All remaining quiet, however, during the whole of this Friday, andon this Friday night, and no new discoveries being made, confidencebegan to be restored, and the most timid and desponding breathedagain. In Southwark, no fewer than three thousand of theinhabitants formed themselves into a watch, and patrolled thestreets every hour. Nor were the citizens slow to follow so goodan example: and it being the manner of peaceful men to be very boldwhen the danger is over, they were abundantly fierce and daring;not scrupling to question the stoutest passenger with greatseverity, and carrying it with a very high hand over all errand-boys, servant-girls, and "prentices.
As day deepened into evening, and darkness crept into the nooks andcorners of the town as if it were mustering in secret and gatheringstrength to venture into the open ways, Barnaby sat in his dungeon,wondering at the silence, and listening in vain for the noise andoutcry which had ushered in the night of late. Beside him, withhis hand in hers, sat one in whose companionship he felt at peace.
She was worn, and altered, full of grief, and heavy-hearted; butthe same to him.
"Mother," he said, after a long silence: "how long,--how many daysand nights,--shall I be kept here?"
"Not many, dear. I hope not many."
"You hope! Ay, but your hoping will not undo these chains. Ihope, but they don"t mind that. Grip hopes, but who cares forGrip?"
The raven gave a short, dull, melancholy croak. It said "Nobody,"
as plainly as a croak could speak.
"Who cares for Grip, except you and me?" said Barnaby, smoothingthe bird"s rumpled feathers with his hand. "He never speaks inthis place; he never says a word in jail; he sits and mopes all dayin his dark corner, dozing sometimes, and sometimes looking at thelight that creeps in through the bars, and shines in his bright eyeas if a spark from those great fires had fallen into the room andwas burning yet. But who cares for Grip?"
The raven croaked again--Nobody.
"And by the way," said Barnaby, withdrawing his hand from the bird,and laying it upon his mother"s arm, as he looked eagerly in herface; "if they kill me--they may: I heard it said they would--whatwill become of Grip when I am dead?"
The sound of the word, or the current of his own thoughts,suggested to Grip his old phrase "Never say die!" But he stoppedshort in the middle of it, drew a dismal cork, and subsided into afaint croak, as if he lacked the heart to get through the shortestsentence.
"Will they take HIS life as well as mine?" said Barnaby. "I wishthey would. If you and I and he could die together, there would benone to feel sorry, or to grieve for us. But do what they will, Idon"t fear them, mother!"
"They will not harm you," she said, her tears choking herutterance. "They never will harm you, when they know all. I amsure they never will."
"Oh! Don"t be too sure of that," cried Barnaby, with a strangepleasure in the belief that she was self-deceived, and in his ownsagacity. "They have marked me from the first. I heard them sayso to each other when they brought me to this place last night; andI believe them. Don"t you cry for me. They said that I was bold,and so I am, and so I will be. You may think that I am silly, butI can die as well as another.--I have done no harm, have I?" headded quickly.
"None before Heaven," she answered.
"Why then," said Barnaby, "let them do their worst. You told meonce--you--when I asked you what death meant, that it was nothingto be feared, if we did no harm--Aha! mother, you thought I hadforgotten that!"
His merry laugh and playful manner smote her to the heart. Shedrew him closer to her, and besought him to talk to her in whispersand to be very quiet, for it was getting dark, and their time wasshort, and she would soon have to leave him for the night.
"You will come to-morrow?" said Barnaby.
Yes. And every day. And they would never part again.
He joyfully replied that this was well, and what he wished, andwhat he had felt quite certain she would tell him; and then heasked her where she had been so long, and why she had not come tosee him when he had been a great soldier, and ran through the wildschemes he had had for their being rich and living prosperously,and with some faint notion in his mind that she was sad and he hadmade her so, tried to console and comfort her, and talked of theirformer life and his old sports and freedom: little dreaming thatevery word he uttered only increased her sorrow, and that her tearsfell faster at the freshened recollection of their losttranquillity.
"Mother," said Barnaby, as they heard the man approaching to closethe cells for the night," when I spoke to you just now about myfather you cried "Hush!" and turned away your head. Why did you doso? Tell me why, in a word. You thought HE was dead. You are notsorry that he is alive and has come back to us. Where is he?
Here?"
"Do not ask any one where he is, or speak about him," she madeanswer.
"Why not?" said Barnaby. "Because he is a stern man, and talksroughly? Well! I don"t like him, or want to be with him bymyself; but why not speak about him?"
"Because I am sorry that he is alive; sorry that he has come back;and sorry that he and you have ever met. Because, dear Barnaby,the endeavour of my life has been to keep you two asunder."
"Father and son asunder! Why?"
"He has," she whispered in his ear, "he has shed blood. The timehas come when you must know it. He has shed the blood of one wholoved him well, and trusted him, and never did him wrong in word ordeed."
Barnaby recoiled in horror, and glancing at his stained wrist foran instant, wrapped it, shuddering, in his dress.
"But," she added hastily as the key turned in the lock, "althoughwe shun him, he is your father, dearest, and I am his wretchedwife. They seek his life, and he will lose it. It must not be byour means; nay, if we could win him back to penitence, we should bebound to love him yet. Do not seem to know him, except as one whofled with you from the jail, and if they question you about him, donot answer them. God be with you through the night, dear boy! Godbe with you!"
She tore herself away, and in a few seconds Barnaby was alone. Hestood for a long time rooted to the spot, with his face hidden inhis hands; then flung himself, sobbing, on his miserable bed.