The day before, when half the journey had been accomplished, John Monaghan let go the rope by which he led the cow, and she had broken away through the woods, and returned to her old master; and when they again reached his place, night had set in, and they were obliged to wait until the return of day.  Moodie laughed heartily at all my fears; but indeed I found them no joke.

Brian’s eldest son, a lad of fourteen, was not exactly an idiot, but what, in the old country, is very expressively termed by the poor people a “natural.”  He could feed and assist himself, had been taught imperfectly to read and write, and could go to and from the town on errands, and carry a message from one farm-house to another; but he was a strange, wayward creature, and evidently inherited, in no small degree, his father’s malady.

During the summer months he lived entirely in the woods, near his father’s dwelling, only returning to obtain food, which was generally left for him in an outhouse.  In the winter, driven home by the severity of the weather, he would sit for days together moping in the chimney-corner, without taking the least notice of what was passing around him.  Brian never mentioned this boy—­who had a strong, active figure; a handsome, but very inexpressive face—­without a deep sigh; and I feel certain that half his own dejection was occasioned by the mental aberration of his child.

One day he sent the lad with a note to our house, to know if Moodie would purchase the half of an ox that he was going to kill.  There happened to stand in the corner of the room an open wood box, into which several bushels of fine apples had been thrown; and, while Moodie was writing an answer to the note, the eyes of the idiot were fastened, as if by some magnetic influence, upon the apples.  Knowing that Brian had a very fine orchard, I did not offer the boy any of the fruit.  When the note was finished, I handed it to him.  The lad grasped it mechanically, without removing his fixed gaze from the apples.

“Give that to your father, Tom.”

The boy answered not—­his ears, his eyes, his whole soul, were concentrated in the apples.  Ten minutes elapsed, but he stood motionless, like a pointer at dead set.

“My good boy, you can go.”

He did not stir.

“Is there anything you want?”

“I want,” said the lad, without moving his eyes from the objects of his intense desire, and speaking in a slow, pointed manner, which ought to have been heard to be fully appreciated, “I want ap-ples!”

“Oh, if that’s all, take what you like.”

The permission once obtained, the boy flung himself upon the box with the rapacity of a hawk upon its prey, after being long poised in the air, to fix its certain aim; thrusting his hands to the right and left, in order to secure the finest specimens of the coveted fruit, scarcely allowing himself time to breathe until he had filled his old straw hat, and all his pockets, with apples.  To help laughing was impossible; while this new Tom o’ Bedlam darted from the house, and scampered across the field for dear life, as if afraid that we should pursue him, to rob him of his prize.