'Use and necessity are good teachers, as I have heard--the best of any,'
said the blind man, sitting down upon the chair to which Barnaby had
led him, and putting his hat and stick upon the red-tiled floor. 'May
neither you nor your son ever learn under them. They are rough masters.'

'You have wandered from the road, too,' said the widow, in a tone of
pity.

'Maybe, maybe,' returned the blind man with a sigh, and yet with
something of a smile upon his face, 'that's likely. Handposts and
milestones are dumb, indeed, to me. Thank you the more for this rest,
and this refreshing drink!'

As he spoke, he raised the mug of water to his mouth. It was clear, and
cold, and sparkling, but not to his taste nevertheless, or his thirst
was not very great, for he only wetted his lips and put it down again.

He wore, hanging with a long strap round his neck, a kind of scrip or
wallet, in which to carry food. The widow set some bread and cheese
before him, but he thanked her, and said that through the kindness of
the charitable he had broken his fast once since morning, and was not
hungry. When he had made her this reply, he opened his wallet, and took
out a few pence, which was all it appeared to contain.

'Might I make bold to ask,' he said, turning towards where Barnaby stood
looking on, 'that one who has the gift of sight, would lay this out for
me in bread to keep me on my way? Heaven's blessing on the young feet
that will bestir themselves in aid of one so helpless as a sightless
man!'

Barnaby looked at his mother, who nodded assent; in another moment he
was gone upon his charitable errand. The blind man sat listening with an
attentive face, until long after the sound of his retreating footsteps
was inaudible to the widow, and then said, suddenly, and in a very
altered tone:

'There are various degrees and kinds of blindness, widow. There is the
connubial blindness, ma'am, which perhaps you may have observed in
the course of your own experience, and which is a kind of wilful and
self-bandaging blindness. There is the blindness of party, ma'am, and
public men, which is the blindness of a mad bull in the midst of a
regiment of soldiers clothed in red. There is the blind confidence of
youth, which is the blindness of young kittens, whose eyes have not yet
opened on the world; and there is that physical blindness, ma'am, of
which I am, contrairy to my own desire, a most illustrious example.
Added to these, ma'am, is that bl