[1]
They were both too busy to have time to grieve, and at night were too
utterly worn-out not to sleep soundly. They were kind to Giles lying on
his sick-bed; they both loved him dearly, but they neither saw, nor even
tried to understand, the hunger of grief and longing which filled his
poor little mind.
His terrible loss, his own most terrible injuries, had developed in the
boy all that sensitive nerve organism which can render life so miserable
to its possessor. To hear his beloved father's name mentioned was a
torture to him; and yet his mother and Sue spoke of it with what seemed
to the boy reckless indifference day after day. Two things, however,
comforted him--one the memory of the angel figure over the Martyrs'
Monument at Smithfield, the other the deep notes of Big Ben. His father,
too, had been a martyr, and that angel stood there to signify his
victory as well as the victory of those others who withstood the torture
by fire; and Big Ben, with its solemn, vibrating notes, seemed to his
vivid imagination like that same angel speaking.
Though an active, restless boy before his illness, he became now very
patient. He would lie on his back, not reading, for he had forgotten
what little his father taught him, but apparently lost in thought, from
morning to night. His mother was often obliged to leave him alone, but
he never murmured at his long, solitary hours; indeed, had there been
any one by to listen to all the words he said to himself at these times,
they would have believed that the boy enjoyed them.
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