The mole.—It is said that the mole, in its movements under ground, always turns its back to the sun, burrowing from east to west in the morning, and from west to east in the evening.
Merry’s Adventures.
CHAPTER XX.
A month passed away after my uncle’s death, during which I was in a sort of maze; I did not know what to do, and now, after many years are gone, I can hardly recollect anything that occurred during that period. I only know that I wandered over the house, from one room to another; I then went into the fields; rambled about the farm, and seeming by a sort of instinct to avoid everybody. I did not wish to speak to any one. I seemed lost, and it was not till the day came when the tavern was to be sold, with all its furniture, that I was fully recalled to consciousness.
I remember that day well. The sale was by auction, and the place which had been a home to me for years, was knocked off to the highest bidder. The purchaser was a stranger to me, and took immediate possession. I still remained in the house; and it was not till three or four days after he and his household had come, that the idea entered my head that I was to leave it. The man said to me one day—“Well, Mr. Merry—when do you intend to go?” I did not understand him at first, but in a moment it rushed into my mind, that this was a hint for me to depart.
I felt a sense of mingled insult and shame; for it seemed that it was almost turning me out of doors, and that by my stupidity, I had subjected myself to such an indignity. I made no reply—but took my hat and left the house. I wandered forth, hardly knowing which way I went. In a short time I found myself ascending the mountain, toward old Sarah’s cave. It now came suddenly to my recollection that the hermitess had invited me to come and see her, if at any time I was in trouble.
Although she was not, perhaps, the wisest of counsellors, yet, in my present disturbed state of mind, it suited me well enough to go to her. Indeed, I felt so miserable, so lonely from the loss of my uncle, so helpless from the loss of my property, that I thought of taking up my abode with the gray old dame of the rock, and living there the rest of my life. With these strange notions running in my head, I approached her den.
It was a chill December evening, and I found her in her cave. She bade me welcome, and I sat down. “I knew it would come to this,” said she: “I knew it long ago. Your uncle was kind-hearted, as the world say; but is it kind to spend what is not one’s own? Is it kind to waste the property of the orphan, and leave one’s sister’s child to beggary? Is it kind to eat, drink, and be merry, when another’s tears must pay the reckoning?”
“Nay, nay;” said I, “You must not speak in this way. My uncle is dead, and I will not hear his name mentioned, but in words of kindness and charity. Oh, do not blame him; it was his misfortune, not his fault, to lose my property, as well as his own. At all events, he loved me; he ever spake kindly to me; he was to me as a father; he could not have done more for a son than he did for me.”