The boy was up and leaning upon the window-sill, gazing earnestly through a small chink that was left in the beading (for the window was blocked up from without) which enabled him to see, and without danger of being observed by any one in the street, and likewise was quite of sufficient width to allow the morning sun to stream into the little room.
With a deep sigh he turned from the window, and the dog at the same moment rose, and with grateful gestures approached its kind master.
“The sun is shining, my poor Joy,” said Harry, mournfully; “but you and I may not gambol in its beams. The world without this gloomy house seems bright and beautiful, but we are prisoners, ’tis very, very strange; Gray tells me he is my uncle, and that there is a fearful secret connected with the family that forces him to shut himself and me up in this mysterious manner. Uncle Gray, I doubt you. Such a tale might suit the ears of a child, but—I—I am one no longer. Can this man be my uncle? His behaviour is so strange to me, alternately harsh and kind, affectionate and cruel. Alas! I know not what to think. Oh, how my heart yearns for the bright sunshine, the open sky, and the green fields! How long am I to be thus immured? Heaven only knows. I—will—I must seek some other explanation. I know he fears me, I have seen him shrink before my eyes. I have marked him tremble and turn pale at a chance word I uttered, and yet I had no clue to such feelings, because I knew not which word it was that moved him so; and this disguise, too, which he persuades, begs, implores of me to wear, as he says, for my life’s sake; ’tis very strange. These are not the garments of a young maiden as I am. What have I done that I should, thus forswear sex, liberty, sunshine, joy, all that makes life rich, and beautiful to the young? Alas! Alas! What have I done to be a dreary prisoner? In all my weary years, short, but oh, how long to me! But one face beamed with kindness on me, that face was Albert Seyton’s; but one voice spoke to me in accents of love and pity—that voice was Albert Seyton’s; but one heart seemed ever to really feel for me a pang of sorrow, and—and—that heart was Albert Seyton’s.”
The young girl, for such she was, sunk into a chair and wept bitterly. Then suddenly dashing aside the tears that obscured her beautiful eyes, she said,—
“No—no, I will not weep. No, Uncle Gray, if such you be, you shall not wring another tear from me. You have made me a lonely being; you have been harsh, unkindly—nay, you have struck me; but you shall not see me weep, no—no, I will not let you see a tear. You have torn me from the young heart that in my solitude found me and loved me as an orphan boy, supposing me such. Oh, Uncle—Uncle, you are cruel! Another day shall not pass without an explanation with you, Uncle Gray. I—I—will have reasons—ample reasons—full explanations from thee. And he wanted to kill my poor dog, too, because it loved me—because I had found some living thing that looked fondly in my face. Oh, Uncle! Uncle! you have raised a spirit in my breast—a spirit of resistance and opposition, that in happier circumstances would have slumbered for ever.”
For a few minutes the young girl stood in deep thought, then, with a remarkable alteration of tone and manner, she said, suddenly,—
“Come, Joy, come; we will go to Uncle Gray, our breakfast should be waiting.”
She opened the door which led into the larger room, and crossing that, closely followed by the dog, passed out of it by another door that opened upon the staircase. Slowly then, she descended the creaking, time-worn steps and pushing open a small door at their feet, entered the room which has already been described to the reader, and in which we last left Jacob Gray.
Gray was in the room, and he cast a suspicious glance at the young creature who entered the room, as if he would read from her countenance in what mood she was in that morning.
“Oh,” he said, “you have risen early, Harry, and—and Joy, too, is with you—poor dog!”