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!’
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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.
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‘There is some dreadful meaning in your words. I do not fathom it.’
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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.
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‘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.’
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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.
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They stood rooted to the ground, as though it had been a voice from the grave.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!’
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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?’
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‘I remember that it has been so till now,’ said Barnaby. ‘But I think to-day must be my birthday too, for all that.’
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She hurriedly interposed to prevent him, and summoning her utmost fortitude, passed into the recess, and brought it out herself.
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(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.
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Of these he received about a score in rapid succession, without the smallest discomposure.
‘That’s all,’ said Barnaby.
‘More!’ cried Grip. ‘More!’
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Of these he received about a score in rapid succession, without the smallest discomposure.
‘That’s all,’ said Barnaby.
‘More!’ cried Grip. ‘More!’
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I am hungry too, and Grip has eaten nothing since broad noon. Let us to supper. Grip! To supper, lad!’
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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?’
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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.
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‘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!’
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‘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.’
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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?’
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‘Did I?’ she answered faintly. ‘I didn’t know I did. Come nearer me.’
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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.
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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.
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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.
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‘How pale you are to-night!’ said Barnaby, leaning on his stick. ‘We have been cruel, Grip, and made her anxious!’
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