_ Leaving the favoured, and well-received, and flattered of the
world; him of the world most worldly, who never compromised himself
by an ungentlemanly action, and never was guilty of a manly one; to
lie smilingly asleep--for even sleep, working but little change in
his dissembling face, became with him a piece of cold, conventional
hypocrisy--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 inconstant
impulse, fluttered here and there, now leaving her far behind, now
lingering far behind himself, now darting into some by-lane or path
and leaving her to pursue her way alone, until he stealthily
emerged again and came upon her with a wild shout of merriment, as
his wayward and capricious nature prompted. Now he would call to
her from the topmost branch of some high tree by the roadside; now
using his tall staff as a leaping-pole, come flying over ditch or
hedge or five-barred gate; now run with surprising swiftness for a
mile or more on the straight road, and halting, sport upon a patch
of grass with Grip till she came up. These were his delights; and
when his patient mother heard his merry voice, or looked into his
flushed and healthy face, she would not have abated them by one sad
word or murmur, though each had been to her a source of suffering
in the same degree as it was to him of pleasure.
It is something to look upon enjoyment, so that it be free and
wild and in the face of nature, though it is but the enjoyment of
an idiot. It is something to know that Heaven has left the
capacity of gladness in such a creature's breast; it is something
to be assured that, however lightly men may crush that faculty in
their fellows, the Great Creator of mankind imparts it even to his
despised and slighted work. Who would not rather see a poor idiot
happy in the sunlight, than a wise man pining in a darkened jail!
Ye men of gloom and austerity, who paint the face of Infinite
Benevolence with an eternal frown; read in the Everlasting Book,
wide open to your view, the lesson it would teach. Its pictures
are not in black and sombre hues, but bright and glowing tints; its
music--save when ye drown it--is not in sighs and groans, but songs
and cheerful sounds. Listen to the million voices in the summer
air, and find one dismal as your own. Remember, if ye can, the
sense of hope and pleasure which every glad return of day awakens
in the breast of all your kind who have not changed their nature;
and learn some wisdom even from the witless, when their hearts are
lifted up they know not why, by all the mirth and happiness it
brings.
The widow's breast was full of care, was laden heavily with secret
dread and sorrow; but her boy's gaiety of heart gladdened her, and
beguiled the long journey. Sometimes he would bid her lean upon
his arm, and would keep beside her steadily for a short distance;
but it was more his nature to be rambling to and fro, and she
better liked to see him free and happy, even than to have him near
her, because she loved him better than herself.
She had quitted the place to which they were travelling, directly
after the event which had changed her whole existence; and for two-
and-twenty years had never had courage to revisit it. It was her
native village. How many recollections crowded on her mind when it
appeared in sight!
Two-and-twenty years. Her boy's whole life and history. The last
time she looked back upon those roofs among the trees, she carried
him in her arms, an infant. How often since that time had she sat
beside him night and day, watching for the dawn of mind that never
came; how had she feared, and doubted, and yet hoped, long after
conviction forced itself upon her! The little stratagems she had
devised to try him, the little tokens he had given in his childish
way--not of dulness but of something infinitely worse, so ghastly
and unchildlike in its cunning--came back as vividly as if but
yesterday had intervened. The room in which they used to be; the
spot in which his cradle stood; he, old and elfin-like in face, but
ever dear to her, gazing at her with a wild and vacant eye, and
crooning some uncouth song as she sat by and rocked him; every
circumstance of his infancy came thronging back, and the most
trivial, perhaps, the most distinctly.
His older childhood, too; the strange imaginings he had; his terror
of 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 midst
of all, she had found some hope and comfort in his being unlike
another child, and had gone on almost believing in the slow
development of his mind until he grew a man, and then his childhood
was complete and lasting; one after another, all these old thoughts
sprung up within her, strong after their long slumber and bitterer
than ever.
She took his arm and they hurried through the village street. It
was 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 she
never thought of that, and wondered at its alteration, and where it
lay, and what it was.
The people all knew Barnaby, and the children of the place came
flocking round him--as she remembered to have done with their
fathers and mothers round some silly beggarman, when a child
herself. None of them knew her; they passed each well-remembered
house, and yard, and homestead; and striking into the fields, were
soon alone again.
The Warren was the end of their journey. Mr Haredale was walking
in 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 said
to 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.'
'You mean,' said Mr Haredale, regarding her with some surprise,
'that having made this effort, you are resolved not to persevere
and are determined to relapse? This is unworthy of you. I have
often told you, you should return here. You would be happier here
than elsewhere, I know. As to Barnaby, it's quite his home.'
'And Grip's,' said Barnaby, holding the basket open. The raven
hopped gravely out, and perching on his shoulder and addressing
himself to Mr Haredale, cried--as a hint, perhaps, that some
temperate refreshment would be acceptable--'Polly put the ket-tle
on, we'll all have tea!'
'Hear me, Mary,' said Mr Haredale kindly, as he motioned her to
walk with him towards the house. 'Your life has been an example of
patience and fortitude, except in this one particular which has
often given me great pain. It is enough to know that you were
cruelly involved in the calamity which deprived me of an only
brother, and Emma of her father, without being obliged to suppose
(as I sometimes am) that you associate us with the author of our
joint misfortunes.'
'Associate you with him, sir!' she cried.
'Indeed,' said Mr Haredale, 'I think you do. I almost believe
that because your husband was bound by so many ties to our
relation, and died in his service and defence, you have come in
some sort to connect us with his murder.'
'Alas!' she answered. 'You little know my heart, sir. You little
know the truth!'
'It is natural you should do so; it is very probable you may,
without being conscious of it,' said Mr Haredale, speaking more to
himself than her. 'We are a fallen house. Money, dispensed with
the most lavish hand, would be a poor recompense for sufferings
like yours; and thinly scattered by hands so pinched and tied as
ours, it becomes a miserable mockery. I feel it so, God knows,' he
added, hastily. 'Why should I wonder if she does!'
'You do me wrong, dear sir, indeed,' she rejoined with great
earnestness; 'and yet when you come to hear what I desire your
leave to say--'
'I shall find my doubts confirmed?' he said, observing that she
faltered and became confused. 'Well!'
He quickened his pace for a few steps, but fell back again to her
side, and said:
'And have you come all this way at last, solely to speak to me?'
She answered, 'Yes.'
'A curse,' he muttered, 'upon the wretched state of us proud
beggars, from whom the poor and rich are equally at a distance; the
one being forced to treat us with a show of cold respect; the other
condescending to us in their every deed and word, and keeping more
aloof, the nearer they approach us.--Why, if it were pain to you
(as it must have been) to break for this slight purpose the chain
of habit forged through two-and-twenty years, could you not let me
know your wish, and beg me to come to you?'
'There was not time, sir,' she rejoined. 'I took my resolution
but last night, and taking it, felt that I must not lose a day--a
day! an hour--in having speech with you.'
They had by this time reached the house. Mr Haredale paused for a
moment, and looked at her as if surprised by the energy of her
manner. Observing, however, that she took no heed of him, but
glanced up, shuddering, at the old walls with which such horrors
were connected in her mind, he led her by a private stair into his
library, where Emma was seated in a window, reading.
The young lady, seeing who approached, hastily rose and laid aside
her book, and with many kind words, and not without tears, gave her
a warm and earnest welcome. But the widow shrunk from her embrace
as though she feared her, and sunk down trembling on a chair.
'It is the return to this place after so long an absence,' said
Emma gently. 'Pray ring, dear uncle--or stay--Barnaby will run
himself and ask for wine--'
'Not for the world,' she cried. 'It would have another taste--I
could not touch it. I want but a minute's rest. Nothing but
that.'
Miss Haredale stood beside her chair, regarding her with silent
pity. She remained for a little time quite still; then rose and
turned to Mr Haredale, who had sat down in his easy chair, and was
contemplating her with fixed attention.
The tale connected with the mansion borne in mind, it seemed, as
has been already said, the chosen theatre for such a deed as it had
known. The room in which this group were now assembled--hard by
the very chamber where the act was done--dull, dark, and sombre;
heavy with worm-eaten books; deadened and shut in by faded
hangings, muffling every sound; shadowed mournfully by trees whose
rustling boughs gave ever and anon a spectral knocking at the
glass; wore, beyond all others in the house, a ghostly, gloomy air.
Nor were the group assembled there, unfitting tenants of the spot.
The widow, with her marked and startling face and downcast eyes; Mr
Haredale stern and despondent ever; his niece beside him, like, yet
most unlike, the picture of her father, which gazed reproachfully
down upon them from the blackened wall; Barnaby, with his vacant
look and restless eye; were all in keeping with the place, and
actors in the legend. Nay, the very raven, who had hopped upon the
table and with the air of some old necromancer appeared to be
profoundly studying a great folio volume that lay open on a desk,
was strictly in unison with the rest, and looked like the embodied
spirit of evil biding his time of mischief.
'I scarcely know,' said the widow, breaking silence, 'how to begin.
You will think my mind disordered.'
'The whole tenor of your quiet and reproachless life since you were
last here,' returned Mr Haredale, mildly, 'shall bear witness for
you. Why do you fear to awaken such a suspicion? You do not speak
to strangers. You have not to claim our interest or consideration
for the first time. Be more yourself. Take heart. Any advice or
assistance that I can give you, you know is yours of right, and
freely yours.'
'What if I came, sir,' she rejoined, 'I who have but one other
friend on earth, to reject your aid from this moment, and to say
that henceforth I launch myself upon the world, alone and
unassisted, to sink or swim as Heaven may decree!'
'You would have, if you came to me for such a purpose,' said Mr
Haredale calmly, 'some reason to assign for conduct so
extraordinary, which--if one may entertain the possibility of
anything so wild and strange--would have its weight, of course.'
'That, sir,' she answered, 'is the misery of my distress. I can
give no reason whatever. My own bare word is all that I can offer.
It is my duty, my imperative and bounden duty. If I did not
discharge it, I should be a base and guilty wretch. Having said
that, my lips are sealed, and I can say no more.'
As though she felt relieved at having said so much, and had nerved
herself to the remainder of her task, she spoke from this time with
a firmer voice and heightened courage.
'Heaven is my witness, as my own heart is--and yours, dear young
lady, will speak for me, I know--that I have lived, since that time
we all have bitter reason to remember, in unchanging devotion, and
gratitude to this family. Heaven is my witness that go where I
may, I shall preserve those feelings unimpaired. And it is my
witness, too, that they alone impel me to the course I must take,
and from which nothing now shall turn me, as I hope for mercy.'
'These are strange riddles,' said Mr Haredale.
'In this world, sir,' she replied, 'they may, perhaps, never be
explained. In another, the Truth will be discovered in its own
good time. And may that time,' she added in a low voice, 'be far
distant!'
'Let me be sure,' said Mr Haredale, 'that I understand you, for I
am doubtful of my own senses. Do you mean that you are resolved
voluntarily to deprive yourself of those means of support you have
received from us so long--that you are determined to resign the
annuity we settled on you twenty years ago--to leave house, and
home, and goods, and begin life anew--and this, for some secret
reason or monstrous fancy which is incapable of explanation, which
only now exists, and has been dormant all this time? In the name
of God, under what delusion are you labouring?'
'As I am deeply thankful,' she made answer, 'for the kindness of
those, alive and dead, who have owned this house; and as I would
not have its roof fall down and crush me, or its very walls drip
blood, my name being spoken in their hearing; I never will again
subsist upon their bounty, or let it help me to subsistence. You
do not know,' she added, suddenly, 'to what uses it may be applied;
into what hands it may pass. I do, and I renounce it.'
'Surely,' said Mr Haredale, 'its uses rest with you.'
'They did. They rest with me no longer. It may be--it IS--devoted
to purposes that mock the dead in their graves. It never can
prosper with me. It will bring some other heavy judgement on the
head of my dear son, whose innocence will suffer for his mother's
guilt.'
'What words are these!' cried Mr Haredale, regarding her with
wonder. 'Among what associates have you fallen? Into what guilt
have you ever been betrayed?'
'I am guilty, and yet innocent; wrong, yet right; good in
intention, though constrained to shield and aid the bad. Ask me no
more questions, sir; but believe that I am rather to be pitied than
condemned. I must leave my house to-morrow, for while I stay
there, it is haunted. My future dwelling, if I am to live in
peace, must be a secret. If my poor boy should ever stray this
way, do not tempt him to disclose it or have him watched when he
returns; for if we are hunted, we must fly again. And now this
load is off my mind, I beseech you--and you, dear Miss Haredale,
too--to trust me if you can, and think of me kindly as you have
been used to do. If I die and cannot tell my secret even then (for
that may come to pass), it will sit the lighter on my breast in
that hour for this day's work; and on that day, and every day until
it comes, I will pray for and thank you both, and trouble you no
more.
With that, she would have left them, but they detained her, and
with many soothing words and kind entreaties, besought her to
consider what she did, and above all to repose more freely upon
them, and say what weighed so sorely on her mind. Finding her deaf
to their persuasions, Mr Haredale suggested, as a last resource,
that she should confide in Emma, of whom, as a young person and one
of her own sex, she might stand in less dread than of himself.
From this proposal, however, she recoiled with the same
indescribable repugnance she had manifested when they met. The
utmost that could be wrung from her was, a promise that she would
receive Mr Haredale at her own house next evening, and in the mean
time reconsider her determination and their dissuasions--though any
change on her part, as she told them, was quite hopeless. This
condition made at last, they reluctantly suffered her to depart,
since she would neither eat nor drink within the house; and she,
and Barnaby, and Grip, accordingly went out as they had come, by
the private stair and garden-gate; seeing and being seen of no one
by the way.
It was remarkable in the raven that during the whole interview he
had kept his eye on his book with exactly the air of a very sly
human rascal, who, under the mask of pretending to read hard, was
listening to everything. He still appeared to have the
conversation very strongly in his mind, for although, when they
were alone again, he issued orders for the instant preparation of
innumerable kettles for purposes of tea, he was thoughtful, and
rather seemed to do so from an abstract sense of duty, than with
any regard to making himself agreeable, or being what is commonly
called good company.
They were to return by the coach. As there was an interval of
full two hours before it started, and they needed rest and some
refreshment, Barnaby begged hard for a visit to the Maypole. But
his mother, who had no wish to be recognised by any of those who
had known her long ago, and who feared besides that Mr Haredale
might, on second thoughts, despatch some messenger to that place of
entertainment in quest of her, proposed to wait in the churchyard
instead. As it was easy for Barnaby to buy and carry thither such
humble viands as they required, he cheerfully assented, and in the
churchyard they sat down to take their frugal dinner.
Here again, the raven was in a highly reflective state; walking up
and down when he had dined, with an air of elderly complacency
which was strongly suggestive of his having his hands under his
coat-tails; and appearing to read the tombstones with a very
critical taste. Sometimes, after a long inspection of an epitaph,
he would strop his beak upon the grave to which it referred, and
cry in his hoarse tones, 'I'm a devil, I'm a devil, I'm a devil!'
but whether he addressed his observations to any supposed person
below, or merely threw them off as a general remark, is matter of
uncertainty.
It was a quiet pretty spot, but a sad one for Barnaby's mother; for
Mr Reuben Haredale lay there, and near the vault in which his ashes
rested, was a stone to the memory of her own husband, with a brief
inscription recording how and when he had lost his life. She sat
here, thoughtful and apart, until their time was out, and the
distant horn told that the coach was coming.
Barnaby, who had been sleeping on the grass, sprung up quickly at
the sound; and Grip, who appeared to understand it equally well,
walked into his basket straightway, entreating society in general
(as though he intended a kind of satire upon them in connection
with churchyards) never to say die on any terms. They were soon on
the coach-top and rolling along the road.
It went round by the Maypole, and stopped at the door. Joe was
from home, and Hugh came sluggishly out to hand up the parcel that
it called for. There was no fear of old John coming out. They
could see him from the coach-roof fast asleep in his cosy bar. It
was a part of John's character. He made a point of going to sleep
at the coach's time. He despised gadding about; he looked upon
coaches as things that ought to be indicted; as disturbers of the
peace of mankind; as restless, bustling, busy, horn-blowing
contrivances, quite beneath the dignity of men, and only suited to
giddy girls that did nothing but chatter and go a-shopping. 'We
know nothing about coaches here, sir,' John would say, if any
unlucky stranger made inquiry touching the offensive vehicles; 'we
don't book for 'em; we'd rather not; they're more trouble than
they're worth, with their noise and rattle. If you like to wait
for 'em you can; but we don't know anything about 'em; they may
call and they may not--there's a carrier--he was looked upon as
quite good enough for us, when I was a boy.'
She dropped her veil as Hugh climbed up, and while he hung behind,
and talked to Barnaby in whispers. But neither he nor any other
person spoke to her, or noticed her, or had any curiosity about
her; and so, an alien, she visited and left the village where she
had been born, and had lived a merry child, a comely girl, a happy
wife--where she had known all her enjoyment of life, and had
entered on its hardest sorrows. _