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!’