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Chapter XV
Often, while they were yet pacing the silent streets of the town on the
morning of their departure, the child trembled with a mingled
sensation of hope and fear as in some far-off figure imperfectly seen in
the clear distance, her fancy traced a likeness to honest Kit. But
although she would gladly have given him her hand and thanked him
for what he had said at their last meeting, it was always a relief to
find, when they came nearer to each other, that the person who
approached was not he, but a stranger; for even if she had not
dreaded the effect which the sight of him might have wrought upon
her fellow-traveller, she felt that to bid farewell to anybody now, and
most of all to him who had been so faithful and so true, was more
than she could bear. It was enough to leave dumb things behind, and
objects that were insensible both to her love and sorrow. To have
parted from her only other friend upon the threshold of that wild
journey, would have wrung her heart indeed.
Why is it that we can better bear to part in spirit than in body, and
while we have the fortitude to act farewell have not the nerve to say it?
On the eve of long voyages or an absence of many years, friends who
are tenderly attached will separate with the usual look, the usual
pressure of the hand, planning one final interview for the morrow,
while each well knows that it is but a poor feint to save the pain of
uttering that one word, and that the meeting will never be. Should
possibilities be worse to bear than certainties? We do not shun our
dying friends; the not having distinctly taken leave of one among
them, whom we left in all kindness and affection, will often embitter
the whole remainder of a life.
The town was glad with morning light; places that had shown ugly
and distrustful all night long, now wore a smile; and sparkling
sunbeams dancing on chamber windows, and twinkling through blind
and curtain before sleepers' eyes, shed light even into dreams, and
chased away the shadows of the night. Birds in hot rooms, covered up
close and dark, felt it was morning, and chafed and grew restless in
their little cells; bright-eyed mice crept back to their tiny homes and
nestled timidly together; the sleek house-cat, forgetful of her prey, sat
winking at the rays of sun starting through keyhole and cranny in the
door, and longed for her stealthy run and warm sleek bask outside.
The nobler beasts confined in dens, stood motionless behind their
bars and gazed on fluttering boughs, and sunshine peeping through
some little window, with eyes in which old forests gleamed - then trod
impatiently the track their prisoned feet had worn - and stopped and
gazed again. Men in their dungeons stretched their cramp cold limbs
and cursed the stone that no bright sky could warm. The flowers that
sleep by night, opened their gentle eyes and turned them to the day.
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