"The dread of this hour," returned the widow, "has been upon me allmy life, and I will not. Evil will fall upon him, if you stand eyeto eye. My blighted boy! Oh! all good angels who know the truth-heara poor mother"s prayer, and spare my boy from knowledge ofthis man!"
"He rattles at the shutters!" cried the man. "He calls you. Thatvoice and cry! It was he who grappled with me in the road. Was ithe?"
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 door where to turn, the shutters flew open. He had barely time tocatch a knife from the table, sheathe it in the loose sleeve of hiscoat, hide in the closet, and do all with the lightning"s speed,when Barnaby tapped at the bare glass, and raised the sashexultingly.
"Why, who can keep out Grip and me!" he cried, thrusting in hishead, and staring round the room. "Are you there, mother? Howlong you keep us from the fire and light."
She stammered some excuse and tendered him her hand. But Barnabysprung lightly in without assistance, and putting his arms abouther neck, kissed her a hundred times.
"We have been afield, mother--leaping ditches, scrambling throughhedges, running down steep banks, up and away, and hurrying on.
The wind has been blowing, and the rushes and young plants bowingand bending to it, lest it should do them harm, the cowards--andGrip--ha ha ha!--brave Grip, who cares for nothing, and when thewind 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 thisfrequent mention of his name in a tone of exultation, expressed hissympathy by crowing like a cock, and afterwards running over hisvarious phrases of speech with such rapidity, and in so manyvarieties of hoarseness, that they sounded like the murmurs of acrowd 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 eyesand make-believe to slumber, he practises new learning softly; buthe keeps his eye on me the while, and if he sees me laugh, thoughnever so little, stops directly. He won"t surprise me till he"sperfect."
The raven crowed again in a rapturous manner which plainly said, "Those are certainly some of my characteristics, and I glory inthem." In the meantime, Barnaby closed the window and secured it,and coming to the fireplace, prepared to sit down with his faceto the closet. But his mother prevented this, by hastily takingthat 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 thedoor of his hiding-place open with his hand, and closely watchedher son. Grip--alive to everything his master was unconscious of-hadhis head out of the basket, and in return was watching himintently with his glistening eye.
"He flaps his wings," said Barnaby, turning almost quickly enoughto catch the retreating form and closing door, "as if there werestrangers here, but Grip is wiser than to fancy that. Jump then!"
Accepting this invitation with a dignity peculiar to himself, thebird hopped up on his master"s shoulder, from that to his extendedhand, and so to the ground. Barnaby unstrapping the basket andputting 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 standupon it. Believing, no doubt, that he had now rendered it utterlyimpossible, and beyond the power of mortal man, to shut him up init any more, he drew a great many corks in triumph, and uttered acorresponding number of hurrahs.
"Mother!" said Barnaby, laying aside his hat and stick, andreturning to the chair from which he had risen, "I"ll tell youwhere 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 shecould not speak.
"You mustn"t tell," said Barnaby, holding up his finger, "for it"sa secret, mind, and only known to me, and Grip, and Hugh. We hadthe dog with us, but he"s not like Grip, clever as he is, anddoesn"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 nearerme."
"You are frightened!" said Barnaby, changing colour. "Mother--youdon"t see"- "See what?"
"There"s--there"s none of this about, is there?" he answered in awhisper, drawing closer to her and clasping the mark upon hiswrist. "I am afraid there is, somewhere. You make my hair standon end, and my flesh creep. Why do you look like that? Is it inthe room as I have seen it in my dreams, dashing the ceiling andthe walls with red? Tell me. Is it?"
He fell into a shivering fit as he put the question, and shuttingout the light with his hands, sat shaking in every limb until ithad passed away. After a time, he raised his head and looked abouthim.
"Is it gone?"
"There has been nothing here," rejoined his mother, soothing him.
"Nothing indeed, dear Barnaby. Look! You see there are but youand me."
He gazed at her vacantly, and, becoming reassured by degrees, burstinto a wild laugh.
"But let us see," he said, thoughtfully. "Were we talking? Was ityou 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, andamong the trees by the road side, with a dark lantern after nightcame on, and the dog in a noose ready to slip him when the man cameby."
"What man?"
"The robber; him that the stars winked at. We have waited for himafter dark these many nights, and we shall have him. I"d know himin a thousand. Mother, see here! This is the man. Look!"
He twisted his handkerchief round his head, pulled his hat upon hisbrow, wrapped his coat about him, and stood up before her: so likethe original he counterfeited, that the dark figure peering outbehind him might have passed for his own shadow.
"Ha ha ha! We shall have him," he cried, ridding himself of thesemblance 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 youlook behind me so?"