‘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’--
‘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.
‘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?’
‘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.’
‘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.