Leaving the favoured, and well-received, and flattered of theworld; him of the world most worldly, who never compromised himselfby an ungentlemanly action, and never was guilty of a manly one; tolie smilingly asleep--for even sleep, working but little change inhis dissembling face, became with him a piece of cold, conventionalhypocrisy--we follow in the steps of two slow travellers on foot,making towards Chigwell.
Barnaby and his mother. Grip in their company, of course.
The widow, to whom each painful mile seemed longer than the last,toiled wearily along; while Barnaby, yielding to every inconstantimpulse, fluttered here and there, now leaving her far behind, nowlingering far behind himself, now darting into some by-lane or pathand leaving her to pursue her way alone, until he stealthilyemerged again and came upon her with a wild shout of merriment, ashis wayward and capricious nature prompted. Now he would call toher from the topmost branch of some high tree by the roadside; nowusing his tall staff as a leaping-pole, come flying over ditch orhedge or five-barred gate; now run with surprising swiftness for amile or more on the straight road, and halting, sport upon a patchof grass with Grip till she came up. These were his delights; andwhen his patient mother heard his merry voice, or looked into hisflushed and healthy face, she would not have abated them by one sadword or murmur, though each had been to her a source of sufferingin the same degree as it was to him of pleasure.
It is something to look upon enjoyment, so that it be free andwild and in the face of nature, though it is but the enjoyment ofan idiot. It is something to know that Heaven has left thecapacity of gladness in such a creature"s breast; it is somethingto be assured that, however lightly men may crush that faculty intheir fellows, the Great Creator of mankind imparts it even to hisdespised and slighted work. Who would not rather see a poor idiothappy in the sunlight, than a wise man pining in a darkened jail!
Ye men of gloom and austerity, who paint the face of InfiniteBenevolence with an eternal frown; read in the Everlasting Book,wide open to your view, the lesson it would teach. Its picturesare not in black and sombre hues, but bright and glowing tints; itsmusic--save when ye drown it--is not in sighs and groans, but songsand cheerful sounds. Listen to the million voices in the summerair, and find one dismal as your own. Remember, if ye can, thesense of hope and pleasure which every glad return of day awakensin the breast of all your kind who have not changed their nature;and learn some wisdom even from the witless, when their hearts arelifted up they know not why, by all the mirth and happiness itbrings.
The widow"s breast was full of care, was laden heavily with secretdread and sorrow; but her boy"s gaiety of heart gladdened her, andbeguiled the long journey. Sometimes he would bid her lean uponhis arm, and would keep beside her steadily for a short distance;but it was more his nature to be rambling to and fro, and shebetter liked to see him free and happy, even than to have him nearher, because she loved him better than herself.
She had quitted the place to which they were travelling, directlyafter the event which had changed her whole existence; and for twoand-twenty years had never had courage to revisit it. It was hernative village. How many recollections crowded on her mind when itappeared in sight!
Two-and-twenty years. Her boy"s whole life and history. The lasttime she looked back upon those roofs among the trees, she carriedhim in her arms, an infant. How often since that time had she satbeside him night and day, watching for the dawn of mind that nevercame; how had she feared, and doubted, and yet hoped, long afterconviction forced itself upon her! The little stratagems she haddevised to try him, the little tokens he had given in his childishway--not of dulness but of something infinitely worse, so ghastlyand unchildlike in its cunning--came back as vividly as if butyesterday had intervened. The room in which they used to be; thespot in which his cradle stood; he, old and elfin-like in face, butever dear to her, gazing at her with a wild and vacant eye, andcrooning some uncouth song as she sat by and rocked him; everycircumstance of his infancy came thronging back, and the mosttrivial, perhaps, the most distinctly.
His older childhood, too; the strange imaginings he had; his terrorof certain senseless things--familiar objects he endowed with life;the slow and gradual breaking out of that one horror, in which,before his birth, his darkened intellect began; how, in the midstof all, she had found some hope and comfort in his being unlikeanother child, and had gone on almost believing in the slowdevelopment of his mind until he grew a man, and then his childhoodwas complete and lasting; one after another, all these old thoughtssprung up within her, strong after their long slumber and bittererthan ever.
She took his arm and they hurried through the village street. Itwas the same as it was wont to be in old times, yet different too,and wore another air. The change was in herself, not it; but shenever thought of that, and wondered at its alteration, and where itlay, and what it was.
The people all knew Barnaby, and the children of the place cameflocking round him--as she remembered to have done with theirfathers and mothers round some silly beggarman, when a childherself. None of them knew her; they passed each well-rememberedhouse, and yard, and homestead; and striking into the fields, weresoon alone again.
The Warren was the end of their journey. Mr Haredale was walkingin the garden, and seeing them as they passed the iron gate,unlocked it, and bade them enter that way.
"At length you have mustered heart to visit the old place," he saidto the widow. "I am glad you have."
"For the first time, and the last, sir," she replied.
"The first for many years, but not the last?"
"The very last."