RICHARD HARE AT MR. DILL’S WINDOW.
Bright was the moon on that genial Monday night, bright was the evening star, as they shone upon a solitary wayfarer who walked on the shady side of the road with his head down, as though he did not care to court observation. A laborer, apparently, for he wore a smock-frock and had hobnails in his shoes; but his whiskers were large and black, quite hiding the lower part of his face, and his broad-brimmed “wide-awake” came far over his brows. He drew near the dwelling of Richard Hare, Esq., plunged rapidly over some palings, after looking well to the right and to the left, into a field, and thence over the side wall into Mr. Hare’s garden, where he remained amidst the thick trees.
Now, by some mischievous spirit of intuition or contrariety, Justice Hare was spending this evening at home, a thing he did not do once in six months unless he had friends with him. Things in real life do mostly go by the rules of contrary, as children say in their play, holding the corners of the handkerchief, “Here we go round and round by the rules of contrary; if I tell you to hold fast, you must loose; if I tell you to loose, you must hold fast.” Just so in the play of life. When we want people to “hold fast,” they “loose;” and when we want them to “loose,” they “hold fast.”
Barbara, anxious, troubled, worn out almost with the suspense of looking and watching for her brother, feeling a feverish expectation that night would bring him—but so had she felt for the two or three nights past—would have given her hand for her father to go out. But no—things were going by the rule of contrary. There sat the stern justice in full view of the garden and the grove, his chair drawn precisely in front of the window, his wig awry, and a long pipe in his mouth.
“Are you not going out, Richard?” Mrs. Hare ventured to say.
“No.”
“Mamma, shall I ring for the shutters to be closed?” asked Barbara, by and by.
“Shutters closed?” said the justice. “Who’d shut out this bright moon? You have got the lamp at the far end of the room, young lady, and can go to it.”
Barbara ejaculated an inward prayer for patience—for safety of Richard, if he did come, and waited on, watching the grove in the distance. It came, the signal, her quick eye caught it; a movement as if some person or thing had stepped out beyond the trees and stepped back again. Barbara’s face turned white and her lips dry.
“I am so hot!” she exclaimed, in her confused eagerness for an excuse; “I must take a turn in the garden.”