Lying there, crouched up by the door such an awful sense of loneliness came down upon the boy's soul. In the hour of his trouble he needed pity so much, and no one gave it to him.
Then there arose in his heart such a terrible longing for his mother; such a yearning, that would not be quieted, for all that he had had, and all that he had lost; such an overwhelming sense of the void in his life, that he could not bear it, and he started to his feet with a sob which was almost a cry.
This feeling _must_ go, he could not bear it, and he fought with it with desperation; for it was an old enemy, one with whom he had often wrestled in desperate conflict before, and upon whose attacks he always looked back with horror. Deep down in his heart it had its being, but it was only every now and then that it rose up to trouble him.
Of late it had assailed him much less, its attacks had been weaker, and occurring at much longer intervals. Why has it risen with such relentless force now? How is he to resist it? How is he to fight with it? This blank, empty feeling, how is he to drive it away?
He tried to think of his garden, of his games, and of all the things which constituted the joy of his young existence.
Children of a larger growth, but children in understanding still, do not many of us wrestle with this undefined feeling in the same way? This mysterious thing, which we, with our maturer experience, call sorrow, is not our first thought when it assails us, "How shall we drive it away?" Call it grief, despair, disappointment, anxiety, care--call it what you will, do we not try to drown it in change of thought of some kind? Does it not drive the rich to society, traveling, or excitement, and the poor to the public-house?
Here were the passages where he had romped with Miles; here were the stairs down which he had jumped that very morning, and the balustrades down which he had slid; why did they look so different?
God help him! the emptiness in his heart was so great, that it was repeating itself on all around. There was no help to be got from the feeling of his recent happiness in the old house. Never had it seemed so dreary; never had he realized before what an empty house it was, occupied only in one corner by a nurse and two little boys.