his bill open, ready for snapping up such
lumps of meat as he should throw him. Of these he received about a score in
rapid succession, without the smallest discomposure.
'That's all,' said Barnaby.
'More!' cried Grip. 'More!'
But it appearing for a certainty that no more was to be had, he retreated
with his store; and disgorging the morsels one by one from his pouch, hid them
in various corners--taking particular care, however, to avoid the closet, as
being doubtful of the hidden man's propensities and power of resisting
temptation. When he had concluded these arrangements, he took a turn or two
across the room with an elaborate assumption of having nothing on his mind (but
with one eye hard upon his treasure all the time), and then, and not till then,
began to drag it out, piece by piece, and eat it with the utmost relish.
Barnaby, for his part, having pressed his mother to eat in vain, made a
hearty supper too. Once during the progress of his meal, he wanted more bread
from the closet and rose to get it. She hurriedly interposed to prevent him, and
summoning her utmost fortitude, passed into the recess, and brought it out
herself.
'Mother,' said Barnaby, looking at her steadfastly as she sat down beside him
after doing so; 'is to-day my birthday?'
'To-day!' she answered. 'Don't you recollect it was but a week or so ago, and
that summer, autumn, and winter have to pass before it comes again?'
'I remember that it has been so till now,' said Barnaby. 'But I think to-day
must be my birthday too, for all that.'
She asked him why? 'I'll tell you why,' he said. 'I have always seen you--I
didn't let you know it, but I have--on the evening of that day grow very sad. I
have seen you cry when Grip and I were most glad; and look frightened with no
reason; and I have touched your hand, and felt that it was cold--as it is now.
Once, mother (on a birthday that was, also), Grip and I thought of this after we
went upstairs to bed, and when it was midnight, striking one o'clock, we came
down to your door to see if you were well. You were on your knees. I forget what
it was you said. Grip, what was it we heard her say that night?'
'I'm a devil!' rejoined the raven promptly.
'No, no,' said Barnaby. 'But you said something in a prayer; and when you
rose and walked about, you looked (as you have done ever since, mother, towards
night on my birthday) just as you do now. I have found that out, you see, though
I am silly. So I say you're wrong; and this must be my birthday--my birthday,
Grip!'
The bird received this information with a crow of such duration as a cock,
gifted with intelligence beyond all others of his kind, might usher in the
longest day with. Then, as if he had well considered the sentiment, and regarded
it as apposite to birthdays, he cried, 'Never say die!' a great many times, and
flapped his wings for emphasis.
The widow tried to make light of Barnaby's remark, and endeavoured to divert
his attention to some new subject; too easy a task at all times, as she knew.
His supper done, Barnaby, regardless of her entreaties, stretched himself on the
mat before the fire; Grip perched upon his leg, and divided his time between
dozing in the grateful warmth, and endeavouring (as it presently appeared) to
recall a new accomplishment he had been studying all day.
A long and profound silence ensued, broken only by some change of position on
the part of Barnaby, whose eyes were still wide open and intently fixed upon the
fire; or by an effort of recollection on the part of Grip, who would cry in a
low voice from time to time, 'Polly put the ket--' and there stop short,
forgetting the remainder, and go off in a doze again.
After a long interval, Barnaby's breathing grew more deep and regular, and
his eyes were closed. But even then the unquiet spirit of the raven interposed.
'Polly put the ket--' cried Grip, and his master was broad awake again.
At length Barnaby slept soundly, and the bird with his bill sunk upon his
breast, his breast itself puffed out into a comfortable alderman-like form, and
his bright eye growing smaller and smaller, really seemed to be subsiding into a
state of repose. Now and then he muttered in a sepulchral voice, 'Polly put the
ket--' but very drowsily, and more like a drunken man than a reflecting raven.
The widow, scarcely venturing to breathe, rose from her seat. The man glided
from the closet, and extinguished the candle.
'--tle on,' cried Grip, suddenly struck with an idea and very much excited.
'--tle on. Hurrah! Polly put the ket-tle on, we'll all have tea; Polly put the
ket-tle on, we'll all have tea. Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! I'm a devil, I'm a
devil, I'm a ket-tle on, Keep up your spirits, Never say die, Bow, wow, wow, I'm
a devil, I'm a ket-tle, I'm a--Polly put the ket-tle on, we'll all have tea.'
They stood rooted to the ground, as though it had been a voice from the
grave.
But even this failed to awaken the sleeper. He turned over towards the fire,
his arm fell to the ground, and his head drooped heavily upon it. The widow and
her unwelcome visitor gazed at him and at each other for a moment, and then she
motioned him towards the door.
'Stay,' he whispered. 'You teach your son well.'
'I have taught him nothing that you heard to-night. Depart instantly, or I
will rouse him.'
'You are free to do so. Shall I rouse him?'
'You dare not do that.'
'I dare do anything, I have told you. He knows me well, it seems. At least I
will know him.'
'Would you kill him in his sleep?' cried the widow, throwing herself between
them.
'Woman,' he returned between his teeth, as he motioned her aside, 'I would
see him nearer, and I will. If you want one of us to kill the other, wake him.'
With that he advanced, and bending down over the prostrate form, softly
turned back the head and looked into the face. The light of the fire was upon
it, and its every lineament was revealed distinctly. He contemplated it for a
brief space, and hastily uprose.
'Observe,' he whispered in the widow's ear: 'In him, of whose existence I was
ignorant until to-night, I have you in my power. Be careful how you use me. Be
careful how you use me. I am destitute and starving, and a wanderer upon the
earth. I may take a sure and slow revenge.'
'There is some dreadful meaning in your words. I do not fathom it.'
'There is a meaning in them, and I see you fathom it to its very depth. You
have anticipated it for years; you have told me as much. I leave you to digest
it. Do not forget my warning.'
He pointed, as he left her, to the slumbering form, and stealthily
withdrawing, made his way into the street. She fell on her knees beside the
sleeper, and remained like one stricken into stone, until the tears which fear
had frozen so long, came tenderly to her relief.
'Oh Thou,' she cried, 'who hast taught me such deep love for this one remnant
of the promise of a happy life, out of whose affliction, even, perhaps the
comfort springs that he is ever a relying, loving child to me--never growing old
or cold at heart, but needing my care and duty in his manly strength as in his
cradle-time--help him, in his darkened walk through this sad world, or he is
doomed, and my poor heart is broken!'
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