e, Dennis: I would rather find
my way alone. I may have to make other visits here, and it's pleasant
to come and go without disturbing you. I can find my way perfectly well.
Good night!'

He was gone, and had shut the door behind him. They looked at each
other, and nodded approvingly: Dennis stirred up the fire.

'This looks a little more like business!' he said.

'Ay, indeed!' cried Hugh; 'this suits me!'

'I've heerd it said of Muster Gashford,' said the hangman, 'that he'd
a surprising memory and wonderful firmness--that he never forgot, and
never forgave.--Let's drink his health!'

Hugh readily complied--pouring no liquor on the floor when he drank this
toast--and they pledged the secretary as a man after their own hearts,
in a bumper.

Chapter 45

While the worst passions of the worst men were thus working in the dark,
and the mantle of religion, assumed to cover the ugliest deformities,
threatened to become the shroud of all that was good and peaceful in
society, a circumstance occurred which once more altered the position of
two persons from whom this history has long been separated, and to whom
it must now return.

In a small English country town, the inhabitants of which supported
themselves by the labour of their hands in plaiting and preparing straw
for those who made bonnets and other articles of dress and ornament from
that material,--concealed under an assumed name, and living in a quiet
poverty which knew no change, no pleasures, and few cares but that
of struggling on from day to day in one great toil for bread,--dwelt
Barnaby and his mother. Their poor cottage had known no stranger's foot
since they sought the shelter of its roof five years before; nor had
they in all that time held any commerce or communication with the old
world from which they had fled. To labour in peace, and devote her
labour and her life to her poor son, was all the widow sought. If
happiness can be said at any time to be the lot of one on whom a secret
sorrow preys, she was happy now. Tranquillity, resignation, and her
strong love of him who needed it so much, formed the small circle of her
quiet joys; and while that remained unbroken, she was contented.

For Barnaby himself, the time which had flown by, had passed him like
the wind. The daily suns of years had shed no brighter gleam of reason
on his mind; no dawn had broken on his long, dark night. He would sit
sometimes--often for days together on a low seat by