Left alone with his son, John Barty sat a while staring up at the
bell-mouthed blunderbuss very much as though he expected it to go
off at any moment; at last, however, he rose also, hesitated, laid
down his pipe upon the mantel-shelf, glanced down at Barnabas,
glanced up at the blunderbuss again and finally spoke: "And remember this, Barnabas, your--your--mother, God bless her
sweet soul, was a great lady, but I married her, and I don't think
as she ever--regretted it, lad. Ye see, Barnabas, when a good woman
really loves a man--that man is the only man in the world for her,
and--nothing else matters to her, because her love, being a good love,
d' ye see--makes him--almost worthy. The love of a good woman is a
sweet thing, lad, a wondrous thing, and may lift a man above all
cares and sorrows and may draw him up--ah! as high as heaven at last,
and--well--there y' are, Barnabas, dear lad."
Having said this, the longest speech Barnabas ever heard his father
utter, John Barty laid his great hand lightly upon his son's bent
head and treading very softly, for a man of his inches, followed
Natty Bell out of the room.
But now as Barnabas sat there staring into the fire and lost in
thought, he became, all at once, a prey to Doubt and Fear once again,
doubt of himself, and fear of the future; for, bethinking him of his
father's last words, it seemed to him that he had indeed chosen the
harder course, since his days, henceforth, must needs stretch away--a
dismal prospect wherein no woman's form might go beside him, no soft
voice cheer him, no tender hand be stretched out to soothe his griefs;
truly he had chosen the harder way, a very desolate way where no
light fall of a woman's foot might banish for him its loneliness.
And presently, being full of such despondent thoughts, Barnabas
looked up and found himself alone amid the gathering shadows. And
straightway he felt aggrieved, and wondered why his father and Natty
Bell must needs go off and leave him in this dark hour just when he
most needed them.
Therefore he would have risen to seek them out but, in the act of
doing so, caught one of his spurs in the rug, and strove vainly to
release himself, for try how he would he might not reach down so far
because of the pain of his wounded shoulder.
And now, all at once, perhaps because he found himself so helpless,
or because of his loneliness and bodily weakness, the sudden tears
started to his eyes, hot and scalding, and covering his face, he
groaned.