"For two months from this time he lived wandering from cottage to cottage, seeking his mother. The journey from Lancaster to Dromore he performed as speedily as he well could. He did not enter the house--that would be delivering himself up as a prisoner. By night he clambered the park railings, and entered like a thief the demesnes where he had spent his childhood. Each path was known to him, and almost every tree. Here he sat with his mother; there they found the first violet of spring. His pilgrimage was achieved; but where was she? His heart beat as he reached the little gate whence they had issued on that fatal night. All the grounds bore marks of neglect and the master's absence; and the lock of this gate was spoiled; a sort of rough bolt had been substituted. Gerard pushed it back. The rank grass had gathered thick on the threshold; but it was the same spot. How well he remembered it! "Two years only had since passed, he was still a child; yet to his own fancy how much taller, how much more of a man he had become! Besides, he now fancied himself master of his own actions--he had escaped from his father; and he--who had threatened to turn him out of doors--would not seek to possess himself of him again. He belonged to no one--he was cared for by no one--by none but her whom he sought with firm, yet anxious expectation. There he had seen her last--he stepped forward; he followed the course of the lane--he came to where the road crossed it--where the carriage drove up, where she had been torn from him. "It was daybreak--a June morning; all was golden and still--a few birds twittered, but the breeze was hushed, and he looked out on the extent of country commanded from the spot where he stood, and saw only nature, the rugged hills, the green corn-fields, the flowery meads, and the umbrageous trees in deep repose. How different from the wild, tempestuous night when she whom he sought was torn away; he could then see only a few yards before him, now he could mark the devious windings of the road, and, afar off, distinguish the hazy line of the ocean. He sat down to reflect--what was he to do? in what nook of the wide expanse was his mother hid? that some portion of the landscape he viewed harboured her, was his fixed belief; a belief founded in inexperience and fancy, but not the less deep-rooted. He meditated for some time, and then walked forward--he remembered when he ran panting and screaming along that road; he was a mere child then, and what was he now? a boy of eleven; yet he looked back with disdain to the endeavours of two years before.