Sometimes when I've seen you
a-stooping your back over your reading, or cramping your fist
round a pen, Barnabas, why--I've took it hard, Barnabas, hard,
I'll not deny--But Natty Bell has minded me as it was her wish and
so--why--there y' are."
It was seldom his father mentioned to Barnabas the mother whose face
he had never seen, upon which rare occasions John Barty's deep voice
was wont to take on a hoarser note, and his blue eyes, that were
usually so steady, would go wandering off until they fixed themselves
on some remote object. Thus he sat now, leaning back in his elbow
chair, gazing in rapt attention at the bell-mouthed blunderbuss
above the mantel, while his son, chin on fist, stared always and
ever to where the road dipped, and vanished over the hill--leading
on and on to London, and the great world beyond.
"She died, Barnabas--just twenty-one years ago--buried at Maidstone
where you were born. Twenty-one years is a longish time, lad, but
memory's longer, an' deeper,--an' stronger than time, arter all, an'
I know that her memory will go wi' me--all along the way--d' ye see
lad: and so Barnabas," said John Barty lowering his gaze to his
son's face, "so Barnabas, there y' are.
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