She stammered some excuse and tendered him her hand. But Barnaby sprung lightly in without assistance, and putting his arms about her neck, kissed her a hundred times.
#CharlesDickens
#BarnabyRudge
‘Why, who can keep out Grip and me!’ he cried, thrusting in his head, and staring round the room. ‘Are you there, mother? How long you keep us from the fire and light.’
#CharlesDickens
#BarnabyRudge
He had barely time to catch a knife from the table, sheathe it in the loose sleeve of his coat, hide in the closet, and do all with the lightning’s speed, when Barnaby tapped at the bare glass, and raised the sash exultingly.
She had sunk upon her knees, and so knelt down, moving her lips, but uttering no sound. As he gazed upon her, uncertain what to do or where to turn, the shutters flew open.
‘He rattles at the shutters!’ cried the man. ‘He calls you. That voice and cry! It was he who grappled with me in the road. Was it he?’
#CharlesDickens
#BarnabyRudge
‘The dread of this hour,’ returned the widow, ‘has been upon me all my life, and I will not. Evil will fall upon him, if you stand eye to eye. My blighted boy! Oh! all good angels who know the truth—hear a poor mother’s prayer, and spare my boy from knowledge of this man!’
‘Let him come in,’ said the man, hoarsely. ‘I fear him less than the dark, houseless night. He knocks again. Let him come in!’
#CharlesDickens
#BarnabyRudge
‘It is too late!’ cried the widow, who had listened for the step, and not to him. ‘Hark to that foot upon the ground. Do you tremble to hear it! It is my son, my idiot son!’
As she said this wildly, there came a heavy knocking at the door. He looked at her, and she at him.
‘If there are spies without, I am safer here,’ replied the man, standing aghast. ‘I will remain here, and will not fly till the danger is past.’
#CharlesDickens
#BarnabyRudge
‘Do not stop to ask. I will not answer. Much as I dread to touch you, I would drag you to the door if I possessed the strength, rather than you should lose an instant. Miserable wretch! fly from this place.’
‘Take what there is, take all, take more if more were there, but go before it is too late. I have heard a wayward step without, I know full well. It will return directly. Begone.’
‘What do you mean?’
She stepped to the table and laid it down. He reached across, took it up, and told the contents into his hand. As he was counting them, she listened for a moment, and sprung towards him.
‘Give me your purse. You had it in your hand at the door. Give it to me.’
#CharlesDickens
#BarnabyRudge
‘Very,’ she said faintly. ‘Very rich. No doubt I am very rich.’
‘At least you are not penniless. You have some money. You were making purchases to-night.’
‘I have a little left. It is but a few shillings.’
‘Who dwells here besides?’
‘One—it is no matter who. You had best begone, or he may find you here. Why do you linger?’
‘For warmth,’ he replied, spreading out his hands before the fire. ‘For warmth. You are rich, perhaps?’
‘I am an outcast, to whom a roof above his head is often an uncommon luxury, and the food a beggar would reject is delicate fare. You live here at your ease. Do you live alone?’
‘I do not,’ she made answer with an effort.
#CharlesDickens
#BarnabyRudge
His repast ended—if that can be called one, which was a mere ravenous satisfying of the calls of hunger—he moved his chair towards the fire again, and warming himself before the blaze which had now sprung brightly up, accosted her once more.
as if even its touching his by chance were horrible to think of, still, in the midst of all this dread and terror, she kept her face towards his own, and watched his every movement.
#CharlesDickens
#BarnabyRudge
She never turned her back upon him once; and although when she passed him (as she was obliged to do in going to and from the cupboard) she gathered the skirts of her garment about her,
All the time he was so engaged she kept at the uttermost distance of the chamber, and sat there shuddering, but with her face towards him.
#CharlesDickens
#BarnabyRudge
She rose at length, and going to a closet or pantry in the room, brought out some fragments of cold meat and bread and put them on the table. He asked for brandy, and for water. These she produced likewise; and he ate and drank with the voracity of a famished hound.
‘I will promise nothing,’ he rejoined, seating himself at the table, ‘nothing but this—I will execute my threat if you betray me.’
#CharlesDickens
#BarnabyRudge
‘It has no such purpose,’ he said, confronting her. ‘It is deaf. Give me to eat and drink, lest I do that it cannot help my doing, and will not do for you.’
‘Will you leave me, if I do thus much? Will you leave me and return no more?’
As he spoke, he took a pistol from his breast, and firmly clutched it in his hand.
‘Remove this man from me, good Heaven!’ cried the widow. ‘In thy grace and mercy, give him one minute’s penitence, and strike him dead!’
The blood with which I sprinkle it, be on you and yours, in the name of the Evil Spirit that tempts men to their ruin!’
#CharlesDickens
#BarnabyRudge
Give the alarm, cry out, refuse to shelter me. I will not hurt you. But I will not be taken alive; and so surely as you threaten me above your breath, I fall a dead man on this floor.
save those curst beings of another world, who will not leave me;—I am, in my desperation of this night, past all fear but that of the hell in which I exist from day to day.
#CharlesDickens
#BarnabyRudge
‘Hear me,’ he replied, menacing her with his hand. ‘I, that in the form of a man live the life of a hunted beast; that in the body am a spirit, a ghost upon the earth, a thing from which all creatures shrink,
Then, starting to his feet as she had done, he advanced towards her.
‘Beware!’ she cried in a suppressed voice, whose firmness stopped him midway. ‘Do not so much as touch me with a finger, or you are lost; body and soul, you are lost.’
#CharlesDickens
#BarnabyRudge
‘You thrust your sword at HIM!’ cried the widow, looking upwards. ‘You hear this man! you hear and saw!’
He looked at her, as, with her head thrown back, and her hands tight clenched together, she uttered these words in an agony of appeal.
